i don't own high school musicals male cast... yet

CHAPTER 3 : parties

" if you want to leave just grab me and we can leave" Ryan said and I rolled my eyes for the fourth time that night. The party was in another apartment building but this time it wasn't in the ritzy heart of Albuquerque but in the low income housing not to far from north high, and I finally got what Ryan meant when he said not my scene, there was a chance I would be seeing someone I had once beat in basketball.

" e?" a boy asked me as soon as we had crossed the threshold of tranquillity to chaos. It was dark with lots of black lights all over the place. The flash of glow sticks made the room light up like a starry sky.

"no I'm good" I said taking in all of my surroundings. I couldn't believe there where people walking around with ecstasy but from what I gathered most of the people here where on it.

" soft" said the boy who then held one out to Ryan. " Evans, what will it be?"

Ryan shook his head " not tonight Micky" he said grabbing my arm and guiding me threw the room, we bumped into a lot of sweaty dancing people and I had no idea where in the apartment I was standing but Ryan held my arm to whole way. He left go for a second and I could barely think from the loud dub-step music, I turned around aimlessly looking for Ryan who I had lost contact with. A cold sensation found the back of my neck and I snapped around to see a beer bottle in my face and Ryan with another one for himself. " lets go" he said disappearing back into the crowd of people. I followed as closely as the net of dancers would allow until I came up beside him at the window, he began to crawl threw to my surprise until I saw the fire escape littered with people

" where are we going Ryan?" I asked switching the cold bottle from hand to hand

" VIP" he said with a scoff I raised an eyebrow of intrigue as her climbed threw the window of the apartment above the one we had come in.

" Ryan" I heard a girl said enthusiastic as I climbed threw the window, I heard a few shouts of greeting to Ryan before I actually got a glimpse of the apartment. There where about 12 people in total siting around having their own conversations the girl in question took me back for a second with her shocking resemblance of Gabriela.

"Naomi" Ryan said taking her hand to his lips, she giggled and slapped him on the arm.

" oh you player" she laughed " why are the good ones always gay" he eyes found me and I grinned toothless and pondered what she had just said, its not that I didn't know Ryan was gay I always had, it didn't take a genius while we where in high school, though the Ryan I know now would be a wile card at best. I could see blush creeping up his cheeks and I patted his shoulder reassuringly. her eyes widened " who the hell is your hot friend?"

" this is troy, troy Bolton" Ryan said, she looked at me for a moment with an unreadable expression before smiling.

" well you're hot troy" she said pulling me into a hug. " and muscular, you didn't take an ecstasy did you, because I don't want that mess upstairs"

" no, I'm clean" I said shaking my head.

" super" she said " if you want to get your rocks off their playing spin the bottle in the bed room, but for now lets introduce you" she grabbed my arm and yanked me across the room as Ryan followed with an amused look on his face. There was a group of people siting around a table all gawking at troy. He was confused for a moment until he recognized one of the boys. " this is Micky" she said pointing at the boy who had offered me Ecstasy. He grinned and waved like a spazz, she then turned to the red head to his left introducing her as tally she then turned towards the boy who he couldn't put his finger on. " and this is josh, everyone this is Ryan's friend…"

" I know who he is. " josh said and I finally puzzled it together. "troy Bolton, east high wildcats"

" north high giants" troy mumbled " yeah, I played for the wild cats" I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and it seems like that was joshes intention

" played!?" josh said in astonishment at my modestly like most people used to do. " you didn't just play troy Bolton, you where the wild cats"

" josh that's enough" Ryan said. I looked at him and had never scene him more angry.

" you made every guy on that team look like your bitch troy" josh went on ignoring Ryan plea. " especially that one kid.. what was his name... Danfourth?"

" josh shut the fuck up!" Ryan yelled but it was to late I was gone I was at the window, I could hear him laughing after me Ryan yelled obscenities at someone I had thought was his friend until I walked in the room, the others sat silent but I don't know what happened because I was already half way down the fire exit. I wanted to cry but their was a party full of people, I pushed threw them all, a lot of them cursed at me and pushed me back but my head was in another place. I wanted to go home, I wanted to get away from the rest of the world, I wanted to not exist.

I burst from the apartment to find a woman in a yellow bath robe yelling in my face from the hallway. I ignored her and she called after me threatening the cops. I was out on the street in no time, it was only 11 we had barely even been there ten minutes, my back was drenched in sweat my mind was racing a mile a minute and I just wanted to run. " troy" the voice was like a signal to my brain. I stoped and took a deep breath. It was shaky and the tears began to gloss, I had never cried so much in my life as I had in the last year. He ran up to me and stoped a few feet behind me.

" no one is ever going to forget" I whispered. He carefully stepped the last few feet and stood in front of me. " no one is ever going to like me again"

" I already like you" he said softly. I looked into his icy blue eyes and saw only sincerity. I had a tingly feeling and my eyes found his lips, they where soft and pink and an urge came across me but I suppressed it.

" I just wish I could go somewhere where no one knew me" I said wiping my tears off of my face. " I'm a mess"

" whats a mess for if not to get cleaned up?" he asked putting his arm around my shoulder." Josh was out of line, no one knew you at that party except for him"

" no matter where I go I will be reminded of what I did" I said " not just by bold ass holes like josh I get it in the eyes of everyone I ever knew, judging seething with opinion, at the circle k where I grew up buying slushies hot dogs I now get watched and ignored my life in Albuquerque is over"

" troy people like him are idiots" he pushed " ignorant fools who think they know everything but know so little, josh doesn't know you he doesn't know how you feel how you felt, who the fuck is josh troy, some loser you kicked the shit out of in basketball?" as much as I wanted to believe that it shouldn't matter it did it always did because I had always been judged for being the greatest. Peoples opinions always had a great effect on me because something was expected of me and now people expected me to be crazy.

I noticed the bottle in Ryan's hand now, it was big and the glass was blue. " whats that?" I asked

" a bottle of gin" he said holding it up " I figured if we weren't going to stay at that party why not have one of our own?" a smile crept onto my face and it lightened Ryan's spirit considerably.

"Where did you get it?" I asked sniffing.

" I took it" he said " I don't give a fuck"

" I think I could be down with that" I said nodding. We didn't go far from where the party was, there was a burger joint down the street so we went there and ordered enough fries and onion rings for the whole party and made out way to the nearest park. So as not to be scene we sat in the grass where the trees where the thickest. The night was comfortably warm, not hot and sticky like the humidity of mid summer but the warm enough for t shirts weather while still feeling the chill of the cold grass in the night breeze.

" so do you want to pour some in your soda?" he asked. I nodded taking a big gulp or root beer to make room for the gin. He poured a generous amount into the extra large cup and then took a gulp straight from the bottle cringing at the after burn. " fuck, want some?" he asked holding out the bottle, I decided to just go for it taking the whole bottle and guzzling the straight alcohol back.

It felt like a shot of heart burn but I could feel the alcohol travel straight to my chest. I took a sip of my soda to get rid of the taste but it only went away a little bit because of the gin in the soda. I decided now was a good time to get tore into the food. I ate a hand full of fries desperately to get rid of the taste of the straight alcohol. " so what about you?"

Ryan raised an eyebrow " what about me?" he asked perplexed.

" I mean, we have talked about me, about my shit all of my shit in fact" I said " I just, why did you leave Julliard?" I knew part of this was the alcohol talking but I was curious, no more then Ryan was curious about me.

" oh I see Zeke and Shar told you some crazy story" he said waving his hands in emphasis.

" no all Zeke said was that Shar went to see you in November and when she came back you came back too" I said " he said she never told him"

" really?" he asked as if he didn't believe it. " Sharpay cant keep a secrete"

" you don't have to tell me you know I was just curious" I said " its just that, in a year I'm not the only one who has changed at least from what I have gathered"

Ryan sighed reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a little baggy with pot in it and a pack of rolling papers " I'd like to be high for this"

I shrugged my impartiality and he began rolling the joint. " I guess you can say I just, got a wake up call" he said while sprinkling weed into the paper and forming a cylinder with his fingers. " I guess I thought me and Kelsey would be closer , but she found her own thing you know? She was really good with the composer thing and she made a lot of friends she did a lot of extra curriculars and as time went by , we just got distant" I nodded my understanding as he licked the seal finishing the joint. He took another swig of gin taking a sip my my root beer afterwards " I came into Julliard thinking I was going to be so good, I was confident I would take new york by storm but in the end it swallowed me whole."

" then, one day I met this guy" Ryan said with a look of struggle on his face, he sparked up the joint and took a few drags and passed it to me, I took one drag stifling my coughs before passing it back to Ryan who took another drag then continued. " he went to NYU and he was in a frat and he was sweet, we saw each other for a month and a half then he took my virginity" I could see the pain in his eyes. " I fell in love with him , I fell hard"

He passed me back the joint and I took another this time managing to cough very little. " he stopped calling me after we had had sex, I was devastated I called him all the time I went by his frat house he texted me freaking out one day calling me a stalker and a fag and saying I was crazy and I just I thought I had found a place in new york I thought i had found someone who could make my life their worth something since I had flunked out of Julliard and it was like he was spiting in my face, he used me and he threw me away like I was nothing" the tears where flowing and he was wiping his eyes on his sweater. " I was a fool I was stupid"

" sounds like he was the fool" I said

" a few weeks later Kelsey told me she wanted to move out of the condo which I had been expecting since day one and Julliard well I just stopped going then one day I was getting some food from this place down the street from my place and I saw them, I saw him with his stupid friends the ones who laughed at me or looked at me like I was an ant to step on, I tried to avoid them but they saw me they followed me and chased me into an ally." He could barely speak from the tears, from the pain I started to see red I felt the finished wood of the banister under my fingers. The red jersey, I began to take deep breaths. " he beat me up, while his friends egged him on" I could feel the pain in my own knuckles as they bled into chads face.

" I tried calling Kelsey but she never answered my calls anymore" he said " I didn't want to stay in new York any longer so I called Sharpay and told her I was coming home, she thought I was crazy and flew there to talk sense into me but I had made up my mind, by then my Manhattan had consisted only of my four walls and a view of central park."

I began to feel incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn't look at Ryan how could he even speak to me? " why would you want to be around me?"

" you're not like that!" he said " you are good you are everything good about life, you're pure , genuine you care troy" I felt a warm sensation in the pit of my stomach. " you did something bad because something bad was done to you , you where driven to that and sure people will tell you to the day you die that you are a menace and that you're a monster and that you should be locked up but who fucking cares what they think?, you are justice troy" we sat their tipsy and high Ryan took another gulp of gin.

" thank you" I said I looked at his lips again and this time he saw me do it. I moved closer to him and he swallowed. I had no idea what I was doing but the alcohol and the pot had my mind racing and my manhood throbbing. Was I gay , was i sexually frustrated?, I was not sure but I was sure that I wanted to kiss him. So I did. It was soft and small and when i pulled away his eyes where wide in shock which only made me giggle

" what.. why did you do that?" he asked " why did you kiss me?"

" I thought, I mean i don't know" I said breathing heavily " did you like it"

" I" he said breathlessly " did you?"

" i don't think i would have done it if i thought i wouldn't" i said with a small smile of astonishment as what i had just done. I wasn't sure if it would make things better or worse but it felt right at least. Ryan was the first thing that had felt right in a long time. But regardless of what i felt the doubt was clear on Ryan's face.

" you're drunk" he said as if that was the answer to all of it and maybe it was i didn't know.

" who cares?" I asked him with a smile. " you said it yourself"

He was clearly raddled by the advance the thought crossed my mind that maybe he didn't like me that way, just because he was gay didn't mean he liked every guy in the world maybe i wasn't his type, or maybe he just knew that in the morning i would forget and he wouldn't. My heart felt uneasy for a moment his doubt his reservation made it all obvious that this was something he never thought would happen." what if it gets weird?" he asked

The thought had not crossed my mind,i was drunk and acting with fogged judgement" look Ryan I don't have a place in the world anymore, i,ve been back a week and I have no idea what I'm doing its like I'm new to life or something" I said " you are the only thing that is making sense to me right now"

"right now" he said as if id find something else in a few weeks to occupy my time, as if he where so little that no one would want him. In reality he seemed to be all i needed.

" I cant read the future" I said " but I'm not just going to let go of the first thing that's made me happy in so long" Ryan took another swig of the gin trying to drown his apprehension. we didn't kiss just lay in the grass in the breezy summer midnight talking of course. Each taking more shots of the gin until we where both incoherent and loud. We horsed around in the field for who knows how long just chasing each other and wrestling . We fell to the grass laughing like I had not done since before graduation, I don't think I would have been smiling had I known what was going on behind my back but it was as happy as I have ever been until now. Ryan lied his head in the crook of my shoulder and wrapped his pale arms around my waste. I pulled him closer to me feeling his body head up the side of my form. I let my fingers explore threw his golden hair and he moved his head to listen to my heart beat.

" in the morning, this will be a dream" he mumbled into my chest and I chuckled.

" no" I said rubbing his back.

He nodded into my stomach. " you don't want this troy" he slurred "you will see"

" you're wrong" I said sleepily the orange light of the distant lamp post being the last thing I saw before I fell asleep.

I felt the tap on my shoulder first and that's when the reality that I fell asleep in a public park kicked in. " shit!" I said getting to my feet suddenly only to come face to face with a police officer, I looked down at Ryan who was eyes wide assessing the situation.

" just what do the two of you think you are doing?" the cop asked half stern half amused. Under any other circumstances I would have laughed it off or tried to book it but I knew the instant my eyes cracked open to see the shiny silver badge pinned to the officers shirt that this only meant deep shit for me.

AN: i hope you like this story as much as i enjoy writing it. but a review would be nice. i had written this chapter differently but i decided it needed to slow down a little bit so i changed a few things. the next chapter will be longer as well. i'm also going to start a Ryan pov soon. this story has a bit of a mature subject matter so if you have a problem with graphic rape character death or excessive drug use i would suggest stopping here