Far Away Love ࿐ Ryden

4

hello again welcome back to the fic i went to the womens march in dc yesterday for the second time in a row and had a good time protesting the government. as usual, fuck trump and enjoy the chapter 

4 -- [0121]

it's all gonna come around, it's all gonna make your eyes burn

"Ryan!"

Depth perception isn't so much of a problem now when Ryan just wants to get away from Patrick and he finds himself scrambling down the steps to the school and Patrick, who has been perched outside of the school doors like a handsome gargoyle, follows him right down.

"Are you running away from me?" It's enough to call out childlike behavior and Ryan stops in his tracks, trying to come up with a good enough accusatory statement to throw back at Patrick. But, really, he hasn't done anything wrong. Patrick's crush has been paying more attention to him and so he's been paying attention back and Ryan's caught in the middle somewhere, being immature and jealous.

"No," Ryan says finally. "I'm not running away from you." Patrick looks fed up. His bag is hanging loosely from his hand, in fact, it's dragging on the floor which is something Patrick pays lots of attention to. There's a half sort of scowl on his face but it's fading as he realizes that Ryan isn't going to go head on down the street and leave him in the dust. They face each other like they're in an old western film and soon enough one of them will pull a gun out and start shooting but neither of them have enough violence to kill each other and instead they just stare.

"You were." Patrick points out, sounding a lot less accusatory, and he pulls his bag back up onto his shoulders and walks over to Ryan. Ryan lets out this sigh-y breath and Patrick relaxes and Ryan sees just how tense he's been. "C'mon." Patrick says without any other words attached to it, it sounds sort of pathetic actually, but Ryan follows him across the playground. Trailing behind him, like always. Ryan will never be his own person.

The playground isn't for the high schoolers at all, it's for the elementary kids that walk across the grounds for an after school daycare sort of thing, but they're not here this late so Ryan and Patrick perch on top of the structure, cool in the shade of the roof of it. They can look across the soccer field from up here, see all the russet trees, and breathe the sharp autumn air.

"So what's up?" Patrick asks all casual like, as though he doesn't know what the fuck is up. Ryan looks at his socks and tries not to think about the AP Gov textbook in the back of his bag or the fact that Brendon Urie is using him or the fact that he's absolutely pathetic but looking over at Patrick's earnest face makes him want to start crying.

"I don't have any friends." Ryan says in his trademark stupid not loud enough voice that rips back through his head every time he speaks and makes him want to curl up and die. He hates his voice. He hates himself.

"I'm your friend." Patrick offers, but it's really not enough.

"I have one friend." Patrick sighs, wipes at his tired eyes, and leans back against the circular rail around them. He'd make a perfect silhouette from the ground, Ryan would like to be on the ground, away from something stressful, but instead he's up on top of the little kid's playground with a slide behind him and he knows that if he leans back he'll be going backasswards down a damn slide and will probably land on his head and snap his spine around a bit and therefore paralyze himself which will mean he won't be able to walk past the sunflower house and feel like he's really alive on chilly foggy mornings.

"Listen, Ry, I'm sorry that I've been ignoring you. Pete's just..." Patrick trails and gets this sick dreamy look on his face and he doesn't really snap out of it at all. "Pete's just fantastic." It's the worst apology Ryan has ever heard and he shifts himself away from the slide and sighs heavily.