Ryden Oneshots

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Spencer has a lot of good ideas. This is not one of them. "This is not a good idea," Ryan announces, eying the building in front of them; the roof is a zig-zag of sharp, small peaks, the face of it mirrored, implacable. Spencer's reflection is determined, his hand pale against the dark leather of Ryan's jacket. This might be a good time to elaborate. "In fact," he continues, digging his heels into the pavement, "it's a terrible idea. Worse than Red Bull and coffee together, worse than-" 

"You need a boyfriend," Spencer interrupts, calmly. "Or at least a date. Brent went to one of these things, and he said the people were really nice." 

Yeah, but. "It's a community center, Spencer. These people will be ugly. And unfashionable. They probably don't even know who Louis Vuitton is." 

"It's a gay and lesbian community center," Spencer argues, tugging until Ryan overbalances forward, stumbles into halting steps. "You may actually be under-dressed. Also, a snob."

What it is is a nightmare. And Ryan is perfectly dressed, thank you. He has to tilt his sunglasses up - over-sized white frames, too-dark-to-be-functional lenses - and squint through the distortion of the mirrored door, but he looks just as good as when he left home. Designer clothes, but without the flash of logos; not that there's, like, a litmus test, like if someone can't take one look at the cut of Ryan's jacket and say, "Hey, isn't that-" then he's not going to date them, but, you know. He tugs against Spencer's grip as they cross the threshold; a gust of cool, dry air presses Ryan's shirt flat to his chest, rucks his hair back up at odd angles. 

"I don't want to do this," he hisses, heels of his shoes catching on the metal strip separating concrete from industrial carpeting. "Spencer, I really don't want to-"

"Welcome to Speed Dating," the person behind the counter chirps. It has too-short, too-platinum hair, three earrings, no visible gender-specific physical traits, and a name tag that says "Blue". "Here's the sign-in," Blue continues, perkily, as though Ryan is not being sentenced to anywhere from twelve-to-fifteen awkward, blind first dates. "We've got about three more spots, so go ahead and fill out these forms, and we'll get started in about half an hour."

Spencer says, "Great," and smiles his stupid, radiant smile at Blue, who smiles a stupid, androgynous smile right back at them. 

"Great," Ryan echoes, glaring at the tiny clipboard and tinier, garishly yellow pencil in his hands. He follows Spencer to a row of chairs, shining metal limbs and neutral, worn upholstery, and tries to stall on form completion long enough to miss the event entirely. 

Unfortunately, there's only so long you can delay writing your name (even when you write your full name, meticulously, George Ryan Ross), and address (even when you spell out boulevard), and Ryan is considering writing the numerals of his phone number out (seven-zero-two), when Spencer looks over and says, "Oh, good, you're almost done." He steals the form right out of Ryan's hand, scribbles down his phone number, and stands, making grabby hands toward Ryan's lap. "C'mon. Give me your license, then we can go ahead and pre-judge everyone based on looks and clothing choices." 

He hands over his license because he can't think of a decent reason not to, and Spencer comes back an appallingly short time later with it and a flimsy, matte-sheened name tag that says "My Name Is: george" 

"Um," he says, picking delicately at the edge of the sticker. "You told them my name was Ryan, right?" 

"They already had a Ryan." Spencer shrugs, presses his own sticker carefully to his shirt. "So you're George. Sorry."

It's not like it matters. These people not knowing his actual name might be the best part of the evening. Well, except for how he hates the name George with a fiery, burning passion. He slaps his sticker haphazardly on his chest and promptly crosses his arms over it, glaring off toward the other loitering singles. There are, he's forced to admit, some relatively hot guys here, though collectively they look like attendees Poor Fashion Decisions conference. There's a freakishly tall guy in an eyesore of a purple hoodie, one in actual argyle and a hat, a small, dark guy in what looks like magenta jeans (though they're maybe velvet? stretch velvet denim?), and one guy done up entirely in black, with too-thick eyeliner and longish black hair. Hot, hot, hot, and hot, respectively, but no, no, hell no, and hell fucking no anyway.