Ryden Oneshots

False Advertisements

Summary: All Ryan wanted to do was exist. He was tired of being a ghost.

Warnings: School shooting

“I... I don’t understand, really,” the woman says, folding her hands and resting them on the table. “He had overall good grades, he was polite - when he spoke, which wasn’t often - and as far as I know he wasn’t picked on or bullied. Kids mostly just... left him alone, really.”

“You were his English teacher, correct?” The Officer says, flipping through some papers. The woman nods.

“He was a marvelous writer.”

“Did any of his papers hint that maybe something was... off with him? Any papers mentioning hurting himself or others?”

The woman shakes her head and sighs. “His writing was beautiful. He wrote about love a lot, actually.”

The officer nods and writes a few things down in the file. “Did he have a clique he hung out with? A group of friends?”

“No,” the woman says, looking sad all of a sudden. “He didn’t have a lot of friends as far as I know.”

The officer nods again and closes the file. “Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

--

“Who are you?”

The boy looks up from the schedule clutched in his hands. The person standing before him is tall, lanky, with a sweep of brown hair across his forehead.

“I’m Brendon.... I’m new. I just transferred here.”

Ryan crosses his arms and steps away from the locker he was leaning against. “Made any friends yet?”

Brendon furrows his eyebrows and flicks his eyes to Ryan’s. “Actually, now that you mention it.... not one person has said a single word to me.”

Ryan smiles. “Come on. I’ll walk you to class.”

--

“I always knew that Ross kid was a space case.”

The officer raises an eyebrow as the boy before him takes a sip from his bottled water. “Why do you say that?”

The boy shrugs, his broad shoulders lifting and falling. “I don’t know. He just sort of... floated through school.” He pauses and takes another drink, leaning back in his chair. “It was kind of creepy.”

--

“You have a nice room,” Brendon says. It’s the first time he’s been over to Ryan’s, and his room is clean and neat. It looks like it’s hardly ever been lived in, to be honest. The bed sheets are crisp and everything is in its place. The only thing Brendon would consider jumbled are the piles of records sprawled about in the far corner of the room.

Ryan doesn’t say anything, just walks over to his records and rifles through them until he finds one he likes, placing it on the cheap turntable and starting it up. Static fills the silence before soft acoustic guitar thrums aloud.

“Who’s this?” Brendon asks, climbing off the bed and sitting next to Ryan on the floor.

Ryan shrugs. “Don’t know. I found this record outside of the music room at school, no case or anything.”

Brendon doesn’t say anything, just scoots closer until their shoulders are touching, their knees touching, their arms pressed together, listening to the record until Brendon has to go home.

--

The girl furrows her eyebrows at the officer. “Ryan? Ross? Hm. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

--