The Clan of Raven (Ryden)

{four}

"What is the most hilarious animal you know?" Brendon asks out of the blue a few days after their first meeting in the Raven cave. Brendon insists on calling the hollow place under the abandoned railway platform that, even though it makes Spencer roll his eyes and Jon smile amusedly in that friendly way of his. It's only Ryan and Brendon now, though, because Spencer and Jon are getting smoothies for all of them - they should be back soon, though. Brendon is lying sprawled in the hammock in Ryan's garden and Ryan is leaning against the thicker supportive tree it's tied to.

"I don't know," Ryan says. "Tarsier? They look funny with those big eyes and all." Brendon nods, but his face squirms in a way that indicates he's got something way better than tarsier in his mind. "How about you?" Ryan asks when Brendon prolongs the situation and doesn't reveal his answer.

"Sperm whale," Brendon grins. "I mean, c'mon. The thing's got semen in its head, how amazingly stupid is that?"

"Actually, it doesn't," says Jon who walks over with two smoothies. Spencer follows right behind him through the gap in the rose bushes, and wordlessly hands Ryan his pumpkin spice frappucino, because Ryan doesn't do smoothies. "They used to think it was semen, but it's not."

Brendon's face falls slightly. "How boring," he grumbles under his breath. But when Jon hands him his raspberry-mango smoothie, he revives from the grouchy slumber and stretches in the hammock with the cold plastic cup in his hand, contently like a kitten that just found a perfect sunspot to collapse in.

"What is it, then?" Spencer asks after a while, and it takes Ryan a second to understand that he's referring to the not-semen in the whales' heads.

Jon shrugs. "Hell if I know. I was awake during the biology class but I wasn't paying that much attention."

Ryan glances up at the hammock where Brendon is in the process of sucking his smoothie through the straw, cheeks hollowed. "You look like you're trying to give that straw a blowjob," Ryan points out flatly.

Spencer and Jon stop talking and turn to look at them. Ryan feels like blushing - he still feels self-conscious and nervous around all of them, but most of all Spencer.

Brendon just laughs, unaffected, and sucks even more so on his straw, making it look suggestive. "I dare you," he says when he finally lets the poor straw go. "I dare you to make it look dirtier than I did." He's aiming the dare in all directions, but his eyes lock on Ryan.

Ryan looks down to his frappucino, doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to go sucking on straws in front of these three pairs of attentive eyes, but he doesn't know how to get out of the situation. The silence feels pressing and heavy around them, only the wind fluttering the leaves in the trees towering above them. "I don't-- Whatever," Ryan says, swallowing a little.

He thinks he hears a half-hearted, "Chicken," from Spencer, but the moment passes when Brendon waves his hand dismissively. "Not that you could do it, any of you."

"Do what?" Jon asks, furrowing his brow.

"Make it look dirtier than I did," Brendon says nobly. "I'm the master of this."

"Master of giving straws blowjobs, how amazing," Spencer snorts. "Well then, I'm the master of I'm-kicking-your-ass-in-a-second-if-you-won't-let-me-in-that-hammock-now."

Brendon just lets out a resigned groan and clambers up from the hammock and settles down on the lawn beside Ryan while Spencer drops down and swings in small motions that make the ropes creak and twist around the tree trunks. Ryan doesn't even bother to point out that since it's his garden, he should be the one lying on that thing. Knowing Brendon, he'd manage to make something kinky out of that as well, just like he did with a simple straw in a smoothie.

Knowing Brendon... Ryan can't really say that he knows Brendon, or any of the three for the matter. He just knows they pulled him along with them and now he's here, sipping smoothies (well, frappucino in his case) and talking about straw-blowjobs. Ryan knows the school Spencer and Brendon go to and he's actually been in the same middle school with Jon, but Ryan doesn't remember seeing Jon around. It's probably because Jon is a year ahead of him and has been in high school for a year already. Ryan knows that Brendon and Spencer will attend the same school in their time, but that's another year away still. Well besides, it's summer, so why is he thinking about school right now?

"The Clan of Raven," Ryan mumbles more to himself than to the others. "Why'd you come up with that?"

Brendon shrugs, and he's sitting so close that Ryan can feel the vibration of the movement in his shoulder. "It's like a secret society," he muses.

"Yeah, except for the fact that it's hardly a secret when you invite random strangers to join us," Jon points out, but there's no malice in his voice. The malice is all in Spencer's eyes when the boy looks at Ryan over the edge of the hammock, and Ryan doesn't know what to make of it.

"No one's invited anyone to join anything," Brendon says abruptly, though his eyes flash in Ryan's direction for a split second. "I just asked him to hang out."

Ryan ignores the tiny stab that courses through his system at the words. Of course, no one has told him what this Clan thing is all about, but he somehow assumed that since they've been hanging with him all the time ever since their first meeting, he'd somehow be one of them. "Yeah," he breathes and keeps a smile on his face. "Just hanging out."

Brendon slurps down the rest of his smoothie and then groans, dropping the empty cup on the ground. "Ow, brain freeze," he complains, rubbing his temples. "Anyway, so like I was saying... Secret societies are like, cool, so we decided to found our own."

"Because it's cool?" Ryan confirms in monotone.

Brendon looks embarrassed for a second. "Well... yeah?"

Ryan cracks a smile at that. "You're such a weirdo."

"Now he notices that. I've known it for years," Spencer's muffled voice sighs from the hammock. And then, "Ow!" because Brendon punches the hammock without even looking at where he aims. Spencer's head peeks over the edge of the multi-colored hammock again, and he glares at Brendon. "You almost gave me a bloody nose, asshole," Spencer grumbles.

Brendon proceeds to ignore him and turns back to Ryan. "So, as I was saying before these idiots started talking--"

"Didn't say anything," Jon says.

"Did now," Brendon points out in an ah-ha voice. Jon laughs and raises his hands in surrender. "So. The Clan of Raven is kind of like, you know, blood brothers. We've sworn that nothing can separate us. Best friends forever."

Ryan looks away, doesn't say that forever seems like a mighty long time, and declarations like this usually melt like snowflakes in the sun. Or that's what has happened to him every time. He remembers his childhood neighbor, who moved away and didn't bother to keep in touch, even though they'd sworn they'll always be friends. Ryan feels oddly jealous about these three boys, because there hasn't been anyone who'd want to make a blood oath with him - no one has ever declared to want to be best friends with him, forever. But now as Ryan glances at Jon's calm smile and Brendon's open face, and even at Spencer's hesitant grin over the edge of the hammock, he feels like perhaps they could be friends like that to him.

"We are an odd number," Brendon says sadly. "We need someone to fill in the empty spot."

"Superstitious bs," Spencer mocks, but he doesn't sound as sure about himself as he did a minute ago.

This feels like the moment of decision, Ryan notes. Just like that oddly silent moment when you notice that the playlist has ended and there are no more tracks to come, and then you have to click play again to get things in motion. And just like that, one click on 'play' and Ryan gets taken in.