Not A Morning Person

Only psychos and insomniacs stay awake that early in the morning and Ryan is not an insomniac. He is not. He only stays awake because he can; just because he cannot sleep. That’s it - it’s a one time thing. He swears it.

Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he is insomniac. But he doesn’t have to admit it. He really does want to stare at his bald ceiling every night. He wants to stare and think. But what can he think about. Spencer. Spencer Spencer Spencer. He thinks about Spencer and smiles.

At 2.40am, Ryan is sound asleep with a grin on his face.

It's the only sleep he can get. Sunshine's in his face in the morning but he can sleep. He is asleep. Smile on his face, Ryan takes a shower. Ryan is a good kid. He gets dressed decently; at least fully (unlike that Hurley kid who goes around school half naked with just short shorts). He does all his homework. He doesn’t face girls sobbing to him because of unwanted pregnancies. He even aces Maths (but not English, surprisingly. He sucks in that subject.) Ryan Ross is a good kid. He's just a good kid with a problem.

So it's no surprise when he walks into school with a small smile. People glide by, shrugging their shoulders. Maybe he just got laid. Maybe, Ryan smirks. But he didn’t. He was just happy he slept, and then he isn’t anymore. Turning the corner to his locker, Ryan’s mood turns sour because he sees someone leaning against it. Of course, said person always leans against Ryan’s locker, but this time Ryan doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t need the boy to remind him, but the boy does.

“Hey Ry, slept any?” He shrugs. He gives a non-committal grunt, somewhere between, “yeah-yeah-I-slept-get-out-of-my-way,” and, “no-did-you-think-I-could-sleep?”

"Yes," Ryan lies. He might be a good person generally but he still lies when he needs to. And this, he needs to lie.

“Whoa man. I was just wondering.”

“Hmm yeah okay, I need my History text,” he mutters, hinting at said boy to move away from his locker. Of course said boy knows what Ryan is doing and so he plants himself firmly on the spot. Come on, said boy and Ryan have been friends for close to ten years already. They won't not know each other.

“C’mon, Spin. No joking around. I need my text.”

So Spin moves. Ever so slightly, so that Ryan has to figure his locker combination sideways, squashed between Spin and a big blond guy, Bryar, next to him. Finally, after much struggling filled with Oriental fighting moves, Ryan gets his Maths notebook and Literature story out. No History though. He curses softly under his breath. Spin watches him.

“Here take my book, I only have History after common Lunch anyway. You can return it to me then.”

Of course the school corridors are always crowded; it’s a school corridor, and Ryan never minded; he just followed the crowd. But now, sides pressed up against his locker edge, back bruised by Bryar’s locker door, he hates it. He hates having to stare at those blue eyes. Having to watch them from so close.

He hates being only a hairbreadth apart. They're jostled and pushed. Spin's being bumped up against the girl behind him by the ever moving school. They're both in each other’s faces. Their toes are touching. If Ryan really wanted to, he could stop breathing. Spin would breathe for him. So staring into those shocking blue eyes, Ryan curses the world in his head. In his head, the world doesn’t play fair. But he can’t say much because he doesn’t know what game they’re playing. So he goes along with it.

“Thanks man. Yeah, um, I’ll see you at lunch.” So Ryan lets the crowds pull him along. And Spin, the said boy with blue eyes by his locker, starts to fade until he is just a tiny speck; until he is no more. Or maybe that's just Ryan’s obsessive thinking. But they do part. And Ryan sits down for History still cursing.

Ryan Ross isn’t emo. He is perfectly normal with his brown hair and brown eyes. He is a normal, acceptable boy. He doesn’t sit at the back of the class cutting or writing poems Shakespeare will gag at. He sits in the middle seat of the middle row. So while he waits for the teacher to walk in and start on American History, Ryan stares at his borrowed History book. He stares at the cover page, illustrating the revolution. He stares and he sighs. Slowly, he flips it open.

There, on the bottom right hand corner, are printed words. Or are they? Upon closer inspection, Ryan sees that the words are handwritten, painstakingly copied in the exact font as the printed text above. Written are the words, “Property of Spencer Smith.”

Ryan seriously thinks he should join the people at the back.

So as Mr Toro animates the killing of soldiers, -"comrade in arms," he says to the boys, winking slightly - Ryan reads the cramped little notes in the book. He wonders how Spencer can listen and take down notes at the same time. He wonders whether Spencer has more than one coloured pen besides navy blue. He thinks maybe he should get Spencer coloured markers for his birthday. He wonders and he thinks till the end of lessons. By the time Maths starts, Ryan has a list of questions to ask Spencer during Lunch.

Maths leaves him very little time to think. Ryan was made into the teacher’s assistant which was just a sweeter name for goody two shoes. So after the twisted explanation Mr Joe Trohman gives on solving two quadric equations using algebra formulae simultaneously, Ryan is sent to tutor certain students who are lost. And he does. With Gabe Saporta and Travis McCoy flagging his two sides respectively, Ryan sets on using imagery of the crudest kind to theorise the problem. And it might work, Ryan doesn’t know. He is too busy wondering if Spencer will get his Fight Club mention. He wonders if Spencer remembers their movie marathons. He thinks maybe.

And he adds those questions into his list.

Literature sends him running to the toilets. Literally. They're studying the works of Mary Higgins Clark. Mr Butch Walker, a big fan of group discussion, sends them all in threes to discuss Clark’s latest heroine. Due to bad timing, or good luck, Ryan is sent off with Patrick Stumph and Gerard Way. He sits and does all the work. Silent while the two debate from across of him on the ironic comedies of comics.

Ryan wonders while he takes down notes. He wonders what Spencer thinks of it. He wonders if Spencer would bring up his Calvin and Hobbes theory. He wonders if Stumph would laugh. He wonders if it would just cause Stumph and Spencer to debate on Garfield. He wonders and he sighs. He adds those questions to his list. He adds the debate topic to his list. He runs off, faking a stomach ache and wonders. On the toilet seat he wonders if maybe he should just go away. He should just float away and not come back. Maybe he should have just listened to that Ryland Blackinton on his hippie theory and fly away with love or the doves or the pigeons.

Finally, it's lunch. Ryan doesn’t know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. He doesn’t want to think about it. He shuffles towards the cafeteria. He shuffles and maybe drags his feet a bit. He would crawl but the hall is too cramped. He walks over to their usual table for four, right in the corner. He never understood why it was a table for four. It was only them two. But he never questions it. He just sits. He sits and he waits. Seconds - maybe minutes - later, he sees an outstretched hand. He looks up and sees Spencer, in his hailing glory with blue eyes and brown hair. Gingerly, Ryan stands up thinking it was similar to a first date. He blinked owlishly at the thought and shook his head.

“Thanks for the book. I mean yeah. I owe you one.” And as Ryan passes the book on to Spencer, he feels the tips of their fingers touching. Immediately, he thinks time slows down, maybe time stopped. He stares into those blue irises and he thinks he’s drowning. He feels himself blush, he feels himself shake. He wonders if he should let go. He stops wondering and just does it. Ryan thinks maybe it’s a stupid thing to do because he has to sit back down. Sitting means he will have to stop staring at those blue blue eyes. He sits down anyway.

He waits for Spencer to call his bluff. He waits, tense as hell, for Spencer to call his game. He knows Spencer knows. Spencer knows he knows that Spencer knows. Ryan knows Spencer is just waiting to catch him off guard. He knows it

Ryan is wrong.

“So Ryan.” Ryan busies himself with unwrapping his sandwich, he doesn’t think he can bear eating lunch on Mystery Thursdays. “Heard Trohman made you tutor.”

Ryan nods, his mouth full. He still thinks those eyes are all he needs. He then thinks he should maybe ask for a time out from the game. The world is killing him. The world never plays fair anyway. He thinks maybe it is a way to get back at him for not being able to sleep. He thinks that Spencer was sent from some other planet to fill Ryan up with guilt. He thinks Spencer was accidentally switched as a baby so Ryan is actually friends with a baby genius who knows exactly what’s going on. He thinks and he believes but he doesn’t know. So he stays that way. Chewing slowly, trying to not avoid looking at that face but avoiding looking at it anyway. Ryan thinks he is slowly going crazy.

As he walks to his next science class, Ryan remembers his list of questions for lunch conversation.

Not one of those questions made it past his back jeans pocket.

At home, Ryan stares at the television screen. He has no idea what sitcom it is even after 10 minutes of supposed watching. Ryan thinks one of the girls looks like Spencer. Ryan thinks that maybe he thinks about Spencer too damn much. He realises he doesn’t care. He thinks of all the things he should know about Spencer. Spencer’s birthday is on the 2nd of September. He smiles. Ryan was born on the 30th of August. Spencer has two sisters. That's common knowledge. He sits and he thinks and he realises he doesn’t know a thing about his best friend of ten years. He doesn’t know what Spencer’s favourite food is, he has no idea which colour Spencer prefers, he doesn’t think he knows where Spencer’s favourite holiday destination is. After ten years, Ryan only knows Spencer hates wasting food because underprivileged people have nothing to eat. Spencer doesn’t believe in favouritism because there is no equality. Ryan knows that Spencer would rather be in a dark cave with his mad second aunt twice removed than alone.

Ryan feels slightly better. He still thinks their relationship should not be based on just fears. So he jumps up, like a spring, off the couch. He sprints to his room and sends the door open with a flying kick complete with sound effects. He feels a bit stupid doing that so he stops pretending to be a Secret Military agent on a recon mission. He rushes for a piece of paper and a pen. Then, with the television still blasting recorded laughter downstairs, he starts to set himself a pop quiz: Do You Know Spencer James Smith (the fifth)? After half an hour, he ends up with a paper filled with anything and everything he could think to ask about Spencer Smith. Ryan is ready for it.

Two hours later, Ryan realises he fails it.

At 3 am, Ryan surrenders. He spent the whole of his night actively trying to not think about Spencer Smith. He falls short badly. He needs Spencer to sleep. So he gives up, waving a white piece of paper above his head.

“Enough! You won. Take Spencer back to planet Qwerty. I’m going to sleep.” And he does; thinking of Spencer all the while.