Chapter Text
Some PTA moms get pissed about Darbus casting two boys as romantic leads in a high school play, but before Chad’s mom can give them an earful about how their bigotry will negatively affect their kids’ psychological development, Principal Matsui does an interview with the local press and they realize it’s a lost cause. It’s a load of bullshit, of course, stuff about the importance of defying stereotypes and an interdisciplinary education that makes Taylor snort and mutter a bunch of insults Chad doesn’t really understand—and sure, he’s given more than one queer couple detention for barely-present PDA while their cis straight peers make out against the lockers, but it turns out Principal Matsui is a smart man, knows when to count his losses and accept a check for his woefully-underfunded arts department and tell any scandalized suburbanites that he respects his teachers’ creative independence.
It’s five minutes after the night’s final close of the curtain in the newly-christened Evans Auditorium, and Chad is at Ryan’s stage door, flowers in hand. His mom had raised her eyebrows at the choice but not commented, even though Chad is well aware that she knows all about that sort of thing, symbolism or whatever, but he knew what he was doing (well, Zeke knew, and had pulled it up online in the computer lab to prove it). Still, there are worse things to give somebody than “Regard & Unequalled Love,” and they’re Ryan’s favorite, so.
Ryan beams when he opens the door, cradles the pot between his palms and sets it gently on the counter in front of the mirror, which was a disaster area at five minutes to curtain but has somehow already mostly been fixed, makeup and hair gel and bobby pins all shuffled into their correct containers and laid out to do it all over again tomorrow afternoon. “No one’s ever brought me flowers except my parents,” he says, soft and a little awed, and yeah, there’s a massive ostentatious bouquet of pink and white roses already by the makeup brushes.
Chad shrugs, but he’s grinning, too. “First time for everything.”
“You killed it,” Ryan says, opening his arms, and the next hour is bound to be a blur of cast photos and congratulations from people’s parents and ribbing from the guys from the team who came, but for now, Chad lets Ryan hold him, opening-night adrenaline still racing through his veins, and doesn’t even care if he gets glitter on his face.
They’ve finally been released from the crowd of attendees—“Adoring fans,” Ryan says—and are about to make their sweet, sweet escape to acquire some waffles when a familiar voice stops Chad in his tracks.
“Danforth!”
Chad turns. “Yes, Coach?” Not his coach anymore, technically, but not his best friend’s father anymore either. Still, the habit is hard to kick, like answering Troy’s calls and staring at him over a slice of pizza while he has a relationship crisis once a month.
“Good game,” Coach Bolton says, and Chad blinks.
“Thank you, sir.”
Coach runs a hand through his hair, looking at the scuffed floor of the school hallway, the culmination of thirty years of teenagers’ tennis shoes. “Listen, uh, I’m sorry if I was a little hard on you, at the end of the season,” he says. “Troy told me I went overboard, and that it wasn’t cool of me. I’m, uh—well, the Wildcats couldn’t have won the championship without you, so I guess I was wrong about getting involved with the theater team.”
Chad’s mouth dropped open of its own accord somewhere around halfway through the first sentence, and he tries now to close it. It doesn’t work. “Thank you,” he says finally, swallowing, because he knows from his mom that an apology isn’t going to erase the, like, trauma of it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate it.
“I’ll see you at tryouts this fall?” he asks, looking awkwardly hopeful, which Chad is both flattered and freaked out by.
“Sure thing,” he confirms, and Coach looks relieved, which is downright creepy.
“Huh,” Ryan says from beside him after Coach is out of earshot, and that about sums it up. Chad takes his hand with a casualness that’s betrayed by his continued inner thrill at being able to do that, and as they head to the parking lot, he’s surprised to find a wild and expansive hope inside his chest despite the bittersweetness of them being so close to the end of something they’ve worked on for so long, something that’s become so important to him. It doesn’t feel like as much of a loss as it could, though, not with baseball season starting soon and the spring musicale closer than it seems on the horizon, and then an entire summer of crashing Ryan’s family’s obnoxious rich people hangout. It isn’t the end when the play is over, not really; it feels more like the start of something new.