roseclaw

Fandom: High School Musical/Heroes – yeah, I went there.
Pairing: Ryan/Chad, Troy/Gabriella
Rating: NC-17 total, this part PG-15
Word Count: ~ 32,000 total, this part 4,144
Warnings: Spoilers for the season finale of Heroes as well as major ideas/characters in season two. This fic contains slash, crass language, sexual content, plausible science, and hardcore crack.
Author's Note: This fic diverges from Heroes canon after Run! And takes place the fall semester after HSM2.
Chad is on the basketball, the baseball, and the track and field team according to HSM2. However, that makes no sense because both baseball and track are spring sports, unless it’s indoor track which is a winter sport – like basketball. So therefore, in this universe, Chad runs cross country, a fall sport (even if he isn’t built like a long-distance runner – I’d say his event would be the 400 or even the 800). And Ryan does have a rubber ducky key chain – check out the scene when Taylor and Gabriella pick him up to go to the baseball game. Adorable! Also, I really like Taylor… I have no idea why she’s not in this fic except for a few passing mentions. Huh.
Beta-ed by the ever amazing saekokato, so the remaining errors are my own because I couldn’t stop tinkering with this fic.
Disclaimer: HSM belongs to Ortega and Disney, and Heroes belongs to Kring and NBC. There are references to several other sources including Stargate: Atlantis, Supernatural, Miss Congeniality, Finding Nemo, and fics written by other people. I take no credit for those ideas.
Disclaimer 2: I do not condone the use of any conjugation of the verb “to get” in place of any conjugation of the verb “to be.”
Summary: He couldn’t remember if he was indestructible because he was gay or gay because he was indestructible.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4


“New York is awesome!” Chad enthused as he and Ryan climbed out of the horse-drawn carriage. “That was a fantastic horse and buggy ride! We have to do it again!”

“If we’re still around tomorrow, we can,” Ryan agreed. “I also promised Shar to bring her back some clothes from Madison Avenue.”

Chad rolled his eyes. “Of course she would want clothes. You probably want to see a Broadway show, don’t you?”

Ryan grinned. “We should head to dinner and then stake out Kirby Plaza.”

“Did you have a place in mind?”

“Yeah. Greenwich Village: a little restaurant called Babbo.”

“Babbo?” Chad repeated incredulously.

“Have you ever watched Iron Chef America?”

“Once when Zeke was over.”

“One of those chefs owns the place.”

“Awesome!” Chad cheered, drawing Ryan to him for a quick kiss.

“Yes, yes,” Ryan said dismissively.

* - * - *

Chad and Ryan had been sitting on the fountain in Kirby Plaza for hours, and Chad’s butt was going numb.

Something was going on in the building above, and that made Ryan tense, but nothing was happening in the plaza.

“I never figured vigilante work was so boring,” Chad moaned.

Ryan snapped at him. “Shh!”

“Wha- ” Ryan slapped a hand over Chad’s mouth. “What the hell?” Chad thought at Ryan.

Ryan pointed to a dark figure who had entered the plaza. “That’s Sylar,” resonated in Chad’s mind.

Sylar looked directly at them and Chad’s mind went white in terror, but Sylar looked directly through them.

“Can’t he see us?” Chad thought at Ryan.

“We’re both invisible.”

“You turned me invisible?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. You’re full of surprises.”

“Yes, now let me concentrate… Sylar thinks that he’s the bomb.”

“Is he?”

“I don’t know – here comes Peter.”

“Didn’t I kill you?” Sylar asked.

“Didn’t take,” Peter spat back.

Suddenly the plaza was filled with people watching Peter and Sylar duke it out including the man with horn-rimmed glasses, and there was something wrong with Ryan. He had gone ridged and distant.

“Ryan?” Chad projected in distress.

Ryan didn’t respond for a second. “I’m okay – it’s – they all have abilities and my body had a difficult time digesting their powers.”

While Chad’s head was turned, a man with a katana had arrived, and by the time Chad’s attention was back on the action, Sylar had a sword through his torso and Peter was glowing.

“Now would be a good time to keep him from exploding,” Chad whispered.

“Hiro, you have to kill me!” Peter begged, and then Hiro was gone.

“Peter!” Claire came running into the plaza.

“Claire! I can’t control it! Kill me!”

She stared at him tearfully. “There has to be another way!” she implored.

Ryan was visible again and striding over between the gun Claire waved and Peter.

“Ryan!”

“Peter. I can help you. Let me.”

“You sound like my brother, and he wanted the city to explode.”

“Peter, take a deep breath and focus on my voice and my mind,” Ryan said in a deep, commanding voice Chad had heard once before, and it still gave him shivers.

Peter nodded shakily.

“Good, now draw your hands together as if you were praying and find your center.”

“Dude, are you making him do yoga exercises?” Chad asked.

A man came down from the sky. “Peter?”

“Nathan!” Peter yelped. So that was Nathan. He was hot, really hot… and apparently, he could fly.

“Peter, focus on me!” Ryan shouted. “You want to clear your mind of everything, including your abilities.”

The water from the fountain leapt into the air and swirled around Ryan and Peter, obscuring them from the outside world. Chad couldn’t even hear what was going on, and then the water fell down to the ground.

Peter wasn’t glowing anymore, but Chad had never seen Ryan so manic.

He rushed over to Ryan as Nathan ran to Peter. They enveloped their prospective queries in bone-crushing hugs.

“Did you just save New York?” Chad whispered into Ryan’s shoulder.

“Yeah. With yoga.” He burst out laughing. Chad couldn’t determine if it was relief or if it was the absurdity of the entire situation.

“You are amazing!” Chad squeezed him again.

“I know, but these people need our help still.” Ryan unwound himself from Chad’s arms and pointed to a man whose shirt resembled Swiss cheese. “He has the same blood type as you and four holes in his chest.”

“Has someone called for an ambulance?” someone asked.

“I did,” Dr. Suresh said.

“Oh! Hey, Dr. Suresh!” Chad greeted cheerily. “When the ambulance arrives, they should hook me up to him, ‘cause apparently we have the same blood type.”

Dr. Suresh nodded mutely, still trying to keep the other man from bleeding out.

Chad heard the sirens in the background, gradually becoming louder as he took in the people scattered about the plaza. There was a kid who looked exactly like him only about ten years younger.

“Nice hair,” Chad commented, nodding towards the boy.

He cracked a slight smile. “You too.”

Chad beamed, and the ambulances arrived. He held onto Ryan as the emergency crews sifted through the crowd to find the injured.

“Where’s Sylar?” Ryan asked abruptly.

Chad looked over the plaza, and couldn’t see Sylar anywhere. There wasn’t even a trail of blood, because everything was wet from the fountain doing its weird thing – whatever Ryan did to it.

One of the EMTs approached Chad. “You have the same blood type as that man?” He pointed to the man with the holes in his chest.

“Yeah.”

“Are you a relative?”

“No, I’m a close friend of… uh.”

“Matt Parkman,” Ryan piped up.

“Okay, you’re with us. You’ll ride in the back.”

Chad gave Ryan a quick peck on the cheek. “You’ll know where to find us. Watch out for Sylar.”

Ryan nodded as Chad followed the EMT to the ambulance and jumped in.

The EMT immediately stuck an IV into Chad’s arm before Chad even had a chance to sit down, and once a pint was drawn, it was plugged into Matt Parkman’s IV.

Chad munched on the crackers an EMT had given him as he watched Matt curiously. He’d never seen someone who’d been shot before, and there was some sick fascination in it.

Matt released a wet, bubbly noise, and the EMTs swarmed around him until Chad couldn’t see him anymore.

When Chad could see Matt again, he was sitting up patting his torso and the EMTs were all in a severe state of confusion.

“Dude, did that seriously just happen?” Chad asked in disbelief.

The ambulance came to a stop in front of the hospital.

Matt looked to him. “Who are you?”

“My blood type’s the same as yours,” Chad shrugged.

“I thought you said that he was a family friend,” an EMT accused.

Chad shrugged again.

“But you knew his name.”

“Actually, my friend did.”

Chad wondered if Matt could do anything exciting – if he had an ability. At the moment, though, Chad was more fascinated by the fact that his ability to heal had transferred to Matt.

“You’re like Claire,” Matt blurted.

“Yeah – are you like Sharpay?”

Matt’s brow frowned. “Yeah, yeah. Exactly.”

“Cool, man. I’m Chad Danforth.”

An emergency team flung open the back door of the ambulance and skidded to a halt when they saw the two guys without any sign of injury.

“What was the emergency?” one of them asked.

“This man took heat to the chest: four bullets.”

“What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“You’re coming with us, Mr. Parkman. We need to keep you for further observation.”

Another ambulance skidded to a stop in front of the hospital, and emergency teams unloaded another man who had been in the plaza.

Chad and Matt were escorted to a room and given paper work to fill out.

“So, Matt. What brings you to Kirby Plaza?”

“A tracking system. You?”

“An exploding man.”

“You knew about Peter Petrelli?”

“Yeah, my… friend is like Peter. So what kind of tacking system?”

“A little girl.”

“A girl is the tracking system?” Chad raised his eyebrows skeptically.

“You can heal, and I can read your mind,” Matt pointed out. “Man, I sound crazy saying that.”

“No more than me.”

Ryan entered the room without knocking. “Chad.”

Chad leapt up from his seat and hugged him. “Is Peter alright?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.”

“Is Molly okay?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, she’s fine too.”

“We should head out,” Ryan suggested. “I’m glad that you’re okay, Officer Parkman,” he continued with a charming smile.

“Thanks for your magical blood,” Matt called after them.

Chad smiled. “No problem, Officer.”

He and Ryan walked back to their hotel room.

“So you stopped Peter from exploding?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think he’s gonna have another crisis?”

“Not with exploding.”

“Wow. You really did it, Ryan.” Pride welled up in Chad’s chest. “You – nobody but the ten or so people in that plaza know how super awesome you are. I would even go as far as saying that you were fabulous!”

Ryan blushed. “It was just yoga.”

“You saved this city with yoga!” Chad shouted to the sky with a laugh.

“I did,” Ryan agreed modestly, but he broke out in a shy smile and did some weird funky dance move in the middle of the crosswalk. “Dance with me.”

“Are you going to make – Oh, hell, I’ll do it anyway. You’re that fabulous.” Chad took Ryan by the hand, and they danced across the street.

* - * - *

“Mom!” Chad shouted as he barged in through the front door. “I’m home! I brought Ryan too!”

“Chad?”

“Mom!” A dopey grin plastered itself to Chad’s face.

Ms. Danforth ran into the front hallway and hugged her son tightly. When she released him, she hugged Ryan equally as tightly as her own son.

“Mom! It was so cool! Ryan saved the city – he’s a real hero! – and we brought you a present!”

He dug through his bag and presented her with a sky blue box with “Tiffany” written in silver lettering on the cover.

“What’s this?”

“Open it!”

She did, exposing an elegant pair of diamond earrings.

“Oh! Chad! They’re beautiful!”

“Ryan chose them,” Chad admitted with a slight blush.

“They’re beautiful, Ryan. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Danforth,” he said bashfully.

“Now, I believe I promised you boys a home cooked meal. I have everything I need, but it will take a while to cook.”

“You have everything?”

“I wouldn’t be a mother if I didn’t have a readily stocked fridge.”

“Best Mom ever!” Chad declared.

“I’ll make it for you boys, but I need stories of your time in the city.”

“We stayed in The Plaza!” Chad gushed. “And Ryan saved the city!”

“The Plaza?” Chad’s mother repeated, awed. “You also may have mentioned that Ryan saved the city. I’m very proud of both of you.” She puttered around the kitchen taking out pots, pans, and food. She dropped a sack of potatoes in front of her son and handed him a peeler.

“There’s really not much to tell, Mom. We met a lot of people like us. Um, what could they do, Ryan?” Chad picked up a potato and started peeling.

“There was Claire, who was also indestructible, the policeman who could read minds, a man who could bend space and time, a man who could walk through walls, a kid who could talk to machines, a girl who’s pretty much like a GPS tracking system, a woman with super strength and a split personality, and the evil villain who ate brains to gain his victim’s power.”

“That sounds intense. Is that all?” she asked.

“No,” Chad said giddily. “There was a man who could fly, and one who’s exactly like Ryan – he was the one who Ryan stopped from exploding.”

“How did you stop the man from exploding?”

“Ryan showed Peter yoga exercises.”

“Yoga?”

“Yeah. Peter needed to know how to control himself.” Chad slung an arm around Ryan. “It was so cool.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. But after we saved the city we went dancing across the city. And we went on a carriage ride through Central Park, and Ryan wanted to go see a Broadway show, so we saw The Lion King – which wasn’t as lame as I thought – and we went shopping for you and Ryan’s sister. New York is awesome!”

“He’s been positively bouncing for the past week, Ms. Danforth. It’s surprising that we made it back so quickly: he needed to get out of the car every hour or so.”

She hummed in amusement. “When he was younger, he was like that around Christmas time.”

“So what did we miss around here?” Chad asked quickly, to divert attention from his childhood habits.

“Your friends were frantic about your whereabouts. They thought that Ryan had kidnapped you, except for Troy who thought that you two had eloped.”

Chad and Ryan flushed. “What did you tell them?” Chad asked in a small voice.

“That you would be home soon.”

“They didn’t keep pestering you, did they?”

“No, they seemed to be okay with it. That probably has to do with the fact that I was calm, unlike when you had been kidnapped.”

“We probably have tons of homework to make up, huh?”

Ms. Danforth pointed to a stack of papers on the counter. “Those are a gift from your best friend.”

Chad groaned.

* - * - *

“That was the best dinner ever, Mom.”

“I agree. That was delicious.” Ryan glanced at his watch. “We should return the car, and I need to contact my family.”

“You haven’t been home yet?!” Ms. Danforth exclaimed, scandalized.

“Not yet, ma’am.”

“You should call to tell them you’re safe! Right this instant! The phone is right around the corner.”

Ryan nodded, took a deep, cleansing breath, and went to call his sister.

“Mom! I had so much fun the past two weeks. And Ryan saved the city!”

His mother smiled fondly at him.

“You should go with Ryan to speak with his parents.”

“Mom, his parents formed the company that kidnapped us; I doubt they’d be sympathetic to us.”

“They’re his parents, Chad,” she insisted.

Ryan returned. “Shar’s going to pick me up at the rental place.”

“I’ll go with you,” Chad volunteered.

Ryan gave him a confused look.

“C’mon!”

“I want you back by midnight, mister. You have school tomorrow.”

“Aw! Ma! You can’t be serious!”

“I’m not. Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

Chad breathed a sigh of relief. “That wasn’t a nice trick,” he reprimanded.

His mother smiled at him. “I still want you back by midnight. I want to know that you’re home and safe before I go to sleep.”

“Sure thing, Ma.” Chad gave her a hug before he and Ryan headed out.

* - * - *

“Daddy and Mother were frantic when you first disappeared,” Sharpay informed them as they climbed into her car. “But they had this new tracking system find you, and they were fine.”

“They didn’t try to stop us?” Ryan asked with a frown.

“No. They knew what you were doing and who you were with.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They occasionally kept using the tracking system – ”

“Her name is Molly,” Ryan corrected.

“Pardon?” Sharpay said without a hint of sarcasm. Chad was impressed.

“The tracking system. Her name is Molly Walker.”

“Anyway Daddy and Mother used her to make sure you kept out of trouble, but other than that, they were fine. By the way, I told them what I could do, and they were fine with it.”

“That you know of,” Ryan reminded her.

“No, they really were cool with it. When Linderman died, everything was fine.”

“So they’re not mad at me?”

“Oh, they’re plenty mad. I think they may take away your credit cards.”

“You know that doesn’t really matter, right?” Chad piped in.

“Of course, I know. They don’t. So what did you buy me?”

Chad groaned and buried his face in his hands. She wasn’t interested in how her brother saved a city full of millions of people; she wanted to know what he bought her.

“I already know how he saved New York, but he’s mentally hiding what he bought for me.”

“What did I miss at school?” Ryan asked.

Sharpay started chattering about gossip that Chad only half listened to.

* - * - *

“Ducky!”

Mrs. Evans and Ryan did some freaky little greeting thing that involved kissing their pointer fingers and bringing them together.

“And you must be Mr. Danforth!” She kissed both of Chad’s cheeks.

“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Evans.”

“Come in, I think we still have some leftovers from dinner. So how was your cross country trip?”

“No, thank you. We already ate, Mrs. Evans.”

“Then you must have some ice cream,” she persisted.

“What is with parents and forcing food upon us?” Chad projected to Ryan.

“Are you complaining?” Ryan responded mentally.

Chad shook his head with a grin. “That would be awesome. Thanks.”

Chad let Ryan explain everything to his parents and demonstrate all the abilities that he had absorbed as Mr. and Mrs. Evans watched in contemplation.

“It was Chad’s wonderful idea, because he wanted to do something good with his invincibility,” Ryan concluded.

All eyes in the room snapped to Chad.

“You possess rapid cellular regeneration, son?” Mr. Evans asked.

Chad wasn’t sure who that question was directed at, but he nodded anyway.

Ryan looked to his parents morosely. “We already know the ramifications of that ability.”

“What ramifications?” Chad asked warily.

“Immortality,” Ryan answered.

“Yeah, we knew about that.”

“Do you know that we have seen what it can do to a man? He needed to be locked away,” Mrs. Evans explained.

“How old?”

“Four hundred years but he only aged forty years. He wanted to destroy the human race, to start over. He wanted to play God,” Mr. Evans said seriously.

“Linderman wanted to do the same thing,” Mrs. Evans continued.

“But Linderman is dead now.”

“You still need to be careful never to take what you can do public.”

“And you need to stay off the company’s radar.”

“There are still a few of the original founders alive, including us. You need to stay clear of them.”

“Victoria Pratt has gone into a self-imposed hermitage, but Bob Bishop is still working for the company, and possibly Angela Petrelli, and Maury Parkman is a very, very dangerous man.”

“Did Maury Parkman have a son?” Chad asked hastily.

“Yes. Mathew, I believe his name was,” Mrs. Evans responded thoughtfully.

“I totally saved Matt’s life! He was shot four times, and Ryan said that we had the same blood type, so I donated my blood. He healed quickly, like me.”

“I hope you did the right thing, Chad,” Mr. Evans said cautiously.

“He was trying to stop Sylar,” Ryan explained.

They continued on until midnight. Chad didn’t even notice how much time had passed, but he started to freak out when he did notice the time. “My Mom is going to kill me!”

“No worries,” Ryan said with a secretive smile. “I can teleport you home.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure.”

“Dude, you are awesome!” Without realizing what he was doing, Chad gave Ryan a peck on the lips.

Ryan flushed a deep red.

“Oh, Ducky!” Mrs. Evans giggled and wrapped her arms around Ryan. “I’m so happy for you!”

“I – I’d better take Chad home,” Ryan said uneasily. He grabbed Chad, and they were suddenly on Chad’s front stoop.

“I’m sorry, man. After the past few weeks, I – Sorry,” he mumbled.

“It’s alright. I was going to tell them. Not like that, but I was going to let them know.”

"Hey, you haven't gone all schizo on me since New York didn't explode," Chad accused.

"That comment itself was rather schizo," Ryan said dryly.

Chad flushed. "I just remembered. I've been thinking about other things," he said defensively.

"It's like I told Peter: it's about finding your center, about balancing yourself."

"Wait, what does that mean?"

"It means that all parts of me are in balance together when they weren't before."

"Oh. I like you whole."

Ryan smiled shyly, and Chad kissed him again, deeper and more intimately. “I’ll see you on Monday,” he whispered into Ryan’s mouth.

Ryan nodded and disappeared.

“I’m home, Ma!” Chad announced as he entered the house.

“I’m glad, honey,” she said from her perch at the top of the stairs.

* - * - *

“Where the hell have you been?!” Troy demanded as Chad shoved his backpack into his locker.

“New York,” Chad shrugged.

“You and Ryan went to New York? Without telling me?”

“I’m sorry, man. No one could know.”

“Secret spy business?” Troy raised his eyebrows mockingly.

“No, well, kinda. We went to stop it from blowing up. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Who’d believe me? Did you succeed? Well, obviously no bomb went off.”

“Ryan did it! It was amazing, Troy! And genius!”

“Sure, just don’t go waxing poetry about his eyes.”

Chad shot him a dirty look. “Dude, he stopped the city from exploding and killing millions of people. We didn’t go on a romantic dinner and then fuck in the Viper.”

“Actually, we did,” Ryan said nonchalantly as he passed the two in the hallway.

Chad flushed. “After the city didn’t explode,” he responded weakly.

“You drove a Viper?!” Troy shrieked.

“Yeah. It was one of the coolest experiences ever.”

The warning bell rang, and the two boys made their way to homeroom.

“Hey, where’s Gabby?”

“She’s checking out colleges in the Northeast like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. She’s smart enough to get in, but she’s gonna be really far away.”

“Hey, man, college does have breaks.” Chad thumped Troy on the back encouragingly.

* - * - *

Chad took a sip of his Long Island Iced Tea and dug his toes into the warm Caribbean sand.

“Have I told you lately how much I love your island?” he said lazily.

Ryan laughed. “Yes, every spring break for the past four years.”

“I think I should say it again: I love your private island!” Chad shouted to the sky.

Ryan levitated over to Chad’s chaise and dropped into his lap.

“Show off,” Chad grumbled.

Ryan kissed Chad soundly, extracting the sweetness of Chad’s drink from his mouth.

“I don’t like to burn my feet on the sand.”

“Hmm, baby,” Chad taunted into Ryan’s hair as Ryan kissed down his throat. “And I’ve never seen someone so lily white, especially if that someone owns his own Caribbean island.” Chad swatted Ryan’s butt playfully and accidentally toppled over his cocktail.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do next year?” Ryan asked, wrapping his arms around Chad’s neck.

“You haven’t already heard it in my mind?”

“I want you to tell me yourself,” Ryan said, feigning arrogance.

“Law school. I’ve applied to three of them: Columbia, Duke, and Georgetown. My LSAT scores are high enough and so’s my GPA.”

“What’s your top choice?”

“Columbia, dude. It’s in New York and so are you.”

Ryan smiled. “I could help you, you know.”

“That would be cheating,” Chad tsked.

“So?”

Chad drew Ryan in for another kiss.

“You’re changing the subject,” Ryan accused.

“Is it working?”

“Mmm,” Ryan hummed approvingly. “Very much so.”

Ryan drew away, and when Chad reached for him, seawater was dumped onto his head.

Chad squawked in shock as water dripped from his curls. “That was playing dirty, Evans!”

Chad surged up to catch him, but Ryan kept teleporting around the beach as well as flying just above Chad’s reach.

“Cheater!” Chad scolded.

Ryan grabbed Chad around the waist and flew out over the water.

“Don’t you dare drop me!” Chad shouted as he squirmed.

Ryan kissed him behind the ear and dropped Chad into the waves.

Chad sunk into the water like a stone, and when he had stayed under long enough for Ryan to become concerned enough to inspect where Chad had entered the water, Chad leapt up from the water and dragged Ryan under with him.

They both emerged gasping for air and laughing manically before swimming in to shore.

Chad presented Ryan with his elbow. “May I have this dance?”

“You may.”

They danced around in the surf until somehow they started chasing each other around splashing the other.

“Ryan!” was screeched over the sand. “Have some self-respect! You’re an Evans for Christ’s sake!”

Chad winced.

“Did I forget to mention Shar’s spring break starts today?”

“Yeah, you did forget,” Chad grumbled. “But I’m not going to let that ruin our fun.” He splashed Ryan with his foot and ran off down the beach.

Instead of teleporting in front of him, flying after him, or stopping him in his tracks, Ryan ran after Chad and tackled him down to the sand in a fit of giggles.

* - * - *

The end.


Thanks for sticking around this long to read this!