conceal | ryden

[01]

brendon.

jon greets me at the gate, warm hands and a warmer smile. he's gotten a haircut since the last time i saw him, brown hair no longer messily obscuring his eyes. we wander into school together, arms brushing. people often think we're dating, but we aren't. it's nice to be close to people, in my opinion.

we draw closer to our lockers, and i instinctively clutch my schedule tighter between my fingers. locker 285, jon 282, spencer 279, dallon 289, patrick 287. i've memorised my classes for today already; english, physics, music, history, french.

i see spencer and dallon, recognisable by how tall dallon is. i wave them over, and they quicken their pace.
"bren!" dallon hugs me, half lifting me in the air. spencer rolls his eyes at us, grasping jon's hand and they wander over to their first class.

"what's your schedule?" dallon asks me. i hand him the crumpled paper, already worn from my fingers rubbing over it. he glances at it for a minute or two, eyes flicking between his own and mine. finally he hands it back, paper held between two fingers, opens his mouth and quickly shuts it again.

"look who it is, loverboy," he says, spinning me around by my shoulders to see who walks by. i elbow him good naturedly, but stop when ryan ross and pete wentz wander over to us. my heart beats stupidly faster, and i press my back against the cold metal of my locker, as if it would make any sort of a difference. dallon hooks his hand under my arm and pulls me to a corner, grinning.
"i felt your heartbeat speed up, brendon."
dammit.
"i know you like him, heck, i'm pretty sure the whole year group- besides ryan- knows. including pete wentz. patrick told me."
i just elbow him. again.

it's first period english, and only the ghastly noise of the teacher's squeaky chair is keeping me from dropping off to sleep then and there. it's a class all five of us share, right at the back. spencer turns around theatrically, ink smudged down the side of his hand.
"so brendon," he says, resting both arms on my desk and leaning his chin on top. "if you still have the love eyes for ross, why not just talk to him, dumb ass?"
"it's really not that simple," i mumur back, dropping my head onto my desk dejectedly.
spencer sighs.
"why not get dallon to talk to him?"
"why me!?" dallon yelps quietly. "lower your voice, idiot. also, it's because you're the only moderately sporty person in this group."
dallon rolls his eyes.
"just because i'm on the track team, it doesn't mean i'm suddenly close to ryan ross. the guy is practically a celebrity here."
i turn my head slightly, resting it on dallon's forearm. he smiles.
"i'll think about it."

it's physics when patrick hands me a note, eyebrow raised. i shake my head. "you're all so involved in this," i complain. patrick just smiles at that.
"you'd hate it if we weren't, though. now read the note, assbag."
i unfold the note, scanning the words.
i'll talk to him. no promises about anything, but you gotta join track as well. don't try tell me you can't, i've seen you run to buy popcorn before the store closes.
-dallon.
"join track? is he crazy?"
"he's right though. you're a good runner when you want to be," patrick says, hiding his words behind his physics folder.
"fine."

it was, not fine. i was out of breath by the first lap, and somehow i had to become usain fucking bolt by tomorrow, when ryan ross was covering our track time as part of a project. i wasn't really listening, as dallon told me while he jogged next to me. i was focusing more on not dying from physical activity.
trust dallon and his long ass legs to get me into this, not that i minded skipping half of physics, where the entire classroom smelt of burnt rubber from a mishap last month, and the teacher frequently only wrote the page number for the textbook on the board before checking her facebook.

we were early to music, however. the teacher could tell we were passionate about it and let us use the largest practice room, asking us to perform every once in a while to count towards our grade. it was nice, all five of us, just being together and creating.
we worked together as a band; kind of, besides the fact that we had two bassists, and that patrick and i both sang, played drums and guitar.

dallon somehow was the last one into the practice room, making jon sigh with mock disappointment when he finally entered.
"you're late," he said, doing a terrible impression of our old gym teacher. dallon just shook his head. "i was with the ryans," he said, glancing in my direction.
"they're actually really nice if you talk to them brendon, i don't understand why you won't just-"
"you were the same before you got together with breezy. remember james?" i teased.

everyone knew about dallon and james; it took him months to start talking to him, and when he did, james moved away.

"this is about you and ryan, not me and james." dallon mumbled. "anyway, ryan seaman plays drums. we've been thinking about playing together, do you guys mind?"

"course not," patrick says. "don't worry about it."

"thanks pat."

lunch was when we just ate our way through the never ending stash of snacks buried in our bags outside, using each other as pillows. out of the corner of my eye i could see the football pitch, a circle of people eating together. just the thought that ryan ross was one of them made my hands sweat.

i share history with ryan; him sitting two rows in front of me. he seems so happy, chatting with pete, ryan, tyler and josh.
i share french with dallon and patrick; both of who are nearly fluent; good because i barely understand even the simpler grammar rules.

it's to jon's house after school with spencer, me half- tagging along with the couple. i fall asleep after texting my mom that i'll be staying the night, during some crime documentary after pelting jon with kernels of popcorn.
thoughts of ryan invade my sleep.

[hii!! hope u enjoyed this.
this is like a fanfic that i'm really excited for, like i'm planning it out and everything lmao. i'm gonna make the chapters alternating pov's.
aLSO HAVE YALL HEARD HIGH HOPES bc i love it!!!????? djdjdjdh]