Wonderful Caricature (Ryden)

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my favourite thing about this fic will always be ryan's wit bc he's a sarcastic turd and i love him for it.

also i'm not really trying to make anyone 'sound like they're in the 80s.' i think i've only intentionally done it a couple times.

this is just pretty much how my brain works lol.

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There have been very few times I'm actually glad to have a day off.

Not that I'm a real workaholic and I want to be in drag 24/7, 365, but it's a nice escape. Being someone completely different is a wild gig. For however long I keep my makeup and heels on, I'm Rosie. I'm not Ryan, I'm someone else. I disappear so Rosie can live in my place. And sometimes, no one's the wiser except me. Maybe that's how actors feel. When they get so caught up on camera, they almost forget who they really are. They convince an audience that who they really are is that character. Make them think that the second the credits roll, that character could really be out there, living and breathing and.. existing.

Crazy talk, right?

Occasionally brought to you by yours truly when I have nothing else to clutter my mind with.

Early in the morning, late at night, or midday this time. When everything's so quiet, you could hear a pin drop in Pittsburgh.

Well, maybe not quite that far. Maybe Chicago, where Pete and Patrick are from.

I've always kind of admired their relationship. Whether it's romantic or just friendly is well beyond me, but at the same time, it doesn't really matter.

You don't see people who really care for each other like they do everyday. I've known them both for years and nothing between them's really changed. Pete has never let anyone lay a finger on Patrick and Patrick is always there to bail Pete out of trouble.

I remember one time during my freshman year of high school, someone's car got keyed and it was torn up pretty bad. The guy immediately accused Pete of doing it, for whatever reason, and he was supposed to be out of school for a good week. By the next day, word had travelled around quick because teenagers can hold in gossip for about as long as a goldfish can remember. It reached me by around my second class of the day, but it had definitely reached Patrick just a touch sooner. My classroom happened to be near the school's office and I remember seeing him walk past, looking calm as can be. Like he wasn't about to play lawyer with the vice principal. Which is exactly what he ended up doing. I never heard a word of what he said and to this day, I've never brought it up with either of them. I didn't see a reason to. Pete was at school at 8 o'clock sharp the next morning, smiling and laughing with Patrick like nothing ever happened.

That's not to say Pete's never saved Patrick's ass from a couple of scraps.

I was usually a witness to these kinds of ordeals because for the first couple months of high school, I wasn't friends with them. Until I was.

Sporting events were never my cup of tea, but I decided I needed to actually leave my room at least once every couple of fortnights, so Patrick would sometimes pick me up and we'd go watch Pete's soccer games. Even now, I can't deny that Pete was a damn good soccer player. Probably the best our school ever had. If I remember correctly, I think he told me once that the last time our school won state champs was in the 50s, until he came along and they won in his junior year. Yeah. He was kind of a godsend.

Anyway.

This particular game wasn't state champs or anything really special, or so it seemed at first. Patrick and I were sitting high in the bleachers. Not because they were the best seats or it was taboo for a junior to be seen with a freshman, we'd just mutually decided that we hated everyone else and would rather be on our own. It also gave us a good vantage point on the game, though neither of us really knew much about soccer. Or sports. Even with our limited knowledge of the sport, we could tell when something didn't quite seem right. Pete was always at the top of his game for things like this, things he genuinely enjoyed doing. Nothing could break his focus. So when he suddenly tripped, or rather was suddenly tripped, and fell, I initially didn't think much of it. The intentional trip was a touch suspicious because the other team was only down by three or four points and there was plenty of time left in the game, but people stumble and fall in soccer all the time and Pete had fallen before and gotten right back up like nothing had happened. That night, something did happen and Patrick was worried far before we even knew what it was. A time out was called while Pete struggled to get back on his feet and when he finally figured out that he couldn't, he was hauled off the field and someone else from the bench took his place for the rest of the game. Patrick jumped up from his spot and made a run for the stairs as Pete was being taken away and I followed suit as soon as I saw Patrick jump. I knew we weren't going to get to Pete and suddenly solve all of his problems. Contrary to what you might think, I'm not a doctor and neither is Patrick. It took me a second to find Patrick because he was a few seconds ahead of me, but I eventually found him under the bleachers with the most terrified look on his face with the tears prickling his eyes threatening to spill over at any moment. I tried my best to convince him that Pete was going to be fine and this kind of stuff happened all the time in sports, at least I thought it did, and just as he started to believe me, a couple of jackasses found us. One was blonde, the other was a redhead and covered head to toe in freckles galore. Both of them were taller than us, not exactly a hard task to do, and they were probably seniors. Whether they were or not, they decided they had a bone to pick with us. The blonde one singled out Patrick for just looking like he was going to cry and Patrick's not the confrontational type, especially not when it comes to defending himself, but I was there and with my voice like a squeaky toy, I told the guy to fuck off and leave Patrick alone. Yeah.. That didn't go over well with his red headed lackey who was twice my height and build and thought my face would make neat friends with his fist and the ground. It was really fun explaining to my mom how the hell I busted my nose at a soccer game when I wasn't even playing and didn't even know what constituted a yellow flag. I didn't pass out, but I couldn't bring myself to get up, either. Turns out jocks can pack quite a wallop when you rub them the wrong way. Patrick would've learned the same lesson I did. Except I heard the clanking and clicking of crutches walking toward us. I bet you can't guess who it was. But of course, Things One and Two weren't expecting to take any guff from a guy on crutches. That is until Pete opened his mouth and threatened to beat both their asses with his crutches if they didn't leave Patrick and I alone. They laughed. And they really shouldn't have. Pete told Patrick to take me home and he'd see him once the game was over and Patrick did just that, but before we left, I remember seeing Pete get right up in Blondie's face until Freckles pushed him away and knocked him off balance and that was the last thing I saw.