Ryden Oneshots 【2】

The Danger of Martha Stewart Living (1)

Summary: It all started with an innocent trip to Home Depot.... and then there was frilly aprons and things that are really, really not cupcakes and Dr. Phil is a sound-transmitted virus.
Or: The one where Ryan tries his hand at domestic activities with varying results, usually in the category of disaster.

(P.S. thank you shotgun-weddings for sending me this ♡)

Ryan knows his childhood was less than conventional. It wasn’t bad, it just -- didn’t quite fit with the “normal family” standard. That was okay. Ryan didn’t really miss his mom, and his step-sisters never liked him anyway, so having them gone was nothing traumatic. Plus, half of all marriages ended in divorce anyway, so the split wasn’t anything shocking. And, okay, his father had a drinking problem, but it hadn’t started out so heavy. By the time he was an alcoholic, Ryan had already formed a surrogate home with Spencer.

His family was unconventional, and Ryan accepted that. He really did. But that didn’t keep him from wanting. A more sober father, a mother who gave half a damn, a house that didn’t reek of beer, a garden.

Yes, a freaking garden.

All the other houses on his block had had immaculate front lawns, complete with flowerbeds, rose bushes, and sharply pruned shrubs. A lot of hot summer days had seen Ryan and Spencer playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles under Ginger’s watchful eye, as she carefully weeded her plant beds. (They were seven, okay? And TMNT will never not be awesome.)

Anyway, now that Ryan has grown up, made a platinum album, bought his own home, and finally has a break between tours, hewill have a garden.

So here he is, ambling around Home Depot’s Garden Section, examining plants with a skeptical Spencer in tow.

“Okay… tell me again, what it is you’re doing?” Spencer asks, scrutinizing a withered mass of green that might have been a shrub once in a distant, not-dehydrated past.

“I’m getting plants.” Ryan examines an African violet; he thinks it looks okay (not that he would know, but it looks alive and pretty and that’s enough for him).

“Yeah, I can see that,” Spencer drawls as Ryan adds two of the violets to his cart, “but, why?’

“To plant.” So, maybe Ryan’s being a little evasive, but seriously. Spencer didn’t have to come along and bug him, okay? (And maybe Ryan is also ignoring the fact that Spencer is giving him a ride to and from Home Depot. What? Ryan’s car is not meant to shuttle dirt and bugs. Spencer could have just lent him the car, but no... Spencer had to come along because “I’m not letting you drive my car when you’re stoned, Ryan”)

“That would be the primary function of plants. But why the sudden interest in landscaping?” Spencer had abandoned his disapproving staring contest with the once-shrub, leaning back against the cart cautiously, as if he thought its orange paint might flake off and start choking him with its ugly.

“It’s not sudden; we just finally have some free time. My yard looks ugly anyway.”

Spence doesn’t look particularly satisfied with this answer either, but whatever. Spencer needs to stop ruining Ryan’s foray among the flowers with his cynicism.

“Hey, what exactly is ‘mulch’?” Ryan pokes a bag of the substance in question, nose wrinkled in disgust. It smells moldy.

Spencer shrugs, “I think it’s dirt or something. But, like, with nutrients in it.”

Ryan nods and puts a couple bags in the cart.

* * *

Stupid sun, stupid dirt. Ryan wipes at the sweat trickling down his forehead. Stupid Vegas. Why the hell is summer always so hot?