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“Danforth, wait up!” Ryan yelled out, breaking into a light jog to keep up with Chad's pace. “You avoiding me, puddin’?”
Chad rolled his eyes at the nickname.
It all began his freshman year of high school when Troy Bolton dropped an armful of chocolate pudding cups in front of Chad and the team during lunch hour.
“Troy-“ Chad tried to question, immediately cut off by a finger pointed in his face.
“I dare you,” Troy started, trying to think of a good reason to get his friends to down 35 pudding cups before gym class. “No, I challenge you all to a dare. Whoever eats the least amount of pudding cups has to ask Sharpay to homecoming.”
There was a brief moment of silence as the team stared down at the pile of pudding cups. In a flurry of movement, they all lunged for the cups at the same time, breaking the seals and digging in like no tomorrow. Two of the cups had broken open on impact, the sticky sweetness of the chocolate pudding smeared all over the white surface of the lunch table. Chad was seven cups in when he heard a shrill scream from the other side of the lunch room.
“What are you neanderthals doing in my lunchroom, covered in-” Sharpay Evans faltered as she waved her hand in the general direction of the table, “dirt! You people are so barbaric, it’s disgusting. Just, ugh!” The boys snickered as she continued complaining, cursing the basketball team as she walked past. Ryan Evans was strolling beside her, shaking his head with the same disgusted expression.
The blond boy stopped in front of the table for a moment, and Chad inhaled a deep breath when he realized that Ryan was looking at him.
“You’ve got a little…” Ryan brought his hand up and drew a circle in the air in front on his mouth, “pudding.”
Chad wiped a hand over his face and felt the cold pudding rub off on his fingertips. A blush rose to his cheeks in... embarrassment? Yes, embarrassment, and Chad was relieved that Ryan was already walking away before he could see it.
At first, the nickname was “chocolate pudding boy”.
Ryan and Chad were assigned as lab partners in their sophomore chemistry class. It wasn't even two weeks into the semester and Chad had already considered asking the teacher to assign him a different partner.
“You’re doing it wrong, Danforth,” Ryan would say, like he always did, because for some reason Chad could never do the lab correctly. “The burette is upside down, and you don’t even have the right flask…”
"The instructions say to use a graduated cylinder to measure how much water we need-"
“Yeah, and you’re using a beaker. Give me that, chocolate pudding boy,” Ryan scolded as he grabbed the beaker from Chad and dumped the distilled water down the sink in the center of the lab table.
"Chocolate pudding boy?" Chad gawked, insulted.
“Hm, you’re right, that is quite the mouthful. Pudding boy flows a bit smoother though,” Ryan thought out loud, smiling stupidly as Chad kept opening and closing his mouth, trying to come up with a response.
“Here,” Ryan cut him off before he could speak, shoving a graduated cylinder into Chad’s hand. “Go fill this with distilled water, pudding boy.”
“That was one time!” Chad frowned. “Why me? I wasn’t the only one eating pudding.”
“Yeah, but you were the only one with pudding all over your face.”
“Not true!”
“Yeah, yeah, now go,” Ryan turned the boy around and pushed him towards the sinks in the back. “We’ll never finish the lab if you keep pouting like that, pudding boy.”
Chad scoffed at the ridiculous nickname.
Over the years, the nickname would change. From “chocolate pudding boy” to “pudding boy” to “pudding” to-
“You avoiding me, puddin’?”
They were in the empty locker rooms of the Lava Springs Country Club, just moments after a very heated baseball game. Chad didn’t know that Ryan could play baseball like that – play any sport, for that matter – but that game had intensified the feelings he'd be trying to suppress the entire summer. More like the past few years, if he was being honest, but Chad tried not to think too hard about that.
“Will you ever stop calling me that?” Chad asked, throwing his helmet on the floor more aggressively than he intended and moving his hands up to undo the ponytail at the nape of his neck.
“Hmmm, let me think,” Ryan slurred as he pushed himself off the lockers and walked over, bringing his fingers up to his chin in mock consideration. “No. No, I don’t think I will.”
Chad shook his head and let the curls fall in front of his face, trying to not let Ryan’s proximity get to him.
“I’ve been thinking of some nicknames for you, actually,” Chad said and began unbuttoning his baseball jersey. He tried to ignore the way Ryan was watching him.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Chad stopped undressing himself to stare at the blond in front of him. He was just as sweaty and dirty as Chad was, his hair all ruffled and clothes unkempt. He looked good like this, Chad thought to himself. No longer perfect and put together, but still just as pretty.
“Well?” Ryan raised an eyebrow in question.
Chad took a breath, inhaling deeply through his nose and exhaling loudly through his mouth, and kissed him.
Chad expected this first kiss to be slow, he expected Ryan to be surprised by it. But Ryan leaned into the kiss with no hesitation, his hands moving up to fist the fabric of Chad’s open jersey, pulling Chad down to his level. He expected this kiss to be soft and sweet, but found himself pushing Ryan against the lockers, one hand holding a fist full of blond hair and the other wrapped around Ryan’s waist, pulling him impossibly closer. When they broke apart for air, Chad expected Ryan to say something sentimental, something about feelings, something like having a crush on Chad since freshman year, something about all the times Ryan made fun of him for having chocolate pudding on his face. But instead, it was –
“It’s about damn time.” Ryan buried a hand into Chad's curls and pulled him down for another kiss.
“Fucking brat,” Chad mumbled against his lips, chills running down his spine when Ryan moaned into his mouth.
“That’s really the best you came up with?”
Chad just bit back a smile and went in for another kiss.