'Resourceful' was, for most people, maybe just a term that looked good on a résumé, not really [i]accurate[/i] because they never had to utilize said resourcefulness. For Ryan, though, it stood true, and was in fact the reason for his more than modest success. Really, he was sneaky. The only way to write a compelling enough story when you were young with little life experience was to draw from your own absurd tragedy, build it up or wrench excruciating detail from the slightest misfortune. Then, once all that was accomplished, slap it under a 'young adult' section of your local bookstore - teens who pretend to like reading will be raving within weeks. Ryan was eighteen when he decided his university courses were moving too slowly and followed this procedure, digging through all of his old, disjointed writing and making it into a cohesive piece; once he'd slung together a slightly morose but 'coming of age'-esque novel, publishing companies stumbled over one another to respond to his inquiries.

He was stupid enough - or just insecure enough - to call it luck when he was really just a talented writer. Ryan had wanted [i]Fever[/i] to be a one-time occurrence, then he could move on to bigger and better things; his publishing company had different ideas, knowing he'd already drawn an audience within the first six months of sales and he had to please some sort of cult following from now on. So now it was a series. Ryan's first book had been a rearranging of his own experiences, a rephrasing of all the stories he had stuck in his head. Everything was basically a 'SWIM' version of his life, all the names changed or not even mentioned, morphed into metaphors and poetic syntax that turned real stories into only vague gestures at things that had happened to him. At the time of writing, it'd been... cathartic. The few times he was called on to answer to interviews (which, by the way, he was careful enough to stray from the spotlight and avoid fame of any kind altogether), generally over e-mail or phone, he got questions about the specifics, and that made him regret coming clean at all. People always wanted to [i]relate.[/i]

Well, they couldn't, and he wasn't going to allow it. So Ryan made sure the next one was even more vague, and it wasn't just about him so he wasn't trapped in the knowledge that the general reading public was eating up his stories and turning them into their own. [i]This[/i] was why he stayed under a pen name. Continuing a series contractually would be his way out of letting his own experiences becoming public domain - although to be fair that'd been his young, dumb choice in the first place. Sure, now he had all the financial security of maybe, like, fifteen other writers in history, but still. If his name got out, he'd feel like he sacrificed all of his personal life left, and it wasn't even like he'd made anything clear. Someone truly dedicated to literary analysis may have figured out the things he was alluding to, or decoded the fact that he wasn't making a story for all the other teens and twenty-somethings reading, he was making something for himself, a glorified diary. And they could maybe piece out the fact that he was distancing himself further and further from that narrative to avoid his own past the more he added to the series, but that would probably take a while. Hopefully he'd be, like, dead, or on a remote island by that time. Would be nice.

For now, though. Ryan was safe in the solitude of a gigantic fucking piece of property in upstate New York. [i]Not[/i] the city, because that was too much, and even the city was out of his price range if he wanted something other than maybe a penthouse. In rural New York, yeah, he made it quite well. He was surrounded by trees and mountains and nature and the occasional editor or Fedex guy stopped by, but otherwise no one visited, no one came or went, and he preferred it that way. Supposedly he wrote better when he was alone, but that was a hypothetical considering he hadn't practiced any other way. Even when he was younger he was tucked away in his room, far lonelier then because it looked unlived in, immaculately clean with no posters or décor so he could make a quick escape when he did eventually get out of the house. And he did. So fuck that place. Ryan was probably definitely never going back to Colorado. Without leaving the country entirely, he'd gotten as far as he could while remaining within a reasonable distance to all of his assets, everything involved with the production company.

One thing about the series was, the further Ryan got from his original unclear wordplay and nameless, faceless descriptions, the closer he got to a real story with a real plotline and distinct characters. This meant he needed to actually know about places, needed to actual build a universe, and knowing about the places he wanted to write was an unrealistic goal to give himself, considering he never actually went anywhere. If he was to attempt to write a realistic cast of characters he would for certain fail. His best was a protagonist, and that protagonist would likely just end up being himself, for lack of another person to base it off of. And if he needed a setting, well, it'd be a huge fucking mansion in the middle of nowhere, because what other place did he know besides a lonely, desolate room in Colorado? Nowhere. Thankfully, his production company was understanding rather than mocking of his inexperience - after all, they'd be hypocritical to do that now after being so impressed by his youth and naïvety the first time he signed a book deal. Their compromise was to pay someone with real life experience to coach him through whatever details he needed.

It was his third book in [i]Fever[/i] (and as far as people knew- just not in general). Everything was practically written, but needed a once-over by someone who knew their shit. And Ryan had no clue where to find someone. He had a couple of friends in the city, which is where he'd very pretentiously chosen for the story to take place in, but Jon and Spencer hadn't grown up there. Ryan needed [i]that[/i] kind of detail. Someone who could list off a whole neighborhood in detail, talk about bodegas and what they stocked or didn't stock, someone with the ridiculous accent and everything that he totally wouldn't make fun of if they came up here. He needed someone who could relate to the character or make the character relatable, who would actually improve the story with their additions instead of just fulfill the basic requirement of realism. It was a tough pick. Ideally he could just walk onto any subway and yell for people whose certificate read 'New York City, New York,' but that would most certainly leave him wanting better. So he needed someone he could trust. Even if neither of his friends could help, he dropped a hint and hoped they'd take the bait to find him someone, save him the trouble.

But Jon and Spencer were little shits who took 2 to 35 business days to complete any task, so in the meantime, Ryan decided to stew over what'd already been written, criticize his writing until it reached perfection. Then he'd get to do it again later once there was inevitably someone standing over his shoulder, breathing down his neck annoyingly while telling him all about how the Big goddamn Apple doesn't work like that, or whatever. He didn't mind as much as he made it out to see that way, honestly, he liked the proofreading part of it all, but he was ready to get over with the obligatory contract, publish number three of four finally. The handwritten copy was on his porch with him while he lit up his already-fifth cigarette of the morning, a habit he'd picked up as soon as he could afford it just [i]because[/i] he could afford it, and he paged through it restlessly, tapping the ashes away far more often than was absolutely necessary. This was typical, honestly. Ryan stood up after ten minutes of trying to reword a sentence - "[i]'with disdain' or 'disdainfully'?[/i]" - and stared out at the garden, watching it eat more and more of his home.

He heard footsteps and didn't turn very quickly for someone who lived by himself and existed by himself 99% of the time. Apparently nothing surprised him much anymore. Even so, he still looked incredibly confused upon taking in the sight of some dude meandering onto his porch looking about ready for a road trip, bag slung over his shoulder and all. [i]Um. Hi.[/i] Okay. Ryan had the decency to feel a little self-conscious in his 'I'm alone in my house so I wear whatever the fuck I want' lounge clothes, blinking at this guy who seemed still dressed for a real job, dark hair and dark eyes a contrast against evenly pale skin. He didn't see other people often enough to really care about how attractive they were, but shit. He could still [i]notice.[/i] Nevertheless, if his intruder was pretty, he was still an intruder, and Ryan tapped nervously at his cigarette again with his index finger, ashing unnecessarily for the umpteenth time.

[b]"Hi. What the literal fuck are you doing on my porch at eleven in the morning?"[/b] was his unconventional for most, but very conventional for socially inept and dry Ryan's response. He didn't really have experience talking to people - he [i]had,[/i] obviously, just not much recently, and in fact not much since the first edition of [i]Fever[/i] came out and hit instant commercial success. He was pretty lucky that way. Anyway, his reclusiveness really made him not give a singular shit about how offensive or abrupt he might come off to some people, particularly not to someone who'd turned up uninvited. The guy seemed to catch on to how weird it was. [i]Right, right. I’m Brendon, uh- a friend of Jon’s?[/i] 'kay. Ryan wasn't sure why that was relev... oh. When he told Jon about the job, he didn't consider the fact that Jon wasn't going to be, like, delivering him people's CV's or signing on interviews for them. That was on Ryan. Maybe this was part of that. Shit. 

[i]Uh... for the job?[/i] Ryan nodded but still didn't really like the fact that he was here at all. Maybe if he stayed quiet the guy could redeem himself and, like, say something interesting to get insta-hired. What the hell was his name again? Brendon? Maybe Jon had mentioned something about him. Considering how infrequently he and Jon spoke, Ryan should be more attentive and memorize the things they talked about, but. He couldn't remember any mention of the guy for his life, and now he wasn't sure he'd even captured his name right. [b]"The job,"[/b] Ryan repeated inconclusively, then drew from his cigarette, still staring at Brendon. [b]"Right. The city thing. Sorry. Wasn't expecting anyone. Do people from New York usually bypass doors? And- knocking on them?"[/b] He turned and stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray before turning and opening the door inside, all in one swift motion. [b]"Feel free to use this one. I don't think Jon told me about you, so why don't you do the honors?"[/b]