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Chapter Text

Everyone and their mothers always seem to think that Shane is the bravest person on Earth, since he apparently isn’t scared of anything. And that frustrates him to no end. Because, he is scared of a lot of things, including his infamous fear of being forced to try heroin and being hooked on it for life, which is completely irrational – by the way – even though he will never admit it. And, just because he’s not scared of ghosts and other supernatural bullshit doesn’t mean he’s brave. Not being scared of something that doesn’t exist isn’t called bravery. It’s called sanity.

In fact, he is not only “not brave”, but also probably a coward. Why else would he act like a fucking thirteen year old with a stupid crush, tugging on their ponytails and then running away, while furiously blushing and giggling? Well, he doesn’t do that exactly. But that’s maybe because Ryan’s hair is just way too short for ponytails.

Yes, indeed. Shane is in love with his best friend. And, what scares him the most is that he isn’t even trying to fight it anymore. He throws around the fact that he’s in love like it’s the simplest, most boring thing ever. And, even though he would never admit it to anyone, except for himself, that calm acceptance of the fact horrifies him to no end.

But, he does have a bigger fear – Ryan not loving him back. And the scariest thing is that’s the reality. Ryan doesn’t see him as anything, but his best friend. And, it would seem that best friends eventually becoming lovers is the most natural and logical thing to happen, and it is so in many situations. But Shane just has to be the unluckiest person in the whole fucking universe, and not be one of those best friends, who is just obviously perfect for their other half in every way possible.

How does he know that Ryan doesn’t love him back, one might ask. Where are the proofs? Well, there are plenty. And by plenty, Shane means two.

First of all, Ryan explicitly denies any sort of possibility of a romantic relationship between them any time he gets a chance. And, when it comes to an absurd situation, where Ryan is simply talking about communication and compromise between them, and then feels the need to clarify that they’re not dating, Shane just can’t deny it anymore. Ryan obviously appreciates him, but only in the most platonic way possible.

And, second of all, it all comes to the most important, shocking and revealing point. Ryan is actually the courageous, amazing, brave one of their duo. He goes into all these places, where he thinks he might be scared, injured, or even killed. He is terrified, but he still goes through it. And he comes back again and again. That’s something that Shane always finds fascinating in Ryan. That’s probably one of the reasons why he’s in love with him. And, he knows for a fact, that if Ryan – as brave as he is – has really felt the same, he would’ve told him a long time ago. Which didn’t happen. And which proves his ultimate and possibly a bit over-dramatic point: he will always be alone and pining for his best friend, while making stupid jokes and acting like a middle schooler.

‘Hey, you ok?’, Ryan’s voice pulls Shane out of his depressing train of thought. They’re still on the road, in the middle of nowhere, going to some haunted mansion for the millionth time.

‘Yeah’, Shane answers softly, almost in a whisper. ‘Just thinking about’, he stops for a second, ‘stuff, I guess’.

‘Stuff?’, Ryan asks, raising his eyebrows, without taking his eyes off the road, ‘What stuff?’

‘Just, different things, you know’, Shane shrugs, wanting nothing more, but to get away from this conversation, ‘Nothing to worry about’.

They continue driving in silence, only radio quietly playing some newly found indie band in the background.

=====

At first, the ‘ghost hunting’ goes as usual. They are going around the haunted mansion, Ryan is jumping and getting scared of every little sound, convinced ghosts are talking to him through his annoyingly loud spirit box, while Shane is laughing, joking and just generally enjoying himself. But then, they go into the last room.

‘This is said to be the most active room in the whole house’, Ryan says in his ‘theory’ voice, sounding even more scared than usual, ‘That’s where all the murders happened’.

‘In the living room?’, Shane asks surprised, ‘So he, what, invited the victims over for a tea party and then killed them?’

‘Yeah, pretty much’, Ryan answers, slowly looking around the room with a flashlight in his hand.

‘Wait, seriously?’, Shane sees a bust of some kind of a guy, probably some famous politician or some shit like that, sitting in the middle of the room on a stand. He comes a bit closer.

‘Yeah’, Ryan explains, ‘The problem is that he was considered this great guy, who was nice to everyone. He actually invited a lot of people to his house, including a lot of policemen and the detectives. The murders happened once every six times, and the victims he chose were always people, who didn’t have a lot of friends and relatives, and wouldn’t be particularly missed. And, the weirdest part of it all is the fact that the witnesses saw the person leave the mansion after the visit, and only then they disappeared’, Ryan stops for a second nervously swallowing, ‘To this day, no one knows how that happened. The only reason he even got caught was the dismembered bodies found buried all over the park. Specifically next to the place, where the kids loved playing’.

‘Wow, what?’, Shane asks, disturbed, ‘That guy was fucking awful’.

‘Yeah’, Ryan breathes out. Suddenly, both Shane and Ryan’s flashlights go off.

‘Oh my God dude, what the fuuck?’, Ryan yelps, murmuring ‘what the fuck?’ over and over again.

‘Chill, just let me turn mine back on’, Shane says calmly. And the second he says it, he hears a loud noise, and then Ryan screaming. Shane manages to finally turn his flashlight on, and the first thing he sees is the bust he mentioned earlier broken on the floor, and then Ryan standing next to it, looking as scared as ever.

‘Hey, dude, calm down. It’s nothing, probably you just turned around in the dark and knocked it down’, Shane theorizes, but when Ryan doesn’t respond, still standing there looking at the broken bust, he starts worrying and comes closer.

‘Hey, are you ok?’, Shane asks, putting his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. He feels that Ryan is shaking. Shane isn’t even sure how he hasn’t mentioned that before, because now he can obviously see that his friend is visibly shaking like a madman. When Shane goes around him and looks at his face, he sees that he’s crying. Now Shane is genuinely terrified for him, he touches his arm.

‘Hey, let’s just get out of here, ok?’, Shane suggests in the softest voice possible, but Ryan doesn’t respond. ‘Can we- can we turn on all the possible light here? Just, turn on the lights you have or something’, Shane asks the crew. While they turn on the lights, he tries to talk to Ryan.

‘Ry, hey. Just- just look at me. Could you look at me?’, Ryan still doesn’t respond, ‘Ok, ok. Can you move then? Let’s get out of here, I think that would be good’.

Ryan doesn’t nod, but he slowly takes Shane’s right hand into his own shaking right hand, Shane puts his left hand on Ryan’s waste to support his movements, and they slowly come out of the house.

When they come up to Ryan’s car, he seems a little less startled, but he’s still crying and shaking, so Shane says, ‘Hey, you should breathe. Just breathe. Inhale-exhale’.

He tries to say it couple of times, making Ryan breathe properly, but it doesn’t work, so he takes his hands away from him, and then hugs him, wrapping him around in his big long limbs. ‘Can you listen to my breath? Just listen to it and try to mimic it. Inhale-exhale, just like me’, it slowly starts working, and the last thing Shane whispers softly is, ‘There you go’.

After Ryan finally calms down, they sit down in the car, and he immediately starts driving. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, or anything, for that matter, so Shane doesn’t say a thing. They spend the whole drive in silence.

Chapter Text

The next day, Ryan doesn’t show up at work, and that makes Shane feel so uneasy that he can’t concentrate at all, ending up going home earlier himself. His house is a short walk from the Buzzfeed office, and he isn’t planning on doing anything, but coming home, making himself a nice cup of coffee and watching whatever garbage they show on TV these days, to take his mind off of things (those ‘things’ mainly being Ryan). And, it really isn’t his fault that the second he turned left to his street, he saw a bus coming up to the bus station. And that bus oh so conveniently had a number 28 on it – the very bus that stops almost directly in front of Ryan’s house.

And you know what? Shane loves buses. As a person without a driver’s license Shane is probably obliged to hate all the public transportation, and he most certainly does – to some extent. For example, he definitely hates the subway. People just seem grumpier there, it feels like everyone knows what you’re thinking and is judging you for it, there never seem to be any seats left, no matter at which hour you get on the train, and it’s just always really dark, boring and depressing.

Buses, on the other hand, are very different. There is just something so charming about them. Each seat – especially the ones by the window - feel like your own confined space, it’s public and yet somehow private, like its own little world, usually filled with music and dreams. You always manage to be one of those people, who gets a good, comfortable seat, and you can look out of the window – at people, streets, nature, and it all doesn’t seem as horrible as it usually does.

So, with that in mind, Shane hops on the bus, going to the very end of it and takes the seat in the far left corner, right by the window. The drive will take about 30 minutes, and he could think about what he’s going to tell Ryan, how will it all go, or just simply – what the hell is he even doing. But, instead, he snitches his tangled headphones out of his pocket and, after untangling them, plugs them into his phone, and puts his playlist on shuffle, drowning in music and trying his hardest not to overthink anything. Actually, not to think at all. Because he knows that even if the tiniest thought crosses his mind, he will turn around and run. Run, and never turn back.

=====

The bus stops at his station right at the time, when the song in Shane’s headphones ends. Other people might call it a sign of luck or faith. Shane, of course, will call it a coincidence, if he even pays attention to that, which he obviously doesn’t. To be fair, his mind is occupied with something else. Something much more important than some stupid song ending in a convenient time. He is thinking about Ryan, and he feels strangely happy about what he’s about to do. Yes, he is not entirely sure what he’s about to do, and yes, he still feels anxious and like he’s about to just fall on the ground, because he’s a bit weak in the knees – and not in a good way. But he’s still content with what he’s doing.

Ryan’s house is a one minute walk from the bus station, but it feels like a whole hour, and Shane is getting more and more afraid of what’s to come with each step. When he finally comes up to Ryan’s house and stands in front of the door, it takes him a couple of minutes to become brave enough to actually ring the bell. And, after he does, it takes Ryan just a couple of seconds to swing the door open.

Shane feels like he falls in love with him all over again. Ryan stands in front of him and he seems even tinier than usual. He looks a bit sleepy, but not like he’s actually just slept recently – more like he’s been laying in bed the whole day, doing nothing. But, he also looks tired, and even though that worries Shane a bit, Ryan doesn’t look any less cute than usual. On the contrary, he looks unfairly adorable, and Shane has to put all his efforts into sustaining his urge to hug him and never let go.

‘Shane?’, Ryan asks, obviously confused, ‘What are you doing here?’

Shane isn’t quite sure if Ryan’s tone is just tired or frustrated, but he feels like he certainly shouldn’t be here nonetheless, ‘I just thought I might check up on you’.

Shane feels weird again. Or maybe he’s felt weird this whole time, but now he can just feel it more vividly. Either way, he’s sure now that he indeed has a mentality of a thirteen year old, because only a thirteen year old would do something like this, and then just stand there uncomfortably, looking down at his boots, like they’re the most wonderful thing on Earth, which is certainly not true, because Ryan is standing right there in front of him, ‘But, I can go, if you want?’

‘Oh, God no!’, Ryan says, smiling a bit. Shane feels much better all of a sudden. Maybe it’s because he might be the sole reason why Ryan Bergara has just smiled on possibly one of the shittiest days of his life, ‘I’m actually really happy you’re here. I’d appreciate some company’.

The next couple of hours were amazing. More than amazing actually. They’ve been drinking beer, watching trash TV, joking around and talking about nothing. Shane feels much more relaxed now, like everything’s back to normal, whatever that might be. And Ryan seems to feel better too. But then the credits start rolling on the TV screen, signifying the end of the episode of whatever it is they’re watching, and Ryan grabs a remote, turning it off, ‘Can we talk?’

‘Erm’, Shane mutters, ‘Yeah, sure. What do you want to talk about?’

‘Why are you really here?’, Ryan asks, after a short silence, looking at Shane intensely.

‘I already told you, I’m here to-’, Shane starts explaining, but Ryan interrupts him.

‘Yeah-yeah. To check up on me’, Ryan sounds a bit angry now, and Shane is just really confused, ‘That’s all bullshit’.

‘What-’, now Shane gets kind of angry too, because he doesn’t understand what the hell is going on, ‘What the fuck, Ryan?’

Ryan stands up from the couch and starts going around the room, ‘Jesus, it’s just that I-’, and he stops, ‘With what happened, and you, and I just thought-’.

Shane is majorly confused now. At this point, he would sell his soul to the devil, who he is convinced doesn’t even exist, just to understand what is going on through his friend’s brain. Since he can’t do that, he just stares at him, waiting for an explanation.

‘Jesus Christ, Shane, just-’, Ryan says, quickly coming up closer to him and bowing down, kissing him.

At first, Shane doesn’t respond. In fact, Shane’s body doesn’t respond to anything anymore, and neither does his brain. Is this a hallucination? Did someone actually catch him in the street and inject heroin into him? Does heroin even cause hallucinations? Not really. Maybe he got into a crash on a bus, and he’s in a coma right now? By the time he manages to relatively ground himself in reality, he feels Ryan pulling away. And, it doesn’t matter what’s really happening right now. The only thing that matters to Shane is Ryan’s lips on his, so he grabs Ryan’s t-shirt and yanks him forward, kissing him, Ryan ending up on his lap.

=====

The next morning, Shane wakes up, and not in his own bed. He is one of those people who lays with his eyes closed for couple of minutes, before fully waking up, and not because he’s sleepy or anything, but just because it’s a habit – sort of a morning ritual. He lays on Ryan’s bed, thinking about the events of the previous evening. He remembers passionate kisses, flattering words and hot shaky breaths. Shane smiles, finally rolling around on the Ryan’s king sized bed, only to find that the spot next to him is empty.

‘Don’t panic’, Shane thinks, ‘Rationality and logic are the best assets anywhere. He probably just cooks breakfast, or went out to buy something’. So, to check his theory, Shane stands up, finding his boxers and putting them on. He comes out of the bedroom and goes to the kitchen. When he doesn’t find Ryan there, he checks all the other rooms and asks if Ryan is there multiple times.

After making sure that his friend (are they even friends now? what should he call them?) isn’t in the house, he decides to stick to the second theory. So, he pours himself a cup of coffee, and sits down in the kitchen, scrolling through his twitter feed.

Half an hour passes, and Ryan is still not there. Shane slowly starts panicking. When the third cup and the second hour end simultaneously, Shane finally stands up, looking around and seeing the empty place he’s in for what it really is.

The whole house screams: ‘This was a mistake’.

Chapter Text

Shane doesn’t understand how could he possibly allow himself to be so opened, so vulnerable yesterday. He doesn’t understand how has he even allowed this whole thing to happen.

On the verge of tears and in desperate attempts to switch his brain off and just stop thinking, Shane runs around the house picking up his things at the speed of light. He tries not to relieve the memories of last night, though he can’t help, but remember why his t-shirt is hanging on a plant in the corner of Ryan’s bedroom, or why his beanie is laying pressed into the sofa, hiding, thanks to the privilege of having the same color as Ryan Bergara’s living room couch.

Everything about last night is drastically wrong, and Shane hates himself for feeling like it’s the rightest thing ever.

In hopes to escape the overwhelming memories and guilt, Shane leaves the house as quick as possible, hoping he hasn’t left anything behind. Except for his heart and soul, of course. That he gave to Ryan a very long time ago. And, being raised right, he knows that one can not claim back the present one has already given away.

=====

The alarm clock rings, but this time not to wake Shane up – just to remind him a new day has started. He hasn’t slept much, not that he was expecting to. Ryan has taken away his precious hours of sleep countless times before, the only difference being that it’s the first time he stole something from Shane without even being present at the crime scene. Shane feels determined to even the score. Maybe he’ll grab a pen from Ryan’s desk without asking, or something like that.

Shane lightly chuckles, feeling downright pathetic.

He slowly stands up, slowly showers, slowly eats, slowly puts on his clothes. The whole morning is just slow. Very slow. It’s like he has drained all his speed powers yesterday, and went from the Flash to a simple snail in one night. ‘One night can really change a lot’, Shane thinks.

Yes, that is exactly how he feels – like a snail, except without a shell. He maybe has a house, or – rather – an apartment, but he most certainly doesn’t have a home. But, he’d love someone to step on him right about now, to end all of this misery, so maybe it wasn’t all that bad.

Shane thinks that he should probably take a bus. With today’s speed of his, and only fifteen minutes until the beginning of the work day. He fears he might be late, even though his usual walk to work takes about seven minutes. So the bus seems like a perfect solution for his current snail-like behavior. But, when he comes up to the bus station, already feeling uneasy, and then sees a bus, he feels like he can’t breathe anymore. And, it doesn’t even matter that it’s not the wretched bus number 28 that he decides to blame the biggest mistake of his whole life on. Maybe his biggest fear are buses now, so that’s why he turns around and decides to go to work by feet after all. He feels like he is quicker all of a sudden. Fear would do that to you.

=====

When he comes into the Buzzfeed office, being a bit late, but unnoticed, he looks at his desk, and notices that Ryan isn’t there. Probably running some errands or something. Shane is trying not to think about it, or anything, at this point, simply feeling relieved that Ryan isn’t around yet. He sits down at his desk, throwing his phone at the table, and putting his headphones on. He wants to do everything as quick as possible in order to get the hell out of there early.

He is trying to focus on his work, but then he sees Ryan coming out of another room, and quickly looks back at the screen of his computer, desperately trying to look as busy as he possibly can, but actually not being able to focus on anything but following Ryan with his peripheral vision. He is sort of angry that he has nothing to listen to at the moment, and even though his headphones are on, there is nothing playing in them, which means he will hear Ryan, if he decides to talk to him. And Shane just isn’t sure if he can ignore him, and not say anything back.

Thankfully, but also unfortunately (Shane is still trying to figure out what exactly he feels and what exactly he wants) Ryan just passes by him, sitting at his desk, not saying a word. He seems occupied with something, and of course Shane wanted him to do just that – ignore him, and thus the problem. But, he also feels like something died inside him the second Ryan just calmly passed by him, like he is a nobody, and not his best friend.

At the end of the day, Shane somehow manages to do everything he has planned, so he waits a bit for Ryan to go somewhere, and then starts gathering his things, preparing to leave. And that’s when Jen, looking super exhausted, comes up to him, ‘What’s up, Shane? You already leaving?’

‘Yup’, he says, nodding, ‘Why? Is there something wrong?’

‘Okay, well. Listen. I’ve got this video due tomorrow and I haven’t even started editing it yet’, Jen explains, ‘There is no way I can edit it alone, and everyone else is either really busy or already left’.

‘Ok’, Shane sighs, sitting at his desk again.

‘Seriously?’, Jen exclaims, ‘Shane Madej, you’re a fucking life savior! I’ll send it to you and you’ll start, ok? I owe you’.

‘You definitely do’, he says, smiling. He knows it isn’t his brightest idea to stay, when Ryan is still here, but he just couldn’t turn his friend down. Besides, he feels a bit better about himself, like he has some sort of purpose for the first time in past couple of days. Like someone actually needs him.

When he sees Ryan coming up to their desk again, he quickly puts on his headphones that he put down a while ago, because they were giving him a bit of a headache. Nevertheless, he makes eye contact with Ryan for just a second, and suddenly feels like his friend is absolutely devastated. ‘It’s probably nothing’, he thinks, ‘Just my imagination’. Deep inside Shane knows that there is more to it than that, but he can’t bring himself to think about it. Because it will either take him to a really dark or an unrealistically hopeful place. Neither of which is a good option.

=====

Two and a half hours after Shane starts editing the video, he looks up at Jen’s table, and sees her, with bags under her eyes and a hand under her chin, looking desperate, but unable to concentrate. He stands up, coming up to her, ‘Hey, Jen’, she looks up at him, looking even more tired than she seemed from afar, ‘You should go home’.

She gives him a puzzled look, ‘But, we haven’t finished yet’.

‘Yeah, I know’, Shane nods, smiling, ‘But it’s ok, I don’t have anything to do today anyways, so I’ll just finish it and then send it to your gmail’, Jen doesn’t respond, or stand up, so he puts a hand on her shoulder, ‘Really, you look like shit. You gotta get some sleep before you pass out. I can deal with this’.

‘Ok, well’, Jen finally stands up, looking somewhere past him, ‘Maybe you could ask for some help’.

Shane follows her gaze, and realizes that she’s looking at Ryan, ‘Sure, maybe’, he says, not meaning a single word of it, because he’d probably rather run off to another country than talk to Ryan again. ‘There goes me being dramatic again’, Shane thinks, ‘Where did that come from?’

Thankfully, Jen already starts gathering all her belongings into her bag, thanks Shane and leaves the room. Only now does Shane realize that Ryan and he are the only ones left in the office. He comes up to his desk, sitting down and trying to focus his attention back on editing, instead of the fact that he and Ryan are in the same fucking room alone.

‘Hey, do you need help with that?’, Ryan suddenly appears behind his shoulder, and Shane feels like his heart has just stopped.

‘No, thanks’, Shane answers, swallowing, refusing to look at Ryan.

‘Look’, Ryan breathes out after a minute of silence, ‘I know you feel weird about- About what happened. But, we have to talk about it eventually’.

Shane considers it, sighing and turning around in his chair, ‘There is nothing to talk about, ok? I get it, you’re straight and you’re not into that kind of thing, so-’

‘Wait’, Ryan interrupts him, ‘I am anything, but straight. I thought I made it abundantly clear, with how I kissed you and everything that happened after that’.

‘Well, ok. Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyways’, Shane closes his eyes for a second too long, ‘I understood everything, when you ran away after that night. You don’t want me, and it has probably ruined our friendship, and-’

‘Wait a second, what the fuck?’, Ryan interrupts him again, ‘You are the one, who ran away!’

‘No, I’m not! I woke up and you weren’t there’, Shane says, feeling slightly offended.

‘Because I went to work? You had a day off then, so I didn’t want to wake you up. I thought you would wait for me, and we would figure this out, but you just… disappeared’, Ryan explains, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Shane suddenly starts laughing. Because, really, this whole situation is fucking hilarious. The only thing that was a mistake about that whole night was Shane after it ended. How could he think that Ryan would just run off like that? That’s something Shane would probably do. In fact, that’s something he did. And he was an absolute idiot because of that.

‘Why are you laughing?’, Ryan asks, genuinely confused.

‘Because I’m an idiot’, Shane exclaims, calming down a bit, ‘A complete fucking idiot’.

Ryan smiles, laughing a bit too, ‘So, what are we gonna do?’

‘I don’t know’, Shane shrugs, suddenly getting serious, ‘What do you want?’

‘I don’t know either, but I hove some ideas’, Ryan says, and Shane gives him a puzzled look, ‘I’m just trying to decide if I’d rather punch you or kiss you right now’.

Shane feels butterflies in his stomach, and he thinks that he’s acting like a middle schooler again, but in a good way this time, ‘I would certainly prefer the latter’.

And so Ryan smiles the most adorable smile ever, leans down and kisses him. This kiss doesn’t feel like the kiss from couple of days ago. That night’s kiss was desperate and sad and full of passion. Today’s kiss is very different. It’s slow, soft, full of love and feels just right.

When there isn’t enough air in either of their lungs, they finally pull away, smiling as wide as ever. ‘Well, we gotta finish this thing now’, Ryan looks at Shane’s computer screen, ‘But then, you could go to my place if you want. No funny business, though. Just some good ol’ cuddling’.

Shane smiles soflty, most certainly feeling like he’s thirteen again, ‘I’d love to’.

=====

When Shane lays down in bed, Ryan in his arms, he feels extremely tired all of a sudden. Probably the fact that he hasn’t slept the previous night finally kicking in. So, he closes his eyes, slowly intertwining his and Ryan’s fingers, and falls asleep, finally feeling at home.