#and people let Shane get away with stuff like ‘oh this poor innocent white man he probably is mad at Ryan too >>:((‘

[myguydaniel]

watcher really just,, don’t want their audience to enjoy their content huh

[deathfrisbeeinthetardis]

Bliss 7 and 12 please ;-;

Thank you anon, I absolutely adored writing this prompt, but being me I ended up with more angst than I planned to write for such a sweet prompt, but the ending is soft I swear. I hope you like it

Prompt Bliss 7. “Look at you… Goodness, you’re so cute.”

Ryan doesn’t know what they are even doing at this point.  

This is the tenth time this month that he had lingered at the office after work, throwing himself into doing and redoing his editing as people trickled out and the buzz faded away. His neck is straining and his eyes ache, but he catches himself before he rubs them, not wanting to jostle the contacts. The office is not the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, but he would give up his bed and all his jerseys if it meant he could be spared from his mind.  

There is no use thinking about it really, what’s done is done, but he can’t help his reluctance. It’s just an apartment, his rationality says. But why does every empty space hurt to look at, his heart whispers.

There are so many of them now. 

So he had hung back, and Shane had stayed with him, the two of them editing their various projects side by side, a giant bucket of Chicago Popcorn™ Shane’s parents had sent between them.

The problem, as it usually was, is that Shane’s company and some good old fashioned sleep deprivation don’t mix well, and productivity took the fallout, their work ethic gradually sliding off the table until they’re positively undoing efforts that they’ve already put out. 

Yes, maybe Ryan had something to do with Shane’s elbow and back crashing onto his laptop keyboard and deleting nearly two hours of editing, but it’s Shane’s fault he doesn’t save the videos every two minutes like Ryan does, non-compulsively of course. 

So their nights aren’t the most productive, but it’s off-hours so no one can really tell them off. The office is empty, unflipped light switches plunging patches of desks into shadow between the bright spots in mesmerizing patterns. The warehouse desk layout leaves much space for the mind to fill, but Ryan’s worked here for so long that he knows every twist and turn. He’d bet good money that he’d win in a ghost race through this organized mess. 

Ryan’s pretty sure the only person doing actual work tonight has chosen to evacuate from their desk to one of the corners farthest away from the pair of them. He feels a little bad to bother him with the un-moderated volume of their conversations and the not-so-infrequent giggling fits, but right now he’s too relaxed and happy to care. It’s the only time he gets to feel like this anyway. 

The Unsolved title card flashes, pulling his attention back to the screen, a white bar inching through the multicolored blocks of carefully compiled video and audio files at the bottom of the monitor. Ryan’s quite proud of this one, the crew were able to get some stellar shots on-location and there was probably one of the clearest spirit box replies they’ve gotten, no matter how hard the other man tries to discount it. 

“Aww you cut that part out again?’ Shane pouts beside him, headphones perched precariously on his big head.

"You can’t just go and tell ghosts they’re gonna be on Youtube every time.” Ryan swivels his chair to face Shane, a lofty air in his voice as he does his best to look down his nose at the other man, even going so far as pumping his seat up a few inches. Shane’s lip trembles like he’s holding back a laugh. It’s an argument they’ve had before, and Ryan knows how it’s going to go almost down to the line, but it’s always fun, so he plays the game. 

“And why not?" 

"They’re not from this time, they don’t even know what electricity is!”

“So you are admitting the spirit box is wack.” Shane rubs his hands together evilly, smiling so wide he could have been in that truth or dare movie, no special effects needed. “Oh, this is very good.”

“I did not say that,” Ryan protests, nudging Shane’s leg with a foot and feeling intensely satisfied when the boot leaves a dirt mark on the other man’s dark jeans. Jeez, they are literal children sometimes, but Ryan never has this much fun. 

“It’s just, they’re ghosts, and they’re making the effort to reach out to talk to these two idiots, cut them some slack.”

“You’re the only idiot here. I, Shane Madej, am a man of science.” Shane doesn’t even have to level up his seat and he’s still taller than Ryan. It is so, so not fair. 

“This is science!”

“Uh-huh,” Shane says, deadpan. There is movement just out of Ryan’s periphery, and he cranes his head to see the guy leave, wincing internally. He should probably apologize for being loud, but that can totally wait a day. Maybe two.   

“There has been plenty of evidence on ghosts and you know it.”

“From what I’ve seen? You really want to go into that?” There’s a challenge in Shane’s posture, and Ryan feels a rush in his chest that overruns the empty ache there, sees the trap but he jumps anyway.

“Hell yeah I do, we’ve caught some pretty good stuff along the way, Waverly, ‘brown and white’?  The freaking Sallie House?" 

"We both know the whole flashlight test is horseshit, Ryan.” Shane smirks, leaning back in his chair languidly with his hands behind his head, “As to the rest of those, the demons and ghosties gotta work harder than that, cause right now they don’t seem very interesting.”

  “How dare you! They’re more than interesting. They were all people once.”

“Let’s list what they’ve done, hmm? Jostling toothpaste, nudging bouncy balls, whispers so gentle you can’t even–”

“Nope I’m not letting you trivialize the evidence, it was fucking creepy to hear those on location.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re a wimp.”

“Fuck you.” Ryan shoots back, but there’s no real feeling behind it. He pulls a serious face to match Shane’s, squaring his shoulders and oh watch how fast he folds now. 

The other man’s joy is infectious, and soon Ryan is joining him, their laughs swallowed up by the high ceilings and far walls. Ryan’s eyes catch on the lights shining down on Shane, tracing golden lines along the edges of his lanky figure against the shadowed monotony of conference rooms. Breathless and curling into themselves, their gazes meet and linger across five feet of space.

They’re just two guys working into the small hours of the night, just another aspect of their life that their ghost hunting career has bled into, it’s all normal. 

Except it isn’t. 

Neither of them needs to be here to work, least of all Shane, and really, Ryan thinks with a twist in his chest, it has just been the two of them spending time in each other’s company. And Ryan does genuinely enjoy it. He loves the ease of their interactions, how they can hound each other mercilessly and bicker, how Shane can poke that special unhinged laugh out of him and make him forget about everything else. 

And how he, in turn, can make the big guy’s eyes all curvy and bright like no one does. 

But there’s no use thinking about things like that. 

There could be, a small voice says, a light shining weak in the churning abyss. Ryan passes a hand over his face and keeps it there, not trusting himself to not let his heart spill right out. 

“Ryan?”

He had thought he found the one with Helen, the person in the world he’d like to spend his life with, but then things had started falling apart, and she had left. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Ryan knows, but he had gotten used to having someone to come home to, someone who knows him for who he is. 

You can have that again, the voice goes on small and determined, and Ryan wishes he could block it out. Isn’t he always good at that on their investigations? It was basically in the fucking job description. 

You just have to let yourself see.

Shane is safe, someone to trust, someone to rely on. No one else would have born with him all the times he lost his mind in those haunted places. No one else would have hummed Mama Mia to him constantly in those first days when Ryan hid the pain so well on camera, knowing the familiar tune would take the tears away, if only for a minute. Just one Shane Madej hailing from the Land of Lincoln, his co-host, his best friend, and the most important constant grounding him while the rest of his world is turned up-side-down. 

“You okay buddy?” There is a sharp tone in Shane’s voice, and Ryan belatedly realizes his eyes are wet. Shane’s face is flushed from laughing, but now he leans forward and there is suddenly so much care in the slight tension of his shoulders that Ryan wants to cry. 

He can’t risk losing this, he doesn’t know what he would do if he manages to fuck up this last good thing in his life. 

“Yeah,” He gives the other man a small smile, turning back to his screen to start up the video again, and he feels Shane relaxing back into his chair reluctantly. 

Soon he’s leaning forward again, attention rapt on every little detail Ryan had painstakingly compiled. 

“Hmm, didn’t you make a face at that point?” Shane taps a finger against his chin, eyes narrowed in concentration as Ryan reaches out to pause the replay, the lines of blue and yellow stark against the black background. 

“Oh, that? I didn’t think it would anyone would be interested to see it.” Ryan’s fingers tap at the keys for a few seconds, pulling up the clip from the front camera and overlaying it on the video. 

"I didn’t know it was gonna scare ya.” Screen-Shane says, tipping his head to the side and schooling his face into an impressive mask of innocence as he batted his eyes at screen-Ryan.

In-real-life Ryan feels warmth coil in his chest at the memory, and he smiles as he watches himself sputter for a bit, finally settling on a determined, You know what you did. He actually huffs out a laugh at his piss poor attempt to look intimidating, when the camera angle in the VO booth put Shane so much clearly taller. 

On the screen, Shane’s looking down at Ryan with a grin, though he at least has the self-awareness to look a little sheepish. Their eyes lock, and with an appropriate pause for dramatic effect, “I do.”

The clip takes another few seconds to end, their raucous laughter sound from his speakers. Then Ryan’s left with the still of both of them looking at the camera, frozen grins bright on their faces, captured in time. 

And Ryan’s caught in fucking limbo again, his free hand flexing in on empty air at the edge of his desk.  

“Good stuff huh?” Shane’s voice is quiet. 

“Yeah.” Breathe, just breathe, how is that so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard. 

“You considering switching the text out for this?” There’s a smile in Shane’s voice, and Ryan clears his throat and drags in a shuddering breath. 

“No it's—I’ll uh, I’ll put it in.” He hears Shane wheeling close on his chair, but he doesn’t turn to look, locking his eyes on the monitor and busying himself with the familiar shifts and adjustments. He just needs a bit of time to clear his head, then he’ll recover the ability to be a half-decent friend again, he’s sure of it. 

Ryan’s got his cursor hovering over the clip, leaning forward to keep an eye on the time markings when Shane loses a soft breath, his voice an awed murmur. 

“God, you’re so cute when you’re focused." 

And Ryan’s world freezes over. 

Around the edges of his vision, he sees realization, surprise, and something like fear flit across the other man’s face. But Ryan doesn’t do much, just holds as still as he can, like he can stamp down the giddy hope in his chest before it even has a chance to rise, so he can convince himself that it’s all just a freakishly detailed fever dream, because Shane can’t have just said that. 

Shane saw him as a friend, nothing more. Ryan does want that to be true, he really should. 

Breathing is becoming such a fucking bother again, he thinks absently. Maybe if he didn’t do it, life would be much easier. 

"Oh-oh god I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that, what kind of shitty friend am I—just,” Shane breaks off, dragging both hands through his hair and tugging in frustration. When he finally speaks he sounds broken, voice thick as if he’s holding back tears, “I’m so sorry.”

It’s all too much, there’s a loud rushing in Ryan’s head. He bolts out of his chair, needing the freedom in space to think, to process. His chest tightens when Shane flinches at the sudden movement, eyes wide, fingers white where they’ve wrapped around the arm of his chair in a death grip.

He needs air, Ryan thinks, and his feet start carrying him away, faster and faster. But Shane follows him, and it has always been like this, he supposes. Ryan takes the lead and Shane hops on for the ride, for better or for worse, always a steady presence at his side when he needs him the most. Sometimes even when he doesn’t want to.

Shane’s steps close in and he catches at Ryan’s arm, “Ryan wait, please.”

Ryan blinks hard, but he doesn’t get to wake up this time. Shane’s fingers are burning points of pressure on his mind. 

He opens his mouth to speak but there’s a strange taste, two cool lines trace down his face and his vision is swimming, and oh wouldn’t it just be perfect if he blacked out, poor little Ryan, can’t even take a fucking joke without fainting—

“Oh god, don’t cry Ry, please, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Was it a fucking joke.” Ryan bites out, voice barely louder than a whisper but it still comes out harsher than he means. He can’t look at Shane, so Ryan keeps his eyes down, stares at the mud on Shane’s boots from their last shoot. He needs to know. 

“No,” Hurt, that’s what it is, and there’s far too much of it in Shane’s voice for it to be right. “No it wasn’t.” Shane lets go of Ryan’s hand to curls an arm around himself, and Ryan aches for the burning contact like it’s a physical wound. 

“Oh.” It’s more a punched out puff of air than a word. Oh.

“I-” Shane swallows, eyes shifting then settling back on Ryan, “I was looking at you, and it-it slipped out, I’m sorry.”

The silence isn’t complete, of course it isn’t. The sound of traffic exists at all hours of the day here. But it still envelops Ryan, wrapping around his throat and trying to suffocate the words he’s struggling to form. 

“Don’t be."  

"What?” Shane breathes, hesitant, almost disbelieving, his eyes dart to search Ryan’s face, “you’re not saying—do you—”

“I think I can.” Ryan says, and he tastes truth on his tongue. 

Not now, not even tomorrow, but maybe next week, or the week after that.

“You do?"  

"I do.” He affirms, and Ryan’s throat closes up with something warm when a lopsided grin starts to form on Shane’s face, small and hopeful, a gentle flush creeping onto his cheeks. They’re just standing in the office looking at each other, and Shane’s hand lifts up a little as if to reach out, but he catches himself before it makes it into Ryan’s personal space. 

“You wanna head back home? I’ll pack the popcorn.” Ryan can’t really breathe, so he just nods and offers Shane a watery smile. 

Their fingers brush when Ryan hands Shane a blanket for the couch, the corners of Shane’s eyes are crinkling and Ryan is breathless. He’s been feeling like that a lot tonight, and it seems that life is determined to keep him that way with all the curveballs it’s been chucking at him. 

But this time it’s not a bad feeling. Not at all. 

He fiddles with his sleeve and watches Shane settle down, making his way around his apartment with a familiarity accumulated over years’ worth of movie nights and beers and popcorn. 

It’s still too soon, and he doesn’t think he can do anything about this whole thing he’s got himself into. But he’s got Shane with him, and for once Ryan’s not afraid he’s going to leave. 

And maybe, Ryan thinks. Maybe one day he won’t need to hide from his apartment and its empty spaces.