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Chapter Text

Shane

xxx

“Mathematically, I’m just saying, it’s possible this guy is there. Still alive. Killing people.”

“Okay, well, it’s also mathematically possible that a bear jumps out of the woods right now and wrecks our car, but…” Ryan tilts his head like he’s made a good point, and he absolutely has not.

Shane squints, smiles a little. “I’m not sure how math factors into that.” Ryan cuts his eyes across the car. “But I’ll give it to you because I know how much you need some W’s.”

“Wow, thanks,” Ryan says and means not a single word of it. “That means a lot.”

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Shane says. He’s been saying it for the past sixty miles. He feels like he’s been saying it since he was born, at this point. Because it is such a bad idea. “I’m thrilled that you’re getting your whole bravery pants on, really, I am, but this shit happened three years ago. C’mon.”

“Yeah, three years, and nothing’s happened. The last known sighting…” Ryan says sighting like they’re talking about bigfoot and not a murderer of twelve humans. “…was in Maryland. And we are definitely not in Maryland.”

They are not.

It’s a weird shift: Shane being uneasy, and Ryan being semi-chill. Not a great one. How does Ryan do this all the time?

Shane leans back, pretends to focus on the scenery as more and more signs promise this drive is nearly over. And they’re nearly at the breeding ground for a mass murderer. Oh boy.

“I know you’re sitting over there, probably like, ‘oh, Ryan’s such an idiot, he’s afraid of ghosts but not serial killers.’” Ryan does a voice that’s probably meant to mock him but falls squarely in the adorable category.

Shane raises his eyebrows but doesn’t bother responding. Because adorable voice or no, that is exactly what he’s thinking right about now. “I’m thinking your sense of self-preservation is a sham. You absolutely seek out things that you believe are a danger to your person.”

“Oh, and you’re so incredibly invested in my person?”

“I am! I enjoy your person. I would like it not to be carved up and put on a Christmas display.”

Ryan laughs, and Shane can’t begin to fathom how that’s even remotely funny.

“It’s not that I’m not scared,” Ryan explains. Shane raises his eyebrows a little higher. “Just the odds of us running into this guy when nothing has happened in three years is so low, and this is going to be such a good location. People are gonna flip. Maybe we’ll find something good.”

“I feel like that’s probably a… I feel like that’s probably someone’s last words. Multiple people’s actually…” Shane adopts his own mocking tone, one he’s confident is a thousand percent less adorable than Ryan’s. “People are gonna flip! Ya’ll! Watch this!” He mimes reaching for the car door and barrel-rolling out onto the road.

Ryan grins a bit before he breaks into a fit of giggles. Shane’s lips turn up just a little more as he slides back into his seat. No one can laugh like Ryan, and no one lets themselves laugh like Ryan, and Shane almost forgets that he’s about to go wander around the lair of a damn serial killer while he listens to it.

A phone vibrates in the center console, and Shane reaches for it. Ryan does too. Their hands slam into each other in a sorta violent middle school plot twist. Ryan’s eyes slice up to him, and Shane thinks a spike of pulse bounces between them as his fingers slide over Ryan’s knuckles in an effort to pull back. They’re ridiculously smooth.

An odd thought to have, he decides.

He keeps his eyes on Ryan’s, feeling his eyebrows raise on their own, because this is a spectacularly weird moment.

“It’s my phone,” Ryan says, and grabs it—ending the weirdness. Shane almost thanks him. “Oh, hey, TJ and the crew are there already. They’re checking us into our rooms now.”

Ryan’s mouth twitches, which means he wants to make a joke. Shane returns the would-be smile, even though he knows exactly what the joke is going to be. Besides not funny. “I guess ol’Robert hasn’t got to them yet,” Ryan says.

“Ryan!” Shane says. “That’s disgraceful! I thought you believed in ghosts! Are you telling me ghost-TJ couldn’t have texted us?”

Ryan smiles, doesn’t quite laugh. “I don’t think ghosts can check people into hotel rooms, unless you need me to explain again how it’s a manifestation of energy an—”

“I don’t! I really don’t!” Shane shakes his head and jams his shoulder into the car to get as far away from that shit as physically possible. Ryan giggles, and Shane smiles in spite of himself.

TJ is not, in fact, dead, and has checked all of them into their rooms. Shane and Ryan are sharing because it’s their show, and “people love seeing them together,” according to TJ, and the entire crew, and every other person that he’s ever spoken to about this show.

Ryan throws his bags to the floor and turns as Shane flings himself onto the bed. He’s two seconds from taking off his shoes when Ryan says. “C’mon, I want to get some shots of the locations now. It’ll be good to have options in editing.”

Shane groans. Ryan Bergara is not a person. He is, in fact, a thousand tiny cycling tasks wrapped in a very small package. He never stops. It’s no wonder he has trouble sleeping. He can’t actively accomplish something if he’s asleep. It’s a wonder he doesn’t just wither.

“Can we at least get a drink after it?” He sits up. “Better yet, before.”

Ryan pulls a half smile, but shakes his head. “No, the drinking on the job was a one time thing.” The dusk pink whispers over his shoulders and frames him a little like a halo, and Shane kinda gets why he wants shots in this lighting. “After.”

Shane pulls himself off the bed one limb at a time, and it takes ages, because he has a lot of limb. “I’ll take it.”

Ryan lets TJ and the crew stay behind because apparently he only hates Shane. Also he wants to be in the clothes they’re going to wear to shoot. But Shane doesn’t mind being alone with Ryan. He actually prefers it since it’s less noise to process.

The first location is a fairly open park. A few people are still walking around, and the sun hasn’t set, so Shane’s more at ease than expected. The last time he was so worked up was at Keddie Cabin, and he blames the gray sky and rain for half of it.

It’s warm here, and it settles on his skin like a reminder that this doesn’t have to be a murder park. Even though it is, most definitely, a murder park.

The murderer they’re doing the episode on, Robert Casey, kidnapped four people out of this park, and later planted their bodies back in the same place they’d been before they died. He’d propped one on a bench so a woman struck up a conversation with it. Fucking gruesome. He did it with all of his victims. Planted the bodies where he’d originally captured them. After torturing them or some shit.

God, what are they doing here?

Ryan handles most of the shots, and Shane watches him. It’s like watching a camera in real life. Every blink is a shutter-click. Ryan takes everything in with so much intensity. He looks aimless, but he isn’t. Not even close. He has a habit of running his finger over his lower lip as he scouts angles, and for whatever reason, Shane pulls out his phone and takes a picture.

Of course Ryan doesn’t notice because he is on another planet where he’s already editing this episode of Unsolved. So Shane keeps taking pictures. He’ll post it on Instagram later with some stupid caption, and Ryan won’t hate it because he looks good in this light. All amber skin and wide-eyes. They’re both producers, and the stark black of his silhouette against the orange park is fucking good. His eyelashes look twelve miles long.

“Are you taking pictures of me?” Ryan turns, and his eyes are only just losing the intimacy of scouting so Shane takes another picture and laughs. “So productive. You know we can’t use any of those.”

“What would we use pictures, better yet, pictures on my phone for? I clearly took them with the sole purpose of mocking you.”

The moment drags on for too long, and Shane inclines his head to try and break Ryan’s silence, and it does. “Dude, what is with you today? I can’t believe how jittery you are. You’re going to damage your reputation as a fearless asshole.”

“Well, that’s because I am afraid of real, actual things that could happen. Not flutters of wind.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ryan’s smirking and Shane knows what’s coming—he’s already rolling his eyes. “…like someone running up and injecting heroine into your arm.”

“Heroine is real, Ryan! So are needles!”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Whatever. C’mon, we’re almost out of light, and I want some shots of the house.”

Shane is a saint for putting up with this.

The house is a two-minute drive from the park, and another fun site, where Robert the Friendly killed an entire family and sat them in front of a fire place on Christmas. Shane doubted the house catching fire and nearly burning down was part of his plan, but these things happen.

“I bet that was upsetting,” he says, “seeing all his hard work go up in flames?”

Ryan peers up at him, half-smiling. “What? Like you think he went out to get a ham sandwich or something and came back like… oh, god damn it?”

“OH NO! My murder art! And then he calls the fire department with an anonymous tip and goes, a house is burning down, but you should totally check out the set up by the couch while you’re putting it out. It’s sick.”

Ryan wheezes with laughter and shakes his head.

“I’m going to hell for making jokes about this. People are dead.”

Ryan tilts his head back and forth, then decides, “Yeah, but you were probably heading there anyway.”

“Wow, Ryan, thanks.”

Robert’s Oopsie House is two stories, and the fire damage is still very much present. “We can’t go inside because it’s still damaged…”

“Guess city hall hasn’t quite got to that yet…”

Ryan laughs a little. “I think there’s issues with ownership or…”

Shane stares at the house, and thanks the lord this means they won’t be walking around inside this morbid place. “Too many—too many talks about the town flag, I guess.” He shakes his head. “They’ll get to it eventually.”

Ryan laughs harder.

Shane tries to contribute a little this time with the shots, because he was sorta staring at Ryan earlier and the Instagram excuse only goes so far. Plus they really are running out of daylight.

The house isn’t in terrible shape, which might be why they haven’t repaired it, but there isn’t enough of a door to actually keep people out. Shane is surprised there aren’t kids creeping around being edgy. But there is a shockingly low number of people on this street.

There’s just one guy across the street, smoking, and he’s old and leather-faced enough that Shane wishes he hadn’t noticed him. Especially because he’s looking over here, at the other side of the house, which probably means…

His heartbeat hikes a little as he slides around the corner of the house. He thinks the man might glance his way, but he isn’t sure and he doesn’t have time to think about it because his stomach is at his feet and that is one hell of a drop.

He rounds the corner to find Ryan midway through a wide shot. If he interrupts, then they’ll be here for another five minutes redoing it so he glances back at the man, who’s staring at the ground now with a weird grimace on his face, possibly a smile.

Ryan finishes the shot and turns to play it back, but Shane grabs his shoulder and spins him so Ryan topples forward a little too far. They’re close for an instant, and Shane is too aware of the lines of Ryan’s body. And his after-shave smells beyond weird. Shane pushes him back.

“What the hell?” Ryan asks. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s put himself between Ryan and the guy because he’s looking up again. Right at Shane’s back. God, he wishes the car wasn’t so far off. “We should probably… go. I’m hungry, and tired.”

Ryan rocks his head back and separates them further, narrowing his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

He hopes he’s imagining the guy watching them, but he can’t bring himself to say anything to Ryan. He doesn’t want to scare him, and he doesn’t want to acknowledge that the guy might really be dangerous.

He isn’t. That would be ridiculous, and Shane can’t for the life of him figure out what’s got him so riled up. Because Ryan is right. He’s supposed to be the level-headed one.

“No,” Shane says. “I’m ready to go.”

“Fine, fine,” Ryan says, “just let me get—”

Shane drops his hand to Ryan’s wrist and tugs. “We’ll get it tomorrow, Ryan. C’mon, I’m done.”

“Jesus, okay…”

Shane’s has just released Ryan when he allows himself another glance to creepy guy, but there’s no one there. Just the white pickup truck he’d been standing in front of. Shane takes a breath.

“You’re being incredibly weird, you know that, right?” Ryan asks as they near the car.

“Yeah, well, you’re weird every day and I let it slide, so buy me a beer and I’ll call it even.”

 Ryan laugh loosens the knot in his chest, and he smiles.

Chapter Text

Ryan

xxx

Ryan cannot begin to understand why Shane looks like he’s going to have an aneurism, and he’s honestly too tired to care. He keeps sliding glances at Shane, but Shane’s staring out the window like he’s going to cry or something. Ryan’s already tried, “you sure you’re okay?” but Shane just blew him off like the monumental ass that he is. So now they’re just driving.

For being so close to LA, this town is tiny. They drive past two diners, looking for somewhere that serves alcohol, because Shane is acting like he’s the one that spent the entire afternoon getting decent shots for the show. When the only shot he got was of Ryan looking ridiculous.

They end up at a bar and grill, with a dark, smoky interior lit by lights dimmer than the lamp back at the hotel, which is so fucking dim. The waitress has barely said hello before Shane’s ordering beer like it’s an epi pen and he’s having an allergic reaction. Ryan orders one too because dealing with stressed-and-or-annoyed Shane is nearly as bad as dealing with high-on-his-own-skepticism Shane.

“You do realize we have to shoot the show tomorrow, right?” Ryan asks when the waitress disappears.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Yes, which I have objected to. Multiple times.” Ryan’s jaw clenches a little. Shane not wanting to do the show opens a pit in his stomach deeper than the fucking Glory Hole. “But it’ll be fine,” Shane keeps going. “I’m sure it’ll be less ridiculously weird with the crew there.”

Ryan pulls his arms onto the table, uncrosses them and wipes the stubble along his jaw that he definitely forgot to shave. It prickles his fingers and makes him more aware of the heat, of the clamminess of his own hands.

“Are you, uh, are you planning on ordering something over there, or are you just gonna, are you hoping to… derive substance from shifting and sighing dramatically?”

Would anyone notice if he just unrolled the silverware, took the knife, and stabbed Shane in the eye with it? Would they? Probably not. There’s like four people in here, counting the staff. He’d write it off. He’s researched enough murder mysteries that he could make it work.

“You’re thinking about murdering me again. I can see it in your beady little eyes.”

A smile creeps onto Ryan’s face against his will, and he grabs the menu, and reads it, or really, doesn’t read it, aggressively.

Shane lets it go as they decide what they want to eat, but Ryan takes longer because the words are blurring and he can’t focus. Shane lowers his menu and watches him a little too closely. Like he’s waiting for Ryan to start in on a particularly bad theory. Ryan keeps his eyes on the menu longer than absolutely necessary.

The waitress comes and sets two beers between them and Shane takes an abnormally long chug, which is saying a lot, because he isn’t shy about drinking. Ryan pushes his glass around on the table and runs his fingers through the water droplets.

When the waitress asks what they want, Ryan just orders what Shane ordered because he honestly never read a word on the damn menu.

“What is the matter with you?” Shane presses again.

Funny, because he didn’t think it was worth answering when Ryan asked the same question ten minutes ago.

“Nothing,” Ryan answers.

“Well, that’s the biggest bunch of bullshit that’s ever come out of your mouth, and I had to sit through that damn zombie theory.”

Ryan rests his elbows on the table again, crosses his arms, and shifts a little in his chair. He hates that he feels bad for not answering when Shane didn’t answer and doesn’t seem to have even an inkling of remorse.

“It’s just kind of awkward when you don’t want to be here. What was that back there, dude? Are you freaked out or are you just bored?”

Shane throws back another swig, and Ryan could choke him. Imagines it vividly, in fact. Then Shane laughs and it screws something up inside him. “I’m not bored.” Shane smirks, then his eyes catch Ryan and he starts, leaning forward. “What? Oh my god.” He laughs so the words spike like a bad EKG reading. “Are you sad because you think I don’t wanna hang out with you?”

Jesus Christ. Ryan twitches under the heat in his cheeks, but holy fuck, that makes it sound ridiculous. “No.” He takes a breath. “But if you’re not into the show, then people are going to notice. They always notice.”

And they do. And Ryan over analyzes it every fucking time.

“I’m into the show, Ryan. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” Shane’s voice has shifted an octave deeper, and it turns the heat in Ryan’s cheeks to a bolt down his spine. Ryan worries his bottom lip and squirms a little.

Shane takes another drink, so Ryan finally decides to take one too.

“You’ve been complaining this entire time! And I’m supposed to believe you, with all your skeptical bullshit, is just so scared that a serial killer is going to jump out of the bushes and murder you?”

“Oh, that’s rich! You’re afraid of toothpaste!”

“Seriously!”

Ryan’s scooted up too close to the table, and his arms press into it too hard. The waitress brings their food and cuts him a long look. He clears his throat, leans back, and tugs at the short sleeves of his black shirt. They’re sticking to him, because jesus, it is hot in here.

“Yes,” Shane wheezes a little. “Yes, this place weirds me out. There is a lot of me, Ryan, so if someone decides to throw a knife at me, or shoot at me, or something—it would... I’m screwed! We can’t all be tiny little, uh… speedsters.”

“I am definitely more agile than you.” Ryan quirks his shoulder a little, halfway to a motion that he hasn’t quite worked out yet.

Shane dips his head a little. “I mean, I don’t know that I would say more agile. More easily frightened.”

“Which is why you’re not—which is why I know you aren’t actually afraid of a serial killer that’s been gone for three years!” He runs his hands through his hair, which is a bad idea right before he eats this food, but his nerves are shot. Because if Shane quits this show, then he doesn’t know if he’d even have a show, and…

Shane reaches across to grab his wrist. Ryan jumps a little. “Calm down, man.”

Ryan hates how worked up he’s gotten over this, but the serial killer shit wasn’t super soothing, and now there’s Shane, who seems even edgier than he is when he’s supposed to… do whatever he does to get Ryan through this.

“I am calm,” Ryan says. “I mean, as calm as I can be in the hometown of a serial killer.”

“Listen, man, I need to tell you something…”

Ryan’s heart somersalts into his throat, and his eyes widen so far it hurts. He swallows. “What?”

“Ryan…” Shane leans in. An explosion starts, crackles, in Ryan’s chest, sparks whispering along the pieces of it, making him too aware of his own edges. His mouth opens a little. “I’m the serial killer.”

A beat.

Ryan’s whole world crashes around him like a silent shatter, and he wrenches his wrist free. “You fucking asshole!” He’d hit Shane if he had the wingspan, but he doesn’t, and that makes him more resentful. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” He takes a few bites of the burger he ordered, letting Shane revel in his terrible joke.

Then he looks up, wiping at ketchup or mustard or whatever the hell he’s probably got stained on his mouth. “If you’re not into—you know, I’d just wanna know. Don’t just go through the motions, okay? You don’t have to help.”

“I think the spirit box has rubbed off on you, Ryan! I think you are becoming the spirit box! Just scanning all those… all those panic-stations, looking for shit to mumble breathily.” Ryan grabs his fork and stabs at the burger that he absolutely does not need a fork to eat. He does not want to smile right now, damn it. But damn his stupid face for ignoring him. “Look, I get it. This is your show, and it’s…”

“Our show.”

Shane smiles a little, or well, a lot. “Exactly. But it’s your brainchild, and I’m… okay, this is… I’m not just blowing smoke, here, I mean it, I’m into you—” Ryan jolts a little. Shane’s brow furrows, his jaw ticks, and his head shakes just a smidge. “Into your thing, fuck—our thi-the thing! The show! Our show! I’m into our show.”

Shane’s cheeks go just a tiiiiiny bit pink. He clears his throat and cuts his eyes to the bar. Ryan smirks.

Or, it might be more of a smile, but a smirk makes more sense in context. Either way, his anxiety is unwinding along his chest and scattering into the air like a mist. “I’m gonna let that slide.”

“Are you gonna let that slide, Ryan?” Shane asks, finishing his beer. “Because it doesn’t really sound like you’re letting it…”

“Oh, I’m letting it slide. I’m being so generous.”

“Wow, thanks. Thanks, pal.”

“So generous,” Ryan whispers and takes another bite of his burger.

The waitress shows up with one check at the end of the meal, and Shane and Ryan exchange a glance. They should’ve said separate, but it’s fine. Ryan isn’t going to bother with it. Shane’s obviously thinking the same thing, because he grabs the check and slides his card out of his wallet.

“You two are super cute,” the waitress said, flipping a messy braid over her shoulder.

Ryan clears his throat, and all the electricity from earlier pumps right back into his veins. “I, uh…” He glances at Shane, who can’t seem to work his jaw properly. “What?”

“Just, you two are a cute couple. This whole…” She gestures to the table, the two of them. Ryan notices her for the first time, and he realizes she can’t be over forty. She’s kinda pretty, and she thinks they’re—

“Oh!” Ryan chokes. “Oh, no, no, n-n-no. No, we are… no.”

“We’re not a…” Shane puts in helpfully.

“Yes, this isn’t…” The waitress is grinning like she’s in on a secret, and Ryan wants to die. “No, it’s not… we’re just, no.”

“Not a couple,” Shane says. “I’m…” He’s trying to make a joke out of this, but he’s floundering. “I’m too tall for him.”

“You are not too tall for me!” Ryan barks, without thinking it through, because god damn it if short jokes aren’t his weakness.

Shane throws out his hands, raises his shoulders to indicate that Ryan just made it worse. “See now we sound like a couple. Look what you did.”

Ryan sighs. “We’re not a couple,” he reiterates, then looks at Shane. “I don’t date sasquatches.”

“Racist,” Shane hisses.

The waitress never gets that knowing look off her face, but she nods like she understands.

There’s a white pickup parked obscenely close to the car when they get to the parking lot. Ryan hurls insults at the absent driver, but Shane’s gone pale again.

“Got a thing against pickup trucks?” Ryan asks as they climb inside their car after Ryan shimmies through the gap.

Shane starts and glances at him. Then he laughs, albeit a little forced. “Yes. I was molested by one as a child.”

Ryan squints. “The… the owner of one, or an actual truck?”

“Don’t pry into my trauma, damn it!”

They get back to the hotel, and, after a rotational round of showers, it doesn’t take Shane long to pass out. It never takes him long, and even without ghosts creeping around, whispering in his ear and poking him in the face, Ryan takes ages. He tosses, turns, turns some more. The covers ride up too high, a thousand pounds and six hundred degrees, but the sheet isn’t enough to keep him cool.

He sighs, loudly, on some level hoping Shane will wake up. He doesn’t. The hotel room isn’t much, two queen beds, a TV, and a little desk in the corner with absolutely zero well-placed outlets around it.

So Ryan wanders onto the balcony to take in the breath-taking view of the cracked asphalt and creepy orange glow of the parking lot, and it’s grand total of nine cars. He’s going to look like shit tomorrow if he can’t sleep, and if he looks like shit, people are going to notice, and… his mind starts again and he leans on the balcony railing and slides his fingers through his hair, tangling it.

I’m into you.

Shane would say it like that. He probably did it on purpose.

The night air is still pretty stifling, but it’s cooled with the lack of sun. His eyes skip to a figure walking along the edge of the parking lot, and he jumps, barely keeping the bark locked behind his lips.

Just a guy, kind of meandering. Maybe homeless. And he’s whistling, and okay, Ryan is sufficiently creeped out. Sweat clams his palms and pricks along his fingers, making them slick as he pulls upright to slide off the balcony. As he does, the man’s eyes slice up to him and it cuts like a dagger down his back.

He stumbles a little, fear pulsing through him like a current before a hurricane. He should wave, or do something, anything, that makes this moment less weird. Because the guy is still fucking looking at him.

Then the man smiles, and its worse. God, it’s so much worse. Ryan can’t move, can’t blink, because he’s got it in his head that if he does, this guy is going to be in front of him. All leather-faced and missing teeth, and then he’ll…

Shane yelps from inside the room, and Ryan’s paralysis falls away like shattered ice.

Chapter Text

Shane

xxx

Shane shakes off the terror in pieces, like caked dirt. A dream. A nightmare. Oh, god, but now he’s awake, and just fuck everything. He drops his face in his hands and rubs at the prickling bite behind his eyes.

“Shane!”

Some of the terror sucks back into his body like it’s metal and he’s a magnet, until the voice registers. He glances at Ryan who’s at the door looking not just like he’s seen a ghost, but he’s seen an entire ensemble of ghosts perform a full rendition of the fucking Nutcracker. His eyes are twelve times their normal size. Shane can see this because Ryan has turned on the table lamp and it’s casting a golden hue over him that deepens shadows.

It’s the kind of angle that brings attention to all of his lines and shadows, and screams, I work out every day. Shane crushes the need to say, ‘We get it, Ryan. You don’t have to keep bragging.’ Because Ryan has not actually bragged about his spectacular arms nor even mentioned working out.

“Jesus, what the hell, dude?” Ryan squeaks upon seeing that Shane is not fucking a ghost or whatever he expected to see. Oblivious to the mental conversation Shane just had with him.

Shane bites back his barb. This is, after all, his bad. He’d heard himself scream, even shaking off the mind-fuck that was the nightmare he’d just had. And it’s the nightmare that makes him incapable of being annoyed with Ryan and whatever spiritual experience he’s just had.

“Sorry,” is what Shane finally lands on. “Weird dream.”

“Oh,” Ryan glances over his shoulder like the ghost is outside licking the glass provocatively.

Shane clears his throat, shifts. “Yeah… you good?” The damp of Ryan’s hair grabs his attention, too new to be from an hours-old shower. “Were you outside?”

Ryan nods and cuts the light before he climbs back into his bed, curling his legs in crossways so his silhouette looks like it belongs to an honest to god twelve year old child. “I’m good.”

“What were you doing?” Shane asks, and it’s really twisted, kinda sounds like he’s pissed off. Which he isn’t. Or he doesn’t think he is. He has no reason to be.

Ryan picks up on the tone, because of course he does. “I was hanging off the balcony, singing Whitney Houston to the gas station across the street.” Shane wrestles his mouth into complacency. “I was just out there,” Ryan says more softly.

“Just chilling?”

“Yes, Shane,” Ryan says, “just chilling.”

There’s an itch that Shane is very much wanting to ignore, to tell Ryan something stupid, like be careful, or you shouldn’t go out there. As if he’s going to get swooped up by—but his mouth is already saying, “You need to be careful…”

Ryan starts, looks at him so that his whole face is twitching with incredulity. Shane’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness at this point, so he’s acutely aware of the look.

Shane presses on. “Balconies are dangerous, Ryan. You could get swooped up by a… giant bat, or something…”

“Oh, yeah, you know what? Now that I’m thinking about it… there were several large bats out there.” A grin is winding its way onto Ryan’s face. “Just circling.”

“Alright, if you want to joke about this… don’t say I didn’t warn you when you get torn into little pieces and eaten by giant baby bats.”

Ryan laughs—a quick burst of sound. “Right, yeah.”

“So no weird ghost noises? You definitely have your weird ghost noise face on.” He mimes his hand near his eyes to indicate the obscene wideness of Ryan’s.

Ryan rubs the back of his neck, slides his hand down so that it catches along his newly-shaved jawline and hangs there for a beat. “Nah, it was…” He shakes his head. “Just a creepy parking lot.”

One hundred percent a lie, but it’s—Shane checks the clock—three thirty-eight in the morning and he cannot be bothered to push it. He works himself back into his pillow. “Alright, well, goodnight. Again.”

His eyelids go heavy, but he’s so aware of Ryan. Every shift and slide of the sheets. How he pulls the covers up, then down, then he sighs a tad too hard before he thumps around to probably grab his phone.

Go to sleep, Shane wills.

Ryan doesn’t. He goes to the bathroom, then comes back, tosses some more. Sighs again.

It is nearly four a.m. Shane should absolutely go to sleep. He wants to go to sleep so much. Ryan’s insomnia is his own problem. Not Shane’s. So he can’t begin to fathom why he sits up and grabs his own phone.

“Am I keeping you up?” Ryan asks, and it’s so small. He’s so small. Too small, really. He should see a doctor.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Of course you are. That’s your little magic trick, keeping me awake as I try desperately to ignore you.”

This is different, though. Ryan isn’t scared. Generally, Ryan is talking to him, and Shane’s interested enough, or sympathetic enough, that he talks back. This is just… frustrating.

But Ryan is bothered. Shane can sense it, something has rattled him, and it’s not a ghost or a demon or a particularly excitable AC unit. So Shane’s mind keeps slipping back to his nightmare until blood feels like its rushing too fast through his veins.

He browses through his phone, tossing glances Ryan’s direction. He’s miserable on the bed, and Shane knows what might possibly help. And if he’s already not sleeping, he might as well help.

“C’mere,” he says.

Ryan blinks like he’s caught a particularly breathy EVP reading. “What?” he asks.

“Come here,” Shane repeats. “I’m playing a trivia game because you’ve ruined everything else good in my life, so help me with this dumb sports question.”

Ryan takes a second before he gets up, but he does, and walks over to Shane’s bed to sit next to him. Shane does have a trivia game up, and Ryan guides him through three or four questions before they end up watching a few Buzzfeed shows, and Shane doesn’t realize Ryan’s weight getting heavier and heavier until he’s slumped against him.

His head drifts onto Shane’s shoulder, and Shane raises a hand to shake him awake. But if he wakes him up, then he might never get back to sleep. And it’s not that uncomfortable, so he lets his hand fall again.

He adjusts his arm so his fingers rest against Ryan’s waist, and his t-shirt has come up just enough so Shane hits the too-warm skin above Ryan’s hip. It’s soft, stupid soft, but the bone and muscle push back so he finds every curve, and Shane’s body prickles. Every part of him is awake, awake, awake.

God damn it, Ryan.

He leans his head back and keeps his hand there, because it’s the only way his arm isn’t going to go so numb it gives up and moves to Nebraska. Ryan is nestled against him like a key in a lock, and Shane squints at how comfortable it is.

The rush, or weirdness, or whatever it was, from touching Ryan’s hip starts to fade, and he realizes that sleep is tugging at him, so he lets it win.

They wake up tangled, so much more than before. They slid down during the night, and Ryan, in his infinite evil, has burrowed into Shane. Fortunately, Ryan woke up first so he’s scrambling and apologizing and asking, “How the hell did we end up like this?”

“You fell asleep on me,” Shane explains, “and I wasn’t about to wake you up and risk more…” He flops theatrically, which is a lot of flop because there’s a lot of him, and sighs, twisting all over the bed, even rolling towards the end of it.

Ryan smiles, and it’s sleepy, and quite possibly cute, especially as his mouth parts and he does his little half-laugh. “I was not that bad, and you’re the one that woke up screaming like a baby.”

“That was not a baby scream.” Shane stretches and throws himself over the other side of the bed. “That was a hardcore scream. My screams are hardcore.”

“Nothing about you is hardcore.”

“How dare you?”

They get ready. Shane’s bones ache with lack of sleep. He feels brittle, like he might just collapse onto the floor like a bunch of legos. He hopes Ryan steps on them. He would deserve it, because he’s bouncing around like Simba from the Lion King waiting to be king. Really, that’s a good metaphor for him. Shane is going to call him that when his jaw unsticks from exhaustion.

TJ ribs Shane for how tired he looks, makes a couple fuck-ass remarks about what they did last night. As if, yes, Ryan and Shane had wild, crazy sex and went so hard that neither of them slept. Honestly, if Shane was having sex last night, he’s positive he wouldn’t feel so gross right now.

So he doesn’t answer.

Shane pretends he doesn’t survey the parking lot, doesn’t look for a white F-150 from the early 2000s. And he definitely doesn’t sigh in relief when there’s nothing there.

They head to the park first. Ryan takes them immediately to one of his locations, and TJ directs while Ryan talks a little bit more about the murders and the serial killer. “They cannot find this guy, which is crazy, because they have his name. They know who did it. There’s a rumor that he totally changed his face and looks completely different now.”

Not many people are at the park, and the ones that are look at them a little too long. Shane hasn’t seen the truck again, but the looks they’re getting from the rest of the town are enough to make up for it.

“Is it aliens? Is that going to be your theory?”

Ryan smiles up at him. “It can be. You want it to be aliens?”

“I always want it to be aliens,” Shane says. “The problem is it never is aliens.”

“It reminds me of something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre… but, I guess if he was walking around with a mask made out of actual human face—people would, uh, notice.”

“Oh…” Shane shakes his head, mimes looking at leatherface. “Look at this guy, he’s got…” He gestures to his head. “He’s got staples—they look like they’re holding his face in place… huh.”

Ryan laughs, hard, before he shakes his head.

They stop near the bench in the park, and both kinda stare at it like they aren’t sure whether to introduce themselves to it or run. “So this is the bench where the lady…”

“Where the lady talked to a corpse?” Shane shakes his head. “I can’t imagine that conversation was very lively.”

“Yeah, she was probably, like, trying to get advice or going through some, awful breakup or something and trying to get this stranger to console her…”

“…like excuse me, do you not see me having a crisis here? And then just…” Shane dips his head to the side stiffly, eyes wide, as corpse-like as he can be. “Oh shit, nevermind. You’ve clearly got…”

Ryan laughs until it turns into a wheeze. “You’ve got a lot more going on.”

“Or, no… I guess you don’t,” Shane says, and exaggerates a thoughtful frown.

“You two are the worst,” TJ says from behind the camera, but he’s fighting a smile too.

“But Shane is the worse-worst,” Ryan says.

They wander through the park a little more, and Shane lets Ryan do most of the talking. He’s done even more research than usual on this place, and Shane hopes he doesn’t think he can actually solve this. But that is the kind of idealistic Ryan is. He would definitely try.

It’s kind of cute, because when Ryan gets going on something that he finds exciting or interesting, he starts stumbling and tripping on his own teeth. Part of the reason Ryan has such a good smile, Shane thinks, is because his teeth are just a little too big for his mouth. So he trips on them sometimes, like when he’s scared, but this is even better because his eyes light up and every single t becomes a d, and Shane is astounded that Ryan could ever think he wouldn’t be into this.

Into…

Oh, Shane does not want to revisit that moment.

Thank god TJ wasn’t there because he would’ve said something really obnoxious like, Freudian slip, Shane? because he’s a dick.

Shane’s so wrapped up in his own head, and his theoretical argument with TJ, that he doesn’t notice the man until he’s right in front of Ryan. And then he does. Notices like he’s never noticed anything. Every hair on his body stands straight up, and his jaw clenches until it hurts.

Ryan stumbles back, and Shane catches his shoulders to stop him from tripping all the way back to LA. But he isn’t sure why, because he’d really like to be back in LA right about now. Ryan glances back, eyes wide, and fuck, he’s freaked, so Shane has to get unfreaked fast.

It’s not the guy from the other day, right? No way. Middle-aged white men are probably a dime a dozen here. Well, they’re a dime a dozen anywhere, and yeah, he’s leathery, but that’s all Shane remembers past the alarm bells in his head.

“Hey there,” the man says, and it’s just the creepiest thing a person could say.

“Hi,” Ryan says, but it bubbles a little in his throat.

Then Ryan’s hand—it moves. It wraps around Shane’s in a panic grip, pressing warmth and panic and Ryan into his bloodstream. It’s awkward, because it’s just Ryan’s fingers around Shane’s unformed fist. But Shane’s chest lights up like a pinball machine, and his fear is replaced with something brighter, hotter.

Ryan lets go. Shane flexes his fingers.

“Are you two doing some kind of show?” the man asks as he glances to the camera, where TJ isn’t moving to do anything.

“No,” Shane answers dryly, “we just like to have cameras with us all the time so we can play it back and watch for any creepy old guys.” It’s pointed, and mean, and not at all like him, but being an asshole is better than being unnerved. And Ryan’s lingering handprint on his skin is making it too easy.

Ryan chokes on a laugh.

The man smiles, and fuuuck, it’s creepy. Someone needs to tell this man how creepy he is. He’s probably just some old loser who wanders around being too friendly and menacing children into terror.

“Are you doing it on the murders?”

Shane’s stomach is six feet underground. Ryan opens his mouth to answer, but he stammers, so Shane grabs his elbow—not his hand, because Shane’s fingers are still burning—and guides him back a step so Shane is in front. It’s moments like these he’s grateful for his height.

“We are,” Shane says. “But we probably should get back to it.”

Shane moves to turn, to go back to anywhere other than this spot right here. But the man grabs his shoulder, and Shane is about five seconds from honest to god punching this motherfucker in the face.

“You should be careful,” the guy says. “Are you going back to the house?”

Back to the house. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuck.

Still just an old man. There is nothing about this that should have bothered him. He’s just a nosy old guy.

“Shane,” Ryan sorta whimpers behind him. Shane isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean because unless he attacks this guy then there isn’t anything more he can do.

Shane shrugs. “Who knows?”

“Surely you’ve heard the rumor that he still lives there.”

“Yeah, I did see that,” Ryan pipes up, trying to be brave, and Shane just wishes he wouldn’t. “But if that were the case, then I’m pretty sure they would’ve found him by now.”

The man smiles, and he’s missing a tooth on the left front of his mouth. Dear god, he’s straight out of a horror movie. “Only if they want to.”

“What?” Ryan asks.

The man laughs, and it’s this croaky, terrible thing, as he pats Shane’s shoulder, and it’s the foulest thing he’s ever felt in his life. “I’m only teasing you kids…” He shakes his head. “But you should be careful. You never know what you’re going to run into.” His eyes slide to Ryan, even as Shane tries to block his view. “Sometimes people in this town, they thrive off the fear in your eyes.”

Shane is going to assume that was a universal your, because otherwise, he’s about to go to jail.

“Okay,” Shane says. “Okay, man, that’s weird. You’re weird. You’re going to get a restraining order filed against you. Jesus.” He shakes his head. He keeps himself between Ryan and Freddie Kreuger as he gently shoves Ryan in a general away direction.

And he flexes his fingers again, because somehow, he’s still thinking about the—was it hand-holding? Not really.

The guy doesn’t follow, and once they’re far enough away, Ryan finally takes a breath, and turns to look at Shane with his my-heart-is-exploding face. “Who the fuck was that guy?” He glances back, but the man is gone. “What the hell, dude?”

They’re both staring at each other, and the situation is creeping in around them, and Shane chokes on what he thinks might be laughter. And then Ryan breaks into a smile, and an almost hysterical laugh, and Shane knows it was laughter, and they’ve fallen into a fit of half-terrified giggles and can’t seem to stop.

Ryan tries a couple times to get it together, but it just leads to more hysteria, so that those weird townspeople looks from earlier are even weirder. Finally, Ryan gasps a breath. “Seriously—seriously, what the fuck?”

“I don’t… I think he was just…” Shane shakes his head, fighting another round of laughter. “A creepy old guy who doesn’t realize how creepy he actually is.”

Something in his head whispers, that’s not true. His whole body fights, pounds against itself as he tries to calm down. He grits his teeth and wills his mind to shut up.

“You think so?” Ryan asks.

“Okay,” TJ interrupts, “you guys cool? I didn’t interrupt because, honestly, that’s going to be a killer addition to this episode.”

Shane and Ryan turn, then Shane throws up his hands. “Really, TJ? What if someone stabs me? Oh, look, Shane is bleeding out on the ground. Okay, just hold on… let me get this shot real fast. My god, the viewers are gonna eat this up.”

“I mean,” Ryan says, “they kinda would.”

“I’m quitting this show. You people are all murderers.”

Ryan looks around the park. “I think we’re good here… do you want to head over to the house?”

No, no, no.

“Sure, yeah,” TJ says. “We’ll pack up.”

Shane looks at Ryan, but Ryan’s looking down at his fingers, and he’s still flexing and shaking them like he’s going to have second degree burns.

He should probably think about why Ryan grabbing his hand is such a thing, but he already has too many other things he’s thinking about, so he decides not to.

“You, uh…” Ryan swallows. “It’s fine, right? That guy was nobody.”

And Shane just wants Ryan to stop looking at his hand because he cannot stop shaking it, so he says, “Sure, yeah.”

But it’s a lie.

It’s such a lie.

Chapter Text

Ryan

xxx

Shane is being so weird, and Ryan is vibrating with anxiety. About Shane. About weird, creepy dude. About this house. He’s barely keeping his hands on the wheel, jumping from ten to and two to ten and three-fifteen and back, but where Shane might normally notice, make a joke to cut the tension—he’s just staring at his lap, at his hands.

Mostly the one Ryan grabbed like a fucking idiot.

What was he thinking? First, the bed thing, and now… nope.

Ryan, get it together.

He grips the hard foam until his fingernails leave marks, trying to cut the shake from his hands. He’s going to investigate this damn house, and he’s going to make a good episode, and he’s going to forget any of this ever happened.

He should shut up. Or, well, stay shut up. Let Shane have whatever Shane-space he needs to get over this. But Ryan can’t stop sneaking glances, and noticing the pronounced slouch of Shane’s shoulders under his white button-down, or how he doesn’t quite fit in the seat, or how his nose is absurdly straight.

Shane has a good profile. Ryan knows this. It’s one of many things Ryan knows.

And Shane is not going to break this silence, so finally, in spite of every effort to fucking strangle himself into quiet he says, “You alright, big guy?”

Shane’s head snaps up like he’s outrun the demon from Insidious back to his body. “What?” he asks.

Ryan does not want to ask again, yet he does. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Shane says, then adds, “I wouldn’t rate myself a ten out of ten or anything. I’m pretty sure that burger was poisoned.”

It’s not exactly forthcoming, but it’s an opening, and it means they’re still normal enough for banter. “Oh, god. No encore of the airport hotdogs. I can't take it.”

Shane laughs, but it’s strained and wrong, and Ryan considers flinging himself through the windshield. And Shane just lets it sit there, this yawning, impossible silence that jams its way into Ryan’s chest like a pick axe. But he can’t say anything else, because it’s desperate and weird and wrong if he tries again.

Because Shane never tries at all. Not out of malice or spite, but because he’s capable of letting things sit, untouched, in a way Ryan never can.

Fortunately, Ryan isn’t given the chance to open his big, stupid mouth again. The house looms into view shortly, because that is all this house can do with its half-charred walls and burnt frame. It’s weird how much has survived. The back half of the roof is burned, and the windows are blasted out, but the brick is standing, almost suffocating, blackened but sturdy.

“It is, ah,” Shane says. “It’s certainly spooky.”

The words we don’t have to do this are tangled on Ryan’s tongue, fizzing against his teeth like carbonation, but he can’t get them out. He doesn’t know if it’s the need to be brave, or the terror of Shane looking him in the eyes and saying he doesn’t want to, but they sink back into his chest and knot there.

Shane has about thirty percent of his limbs out of the car by the time TJ bounds over, oblivious to the fact that Ryan is contemplating tearing off his own face. “Okay, you guys are gonna have to move real slow, because we don’t have a lot of perimeter here if we can’t go inside.”

“Not a problem,” Shane says. “I’m a slow guy.”

“Agreed.” Ryan watches the ground as he shakes his head.

Shane laughs, a breathy one that usually means Ryan’s taken him off guard. The sense of triumph is as short-lived as the laugh, though, and there’s the weirdness again.

Goddamn it.

TJ passes a long look between them, meaningful in a way that only Shane seems to get, and Ryan is struck by a prick of loneliness. And something else.

Ryan bounces a little on his toes, gazes at the hole of the second-story window of the house. His veins twist to a burn inside him as he imagines he sees the same face from the parking lot in that impossibly dark window. But he blinks, and it’s gone. It was never there.

He still doesn’t know if the man who spoke to them is the same one from the parking lot, and, in fact, he’s sure it isn’t. But his brain is determined to redraw both of them in his mind, pinpointing and highlighting similarities. Except he’s pretty sure they both didn’t have skeletal faces packed with glowing red eyes, so it would be great if his brain would shut up.

TJ and Shane are talking, and Ryan is too mentally exhausted to try and push into the conversation. But something gnarled and wrong scratches at his stomach as he watches them. Some of Shane’s paleness is receding, and Ryan wants, aches, to be the one who did it. But he isn’t.

He made it worse.

Shane looks at him, and Ryan crackles at being caught. He averts his gaze to adjust the harness holding his camera.

“So…” Shane’s voice is this soft, wispy thing. “What’re we doin’?”

Ryan shrugs, but it’s awkward and stiff and chips off his shoulders like old paint. “Uh, let’s just…” He waves at the house. “Walk around… just talk some.” For no reason, he’s defensive. “If we can’t get anything—I’ll just do voice over later.”

“Goodness, I’m not that boring.” Shane scoffs, and Ryan casts him a smile that he can’t quite keep off his face.

“You are pretty boring.”

“How dare you? I am delightful.”

And things are almost normal.

“The park scene pretty much already guarantees the episode is going to be great, so no pressure,” TJ says.

And he knows TJ is trying to be nice, and he knows that he’s right, but all he wants to do is tell him to shut the fuck up. Instead, he nods and looks at Shane. “Let’s do this.”

They set up, and Ryan doesn’t ask Shane if he’s good, or if he’s ready, he just launches into it and assumes. He walks through what he’s researched about the house, which is fucking terrifying, honestly.

“Wait,” Shane interrupts. “Wait—so these people, so this guy had an entire family hostage in their own house?”

Ryan glances back. “Yeah, everyone says he would play games with his victims. Most of them had a lot of injuries inflicted prior to their deaths, especially the family who lived here.” Shane moves to rub his temple, but his hand slams into his glasses, and he readjusts them. The sleeves of his shirt roll up a bit more, so his elbow is nearly exposed. “They called their family to say they wouldn’t be able to make Christmas Eve dinner the night before the bodies were found. People think he forced them to… or, like, they think he was there with them when they made the call.”

Shane blanches. “Jesus Christ. I’m…”

Ryan waits.

“I’m so much more uncomfortable now. This is a nightmare. That’s awful.”

“Yep, we’ve got a regular Jigsaw on our hands.”

“I feel like… I feel like we didn’t get a lot of news coverage on this. I barely remember anything about it.”

Ryan shrugs. “Yeah, it was hard to find a lot of info on it. They kept it pretty quiet because it was isolated to the town, or…”

They exchange glances, a long pause, and then their smirks start almost in tandem. “A cover up.”

“So it’s, so we’re in a whole town of Jigsaws?” Shane shakes his head. “Jesus Christ, you’re seriously trying to kill me.”

Ryan laughs for a second, before he purses his lips and glances up at the house. They step around to the back porch, and he realizes the investigation is nearly over and, for whatever reason, anxiety roars through him like a rip current.

“If it’s any consolation,” he says, “no one got eaten alive by rats.”

Shane stares at him forever, then slowly, so slowly, starts to shake his head. “No,” he chuckles with enough air to make it incredulous, “that extremely specific detail does not help.” He looks at the porch. “It worries me a little that you’re just zipping around this place like it’s some kinda, uh, sporting event.” His eyes go big. “Wait, is that it? Did Kobe kill these people? Is Robert Casey a pseudonym?”

Ryan laughs. “No, Robert Casey was definitely a white guy. All serial killers are white guys.”

“That’s true.” Then, Shane’s eyebrows raise menacingly, or, in some attempt to be, but it’s just so goofy that Ryan breaks into another fit of giggles. “C’mon, why aren’t you spooking today?” Shane nudges at him with a foot.

A fire lights inside Ryan, and he straightens, pushing an almost-real smirk onto his face. “You jealous?” He takes another step. “Afraid I’m gonna swoop in and claim your title as the brave one? So you can be the one who is like, like, oh, no, Ryan, help me! Get my holy water!”

Amusement flickers in Shane’s eyes, but he keeps his mouth in a near-straight line. “No, that’s not—first of all, I will never own holy water, and will therefore never have need of it. Because if a serial killer is hobbling toward me, trying to freaking… taxidermy me or something, then I don’t think pulling out a squirt bottle and misting him is going to make much of a difference.”

Ryan presses his lips together so he feels his cheeks dimple around them a little. A laugh is working its way out even before he says, “Taxidermy you?”

“Second of all,” Shane continues, “that is not my concern. My concern is that we are going to die, Ryan.”

Wildfire is clawing through Ryan, and all he wants to do is keep this heat inside him so he doesn’t have to touch that emptiness again. So he doesn’t have to drown in that silence that Shane too often, too easily, lets build between them.

He starts towards the house, hands clenched. Shane lets him get halfway there before he says, “What’re you doin’?”

Ryan whirls, pulse pounding with adrenaline, with a lack of fear that makes his head swim. “Going in.”

Shane half-laughs, sort of astounded, sort of amused. Sort of something else. “What?”

“I’m going in,” Ryan repeats, takes a step backwards, toward the house. Shane isn’t moving to come with him, and he swears he’ll go in alone if he has to. “Maybe he still is in there. Maybe I’ll fight him.”

“Fight him?” Shane chokes, not quite laugh, but not quite not a laugh. “With what, your shoe? You don’t even have your water gun.”

Ryan just takes another step and raises his eyebrows in what he hopes is a challenge.

Shane is no longer sort of anything but irritated. “It’s private property. You can’t go in there.” Shane bristles when he takes another step towards the house, when his command is met with challenge. “Stop.”

The urge to stop tugs at Ryan. The urge to listen, to obey, to halt his defiance, but he ignores it. “It’s not illegal. There aren’t any signs up, and the doors busted. People just advise staying out of it.” He lets his gaze simmer on Shane, begs him in a way he isn’t sure he ever has before. “I wanna be brave.”

“I wanna be alive,” Shane shoots back.

Ryan tilts his head. “Come on. Maybe we’ll find something, or—or, whatever! It’s not illegal. It’ll be fun. I stood at the bottom of that hell hole in Waverly.” He leans his whole body back towards the house. He can’t quite understand why he wants to do this. He’s pretty sure he’s out of his mind.

He ought to be afraid, after that man in the park today, and last night in the parking lot, but the only fear that seems real, tangible, right now is the match he’s lit between himself and Shane. The one that’s creeping between them, the one that won’t let Ryan breathe without feeding the flames.

He’s feverish. He gets that. And he thinks about backing down again, but instead, he pins Shane further with his eyes and says, “Scared?”

Shane laughs. “I’m not—no, I’m not twelve, Ryan. I’m not going to rise to your little challenge like a middle schooler.” He breathes. There’s this long pause, where Shane just looks at Ryan. Stares at him in this space that doesn’t quite feel like reality, like Ryan is much bigger than he is. “Five minutes, man. You’ve got five minutes.” And he doesn’t look at TJ, or anyone, to confirm that it’s a good idea. He just starts after Ryan.

The attention is frighteningly addicted.

Ryan climbs the three steps to the mostly unburned porch and lays a hand on the doorknob. It’s cold, icy enough that it drags him down a peg. A lot of pegs. But he licks his bottom lip as he says, “You totally rose to my challenge like a middle schooler.”

“That’s your super power. Coercing people into things they really should not do. Coercion man.”

Ryan wheezes a little on his own laughter. “Coercion man?  That’s—I mean, there’s probably already someone who does that. Jean Grey, maybe?”

“Jean Grey? That sounds like a brand of pants. You want me to call you Jean Grey? Wow. And you made fun of Coercion Man.”

Ryan is laughing so hard he’s almost forgotten he’s holding the knob of a demon house. “It’s from X-Men,” he sort of gasps out.

“No, it’s pants, Ryan.”

He needs way too long before he collects himself from under all the laughter. And even longer when he sees Shane’s been watching him laugh like it’s his favorite part of a movie. Ryan clears his throat and turns to the house.

The knob turns in his grip, and the door swings open to a charred living room. The debris hasn’t been cleared. Nothing has been. There’s even some bits of glass from the windows scattered along the kitchen wall.

“Well,” Shane says. “This is lovely.”

Ryan thinks he might call out to the serial killer like he tends to do, but he doesn’t. There’s still something… tense about him, and Ryan wants to find the string to pull to unwind it.

He steps over some wreckage. “I guess the living room took the worst of it, since it started in the fire place.” But the whole place is torched. Much worse than the outside.

Shane takes long, complicated steps over the rubble, and Ryan smiles a little fondly at it. At the endless motion his legs have to take when he steps. And then he bites his teeth together and forces his eyes to walk the stairs near the back of the house.

He swallows at the prickling sensation that climbs his throat as he scans the mess of the floor. He can just make out where the fireplace would have been, a black hole in the ground, remnants too black and barren to hold anything but ghosts.

He turns to face the scorched couch, unmoved since the murders, and rolls his shoulder to beat back a shiver. Suddenly, his white tee and jeans seem like not enough clothes. “So I guess this is where they found… the bodies.”

He realizes then that TJ and the rest of the crew have followed them inside without complaint. That’s more trust than he deserves, probably. He isn’t totally sure it’s not illegal for them to be in here, but he also isn’t totally sure it is.

“I feel like one of those sad, white husbands in horror movies as their wives insist on moving into what is clearly a death house.”

Ryan chokes. “No, because we are definitely not a couple.”

“Why, Ryan?” Shane pushes. “You wouldn’t wanna marry me? That’s hurtful. That waitress thought we were cute.”

Ryan rolls his eyes, hopes Shane will let it go. He moves to kick at the couch, or touch it, or do anything, but then thinks better of it. Instead, they creep through the back of the house, through bedrooms in only slightly better shape than the kitchen and living room.

“I keep thinking I’m going to see, like, a skull or something peeking up at me under all this.” Ryan flinches when they enter the little girl’s room. The pink looks worse than everything else with the burns. More… tarnished. She’d been twelve when he killed her.

“It would serve you right,” Shane says as they make their way back down the hall, finding nothing. Ryan has never seen Shane so relieved. “It’s pretty… ridiculous, that there’s a rumor he lives here. Not unless he’s existing on a healthy diet of soot and broken glass.”

“Totally plausible. He just wakes up every morning, sits at the little…” Ryan gestures to the half-collapsed table in the kitchen. “Little table, and gobbles it down.”

“Yeah,” Shane mutters. “And washes it down with a big ol’ glass of murder.”

Ryan chuckles. “No better way to start the day.”

“Breakfast of champions.” Shane smiles, and it’s simultaneously too bright and too soft to look at. So Ryan doesn’t.

He slides around Shane, and it’s then he notices how close Shane is keeping. He won’t let Ryan take two steps without closing the distance. He’s essentially breathing down his neck, and Ryan wants to tell him to back off, that it’s annoying. But it isn’t, it’s… kind of nice.

Things feel a little less awkward, and Ryan lets out a breath. He isn’t sure why everything with Shane is making his chest so heavy lately, but he wants to grab the easiness between them now and bottle it.

“Teej, can you make sure you guys get a good shot of the kitchen?” Ryan asks. “Should be a good visual.”

TJ shoots him a thumbs up and wanders over to do as instructed.

Ryan makes his way to the front of the stairs, but Shane grabs his shoulder. “Okay, little guy. Enough. This house is falling apart. If you go up there, you’re going to fall through the floor and break your little baby bird neck.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “It’s stable, and exactly, I’m the little guy, which means less weight. So you keep your big-ass sasquatchian legs down here, and I’ll go up.”

“No,” Shane says, and it’s more forceful than Ryan thinks he’s ever heard him. “I don’t know what stupidity demon has gotten ahold of your brain today, but I am staging an intervention. We have plenty of footage for the episode. Let’s go.”

But if they go, then Ryan has to think about everything else, and he just doesn’t want to. Honestly he’d rather someone drop a house on him. “I won’t be up there long. I’m just curious.”

“Ryan,” Shane says, and it’s the same tone as before. He’s got a hold of Ryan’s forearm, and it feels like molten steel.

Ryan tugs at it a little. It’s crazy to argue right now, especially when Shane may even have a point about upstairs. But he is so done with being the kid brother that Shane tolerates.

“Let go, dude,” Ryan says, and pulls at his arm.

Strain cuts through the brown in Shane’s eyes, and Ryan is, once again, foolishly, struck by how the light bounces off his glasses and brings too much glint into his eyes. Ryan is, once again, struck by everything that is Shane, and it nearly yanks a scream from his throat.

“Hey,” Shane says, “what’s the matter with you, man?”

The struggle has pulled them closer so that Ryan’s responding hiss fogs a little on Shane’s glasses. Shane’s breath traces the outline of his mouth, and he feels it as hot and heavy as the imprint of Shane’s fingers on his bicep.

A dam breaks inside him, and terror tears through him like a river. Of losing the show. Of losing Shane. Of walking out of this house and realizing he fucked something up, fucked everything up. Of the fact that he can’t stop looking—at Shane’s lips or his eyes or his jaw—at Shane. And Shane’s eyes are wide, wide enough that he must know, and his mouth is open like he’s figured something out, and Ryan is sure it’s him. It’s Ryan.

So he grunts a little and wrenches back, still stuck in Shane’s grip.

“Okay,” Shane says, “okay, calm down.”

And Ryan realizes Shane’s intent too late. Shane lets go as Ryan tugs again, and he staggers, trips backwards so he barely sees Shane reach for him. He braces himself for the ground, but the impact doesn’t come—it caves, buckles beneath his back, and he feels air whoosh around him.

“Ryan!” It’s this raw, dark cry. And Ryan thinks it wasn’t terror he felt before, it’s never been terror, because that word is so much deeper, so much wilder, than any fear he’s ever felt.

Then the impact comes.

It cuts through him, building to a snap, like he’ll splinter, then it’s gone. Everything is. Like someone hit a light switch on his brain.

Chapter Text

Shane

xxx

Shane can’t breathe, he’s forgotten how, because all there is now is broken glass on every inhale. He’s forgotten what it means to breathe without an explosion rocking his body until it rips apart.

“Ryan,” he says it, says it again, he thinks, because his voice is raw with it. Raw like its all he’s ever said.

He’s there, where Ryan is supposed to be, in a breath—a breath he didn’t take—and he’s peering over the edge of floor that burnt to ash, and imagines it’s what the inside of his chest looks like. He can’t see the bottom, but it doesn’t matter, he’s just moving—because if he stops then he’ll collapse like this stupid, fucking floor.

It’s crazy. He has no idea how deep it is, but he doesn’t think about it. He just throws himself off the remaining floor into the dark, and then his knees are burning. God, it hurts, and all he can think is Ryan fell on his back. His spine.

Panic breaks along his body until his heartbeat becomes so much that the room spins. His eyes can’t see, for too long, and he realizes he’s still saying, “Ryan.” But there’s no answer. And he’s suffocating on silence. He loves silence, craves it, and it’s smothering him.

His glasses slide too far down his face, and he curses his past self for being too lazy to put on contacts, as he corrects them.

He’s slowly realizing that sunlight has followed him down here, and he makes out the stroke of a shadow on the floor. Ryan.

He says it again, the name, and he hits his still-throbbing knees. Ryan’s on his side, not moving, and Shane is pulling him over onto his back, struggling to breathe around what feels like a lead fist in his throat.

His fingers curl against the delicate curve of Ryan’s neck, and replays himself—god, was it just a few minutes ago?—call it a baby bird neck and it’s so unfunny he wants to rip out his hair.

He slides his hand into Ryan’s hair as he presses his other hand to his cheek. There’s a knot, on the back of Ryan’s head, nothing too scary, but Ryan’s not moving—god, he’s not moving, and Shane realizes how much of him depends on Ryan to move. To breathe.

Breathing. Shit, is he breathing?

He thinks he feels the flutter of a pulse under his fingers, but his is so loud, so overpowering, that he can’t be sure. He leans forward until Ryan’s breath tickles the side of his cheek, and Shane winds so tight he doesn’t think he’ll ever untangle.

His thumb strokes along Ryan’s cheek bone, and his eyes hang on the dark lines of his lashes, the fullness lower lip, and a corporeal crack run through everything he is. He pulls Ryan closer to him, feeling for, fuck if he knows. He can’t, physically cannot, move his hand away from Ryan’s head—he thinks it’d be easier to pick this entire house up and throw it.

And he kinda wants to.

He’d been so caught up in that moment, so lost in Ryan, in the way his hand had felt on Shane’s, that he hadn’t seen him slipping. Shane is usually so careful, so good about pulling Ryan away from his thousand edges. But he’d let him wander right off this one, fucking literally, and Shane wants to shake himself.

Because even now, he can see it like it’s right in front of him—that image of Ryan in front of the house, challenging and flushed, head cocked like his smile was designed to fit against Shane in some impossible way. This wild, hungry piece of Ryan that Shane had only seen in fragments, but then, it’d come into focus so hard he’d glowed with it.

Shane’s body hitches with the memory, and he’s fighting for breath all over again.

Damn it.

If he hadn’t been so hung up on those eyes—those dark eyes where sunset and midnight touched, so warm they glittered with everything inside him, and there was so fucking much. Shane had never seen so much of the universe in one place. He’d never teetered so close to believing, in ghosts, in demons, in everything, as when he looked into them. And now Ryan won’t open them, even as Shane begs, literally begs him.

All at once, the floor, the ground—it’s just dirt—feels too cold, too unforgiving for Ryan to lie on it. And Shane is overwhelmed with the idea of Ryan Bergara lying on the ground, and maybe that’s because in that moment before he found Ryan, he’d been picturing him in a pool of blood, neck snapped, and jesus, he’s going to throw up. He snags a hand under Ryan’s knees, and lifts him, he doesn’t know where he’s going until he finds a couch a few steps away and sets him on it.

There’s a pang when Ryan falls away from his chest, but it’s brief and nonsensical, so he dismisses it as best he can dismiss anything right now.

“Shane, hey! Shane!” The rest of the world comes back to him, even as he tries to shield Ryan from it. But TJ’s a few feet away, on a set of stairs—stairs—looking a little dazed. “What the hell, man? Did you jump down? You could’ve killed your—”

“Is Ryan okay?” Devon asks, cutting TJ off before Shane can.

Answering feels so absolutely monumental that Shane buckles beneath it. He turns back to Ryan where his thumb has wandered to Ryan’s lips, and the softness opens a pit in his mind, and finally he forces his fingers down Ryan’s spine, and it’s okay—it’s fine—except the way it notches and licks down Shane’s like lightning.

“Shane?” TJ asks again, maybe because Shane didn’t answer Devon.

But Shane’s just looking at Ryan because apparently that’s all he does anymore. His breath is too hot in his mouth, and he gets another grip on Ryan’s neck, touching his hair, possibly too much.

“He won’t—” Shane can’t finish.

“Are you okay, man? You jumped down a story.”

Shane meets TJ’s gaze, and he can feel TJ flinch at his exhaustion, his frustration. “Ryan fell.”

“But there were stairs.”

“Fuck the stairs!” Shane blurts, and he thinks, with another pang, Ryan would’ve laughed.

TJ grimaces when he looks at Ryan, and that alone, stretches the moment into eternity. And Shane thinks he will be here, in this limbo, forever, waiting for Ryan to wake up and just look at him again. Waiting to apologize for letting Ryan fall. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Then Ryan groans, and some color seeps back into the world. His eyelids start to flutter, and Shane cannot stop staring at them. Cannot stop staring at him, and he has to keep himself still so he doesn’t hug him, or, Jesus—he doesn’t know.

Ryan’s eyes open, slowly, and he keeps one of them closed as he whimpers a little, and Shane’s heart splits straight down the middle. “Hey, hey, man, take it easy.”

The rest of the crew is hovering, but they’re giving them some space, and Shane is so grateful because he doesn’t think he can take anyone but Ryan breathing his air right now.

Ryan groans again, and says, “Ow.” Shane’s still got a thumb on his cheek, and his hand wrapped around his head, and it’s probably weird at this point but he can’t seem to shake himself loose.

“Are you okay?” and it comes out wobbly and so, so weird.

Their eyes met, and Shane nearly drowns in the brown, but then Ryan shudders a little and reaches a hand up to his cheek so it collides Shane’s. “Oh,” he says, and Shane knows how he feels. Intimately. “Yeah, dude, yeah, I—” He hisses a little as he moves his arm. “I think I landed on my arm.”

Shane moves his hand, finally, but he never breaks the contact. Never stops touching Ryan until he rests his palm on the skin above the crook of Ryan’s elbow, and weirdly, he wishes Ryan had worn more than this thin white t-shirt. “Is it broken?”

Ryan flexes his fingers, but he looks up at Shane, and their eyes snag. And the pause sings a little in Shane’s head, and he doesn’t know if he likes it or if it’s going to rip him in half. “I…” Ryan collects his words, struggling with his own teeth again. “I don’t think so. It just… hurts.”

The words splatter Shane in a thousand colors, all reds and crimsons and blacks, and he realizes he can’t stand the idea of it. Of Ryan hurting. And even as his brain whispers obviously, his body reacts like he’s quenching a thousand-year thirst.

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time.

“No, it’s,” Ryan says, when Shane says, “Don’t worry about it.”

Ryan laughs a little breathlessly, and Shane feels it in his own lungs. He smiles, because that’s all he can do, until TJ says, “You’ve gotta chill, buddy. You got so intense the floor collapsed.”

This rustles Ryan a little, and he averts his eyes. So Shane says, “Clearly, Robert Casey’s murder house just cannot handle Ryan Bergara.”

Ryan giggles and says, “I think it’s the other way around.”

“Are you kidding? You should see that floor—you obliterated it!”

“Yeah, and Shane leapt after you like a crazy person,” Devon says, and Shane kinda wishes she would evaporate.

Ryan’s smile freezes, like it can’t quite let go of his lips, and Shane has the thought, of course it can’t, and it freaks him out more than a little. Because then Ryan is peering at him, eyes almost as wide as when he hears a spooky sound.

And Shane can’t quite feel embarrassed, because those eyes are all for him.

“What?” Shane asks. “My legs are nearly a story long. It was essentially a stair. You’re worth a stair, Ryan, don’t sell yourself short.” His voice is just a little hoarse, but he pretends it isn’t.

Ryan’s cackling again, and the sound works some of the tension from Shane’s shoulders.

“I guess you can’t help it,” Shane adds.

Ryan throws his head back to deepen the laugh and slams his good arm into Shane’s shoulder.

The rest of the crew just sorta shakes their head and rolls their eyes like they always do when Ryan and Shane get lost in each other. Shane aggressively pretends not to see the way TJ raises his eyebrows, and eventually, the world starts turning on its axis again. Ryan lifts off the couch, and Shane has to step back.

Then Ryan’s eyes are moving past Shane, and he’s got a bitter taste in his mouth, and he almost wishes the entire world would go away. More than usual.

“Holy shit, dude,” Ryan says. “Maybe this is why everyone thinks he lives here.”

Shane turns to look, and of course, Ryan is the one to notice, but the basement does look more lived in. It’s coated in dust, and there’s cobwebs everywhere, but the furniture isn’t chipping at the edges. It looks like a living room, there’s a rug on the floor, a recliner, and of course, the couch. He can’t see any of the colors, because they all look washed out gray with lack of light.

“Are you recording?” Ryan asks TJ as he wanders around the room, eyes drinking it in like he’s found another planet.

Shane sighs, but he can’t quite fight the fondness creeping into it. “You just fell through the floor—can we please call it a day?”

Ryan’s up on his tiptoes looking at something on the bookshelf pressed into the corner, and Shane absolutely hates how cute it is.

“No, are you kidding? This is insane, dude!” He tosses a look over his shoulder, and that’s cute too, and all Shane can say is, “Honestly.”

Because honestly.

TJ’s already got the camera going, and Shane shoots him a pointed look, but he shrugs. A few other members of the crew are as enthralled as Ryan, but Devon has the good sense to look annoyed.

“There’s a bed down here,” Ryan says, and his voice hikes a pitch. And there is, in the corner, tucked away so Shane hadn’t seen it at first. Ryan runs his fingers over the mattress. There’s no quilt, no sheets, just a mattress.

Shane whips out his phone, half for the joke, half to check the time. It’s nearly three. “Well, snag that. That’ll sell for at least forty bucks on Craigslist.”

Ryan is looking at him and rolling his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Shut up, you dick.”

Ryan drops to the floor, and Shane has to fight, hard, to keep the frustrated noise from crawling out of his throat. Ryan groans over his words as he drops, “Besides, we both know Craigslist freaks you out. You complain when I get shoes from ShoeGame because you think I’m gonna die.”

“Well, that’s because only murderers care that much about shoes.”

“I care that much about shoes.” Shane casts a glance at Ryan’s black sneakers that seem too big for his feet. There’s a smile in Ryan’s voice as he continues. “Okay, I see your point.” Then he’s back to peering under the bed. “There’s an, um…” He reaches.

“Jesus, Bergara,” Shane says as he walks over to him and hears the clattering of a box, which Ryan frees from beneath the bed. “Congrats, you found a—you found a homeless man’s underwear drawer.”

“Shut up,” Ryan says as he pulls the top off. The box is plastic, clear but blurred enough that Shane’s can’t see any of the contents in such low light.

First, he pulls out a picture frame, and his mouth falls open. “Oh shit, dude, this is the—this is the family.” He looks up and Shane can see the little gears in his head turning a mile a minute. “Did I just find something?”

“No,” Shane answers a little too fast. “I mean, I’m sure the cops have been in the basement. Even if they didn’t fall through the floor.”

But what if they hadn’t?

And suddenly, all his thoughts about the man from the park come roaring back, and he’s wanting out of this house now. He glances at the stairs, gauges how long it would take them to get out if they need to.

“Uh,” Ryan says in this small, tiny voice. He’s pulled something else from the box, and Shane’s mind is on Ryan’s shaking hand before he even registers he’s holding a gun. A fucking gun.

“Jesus, man! What the fuck?”

He drops it, and Shane flinches because it’s a gun and he just dropped it. But it doesn’t go off.

Ryan scampers up and back, and the horrified Ryan that he’s come to know and love is back in a flash. “Okay, uh, okay… that’s weird, that’s fucking weird. Oh, fuck me, dude.” He’s backing up, eyes wide, scanning the room too fast. “That’s…”

“A little weird, yes,” Shane says, and finds it easier to be what he needs to be here, like slipping into an old jacket. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Let’s—yeah, we should go. This was insane.” And Shane glances up like he’s going to thank the heavens for this, but he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t want Ryan changing his mind. “This was—” Ryan’s shaking his head. “I’m—I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Shane tilts his head. “I can think of a couple things.”

Ryan barely cracks a smile, but he does, and then he’s walking up the steps after the crew, who are smart enough to know what to do in the presence of a fucking gun. Ryan is babbling reasons for the gun to be there, walking it through, and back, and through.

“Ry—”

“Hello there,” a voice says.

And Ryan screams. He screams, and leaps back until he slams into Shane’s chest so hard that the only way Shane can respond is to wrap his hands around his waist and hold him there.

Then Shane feels the world rush around him, the floor tear up from under him, and he’s surprised he doesn’t plummet right back into the basement, because it’s him. It’s the same fucking guy. 

Ryan is trembling, and his breathing is so jagged Shane can’t help but worry. “Just chill,” he whispers against Ryan’s temple. “It’s okay.”

But Ryan presses closer to him, and Shane doesn’t stop him.

“You two kids like trouble, don’t you?” The man shakes his head. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“We were leaving,” Shane says. TJ is the only member of the crew left in the doorway, and he’s shooting massive eyes to Shane.

The man smiles, smirks, and it cracks his face like dried dirt. “Doesn’t change the fact that you were here.”

Ryan is honest to god hyperventilating against Shane’s chest right now. He’s paralyzed with it, and Shane isn’t sure how to process his own emotions.

“Yeah, well,” Shane says. “Okay.”

This piece of shit is just looking at Ryan like he wants to either shank him or lick him, and Shane’s equally uncomfortable with both.

“What’s got you so worked up, son?” the man asks.

And, okay, Shane is not going to let this guy goad Ryan. Being unintentionally creepy is one thing—this fuck is making an effort.

“You followed us into an abandoned house, pal. I’m willing to bet that you’ll be in more trouble for stalking than we will be from wandering around an empty house.”

TJ shuffles by the door, and the man glances back at him. Only then does he smile and shake his head, gives them space. “Alright, alright, but I don’t want to see you two around here again. This place isn’t safe.” And there’s a threat in there, Shane decides. “See you around.”

You absolutely will not, Shane thinks but doesn’t say.

He guides Ryan, first by the small of his back, then by his wrist, towards the door. The man doesn’t move, just watches them for way too long, until they’re outside. Ryan doesn’t stop, not even once he’s climbed in the car, fumbling with the keys. He’s vibrating. He’s gripping the keys so hard Shane’s worried they’re going to turn to dust in his hands.

“Ryan,” Shane tries.

Ryan slams the key in, or, well, at the ignition, but his hand goes too far and slams into it. The key falls, and he lets out this heartbreaking sound as he grabs them off the floorboards. He tries again, but the key misses.

“Fuck me,” he says. “Goddammit it, just, damn it.” But it’s crumping at the edges, and he’s quivering and shaking and, oh god, is he crying?

“Hey,” Shane says, then again, “hey, take it easy. Take it—”

Ryan’s ignoring him, trying again, and Shane cannot let him do this right now. So he catches Ryan’s hand in his own, and the world crackles and sizzles until Shane thinks he knows how that house felt as it burned.  “It’s fine, man—just look at, hey, look at me.” Because Ryan’s staring at their hands.

“Ryan, look at me,” he says again, and Ryan does, “it’s alright, we’re fine.”

Ryan isn’t quite crying, but he isn’t quite breathing either. And then something snaps in his eyes. “This was so stupid. I don’t know why I came to this stupid house, and now that guy is probably going to murder me in my sleep, and my arm hurts, and… fuck, just…” He pulls his hand back and shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes. Shane hangs on too long, probably.

Shane drags a hand through his own hair, not sure what to do, not sure how much touching is okay right now. “It’s okay, man… we can get you an Advil or something.”

Ryan laughs, and it’s high-pitched, a little hysterical, and a little damp. “An Advil? I need a fucking Valium, man. I’m… god, I just—I’m losing it. I don’t know why I did this, I don’t know why I went in that house, or… or why I even came here. You’re gonna—this show is going to get me killed.”

Shane tries so hard to not hear what Ryan almost said, what he might mean.

But Ryan’s plowing ahead. “Who was that guy? It’s possible he’s the fucking murderer, dude, I’m pretty sure they’re the same height. They don’t look like pictures, but I’ve only seen blurry ones, and oh my god, oh, no, no, no, he’s going to…”

“Listen,” Shane says, and he grabs him by the shoulder. “That asshole isn’t going to touch you, okay?”

Ryan blinks way too many times, watches Shane, before panic starts to slide out of him, even as he breathes too hard.

“I’m a very imposing figure, you’ve said yourself.” He mimics the same way Ryan has flailed his limbs in the past like something outside a car dealership. “Would you mess with that?”

“Definitely not.” Ryan laughs, and he hiccups, before he brushes under his eyes, and oh, Shane thinks, he was crying. He was crying, and he still looks like there’s something thrumming beneath his skin, something more than blood.

But he can’t bring himself to bring it up, either because he’s scared of it, or because he has come to expect he can read Ryan without the conversation. And he loves that piece of them, that they can know things without having to say them.

Ryan takes a breath that judders through his whole person, and Shane is suddenly terrified. Terrified that they’re going to talk about it, and he’s going to say the wrong thing, because he’s going to have to think about it. To slide it into focus, rather than let it exist as the backdrop to this photograph of Ryan. Of Ryan and Shane.

They lock eyes, and the seconds stretch, too far—way too far to be a normal, casual silence between them, and Shane finally ventures, “Is this where you tell me you were the serial killer all along?”

Ryan laughs, but it’s tinged in sadness, and Shane’s heart clenches. Clenches so hard he worries it’ll stop. But Ryan gives, like he always does, “This is where I slam your skull into the console until it splits open, and then laugh.”

Shane laughs because it almost shocks him, the vividness that Ryan approaches everything with, even hypothetically murdering his friends. “Jesus.”

“I’m so tired,” Ryan says, and Shane thinks he might mean more than he wants to.

But Shane just says, “Well, you were up till four harassing me.”

Ryan chuckles, but it’s quiet and subdued, and distant. “Right, yeah.” He finally slides the key into the ignition and the car starts.

Shane glances back at the house, and there’s the man again. Tightness winds through him as this weird, creepy guy lifts his hand in wave, and Shane cuts his eyes back to Ryan, says nothing as they pull away.

Once the man is out of view, he says, “So this episode sure is gonna be something.”

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Ryan says.

And Shane gets the sense that it isn’t.

That nothing is.

Chapter Text

Ryan

xxx

Ryan’s hands haven’t quite stopped shaking. He’s driving, and he’s watching the road, but all he’s seeing is that man in that house. And the gun, the one he’d touched and left sitting there with his fingerprints on it.

Oh, you fucking idiot.

He’s dazed with the tingling in his fingers, and his arm is pounding so loud and violent he feels like a fucking bass player—maybe it is broken—but the idea of looking at Shane right now feels bigger than running the car off the road. Because something has passed between them, and Ryan isn’t sure it’s good.

The headache started slowly, drowned out by a thousand different things, until he was stuck driving and drifting from the pain in his arm until it burrowed into the back of his head. He is not going to admit this to Shane, because that would be admitting, well, he’s not sure. But he’s not going to admit it.

He’s thinks Shane is looking at him, but he’s not taking his eyes off the road. Not for anything. Because he cannot let himself fall down this rabbit hole, because he’s convinced he’d start falling and never stop. Or he’d splatter at the bottom like he should have back at that damn house.

What was he thinking? Going in there? Coming here, hell, they’ve essentially found the serial killer, and he’s probably going to chase them down, and—

The brush on his arm is small, this impossible thing, so sudden and flickering like the bristle of a paintbrush, that Ryan cries out a little. Then he realizes Shane has reached out and touched him, which is so obscenely un-Shane-like that Ryan nearly chokes on his own spit.

Shane doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to, because he’s never done this before, and he may as well have gotten on the hood of the car and sung Ryan a fucking song. Ryan takes a breath and jams all his thoughts into this tiny, overflowing space in his brain, and almost has it shut when Shane says:

“We should definitely get a drink.”

And Ryan exhales all the thoughts so their lingering in the air in front of him. “I, yeah… okay.” But everything he says, every word, is so full of air and feeling and trembling. But Shane’s right, because there’s no way Ryan’s surviving another night in this town without a massive tranquilizer dart to his nerves, and in absence of anything prescriptive, alcohol will have to do.

Shane texts TJ, and the others, and they all pile into a bar near the middle of the town, about a ten minute walk from their hotel. Ryan doesn’t need Shane this time: he orders two beers, and has thrown them back in under fifteen minutes. Already the world is feeling fuzzier at the edges, like the corners have softened and the shadows have smoothed.

“Okay, okay,” TJ says. He’s not drunk. He’s had about half a beer, but he’s looking between Shane and Ryan, who haven’t said more than three words to each other since they got here, and his eyes are gleaming with an idea. “We should do shots.”

“That’s probably the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Devon says, but TJ’s already flagging down the bartender.

Shots, Ryan thinks distantly, are probably a terrible idea in his current state, but he needs more of the warmth, more of that fuzziness to block out everything still trying to twist his head off his shoulder, so he says, “Okay!”

Shane laughs a little, and his words skid through it like a rock over the water. “Okay? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Then, Ryan presses into what he’s sure is a challenge, “Why wouldn’t I be sure? I can hold my drink. C’mon, don’t be a wimp.”

Shane just laughs again, and says, “Alright.”

TJ orders tequila because he’s clearly intent on trashing them, and Ryan is so freaking okay with that. They take the first shot, and it burns down Ryan’s throat, like it can burn right through all the bullshit from today.

He looks at Shane, who’s blinking, and peering at his glass like he thinks it’s going to proselytize to him. And suddenly, it’s the funniest thing Ryan has ever witnessed in his life, and he’s laughing so hard his stomach starts to hurt.

“Have you even eaten today, you idiot?” Shane asks him.

Ryan doesn’t think he has, but he nods, so Shane doesn’t try to make this into a thing. “Yeah, I’ve eaten, and that’s none of your business! I can manage my own eating habits, thank you very much.”

Shane scoffs like he doesn’t believe it.

And then there’s another shot in front of him, and Ryan throws Shane a fiery look before he can make any comment on whether or not it’s wise. “You’re, my—you’re testing me, Bergara,” Shane says.

“Yeah?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah,” Shane says, and he exaggerates the word in this weird way.

“Well,” Ryan says, thinks on how to end this, and goes with, “you’re failing.”

“What? How am I—”

“You’re failing,” Ryan repeats, “unless you take this shot.”

Shane lets out a bark of a laugh, one that rests between dismissal and disbelief. “I really don’t care. Your tests are dumb.” But he takes the shot faster than Ryan can blink, and he slams the glass into the table, or, well doesn’t quite slam—Shane doesn’t really slam things, but it’s a little more aggressive that he usually is.

“My tests are great,” Ryan counters, and takes his shot, and Devon giggles as she rams her shoulder into his. It rattles through the pain still peaking around the edges of his buzz. He smiles, but it’s a little crooked.

“Easy!” Shane says. “Easy, man, he fell through a floor.”

Ryan looks at him and smiles, and everything is so fucking funny right now. Even funnier than usual. “I fell through a floor!”

“Ha!” Shane agrees. “You did! What an idiot!”

Ryan feigns seriousness. “Hey, watch it.”

A look of deliberation crosses Shane’s face, sorta glazed and wild, before he says, “I do watch it.” There’s something in his voice, and it springs up Ryan’s throat, and he’s gasping for his own breath.

“Let’s do another shot!”

“Oh,” Shane half-laughs, “okay.” And he’s saying it in that bobbing way that means he’s not sure what to do with it.

Someone orders another round, and they do them, or Ryan does, and Ryan only has a vague recollection of it happening. In fact, there may have been more shots involved because the room is tipping and turning and he’s so, so warm that he’s contemplating taking his shirt off and only vaguely aware that’s unacceptable.

He’s not sure what else to do, so he grabs his shot glass and peers into it. It’s definitely empty, so he looks around, then meets Shane’s eyes as he says, “Another!” and slams it onto the ground.

The shatter is enough to startle him, and he says, “Oh shit! Oh shit, dude!”

Shane’s eyes are wide for a moment, “Jesus! You fucking broke it!”

“Oh crap!” His eyes are wide. “I did.”

And Shane is hysterical. He’s laughing harder than Ryan has ever seen him laugh, and Ryan wants to grab every shot glass in this place and crash them into the floor if he can keep listening to it. The sound has reached into whatever fuzz the alcohol has laid over his brain and taken over it, like it’s what Ryan’s been drinking all night.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Shane says, and then Ryan starts laughing because everything is absolutely hilarious, and he’s positive he’s higher on Shane’s laugh than the alcohol.

A waitress comes over to look between them, and asks, “What happened?”

Ryan stares at her for the longest time, trying to find any distinguishable feature on her face in the haze that is his current state, so Shane says, “it broke,” and Ryan just starts laughing again.

The waitress tosses them both dirty looks, and Ryan knows he should be embarrassed but he isn’t so he presses his face into Shane’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut.

Shane jostles a little at the touch, but he doesn’t pull away from it. He just awkwardly pats Ryan on the shoulder. “We’re definitely getting kicked out.”

Ryan wheezes on his laughter, but he doesn’t take his face out of Shane’s shirt. “You smell weird,” and by weird, he means nice, but even this drunk he can’t bring himself to say it.

“Wow, okay.” And Ryan is overwhelmed with the thousand ways Shane says okay, and how this one is harsh along the edges, because he’s indignant, but sometimes it’s just this slow, quiet thing where it almost disappears at the end with uncertainty, and sometimes it’s uneven and laced with a laugh, and fuck, he says it so much. And he says so much with it.

Okay, okay, okay.

Okay, Ryan thinks, and that’s hilarious too.

Ryan laughs until he pulls back and nearly slides off the stool, but someone—Shane, he decides—reaches out and pulls him forward so his head is against Shane’s white shirt again.

“You seem less drunk,” he says, kind of accusing, “why do you seem less drunk?”

“Because I stopped after two shots like a sane person.”

“Like a boring person,” Ryan corrects and he glances up into Shane’s eyes, and he can see a glaze there, but he is nowhere near as gone as Ryan. And Ryan’s pissed, somewhere far away where his normal self is floating, but he can’t reach it. “I don’t like this. Be drunk!”

Shane shakes his head, laughs again. “I am drunk, just not… completely wasted.”

“Be completely wasted,” Ryan says.

“Someone’s gotta take you home, pal.”

Ryan grunts, but it’s probably true. He squints his eyes, peers up at Shane with intent. He’s not sure what the intent is, but there’s a lot of it. Shane cocks his head, pulling a face that’s a little wary.

His glasses sit like a shield, and Ryan doesn’t understand why he had to wear them today. They look dumb. Dumb Shane in his dumb glasses, and they’re blocking Ryan’s view of Shane’s eyes while making his eyes sorta glitter with all the lights in the bar. He leans forward, and Shane’s stillness works its way through Ryan’s fog.

“What’s—what’re you doin’, buddy?” Shane asks.

They’re super close, Ryan realizes, and it’s probably weird. But he’s stuck on Shane’s face and the softness of it. He hadn’t noticed Shane’s face when they’d first met. He was just another intern, looking like he was awkward enough to ruin every party in Los Angeles in under an hour, but then Ryan had started to notice it. The way his lips moved, the way his eyes twinkled over his own stupid jokes, the way every word out of his mouth was like he’d sculpted it from somewhere deep inside him.

And it’s insane, Ryan thinks, because he says some of the stupidest shit. But it’s so purposeful. So different from Ryan who just has to blurt out anything—everything—he’s feeling all the time.

“Ryan,” Shane says, and it’s this quiet, husky thing, like its run too many laps around his chest.

But Ryan is still looking at Shane’s face, and how all his angles and ridges fall away to make this thing, and it’s absolutely beautiful, and Ryan doesn’t know how he didn’t notice the first day. How he sat next to Shane for months without really seeing it, without wanting to touch it.

Because that’s what he wants to do right now, so he leans forward again. Shane is still, so freaking still, like Ryan’s got a knife and he’s going to use it. Maybe Ryan does have a knife.

No, he definitely doesn’t have a knife.

Anyway, he leans in, raises his hand, and Shane’s so stone-still that Ryan can see every shade of brown in his eyes, and everywhere his lips have chapped and gone sticky with shots, and how his eyebrows have a really, really great arch.

“Hey,” Shane says, but it comes out like it’s meant to be something else.

Then Ryan reaches and snatches Shane’s glasses off his face. He clutches them to his chest as he says, “Ha!”

Shane breathes, this long, rush of a thing. Like Ryan’s pulled him out of the water. Ryan doesn’t think there’s any water in here, but he’s drunk as fuck, so he doesn’t really know. Then Shane laughs. “Jesus.”

“Nope,” Ryan corrects. “Ryan.”

“You certainly are,” Shane says. “You know I can’t see without those.”

“You can’t see anyway,” Ryan returns. “Can’t see ghosts, can’t see demons, can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

Shane shakes his head and snatches the glasses out of Ryan’s hands. Not a particularly hard thing to do considering Ryan kinda forgot he was holding them.

“What? That’s not—okay, that’s, I see—I see you,” Shane says as he puts the glasses back on his face.

“No, you don’t,” Ryan says, and it feels weighty, partly because Shane freezes again and he’s looking at Ryan like he did when he’d leaned in. “You’re too tall.”

And then Shane does that shocked laugh and shakes his head. “C’mon.” He hops off the bar stool, and gestures to Ryan. “Let’s get you home before you hurt yourself.”

Suddenly getting off this stool feels like leaping to his death. He teeters on it, stares at the ground like it’ll reach up and grab him. Instead, Shane does, and helps him to the ground, which was apparently not a very long drop. Nothing like the floor earlier today.

“Hey,” Ryan thinks, or says, or both, “my arm isn’t hurting anymore!”

“Yep, that’s because you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” Ryan says, and then he goes to take a step and trips. Fortunately Shane never let go of him. “Okay, I’m drunk.”

“And that’s, ah—that’s putting it mildly.”

Ryan’s only half present for the walk back to the hotel. The others are there, he thinks, but he doesn’t know if they’re as drunk as he is, and he’s swaying back and forth, back and forth, until they’re walking over the threshold of their hotel room.

“Whoa,” he says, because they got here so fast.

Ryan moves to throw himself onto the bed, but Shane catches him around the waist and rights him. A rush of warmth drives up Ryan’s back, so powerful he nearly dissolves into it. Would, probably, if Shane wasn’t holding him.

“Remember when I said I was tired?” Ryan asks.

“I do, and I also remember how much you bitch when you have a hangover.”

“I don’t bitch,” Ryan snaps. But he does. He absolutely does.

Shane rolls his eyes and pushes him onto the edge of the bed, so he’s sitting. “Well, that’s—I’m not completely sober either, so even if that were true, I’m gonna get crackers, and I think it would a sound decision if you ate some. You’re already going to be so sore tomorrow from that fall.”

Ryan lets out a breath of air meant to dismiss him.

Shane rummages around in his backpack, and Ryan thinks he’s doing it on purpose, just sitting there, all folded into himself, with all his limbs just there—in that one place—and there’s no way all of him is right there in front of Ryan. He, like, moves through dimensions or some shit.

“You’re so much…” Ryan says, and it definitely doesn’t sound quite like how he means it to. “I mean you’re so much, like your legs, there’s a lot of you.”

“Okay,” and it’s a soft one. “I’m a—I know. They’re attached to me.”

Shane pulls the crackers out, and Ryan’s enamored by every step he takes as he walks into the bathroom to get water. He’s suddenly unsteady, because this whole drinking thing was a terrible idea, and a whir of nausea promises he’s going to be hung the fuck over.

Shane comes back out and laughs a little. “There it is. So much regret in those beady little eyes.” He sits on the bed beside Ryan, and their thighs touch, and Ryan hates that he notices that. Shane extends a glass of water, which Ryan takes and nearly drinks the entire glass in one go. Then he coughs a little.

“Easy there,” Shane says.

Ryan wipes at his mouth, eats about twelve crackers, and then, when the brush of their thighs blossoms to a scorch mark on his legs, Ryan stands up. This trip is going to be the death of him, one way or the other.

“God,” he says. “God, I’m so drunk.” He finishes the water, and this time, he doesn’t cough.

“I know,” Shane says.

Ryan’s legs wobble, and he’s like gelatin, so he falls back against the wall, but can’t quite work his body into sliding down it. He runs a finger over his lip to make sure it’s still there, because his whole face feels sorta ghostly. His face is a ghost. And, dear lord, now that’s funny, so he starts laughing, and Shane’s just watching him.

Watching him like he did earlier, but Ryan’s drunk so it rips through his brain like a tornado, until he can’t stand it. “What?” he says as he pushes off the wall. He sounds a little like he’s challenging Shane to a fight.

“Nothing,” Shane says softly, not quite laughing, but amused.

Ryan tries to step forward, but he teeters back, because he is still drunk, but sober enough now to hate every second of it. It’s like an electric current in his veins. And then, he thinks, it’s not being drunk. It’s Shane. It’s fucking Shane, and he laughs until he’s near coughing.

“What is the matter with you, man?” Shane’s standing now, staring at him like he’s not sure whether to laugh or call the police.

Ryan keeps laughing, and the water has made Shane’s lips too bright, so he can’t stop looking at them. Oh crap. He pushes himself further into the wall and takes a breath, then he runs his thumbs over his lip again, but this time it’s from something that stands at the very opposite of numbness.

God, Shane’s staring at him again, pushing his hands through his hair. Ryan’s not sure how so much intensity can sit in so much softness, because the gaze is so whisper-soft that Ryan feels like he’s wrapped in a blanket, but it’s roaring through him like a riptide.

“That guy was creepy today, dude. He scared the shit out of me.” He doesn’t know why that comes out of his mouth, but he needs something to come out of his mouth and sit between them. Because there’s not enough space, and it feels like it’s closing fast. Too fast.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Sure did.”

“He didn’t scare you?” Ryan asks. “What? Are you just gonna invite him over to play poker with us? Maybe watch the game.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ryan,” Shane says, and it ought to shake some of the pieces from his gaze, loosen it, but it doesn’t. “We wouldn’t—we’d watch Frasier. I hate sports.”

Ryan laughs. “Right, because you’re an ass and wouldn’t even do the sports show with me.” Ryan doesn’t really mean it. He never expected Shane to do that show, but it comes out all breathless and wrong. “Just kidding,” he says, but his voice is still all cinders and wisps. “You suck at sports.”

Okay, now Shane is like an inch from him, and it’s his turn to wonder what Shane is doing because this closeness was not organic. Shane has moved, and Ryan didn’t even see him move, which is weird because he’s so aware of Shane most of the time.

Fucking tequila, dude.

“I do suck at sports, but it’s fine, because I hate them,” Shane says.

“I hate you,” Ryan says, because things are just jumping off his tongue. He can’t catch them or his breath. Everything is blasting by him like he’s on a fucking carousel.

“I know,” Shane says again.

And it undoes Ryan on a fundamental level. He moves forward, breathing too hard, too fast. They’re back to that moment in the house before he fell through the floor, only this time he’s drunk and he’s thinking Shane is too. More drunk than he let on. And he doesn’t know how to stop it without flinging himself over the balcony, and he isn’t sure he can take another fall today because they’re on the third floor and—

Shane’s fingers curl around the back of Ryan’s neck. They wind in his hair so Ryan feels it wrench through his abdomen and unravel him as his mouth crashes into Shane’s. All the numbness drains out of him against Shane’s lips. They’re these soft, chapped things that fill all the spaces in Ryan’s, and he can’t believe this is happening, but the touch has seared straight through his mind until thought ceases to exist.

All he feels are Shane’s fingers in his hair, tangling to a kind of soreness that tugs at the knot but doesn’t hurt it, and Shane’s mouth as it locks around Ryan’s until their teeth clatter and the warmth of Shane’s breath slides down Ryan’s throat.

He pushes up on his toes and grips Shane’s collar. Their mouths bite and pull at each other, all heated touch and damp breath. Ryan opens his so Shane’s tongue skims the top of his mouth until he feels it in his toes. His fingers dig into Shane’s neck, and he’s so aware of the rise and fall of Shane’s bones beneath his sweat-slick skin, of the pulse hammering there.

Hunger hikes through him, and he stumbles forward. Shane’s legs crash into the bed as Ryan’s strength throws them.

But Shane just keeps kissing him. He keeps opening his mouth like he can show Ryan all these parts of himself that he’s never shown him before, and Ryan answers with these tangled breaths and his fingers on Shane’s face, delicate and angry, and Shane’s teeth catch Ryan’s upper lip, and he grunts a little. Like this has been inside him for an eternity, and Ryan gets it because it’s been inside too.

And Ryan feels like an opened bottle of champagne.

Ryan’s hand run down Shane’s front, curious, feeling in ways he’s never felt, never in their sudden, subtle touches. And he feels his pulse catch on Shane, so they’ve got this beat and he can’t tell them apart. It’s just this thousand-year throb between them that tugs at Ryan’s middle until he’s raw with it. They stumble into each other as Ryan’s fingers find the bottom of Shane’s shirt and move back up, across his skin, his awkward, ridiculous chest, and Ryan kinda giggles under the heat of Shane’s mouth, and it snaps something in Shane.

Shane makes this sound, this insane sound, and his hands drop so one’s stapling Ryan to his chest, and the other catches the back of his thigh. Ryan rolls into the upward push of his body, and his fingers hitch in Shane’s hair, and the way Shane’s torso dips make him so hungry that he pushes forward again until Shane falls.

And when Shane says, “oof” it slides into Ryan’s mouth and down his throat until it settles in his stomach like another shot of tequila. And Ryan is on top of him. On the bed.

His knees straddle either side of Shane like he was born to do this, like he’s been watching his legs all those years waiting for this, and he crawls so all of him is on the bed, but some of Shane is still hanging off. Shane’s hands come back to the crook of Ryan’s neck and shoulder, and they’re small, delicate, calloused in the way that hands always are. But soft, soft in a way only Shane’s could be.

And their chests come together, but Shane won’t let Ryan shove him all the way back onto the bed. He pushes back so they clash just a little above the bed, and Shane’s fingers crawl back up Ryan’s back to find his neck again, before they slip down his front, dragging his collarbone like a the brush of a knife.

And Ryan sorta feels like he’s standing on a runway as a plane lands, and every blast of air is catching in his chest. His brain is lost in some kind of symphony of fireworks, of colors, and he wants more of it. So much more that he can’t stand it.

The sound he makes isn’t quite a whimper, but it isn’t really anything else. And Shane reacts to it. His fingers clench where they’ve slid over Ryan’s shoulder, and he uses his other arm to ball the front of Ryan’s t-shirt in his hand. They’re mouths haven’t stopped touching, and Ryan doesn’t know who’s tongue is in who’s mouth, but he can taste everything. He can taste the color of the lights, the rhythm of Shane’s breath.

Ryan breaks the kiss with a quivering gasp, breathing against Shane so he feels him shudder with it, and their eyes meet for a second.

The terror, the uncertainty of what he’s done, of what he’s doing, rises in him like a tsunami wave, but Shane hisses, “stop,” and he’s kissing him again.

Shane lingers on his lower lip, bites it until it aches, and Ryan falls back so that Shane’s brought their tangled bodies up higher, and he hooks an arm around Ryan’s back so it lies perpendicular to his spine and oh, god, he fits against Shane’s torso so well it hurts. The breath between the kiss makes it crash harder, like the first wave of a hurricane.

And then there’s a knock at the door, and the world splits down the middle, with a clearly defined before and after, and Ryan scampers off Shane, trying to catch his breath.

“H—” He starts, and his voice cracks so hard it jars him. “Hello?”

A beat, and then, “Hey, wanted to make sure you guys were alright,” Devon says. “You were pretty wasted.”

Ryan laughs, but Shane answers, “We’re fine.” And he’s never looked so disheveled, so frustrated, in his entire life. And that’s saying something, given some of the theories Ryan has made him sit through.

“Just making sure,” Devon says, and it’s not really her fault, but Ryan kinda wants to die, and he’s pretty sure Shane wants to kill Devon.

They wait awhile, listen to her shuffle away from the door, and then wait some more, like they think someone else will come knock.

They stare at each other, and Ryan is so aware of every part of Shane, and of how he’s somehow managed to tug Shane’s collar completely off his shoulder so his collarbone is exposed.

“You kissed me,” Ryan gasps.

Shane scrunches his features as he tilts his head. “Ah, that’s—well, you were—you definitely kissed me back.

Ryan’s brain cannot begin to comprehend what this means, where this is going to go, if this was just a one-time drunk thing, or if Shane wants more. And he doesn’t know which one of those he’s okay with, or if he’s okay with either of them, or if he’ll ever be okay again. Especially if he can’t kiss Shane again.

But oh god, he probably won’t be able to kiss Shane again, because he can’t see this actually going anywhere, and Shane’s looking way too calm for it to be anything else. But now he’s kissed him, and all this shit that’s been in his head for months is something real and tangible, and he isn’t sure he’ll ever stop wanting it.

“What does this mean?” he finally says.

Shane shrugs, eyes his fingernails. “I, well, it probably means we’re both at least a little bit not straight.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Ryan says, but oh god, that’s a whole different thing. Sure, he’s had this… thing, this weirdness, with Shane for a while, but he hadn’t had to actually consider that it was more than just… a fantasy.

He pulls himself back onto the bed’s headboard and watches Ryan. “What do you want it to mean?” And he’s so gentle that it’s almost patronizing, or maybe Ryan is just too sensitive, too absolutely raw from everything. From the lack of lips on his, from the stinging dryness Shane’s absence has turned his mouth into.

“I don’t—” Ryan squirms a little. “What do you want it to mean?”

Shane doesn’t say anything, and Ryan’s getting more and more wound so every word feels like a needle’s pinprick. Every brush of air along his skin is so much.

“Jesus, Shane, now isn’t the time to just… sit there.”

Shane laughs, but it’s brittle. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything,” Ryan says. “Just… anything.”

But Shane doesn’t. He sits there, and the silence gets longer and longer, and it gets to the point that Ryan thinks, even if he’s trying to say something, it can’t be good. Good things don’t come after these long silences.

“I need a shower,” Ryan announces, and Shane winces under the volume.

He wants to be able to say he’s drunk, that he’ll forget this in the morning, but by the time the first drop of water from the shower hits him—he’s completely fucking sober. Stone-cold, in fact, except for this crusty headache that makes him think he's brain's breaking apart. He takes a long one, then takes forever slipping back into his shirt and jeans, and of course, by the time he walks out, Shane is face-down, one foot hanging off the bed, passed out like the world isn’t ending.

But it is, and Shane’s ability to just go to sleep makes everything so much worse, because all the drunk was sucked out of Ryan via Shane’s stupid mouth, so he’s not going to be able to sleep and he knows it.

And, fuck, his throat is so dry, and he can’t stop tasting Shane. He needs something other than water to wash it out. He huffs a little and looks at Shane, thinking he should tell him he’s leaving in case he wakes up, but Shane’s face is hidden in the pillow, and Ryan will be gone five minutes. And, Shane waking up is wishful thinking, one hundred percent, he could sleep through the fucking rapture.

Ryan huffs a little and throws open the door. He’s pretty sure he saw a vending machine on the first floor, and he’s got a couple dollars in his wallet.

The hotel is freakishly still, and chills slide up Ryan’s spine as he makes his way to the stairs. He needs something to do with his legs, something an elevator can’t provide. But if the hall was creepy, the stairwell is a nightmare.

The overhead lights are flickering and making this bizarre screeching sound in intervals, and Ryan would honestly prefer the Sallie House. He takes the steps two at a time, because he does not want to be in here longer than necessary, but of course, he trips on the last step so he drops the wallet he’d gotten out of his pocket.

And his heart is pounding so hard he’s light-headed, god, he’s nauseous with it, but he kneels down to grab it, and when he gets back up he shrieks at the figure there. He jerks back so hard his back hits the rail of the stairs, and it strikes through him like a whip against the bruise, so he gasps a little.

And then he meets the man’s eyes, almost translucent blue, and his heart throbs so hard he thinks it’ll break him in half. The leathery lines are the same as before, casting all the wrong shadows on his face.

Ryan cannot breathe, and no one’s in the stairwell, and then the guy smiles, still missing teeth, and he thinks this cannot be real. This cannot be happening. He’s about to wake up. He is.

“Hi Ryan,” the guys says like they’re fucking best pals.

And Jesus Christ, Ryan wishes he’d woken Shane up so bad, wishes he’d asked him to come with him. But he hasn’t, and Shane’s not here, and oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

Ryan can’t stop shaking, but he needs to move, so he offers this half-nod thing, and tries to get around the guy, but the man grabs him, and holy fuck, Ryan is actually going to die. He’s about to get murdered in a creepy hotel stairwell, and fuck, his knees buckle, or they would if a spike of cold didn’t press above his tailbone the very next instance.

A gun, he thinks. It’s a fucking gun.

And everything is so real, and the world is spinning the wrong direction, and he has to swallow to keep from retching as the man says, “Let’s walk.”

He doesn’t want to walk. He’s pretty sure this walk ends with him dead in the parking lot, but if he doesn’t walk, then he’s going to end up dead in the stairwell, and maybe they’ll run into someone on the way out.

He almost screams, but he knows if he does the guy’s going to pull the trigger, and he doesn’t know that anyone could hear him in the stairwell, anyway.

The guy’s car is right through the little exit in the side of the stairwell, and Ryan’s trying to work up the courage to scream with that gun in his back, and then he’s standing in front of this white truck, and all he can think to say is, “Please.” But it’s watery and coming apart, and the guy doesn’t even seem to hear it. Then he raises the gun, and it cuts across Ryan’s jaw so he’s on the asphalt before he can blink.

His jaw throbs. And it’s impossible, this cacophony of sounds and colors that burn into his brain so deep he can’t think. Which is good, because he would definitely fall apart. He tries to stand up, but there’s this explosion across his back, and then there’s nothing.

Chapter Text

Shane

xxx

Shane isn’t asleep. Of course he isn’t asleep. How could he possibly be asleep when he’s ceased to be skin and bones and become a pile of half-lit matches? He’d sat there for ages, listening to Ryan in the shower, raking over everything in his mind. Or, he wanted to be raking over everything—mostly he’s just raking over the way Ryan’s mouth felt against his, and how he can still taste the salt and burn of his lips, and the way Ryan’s giggle had vibrated down his throat.

And then he’s imagining Ryan in the shower, and good lord, it’s all so much. So he throws himself on the bed, and he doesn’t realize that he looks asleep until he hears Ryan’s little exhale of breath and Shane’s undone all over again.

But he cannot move, cannot get up, because then that question will sprout between them again, and he can’t do it. So he lies there, listening to Ryan shuffle uncertainly.

Get up, get up, get up, his brain begs him. Fix this, you idiot.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t get up until he hears the door shut behind Ryan, and then he’s up like a fucking jack-in-the-box, staring at the door. Staring after Ryan and aching with his absence. He grabs his glasses from the nightstand where he’d set them during Ryan’s three-year shower and sighs.

Ryan wants an answer, and of course he does. Shane kissed him first. But after Ryan’s nonsense at the bar, and then, the way he wouldn’t stop touching his lips. Fuck. What was Shane supposed to do?

But Shane is so used to just being with Ryan, with their jokes, and their banter, and their insults. Ryan gets him in a way no one has before. He doesn’t have to pretend with Ryan, he just is. But, this… this is different.

Ryan can’t read his mind. He can’t know what’s going in in Shane’s head, what he wants. As much as Shane put into that kiss, Ryan needs this. Ryan needs words, and fuck, he deserves them. He deserves everything. Ryan gives and gives and gives and works out Shane’s needs so much, that the least Shane can do, is sit up on this damn bed, and admit, Ryan needs this.

Shane just has to open his mouth and say it, and god damn the consequences. Even if Ryan doesn’t want the same thing, even if it’s too much for Ryan and his nerves and his normalcy. Shane has so much trouble with this, with intimacy, at least with saying it aloud. He’s so bad at it, and he’s so sure he’ll ruin this before he’s even got his hands around it.

And Shane wants his hands around Ryan. He wants, he wants, he needs Ryan Bergara, and his brilliant laugh, and his passion, and the light of the galaxy in his fucking eyes. The way he brings the universe to life with a look.

The way he can read Shane like a constellation.

Ryan is everything. His best friend. His safe space. His sunlight. But Ryan can’t know everything. He can’t know this. So Shane resolves to tell him, to say exactly what he wants. Then Ryan can decide what to do with it.

The decision thrums through him so his blood starts to feel ultraviolet. He moves off the bed to wait, pacing a little, browsing his phone. It’s going to explode out of him the second Ryan opens the door, and he has no idea what’s going to happen after.

He just needs Ryan to come back so he can put this behind him.

But Ryan doesn’t. He doesn’t come back, not after five, not after seven, not after ten minutes, and anxiety hits Shane like a bullet in the back. He wouldn’t have gone far. Maybe to get a drink from the vending machine downstairs, and there’s no way he’s taking this long.

And, oh god.

Shane feels himself start to unglue, his joints start to unscrew from their sockets so he isn’t sure he can keep all of him together. He walks to the door and opens it, looking down the hall, both directions, praying—praying he’ll see Ryan, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t, and it opens something inside of him. It’s like a vacuum, like a black hole in the center of his chest, and he almost collapses. But he can’t. He needs to find Ryan. This is just something weird. Ryan probably went to TJ’s, must have, to vent about Shane’s refusal to answer his question.

Shane starts down the hall. New air touches his lips, and jesus, they’re sensitive. And now he’s thinking about Ryan’s mouth again, and how he’s not here, how there’s this space now, this space where his mouth has started to crave Ryan. So the rest of the world bites and burns at it, and he almost wishes they hadn’t kissed because he’s not sure what to do with his mouth anymore.

He just wants Ryan back so he can explain, can try to tell him about this massive, tangled web inside him, and hope Ryan, like Ryan always does, can try to make sense of it. Can try to bring some kind of light to it. 

For the first time in their relationship, Shane contemplates murdering Ryan. He ought to have more sense than this. He was the one wide-eyed and worried about that damn man. Not that it matters. That guy has no idea where they are. Shane would have absolutely noticed if he’d followed them. Sure, Shane thinks, he’s a little drunk, but not Ryan drunk. He’d checked. He’d watched.

But Ryan had taken so much of his attention. Shane had needed so much effort and energy not to lose himself entirely in Ryan fucking Bergara. What if he’d missed something? He let Ryan walk out of the room, knowing something was off about that man, about this town, and if something happened Ryan would’ve been alone, all because Shane was a coward. All because he didn’t want to answer a question, didn’t want to fuck up, and—Jesus Christ, where is Ryan?

Calm down, man.

Shane’s fumbling, grasping at threads in the air to try and keep himself together. He looked, he decides. He has been so acutely aware of that pickup that he would have noticed it.

And then a gruesome kind of smile settles on his face, and he realizes he sounds like he’s talking to Ryan, talking him off a ledge. Only Ryan isn’t here—it’s just Shane and his edges, and they feel so much longer, so much deadlier, than Ryan’s ever could.

Sweat’s beaded along his hands when he stops in front of TJ’s door, and he bangs on it, in this angry, violent way that jostles him a little further into his nerves. Ryan is fine, he keeps repeating. Ryan is fine.

TJ takes over half a second to answer, and it feels like Shane imagines free falling does. This yawning, unending, impossible thing that only stops with something so big, so explosive, that it defies anything your brain can wrap around.

“TJ! Is Ryan in there?” He knocks again so the door vibrates beneath his fist. “TJ!”

This must be how Ryan feels, locked in those little rooms, so sure a ghost is going to leap down from the rafters and steal his soul. Watching seconds go by like hours. And, he thinks, he feels bad about it. About pushing it on him.

And he would give anything to look into those impossible black eyes right now and say that, and tell him that, tell him he believes in ghosts, in demons, in whatever Ryan wants him to if he’ll just be okay.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Shane yells into TJ’s room to shake the image, and he doesn’t even care that half the hotel probably heard him.

Finally, there’s shuffling on the other side of the door, and Shane feels like the universe has  got a hand on his head about to push him under the water. The door swings open, and it’s TJ. He’s disheveled, eyes a little puffy.

“Shane? What the hell?”

Shane’s fingers clench and unclench at his sides, because beyond TJ, the room is dark. He swallows, and it soaks the rest of the moisture from his body.

“Where’s Ryan?” he asks, but it sounds so unlike him. It’s this quiet thing, like there’s a flinch in his voice. In his  soul.

TJ cocks his head, and something explodes in Shane’s chest. He can’t listen anymore, can’t hear TJ say he doesn’t know, because if he doesn’t know then Shane doesn’t know, and oh fuck. He slams a hand into the wall, wheezing on his breath.

TJ follows him into the hallway, and reaches, but he doesn’t touch. He must see it, see that any more sensation is going to draw Shane into this insane reality where he doesn’t know where Ryan is, and that’s going to break him.

“Hey, it’s cool, man. Let me go check to see if he’s in the girl’s room. I’m sure he’s fine.”

He’s not. He’s not, and Shane knows it, knows it like he knows his own name, and at this point he’s wasting his time standing here looking in places Ryan isn’t going to be. Shane doesn’t say anything. He just turns and walks until he’s back in his room, breathing in oxygen like its fucking toxic.

He grabs his phone off the floor where he dropped it, and it lights up his vision so the world squiggles at its borders. No texts. Nothing.

“Okay,” he says, and it’s quivery, and he realizes he has no one to say it to because he doesn’t know where Ryan is, but says it again. “Okay.”

He scrolls through his call log, and Ryan’s back a bit because they’ve been together this whole fucking time. He slams his finger into the name, but he has to do it a couple times because his fingers are jittery and they miss.

The world is too much to process right now, all the lights are blurred, but they’re all red and yellow and bright. The sounds fall to these low, muted rumbles, but they scratch at him like something’s crawling around in his ear. And he feels his brain pushing it away, out, because it’s just one explosion after another, and he can’t—he can’t, not without Ryan.

Finally the call screen lights and he doesn’t bring it to his ear, he just stares at it, until he hears the tinny ringing from the speaker. And then, the vibrations from across the room, and they feel too big, like an earthquake inside of him. He clenches his jaw so hard it hurts and snaps his head back to Ryan’s phone on the charger in the corner.

“Fuck.” He rakes his hands through his hair so his nails dig into the bumps on his skull. “Fuck, man, fuck.”

He shoulders through the door again and finds the stairs. He cannot wait on an elevator right now. He slams down the steps, and all his limbs are everywhere, and he hates being tall. It’s why he’s always so slow, so patient, because it’s so much to keep in one place. But now he can’t be patient, and he slams into the railing on the stairs a thousand times before he reaches the bottom.

Shane’s moving towards the door so fast he almost doesn’t see it, but something draws him back, and he sees the wallet on the floor. He doesn’t process, what it means, what it is, until it’s in his hand, and it’s Ryan’s fucking license.

It’s Ryan’s wallet.

“What the fuck?” he whispers. “What the f—”

But he can’t finish because the world has crashed around him and shattered, silently, so he’s standing in the chaos of his own shrapnel. And there’s nothing, but he can feel different pieces of his reality tinkling along the floor like drops of blood.

And oh god, that was morbid, but Ryan’s wallet…

He folds it and squeezes it in his fist as he walks into the lobby. He spins, spins, looking for something that isn’t there until he wants to throw up with it. He’s dimly aware the receptionist is looking at him like he’s a little out of his mind, but it’s fine because he is.

He doesn’t even know what he’s doing, but he’s there, at the desk, in a second, and he’s talking to the receptionist. “Hey there, uh…” He’s trying to word this, trying to talk this through so he doesn’t just start screaming. “Have you seen, a, uh… I can’t find my friend, has anyone been in here in the past few minutes?”

She chews her lip, seems like she’s thinking really hard about it, and then shakes her head. “No, been pretty quiet tonight.”

And he suddenly kind of understands what would possess the Axeman of New Orleans to bash people’s heads in, but he just says, “thanks,” and walks away. Not seeing anything.

TJ grabs him, then, and of course he’s looking concerned now too. “Hey, okay, have you tried calling him?”

Spite burns through him until he clenches his fist, “Did you try calli—of course I tried calling him, c’mon, man!”

TJ throws up his hands. “Okay, well, his car’s still out front, so I have no idea where he could’ve gone. Maybe he went for a walk.”

Shane is about halfway through thinking that is the dumbest thing he’s ever heard, as if Ryan Bergara would ever go strolling through the streets of a creepy town alone, ever, when it finally settles into him like a kind of ooze.

“It’s that house. I guarantee you that’s where—the, where are the keys? I need—Ryan’s keys.” Shane’s shouldering past TJ, who’s flailing in the worst way.

He grabs Shane. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude… dude, chill, just…”

Shane has never been further from chill in his life. He does not think he will ever chill again, and in fact, wants it eradicate from the English language. He shoves the wallet in TJ’s face and isn’t totally sure TJ gets it. “Chill? You want me to—I don’t have time to argue.”

His brain is creeping in around him, and he’s doing everything he can to beat it back, because he cannot, cannot even consider the possibility that he can’t get to Ryan. Cannot fathom the idea that something happened to him. The very notion of it rocks his world like a precursor to the apocalypse.

Because if anything happens to Ryan, if he can’t find Ryan, then it will destroy him. Wreck him in a way that before this moment, before the shadowed silhouette of this possibility, he wouldn’t have believed in possible.

And it’s terrifying, but it’s lit something inside of him, and all his brain will allow him to think is: I’m going to fucking find him and kiss him and then I’m never going to stop kissing him.

“That house is weird, we definitely don’t need to be there this late. You’re jumping the gun. He’s probably, he’s…”

They’ve walked up the steps, and TJ is still on Shane’s heels, throwing out reasons they cannot do this.

“—it’s insane. You’re freaking out because you’re worried.”

One hundred percent accurate, he thinks, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid. He grabs Ryan’s keys and whirls on TJ, who looks like he might bodily block the door.

And oh man, spearing someone into a hotel hallway was not how he thought this day was going to end, but kissing Ryan Bergara has upended everything so thoroughly that even colors aren’t the same. So anything’s possible.

“I’m not letting you go there alone. We don’t—I mean, do you have a gun or something?”

“Yeah, Teej, let me get my bag and grab my AK 47.” And then his chest is collapsing all over again because there was a gun at that house, and they’d left it there.

“Shane, you can’t… seriously, think. If you’re going to confront someone, they’re probably a… I mean, not a great guy, so… we need to call the police.”

Shane’s jaw clenches, and the words spill out of him, and they’ve been building, and he hates himself, down to his very fiber, for not letting himself think it sooner. “No, listen—it’s not, we’re—we found a gun in that basement, we found a lived-in room. This town, there’s a reason the murders got almost no coverage. There’s a reason they can’t find Robert Casey. This whole town covering for this guy.”

TJ laughs until it fades into a scoff. “You sound like Ryan, man.”

And that, more than anything, frays him until he can feel pieces of him tearing off him in spirals. “Ryan,” he chokes, and the name hangs on his lips for a beat too long, and it takes him so long, too long, to breathe again.

“Hey, whoa, just…”

And Shane must look bad, because TJ’s eyes are as wide as… jesus, everything is reminding him of Ryan, and he just wants Ryan to remind him of Ryan.

“Okay, I’m going.”

“Shane, stop, what are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to find Ryan,” and then this visceral part of him tears through his mouth like a new set of teeth, “and if he’s hurt, kill this murdering fuck.”

“Jesus, alright, alright, okay, hold on, if you are right, which I’m not saying you are, but if you are… what are you going to do, karate chop him?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Shane says, and he just doesn’t care.

“You’ll figure it out?” TJ can’t keep going, and Shane can’t keep standing here, so while he’s rebooting, Shane slides around him and heads back down the stairs.

The air is suffocating in his lungs as he walks into the parking lot.  This churning kind of heat bites into him, and his fingers clench harder into the leather of Ryan’s wallet. The asphalt pushes too hard against his feet, and he thinks it’s strange, how the stupid double-step pitter-patter of Ryan beside him always distracts him. From a thousand physical sensations that chip away at his sanity one prick at a time.

“Shane!” TJ makes it to the parking lot a little before Shane throws open the door of Ryan’s Prius and climbs in. And, god, what a fucking mistake. Ryan is small, so fucking small, and Shane has to pull back out and slide the seat back before he can even begin to work this out.

He’s fumbling, every switch and nob in the car slips and skids under his fingers because his mind is the eye of a cyclone. Everything feels like too much, in the very opposite way it felt with Ryan beneath his hands, the solid warmth of Ryan’s knees against his thighs as he’d climbed onto the bed. Onto Shane.

And the visual is back in his head, Ryan worrying at his lip, the soft pitch of his breath, shallow and uncertain, and so very Ryan. The dark pools of warmth when Ryan looked at him, this tender, impossible question simmering in his eyes, and all Shane wants is to go back, to go back and grab his face and say…

Say the right thing, tell him anything he wants to hear, anything.

“Jesus, Ryan,” he says.

“Shane, stop!” TJ is halfway across the parking lot.

He doesn’t have time. He cannot do this right now, so he throws himself into the car, somehow folding all his limbs at angles that aren’t quite comfortable, but his mind is such a sandstorm he can’t mind that much. He just drives, drives until the scenery blurs with the night, and streetlights plant themselves into his brain like star charts.

He can’t stop thinking about Ryan, about that kiss, about where the fuck he is right now. Where he isn’t. He can’t stop feeling how smooth Ryan’s arms were, his neck was, when Shane brushed it, or how his teeth nicked Shane’s lip in this achingly soft way that Shane still can’t stop feeling. Or how his hair tangled around Shane’s fingers.

How Ryan is a balm to Shane’s body, to his soul. To everything.

But it’s better than what he feels in his peripheral thoughts, this maelstrom of chaos, of what could be happening, of the fact that he could lose Ryan, and god that thought takes it out of him. Takes everything out of him.

And then he’s at the house, staring at it, and he can’t even be intimidated. He just wants to put it between his hands and squeeze. He checks the backseat, a cursory glance, because he’s sure his rage could set this guy on fire even if that’s all he has. But there’s a bat, there, and he almost laughs. Does laugh, but it’s jagged and weird without Ryan.

And he isn’t sure when even laughing started feeling wrong without Ryan, he isn’t sure when the entire tilt of his world fell on those damnably small shoulders. But of course the bat’s there, because that’s what Ryan does, gives him what he needs. Even when he has no idea.

Shane grabs the bat out of the seat and steps out of the car, sees the pickup on the opposite curb. And he thinks, distantly, he could die, but somehow the idea of doing nothing—of leaving Ryan in this hellscape, is so much scarier, that it seems easy. Easy to stare down death.

Because he’s thinking of someone else’s hands on Ryan, someone touching him with intent to do anything, let alone hurt him. And it’s burning through him like acid, running cracks through his bones, and fuck. Fuck.

He doesn’t stop again, and when he gets to the door, he slams his foot into it so it blasts off the hinges like he’s a landmine. And he feels like one.

And he knows how stupid it is, knows the element of surprise is what he needs to succeed, but he cannot stand the idea of not knowing. Of leaving Ryan on his own, wherever he is, for one more second, and so he grabs the back and slams it into a cracked lamp near the couch. And it erupts with sound as it shatters.

“Okay you creepy fuck! Show yourself!” 

Chapter Text

Ryan

xxx

The world comes back to Ryan in broken mirror fragments. A bite at his wrist, this sick, scraping kind of drag, a thud that juts into his thigh. He thinks he hears himself groan, and there’s flickers of night, blasts bright enough to feel like firecrackers, laced into everything. And he knows something is wrong. Something is so wrong.

His eyes won’t cooperate with him. They’re hollow, like he’s got pits rather than eyes, and every time he tries to open them, cracks spider further into his face. And then feeling seeps back into his ankle and fingers are wrapped around it, burning, kinda scratching, and oh fuck. He remembers.

He’s dead, that’s what he decides, it’s easier than thinking about the fact that he isn’t dead, and he has to fear becoming dead. But he isn’t. He isn’t dead, and fear rockets through him like a vine up a wall, and it will not let go. His fingernails snag on the floorboards, but they don’t catch.

Okay, no. Okay. His brain fizzles and sticks, just sputters in this airless place, like he can’t bring oxygen into his lungs, he can’t bring thoughts into his mind. Because this cannot be happening to him. It just can’t. This is a nightmare. He begs his brain, almost audibly, please let me wake up. Please, don’t let this be real.

Ryan’s had nightmares before. He’s familiar with them. He lives with his fears, faces them like ex-girlfriends in a bar. So they plague him, haunt him—stretched smiles in the corner of his vision. This is just another one of them. Twisting and sneering at him.

Only he’s so much more aware than in any nightmare he’s ever had, and he knows, like you do when it’s not a dream—that it’s real. He knows how he got here, and he remembers kissing Shane, and it’s all so real. It’s real, and holy fuck, he’s going to die. Blood roars through him, curling into his throat and throbbing against his heartbeat like frantic butterfly wings in a web.

He’s going to die.

Ryan is going to die.

Weirdly, hilariously, he thinks of Shane. Of the thousand times Shane joked about not coming to his aid. Of the fact that he’d probably be like, ‘I told you so’ in that stupid farmboy voice he has. Or, god forbid, he’d be sad. As if he has any right to be sad, with his silence and his smirking and his Shaneness. No. Shane Madej does not get to be sad.

Ryan will not die, solely because Shane doesn’t get to be sad about it.

It’s insane, but it snags in his chest, like those butterfly wings winding into something like a dragon’s. He presses his lips press together as his senses silver fully in. He’s in the house, because of course he is, Robert Casey is a fucking movie villain. And Ryan’s got zip-ties on his wrist, because apparently Robert Casey is a clearance-rack movie villain.

But Ryan’s feet aren’t bound. The guy’s just dragging him by them, and honestly, it’s bizarre. So bizarre that terror inflates so wide and yawning it curls into hysteria. The kind that almost makes Ryan want to laugh. Which might be a poor choice, given the circumstance.

The air is muggy, Ryan’s struggling to breathe it in, and there’s this white filter of moonlight striking the ground a few feet away, and Ryan remembers it. Remembers seeing that light before, that angle, that sliver, in Shane’s eyes when Ryan woke up after he fell through the floor. The way it made them too bright, made Shane too bright, like he’d taken a hit of something as unfiltered as wildfire.

He uses it to orient himself.

The guy releases his foot and walks away, and Ryan doesn’t immediately move. Besides the vaguely painful thud of his heels hitting the rug. Play dead, that’s what you do when there’s a bear, he thinks. You play dead.

Because that will totally work on murderers, says a voice that sounds weirdly like Shane’s.

His blood is rending through him like he’s going to burst, and he tries to think of something, to beg God or ghosts or Ghandi for something, anything, but all he can think of is Shane, and then:

You idiot, you’re squeezing your eyes shut. He’s going to see you.

Ryan relaxes his eyes, and writhes with the knowledge that Shane is in his fucking head. That Shane is the one talking him down, through a hostage situation, when he’s not even here. No, he’s asleep, asleep, blissfully unaware that Ryan is  in mortal fucking peril.

Dick.

Then a shadow prickles through Ryan, a hollow sort of howling through his chest, as he realizes that Shane is asleep. That Shane won’t be here. He isn’t coming to help him.

Ryan is alone.

He shuffles his wrists. He can’t feel Casey’s presence nearby anymore, so he checks his range of motion while he’s got a chance. Not good. The zip-ties, because that’s absolutely what they are, dig into his skin almost immediately. Pain lashes through him like lightning, and he eats his hiss in favor of a wince.

His feet are still free, though, unbound.

Mistake, motherfucker, he thinks, as he feels the presence again, drifting, or circling, a shark in dark water, and Ryan’s bleeding fear. The guy’s near the bookshelf, maybe. What is he going to do? And where is the gun?

Ryan hears his heartbeat so clearly, so loudly, it drowns out the rest of reality like he’s spent too long at a metal concert. Everything is muffled, distant, except then he hears Shane’s obnoxious voice again:

He can’t hear your heart, relax. Go for the balls.

Shane would tell him to go for the balls. He would. No. It’s not fair that Shane should get the credit for this. Not when he’s snoring back in his bed, safe and sound, dreaming about an episode of Frasier starring Oscar Isaac. He probably won’t even remember they kissed.

That’s a very unproductive thought, the Shane in his head says, let’s stay focused.

Fuck you, dude, Ryan thinks, at himself, presumably.

Casey’s close, he’s shuffling nearby, and Ryan thinks he hears the shink of metal, and—it’s a knife. He’s got a knife, and Ryan’s unhelpful piece of shit brain is playing back everything he’s learned about the murders like a major motion picture. About all the things he said for the show earlier today, and all he can think is, he doesn’t want to be featured on Unsolved.

And there’s this pang in him. This awareness that he’s talked about all these dead people, these people who died in these horrific circumstances, on a show. A show people watch and laugh at. Their deaths became something to inspect and ogle. They lived this terror, this monster of a thing, and then it was over. They were over. They ceased to be people and turned into spectacles, mysteries—into murders. And all people could do was speculate and write blog posts and make dumb Buzzfeed shows about them.

There’s a wet burn behind his eyes, along his nose, and all he can think is, he doesn’t want that.

Fuck, he doesn’t want to be a murder. He wants to be a person. He wants to be Ryan.

Casey has wandered back to him, and he’s so close that Ryan can make out his breathing. It’s sort of wet and slow, and Ryan schools his face away from the disgust that thrums through him.

Calm down, man, Shane’s saying again, regulate your breathing. You need him to get closer.

Ryan does. Casey floats a little closer, and Ryan realizes he’s checking to see if Ryan’s awake. He’s waiting for him to wake up, because he wants to play games with him. Because he is literally fucking Jigsaw. Fuck this asshole. Ryan clings to that thought like a lifeboat, because fear is threatening to swallow him, drag him into this swirling sea of panic. His mind is trying to come apart, to melt into uselessness in the pit in his stomach.

He can’t beat Jigsaw, god, he’s seen those movies. He knows how this ends. This guy has killed entire families, and…

Ryan, you’re smart. You spend hours looking this stuff up. You’ve got this.

Ryan doesn’t have this, and he also thinks it’s hilarious that what is potentially the nicest thing Shane has ever said to him is one hundred percent made up, in his own mind.

Casey finally kneels a little, and Ryan’s got a shot. He doesn’t think, doesn’t consider. He just slams his foot forward until it connects with the guy’s crotch.

With his balls.

Because sometimes, a man just knows when he hits the balls. He can feel it in his bones, and also, the sheer agony in the air. Ryan hits such a hard stop, at such a firm angle, that Casey must have thrown his very essence into blocking it. But he hasn’t, because he’s lurching.

Get up. Run.

It’s awkward with the zip ties, but when you’re seconds from death, your body has a way of working things out. He twists upright and throws Casey to the ground before he scampers to the staircase. The world is swirling around him, and, he realizes, his head is pounding, like properly pounding. It feels like it might pop off his shoulders. All his limbs are hollower for it.

“Oh, oh, where do you think you’re going, kiddo?” The voice is dripping, oozing, like a sickness. It lodges in Ryan’s brain and tears at it.

To his credit, Ryan only stumbles a little by the stairs, and he’s almost up before he feels the shot. This white, hot snap that blinds him for long enough that he feels nothing, hears nothing, until his shoulder hits the floor above the basement. Barely off the stairs. He never even registers the sound. There’s just a screech in his head, shredding the world around him like paper.

Tears swim behind his eyes, and he shakes, quivers, with the pain that cracks through him, snapping through his bones like shears over shrubs. He doesn’t think he screams, but his throat’s sore, so maybe he did.

“Did that hurt, Ryan?” And the guy says his name like it’s an old dog toy that’s had all the stuffing torn out, tragic, and somehow so irrelevant.

He shot him. Ryan has been shot. He can feel blood starting to ooze, feel the bullet somewhere in his leg. His whole body is folding around it, crumpling like a leaf set on fire. And oh god, it hurts. It fucking hurts like nothing Ryan has ever felt. The hurt clogs every sense, sight, sound, breath. He can taste it like copper in his mouth. Fucking smell it.

His eyes blur, his whole head blurs, and he feels like ink swirling in water. Drifting, aimless, and slowly diluting into this new thing he’s been dropped into. Too big for him to hold. He can’t breathe, and all he wants to do is make it stop. His hands try to part, to reach for his thigh, for the hole that used to be his thigh, but the zip-ties cut into his wrist and everything is so much worse. He opens his mouth, but sound can’t push past the pain stuck in his throat.

Ryan, get up. C’mon.

He hates that it’s Shane, because of course Shane would want him to just get up and run with a fucking bullet in his thigh. And oh god, there’s blood now, it’s soaking his jeans through so they’re black with it. It’s creeping along his leg, following the lines of his veins. His head spins.

Get up!

He whimpers, but he has to move. He hears footsteps on the stairs, in time with the pain that’s caught onto his heartbeat, and he knows he has to. He grabs onto the wall with his still-bound hands, drags himself like he’s swimming up a waterfall.

“This doesn’t have to be painful, you know,” Casey’s voice says, filters through the hall like a shadow, and Ryan’s chest seizes. “Well, not this painful.” Click, click, Robert’s feet drag the stairs, slowly, leisurely.

Ryan’s fingers dig into the wall, and it’s chipping and pulling at this frayed and burned wallpaper, and it hurts his fingernails, but if he doesn’t root himself with it—he’ll fall. He lets go, pushes himself forward with his shoulder, hands still very useless in front of him. His whole body rattles as he slides along the wall, clatters like all his screws are stripped loose, like that bullet has pressed itself into his joints and is pushing him apart.

He throws himself through the first door he finds, and of course it’s pink—it’s pink and tarnished and it belongs to that little girl. He hits the floor, wheezing a little as he tries to grab at his leg. But the zip ties bite into him again, and oh god, oh god, fuck. He just needs a break, just two seconds away from everything crashing through him. He can’t keep going. He’s going to snap, to collapse, because he can’t hold this on his own.

But he has to.

And, yup, he’s crying. He’s definitely crying, and he can’t even think about how undignified it is, because he knows that motherfucker is going to walk through the door any second.

He bites at his zip ties until his teeth scream and his gums sting. The metal taste of blood whispers through his mouth, brighter and brighter until it’s all he can taste. He’s whining a little, trying to keep himself from screaming in frustration as he pulls the ties so hard blood bursts from his wrists. But they don’t come away, and now they’re digging harder into his wrist so even that’s become unbearable. A keening kind of groan escapes him, and he forces himself into silence behind the heat and sting and ache of his face.

A weapon, you need a weapon you can swing with your hands tied.

And, okay, now Ryan full-on despises how Shane is taking credit for all of his good ideas. He rolls over, wincing a little as the carpet digs into him, and checks the room. There’s not much left in here. A dollhouse, a few scattered stuffed animals, and haha, of course there’s a doll with its head cracked open, staring at him, as if to say: this is you in thirty seconds.

Panic has latched onto his chest, lodged itself there, so every breath comes like a bat to the brain. Colors are sparking through him, but the blood loss is peeling some of them back, lessening the panic.

Bad, Ryan figures, because there’s still lots of reason to panic.

“You know, you’ll bleed out before you get out of this house. I’m sure you’re already exhausted. You hit your head pretty hard, well, twice today, I guess.”

Ryan knows Casey probably says that to draw attention to it, but it works. Ryan’s immediately swimming in his own pain. His leg, his head, his wrists, and fuck, now his arm’s hurting again, because of course it fucking is. The lines of his palms are sticky and slick, so his hands slip and slide with blood from his wrist. And, jesus, he’s left this smeared stain of black on the carpet. From his thigh.

Focus, Ryan, feel sorry for yourself later.

Honestly, Shane is such a douche.

Finally, finally, he notices a princess wand in the corner, sort of gnarled with burns, but it looks enough like a bat that he’ll take it. He crawls, or wriggles toward it, and the burned carpet rips thorough his jeans like talons. But he tells his knees to suck it up, because they’re going to die just like the rest of him if they don’t. Then his thigh twists wrong, and his shoulders buckle and shudder as that crashes over him like a tidal wave.

Keep going!

Shut up, Shane!

He finally makes it. He grabs the wand, which slips a little in his grip, and turns at the sound of more footsteps and Robert’s heavy, wild breathing, like he’s fucking masturbating. Jesus Christ, he’s getting off on this. Ryan pushes himself onto his feet, staggers a bit, and slams himself against the wall by the door as quietly as he can.

Robert probably hears the thump, but Ryan’s counting on that.

Are you about to try and take this guy out with a pretty, pretty princess wand? Shane asks.

I don’t have any other options since you decided to take a nap, Ryan bites back.

I can’t fight all your battles for you, Bergara.

That, more than anything, knocks him for a second. Shane can’t fight his battles, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean Ryan doesn’t want him here. That doesn’t mean Ryan isn’t longing for him like a cherished childhood blanket, and it sears him with a shame that has no place here. Has no place in his mind when he’s seconds from a gruesome, terrible death.

Casey’s breathing cuts the air with a flutter as Ryan holds his own in his lungs, squeezing his hands around the wand like he’s Harry fucking Potter. What he wouldn’t give for an Unforgivable Curse right about now, hell, he’d settle for Expelliarmus.

He fights with his arms, pulling them against his chest. He tries once, twice, to get the wand behind his head, but his head catches in the gap between his forearms, and his arm registers its fortieth fucking complaint. But he grits his teeth and tries again, because this is the only way he’s going to get a strong swing.

He makes it work just as the door creaks open, and Ryan hangs back, waiting for his shot. Robert doesn’t come in immediately, takes his time like an asshole.

“C’mon, kid, all you’re doing is making this more fun for me.”

His back is turned when he eases into the room, and Ryan swings. He cracks the back of the guy’s skull, and Casey stumbles. Ryan tries again, but the zip-ties make him too slow. Casey’s already whirled, and he catches it in his hand, so their eyes meet, and there’s this glee in Casey’s. It sucks the life out of Ryan like a black hole.

Casey yanks the wand free, and Ryan’s stunned into paralysis. Casey grabs his chin and slams him back into the wall, fingers digging in so Ryan’s sure they’re leaving fingerprints on his jawbone.

His panic is met with this roaring impossibility inside of him. This it’s-over sensation that makes his body kind of go limp beneath Robert’s fucking leer. He shouldn’t give up, he knows that, but there isn’t anything he can do.

And now he’s just thinking about the fact that this man has cut eyes out of people, has ripped faces so they’re permanently smiling, has done every horrible thing that serial killers do, and Ryan’s just stuck here. By himself.

He hiccups on a breath, because as still as he is, some part of him bucks against it, furious that this is where he is. That this is how he’s going to die. To end. It propels him to struggle, he draws up a knee, but Robert’s fist catches him across the jaw, and Ryan’s on the ground again.

He tries to get up, but Casey brings a foot down on his knee, and this time he hears himself scream. He bends towards it, but that same foot hits his jaw, and he is going to fucking throw up. He can barely see Robert through his probably-swelling eyes. “I’ll scream louder,” he says, and there’s blood in his mouth, all over him. It splashes with the words, and they feel even bigger than usual in his mouth. Jesus Christ. “Someone will notice.”

Robert’s got a knife in his hand now, and the gun is nestled at his side in the kind of holster that Shane and Ryan would absolutely make fun of if Ryan wasn’t about to be his next victim. Damn, if Ryan could get his hands on that gun, he’d be golden. But he has literally no idea how to do that.

“You think this town cares?” Robert asks. “C’mon, kid, didn’t you do your research?” He grabs Ryan by the hair, and there’s the cold bite of knife at his throat, and it’s enough to collapse Ryan’s chest.

He did do his research, and he still came. Even when Shane told him not to. Even when everyone told him not to. He came, he came to this house, broke in, and this is his fault. He’s going to die, and he can’t even be sad because it’s his own damn fault for being such a fucking idiot.

His breath twitches his throat against the knife, but he can’t bring himself to try and scream. Robert is right. This town is clearly, obviously, covering for him. So he’d probably just get his throat cut, which he’s pretty sure is one of the worst ways to die.

Casey laughs and throws Ryan’s head, freeing him from the blade briefly. “You think I can kill you and get you back in bed before your little friend wakes up?”

And it’s so funny, because the only thought Ryan has is, Shane is not little. He’s a fucking giant, and he’s not here. Ryan’s probably never going to see him again. No, scratch that, Ryan is absolutely never going to see him again because he’s got a serial killer’s knife at his goddamn throat.

“What do you even get out of this, you crazy fuck?”

The chuckle is this slimy, gross thing, and it weighs Ryan down like swamp water. It clicks up his spine like ragged fingernails. “People like you. You’re a mess, you know.” The knife bites a little too hard into the bottom of Ryan’s jaw, and he feels blood bead.

He grits his teeth, and there’s blood everywhere, it’s between his teeth, and he’s never been more aware of his enormous damn mouth. How his teeth don’t fit right.

He could just impale himself, save himself the misery of being alive while this guy carves his eyes out, but he can’t seem to muster up the courage to do that. So he just sits here and stares, he’d like to think he glares, but he’s not even sure if he’s getting that right.

“You experience things so openly, so vividly, and that includes fear, Ryan.” A smile contorts Casey’s face until Ryan is forced to acknowledge, again, that he’s missing teeth. Gross. “You’re afraid.”

True, Ryan is about to shit his pants. Is kind of impressed that he hasn’t, but he hates that it’s so obvious it’s caught a serial killer’s interest. He also wishes this guy brushed his teeth, because fuck.

“You and your friend were so cute,” Casey says. “You know, it would probably be fairly easy to kill him too.”

Ryan lunges, so the knife slips along his neck, not deep, but enough to tear a rush of blood free, then it skips along his collarbone, and that sings through him like a broken note. He squeezes his eyes shut around the pain, hisses at the new flow of blood. Probably not his best move, but, “Yeah, okay, asshole, you’ve got your fucking Stepford Murderers looking out for you, but if you kill me, kill both of us, we live in LA, you dick. Someone is going to come looking.”

“Oh, it’s not that hard to disappear for a while. You think I really haven’t killed anyone in three years?”

Ryan’s heart drops.

“How do you think he’ll handle it?” Casey asks. “When he wakes up next to a corpse?”

Ryan doesn’t know. He can’t even fathom how Shane would respond to something like that, something so completely serious, so completely awful. He can’t stand it, can’t stand the fact that he’s going to potentially tear Shane apart again, so he says, “He’d probably think it was funny.”

Casey doesn’t like that answer, and a smirk tangles onto Ryan’s face because that’s what he was going for. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know him,” Ryan says, “Shane’s weird. He doesn’t really get worked up.” And maybe he’s trying to convince this guy that there’s no reason to bother with Shane. Maybe he can’t stand the idea of anything happening to Shane.

Even if he’s dead.

Maybe he’s in really deep.

Or maybe he’s just human.

“He certainly seems to get worked up about you.”

Ryan snaps his teeth together, and everything in him focuses on this new idea, this new decision, because it’s the one thing he has power over. His body is coming apart like dandelion tufts in a strong breeze, but he wants, desperately, to keep Shane safe. And it makes everything else, the fact that he’s going to fucking die, seem smaller.

And he has no idea how he can even begin to think that about death.

“No, asshole, he doesn’t.”

And Ryan believes it. Knows Shane. Like he knows his favorite song or the fabric of his favorite sweater. He knows.

That is, until something in the other room shatters, and Casey goes as rigid as rock on top of Ryan, soaking in the silence until, ““Okay you creepy fuck! Show yourself!”

And there’s no way. There is literally no way this is happening, that Ryan has not fallen through a fucking wormhole in the Bermuda Triangle and come out in some impossible Twilight Zone.

Shane was asleep. He was safe. There is no reason he should be in the other room right now. There is no way he should have followed Ryan, should have known. And why the fuck has he alerted this guy to himself? What the fuck?

Suddenly, Ryan is more awake, more alive, than he’s ever been. Because Shane is here. And Ryan isn’t alone. Shane came looking for him.

What the fuck?

Ryan opens his mouth, to scream for Shane to fuck off, but Casey’s knife is pressed against his trachea like the bite of frost before a blizzard.

“Say anything, and he’ll walk in to find you bleeding out on the floor.”

But if Ryan says nothing, then Shane has every chance of bleeding out on the floor himself, and, oh god, oh god, Ryan would rather it be him than Shane. There isn’t even a choice. A thousand times he’d rather it be him.

“Shane! You fucking idiot!” Ryan screams it, screams it like his soul is shattering, screams it like he can light the fucking house on fire. It startles Casey, so Ryan catches the blade between his hands until it cuts him deep enough he can’t feel it. “He’s got a gun! Get out of here.”

Casey tears the knife free, slips it back, back, so it gnaws and finally breaks through Ryan’s restraints, through his hands, so fast it burns, and Ryan chokes, maybe screams again, and this time, it just hurts. Casey moves, maybe to cut Ryan’s throat, but Ryan reaches for the gun holstered at Casey’s waist. Casey grabs it so it’s stuck between them, and he wrenches until he pulls Ryan off the floor.

Blood makes Ryan’s grip slick, and he’s about to lose it, but the door slams open, and Casey stumbles towards the sound while Ryan stumbles back as the gun fires once, then twice as it hits the floor.

It’s so loud, so loud Ryan feels it in his stomach.

“Ryan!”

Ryan barely sees Shane. He’s blinking, because he isn’t quite sure what happened, and he’s having trouble breathing, but he does manage, “Shane?”

But it’s splattered in blood, he sees it, feels it, tastes it. He shakes his head, or he thinks he does. His intent is to shake it, but he stumbles back until his knees hit the little girl’s bed, and he sinks to the floor. “Shane.”

Shane is looking at him, just staring at him, like he did outside the house. Like Ryan is taking up so much space, like he is the entire room, entire world, and Ryan wants to scream there’s a murderer—there’s a guy with a knife, pay attention, you fucking moron, but there’s so much blood in his throat, in his mouth. It’s making his lips sticky and damp, and breath is circling him like a vulture. Waiting on something that won’t come.

So, what comes out is a kind of gasped, “What the fuck?”

And, for some reason, he looks at his hand, and it’s bloody, this shiny, terrible red, so red, that he laughs, and everything hazes. Everything hurts.

He thinks he hears Shane say, “I’ll fucking kill you,” but it’s so angry, so violent, that it can’t possibly be Shane.

It is, though.

It definitely is.

Chapter Text

Shane

xxx

Casey’s screaming on the ground like a fucking zombie out of a movie, and Shane can’t stop staring at Ryan. Because he’s not screaming. He didn’t get shot. Shane knows this. Repeats it to himself like a fucking litany, again and again. The second bullet hit the ceiling, not Ryan, but he’s swaying, and he’s against the bed, blinking too much, and there’s blood all over the fucking place.

He looks so fucking small, and there’s this ghost of a quiver in his lips, in his shoulders, back against the bed. Like he’s trying so hard to keep upright, and all Shane wants to do is go over there and tell him it’s okay. Tell him he doesn’t have to.

But it’s not okay. It’s fucking not.

Because this is Shane’s fucking fault. And it’s coursing through him like water from a broken fire hydrant.

“Ryan, jesus, Ryan…” And Shane’s whole face is stinging and his brain is crumpling like its wrapped in a thousand rubberbands. It feels so surreal, everything is red, everything is broken, and small, and worse because it’s Ryan. Looking like he’s held together with fucking tape and string, scared in a way that punches straight into Shane’s chest and squeezes.

And jesus christ, jesus christ. His thigh, his jeans are soaked black in the darkness, and god, he did get shot. Maybe not now. But this fucker shot him, and Shane is temporarily broken. Broken because he let Ryan walk out of the room, all because he didn’t want to answer a question. He let Ryan walk outside, into this, and now… oh, god, the blood in his head feels so thin it’ll leak out of him.

What the fuck have I done?

He can’t breathe.

All he can see is how bright red Ryan’s mouth looks because it’s bleeding, and how his wrists are fucking gnarled with these awful fucking ligature marks. And the normal glisten in his eyes is this hollow, terrified sheen. And all Shane can think is something so soft should never look like this.

“What the fuck?” Ryan finally manages, and their eyes meet, and there’s this half-glaze in Ryan’s like he’s not quite sure who Shane is.

And then he’s staring at his hands, like this is a joke, and he’s laughing. And Jesus Christ, he’s going to bleed out on this fucking floor. And it takes everything in Shane not to hit his knees and, and, he doesn’t know.

Shane spins as Casey collects himself, from the way he’s holding his arm, that’s where the bullet hit. And Shane thinks with this twisted snarl of a thought, good. He raises the bat, and Casey’s eyes fly open as he realizes what’s happening. He scrambles so the bat slams into the floor and reverberates up Shane’s arms.

The pain registers and leaps off him like electricity because he can’t be bothered with it, not with Ryan like this…

Ryan.

His eyes keep skipping, trying to jump back to Ryan, but he can’t—if he does it’ll destroy him. He’ll fall completely apart because he can’t even begin to process it. Begin to accept it. And this motherfucker is going to pay for it. God, he’s going to pay.

Shane clenches the bat and, shit, Casey’s going for the gun.

Shane pulls back up and, this time, the bat connects with the back of the fucker’s shoulders. Casey groans, slams into the floor. Shane grips the bat harder, and he can’t begin to describe how fucking good that felt.

He brings the bat back again, and Casey spins to face him, but he’s pulling back, back, with his good arm, and when Shane brings the bat down, he squirms so Shane connects with his thigh rather than his face. Which is what he’d like to hit.

Then Casey’s hand grabs the gun, and fuck. He aims it right at Shane’s chest, and Shane barely gets all of his limbs out of the way. Barely. Then Shane swings the bat again, and it connects with Casey’s hand so the gun clatters back to the ground. It goes off, and Ryan squeaks like it hit him, and that, not the gun, is what startles Shane into dropping the bat.

He looks long enough to know, and no, Ryan’s okay. He’s just startled, like a puppy that’s been kicked a hundred times, and oh, oh…

Focus, Shane.

Okay, gun first, bat second. That makes the most sense, he decides. He kicks the gun so it skids across the floor because there’s no way he’s getting his long ass down there before Casey picks it up. But Casey gets his hands around the bat.

Shit.

He catches its handle before Casey can get it to any kind of useful position, and then they’re tug-o-warring over this damn bat, and the surrealness of this situation slams into Shane like a wrecking ball. Because, is this really happening? He’s fighting with a fucking serial killer over a baseball bat that he found in the back of Ryan’s car.

What even is this?

And then, Ryan’s sort of shuffling in his peripheral, and Shane, god fucking damn him, he can’t help it. He looks again, because he just needs to look at him, to make sure he’s not dead or dying. He’s not dead, but he’s this little ball of fear and pain, and a scream tears and tears at Shane until it splits his ribcage.

You did this. You let this happen.

Casey yanks the bat free.

You absolute idiot.

Casey swings, and it barely catches Shane in the shoulder, but he full on topples to the ground until he catches himself against the wall.

“You two really need to learn to stay out of other people’s business,” Casey says, and it’s the first thing Shane’s heard him say since he got here, and his voice is reminiscent of inhaling toothpicks.

Shane ought to be fucking terrified. This guy is a murderer, and he’s got a bat, but Shane can’t stop seeing the look on Ryan’s face. The stain of blood on the curves of his neck. And all he can think is how he wants to spend the rest of his life washing it off. There’s a softness he didn’t know was in him, a soft wingbeat, like his fingers are made of velvet. Made to touch Ryan, to soothe him.

And then there’s something else.

He’s floored, no, furious, at the absurdity that someone could look at Ryan, see him, look him in those too-warm, too-big eyes, and want to hurt him. The words I’m not leaving this room until I break this motherfucker’s head open like a watermelon, crack through him like a broken seal. It’s a terrifying thought, but Shane leans into it. He launches forward, and he straight up clocks Casey in the jaw. His thumb hits first, and the guy’s face just buckles under the hit. He doesn’t even know what hand he swung because all that’s in his head is: hell yes.

Hell fucking yes.

Casey, to his credit, snarls like a fucking hyena and swings the bat again, but Shane stops him, catching the guy midswing so they do this sort of improvised ballet across the room.

“You’re gonna die,” Shane says. “I’m gonna tear your fucking hands off.” It beats through him, a primal, growling thing that fits like a new skin. Another side to him, and he’s just giving himself to it, because normal Shane, the Shane that’s going to collapse into a heap at the sight of Ryan against that bed, is not going to help him right now.

The gun, Shane thinks, he needs that gun. But if he looks away to see where it went, then he’s going to lose his grip. And this guy is competing with him with one good arm, and that is insulting enough as it is.

Shane pulls his leg up, which takes an exorbitant amount of time, and throws it into the Casey’s midsection. He has no idea how to fight, literally none, and is costing solely on his rage. But it’s almost working. Casey gasps, but he throws himself into the grip so the bat hits Shane squarely across the face. His nose pounds like a beat in one of Ryan’s hip-hop playlists.

“Goddamn!”

Casey laughs, and fuck, Shane wants to reach in and tear it out of him like an arrowhead.

He stumbles back, and he’s lost the damn bat. Fuck. He can’t even be scared. His teeth are gritted, and he’s coiled like he could burst. He’s so angry, so angry that he can’t make this guy pay for this. That it’s taking this much of him, when there’s so much roaring through him he feels like the mountain everyone says he is.

He’s pretty sure his nose is bleeding, and Casey is over him, then, with a bat. “Now this is fun. I get to choose which one of you to kill first.”

Shane smiles, and it’s this brittle, cracking thing, a slice across his face. “Go to hell.” His mind skips through the next few seconds. Disbelieving. Disconnected. Casey goes to laugh again, and then,

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

He shields himself, because he thinks it’s the bat, but it’s definitely not the bat. He’s out of it, but he’d know if a bat hit him, he’s pretty sure. He looks up, opens his eyes because he’s closed them, and Casey’s just sort of standing there, mouth open, like Satan has come to claim him. Which he should.

Then there’s a dribble of blood coming out of his mouth, and Shane thinks holy shi—

Pop.

His skull spews open like a shaken soda bottle, and blood and debris hit Shane like dirt off the highway. He’s so stunned he doesn’t react to Casey nearly falling on him for a couple seconds, then he works his eyes over, over, until he finds the source.

Ryan, hands squeezed in front of him—holding the gun, teeth gritted, still shaking like the world is trying to rip out his bones, but his eyes are wide, and there’s this fire in them that’s brightening the whole room.

“Holy shit,” Shane breathes.

Ryan doesn’t say anything. He should not be standing up, not with his thigh. And Shane nearly erupts with how impossible this is, how covered in blood and dirt and fear Ryan is. It’s latched onto him like a cloak.

Ryan’s still got the gun raised, like he might shoot again, so Shane is very slow in the way he stands up, tries desperately to meet Ryan’s eyes. He stands across the room. Even as every part of him begs, aches for Ryan. Reaches for him.

“Ryan,” he tries first, “buddy…”

Ryan’s not there. He’s just staring, mouth open, still splattered in blood. And god, Shane wants to go over there and help him, just hold him, cradle him, but he’s pretty sure if he moves too fast he’s going to get a bullet to the face.

“Look at me,” Shane says, and when Ryan doesn’t, “Ryan, it’s Shane. Look at me.”

Ryan trembles again, and there’s this broken sound like it came out of a dying bird, and Shane unravels all over again. But this can’t be about Shane. Not yet.

“He’s dead, Ryan. He’s…” Shane is taking slow, purposeful steps, and Ryan hasn’t shot him yet. He’s just standing there, staring at nothing. “You did it. He’s gone. It’s over.” Three steps, two, then Shane’s there, sliding his hands over the notched arch of Ryan’s knuckles as he lowers the gun. The touch is electric. Ryan’s skin is slick and clammy under Shane’s touch, and it rumbles through Shane like a clap of thunder. Ryan quakes under him, from his fingers to his arms to his still bloody mouth.

“Look at me,” Shane says again.

Slowly, agonizingly, Ryan does. His eyes are so bright, too bright, two cracked camera lenses. “Shane?” he asks. He grimaces a little, looks down at the gun, and his eyes are so big—so big Shane’s drowning in them. Ryan chokes. “Holy fuck.” He sucks in air like he’s raking Casey’s knife over his throat. “Fuck.” He drops the gun, and Shane’s holds his still-trembling hands so it falls.

“Jesus!” Shane winces, because this thing apparently has a fucking hair trigger, but nothing happens. Thank god. 

His eyes flicker over Ryan’s face, and god, it’s a mess. It’s such a mess. And it’s so stupid, because Shane thinks, he’s so small. And it’s so fucking stupid because this is his fault. Ryan is hurt, and it’s his fault.

“Ryan, you need to sit down. Where did you—fucking Christ, Ryan…” He strokes Ryan’s hands in his, runs a thumb over the marks, and god, his fucking hands. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m so…”

Ryan lets out another tiny, quiet noise. He’s squeezing his eyes shut, and his breath hikes, labored. He’s just shaking and staring at his feet. “God, it hurts.” He gasps, then presses his lips together. Tears make his eyes even brighter, shinier. “I can’t. Shane…” And there’s so much breath, so much pain, between every syllable. “God, fuck, it hurts!”

His chest breaks with this terrible, shattered sob before he slams himself against Shane and curls his arms around him, reaches up until his hands hook over Shane’s shoulders. His fingers dig in, piercing, and Shane realizes he’s trying to drown out the pain with touch.

It runs Shane through like a fucking spear. And he’s frozen. He can’t possibly know where to touch, where to keep from making it worse. Ryan is bleeding so much. He shivers against Shane, and Shane’s not sure if he’s crying, but he’s cringing. He’s cringing and shaking and losing it against Shane.

“What can I do, Ryan? Please, just tell me what to do.” His voice is fracturing at the ends.

“I can’t,” Ryan whispers, and his voice is soaked in tears, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Please.” The last word keens out of him, like it’s killing him.

Shane can’t keep himself from it, he tugs Ryan to him, squeezing around his shoulders. “We need to…” But Ryan won’t move. He’s latched onto Shane, so Shane presses his lips into Ryan’s hair, and says it again. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. I’m so sorry.” He’s delicate, careful, and Ryan fits against him again like the other half of his heart.

And color starts to drip back into Shane’s world.

He needs to get Ryan off his feet, but he can’t stop feeling him, all these divots and pieces of him that he’s never felt. Like he’s discovered a new element, and it’s brighter and bigger than anything he’s ever touched. His lips brush Ryan’s hair again, and he smells like sweat and dirt and blood. It’s awful, but it’s all Shane has.

He leaves his lips there, and he’s kind of kissing Ryan’s head, and, oh god, he’s crying. He’s crying because he doesn’t know what to do with this, with all the sounds and colors running through his mind, and it’s bizarre. This is so abusrd.

“It’s okay,” Shane’s voice cracks. “You’re okay.” Even as some voice in his head is screaming that he isn’t—he isn’t okay, and he needs a hospital, and there’s too much blood. “We’ve gotta get you some help.”

But, oh fuck, his phone is in the car.

Ryan whimpers, and pain colors it crimson, so Shane breaks the hug and grabs his face. Shane’s vision blurs with tears, but he sees Ryan’s eyelids flutter, hears him choke again. “Ryan, tell me what to do. Anything. Just tell me how to help. Please.” Shane’s never heard his voice like this, like it’s charged with drops of rain.

Ryan’s whole face is twisted, quivering under a thousand pounds of pain, eyes brighter than starlight. He shakes his head, then gasps, “Distract me. Just, distract me.”

“What?”

And then Ryan is up, up, and his bloody lips are on Shane’s, and his palms are all sweat and broken gashes on Shane’s neck, and Shane’s body is fucking purring under it. It’s this visceral, clawing thing. Ryan’s teeth bang against Shane’s and clip along his lip, angry, hurting. Ryan is begging him, pleading like an ache in his chest, drawing him closer with these hot, angry breaths.

His lips open on every pant, biting at Shane’s mouth like he’s starving.  This wild, hopeless thing, this impossible plea: make it stop hurting. And it ruins Shane, but he responds.

He’s tasting all those things he smelled on Ryan, fighting too hard with his own mouth, his own breath, and distantly, he thinks, this is not the time nor the place, but his arm curls around Ryan’s waist and he pulls him up and kisses him harder. Lets himself have it, for just a beat, because Ryan needs it.

Then Ryan breaks off. Gasps again.

Shane bends a little so his forehead rests against Ryan’s, palm on his cheek, thumb along his temple. He pretends he’s not smearing blood everywhere, pretends he isn’t still crying. Pretends Ryan isn’t.

“Jesus,” he says, because that’s the only thing in his head, “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.”

Ryan’s head lolls back, then forward, so he’s against Shane’s chest again, and Shane groans a little but holds him. Ryan’s out of his mind, so the kiss means absolutely nothing, but Shane’s sure he’ll be thinking about it for the next decade.

Something rattles by the door, and Shane clutches Ryan so tight to him that the lines of their bodies blur into one and he isn’t sure they’re two separate people anymore, but then:

“Guys, are you okay?”

It’s TJ. Because of course it is.

Shane’s mouth twitches. He dabs at his eyes, and his nose is killing him and he’s pretty sure TJ is making it worse, and he just doesn’t know where to even start. So he keeps his hands around Ryan, and eventually says, “What the fuck, TJ?”

Ryan takes a breath against him, and Shane thinks he’s crying again, but that’s not it. He’s laughing. He’s actually giggling, soaked and covered in blood, and he’s giggling against Shane’s chest, face still hidden.

It tugs a smile out of Shane.

Then Ryan whispers, so quiet Shane almost doesn’t catch it, “What the fuck, TJ?”

He’s delirious.

TJ doesn’t understand the joke, so he’s creeping closer, and then he sees Casey and he’s turning, spinning, throwing up on the floor. Shane closes his eyes. He can’t even be mad, not about that, because it’s replaying in his head, and he’s sure he’s going to have PTSD.

And god, Ryan.

Fuck, Ryan.

He cups the back of Ryan’s head, strokes his hair, because that’s just something he does now. This natural, quiet thing, like he knows exactly what he needs to do for Ryan. Finally, gingerly, he puts a hand around Ryan’s thigh and lowers him to the bed. Ryan doesn’t let go, and there’s this hiss of pain, but he lets Shane move him. Every bit of Ryan is shivering, his teeth are chattering, like it’s the only way he can cope.

“We need to call someone,” he’s talking to TJ but he can’t stop watching Ryan’s face, can’t stop staring at the way his lips tremble.

Can’t stop thinking, this fucker kissed me with a blood-soaked mouth. But then it’s, I’m fucking in love with him.

I’m in love with him.

Jesus Christ.

“Oh, yeah, no sure,” TJ says. “I think the FBI’s here. I called them.”

“You just—what? You just rang up the FBI?”

“No, I called my cousin. His friend works for the FBI, so I told him what was up, and there’s a local office about thirty minutes from here, since you said the town was covering for him. I think they’re here, or the cops here are freaked out now, I dunno, man, but… someone’s outside looking for Robert Casey.”

And then Shane hears the sirens, and he lets air out of his lungs for the first time in several minutes, possibly hours. “Thank you.”

“Did you shoot him?” TJ asks. He looks back, like he just remembered the dead body. “Fuck, man. Fuck!”

“I shot him, you asshole,” Ryan says, like he’s not dying, but then his eyelids flutter, and Shane’s brain is racing like it’s gone to hyper speed because Ryan is losing so much blood.

Ryan’s sort of collected himself, so he detaches himself from Shane, but Shane grabs his hands again, cradling them against his chest. Blood is soaking his shirt, and he thinks he needs to take it off. To wrap them.

But his vision is blurring and he’s nothing but jagged edges and exposed lines, so he grabs Ryan’s hand and pushes his wrist to his cheek, and then his mouth. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he just needs to help it. Make it feel better. Make Ryan feel better.

And to touch every part of Ryan’s skin, to feel the warmth, to know he’s okay. Because it’s the only thing keeping him tethered, the only thing keeping him from scattering like beads across a floor.

Ryan watches him, sorta dazed, but he doesn’t say anything. That half smile is back on his face, and then there’s this nervous laugh, and Shane refuses to kiss him again, because that would be insane. One bloody kiss is enough, he thinks. Enough diseases. So Shane has no idea why he’s still considering doing it.

Shane moves his hand over Ryan’s thigh, the one that’s soaked his jeans through. “Is this where he shot you?”

“Probably,” Ryan says, like he doesn’t fucking know. Then he laughs.

“You got shot?” TJ rasps

Shane sighs. Ryan laughs until it tapers to a grunt.

And, okay, it is taking the entirety of Shane’s willpower not to kiss him.

TJ leaves and comes back a few minutes later, and he cross his hands over his chest. “Okay, okay, the ambulance is outside. Ryan looks like absolute shit. We should hurry.”

Ryan screws up his face. “I don’t look like shit.”

“You kinda do,” Shane says, like an apology.

He groans. “I feel like shit.”

“C’mon, little guy, you think you can walk?” Ryan nods this half-thing, all puppet strings and wet sand. He’s barely there. Shane pulls Ryan’s arm over his neck, and Ryan whimpers just a little as he puts his good foot on the ground.

“I can still feel it,” he says. “That’s good, right? It’s better that I can feel it.”

“Yes,” Shane says. “That’s definitely better.”

They make it a few steps, and Ryan is just watching the distance in front of him like it’s the grim reaper’s scythe, and fuck it, Shane’s done making him do shit today. He grabs under Ryan’s knees and pulls him up. Ryan squeaks a little as his head bangs into Shane’s chin, and it hurts like hell, and Ryan is ridiculously heavy because he’s five foot nine feet of pure fucking muscle, but Shane’s going to make it work.

Because Ryan feels so good against his chest, he’s warm and solid and there, and Shane lets himself believe that Ryan’s going to be fine. That he won’t lose his grip on Ryan ever again.

He promises himself he won’t.

“You got him?” TJ asks.

“Yeah,” Shane says under the strain in his voice. “It’s fine.”

Ryan makes a sound probably meant to protest, but he’s losing speed quickly. So Shane gets out the door as fast as he can, and a police officer meets him at it. He kind of wants to deck the guy, but hopefully TJ involving the FBI will make this town suck less. Or maybe this is the FBI. Shane has absolutely no idea.

The blue and red lights drag Ryan up a little, so he’s aware when Shane lowers him onto the medical gurney. A paramedic helps Shane with his nose, and it stops soon enough that he doesn’t have to shove the stupid tissue up there for long.

They use gauze to staunch some of Ryan’s bleeding, and Shane’s watching them go, running in and out of the house, and he’s got no fucking idea what’s more important than the person bleeding outside their dumb ambulance right now. They’ve given Ryan an IV with blood, because of course he knew his blood type.

Shane’s glad it wasn’t him, because he would have had no fucking idea what to say. That is not the kind of knowledge he finds worth storing.

Mostly they’ve just been asking Ryan and Shane questions, and maybe they’re going to get the dead body, but really, what’s taking so long?

TJ and Devon are sat on the edge of the ambulance, and there’s just so much waiting. Waiting Shane doesn’t have time for, but Ryan’s eyes are clearing a little.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ryan says softly. “I was dumb.”

It is Shane’s fault, but he doesn’t want to make it a thing, so he just says, “You’re not dumb.”

“I’m dumb.”

Then, softer, “You’re a little dumb.”

Ryan laughs, and winces a little at the cuts on his neck. Shane does too. “I can’t believe you came there by yourself.”

“That’s right, baby,” Shane says, because what else is he going to say to that? It was the dumbest decision he’s ever made. The best one, certainly, but also the dumbest.

Ryan scoffs. “Don’t call me baby.”

Shane turns on him, mouth sorta opened, squinting, as he considers that fucking sentence. He says nothing for a while, and Ryan holds his gaze, and it’s this moment. This moment that feels bigger than their kiss back at the hotel. Certainly more present than the one a few minutes ago.

He wasn’t even calling Ryan baby. He was just saying a phrase, but now he has to call Ryan baby. Needs it in his fucking bones.

Maybe that’s why Ryan pointed it out.

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” he finally says. “Baby.”

“You’re such a dick.” Ryan rolls his eyes, then they meet Shane’s again and cling, stuck there, like he’s waiting for something.

Shane’s leaned against the gurney, surrounded by this impossible circumstance, but Ryan is sitting here, open like a balcony window, so full of sun and hope and love even after everything and, and it’s so ridiculous that they’re here. That they’re not at the hospital. That… well, everything about this is ridiculous.

More ridiculous than a fucking ghost knocking toothpaste off the sink.

Shane moves a little closer and watches the way Ryan’s throat bobs. It’s still got some dried blood and a few cuts on it, but it’s better. He looks better, better enough that anxiety isn’t threatening to tear Shane’s chest in half.

“You know why I asked you what it meant to you?”

Because of course he needs to say it, of course Ryan wouldn’t take the fact that he charged a fucking murder house for him as anything but, guess Shane was bored. Ryan knows him so well, but he doesn’t know this.

This is the one thing he can’t bring himself to believe.

“Huh?” Ryan asks like he’s snapped out of a trance. “What?”

Because the one thing Ryan Bergara can’t believe in is himself.

“Before.”

“Oh.” Ryan blinks. “No, I don’t. That’s the point.”

“Because that’s what it means to me. As much or as little as you want, Ryan. Anything you want.”

“What?” And then, pitched too high, “Really?”

They sit there, and Shane isn’t sure what he expects Ryan to say, but it isn’t, “You really don’t see anything.”

“What?”

“I, I mean, of course it’s, you know, it’s… it’s much, it’s a lot! Everything. All of, fuck, dude, what?” He’s flustered, winding up like a music box, and his eyes cut to Devon and TJ.

Shane forgot they were there, and he coughs a little laugh.

Ryan’s doing his ghost-noise-blink, but something is dawning through him like a sunrise, and Shane thinks the light in his eyes might blind him. But he doesn’t look away. Can’t.

And Ryan’s mouth is still bloody because they’ve given him a few wipes to help clean it off, but they haven’t quite got to the part where they fix the smaller stuff, so his mouth is definitely bleeding.

Shane knows this.

Just like he knows even he’s got dried blood on his face from Casey and from his own nose. And he’s already vowed that he would have exactly one bloody kiss in his lifetime, and Ryan’s already used it.

But he doesn’t care. He grabs Ryan’s cheek in his hand and pulls him, pulls until their mouths touch, and it’s just as coppery and salty as before, but he’s never loved a taste so much, until Ryan kisses back, parts his lips a little so Shane can feel his breath.

“Jesus Christ!” TJ says over Devon’s squeal of delight. “I’m glad you guys have worked this shit out, but that’s so unsanitary!”

Ryan giggles against Shane’s mouth, vibrates a little, and his hands graze Shane’s collar bone. All wrapped in gauze and torn to ribbons. Ryan pulls back an inch, laughs so his breath beats again Shane’s face. “He’s right. It totally is.”

“Oh, definitely,” Shane says, and gingerly cups Ryan’s neck before he pulls their mouths back together.

Chapter Text

Ryan

xxx

The gun materializes in front of him along a scrape that jolts Ryan upright. He stares at it, watches it until it starts to sear through his gaze and into his chest. Then he grabs it.

He’s up then, and he shakes beneath the weight of the gun, the burn of the metal across his hands. They twitch and writhe under the long gash down the center of either of them. And all he can think is, Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane.

His teeth chatter as he steadies it, holds it as far away from him as he can. His body fogs a little, like he doesn’t quite have one. All he can see is in front of him, is this chaotic space a few feet away. He sees it down the barrel of the gun, Casey and Shane struggling over a bat, blood dripping down Shane’s face like egg yolk.

Fire the gun, Ryan thinks. Fire it.

He does. It’s this loud, explosive sound. He feels it in his chest, and it hurts. It nearly throws him back. His legs scream in protest, the pain up his arm almost makes him cry out, but instead—he pulls the trigger again. A switch flipped.

He fires it, again and again, until the trigger stops working, and his arms throb so hard he’s just waiting for them to fall off. He’s broken into the bullets he’s fired, and he can’t stop staring at them. Thinking about them.

That he shot a gun.

He looks up, finally, away from the gun. Trying to bring some of his pieces back together, but Casey isn’t the one bleeding. It’s Shane. Shane’s back against the wall, mouth open like he can’t push anything out of it. And there’s a stream of blood down his face, his chin, only Casey didn’t do it. Ryan did it.

No.

No, no, no.

Shane’s still trying to breathe, and Ryan can’t. He can’t do anything but shake his head. Because he did this. He shot someone. He shot Shane.

And Ryan gags, drops the gun. His world, his entire body, buckles like a sword’s run through it. Cracks spider along him so pain seeps into them like blood, and for so long, he’s trying to breathe around it. All these cracks in him, all this blood in him, and he can’t. He’s just gasping, staring into Shane who’s staring at nothing.

Until he says, “Ryan!”

And finally Ryan does.

He screams.

“Shane!”

Someone takes a hold of his shoulders, and he slams back, and god, that was a mistake, because his whole head is spinning right off his neck. But the person doesn’t let go of his shoulders, and says, “Ryan.”

It helps because it’s Shane voice again. Which means he didn’t just shoot Shane twelve times with a fucking gun. Ryan cuts his gaze up, meets Shane’s wide, grounding eyes, and breathes.

“It’s okay,” Shane says. “You’re okay.”

“Oh, oh, okay…” He’s in a hospital room, all white and sterilized, with the little beeping machines to his right, and the couch with rumpled sheets in the corner, and he remembers it now. Remember them taking him to the ER. Remembers.

He didn’t kill Shane.

But, “I killed him.”

Shane lets go of him and doesn’t move away from the bed. He’s standing though, so he’s like seven miles above Ryan.

“It’s okay,” Shane says.

Ryan thinks that’s all he’s said since Ryan woke up, and it spikes a spiral through him. Because maybe it’s not okay, so that’s all Shane can say, because he’s trying to make it okay.

Shane sits, then, grabs his arm. “Hey, knock it off. Stop…” He gestures vaguely to Ryan. “Stop doing what you’re doing.”

Ryan goes to push Shane off because it’s what he usually does, but he can’t. He’s hooked up to an IV, and his hands are re-bandaged. They’re weirdly numb, and he distantly remembers that was one of the things they were most worried about. Because the cut was so deep.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Ryan counters, because that’s all he has.

“You were definitely doing something,” Shane says. Then, a little smoother, like he’s practiced this. “You had a nightmare?”

“Why?” Ryan asks.

“Well, because you screamed my name, so unless…”

Ryan groans, shakes his head. “Oh, okay. Wow, yeah, I was definitely dreaming about us doing it. Just… so much doing it. That’s what was happening.”

Shane’s laugh comes out wispy, and Ryan can’t tell if it’s his I’m-supposed-to-laugh or good-lord-Ryan laugh. The second one scares him less, so he chooses it.

“I didn’t say that,” Shane says. “And I don’t—if we were, I would be alarmed if you screamed my name like that.”

“I wouldn’t scream your name,” Ryan snaps. “If anything, you would scream mine.”

This time, Shane’s laugh isn’t quiet. It shakes him, and it takes him a long time for him to form the words, “That’s n—what is wrong with you?” around it.

Ryan wriggles under the IVs, trying not to blush, because now he’s just played back what he said, and holy shit, what is wrong with him?

But Shane’s still laughing.

Ryan straightens. “I… okay, the idea of me in bed should not be that funny to you.”

“It’s not.” And then it’s Shane’s turn to wriggle a little. “Jesus, it’s not, it’s…” He sighs and looks at Ryan. “You’re a handful.”

Ryan rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t even know what to say, because hey, he is a little bit. He brought them here to this fucking town, made them go in that house, got kidnapped by a psychopath and dragged Shane on this crazy mission to save him.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says. “You shouldn’t have had to—is your face okay?”

“As okay as it’s ever been,” Shane says, and before he can say anything else, Ryan interrupts, “So pretty rough.”

Shane laughs again, then he pushes through it, eyes dusted with ember-bathed ashes. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And Jesus, if anyone should be apologizing…”

“No,” Ryan says, because he isn’t going to listen to this. He isn’t going to listen to how Shane was somehow obligated to keep this from happening to Ryan. To protect Ryan from his stupid mistakes. “You told me not to come here, and I did, and now… now…” Shit, his face has that hot, tingly feeling that he’s starting to get a little too used to, so he stares at the wall.

“C’mon, Ryan,” Shane says. “You’re a little adventurer. I can’t honestly expect you to take a warning seriously. You had no idea… hey, look at me.”

But Ryan can’t, because if he does, then he runs the risk of crying. Again.

“Ryan,” Shane says again, and it’s in this voice that has Ryan turning instinctively, so their eyes meet and, to distract himself, he thinks, Shane has such good eyebrows. And that feels a little weird, so instead he thinks, his nose is really straight, but that’s got him thinking about what happened, so finally, his lips are so small.

And then just, rest in fucking pieces, Ryan Bergara. He looks down, but Shane reaches out and grabs his chin and tilts it up so they’re looking at each other again.

Then Ryan realizes with a kind of jolt how little they touched before this, and how much more touching has been on this trip, and he can’t stop thinking about their mouths pressed together under all that blood and sweat and grossness.

And he can’t stop thinking how much he wants it again.

Shane shakes his head. “This wasn’t your fault. None of it was.”

“Eh,” Ryan says.

“No, not eh, Ryan. It wasn’t. If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine. That guy had shown up twice, and I let you walk out of the room by yourself with no phone.”

Anger swells up in Ryan, this tangible, real thing, that rises in him like a water line. “It’s not your job to protect me. I can take care of myself.”

Shane opens his mouth, then closes it and shakes his head. “I’m not saying you can’t.”

“Seems like you kinda are, if you’re blaming this on yourself.”

“That’s…”

“Like you think I’m this incapable little child who needs constant hand-holding, and I’m sure this shit hasn’t helped that. Just, ugh, fuck me. It’s, listen, I can… I would’ve—I can take care of myself.”

Shane flounders, and Ryan can see all the words in him beating at his walls, like wings fluttering against glass. He can’t get it out. And it’s drawing on this kind of panic in his eyes.

So Ryan reels himself in. “Oh boy, okay. I’m just saying it isn’t your fault. It’s not something you had to do.”

The silence drags between them, and Ryan settles into it. Waits for Shane like a bus that’s running a few minutes late, then finally Shane says, “It’s not—that isn’t the—what I’m trying to say, I know you can take care of yourself. It’s not about you not being able to do that, it’s just… I want to.”

This stuns Ryan, mostly because he just expected some half-deflection, not this full confession that sits in the air between them, naked and dumb. Ryan blinks. He’s trying to get his hands around it, but it’s awkward, and he can’t.

“You mean, well…” Ryan can’t make his hands do anything, can’t fidget, so he takes to chewing the inside of his lip. “Why?”

“Don’t ask me why after that, jesus, Ryan.”

“Okay!” Ryan says.

There’s another silence, but Shane breaks it faster this time. “Because it freaks me out, anything happening to you. It makes me… it makes me feel better to be there.”

Ryan thinks about all the time he’s been the one to weave through Shane’s silences, and he thinks about how much it hurt to see TJ doing it for him, to hurt to think he couldn’t be that, and then he says, “I think I get it.”

“Do you?”

Ryan nods. “Yeah.” But the magnitude of going into this with Shane, to talk about the silences between them, the weirdness, exhausts Ryan. And he imagines it’ll probably exhaust Shane, so he just smiles.

“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Ryan looks around Shane. “I think we owe TJ a beer.”

“We do,” Shane says. “But they went back to the hotel. It’s like four in the morning, and more than one of us wasn’t fitting on that couch.”

“You didn’t have to stay,” Ryan says.

And Shane’s exasperation splits through the word as he says, “Ryan.”

Ryan doesn’t push it. “I really wanna get out of this town,” he says. “Did they say how long I have to stay?”

“I think they just wanted to keep you overnight. We should be able to leave tomorrow, but I wouldn’t worry… there’s all kinds of cops swarming around out there. I think we’re pretty safe at this point.”

Ryan kinda nods, even if he isn’t sure how much he trusts cops in general. But it’s something. “Yeah, and hey, I woke up, so at least they didn’t poison me or anything.”

“You would think that.”

“They covered up a murder for years! I don’t think it’s unreasonable they would try to murder me in my sleep. Kill the witness!”

Shane tenses, but smiles. “Maybe that’s, uh… maybe that’s what happened with Gloria Ramirez. She thought the hospital was going to kill her…”

“So she poisoned them first?” Ryan brightens a little, feels the laugh on the fringes of his throat. “Maybe she kissed someone with a bloody mouth.”

“You think our bloody kissing created some kind of hybrid, toxic chemical inside both of us?” Shane considers. “Okay, I’d buy that.”

“Maybe!” Ryan laughs. “Hey, that’s a new theory. You came up with a theory.”

“I come up with lots of theories, just none of them involve ghosts or aliens! They’re real, possible theories. I have the mind of a detective.”

“You have the mind of an idiot,” Ryan says.

“You son of a bitch.” Shane runs his eyes over Ryan’s body, and even with half of it beneath the sheet of the hospital bed, it strikes through him like a match. “How ya feeling?”

Ryan shrugs. “Okay, I guess…”

“We are definitely going to need therapy. Like, big, expensive therapy.”

Ryan goes to say no, but he can’t quite work up the energy. Because even now, some part of him is screaming in the back of his mind. In this black space that he’s only pushing back because Shane is here, like a barrier.

“Like Dr. Phil?” Ryan asks.

Shane starts. “No, not—no, Ryan, not Dr. Phil. I would prefer not to broadcast it to every elderly house wife in the country.”

Ryan giggles. “Maybe Gloria Ramirez was watching Dr. Phil when she died…”

“Can’t imagine why they didn’t put that in the case notes,” Shane says. “Seems like a vital component of the investigation. Too bad you weren’t the detective on that case.”

“You know,” Ryan says. “When I was fighting Casey, I kept hearing your stupid voice in my head, and I preferred that version. It was nice to me.”

“I’m nice to you,” Shane says. “I’m an extremely nice guy!” Then, he blinks. “You were… I was talking to you in your head?” He laughs, like he wants to say more, but it’s struck him a little too hard, like the echo of a crash.

“Sorta,” Ryan says, and wishes he hadn’t said it, but he did, so, “You said I was smart.”

“You are smart. That’s, okay, I have called you smart before. I said you could’ve solved the Kennedy case!”

“As an insult to everyone that did investigate it.”

Shane stares at him, and breathes. “That’s not—I do think you’re smart.” He looks away, shy and awkward, “And clearly you think I’m smart since, because, I mean, I was in your head during a crisis.”

Ryan’s burning underneath that, and it’s killing him, welling in him. All that blackness and everything is going to break over him like an ocean current. Carry him down so he can’t get back up, so he blurts, “You know how you said—remember, when you said that the kiss could be anything I wanted it to be?”

“I, well, yes, Ryan, that was only a few hours ago. A lot’s happened, but I’m not going senile.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Ryan says, and it’s jittery, the words prickling like tiny bits of sleet hitting a window pane.

Shane stares at him, and it’s very much a challenge.

“What if… okay, here’s a theory for you.”

“Oh boy, this is going to—I’m on the edge of my seat, tell me,” Shane says, and it’s in this exaggerated voice. This Shane voice, of sarcasm and exasperation and something a little like fondness.

Ryan smiles in spite of himself. “Shut up, Shane.”

Shane throws up his hands to signal he will.

“You know how I say I hate you semi-frequently?”

“What?” Shane says, and he over-exaggerates it too.

Ryan’s frozen for a second, and Shane’s staring at him, and he can’t get the words to jump off his tongue, because they’re tangled and twisted, and if he lets them go he’ll never get them back. But Shane’s looking at him, and the look is softening and softening.

And Ryan realizes why he likes being with Shane so much, why he can go to all these places, especially with Shane. Why it’s getting easier. Because he feels… safe.

Safe like he’s never felt before.

So it explodes out of him like he’s turned on the spirit box.

“What if I don’t? What if I say that because I have… there’s so much going on in…” He gestures to himself, kinda frantically. “You get me so worked up, and mad, and… and so it’s easy to say I hate you, because sometimes I do. But what if…” Ryan swallows. “What if it’s just because I don’t know how to say I love you?”

Shane’s face twists in this way that makes Ryan think he’s fallen off the bed, but he hasn’t moved. His eyes are this bright fever pitch, they’re so light, not brown anymore, like amber, or gold.

Fear crushes into Ryan’s chest, and he tries to relax himself. It doesn’t change how he’s felt, what’s been going on inside him. It doesn’t change anything, just that he’s finally said it and if this ruins everything, well… the kiss would have anyway.

He repeats this to himself again and again, but he feels like a sparrow in a hurricane, twisted and turned, and it’s pulling him apart feather by feather.

And Shane still isn’t saying anything.

He doesn’t say anything, instead he leans and kisses Ryan again. But it isn’t like before, it’s this slow, tender thing. A prayer, a litany against Ryan’s lips. Shane takes his time with it, so Ryan feels every chapped curve of his lip, the rising heat in the caress of his breath, the gentle scrape of stubble on his chin. It all wraps around Ryan like bedsheets, and he sinks into them.

He kisses back, closes his mouth a little, because there isn’t much movement this time. No teeth-clattering, no biting, just a soft, steady thing that holds him away from that darkness, away from the world, like…

Like he’s come home.

Ryan doesn’t pull back. And Shane stays there, this slow, almost still motion against his lips, and Ryan wants to pull it into his chest. There’s a want somewhere inside him, to push further, to go further than this, but there’s something else… something helpless and small that could stay like this forever.

Because he can hear it, feel it like his own heartbeat, I love you.

Shane pulls back, his eyelids fluttering open in time with Ryan's, like there's something so bright between them, something impossibly bright. Shane's forehead rests against Ryan’s so his breath slides along the outlines of Ryan’s lips. It’s a sigh, Ryan realizes.

“I…”

And Ryan laughs and says, “I know.”

Because he does.

“Thank you,” Shane says, and it’s bigger than anything else he could have said.

“You need to sleep, probably,” Ryan says. They’re still so freaking close, and he is fighting so hard not to spend his first time with Shane with an IV in his arm and no damn hands. “You definitely seem like all six thousand feet of you are just gonna collapse in a second.”

“All six thousand feet of me is fine, thanks,” Shane says back. There’s a dark, desperate hunger in his eyes as he pulls back a little more.

Ryan smiles, because he can feel the want as clear as his own, and he sees Shane fighting with it. Maybe a little harder than Ryan is, and maybe Ryan is enjoying it a bit too much.  

“Don’t do that,” Shane says.

The smile hasn’t faded from Ryan’s face, and he raises his eyebrows, and he knows it looks like his own challenge. Like he’s daring Shane to move one way or the other. He can see it on Shane’s face, the reflection of his eyes.

Shane pulls himself back, rolls his neck. “I’m not going to rise to your challenge like a middle schooler.”

Ryan raises his eyebrows. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m very sure.” Shane looks at him, and Ryan feels so much more important than he is. “I’ve lasted this long. I can wait for your dumb hands to heal.”

“Oh, you’re waiting longer than that. I expect dinner. I expect to be wooed. And dinner has to cost more than forty bucks.”

“Why?”

Ryan frowns. “That’s what Steven bet me that we’d…” Ryan gestures. “That we’d…”

“That we’d.” Shane says like Ryan’s said something truly revolutionary.

“You know…”

Shane smiles. “Start a band? Oh, I know, solve a murder! I can’t believe Steven had so much faith in you! What a good guy.”

Ryan shakes his head. “I hate you.”

And Shane just smiles, this bright, impossible thing that transforms his face into something like sunrise, and there’s that sense in Ryan again—that softness that pushes the rest of the world back and lets him exist, exist without jittering towards an explosion. Without everything hitting him all at once. Like someone’s pulled the curtains and he can just be, just for a second, without the rest of it. And he thinks he can do this, he can beat the blackness in him, if Shane’s here.

And Ryan almost laughs when Shane says, “I know.”