Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ryan has worked at BuzzFeed long enough to learn that, across the board, when someone is about to ask you to participate in a video that could be potentially embarrassing or particularly ludicrous, they get a certain glint in their eye, some mixture of guilt and amusement.

He doesn’t know what it says about their workplace culture that he can recognize such a glint from across the room, but ten minutes after he sits down at his desk on a Monday morning, when he looks up to see Zack strolling towards him, he immediately knows that something is up.

“Ryan!” he says, perching on the very edge of Ryan’s desk. “How’s it going?”

“Just tell me what you want,” Ryan answers, leaning back in his chair. He hasn’t even finished his first coffee yet; it’s entirely too damn early for this. To his credit, Zack takes it in stride, simply shrugs and continues.

“How would you like to spend a few hours drinking on the company’s dime?”

Ryan has to admit, that does sound intriguing, but that being said, there has to be some kind of weird twist, some angle at work, so he doesn’t allow himself to get sucked in quite yet.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Not really, at least. It’s not going to cost any more than a few hours of your time, and maybe a little bit of your dignity.” He trails off a little on the last words and at least has the decency to look somewhat embarrassed, a trait that Ryan thought had already been successfully bred out of most of the people he works with.

Before he can answer, Shane pipes up beside him.

“What dignity? Ryan lost all of his two seasons ago.”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan retorts, smacking Shane on the forearm. To Zack, he says, “Because of that comment, I’ll only do it if Shane comes with me.”

“Fine by me,” Zack says with another shrug. “Shane, you in?” Ryan twists in his chair to face Shane, who is frozen in the middle of sipping his coffee, eyes comically wide behind his clear-framed glasses. After a moment, he finishes his sip and nods, wipes coffee film from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Sure. Why not.”

“Awesome!” Zack says as he pushes himself off the edge of Ryan’s desk. “I’ve got six more people to recruit, so I’ll come grab you guys around noon, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, he ambles off, and it’s only as he turns down a hallway and disappears from sight that Ryan realizes he doesn’t know what the actual concept for the video is.

“Damn it,” he groans, turning back to his computer and downing the rest of his own coffee. “What the fuck did I just agree to do?”

“What did we just agree to?” Shane retorts, jabbing him in the side with one finger. “You’ve dragged me down to your level, Ryan. Again.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Ryan asks, narrowing his eyes and spinning in his chair until his feet bump into Shane’s shin. Shane just stares at him, face expressionless, and eventually, realization clicks in Ryan’s head. “Wait, was that a goddamn short joke?”

Shane’s face lights up as he laughs, and damn him, Ryan hates that he finds that adorable, even when it’s at his own damn expense.

“Bit slow on the uptake there, buddy,” Shane comments, using his foot to spin Ryan back towards his desk. “Maybe you should grab more coffee.”

“It’s not my fault your ‘jokes’ have hit a new level of cryptic.” Ryan pushes away from his desk, gets to his feet and grabs his empty mug. “But I am going to grab more coffee. And I’m not bringing any back for you.”

“Ryan, that’s just cruel.”

"No one to blame but yourself," Ryan calls back over his shoulder as he leaves, fully intending on bringing a cup back for Shane regardless of what he said. There are a number of kitchenettes, snack rooms and canteens scattered around the building, but the kitchenette nearest the Tasty studio always has the best coffee, so even though it’s the farthest away from his desk, he heads there. When he walks in, there’s a fresh, untouched pot sitting on the burner, and he makes a beeline for it. Andrew and Steven are sitting at the small table in the corner of the room, shoulder to shoulder, watching something on Steven’s laptop, and before Ryan can say hey, Andrew pauses the video and glances up.

“Did Zack pull you into his video too?”

“Yeah,” Ryan answers as he leans up to grab a mug for Shane from the cabinet. He has to admit that he’s begrudgingly proud of Zack; the guy seems to work fast. “Me and Shane both. Do you know what we’re doing? He just told us alcohol was involved.”

“He said the concept was drunk people playing American party games,” Steven says. “Spin the bottle, truth or dare, seven minutes in heaven. That kind of stuff.”

Ryan fumbles with his mug and nearly drops it on the floor.

Here’s the thing: he has a crush on Shane. He hasn’t tried denying that to himself for the last few months. It’s just there, always in the back of his mind but, for the most part, he’s been able to keep it in the back of his mind, keep it quietly locked away, only to be set free when he’s alone at home in his bed.

But if he has to kiss Shane on camera for some stupid video?

He’s pretty sure there’s no way he’s going to be able to come back from that.

“Are you alright?” Steven asks. “You look like you just saw a ghost.” He snickers quietly at his own joke, and Andrew rolls his eyes expansively, even as a tiny smile ticks up at the corners of his mouth.

“Just tired,” Ryan answers. “Doesn’t really seem like Zack’s kind of shtick, does it?”

“He said it was Eric’s idea, but Christian dragged him off into the woods or something. I wasn’t really listening,” Andrew answers. Ryan blinks a few times before he simply shrugs it off; dragging someone off into the woods certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing one BuzzFeed employee has done to another on short notice.

“Well, I’ll see you guys there,” he says, carefully grabbing both mugs of coffee. As he makes the long walk back to his desk, he tries his best to reassure himself that it’s going to be fine. If there’s going to be six other people involved, maybe fate will smile kindly upon him. Maybe he won’t end up having to kiss Shane at all.

It’ll be fine. Really.

He’s still a few feet away from his desk when Shane glances up, spies the dual mugs of coffee, and grins.

“Aw, Ry, I knew you weren’t going to hold out on me.”

And even though he says it in a goofy tone, over the top and saccharine, Ryan’s chest still aches with fondness, and he settles for muttering, “Yeah, don't get used to it,” as he sets Shane’s coffee down in front of him.

Maybe it’s not going to be fine after all.

True to his word, just before noon, Zack shows up at their desk and leads them over to one of the larger filming rooms. There’s been no attempt to really decorate it, but there are a number of beanbag chairs and throw cushions arranged in a loose circle in the middle of the room, and there’s a table pushed against one wall that’s sagging from the weight of all the alcohol piled on top of it. They’re the last ones to arrive; the others are scattered around, already drinking, and Annie is working on setting up some static cameras in the corners. Zack claps Ryan on the shoulder and tells them both to get comfortable before he bounds over to help Annie, and Ryan swallows heavily as he heads over to the table to grab a drink.

“This is going to be a disaster,” he mutters under his breath as he grabs a beer to start.

“Would you rather do this or the fear box video all over again?” Shane asks as he stares down at the table, spindly fingers dancing back and forth in thin air before he finally grabs some kind of cider in a purple can. Ryan shudders with revulsion at that particular thought.

“Yeah, fuck that.” After popping the cap off his beer, he drops down onto a beanbag next to Sara. Within minutes, they’re so embroiled in a conversation about Star Wars, Shane groaning at appropriate intervals, knee knocking against Ryan’s, that Ryan almost forgets what the actual purpose of them all being gathered together is.

But then Zack drops an empty wine bottle into the middle of their loose circle.

“Alright, we’re gonna do the intro and then start with spin the bottle,” he announces. “If any of you are uncomfortable at any point, just tell me to fuck off. Or give me the finger. Whatever you want. Just let me know.”

While he and Annie finish fiddling with their equipment, Ryan takes a deep breath. He’s glad that there’s some lifeline he can grab onto if things get to be too much, but all he can do is hope that he won’t need to grab hold of it, that he'll be able to make it through the day without his inconveniently large crush making itself known.

“Why are you both so tense?” Sara abruptly asks, lightly kicking Ryan’s ankle.

“What?” Immediately, Ryan glances over at Shane, who actually does look about as tense as Ryan feels. Both of his hands are wrapped tightly around the can of cider, and one of his feet is tapping rhythmically against the ground, although it stops a few seconds after Ryan looks at him.

“I’m not tense,” Shane says, taking a huge swig from his drink. “I was just trying to think of the best way to get you two to stop talking about Star Wars for five minutes.”

“Well,” Ryan answers as Zack flashes them all a thumbs up and starts counting back from three, “I think you’re about to get your wish.”

Since, according to the majority of them, spin the bottle is the most boring of the three games (Kate and Niki disagree, which leads into a ten minute debate, and Ryan does not envy whoever is in charge of editing this mess), they decide that each person will have three turns at the bottle and then they’ll move onto truth or dare. Even then, the process takes a long time, and Ryan’s finished his first beer and is onto his second by the time he gets his first turn.

As he leans forward and rests his fingers on the bottle, the knowledge of how close he is to Shane sinks in. While they’re in separate beanbags, the chairs are pushed so close together that their knees are mere inches apart, and Shane’s arm is actually resting on the edge of Ryan's chair, subtly invading his space.

(But does it really count as an invasion if he doesn’t mind?)

He shakes his head, all too aware of the presence of the cameras, and gives the bottle a firm spin. When it comes to a stop, it’s pointing at Sara, and she beams at him as she starts rummaging through her pockets.

“Wait, I have something for this.” Eventually, she pulls out a tube of lip balm, slathers some on, and replaces the cap with a pop. “Alright. Lay one on me.”

Even though Ryan is comfortable enough in their friendship to know this isn’t going to make things weird, he still feels awkward leaning over and quickly pressing his lips against Sara’s. That awkwardness evaporates a moment later, when he leans back and realizes what the taste on her lips is.

“Is that coffee? They make coffee flavored lip balm?” Sara nods and grins, and Ryan licks his lips again, because it truly is bizarre just how much the lip balm tastes like real coffee.

“How come you didn’t do that when I kissed you?” Jen asks from across the circle. This time, Sara winks and pulls a different colored tube out of another pocket.

“If you land on me again, we can try this one instead.”

Shane is the last in the circle to go, and as he cranes forward, Ryan tries to keep himself composed, tries to sink back into his beanbag and drink like this is no big deal, like he’s not internally losing his goddamn mind because there’s a chance his first (and maybe only) kiss with Shane is going to be on camera.

Instead, the bottle ends up pointing at Kate, and Ryan’s so relieved (or maybe it’s disappointment that he’s feeling) that he pounds back a third of his second beer in one swig.

The second round is uneventful, with the exception that Ryan discovers that Steven has ridiculously soft lips. When Shane spins the bottle, it lands on Jen, and he kisses her cheek so sloppily that she wrinkles her nose and says, “Is that actually how you kiss people?”

It’s a question that Ryan didn’t know he needed an answer to until she asked, but infuriatingly (and also unsurprisingly), Shane just winks before he settles back in his beanbag and polishes off his cider.

During the third round, Ryan runs out of luck.

Maybe it’s because the beer is starting to sit heavily in his head and stomach, but it takes a few moments after the bottle comes to a stop for him to realize that it’s pointing at Shane. When he glances over, his head feels like it’s full of furiously buzzing bees, so loud that he can’t focus on anything that isn’t Shane. Their arms are pressed together, and their pinkies are so close to brushing that the thought makes Ryan’s throat dry.

Before he can figure out how to proceed, Shane’s other hand performs some quick series of movements that ends with his can upturned and the remnants of his cider soaking into the front of his pants.

“Damn it!” he says, jumping to his feet. “I actually liked these pants.”

“And I think that’s the end of spin the bottle,” Zack comments as Shane brushes past him and exits the room. “Let’s take a break before truth and dare. Have another drink. I’m gonna go find another beanbag.”

For a moment, Ryan thinks about going after Shane to make sure that he’s okay, but in the end, he decides against it. After all, there’s no telling what part of the building Shane’s going to, if he’s going to steal some pants from the wardrobe room or one of their coworkers, and it was just a spilled drink; lord knows that they’ve both done more embarrassing things on camera.

He takes a quick break to hit up the bathroom and grab a snack from the nearest canteen, and when he comes back, he plucks another beer from the still overloaded table. He sinks back down beside Sara, who simply stares at him, eyes twinkling over the rim of her glass of wine. After a moment of trying to interpret the look in her eyes and failing miserably, he simply sighs.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she answers, eyes still twinkling. “Shane’s normally not that clumsy, is he?”

“Maybe he’s tired,” Ryan says, and even though he’s not defending himself, it still sounds like a weak excuse even to his own ears.

“Maybe,” Sara says demurely, moving her drink closer to her mouth. Ryan can still see her smiling through the glass, but before he can comment on it, Shane comes back in, wearing a maroon pair of pants that, Ryan is displeased to note, hit him in all the right spots and make his already endless legs look even longer.

“Damn it,” he mutters into his beer as Shane grabs another can, this one light pink, from the table. Sara giggles and pats his arm consolingly, and even if Shane wasn’t about to sink down beside him, Ryan wouldn’t bother to try and convince her that there’s nothing worth consoling him over. He knows that she knows.

He just hopes that nobody else knows.

“Did I miss anything?” Shane asks, plopping down into the new, clean beanbag and popping open his can of spiked cream soda.

Ryan shakes his head, does his utmost best not to stare at how the pants are clinging to Shane’s thighs, and takes another sip.

“Nah. Didn’t miss a thing.”

Because so much of the afternoon has already dragged by, Zack unilaterally decides that they’ll each only take two turns for truth or dare before they move on to the pièce de résistance of the afternoon.

Before they can actually launch into the game, Kate chimes in with, “When we played this in high school, we had a rule that if you really didn’t feel comfortable answering a truth or doing a dare, you could finish your drink instead.”

Ryan thinks that sounds like a potentially dangerous idea that could also lead to some great material, so when Zack asks them all if they’re okay with it, he nods, after which the game begins with Zack asking Jen what she picks.

They make it to the second round before someone bows out; when Steven picks truth and Jen asks him to tell the story of how he kissed Andrew for the first time, Steven shakes his head and downs the rest of his drink, cheeks pink.

“None of you would ever let me hear the end of it,” he says, licking his lips and laughing before he turns to Andrew, who also picks truth.

When it’s Ryan’s turn, he picks dare, and Sara makes him record a video of him saying, with an utterly straight face, ghosts aren’t real, after which he has to post it to both Snapchat and Instagram. Once that’s done, he pockets his phone and turns to Shane, whose eyes are looking a little bit glassy.

Which Ryan can’t blame him for, because he’s pretty sure if he stood up, the room would have a distinct sway to it.

“Alright, big guy,” he says. “Your turn.” Shane hems and haws for a few moments before he shrugs.

“Gimme a dare. The best one you can think of. Let’s end this with a bang.”

Just like that, it seems like every original idea Ryan’s ever had vanishes from his mind. Technically, he supposes that he could pay it forward from Sara, could make Shane post something about how ghosts are totally real and he’s just been pretending to be a skeptic this entire time, but that seems cheap.

After a moment, an idea does come to mind. It’s incredibly stupid, and just thinking it makes him feel like he’s fourteen again, but it’s the only thing he can think of.

Besides, a part of him, a part that he probably wouldn’t listen to if it wasn’t for the alcohol floating through his system, is curious.

“Alright,” he says, hoping with everything he has that the nervous energy flooding his veins isn’t obvious on camera. “Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Kiss the person in the room you find most attractive.”

There’s almost zero hesitation on Shane’s part before he picks up his latest drink, some kind of fruity vodka concoction, and slams it back, throat bobbing as he swallows. When he’s eventually done, he drops the can to the floor, a trickle of liquid leaking from the corner of his mouth.

“Look, I can’t pick,” he says to a chorus of well-natured boos. “It’s not my fault you’re all so beautiful.”

Ryan joins the chorus of boos, but his stomach has dropped somewhere below the floor, and the buzzing bees have returned to his head. His curiosity, rather than being sated, has only gotten worse, and they still aren’t done filming.

The next time Zack asks him to participate in a video, Ryan’s going to straight up throw something at him.

“Convenient timing,” Zack says, pulling his headphones off and yanking his phone out of his pocket. “Pizza’s here! We’ll be right back.” After setting all their equipment down, him and Annie head out, and Ryan immediately gets to his feet with excuse about needing some fresh air. It’s not actually a lie; his head is swimming, and his legs are definitely not as sure underneath him as they should be, so he heads down the hallway to the nearest exit. It opens out into an alleyway that leads to the loading dock, and he props the door open with a rock before he slumps back against the stuccoed wall and takes a deep breath.

This is ridiculous. He’s been crushing on Shane for years, he suspects, on some level or another, and he’s been wholly aware of his crush for months now. He’s spent nearly every single day of those months in close proximity with Shane, and even at the worst of times, it never felt this overwhelming to be near him. He’s never felt like his head was going to actually implode.

Maybe it’s just because Shane is acting so bizarre. He’s always been honest, has never shied away from doing or saying things that Ryan wouldn’t, but he’s acting cagey now, like he’s dancing around something.

He takes a few more minutes to try and ground himself before he heads back inside. The pizza is stacked in the middle of the circle, and Ryan grabs yet another drink and a slice before he settles back. Shane is in the middle of trying to woo Jen into being a guest on a new episode of Ruining History, but once she gets distracted by an incoming text, he turns back to Ryan and claps one huge hand on Ryan’s knee.

Ryan feels like he’s been branded.

“You alright, buddy?” His hand lingers on Ryan’s knee a beat too long, and Ryan is caught between pressing up into the touch or yanking away.

(He knows which of the two options would be better, considering his goal of not having his stupidly massive crush revealed by day’s end, but that doesn’t mean it’s the option he wants.)

“Fine,” he answers, biting into his pizza. “Just been a long day, y’know.”

“Yeah.” Shane’s hand finally slides away from his knee and drops back into his own lap. “Almost done though.”

The end may be in sight, but so far as Ryan is concerned, it still can't come soon enough.

By the time the pizza is cleared away, it’s clear that, even with the introduction of food, the energy in the room is flagging. The circle has dissolved into something more resembling a loose blob, and people are absently sipping at their drinks, like it’s more a habit than an actual thing they want to do.

“So, Andrew,” Zack starts once they’re officially filming again, “do you guys wanna go first?”

At some point while Ryan was outside grabbing some air, Andrew relocated himself to the corner of the room. Steven is stretched out on the floor beside him, head pillowed in Andrew’s lap, fast asleep. Andrew is absently running his fingers through Steven’s hair, and without pausing his movements, he looks from Zack to Steven and back again, and answers, utterly stone-faced, “No.”

It’s not a tone that leaves much room for debate and, wisely, Zack doesn’t try. He simply nods before he turn to face the rest of them and asks, “Any volunteers?”

Ryan knows that they’re going to have to do it eventually and, frankly, the sooner they can get this over with, the better. Besides, while he knows that whatever closet they’re going to be stuck in is wired for sound and camera, part of him wants to see if Shane will remain so damn cagey when they’re stuck in a tiny space, when he can’t come up with some way to get out of it.

(He just hopes that his own imagination doesn’t run away with him when he gets in there.)

“Alright, c’mon big guy,” he says, wrapping his fingers in the sleeve of Shane’s shirt and hauling him up. Ryan wobbles on his own feet for a few moments and has to give his head a firm shake in order to catch his bearings. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The closet is right across the hallway and, thankfully, isn’t horribly small; it’s packed full of cleaning supplies and lined with shelves, but there’s still enough room that they don’t have to be standing toe to toe. Once they’re both inside, leaning back against opposite shelves, Zack flashes them a thumbs up and reaches up for the light cord hanging from the ceiling.

“See you in seven minutes!”

With that, the room plunges into darkness and Zack pulls the door shut. Moments later, there’s a faint but audible click as the door is locked from the outside, followed by footsteps that rapidly fade away.

While the closet is more sizable than Ryan expected, it still doesn’t feel like there’s enough oxygen in the room. His head is pounding, and his fingers itch with the urge to do something, to reach out and touch Shane in some way.

He suddenly has a very bad feeling that the impulsive part of his brain is about to betray the logical part, and like a car crash, there’s nothing he can do about it but watch.

“So this is kinda cozy-”

“Why didn’t you kiss me today?”

Sure enough, there’s the betrayal.

He can’t see Shane, but he can feel the room’s atmosphere change, can tell that Shane has gone completely and utterly still. If it weren’t for the lock on the door, Ryan would simply say fuck it, bolt out of the building, use up some vacation days and try to forget that this ever happened.

Eventually, just when he’s thinking about maybe changing the topic, playing oblivious to the fact he said anything at all, Shane clears his throat.

“What are you talking about?” There’s a creak, and the darkness in front of Ryan changes as Shane steps away from the shelves, moves closer to Ryan.

Ryan swallows.

“Uh,” he begins, trying to find the words. The air feels even thicker now, like he might suffocate on it if he isn’t careful. “When we were playing spin the bottle. You spilled your drink instead of kissing me. And I don’t think it was an accident. And then-”

“It wasn’t,” Shane interrupts quietly, and the rest of Ryan’s spiel, about what happened during truth or dare, dies so quickly in his throat that he nearly chokes on it.

“It wasn’t?” he repeats, wishing like hell that he could see Shane’s face, that he could get some indication that could help him determine whether the slow warmth spreading through his stomach is wholly premature.

“No.” One of Shane’s hands brushes along the outside of Ryan’s arm before it settles on the shelf beside him, close enough that Ryan can feel the fabric of Shane’s shirt grazing his bare arm. “I...” He pauses just long enough to sigh before he continues. “Look, if I’m gonna kiss you, I don’t want it to be because of some stupid video. I want it to be because you want it too.”

The warmth spreading through Ryan’s stomach abruptly surges up into his head.

“Oh.” A sudden bolt of bravery hits him, and he tentatively reaches out until his fingers skim along the slight curve of Shane’s waist. He settles his hand firmly there before he continues, “I want it. I really, really do.” On an abstract level, he’s aware of the exact circumstances that pushed them into the room, aware that their every movement and word is being recorded, but that’s not important. What’s important is that Shane is stepping even closer to him, that one of his hands is running up Ryan’s bicep before it comes to rest on the side of his neck.

“You’re sure?” Shane leans in, and their noses awkwardly bash together before his forehead drops against Ryan’s. “This isn’t just-”

While Ryan isn’t a psychic, can’t say definitively that Shane’s next words are going to be something about the video, he can’t bear the thought of Shane thinking he’s a liar so, while it’s rude to interrupt, he cranes up on his toes and follows Shane’s warm breath until their mouths brush together. The rest of Shane’s words stutter to a stop, and he breathes a quiet sigh against Ryan’s lips, a tiny bitten-off oh that Ryan wants to memorialize in every possible way.

While Ryan has imagined their first kiss an embarrassing amount of times, he never pictured anything quite like this: in a darkened supply closet at work, their friends only a few feet away, a shelf digging hard into the base of his back and a little too much alcohol soaking into his brain.

But hey, he’ll take it.

Eventually, Shane pulls back a little and takes a deep breath. His hands have somehow both landed on Ryan’s chest, are fisted in the fabric of his shirt tight enough that it’s ridden up, and he bumps his nose against Ryan’s.

“Wanna do that again?” he asks, and while Ryan can’t see it, he can sure hear the grin in Shane’s voice.

“Fuck yeah,” Ryan answers, a little surprised at how out of breath he feels. “C’mere.”

The next kiss is firmer, lasts longer. The one after that is the first with tongue. The one after that is the first where Ryan gently sinks his teeth into Shane’s bottom lip and tugs.

And whether that’s the true catalyst, after that, he loses track of individual kisses.

It feels like a levee has broken, like everything he’s forced himself to hold back over the last few months is pouring out in one fell swoop. He wants to touch Shane everywhere he can, wants to know every last inch of him. His hands flit up the swoop of Shane’s neck, along the line of his shoulders, down over his chest. Occasionally, they tangle together with Shane’s, and Ryan almost wants to pause for a few moments, just to fit their fingers properly together, to see how it feels.

But he suspects that he would have to stop kissing Shane in order to truly appreciate that, and he’s damn well not ready to pull away yet.

Eventually, the shelf digging into his lower back becomes too painful to ignore. He doesn’t want Shane to have to experience the same thing so, as he steps forward, he uses his grip on Shane’s waist to turn him so that Shane’s back ends up pressed against the door of the closet. Shane hooks his fingers into Ryan’s belt loops and pulls him back in before Ryan can so much as take a step towards him.

The next time he has to pull away to breathe, he busies himself by pressing a series of quick kisses along the jut of Shane’s jaw, relishes in the groans that Shane gives him in response. He’s just moved down to Shane’s neck when he hears footsteps on the other side of the door.

By the time the significance of those footsteps sinks into his brain, it’s too late.

The door clicks open, and Shane goes stumbling backwards out into the entirely too bright hallway. He doesn’t let go of Ryan’s belt loops, and Ryan goes crashing into his chest, which leads to the two of them falling to the floor. The breath rushes from Shane’s chest with an oomph as Ryan lands on top of him. His teeth sink into his own tongue, and he curses as he turns his head and looks up at where Zack is staring down at them with a grin so obnoxiously bright that Ryan thinks it could illuminate a room.

“So,” he says. “How was your seven minutes?”

“If you put literally any of that footage,” Ryan starts, jerking his head back towards the closet, “in the video, I’m going to kill you.”

“Fine.” Zack shrugs so casually that Ryan knows there’s something he’s missing, but he’s a little too drunk (both from alcohol and from kissing Shane) to figure it out. “You guys can head out, if you want.” With that, he walks back across the hallway, and Ryan catches him saying, “Sara and Jen, you’re up!”

“Jesus, you’re heavy,” Shane mutters from underneath him, which spurs Ryan to his feet.

“Whatever, shut up,” he says, reaching out a hand to haul Shane to his feet.

“Hey, it’s not that I’m opposed to you being on top of me,” Shane continues, raising his hands defensively. The collar of his shirt is crooked, and his hair is an absolute mess, tugged into unruly spikes. “Just might be better if it’s on a bed. That’s all.”

The warmth that abruptly left him when they spilled out of the closet starts building in Ryan’s stomach again.

“Yeah? Your bed or mine?”

Shane grins at him.

“Surprise me.”

When the video premieres two weeks later, Ryan discovers that, by pure technicality, Zack did keep his promise; none of the footage of them making out inside the closet has made it into the final product.

The part of them falling out of the closet, on the other hand, has.

Normally, he'd leap up from his chair and hunt Zack down, but Shane’s foot is pressed against his calf underneath the desk, and that single point of contact is enough to keep him in his chair, keeps him from doing nothing more but muttering about how he’s going to get revenge.

“Don’t worry,” Shane responds, casually dragging his foot down to Ryan’s ankle and back up. “I already have some ideas.”

(And if Ryan wasn’t totally gone on the guy before?

Well, after that comment, there’s absolutely no turning back.)