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Shane had only met Ryan Bergara a month ago, but already Ryan was living rent-free in his head, and Shane hated it. He was falling hard and fast and despite his best efforts, there didn’t seem to be any way to stop himself.
Shane even knew the exact moment this started. Some of their mutual Buzzfeed friends were all going out to dinner one night, a few days after Ryan and Shane met. Ryan and Shane were the only two who couldn’t make it, for different reasons, so they decided to just get dinner together at a different time that night. Just the two of them, talking and eating together. Shane had thought Ryan was kinda cute from the first time he saw him, but when he was eating with Ryan, listening to him talk and getting to know him, his imagination started to run away from him. Shane imagined holding Ryan, kissing him, cooking for each other, all that couple-y stuff. When they were talking, there were subjects they vehemently disagreed on, especially whether ghosts exist or not. But for some reason, Ryan’s insistence that ghosts were real made Shane’s urge to kiss him stronger. He reasoned to himself that this was just because he wanted Ryan to shut up, but Shane couldn’t deny that imagining cute dates with Ryan made him smile.
They started hanging out more and more after Shane got added to Buzzfeed Unsolved, especially off camera on their own time. One time Ryan mentioned feeling touch starved and Shane’s brain went wild thinking of holding him in his arms, touching him. Any time Ryan felt sad, Shane wanted to do something to cheer him up or take care of him. When Ryan freaked out while they were filming the supernatural episodes, Shane wanted to make him feel safe and protected.
A few of the girls at Buzzfeed started a group chat to send selfies to and hype each other up, and somehow, both Shane and Ryan found themselves part of it. Up until then, Shane hadn’t even considered to think of Ryan in a sexual way. The kind of thoughts he tried to pretend he wasn’t having were usually about going to art museums with Ryan and holding his hand as they walked around, or watching scary movies together and comforting him. Stuff like that. But as people in that group chat were getting more comfortable sending selfies, Ryan started to send a few shirtless pictures. It wasn’t even just those pictures that made Shane think about the possibility of fucking Ryan. It was the poses he did, the confidence that radiated off him that was rarely there in person. In response to these pictures, Shane sent replies like “step on me”, calling Ryan hot or sexy, or “you could fuck me whenever”. But most of the replies in the group chat were like this, and Shane couldn’t tell if Ryan took his messages as just compliments like the other replies, or if he at all suspected that Shane was serious. Shane felt like he’d done almost everything he could in that department other than approach Ryan one on one and straight up ask to fuck.
One of Shane and Ryan’s mutual Buzzfeed friends was doing a photoshoot and asked them both if they would join. They both accepted the offer, and came to the shoot dressed up in the outfits their friend had picked out for them. Ryan looked incredibly hot. Even though there were other people also participating in the shoot, Ryan and Shane kept ending up posing for pictures together, whether they were pictures of just the two of them or group pictures that they were both in. Ryan even came up to Shane and asked him to stand a few steps down from him, and told him he wondered if he could stretch his leg up high enough to put his foot on Shane’s shoulder. Ryan almost fell trying to do this, which should’ve just been hilarious, but all Shane could think about was how cute he was.
A few days ago, Shane and Ryan were on a shoot for an episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural. They were staying overnight at a house that was supposedly haunted, and Shane was sitting, scrolling through some app on his phone, on his sleeping bag on the floor. Ryan had left the room a few minutes ago, saying he needed to go sit outside and clear his head, and when Shane asked if he wanted company, Ryan had replied that he didn’t have to join if he didn’t want to. But the more Shane sat there, the more he thought about Ryan being alone out there, lonely, maybe sad, and possibly getting scared by every little thing. And just sitting there with Ryan would be really nice. Shane got up, threw on a jacket, and went outside to go find him. He almost couldn’t see him at first. Ryan was sitting a little bit away from the house, on a little pier that overlooked a pond. Shane walked down the pier, purposefully making his footsteps a little louder than normal so Ryan would know he was there. Ryan looked over at him as he sat down on the end of the pier next to him. The pier was just wide enough for the two to sit next to each other. Ryan smiled a little, and they sat in silence for a moment, just appreciating the night. Shane was also appreciating sitting next to Ryan and how the cross-legged way they both sat caused their knees to touch. They started to talk to each other, a little about the weather at first, and then into topics that were a little deeper, like family drama and loss. Under different circumstances, Shane would’ve leaned over and kissed Ryan right on that pier. After a while, Ryan was ready to go back to the house, and they both got up and walked back together. Shane felt like he would remember sitting on the pier with Ryan and looking out at the night and talking forever. Spending time with him like that was amazing.
But now Shane hasn’t had a real conversation with Ryan or gotten to spend any alone time with him since then, and his mind filled with fear and doubt. Was Ryan avoiding him? Did he say or do something wrong? Did Ryan hate him? Ryan was his co-host, if Shane fell for him it could mean the end of Buzzfeed Unsolved, so it was probably good that Ryan was ignoring him anyway. But Shane couldn’t help but think that he came on too strong, with the thirsty comments and all the time he’s spent longingly looking at Ryan. Maybe he should tell him how he feels. Shane’s dropped so many hints that Ryan hasn’t responded to, maybe he should make one last-ditch effort to find out how Ryan feels about him. Shane decided he was going to throw a hail mary and just ask him out on a date.
The next time the two were alone together, Shane tried to finally just say how he felt. He started the sentence many different ways, like “I don’t want this to jeopardize the show, but-” and “I have no idea if you’ve even once thought of me like this, but-” and scrapping it each time. Thankfully, Ryan finally caught on to what he was trying to say. Ryan told Shane to shut up and grabbed his face, pulling him in for a kiss. He then pulled away, his hands still touching Shane’s flushed cheeks.
“So you do have feelings for me, huh?" Ryan smirked. "Do you want to, maybe, go on a date sometime?”