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It took fourteen days for Ryan to realize that Shane’s smiles had stopped reaching his eyes. Ryan had cracked a joke, a cheesy one at that and Shane had chuckled but something in Ryan’s gut told him that something was off. The sound of his laugh didn’t have its usual light to it, it didn’t make Ryan feel as if the sun was shining down on his soul, it wasn’t Shane. Ryan didn’t know what to do with this information and so he chose to just mind his business and do his best to keep Shane in as high spirits as possible.
It was day twenty-seven when Shane started slipping a bit. Ryan had kept his eye on him and couldn’t ascertain if the big guy was getting better or worse. While his grin and his laugh stayed fake, it was real enough that no one but Ryan would really notice the difference. Shane still worked just as hard as ever on research for Unsolved and Watcher and all of the other projects they had going on. But on day twenty-seven Shane walked into work without his signature two coffees, one for Ryan and one for himself. It gave Ryan pause, and he couldn’t help but study his friend and ask him if he was doing alright.
“Of course Ryan, I was just running a bit late today.”
The response was muttered and Shane’s eyes were on his hands as he logged into his computer. Ryan knew that wasn’t the entire truth because Shane had arrived 10 minutes early and no part of him seemed frazzled or out of place as if he had been rushing to arrive on time. Ryan stared at his friend's profile for a moment before deciding to let it go and went to make them some coffee in the break room. Ryan kept his mouth shut then and for the rest of the week as Shane continued to ‘forget’ to pick up their usual orders. The next week Ryan started bringing in their drinks and endured the burning sting in his chest at the heartbreakingly grateful look Shane gave him as he accepted his Starbucks drink. It was as if Shane couldn’t bring himself to ask Ryan for help in anything, not even in something as small as switching who got them coffee in the mornings.
Day thirty-one was the first time Shane’s deteriorating mental state made an appearance on their show. His timing for jokes were all off, he didn’t keep up with his and Ryan’s usual banter, and his laughter was so fake that even TJ raised an eyebrow and cut their filming short saying they’d pick it up again later when they were more in sync. Everyone had started packing up the equipment but Shane just sat there and chewed the inside of his cheek with a defeated look on his face. The stinging in Ryan’s chest grew along with the burn on anxiety in his stomach.
“Shane?” Ryan probed quietly, “Is something going on? It feels like you’ve been off for weeks.”
Shane’s gaze snapped back into focus and he huffed out a laugh as he stood. “Oh Ry-guy you worry too much.” He said and ruffled Ryan’s hair. “I’m just having an off day, I should be good tomorrow.” And he walked off to help carry the heavy stuff.
Ryan bit his tongue and contemplated calling his mother for advice.
It was someone’s birthday at buzzfeed, a higher up meaning that everyone pretty much got the day off and gotta eat cake around the office. It had been fifty two days since Ryan last remembered getting a genuine smile out of Shane and he was at a loss at what he should do. Things had changed over the past few months. Ryan brought in the coffee now and Shane went from drinking it to simply holding it in his hands as if it was freezing in the office and not it’s usual comfortable seventy-two degrees. He had taken a week off after they had to stop shooting and came back refreshed with fake smiles and jokes that could fool everyone but Ryan. Their weekly movie nights became excuse after excuse until Ryan stopped inviting Shane all together. Shane dragged Ryan into big groups to eat, instead of the two of them the way it used to be and Ryan knew the main reason was because Shane didn’t have to talk as much when there were six other people with them. There was also no one to notice if Shane was eating or not, he had noticeably lost some weight and Ryan was going crazy.
“Has anyone seen Shane?” Ryan asked aloud, he wanted to bring him some cake and someone mentioned seeing him walk into the break room.
When Ryan walked in all he could see was Shane’s back, hunched over the sink like it was carrying the weight of the world. Ryan walked forward as he heard Shane take a shuddering breath and place a hand on his back, setting the cake on the counter.
“Shane.” Ryan murmured, soft and low.
Shane let out another breath, straightened up and looked at Ryan with hollow eyes.
“Okay, we’re going home.” Ryan left no room for argument as he herded Shane out the door and towards their desks, he shoved Shane’s things into his bag and handed it to the tall man before packing his own stuff and grabbing Shane’s arm.
“Seatbelt.” Ryan said, sounding just like his mother as he settled into the driver seat and waited to hear the click before turning on the ignition.
“Yours or mine?” Ryan asked.
“Yours.” Shane whispered and Ryan nodded and turned right.
Nothing was said as Ryan drove, not as they climbed the stairs to his apartment, or as he unlocked his door.
The silence became deafening as the door shut behind Shane and Ryan turned to him and gave him a small smile.
“I’ll make us something to eat, I think you still have some sweatpants here from the last time you stayed over. They should be in the guest room.”
Shane nodded, kicked off his shoes and headed to change. Ryan got busy making soup. He didn’t know why he was making soup. That’s what you did when someone was sick right? And depression can affect someone just like the flu plus it was warm. He felt more than heard Shane as he padded into the kitchen and sat on the counter.
“Why?” Shane murmured.
“Why what, Big guy?”
“Why are you...you know…” Shane gestured at the soup and then at Ryan.
“Because you’re my best friend and you’ve been down for months now and I’m tired of waiting for you to come to me.”
“‘M’fine, Ryan. You don’t have to-”
“Shut up. You are not fine Shane. You haven’t been fine for who knows how long but I only started noticing a few months ago and I’m tired of seeing you this way.” Ryan interrupted, not even bothering to look up from the soup.
“I didn’t think I was that bad at hiding it.” Shane fiddled with his sweatshirt sleeve.
Ryan choked out a laugh. “Oh don’t worry you are great at pretending you’re fine, I’m just hyper aware of all things you. Frankly it was freaky. You’d crack a joke and everyone would laugh and I’d just look around trying to figure out if anyone else noticed that your smile vanished less than a second after you stopped laughing. Or if anyone else noticed that you barely eat anything at lunch, or how you always seem to be cold, or how every day you have even darker circles under your eyes. It’s crazy making being the only one who seemed to notice. I was starting to think that I was just paranoid.”
It was quiet besides the clank of Ryan setting down two bowls and spoons respectively.
Shane took in a shaky breath and Ryan turned to hand him his bowl of soup.
“You-you noticed all that?”
“Course I did. You think my best friend can crumble from the inside without me noticing?”
“Yes.” The corner of Shane’s mouth turned up as he spooned some soup into his mouth.
Ryan's heart broke a little and he huffed. “Well tough titties because I’m a trained investigator and-.”
“Investigator or conspiracy nut.”
Ryan glared at him half heartedly. “Fuck off.”
Shane let out a wet laugh and stared at his soup and the moment faded away.
“Man, why didn’t you come to me?” Ryan felt more concerned than hurt.
“I didn’t want to burden you. You’ve got so much on your plate already, there was no need to add my feelings to it.” Shane shrugged into his soup.
“Hey! Look at me!” Ryan grabbed Shane’s jaw and forced his head up to look at Ryan. “Get that mindset out of your head. There is nothing, I repeat nothing you can’t tell me. I may be shit at advice but I'll always listen. All night and all day if that’s what you need because I love you and you’re my best friend and I want you here, happy, healthy, and alive. Forever, ya got that Bigfoot?” Ryan held eye contact with Shane until the weight of his words had settled into Shane’s bones and he nodded.
Ryan released Shane’s jaw and asked if Shane wanted to sleep over for the night.
Shane gave him a relieved smile. “Sure, I just need to feed Obi.” Ryan got up and took the dishes to the sink before grabbing his keys.
“Let’s go!”
The rest of the night was fairly quiet on Shane’s part, his talk with Ryan didn’t magically fix everything but he wasn’t shouldering it alone anymore. Ryan jabbered the entire night, purposely put on Shane’s favorite movie for comfort and hugged Shane for a long time outside of his guest room before bidding the tall man good night.
Shane and Ryan’s relationship stayed the same but with the new understanding that they could lean on each other when things got bad. Shane did bounce back a couple weeks later thanks partly to Ryan’s support and he slowly but surely stopped hesitating to ask Ryan for help when he needed it, after all that’s what best friends were for.