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"Sooo, Shane, buddy, something on your mind?"
Shane, who had spent the past 10 minutes corralling Ryan into this little meeting room, ushered him into a seat, double-triple checked the door was locked, and was currently engaged in circling around the room, peering suspiciously into the upper corners of it, hummed noncommittally. Ryan sighed.
"Right, well this was great, big guy, but I've got work to not do," He started to get to his feet and all 7 feet of gangly humanoid flew at him in a panic.
"Wait, wait, hang on," Gabbled Shane, pressing him back into the chair.
"Well, get on with it, man! I'm reasonably sure you haven't brought me here to kill me-"
"Kill- reasonably sure?"
"It's always a concern with me, you know this, shut up. Possibly killing aside, I don't think I can take another minute of you weirdly circling this room. It's like being stalked by the world's tallest, most ridiculous vulture."
"Rude." Sniffed Shane, but he was smiling and looked slightly less crazy about the eyes, so Ryan was going to count it as a win.
"Ok, ok, just sit still for a sec, I gotta tell you something."
Oh, said Ryan's brain.
"Oh," said Ryan's mouth, and he internally rolled his eyes at dumb nerds with no brain-to-mouth filter. Hesitantly, he settled back into the chair and watched Shane perch awkwardly into his own.
He waited, breathless.
Shane shifted and avoided his eyes.
He waited a little more, impatient.
Shane went back to eying the cornices suspiciously.
"Oh my god, Shane, would you spit it out already? You look like a fucking flight risk and the second-hand anxiety is just insane." Ryan exploded.
"Sorry, sorry, I just- Do you think there are cameras in here?"
"No."
"Really? It's Buzzfeed-"
"No really, I'm the resident conspiracy-nut. I know where every camera is in this building."
"... Ryan."
"Shut up. It's Buzzfeed, you gotta watch for cameras, everybody knows this."
"I guess, but-"
"Nope, nope, we can talk about my paranoid tendencies later, sounds like a fucking blast, but unless I've read this very wrong, I'm pretty sure you didn't drag me in here for a tinfoil intervention."
Shane huffed out a laugh and inclined his enormous head. "Right, ok, ok, here we go. Ryan."
"Shane." Ryan griped back, annoyed and impatient and hopeless with hopefulness.
"Ryan. Ok, don't freak out," Shane swiped a hand through his hair nervously.
Oh my god, Ryan thought, it's finally happening.
"It's not even a big thing, really." Ryan pressed a hand to his belly, trying to quell the millions of butterflies that had just been released there.
"You don't have to- I don't know- But being friends with you is so important to me, and I don't want to lose you." Shane implored him with big eyes and Ryan's brain chanted you won't, you won't, you won't.
"But it's been so long, ages really, and you really should know-"
Ryan's breath was doing a funny little catch and drag. There wasn't nearly enough air in this room and he didn't care, not even a little bit, not at all, because finally after months and months of little looks and accidental-on-purpose touches, Shane was finally going to-
"I'm a demon."
Oh, said Ryan's brain.
"Oh," said Ryan's mouth, and even to himself, it sounded disappointed.
They sat together in a cramped silence. A fly buzzed about near the ceiling and Ryan absently watched it ram itself into the light a few times.
"'Oh'?!?" demanded Shane finally. "Aren't you gonna threaten me with an exorcism or, or, get your stupid little water pistol or-"
"Hey! It's not stupid." Snapped Ryan who, having spent the last several seconds trying to stamp his heart back into submission, was perhaps not focussing on the right things.
"Ryan." Shane snapped right back.
"Right, right, sorry. I just, um, I already knew?"
"What? How could you-"
"You know I'm the one who goes through all of our footage, right? And also has been in your presence for more than five consecutive minutes?" Ryan sighed, amused and a little irritated.
"But-"
"Plus, I spent last Thanksgiving with your family."
"What does-"
"Oh please. The dishes that smelled like sulphur that everyone but me and your Dad were allowed to eat because it's 'traditional'? The one billion poorly hidden demon jokes your Mum pulled out? The framed pentagram on the wall?" Ryan demanded, as Shane looked progressively more embarrassed.
"I did tell them to cool it with the hell puns." Shane muttered, mostly to himself.
"And they're not nearly as bad as you!"
"What?"
"Half the time on shoots when we're in bed your eyes are black. Sometimes when I stay over you forget to hide the horns the next morning, especially if you're hungover, and then there's the whole disappearing tattoo on your arm-"
"What?"
"You know, that weird smokey-black one? Always appears in a different place? The one that I took a sneaky pic of and got translated, like, literal months ago?"
"You did not." Shane gaped.
"I did to, 'son of the Underplain, walker of the Earth'. Personally I was holding out for Bigfoot, but you can't win them all."
"Oh my god," Shane moaned into his hands. "You're not supposed to know about that!"
"I mean, you did just tell me." Ryan pointed out, very reasonably.
"I know, I know, but I thought it was going to be this whole big thing and that you'd run screaming for the hills and instead you're all like, 'can't believe you weren't a Bigfoot'!"
"Well, it was a disappointing revelation, Buckaroo, I had to scrap so many pre-prepared tall jokes."
"Ryan."
"Sorry, sorry, I'm taking this seriously, promise. Yes, I already knew. Yes, I've known for a while. No, I'm not going to run for the hills or whatever. Sorry. Guess this is why you've been looking at me like that, huh?"
"Like what?"
"Like- nothing. Like you were a secret Hell Beast, I guess." Ryan muttered and studied the rip in the knee of his jeans fiercely.
Of course, that's what this whole thing was about not- not anything else. It just fucking figures. Demons ruin everything. Even nice, funny, soft, floppy-haired ones like Shane, throwing mixed messages everywhere. Ryan wondered if he could claim he was sick and take the rest of the day off work so that he could curl up in a tiny Ryan-ball somewhere and angry-cry about it.
"So," he forced a chuckle. "Any other potential friendship-ruiners on the horizon?"
Shane hesitated, for just a second, and then said 'Nope' in the loudest, cheeriest voice Ryan had ever heard. Which, coming from anyone would be strange. Coming from Shane? Suspicious as all hell.
Here's the thing about Ryan; he does the things he's scared of doing. It's one of the big components of why Unsolved works, aside from the inexplicable chemistry of Ryan-and-Shane, but people love to see him freak out and panic and shake and then go do the thing anyway. Sure, that usually centres on things like possibly haunted prisons or demon-infested houses (he makes a mental note to finally, finally, ask Shane about just what was in the Sallie House. Shane had barely fought at all about leaving and in hindsight this makes Ryan very nervous). But he's scared, so scared right now, and he's still Ryan, so he's going to do the thing.
"No friendship-ruiners, huh? Cause I've got a couple stored away that might do it." Ryan said lightly.
"Really?" Shane drawled out, visibly waiting for the punchline.
"For one thing, you're a mythological being." Shane started to laugh and shake his head, fully aware of where this was going.
"No."
"Yes. And as a mythological being-"
"Nope, not doing it."
"- I'd like you to repeat after me; 'Ryan, you were right.'"
"Not a single chance in-"
"Hell? Just how long have you been publically making fun of me for my demon beliefs while actively being a 'horny boy' yourself?" Ryan inquired in a very polite tone.
"..."
"Mmhmm. All together now; 'Ryan, you were-"
"Oh God, fine. Ryan, you may have been slightly close to being adjacently correct on the matter of demons. Ish."
"Thank you," Ryan said graciously. "I know how difficult that was for you. Now, if our friendship can survive that, then it won't have any trouble with this next little thing."
Shane just laughed, looking helplessly fond the way he only ever did around Ryan and he just kept thinking maybe.
"Hey, Shane?"
"Mm?"
"You know how I visibly want to throttle you like, 60% of the time?"
"Sure." Shane agreed easily.
"Have you noticed that I visibly want to kiss you the other 40%?"
"... I... I had not noticed that, no." Ryan would be so very proud of how strangled Shane sounded but he was a little busy pushing down a heart attack just now.
"Really? It's very obvious. Basically everyone has commented on it."
"I, um, is that, is that so?" Shane's eyes had gone very wide.
"Sure." Ryan started ticking them off on his fingers. "TJ, Jen, Sara, Devon, every single person who's ever watched an Unsolved episode."
"That is quite a lot. Ryan, are you-"
"Here's another fun fact for you, I am not feeling particularly throttle-y right now."
"You... aren't."
"Nope." Gauntlet thrown, Ryan waited with bated breath. There was no turning back now. No joke that he could make to erase this.
Ryan keeps his eyes firmly fixed on Shane's face because he does the things he's scared of. He is waiting, and hoping, and mostly just trying not to panic because he hadn't really been joking when he said this could be friendship-ruining. Shane had always seemed so comfortably, utterly single, Ryan wasn't even 100% sure he liked people, let alone the stats on liking Ryan in particular.
"Oh, thank God." Shane gasped all in a rush and then a full-grown demon was doing his damned best to crawl right into Ryan's lap and there was a hand in his hair and Shane was pressing burning little kisses all over his face.
Oh, said Ryan's brain.
"Oh," said Ryan's mouth and he surged forward, relief making him clumsy and ardent. The fell out of the chair. But that was fine, so freaking fine, because Ryan was busy kissing exactly the kind of mythological being who could take the fall. Wings flared out from nowhere (Ryan heard a distinctive ripping sound from the vicinity of Shane's shirt but that was a problem for Future!Them) and a sinuous tail curled around him securely.
They still fell on their asses, obviously, but it was with a flail that was included an extra two or three limbs which made it far more embarrassing on Shane's part, so that didn't matter. Ryan laughed directly up into his face, now with some interesting additions (the horns and eyes he's seen, the teeth... the teeth are new and very fun indeed).
"Oh my god, Ryan, would you just. Shut. Up."
And then they kissed until someone knocked on the door as if this was a meeting room or something. What a weirdo. Ryan was right, the teeth were fun.
__________________________________
Extra - 3 Days Later
"Hey, Shane, buddy, pal, can you come with me for a quick sec? There's something I want to talk to you about."
Shane nodded anxiously and followed Ryan into the same meeting room that Shane had bared his soul and then also his torso and a fair bit lower. As soon as the door shut, Shane was talking.
"Ryan, what's going on? Are you dying? Are you breaking up with me? Are you gonna try the exorcism thing again because it's really very ticklish and I don't-"
Ticklish? Ryan put a pin in that to revisit later. Maybe it was because Shane wasn't possessing a host so much as just- no, nope, mysteries later, Shane now.
"No, shush, everything's fine. I just, I looked over, and you were being all tall, and your hair is just a disaster, it's gravity-defying really, and you were being so, so bad at pretending to be human and-"
"Hey!"
"AND I thought, that's a man that I really need to blow, like, right now."
"What?!" Ryan dropped to his knees and started unbuttoning Shane's chinos.
"Oh, well, ok, if you insist. I mean, yup, sounds lovely, very nice..."
"Shut up, Shane." Ryan grinned and got his pants all the way open.
Oh, said Ryan's brain.
Ryan's mouth was busy.