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Ryan screeched and hopped towards Shane who laughed loudly, head tipped back.
"Dude, that was fu- that was not the wind, don't say-"
Shane interrupted him, grinning widely. "What, was that a ghost? Did we finally get evidence of ghosts? Listen up everyone, let's pack it in: Ryan heard a whisper, ghosts are real, I was wrong. This is the end of Buzzfeed Unsolved, we caught an inaudible huff."
"Fuck you, man," Ryan groaned, distracted by the banter momentarily, then jumping back into Shane as a loud bang came from the corridor they'd just left.
"What the fuck was that," Ryan whispered, eyes wide as dinner plates in the glare of his flashlight. Shane controlled the urge to laugh out loud again, simply because he was beginning to feel a bit guilty about how much he was scaring Ryan. Maybe he should cool it a bit. He didn't want him passing out, did he?
He patted Ryan's back soothingly, while quickly motioning with a hand behind his back to still the closet door that was merrily smashing into the wall downstairs with no aid from the wind whatsoever.
"Hey, it's fine, Ryan. Calm down, there's nothing to be afraid of here 'cept for lung cancer maybe, because you always pick dusty locations. Would it kill ya to pick a- a fuckin' haunted McDonald's once in a while, huh?"
Ryan had turned to answer him sarcastically as he talked but he froze when he did, flashlight pointed right in Shane's face. He squinted a bit against it, and flapped it out the way in annoyance, but Ryan stepped back from him slowly, flashlight unwavering, apparently having stopped breathing.
"Shane," he said in a worryingly level tone of voice which he only used when he was close to having a panic attack but hiding it. "Your eyes."
Shane's stomach sank. Rookie mistake. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten something as basic as that. He blinked, speedily flicking his eyes from tar black back to his usual soft brown, then creased his brow, attempting to pull off the Innocent look.
He'd never been any good at it.
Ryan was stumbling backwards, away from him, and the thought that Ryan could be scared of him, Shane Madej, who'd been watching out for Ryan since the day he'd met him, hurt Shane way more than he'd care to admit.
"Ryan, breathe-" he began, stepping towards him, but Ryan actually cried out in fear, and Shane halted immediately, his heart stuttering in an extremely undemonly way.
"It's still me, Ry," he said softly, hands up next to his chest in a placating gesture. Sure, this wasn't the usual procedure when it came to his identity being discovered, but Shane was a failure of a demon, and he was much too fond of Ryan to bite his head off.
"Nope," Ryan choked out, inconspicuously (or he hoped) reaching for the door handle. "You're a demon, demons lie."
With an apologetic wince, Shane snapped his fingers and the door locked with a sharp click. Ryan flinched then clutched at the handle, tugging and banging, shouting for the crew. Who couldn't hear him, of course.
"Ryan, listen to me!" Shane called over Ryan's hollering. "I promise it's me, it's Shane, give me a minute to explain myself. A minute, that's all! Then you can douse me in holy water or whatever else you have on you, though I doubt it'll do much-"
He risked another step towards Ryan, who flattened himself against the door.
"Stay the fuck away from me," he gasped, chest heaving.
He's sweating, Shane noticed, because it was a less painful thing to focus on than the sharp ache coursing through his body at the way Ryan spoke to him.
"Fine, okay. Whatever." He gazed nervously at Ryan who looked like he was on the verge of keeling over. They stared at each other for a while, the silence punctuated by Ryan's shallow breathing.
"You're a demon," he said faintly, after a pause in which Shane's palms had gone embarrassingly sticky.
He nodded jerkily. "That's me. Shane Madej: ghosthunter, bridgeowner, demon." He huffed with laughter, despite himself. "What a CV. I tend to cut out the 'demon' bit, it's not really what employers are looking for these days."
Ryan's lip twitched very slightly, and Shane felt a hopeful burst in his stomach. He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but there was a very slim possibility that this wouldn't end with him being exorcised by his best friend. Very slim, but there.
"How do I know you're not a demon pretending to be Shane?" Ryan finally said, sounding a bit more sure of himself than before. There was a glint in his eye that was returning, which Shane knew would mean a shitload of gloating and furious realisations afterwards. He'd be fine with it all if it meant there was going to be an afterwards.
"You- uh, shit. I know some stuff about you that? Well," he began, counting on his fingers. "You put the milk before the cereal, you have 19 pairs of socks and only 11 of them match, you hate the smell of catfood because it reminds you of your neighbour as a kid, you did a careful experiment documenting the effects of using conditioner before shampoo, you've never-"
"Stop, stop, stopstopstop, we're still recording!" Ryan yelled before Shane could continue, his face going pink, which he could've gotten away with if Shane didn't have excellent night vision. He smirked, and with a snap, the video was unexplainably and irrevocably destroyed.
"So. Am I Shane or not?" He spread his arms out, ignoring the vulnerability and defencelessness of the position.
Ryan squinted his eyes at him, the whirring of his mind almost audible. Shane wasn't nervous about this at all, nah. Why would he be? He was a demon. The opinion of a mortal, even if that mortal was one as intelligent, quick, funny, and witty as Ryan Bergara meant absolutely zilch to him.
Obviously.
"Do that eye thing again," Ryan said, inching towards Shane. Shane duly obliged, and Ryan stared wondrously at him.
Ryan was close enough to touch him now, but Shane still didn't move. Ryan's comfort was more important than his right now.
He wondered gingerly what Ryan was thinking as he stared at Shane's eyes rather than in them. It wasn't a spectacularly pleasant feeling either.
"I was right," Ryan mumbled after a minute, stepping back, scratching his chin.
What had he decided? Why was he right? Shane has never felt this self-conscious before and he rolled his eyes to cover it, bringing them back to their 'normal' brown, and raising an eyebrow at Ryan.
"Right? About what?"
Ryan glared at him in his usual exasperated Boogara way and Shane realised what he was talking about and he broke into a grin.
"Demons are real! They've been real this whole time and you-!" He pointed furiously at Shane. "You've known since I began Unsolved! But-" He stopped suddenly, and gaped at Shane.
"Don't you fucking tell me- you've been messing with the evidence haven't you."
Shane shrugged, but his crooked smile gave him away.
Teeth gritted, Ryan punched Shane's arm none too lightly. "Demon or not, I'm gonna fucking murder you, Madej-"
Fortunately for the demon, Ryan's plans were cancelled by TJ knocking worriedly on the door.
"Uh, guys? You good in there? We haven't heard anything from you in a while, and Devon wanted to make sure no-one's died or anything?"
Shane removed the soundproofing from the room as Ryan called back, "Nah, we're good Teej, I'm about to pound the big guy's head in, but nothing to be worried about."
"Okay, but don't make a mess, there'll be paperwork!"
He walked off, humming to himself.
Shane snorted. "I'm glad the crew have my back."
Ryan pursed his lips and began collecting their camera equipment.
"I'm never gonna shut up about this, you know. Fucking real-life demons, and you didn't tell me. I coulda died without being sure if my life's work had had any purpose!"
Shane rotated where he stood, but still stayed at a distance from Ryan. Better safe than sorry.
"You woulda known after you'd died though, so is it that bad?" He laughed helplessly at Ryan's expression, unable to stop himself. "You wouldn't have been murdered by demons though, I can promise you that."
Ryan paused while clutching the camera and fiddling with its buttons. "What? Why?"
"You think I'm letting demons murk my-" He hesitated then continued, trying to look as casual as he could. "-my best friend? Not on my watch."
There was a small silence, then Ryan quietly mumbled, "Seriously? You've been... protecting me?"
With a small shrug, Shane walked nearer to Ryan, slowly so as not to startle him, and held his hands out. Ryan always struggled with one of the switches on the cameras. Blinking up at him, Ryan dropped the camera on to them.
"Yep," Shane replied, popping the 'p' and staring intently at the camera as he fixed it. "Since the day I met you. There was just something about you, like, a spark. Sounds stupid, I know, but demons are sensitive to stuff like that. And you're also, no offence, a bit of a scaredy-cat and I need that stuff to survive. I was gonna stick with you just to get all the nourishment I could, and then move on to the next person, but two things happened: one, you started Buzzfeed Unsolved, and your fear was like a fixed and constant supply of food for me."
Ryan rolled his eyes at that, but his wide, megawatt smile had returned. Shane was very close to melting in relief. That would be hard to explain on his monthly report to Hell.
"And...? Number two?"
Shane faced Ryan squarely and chucked the camera back into his hands.
"I liked you. So every day I thought, 'okay, today's the day I leave' but I couldn't. Because I realised that in the end, I'd miss you and end up back where I'd left. And I didn't want to hurt your feelings either, totally disappearing off the map and all. So I stuck around. And here we are-" He waved around himself at the dusty, decrepit room they were in. "-having the time of our lives in a supposedly haunted house, laughing and screaming and fucking around and- and I wouldn't have it any other way."
He breathed in deeply to calm his nerves, and immediately regretted it after inhaling the skin cells of someone who'd died two centuries ago. Ryan was standing opposite him, unmoving, and Shane wondered if he'd gone too far too fast. Ryan had only just discovered he was a demon, after all. It was wholly possible he felt more attacked than-
His anxious thoughts were interrupted by Ryan bowling into his chest and wrapping his arms around him.
"Hey," Shane giggled, ears going pink with embarrassment and maybe a bit of pleasure. So their friendship wasn't destroyed, that much was clear. "Ry, you okay down there?"
"I love you, man," Ryan replied, voice muffled. "Even if you are an agent of Satan. You're a fucking cool one."
Shane cautiously brought his arms round Ryan and hugged him back. He smiled warmly.
"I love you too, Ryan. Even if you are an overexcited and gullible idiot sometimes. You're a fucking funny one."
Ryan thumped him heavily on the back and Shane snickered over his head.
"The crew will seriously start thinking you've murdered me, we better go down to meet them," he huffed reluctantly, detaching himself from an equally unwilling Ryan.
He tugged a couple pieces of equipment out of Ryan's hands and snapped his fingers. The door clicked open, and he motioned Ryan along with him and they stumbled out the door, squinting in the darkness.
"You better not let any demons possess me," Ryan muttered under his breath as they walked down the hallway towards the stairs.
"You don't have to worry about that here, dude. The most haunted thing currently is me."
Ryan growled irritately. "Don't give me- don't spoil it for me!"
"I thought you wanted it to be solved!"
"But not- demon powers are cheating!"
Shane shook his head incredulously. "You're weird sometimes, Bergara."
"I know. But maybe I want it to remain..."
"Unsolved," they echoed simultaneously. Then glanced at each other, collapsing into a fit of stifled snorts of laughter.
What were demons in the face of such a pure friendship?