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“Sometimes I think you’re flirting with me,” Ryan says, and when Shane looks over, he’s staring down at the bottle in his hands, peeling away at the label nervously. Ryan’s been glossy-eyed for at least the last hour of the movie and his last two beers. Shane wonders how long he’s been stewing.
“Yeah?” he asks. He’s the far side of tipsy himself, careening towards drunk with every new sip. He’s not even really tasting the beer anymore. It’s hoppy, he thinks. He can’t remember.
“Yeah,” Ryan echoes, his voice gentle even as it catches around the edges. “It’s killing me, a little bit.”
Oh. That’s not good, Shane thinks but doesn’t say it aloud. He wonders if maybe he should say it aloud. Ryan must take the silence as a bad sign because he barrels on anyway, like he generally does when he thinks things are about to turn sour. He dives in headfirst into the things he fears most, and Shane loves that about him. Maybe he should say that aloud.
“It’s killing me because I want it to be flirting. I want it so badly that sometimes I think I’m making it up in my head, and this is just how you are with friends. But then you’ll just… say something so intense I start thinking, that has to be just for me. There’s no way you say that to other people.”
“Ryan,” he says. Ryan doesn’t stop.
“And like, sometimes we’ll be with Sara, and you’re still flirting, like. Right in front of her. So I think maybe it’s just me, imagining it. Me and my stupid—” he cuts himself off, sighing loudly as he peels away a long strip of the label from the bottle and flicks it away onto the carpet. “I just think you’re flirting with me, and it’s a little bit unfair to all of us. You should chill, maybe.”
Shane swallows thickly. It takes a bit of digging to sort through Ryan’s rambling, find the meaning.
“But you want it to be flirting?”
“Yeah,” Ryan says again, hoarsely. Shane nods, takes a breath.
“You want me?” he asks, and it’s almost conversational. Like he’s asking Ryan if he wants a cup of tea or coffee. Ryan looks away, head bowed, and Shane almost doesn’t hear his quiet, final “Yeah,” again, tighter than before. Like he’d had trouble just getting the word — the admission — out of his throat.
Ryan sighs, and he’s still avoiding looking at Shane. The TV is muted, and Netflix just seems to be playing an endless roll of trailers for original movies neither of them will ever watch. There’s no way Ryan could be more interested in looking at them than looking at Shane’s face right now.
Shane lifts the remote, turns off the TV. His hands are shaking a little bit, and he doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol sapping his strength or if he’s just that damn nervous right now.
“Ryan, can you look at me?”
Ryan shakes his head. “I’ll do— something stupid. Start crying or try to kiss you or something.”
“Neither of those sound like bad things, Ry.”
“Shut up, dude,” Ryan scoffs, and drains the last dregs from his bottle. It must taste terrible, lukewarm, but Shane says nothing, turning on his hip towards Ryan. He vaguely remembers reading something about open and inviting body language. Ryan is tight and tense, pulled in on himself. It’d be too easy for Shane to wrap himself around him, he has to let Ryan come to him.
The thing is. Shane has been flirting, and he’s been flirting for the longest time. As long as he can remember. Only recently, did he stop giving a shit about being ‘too much’, and apparently that’s when Ryan finally started to notice.
“Why’d you bring this up now?” he asks, and maybe it’s the wrong thing to say, because Ryan’s face crumples a little bit.
“Couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
“Why’d you hold it in this long?”
Ryan finally looks at him, and Shane can’t tell if he’s about to cry, or he’s just that drunk. His eyes look as though they’re made of sea glass, even at the warm brown center.
“To keep you around,” he admits, and Shane feels it right in his chest. “Didn’t want to stop seeing you every day. Didn’t want to stop talking to you every day.”
“Afraid?”
“Yeah.”
“We can talk about this, you know that, right? Ryan?”
“Mmn,” Ryan hums, a note of disagreement. There’s something horribly casual about it, the way he shoves his feelings away; like kicking dirty laundry beneath the bed, out of sight. “No. I don’t think I can. Not sober, anyway.”
Shane closes his eyes, because he can’t keep looking at Ryan’s face; Ryan has always been terrible at masking his emotions. In all their adventures, Shane has never seen him look so distraught.
“I’m not drunk enough to forget this conversation happened, Ryan,” he says.
“Yeah, me neither,” Ryan sighs and sits up, elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. “I might be drunk enough to throw up in your bathroom right now, though.”
Shane snorts, he can’t help it. He reaches out, spreading his palm over the broad expanse of Ryan’s back, rubbing in small circles to try and soothe him. After about three seconds, Ryan stands up and calmly walks to the bathroom.
“Need help?” Shane calls after him, and Ryan just throws his hand up placatingly, pulling the door closed behind him and bolting it.
.
Shane puts pillows and sheets out on the couch for Ryan, and he’s filling a glass of water to leave on the coffee table when the front door unlocks, and Sara stumbles in. She wobbles in the hall as she slips off her shoes, and looks over towards Shane, a smile spreading across her lips.
“Oh hey, you’re still up.”
“Waiting for you,” Shane winks, and it’s not a total lie. He always likes to be there when she gets in after a night out with friends, just in case she needs a little help. “Fun night?”
“Ohhh yeah,” she chuckles. “Oh boy, I have some gossip, and— oh, is Ryan still here?”
Shane follows her gaze over to the couch where he’s made Ryan’s makeshift bed.
“Yeah, he’s in the bathroom. Possibly being sick.”
“Possibly.”
“Long story,” he says, and then, a little quieter, says “I’ll tell you in bed,” as Sara tucks herself into his side, winding her arms around his waist.
“About Ryan puking? Pass.”
“No,” Shane laughs, “Actually—”
There’s a loud click as Ryan unlocks the bathroom door down the hall, and Shane listens to his footsteps growing closer. Ryan rounds the corner, using the wall to support himself, looking about as put-together as a man who’s either been vomiting or crying can look. He stalls visibly at the sight of Sara, before smiling softly, and Shane knows it’s not disingenuous. Ryan genuinely adores her, is happy to see her. He always is.
“Hey!” he says brightly, despite his rough voice. “Thought I heard you.”
“Just got in,” Sara detaches herself from Shane so that she can teeter over and hug Ryan too; he looks like he needs it. “You staying?”
Ryan looks at the couch, and then at Shane, and his expression is very carefully blank. Shane’s not sure he’s seen this look on Ryan before, and there’s something so off about it that Shane’s stomach clenches and twists — he thinks maybe he fucked up.
“Guess I am,” Ryan says, flatly.
.
Ryan’s gone before they wake up.
“Tell me again, what he said—” Sara asks, stirring cream into her coffee. She bundled up in both her robe and Shane’s draped over it, folding up into one of their dining chairs.
“He said it was unfair and that I should ‘chill’ or something,” Shane groans, as he’s downing some Tylenol and approximately half a gallon of water with it — surely one or the other will combat his headache. “He was also worried about you, it seems, which is sweet.”
“You gotta talk to him,” Sara says, like Shane hasn’t been thinking that exact thing since he saw the rumpled sheets on the couch and Ryan’s shoes gone from the rack by the door.
“What would I even tell him?”
“The truth?” She says, as though it’s obvious. “You don’t really have much of a choice now, babe.”
“Fuck,” Shane hisses, and sits down opposite her at the table. Sara reaches across for his hand, smoothing the tips of her fingers over his knuckles.
“It’ll be fine. It’s Ryan,” she says, and somehow, it might be the most comforting thing in the world.
“Yeah,” he agrees, gently. “It’s Ryan.”
.
Ryan doesn’t answer his phone, which is as much as Shane would have expected in the cold, sober light of day, so Shane calls a Lyft to his house instead. And, by some wonderful stroke of luck, runs into one of Ryan’s housemates as he’s leaving the house.
“Hey man,” Roland says, as Shane lopes up to the front porch. Roland pauses in locking the door to unlock it again and push it open. “Don’t think Bergara’s even out of bed yet, but you’re welcome to him.”
There’s a twinkle in his eye that tells Shane that maybe Ryan isn’t the only one who’s been noticing the flirting. He wonders if Ryan’s the type to vent to his friends about his pining — he certainly wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone at work.
“Thanks,” Shane smiles back and slips through the door. He’s not really in the mood for small talk, having spent the whole ride over pumping himself up for a DMC. “Have a good one.”
Shane has, many a time, been in Ryan’s house; it’s homey, but there’s a distinct bachelor-esque vibe that has a lot to do with the framed basketball art and Spielberg movie posters adorning the walls. Ryan’s room is just up the stairs to the left, and Shane takes the stairs two at a time, because sometimes he also dives headfirst into the things he’s afraid of.
He knocks on the bedroom door, already cracked a few inches, and then peers into the room. Ryan’s in his bed, curled up on his side looking at his phone. When he sees Shane, his eyes go wide, and he immediately rolls over to face away from the door, pulling the covers up over his head.
“No,” Ryan grumbles from under the covers. “Not today.”
“It’s gonna get harder the longer we wait,” Shane says, and prides himself on the fact that he doesn’t make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke. Ryan snorts softly under the covers, and Shane knows he’s thinking the exact same thing.
“I feel like shit,” Ryan groans, and Shane puts his foot down, metaphorically. In reality, he plants himself in the empty side of Ryan’s bed, sitting up against the headboard.
“C’mon, it’ll be fine. I’ll get some breakfast delivered here and then we’ll have a nice, deep, long, conversation. Mmm.”
Despite what Shane might think are Ryan’s best efforts, the innuendo gets a chuckle from Ryan, his curled up form jerking slightly beneath the covers as he huffs out a breath.
“This is the shit I’m talking about. You’re making me crazy,” Ryan says. “You say things, it's like you want something from me.”
Shane sighs and slides down so he’s laying down properly, fluffing Ryan’s pillow up behind his head. They might have to eventually have a talk about the importance of eye contact.
“Maybe I do,” he says, honestly. Ryan’s quiet for a moment, before sighing again, turning over onto his belly so that he can look over at Shane.
“I can’t do this.”
“Listen, if I have to order some tequila with breakfast and get you drunk enough to talk again, I will, but we—”
“No, Shane,” Ryan says, breathless, almost a whisper. “I can’t go along with this. I can’t play in this space, not when we’ve been friends for so long, and not when you’re with Sara, who’s just as much one of my closest friends as you are.”
That— that kind of hurts. That Ryan would think he’d ever be anything but faithful to Sara.
Shane tips his head back, sniffs to stop any tears from falling. He’s not a crier, not really, but he can feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes, and knows it’s more frustration than plain anger or sadness.
“I wouldn’t be here right now with you if Sara didn’t know, if she didn’t approve. ”
“That’s—” Ryan shakes his head. “There’s no way.”
“You said it yourself. We’ve been friends so long, do you really think I’d lie to you about this, of all things?”
Ryan presses his face into his pillow, and Shane watches him breathe deep and slow. He’s seen Ryan do this before, after a long night filming, in a hotel room or in the back of the car on the way back from a shoot. Holding himself back from a panic attack.
“Fuck,” Ryan says, quietly, into the pillow.
“You’re not crazy. You’re not making it up in your head. Truth is, I’ve been an asshole, and I should have been clear about my intentions, about my feelings, the moment I started having them.”
“Well,” Ryan huffs a little bit, turns his face towards Shane again. “Yeah. I guess we’re both guilty of obfuscation here.”
“Can’t believe you can use a word like obfuscation when you’re this hungover.”
“I’m not hungover, I threw up last night, remember?” Ryan wrinkles his nose at the memory. “I’m good. Just hungry and embarrassed.”
“Oh, shit, yeah,” Shane says, and pulls his phone out. “Should we get breakfast for real? Have a nice DMC?”
“What are you, thirteen? Who says DMC anymore?”
“Do you want the damn breakfast burrito or not? I’m buying.”
“Yeah, yeah, I want it,” Ryan grumbles again, and Shane doesn’t miss the way he wriggles closer to get a look at what Shane’s ordering, almost tucked right up against his shoulder. There’s a beat of silence, and it’s almost comfortable. “Want a lot of things, Shane.”
Shane looks at him, and for the first time he thinks, wow, he’s close enough to kiss, and hopes that soon he’ll be able to follow through with that thought.
Ryan’s looking back at him, eyes soft and fond, like once again they’re sharing the same thought.
“Me too,” Shane says. “Let’s talk about them.”