A gift for @cellard00rs for the shyansecretsanta event!! Thanks to @shyanwritingevents for setting this all up!!
Now it wasn’t that Ryan hated Christmas. In fact, he thought it was a right good holiday, fun when you celebrated with people you cared about, exciting when it needed to be. A decent holiday. He just couldn’t understand why in the world Shane was so excited about it.
The day after Thanksgiving the man had gone prancing around the apartment, sticking up Christmas decorations and belting carols from the top of his lungs. He had bought a tree, and had decorated it to the extreme, smile wide on his face when he placed the ever important star on top, almost drowned in the amount of tinsel, baubles and lights stuck on this poor, barely 4’ little tree. The eagerness buzzing off of the taller man was almost suffocating, and highly contrasted to the middling excitement Ryan was putting off, not on opposing sides of the spectrum, but definitely coming from two extremes.
The indifference to the holiday made itself present in other things as well, not just decorating the apartment. When they were out together, Shane sprung for seasonal items, happy to get a peppermint coffee and take pictures of it and it’s holiday cup. Meanwhile Ryan ordered the same as always, laughing a little every time Shane stopped to take a picture he thought would look more Christmasy than the last.
In the office as their coworkers planned holiday videos and wore sweaters to match whatever festivity they celebrated, Ryan kept his regular themes, leaving it up to people he said were more festive than he was to plan a holiday special, preferring to stay in his comfort zone, away from the holidays.
Finally, Shane had had enough. It was the night of Buzzfeed’s big holiday party, and when asked if he was going, Ryan had just chuckled and shook his head, saying something about not being up for it. So Shane decided that it was time to get his friend in the Christmas spirit. They were going to that party.
“Ryan!” Shane knocked once on the door to his room, hoping his friend wasn’t busy. “Get dressed bud we’re going somewhere.”
“Where we going?” Ryan opened to door, looking puzzled. “Nothing planned for tonight I thought.”
“No. No plans I just thought I’d take you somewhere.”
“O-oh. Okay. Yeah yeah. Let’s do that. What should I wear?”
“I don’t really know. Something kind of dressy I suppose. You’d want to look nice.”
Shane noticed that Ryan’s face seems to go pink, but brushed it off, assuming that it was just cold in his room, as he’s too afraid to turn the heat on and raise the bill. He turned away, pulling out his phone and sending his coworkers a message letting them know that him and Ryan would be coming to the party that night, ignoring the questions on how he got Ryan to change his mind, preferring not to tell them that he was tricking him into coming. Hopefully he’d have such a great time he wouldn’t even mention it.
In the car on the way to the party Ryan had been acting weird. Almost nervous, in a way, fiddling with the edge of his sweater, biting his lip and looking at the ground instead of at Shane, staying quiet and only really speaking when spoken to. But again, Shane brushed off the strange happenings, assuming Ryan was just tired, or suspicious of what he was up to. When they pulled into the parking lot of the party venue however, Shane began to think something a bit more was going on with his friend. Because when he announced where they really were, Ryan didn’t get all sputtery and indignant like he usually did whenever Shane pulled a trick on him, he just got flustered and looked almost ashamed. Before Shane could ask, Ryan had hurried inside, avoiding his friend.
As the night went on, Shane got more and more exasperated. Ryan sat alone when most of his coworkers were mingling, laughing and joking. When party games were pulled out and set up, Ryan rushed off, saying he had to make a call. As some of the people (unsurprisingly, Eugene, and extremely surprisingly, Steven) got drunk and started flirting, Ryan acted as though the drinks were poisoned. Now, Shane wasn’t going to go as far as calling his friend a Scrooge, but, if the shoe fits. So when Ryan left the room for the third time in as many minutes, Shane followed him out.
“Ryan. Dude. Wait up!” Ryan whirled around, eyes wide, looking particularly like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Oh. Oh hey Shane. What’s up? Cool-uh-cool party right?”
“Well you wouldn’t know. You keep on leaving. What’s your deal man?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just, uhm, it’s hot inside and I needed to make a call in the fresh air...” he trailed off when Shane gave him a look, blushing deeply.
“Cut the shit Bergara. Tell me what’s up man. I know when there’s something wrong with you, and there definitely is right now.”
Shane stared his friend down, knowing he needed to be assertive in order for him to reveal what was wrong. However, his face changed from one of aggressive caring to surprise when Ryan quickly pressed his lips against his own, locking the two in a kiss.
“That’s what’s wrong Shane,” Ryan said as he pulled back “I thought that my best friend who I’ve been crushing on for years was inviting me on a date, only to find out he was just tricking me into going to some stupid party for a holiday I don’t even care about!” As he spoke, Ryan’s voice got louder, until he was practically shouting. He was about to brush past Shane and go call someone to pick him up, when he was being tugged closer to the taller man.
“I can’t believe I’m about to kiss someone who hates Christmas.” Shane whispered, pressing his lips gently to Ryan’s. He wrapped his hands around the shorter man’s waist, pulling him closer, letting him grab the lapel of his shirt.
“Y’know, if you keep kissing me like that, I might just warm up to this whole Christmas business.” Shane smiled at Ryan, pressing their foreheads together.
“Merry Christmas to me then, I guess”
