You're so small and cute, it just makes his heart explode
He still can't understand how such a tiny human can be so beautiful, funny and smart
When you have to go in your tiptoes to kiss him, he teases you about it
It always ends in Shane kissing you first, leaving you with a pout plastered on your face
You tease him back sometimes and he can't even pretend to be annoyed
When you can't reach something, he'll just stand tgere for a while, watching and laughing at you as you struggle
Sometimes, if you turn around and stick your tongue out at him, he'll just swoon
He eventually comes to help you, always asking for a kiss as a reward
He loves picking you up and twirl you around as you giggle and cling onto him
He secretly leaves his jumpers and hoodies around the house for you to wear
It still suprises him how adorable you look in them
He loves to call you nicknames like shortcake, babydoll and pumpkin
You probably hate shortcake, but he loves it so when you blush he calls you a strawberry shortcake
Shane = B I G S P O O N
Piggy backs are Shane's expertise
Expect piggy backs to and from home, around the house and even in other people's houses
Your both laughing messes when Shane puts you down on the ground, everyone else find it hilarious as well
He will often rest his head on yours while your watching a movie
This often ends with sweet kisses and cuddling until you both fall asleep
Holding your hand is often his favourite thing to do
Finishing your leftovers was another favourite thing of his
You would always check with him if he liked the food you were about to order
He always said yes, even if he hated the food, because he just wanted to see your face when a food you enjoyed was served
Concerts are super tedious, but it often ends up with you, on Shane's shoulders, having the time of your life
He finds it hilarious when you're brushing your teeth in the mornings because he can just walk in and still see himself in the mirror, you hardly take up any of it
You could literally always liven up a party
You had a massive personality and such a loud voice that if a party was boring, you could cause anyone to errupt into fits of laughter, which cheered everyone up
Shane just stands to the side and mutters "that's my girl" to himself as you're doing the worst dance he has ever seen
If anyone ever commented on your height and it upset you, you better believe Shane would go full protective mode and be ready to hurt the idiot that upset you
If you were a shaniac, you better believe that he was over the moon to have you on his side.
Constantly teasing Ryan with you on ghost hunts
"Ryan! There's a g-g-g-ghost!!" While you're pointing at a cardboard cutout of a cartoony ghost
"Woah Ryan! My jacket just moved" "Did you just admit something ghost related?!" "...No, Ryan, god, i'm wearing Shane's jean jacket, you know how annoying these things are?"
Shane just chuckles, earning a death stare from Ryan
Ryan thinks you're both absolutely insufferable, but you're his best friends and he wouldn't do anything to change that
If you were a boogara, he wouldn't like it, but he knew that you still loved him.
You were as terrified as Ryan, probably even more scared and he used this to his advantage
This dork would literally pretend to be a ghost, flicking the lights on and off from an app on his phone, making spooking noises and even dress up on white sheets
It scared you every. single. time.
You hated him for it, but when he took the sheet off and you saw his laughing face, you instantly forgave him
Ryan
Ryan loves it even more than Shane would
Most people think he's really short because of the company he has, but whenever he's with you the short jokes are aimed towards you
If it got a little too far, he would always step in before you got upset.
Would break out the passive agressive tone
Anyone, except Shane, backed off instantly
Ryan loved being a big spoon, it was his guilty pleasure
He would always wake up super late, but you were always up bright and early, making him breakfast
On the rare occasion that you would sleep in, Ryan would wake up to see you cuddled next to him, with a very messy bed head
You were like a human hot water bottle
When you woke up, your smile could turn even heaven into the good guys
Your smile was so pure and genuine it made Ryan melt
He went into trances of just staring at you lovingly
You always ended up tickling him to snap him out of it, which ended in pillow fights and chasing eachother around the house
Once he caught you, he would pick you up and give you piggy backs
He had nicknames for you like munchkin, hobbit and even the stereotypical baby or babe
He hated it when you wore heels, it made him feel as if you were insecure about your height
To him, you were perfect
If you were a shaniac, you would always have playful arguments with him
You would scoff at his evidence and he would always let you win, but not before muttering something about your height
"Look! There's clearly something moving there!!" "No there isn't, Ryan! That's car headlights!" "Shut up, shortie"
You would tease him all the time about his pointless fears
"Oh god, don't come over here Ry, there's a cute little doll" "Shut up,Y/n"
You were Shane's best ally on investigations, you not only helped him get sleep by staying up with Ryan, but you also tormented Ryan with him
Remember that one time Shane farted and terrified Ryab? Yeah, you gave Shane that idea
Remember when Shane lay on the pentagram? You did it first. Ryan's poor heart was little going crazy and he was shaking like a leaf at the thought of you being hurt
Ryan found it terrifying how you could be so small, yet so fearless and sassy
If you were a boogara, your days off would be filled with watching ghost investigations on YouTube
You were the perfect size to cuddle up to, you were like a jigsaw piece
You were, suprisingly, the only sane one on most of the investigation
"Holy god- Holy- Y/n! What was that?!-" "Ryan, i'm right here, calm down"
He leans his head ontop of yours and for some strange reason it comforts him
a/n: are y'all boogaras (believe in ghosts) or shaniacs (think they're baloney/rubbish)? I'm a shaniac lmao.
I wonder how many fans of Buzzfeed Unsolved reblog my Shane and Ryan posts without realizing I’m talking about a fanfiction about members of Panic! At The Disco
Summary: Shane is a psychic for hire working in LA, and sure, he’s a fake, but at least he's telling people what they need to hear! That is, he thought he was fake. But after a strange accident, he begins to have the oddest dreams... Meanwhile his old friend Ryan is researching his next greatest supernatural horror novel in the underbelly of the LA psychic scene and wondering how on earth you convince someone they actually might be psychic for real?
Trigger warning: violence, car accidents, dead people
___________
Chapter One
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth. Her hair hung in thick, dry tufts on her white blouse, unnaturally red. She was a forty-five-year-old divorcee who wore several rings. Her ear piercings were stretched out like taffy, weighed down by gaudy diamond-shaped earrings. Her voice trembled. “ Jayson ? That’s my- that’s my son! How could you-”
He screwed his eyes shut. “-he wants to tell you he’s... alright. He’s not in any pain. And-and to not worry about…” He opened his eyes and peered at her quizzically. “The game?”
Ms. Snyder wiped her eyes, and he handed her a tissue that was conveniently on hand. She dabbed away, careful to keep from smearing her eyeliner. “I-I missed his last baseball game. And then when he didn’t come home, gosh... what kind of mother doesn’t go to their kids' baseball game...”
“Hey.” He caught her shaking hands and laid them in her lap as gently as he could. Her skin was soft and manicured, the lines in her palms deep. “He forgives you. Do you hear me? He loves you and he knows how much you love him.”
Her lip trembled. A watery sort of smile attempted to find room amid the trembling, and she gave a little embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d get so emotional.”
“It’s alright. Of course, you would. He’s your son.”
She nodded once, and again. A deep breath. “Thank you, Mr. Madej. I needed to hear that.”
Shane patted her hand and closed up the notebook he’d had out. It was covered in nonsense scribbles from a small pencil he held in his hand. “Ah,” He waved his hand, “Call me Shane.”
Ms. Snyder sniffed and smiled. “Well, thank you, Shane. That was… astonishing. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure- I just needed something. Some-”
“Closure?” he offered.
She nodded. “How much do I owe you?”
Shane smiled and took out his cellphone, credit card slider already embedded in the charging port. He named his price and she swiped her card.
As she stood up, straightening her clothes, she took another steadying breath. And then quietly, almost to herself. “Goodness…”
Shane stood and led her to the office door.
He conducted sessions in a small portion of his house closed off by glass doors and windows. He called it his office. It was painted in calming shades of white and brown. Very ‘live, laugh, love’. It might have been used as a parlor or a piano room if anyone else had lived there. There was an abstract painting against the back wall that resembled a beach, and fake reeds sprouted from a tall skinny vase in the corner. There was a coffee table between two armchairs and a couch. It could either have been a nice waiting room or a therapist’s office if not for the red neon sign through the blinds in the street facing window. PSYCHIC
Shane opened the glass door and walked her to the front door of his home. “It was wonderful to meet you, Ms. Snyder. If you ever need anything else, you call me?” He pointed at his business card in her hand.
Ms. Snyder nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“And,” He lowered his voice, although of course there was no one else to hear. “Be careful. I know you live a bit of a distance. If you do ever decide to visit another, ah, advisor, I would highly recommend keeping to the list of recommendations I have on my website. They are good people. But there are a lot of not-so-nice people in LA.”
Ms. Snyer blinked at him, almost surprised, and she relaxed even further. There. If there had been any reservation left, she had abandoned it. She trusted him. He had her. “Oh, I’m aware. Thank you. I appreciate the honesty. Your… your gift is incredible.”
Shane smiled, lips tucked in. “It is what it is. And you are very welcome. Now have a-”
There was a knock on the door, just as Shane reached to open it for Ms. Snyder.
He paused, confused. He didn’t have any more appointments today.
Ms. Snyder made a small noise. “Oh dear, I don’t mean to keep you.”
“I don’t think it’s another client,” Shane said, brow furrowed. “Could be an old friend of mine, but he’s not due to get here until tonight.” Shrugging, he opened the door.
Shane was correct. It was Ryan.
Standing on the bottom step, tapping on his phone, stood a young man Shane remembered well, although he had not seen him since, what, graduation? He was older, of course, than Shane remembered. More of substantial weight to him (not that Shane was saying he was fat, cause he wasn’t. Ryan just looked… grown-up. Solid. A man now, not the gangly kid he used to be). But Ryan stood in the same, slightly nervous way, bouncing on his heels.
Ryan looked up. “Shane! God, are you taller ?”
Wonderful. “Nice to see you too. Ryan, this is Ms. Snyder. Ms. Snyder, Ryan. We were roommates in college. Ms. Snyder is a client of mine.”
Ms. Snyder cocked her head, clearly interested, and shook Ryan’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you! What brings you to town?”
Ryan opened his mouth. “Actually, I’m writing a-”
That was far enough. “Here, Ryan, why don’t you come inside? Ms. Snyder, until next time?”
“Oh, yes!” She shouldered her purse. “Most definitely. I’ll leave you two to catch up!” With that, she clickety-clacked in her heels to an inordinately fancy car and drove away down the street of the average, nice, modern neighborhood Shane lived in.
Ryan, joining him on the porch, watched her go. They squinted out into the bright California sun.
There was a beat of silence which Shane didn’t try to break, hands in his pockets.
“Dang.” Ryan finally spoke. “Got her wrapped around your finger. What’d you do, tell her she’s gonna win the lottery?”
Shane hummed. “I told her her son forgives her for staying home with a hangover instead of going to his baseball game the day that he died in a car accident.” He picked at the stitching in the neckline of his sweater.
Ryan blinked. “Holy frick, dude.”
“In nicer words, obviously.” He looked down at him. “I thought you weren’t supposed to get here until tonight.”
“Sorry. I’m a fast driver and then I didn’t see the point in hanging out in an empty hotel for hours.”
Another non-committal hum. And then Shane shrugged. “Okay. Cool. Do you want lunch? I haven't eaten yet and there’s a Cuca’s nearby that is frankly divine.”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah! Sure.”
It was odd, how very natural it felt to talk to him. It was like it was just last week they’d been sitting on the floor grumbling through papers they should have written days earlier. And yet here was this distance, years of time spent only occasionally interacting through Facebook likes and Instagram comments.
“Let me grab my wallet.” Shane ducked back in the house, and Ryan trailed in after him. He busied himself searching for his wallet in the kitchen drawers, and pretended he didn’t notice Ryan blatantly snooping, eyes wide.
He popped his head into the kitchen, Shane’s ‘office’, the bathroom, the living room. It was only when he started to knock over one of the fake plants that Shane gave him a look, wallet, and keys in hand.
Ryan stood the plant back up. “Sorry. Just, this is… a really nice house.”
Shane gave him a closed smile. “Thank you.”
“No, but like, really nice. Like, how the heck do you afford this?” Most people might be embarrassed to ask a question like that. Ryan wasn’t and Shane wasn’t offended.
He got this question a lot actually. There was an idea people had in their minds of what a psychic was supposed to be. Creepy little offices in a run-down track mall next to a nail salon that doubled in sex trafficking, or a creepy booth at a carnival with crystals and incense and blah, blah, blah. Shane’s business wasn’t like that. He was clean and shaved and dressed in a brown sweater and he let his clients drink from his Starbucks espresso machine while he told them what they needed to hear. The less he was associated with thieves and liars, the better.
He shrugged. They walked outside, down the steps, and simultaneously got into Shane’s car. “You get in with the right people, the right customers, being a psychic brings in the big bucks. Besides, LA is superstitious as hell.” Shockingly so, Shane thought sometimes. It blew his mind how many hundreds and hundreds of dollars people were willing to give up to hear him spout off some nonsense.
And that’s what it was, of course.
They sat in a red leather booth at the restaurant and the plastic fabric protested loudly as they slid inside. It was past the lunch rush and the place was relatively empty, decorated with colorful paintings of wild animals, sculls, Christmas lights, the distant sound of Spanish radio, banging pots, and the rapid-fire speech of an employee in the kitchen. The food would be delicious, as it always was.
Usually, Shane could hardly wait.
But there was a pit in his stomach, a deep sort of twist that kept him stiff and ready to stand. Was he nervous? Was that what it was? But Ryan didn’t make him nervous. In fact, Ryan only increased exponentially Shane’s ability to be the calm one in comparison to Ryan.
Ryan dipped a chip in salsa and raised an eyebrow.
“So it is then? Just-, just you know, fake.”
Shane looked at him for a long moment, contemplating whether or not he was actually posing a serious question. “I mean, yeah. What else- you seriously think I can talk to dead people? I see the future? I look into the oogly-googly beyond and-”
“Well, fine, not you specifically!”
Shane chuckled. “It's fake, Ryan. I've seen it all. It's all fake.”
Ryan thought about this. He didn’t seem particularly enthused, which Shane would have expected. But Shane wasn’t going to lie to him. There wasn’t any reason to sugar coat it.
Ryan’s voice was quiet. “Last time I talked to you, you wanted to be a magician.”
“Last time we talked I was a dumbass. You can’t make money in LA as a magician. Well, you can. I just didn’t.”
Ryan stirred a chip, ate it, and chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his lip. “So that’s it then? You’re a con-man.”
Shane sat back. He didn’t invite Ryan to stay with him just to be judged. “Says the ‘true paranormal sightings’ author!”
“First of all, I write fiction based on fact, which is not conning."Ryan wrinkled his nose. "It’s just entertainment and research. You are actively lying to people.”
That hurt. A lot. He didn’t need this and on top of that, Shane honestly disagreed. Yes, he was lying to them constantly, but Shane didn’t hurt them! He was telling people what they needed to hear! He gave them closure when there was no other place to turn. And yeah, so the psychic part was rubbish, but it worked! It worked for his clients, and it gave him enough money to own a nice home and a car and gave him the option to eat out twice a week if he felt like it. “It’s better they come to me than to some tiny hovel where some witch will tell them they have to live on butter if they want to survive through the next year. Or worse, make them come back for a reading over and over until they're bankrupt just because they’re grieving and hardly in their right mind.”
Ryan paused at this. “People really do that?”
“Yeah! Happens all the time. And stuff like the stupid butter thing! Made local news. ‘Lady Eats Nothing But Butter to Avoid Death’. She didn’t die but she got super sick.”
Their food came and they took it mutely, neither looking at each other in the eye. Maybe things weren’t quite like how they used to be. Or maybe they were always this way when it came to this subject; a little tense, ever since Ryan told him he honest to god believed in ghosts, all the way back in sophomore year of university. Shane had reacted… less than ideally, he’d admit. It wasn’t his place to judge people, and he was far better at that now than he was at eighteen, but he just couldn't compute how otherwise perfectly sane people could believe in such ridiculous things. Unless they’d been tricked, of course. And he’d rather it be a nice trick, if it came to that, than an evil one.
Shane sighed. “Look, I don’t want to argue about this. You emailed me , remember? I’ll let you see what it's like to be a ‘real life psychic’ or whatever. But I’m not going to play pretend with you. You’re not a client and you can do whatever you want to make yourself happy, but this is just how the world works.”
The knot in Shane’s stomach wound tighter, and he couldn’t imagine eating. He wasn’t hungry anymore. There was something in the air that pulled at his skin, tugging him, making his entire body feel tight and fragile and horrible. His stomach felt sick all of the sudden, and he set his fork down with a rattle of metal on porcelain.
He must have eaten something weird.
“You alright, big guy?”
He hummed. His head buzzed. He took a sip of water. “Yes. Sorry. I started feeling sick for a second there. It’s a little better now.”
Ryan’s face relaxed from indignance into concern. “Shit, dude. Did you ea s.”
Ryan was not put out by the shortcut meal. Shane paid for them both quickly, before Ryan could object, and they took their to-go boxes into the car, setting them on the sun-warmed dashboard. The feeling didn’t go away, even as they eased onto the main road and took a left toward Shane’s house.
“I’ll drive,” Ryan offered. He kept side eyeing Shane. “You look really pale. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Shane didn’t answer, too busy trying to not throw up. This was the worst timing. “I’m fine! It’s fine. Just drive!”
“If we need to pull over-”
“Look at the road, Ryan!” Shane’s stomach lurched again. He rolled down the window frantically as the buzzing in his head became so loud he could hear nothing else.
Then it happened.
He remembered it later in bits and pieces, everything in slow motion. Ryan, mouth open, a hand stretched toward him, looking at Shane, and more importantly, not looking at the truck that barreled toward them. The tacos flew in the air, cheese, and lettuce like dust in a light beam. Shane saw it all in his side mirror, his head out the window. He wasn’t fast enough to pull back inside.
With shocking strength, the truck plowed into the front of the car. Something burned down Shane's legs and then he was flying. There was the sky, the ground, the sky.
The ground.
He woke up to the sound of an ambulance and the smell of vomit. Above him, sunlight trickled through layers of green leaves.
His brain felt like it was stuffed with sand. He struggled to move and found he could, but a hand pushed his shoulder into the ground. Ryan, above him. He was bleeding from a nick on the shoulder, but otherwise looked alright. He was shaking, eyes wide and red. This was gonna traumatize him forever, poor thing. Ryan was so sensitive when it came to danger. He didn’t mesh well with it...
“Can you hear me? Shane? Jeez, Shane, you’re bleeding-”
“S’okay.” Shane managed. He didn’t feel like anything was broken. He tried to wiggle his fingers and toes. They wiggled just fine. He blinked a few times. His whole body hurt. How did he get out of the car? Something in his brain wasn’t lining up, and he couldn’t quite figure out the missing piece that brought him onto the sidewalk in this idyllic, old neighborhood. The light was too bright, the colors too loud. The siren wailed. Shane tried to sit up again. It wasn’t that bad. He was okay. “Why’d you call an ambulance?”
Ryan made some reply in a high pitched shriek that Shane couldn’t understand. There was the siren again. People stood around him now, telling him to stay still, to not move. Why were they being so uptight? He didn’t even feel that awful. They didn’t need to make a whole dumb fuss. Shane remembered glimpses of the ambulance and the people poking and prodding him.
He was tired. He should sleep. Shane closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the sound was gone.
The world was tangibly silent, unlike anything Shane had ever experienced. It felt like noise had never existed in the first place, like he was in space, free-floating in the nothingness of eternity. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his throat. He sat up. Moving through the air felt like moving through thick, thick water. His arms trembled to keep him upright. The ambulance either moved so quietly and smoothly he didn’t notice it, or they’d stopped. Everything was slippery to the eye. He couldn’t see enough at once.
The light was a dull, fluorescent sort of blue, even though he remembered the sunlight from outside ought to shine inside. He should be frightened also, but Shane wasn’t. A dead calm lay over him like a thick blanket. Even if he wanted to, Shane didn’t think he could summon any kind of reaction. Moving was hard enough, and it was like whatever was pressing in on him, pressed inside him as well.
It took longer than it ought to have to notice the people lining the walls of the ambulance. A pregnant woman. A young boy. A very old man. There were several more unfamiliar people around the room, seemingly random paraphernalia, all staring at him stanchly. Something was very wrong about them, and Shane didn’t know what it was. He tried to open his mouth and break the god-awful silence, but when he spoke, there were no words. This didn’t surprise him, to be honest. The pressure only increased, begging him to lie flat once more.
After a long moment, Shane gave in and his arms buckled. He slammed into the pallet he’d been placed in. The pressure surged, pressing him deeper and deeper into the plastic. He could feel it stretching under him, his ribs creaking. It was going to push him right through the pallet, Shane realized. He screamed silently, terror rushing back to him as the pressure finally forced him into the pallet. He watched the plastic melt around his arms, his body, his neck, his face. He couldn’t see.
