HEY THERE, DEMONS

III

"I have always been interested in the paranormal and afterlife, everything from ghosts to angels. I think that everyone has that curiosity of the great unknown."

- Hilary Duff

"Do you like being a ghost?"

N-O

"Of course she doesn't like being a ghost Shane what kind of question is that?" Ryan laughed shaking his head at his friend, as if the happenings of spirits was nothing more than common knowledge.

The two had been playing with the Ouija board for a while now, enough that Ryan had grown comfortable in the activity as to not jump everytime Olive moved the game piece. Also more alarmingly enough that Shane was genuinely engaging, asking questions and receiving answers he knew for a fact Ryan couldn't fabricate. Yet he still persisted that the whole game was full of nonsense, as he would.

"I'd like being a ghost I think" Shane replied earning a chuckle from his partner and a long winded tale about the features of being a spirit that even Olive got bored of quickly.

"You could be a ghost and you still wouldn't believe in the supernatural" Ryan laughed. Neither of them seemed to notice the camera on the tripod across the room running out of power and charging down, they just continued their 'investigation' (chatting) as usual. She found it odd how they were content in just her company, usually if an investigation was threatened you'd call it a day right? So why would they stay, surely not just to speak with her?

"If I were a ghost I'd haunt your ghost". Their easy banter was like something she'd seen in a film, like a script she'd once been given for a romance scene in an old play, an easy going back and forth that only true chemistry could write. Olive had been in love before, sure, but not like this. She didn't really know what this was, but she was dying to find out.

"a ghost can't haunt another ghost that's ridiculous!"

"that's the kind of talk that'll get you on the haunting list Ry," Shane smiled and his gaze softened, "back me up here Ollie!" it was like she was allowed passage into a moment between two lovers. They finally knew she was there and actively invited her to participate, and yet it was still so intimate and private, something soft and envied by everyone. They had what everyone, dead or alive, wanted and yet they ignored it?

G-A-Y

"...Olive are you gay?" Ryan asked tentatively not fully understanding the question she was proposing, "which is fine by the way!"

Y-O-U

"The ghost just called you gay dude" Shane wheezed doubling over in laughter where he sat. She shook her head at their antics as they argued back and forth like kids about who and what had been targeted. Like anyone could be this in denial.

B-O-T-H

They stared at each other in disbelief, tentatively waiting for one of them to break the ice. It wasn't tense but maybe awkward. Like a mother had walked in on her teenage son and his boyfriend home alone one night. She giggled to herself at the thought of her playing parent for the night, a ghost as a matchmaker and they still can't get together.

"N-No we're not-"

"It isn't like that-"

"But- No- R-Ryan has a girlfriend!" Shane sputtered loudly ending the bickering defence race. Ryan didn't have a girlfriend, she thought, she would have been able to sense that. Surely she wasn't that slow.

"About that.." Ryan started eyes darting to the floor "we're not really.. together exactly, anymore" She knew it. She wasn't one to say i told you so, but she totally told him so.

"Oh.. Im sorry Ry" Shane started, abandoning the board to lay a comforting hand on his friends thigh. She watched the blood rush to Ryan's cheeks as he slowly leaned into the touch. As if these idiots aren't in love! she thought. 

"No, no its cool" Ryan shook his head softly, slowly raising his gaze again to make eye contact with his friend "she said I didn't seem interested anymore? She kept saying she knew I wanted someone else and she wanted me to be, you know, happy?" He scoffed, using an accusing tone as if it were obvious how happy he already was, which Olive knew wasn't actually very much.

"Who-" Shane started before snapping his mouth closed again, looking for the right words, as if they'd suddenly come to him in the form of a novel if he would just pause and wait. "Who's the other person? The one you want?" His gaze was stern but still relentlessly kind. It was protective in a way that still made Ryan feel safe. Similarly to how his height could make him seem strong and powerful but his awkward limbs and poor posture was so perfectly Shane that it had Ryan falling back into that comfortable bubbly feeling labeled 'Shane' in the back of his mind, never to be thought about for too long, or else.

"I-" Ryan's voice was quiet in the still room, Olive had only seen him take that tone when frightened of her, but this time he seemed scared out of his skin for a completely foreign reason. He cleared his throat again and finished "I don't know."

Shane smiled softly at him, causing Ryan to smile back because that's just Ryan and he really can't help but smile around Shane. And so if he maybe thought about that smile a little too much when his friend wasn't there to share it, well then maybe that thought could be locked away in the Shane file in his mind with the bubbling feeling and the butterflies, kept for a rainy day.

"Well," the taller man smiled, removing his hand from the warmth of Ryan's worn and torn jeans, back to his game piece grounding him once again in the moment "keep your eye out buddy, your true love could be right under your nose!" he laughed with the same radiant smile, the same soft accompanying noise as ever, the laugh that brought those stupid butterflies back and seriously could they just go away for 5 seconds please!

"Yeah," Ryan laughed back "he could be" and if Ryan put a little too much emphasis on the pronoun 'He' in that statement for someone who had just fought for his heterosexuality tooth and claw, well then that was for Shane to worry about later, but he couldn't deny the spark of hope and excitement it lit in the pit of his stomach.

L-O-V-E

"Shut Up Ollie!"