“Hey,” says Ryan’s tinny voice over the phone, and Shane instantly knows that something is terribly wrong.
“Hey,” he says, because it’s two in the morning and he’d only been asleep for maybe an hour and a half before being woken by Ryan’s call - and because that’s probably what he’d say anyway due to how his brain works. He throws his blanket over his head and lets himself sink deeper into his gradually flattening pillow. There’s nothing he can do until Ryan tells him what’s happening, so he might as well enjoy the seconds of warmth and comfort he has left before he leaps to the rescue or whatever.
“I’m uh- There’s a situation,” Ryan says. He’s obviously stressed, but there’s something else in his tone too. He sounds less like he’s about to do a solo run into a demon pit and more like the rollercoaster he’s on has just gotten to the precipice before the drop.
But again: it’s two in the morning, so. Bad.
“What kind of situation?” Shane asks. He doesn’t ask if it can wait until morning. Ryan is high strung but he’s a big thinker and he doesn’t like to seem needy. If it could have waited, it would have.
“Well. You know that saying about friends?” Ryan hedges. Shane sighs deeply. He’s sure he knows several sayings about friends, but it’s two in the morning and he can only think of one - and there’s no way it’s that.
“Which one?” he mumbles. Slowly another saying finally trickles into Shane’s brain. Maybe Ryan needs bail. Not likely, but more likely than-
“Do you happen to know how to get, like, chloroform? Or similar?”
There’s a silence between them as Shane processes that. It’s a long one.
“Chloroform,” he repeats dully.
“Yup,” Ryan confirms. He pops the P.
“And why do you need chloroform at two in the morning?” Shane asks. His tone comes out flat as hell but he’s- He’s aggrieved, is what he is. But. Well. It’s Ryan. So he says, “I do have some. Where should I bring it?” before Ryan can answer him.
“Why do you have chloroform?” Ryan asks after rattling off an unfamiliar address. He’s on speakerphone now as Shane shoves un-socked feet and the hems of his pajama pants into his ghostbusting boots.
“Is that an accusatory tone I hear, Mister Needs the Chloroform That I Have?” Shane tucks his phone into his waistband as he wrangles his limbs into his coat, and then gloves too. It’s only like 48 out, but he’s thinking maybe he’ll want the gloves anyway. Hopefully not. Probably not. But better safe than sorry.
“That’s fair,” Ryan concedes easily. “ETA?”
“Uh-” Shane struggles to operate his touch screen through his gloves, even though they were advertised to be compatible. At long last he manages to get the address Ryan gave him into navigation. “Twenty minutes, barring traffic.”
“I mean, it is two a.m.,” Ryan reminds, as if Shane might have forgotten. Shane rolls his eyes.
“You don’t say,” he grumbles, but he digs the old fashioned brown glass bottle out of his designated Spooky Stuff cabinet without hesitation. “Are we knocking somebody out, playing bad cop with ‘em, or making something explode with this? No- Don’t tell me, I’ll just... come prepared.”
“Thanks, Shane,” Ryan says. Shane rolls his eyes again, this time at the way his heart thuds at the sweetness in Ryan’s voice.
“Of course.” Shane grabs a pair of iron cuffs out of the Spooky Stuff cabinet, and then a half a dozen rags and a pack of long stemmed matches from the kitchen. “Be there in a bit.”
“I’ll be here,” Ryan chirps. He’s much more cheerful and relaxed now that Shane has mixed himself up in whatever. “And hey, no pressure, but you’re kind of in a rush.”
“Cool,” acknowledges Shane. There is very little that he can think of that would be less cool to hear in this situation, but cool is what he says. And cool is what he’ll be too, when he gets there. No matter what’s waiting.