Work Text:
“So… why did you want to meet here today?” Courtney asked, sighing as she crossed her arms tightly.
Her tone wasn’t soft. Not cold, but close. Defensive.
Shayne looked over at her, lips pressed together as he bit the inside of his cheek. He’d rehearsed this moment in his head a hundred times and still wasn’t ready. His fingers fiddled with the edge of his sleeve as he shifted on the bench.
“I just wanted to make sure everything was… cleared,” he said finally, adjusting his shirt like it would somehow help him feel more in control.
It was around 7PM, the sun long gone behind a wall of gray clouds. The streetlights were starting to flicker on, casting long shadows across the park. Their park.
The place where they first kissed.
The place where they had late-night walks, coffee in hand, laughing about things only they seemed to understand.
The place where being best friends stopped being enough.
Courtney hadn’t been back since everything fell apart. She wasn’t sure if it felt like returning to a graveyard or a dream she’d tried too hard to forget.
They sat on opposite sides of the bench, not touching, not even looking at each other. The distance between them felt louder than anything either of them said.
Courtney tilted her head slightly, her brows drawn. “What do you mean, Shayne?”
Her voice had sharpened. Not loud, but edged — like she was preparing for another blow she didn’t want to feel.
Shayne’s jaw tightened.
“Well, this didn’t end good,” he said, matching her tone. “And you know that.”
She laughed — not because anything was funny. It was dry, bitter, almost sad.
Three Years Ago
“I’m not going,” Shayne said, arms folded tightly as he paced back and forth across Courtney’s apartment, his voice tense, controlled—but barely.
Courtney stood in the kitchen doorway, blinking like she hadn't heard him right. “What do you mean you’re not going?”
“They offered me the role,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “It shoots in New York. For six months… maybe longer.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s great.”
“No,” he said, stopping to face her. “It’s not.”
Her brows furrowed. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to leave Smosh,” he said, his voice rising just slightly. “And I don’t want to leave you.”
Her heart skipped.
It should’ve made her feel warm—should’ve felt like the reassurance she craved in the middle of all the uncertainty. But instead, her chest tightened with dread.
“Shayne…”
“I’m serious,” he insisted, stepping toward her. “We just started this. Us. And I don’t want to screw it up by disappearing for half a year.”
“You’d be disappearing from me,” she said quietly, closing the distance between them. “But what about your career? This is what you’ve always wanted, right?”
“I wanted to work. I wanted real roles,” he said, voice shaking now. “But not like this. Not if it means losing you.”
She exhaled, pain tightening her throat. “Don’t put this on me. Don’t make me the reason you turn this down.”
His jaw clenched. “Maybe I don’t care about big anymore. Maybe I just care about—”
“Don’t,” she cut him off, her voice firmer than she expected. She couldn’t let him finish that sentence.
Not if it meant he’d stay.
“You’ll hate me if I let you stay,” she said.
“I’m not going to hate you for something I decide to do!” he shouted suddenly.
Courtney flinched at his tone, taking a step back. “You don’t know that,” she whispered, eyes stinging.
Shayne froze. He knew her too well. Knew that her fears always lived louder in her head than any truth he could offer. That no matter how many times he told her he loved her, it never felt like enough. She never let herself believe it.
“Court,” he said, softer now. “I love you. I want this job. But I want you more. I don’t want to be away from you.”
The way he said it—it wasn’t just a confession. It was a plea. Like her love was something he was still afraid to lose. Like he needed her to decide for him.
And she hated that he was making her do this.
She sighed. Her heart ached so badly it felt physical. But she wanted him to succeed. To be everything he dreamed of being—even if it meant not being with her.
So she made the hardest decision of her life.
“I don’t care, Shayne,” she whispered.
He blinked, confused.
“I don’t think this relationship is worth anything anymore.”
Shayne stared at her, stunned. The pain in his eyes was instant.
“You have to go,” she continued, ignoring how her voice wavered. “Because I would. If I were you.”
She looked away quickly, trying to keep him from seeing how close she was to breaking. “It’s not even a hard decision. We’ve only been together for what— a year?” she said flatly, trying to say it like it didn’t matter. Trying to hurt him, so he’d go. So he wouldn’t second guess it.
Shayne looked down. He looked… broken. Like someone had just pulled the ground out from under him.
“Is this what you’ve been waiting for?” he asked, his voice cracking. “An excuse to break up with me?”
She closed her eyes.
It hurt more coming from him than it did inside her own mind.
“…Yes, Shayne,” she said finally. “I’ve been thinking about it lately.”
It wasn’t true.
None of it was true.
“It was a mistake to start dating,” she whispered.
There was a long pause.
And then she met his eyes—forcing herself to say the one thing she knew would destroy him.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
The words hit like glass shattering between them. His face dropped completely, like he was watching something slip through his fingers that he had no idea how to hold onto anymore.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at her like he didn’t recognize the person in front of him.
And inside, Courtney felt herself crumbling. Her chest was tight. Her heart screamed at her to take it back. To tell him the truth. That she loved him so much it terrified her.
But if she did… he wouldn’t go.
And she needed him to go.
Because if she had to be the villain in his story for him to become everything he dreamed of being—then she would be.
Shayne stared at her for one more moment, searching her face for anything—anything—that would contradict her words.
But there was nothing.
Something inside him cracked.
He left the next morning.
All his things were gone. No note. No goodbye.
Just silence.
Present day
“Of course it didn’t,” Courtney said, her voice sharp, eyes locked on him with a bitterness she couldn’t hide. “You left.”
Shayne’s jaw clenched. He met her gaze with equal fire. “You told me to.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she murmured, her tone shifting—softer now, wounded. Her eyes flickered, her walls beginning to crack. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”
His breath hitched, and for a moment, all the heat in his expression faltered. “But why would I?” he said, the edge still there, but layered now with pain. “You told me you didn’t love me anymore, Court. What was I supposed to do? Pretend that didn’t kill me?” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled. “And even then… I was your friend first. Before anything else. And you—” he swallowed hard, “you never reached out.”
She turned her face away from him, blinking rapidly as her throat tightened. “I tried,” she whispered, barely audible.
He took a small step forward. “What?” His voice was softer now, laced with disbelief.
Three Years Ago
She had tried. The moment the words had left her lips—those cruel, untrue words—she regretted them. She wanted to reach out, to explain that it wasn’t real, that her fear had spoken louder than her heart. That she had lied because she was scared of how much she loved him, and how much that love could break her if he ever stopped feeling the same.
But she knew him. She knew that if Shayne was still in LA, he would come back the second she told him the truth. And selfishly, she wanted him to. So she waited—just a couple of days, hoping he'd reach out first, hoping he'd show up at her door angry, confused, anything. But the days turned into weeks, and her phone stayed quiet. Silent proof that he hadn’t tried either.
So she assumed he was still angry. And who could blame him?
He had just been told—by the person he trusted the most—that the love wasn’t mutual. That everything they had, everything they had built, meant more to one than the other. Of course he believed it. Of course he stayed away.
She still went to work. Still laughed on camera. Still smiled through sketches and kept showing up at Smosh like nothing was wrong. But every day, when the cameras stopped rolling, her chest felt heavier.
Almost two months later, as she was leaving the studio, her fingers hovered over her phone. She typed and erased three different messages, unsure of what to say. How are you? Are you okay? Do you miss me the way I miss you? She wanted to ask all of it. She wanted to hear his voice and remember how it felt to be seen by him.
But as she reached for her phone again, her heart sank.
It wasn’t there.
She searched her car, her bag, her pockets. Nothing. Panic bloomed in her chest—not for the phone itself, but because all her contacts, all her messages, him, were in it. And just like that, her last fragile thread to him was gone.
She spent the next few days in a fog of uncertainty—half-living, half-waiting for the courage to do something. The silence between them felt heavier than ever, like a weight on her chest she couldn't shake. Until, finally, desperation cracked through her pride.
She drove to her dad’s house without thinking too much. When he opened the door, she asked to borrow his phone—said hers was dead, though it wasn’t. She just didn’t have the number in her new phone. Her dad handed it over without question.
She scrolled through his contacts slowly, carefully, until she found it: Shayne. Of course her dad still had it saved.
She stared at the screen for a long time, thumb hovering over “call.” Her heart was pounding so hard it almost drowned out her thoughts. Part of her wanted to throw the phone across the room and leave it all in the past.
But another part—the part that still missed him in every quiet moment—wouldn't let her.
But what would she even say? What if she called, and he didn’t pick up? What if he did? What if he had already moved on, built something better in her absence? What if her voice broke everything he’d tried to rebuild?
Or worse—what if he hated her now?
Her thumb never moved.
She placed the phone back on the table, walked into her father’s arms, and cried herself to sleep.
And then she cried the next night.
And the next.
And every night for weeks.
Present day
“I tried to contact you before I felt like I wasn’t worth it again,” Courtney said, her voice trembling slightly, but her eyes locked on his like a dare—not to look away.
Overhead, clouds began to gather, dimming the soft blue sky to a stormy gray.
Shayne exhaled slowly, looking at her like he wasn’t sure if he’d heard her right. “I never got any call. No text. No update. Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It was like you disappeared.”
“I know,” she said, quieter now. “I thought… maybe you were still angry at me for what I said that night. Even if it wasn’t the truth.”
Raindrops began to fall, soft and uncertain, like the first few words after a long silence. Shayne looked up at the sky and blinked the water from his lashes.
“We should go to my car,” he said. “I’ll drive you home before it gets worse.”
She nodded, hugging her arms around herself.
Inside the car, the tension was thick. The rain began to pour harder, drumming on the roof like a thousand tiny hammers. Shayne turned the wipers up, but even then, the visibility was rough. His hands tightened around the steering wheel, his jaw tense.
A long silence stretched between them—until he broke it.
“What did you mean,” he asked, his voice low, “when you said it wasn’t the truth?”
Courtney was tracing a pattern into the seam of her jeans with her finger, eyes glued to her lap. “It’s exactly what I said,” she muttered. “I lied to you, Shayne. I lied when I said I didn’t love you anymore.”
He blinked, like her words physically hit him. “Why?” he asked, his knuckles white on the wheel.
“Because if I hadn’t said it, you wouldn’t have left for New York,” she snapped, suddenly emotional. “And I needed you to go. I couldn’t be the reason you didn’t. I couldn’t live with that.”
She slumped back against the seat, exhausted. “I’m tired, Shayne. I’m tired of wondering every day if I made the biggest mistake of my life. But then I look at you now—nominated for an Emmy, doing what you always dreamed of—and I think… maybe it was worth it.”
“But it wasn’t,” he said, interrupting her, his voice breaking. “None of this means anything if I don’t have what I want.”
Her breath caught. “And what is that, Shayne?” she asked, anger rising. “Because this—this was all you ever said you wanted!”
“You!” he shouted, turning sharply to face her as he stopped the car. “You were all I ever wanted.”
The rain blurred everything outside, like the world was disappearing, and inside the car it felt like time had frozen.
Courtney stared at him, stunned, before quickly opening the car door and stepping into the downpour. She didn’t want him to see her fall apart.
“Courtney!” he called, throwing his door open and running after her. “What are you doing?! You’re getting wet!”
She didn’t stop walking until she felt his hand close gently around her wrist.
“Courtney, stop,” he said, out of breath, eyes pleading. “You’re going to get sick.”
She turned, her face wet from the rain but her eyes red from crying. “And what if I do? What does it matter?” she choked. “You’re lying anyway.”
“What?” he blinked, stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t want me,” she said, voice cracking. “You never did. You were going to leave the moment something better came along.”
“That’s not true,” he said, his voice low, pained. “You told me to go. You told me you didn’t love me. You didn’t call, you didn’t text—what was I supposed to think?”
“You didn’t either!” she snapped. “I know I ended it. I know it’s my fault. But I waited for you too.”
“I tried!” Shayne’s voice rose above the roar of the rain. “I texted you after three months. When I finally had the guts to reach out. I wrote to you every single day for a year, Courtney.”
She froze.
“You… texted me?” she asked, eyes wide.
“I did,” he whispered. “Every night. I wrote like you were going to answer. But you never did. So I believed you meant what you said. I only stopped writing when… when I saw online that you were seeing someone else.”
“What?” she asked, confused.
He nodded, broken. “It looked real. I figured you moved on. So I tried to do the same.”
Courtney shook her head. “Shayne… I lost my phone. All my contacts. I had no way of reaching you. I wasn’t seeing anyone. That was a stupid rumor someone posted. I haven’t dated anyone since you.”
He took a breath, his hands shaking.
“I loved you,” she shouted, because the rain was too loud now. She took a step closer. So did he. “I never stopped loving you. Not then, not now.”
“Court,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I would never stop loving you.”
And before either of them could think twice, they closed the space between them.
Their lips met in the middle of the storm, mouths crashing in desperation and longing and everything they’d kept inside for years. It wasn’t gentle. It was messy, breathless, full of tears and water and emotion—like their bodies were remembering each other even after their hearts had forgotten how to.
Her hands tangled in his hair, his arms pulled her close like he was afraid she’d disappear again.
The rain soaked through their clothes, clung to their skin, chilled their bones. But none of that mattered. Not when they had each other again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his lips, resting her forehead against his. “For everything I said back then. I just wanted you to become who you were meant to be before you became mine. I didn’t want to be the reason you failed.”
“And I’m sorry,” he said, brushing a strand of wet hair from her cheek. “For believing you didn’t love me, when you showed me a thousand times that you did. For not finding you sooner.”
“You tried,” she smiled through her tears. “I think you tried enough, love. It was my fault for being a coward. But it won’t happen again. I swear.”
He kissed her again, slow this time, like he was memorizing her all over again.
“We should go inside,” he said finally, when they both pulled away, breathless and shivering. “You’re going to get sick.”
“We are going to get sick,” she laughed, wiping her face.
“Worth it,” he smiled, taking her hand as they headed toward his car.
The next morning, Courtney woke up with an unusual heaviness pressing down on her chest. At first, she thought it was just the weight of everything unspoken between them. But then she turned her head and found Shayne lying next to her, already awake, watching her with tired but gentle eyes.
For a second, she forgot how complicated everything was. She smiled.
He smiled back, barely a whisper of it on his lips. “Good morning,” he murmured.
She opened her mouth to reply, but instead—
Achoo.
She groaned, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple. “Ugh. I think I’m sick.”
Shayne chuckled softly, brushing a piece of hair away from her forehead. “You did stand in the rain yelling at me, remember?”
“Yeah,” she said, voice raspy. “Pretty sure I’ve got the flu… and it’s your fault.”
“Probably,” he teased, leaning in to kiss her.
Courtney held up a hand weakly. “I’m contagious, Shayne.”
He ignored her warning and kissed her anyway—soft, lingering, warm in a way that made her chest ache for reasons that had nothing to do with being sick.
“I don’t care,” he whispered against her lips. “I love you.”
She blinked slowly, overwhelmed, but smiling all the same. “I love you too.”