Archive of Our Own ^beta

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

A light breeze comes through the open window. The sunlight feels warm and soft against his skin; the birds are singing and the leaves are falling, making for a scenic landscape. All things considered, it should be a good morning. Still, Shayne manages to wake up annoyed.

Well, maybe annoyed is too strong of a word. He’s confused and groggy, sure, and surprised by the sudden noise. When he comes to his senses, he looks over and spots the source and can’t help but groan. Then he blindly slams his phone screen, willing his alarm to stop and let him sleep through the bleakness of the morning in peace. 

You know, it’s the damnedest thing. He used to be a morning person. He liked waking up, drinking coffee, and going for a jog. He liked driving to work and making breakfast. He was even one of those people who connected his alarm to his Spotify so it’d play one of his favorite songs. He’s not sure why he thought that was a good idea - or when Taylor Swift got on his playlist.

Courtney probably added it when they were here last night. Whatever; he’ll take it off later. Instead of worrying about that, he decides to move past it and start his day. He gets out of bed and heads for the kitchen, ready to make breakfast. This is one of the few pieces of his routine he’s kept - he doesn’t remember the last time he went for a morning jog and isn’t about to start again today. That used to wake him up. Coffee and a cold shower will have to do. Like he said - he used to be a morning person.

He drags himself through the motions and climbs in his car to get to work. He’s just glad today’s not a carpool day so he can keep to himself. It’s a Tuesday, so he has a morning meeting to get through, but other than that, he can mostly coast by.

It’s not that Shayne doesn’t enjoy his job. He does. His coworkers are basically like his family, and the work he does is fun. He’s just… the only word that feels right is empty.

He’s beginning to think there's something seriously wrong with him. Maybe that’s a little dramatic; maybe he’s making problems where there aren’t any. But he doesn’t think that feeling like this could ever be normal. It’s like he’s got a black hole in the middle of his chest; as it exists, it expands, and the more it expands, the more he feels himself disappear. It doesn’t stop; it’s killing him. Even when he’s surrounded by people, he still feels like he’s miles off in outer space, the sole victim of a collapsing star. He has no idea what it is, and worse, he has no idea how to stop it.

The drive is fine. Shayne listens to a podcast, whatever episode of Therapy Gecko he left off on drifting through the speakers. Something about being away from your family and how it impacts you. Shayne’s chest hurts; the hole feels more cavernous than ever. He ignores it, just presses the button that skips to the next episode. What other choice does he have?

He parks in his usual spot, grabs his bag out of the passenger’s seat, and clicks the car shut. The parking lot is blissfully empty, and he’s a few minutes early, so he takes his time in his walk to the front door.

Once he gets close, though, his thoughts are interrupted by a sudden guttural scream. Something lunges at him from the shadows; it moves too quickly for him to tell what it is. “Fuck!” he yells. His bag drops from his shoulder as he brings his arms up over his chest to protect himself. He closes his eyes, too, as if not seeing the damn thing will do him any good.

Nothing touches him, though, and soon after, he hears someone laughing. Shayne opens his eyes - there’s a guy in a wolf mask there, and judging based on the lanky build and obnoxious laughter, he doesn’t actually have anything to worry about. “Dude, I got you good,” the wolfman says as he reaches to take off the mask. 

Shayne sighs, his heart returning to its normal rate as he leans down and picks up his bag. "Fuck you, Noah," he says.

Noah clicks his tongue in disapproval, frowning as if Shayne were the crazy one here. "You should be expecting this kind of stuff. It's Halloween!" He shakes the wolf mask for emphasis.

Oh. It is, isn’t it? Shayne's kind of lost track of time recently. He's never exactly been the biggest fan of Halloween, and as of late, he hasn’t been feeling any kind of holiday spirit. But still; he hadn't even realized it was coming up. Yet, he can see the skeleton hanging by the office door, and the jack-o-lanterns he knows Erin put up in the windows, and he realizes that Noah's right.

But he's still a dick.

He gathers himself and stalks past Noah, though it doesn't do much since he just follows him to the door. "Doesn't give you an excuse to be a jerk," he bites.

Noah frowns, more genuinely this time. "Jeez, you're grouchy," he mutters. He puts his hands up in surrender when Shayne glares. The wolf mask dangles from his right hand; it stares at Shayne with contempt. "Okay, okay, sorry. Didn't mean to piss you off." He pats Shayne on the shoulder, and if he notices how he tenses, he doesn't say. "Look, coffee’s on me to make up for it, alright?"

Shayne raises an eyebrow. "You mean the coffee from our coffee machine? The one we all get for free?”

Noah shrugs. "I didn't say it was good coffee," he admits, and despite himself, Shayne laughs.

They wander over to the morning meeting together. The place is pretty full already; he cut it close to call time. There are a few people missing, but it’s just the usual suspects who tend to show up late. Shayne looks for open seats, and spots two - at a table with Damien.

If he's being honest with himself - like really, really honest - the whole emptiness thing correlates with Damien, in a way. Not like it's his fault or anything; Shayne’s big enough to admit that he’s pretty much solely to blame. But he knows things have been weird between them lately. They haven’t talked in any real way in months. Shayne keeps pushing himself further and further away, and Damien keeps letting him. Damien keeps moving on - with other friends and other things and a whole other life - and Shayne is left behind. Standing in the same place that they started. Watching. Waiting. Wanting.

As this feeling gnaws away at him, as his chest cavity feels more and more hollow, Damien grates at it. With his presence (or, if Shayne's being totally, horribly honest, even the thought of him), the hole seems deeper. It burns. If he had to name the feeling, he could. But he really rather wouldn’t.

Contrary to popular belief, Shayne's not an idiot. He knows what being in love with his best friend feels like, and he’s pretty sure that it feels an awful lot like this. He knows that he sees Damien and his heart races; his hands ache to touch him, his mouth longs to kiss him. He knows that he spends almost every moment wondering what if, and every other moment knowing that nothing will come of it.

So yeah, Shayne has pushed himself away. He’s tucked the feelings he has for Damien in a box, shoved it to the back of his mind, and left it to collect dust. Because he can’t handle it. Because it’s either to be near Damien and want him in every way he knows that he can’t have him, or stay away and try his best to ignore the want anyway. Shayne has made his choice and Damien has to suffer the consequences. Still, they’re big boys. Professionals. Shayne can sit next to him at a meeting and be normal, and they can be in shoots together, and everything can be fine.

“Hey,” Shayne says, and Damien looks up and catches his eye, and his stomach drops. He spends the split second before he looks away memorizing every shade of green in his eyes. Maybe things will never be fine again.

Damien, for his part, doesn’t say anything, just nods. Shayne feels like someone’s just dumped a bucket of ice over his head. Luckily, where he flounders, Noah somehow has the grace to act like an actual human being. “Cool if we sit?” he asks.

“Whatever,” Damien says. “It’s a free country.” (It’s far from a warm greeting. Shayne’s pretty sure he sees Noah visibly cringe.)

They sit, and Shayne says nothing for the next hour. He can’t; he’s too busy concentrating on getting the fuck away from this table and not making things any worse than they already are. He sits as far away from Damien as possible, ensuring that Noah snags the seat in between them, but still. Shayne spends the entire meeting looking at his hands, hoping that they don’t shake, and flinching every time Damien so much as breathes.

Meanwhile, Noah looks extremely uncomfortable caught in the middle of all this. Shayne knows exactly how he feels. It’s tense, and it’s awkward, and Shayne would give anything for it not to be. He wants it to be easy. There’s nothing else he wants more. But every time he opens his mouth, he feels the things he’s left unsaid, and it’s so heavy that he shuts it again.

When the meeting’s over, Damien gets up and walks away without a word. Shayne just watches him go.

“Everything okay?” Noah asks.

Shayne knows that he knows that it’s not. “Yeah,” Shayne says. “Just fine.”

--

Seeing Damien just makes him even more miserable than he already was. Like he said, the whole funk he’s in isn’t Damien’s fault, and he knows that. It’s his own. He’s the one isolating himself; he’s the one blocking everyone else out because he’s immature and he can’t handle his own feelings. But he doesn’t know what else to do about it, and he doesn’t know how to stop feeling like shit.

The real truth of the matter is this: the more time he spends with Damien, the more miserable he gets. The more he pushes Damien away, the more miserable he gets. The more time he spends avoiding Damien - you get it. It’s an endless cycle of self-hatred and unrequited feelings. He doesn’t know what the solution is. Moving to Iceland and becoming a sheepherder, probably. He’d be terrible at herding sheep - he and Damien had talked about that once, when they were in college and high as hell. They decided that Shayne liked people too much, and Damien liked the internet, so sheepherding probably wasn’t an ideal career path for either of them.

That’s stupid. It’s all stupid, and maybe he’s a little stupid, but he misses it. He misses simplicity; he misses him and Damien being just that - him and Damien. He misses a time when he didn’t feel like time had stopped just for him, and Damien just kept going, even when Shayne was screaming himself hoarse begging him to slow down. He just misses Damien. And that’s the really shitty part, because he’s the reason he’s losing Damien in the first place.

His mood gets worse as the day goes on. He can’t really help it; the day seems to drag, and the three shoots in a row quickly begin to grate under his nerves. During Board AF, Angela misreads one of the cards, then promptly knocks over the stack she got it from when she laughs, cards scattering all over the table. She’s laughing hysterically, and so’s Amanda, but Shayne just can’t bring himself to be in the mood. He knows that he’s going to snap at her moments before he does it, but not soon enough to stop himself. “Jesus, Angela, are you fucking dumb?”

It must come out harsher than he intends it because she flinches. Amanda glares at him, too, and Shayne feels the regret wash over him like a tsunami. “Sorry,” Angela mutters. Shayne opens his mouth to apologize, but the moment’s over as soon as it begins. Angela smacks a smile back on her face and Amanda laughs like nothing happened and Alex picks up all of the cards. Once again, the world keeps turning, and Shayne is left in a singular moment.

It happens with Kimmy, too - which he hates, because Kimmy’s, like, the nicest person he knows. But when she comes bustling out of the kitchen at the same time he goes in, Eat It Or Yeet It food in one hand and a call sheet in the other, and gets an entire bowl of whatever clam chowder bullshit she’s holding right down his shirt. Shayne groans, and Kimmy squeaks. “Oh my God,” she says. “Shayne, I am so sorry--”

“It’s fine,” he bites out. Sharp and through clenched teeth. Though, in his defense, he does reek of clam chowder - and is that tea? - so he thinks it might be warranted, just this once.

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’ll get some paper towels, I can--”

“I said I’m fine. Jesus, Kimmy, drop it.” Without even waiting for her reply, he stalks past her, making his way towards wardrobe. He feels a little bad - it’s like kicking a puppy dog, being mean to Kimmy. But the smell is overpowering, and his chest hurts, and much like with all of his feelings, he can’t handle thinking about it for too long. He folds that moment up and packs that away, too.

It keeps happening, again and again. Everyone gives him space; they act like he’s sucking all of the air from the room every time he so much as breathes. Even the most emotionally inept people in the office notice how foul his mood is. Reading Reddit Stories goes by mostly without a hitch - Chanse is pretty into it, keeping the energy up and the reactions big. But after they call cut, he scampers away like Shayne’s got the plague, and his other guest, of all people, approaches him. That’s when Shayne knows that something is really wrong.

Ian starts the conversation with a fairly relaxed opening, all things considered: “Hey, man.” He doesn’t sit, or say anything - he lingers awkwardly, just watches as Shayne puts away the iPad. 

Eventually, Shayne tires of the silence, and he looks up with raised eyebrows. “What?” he asks.

It’s too short and clipped and he regrets it as soon as he says it. That seems to be the running theme for the day. Ian, for his part, just scoffs, relaxing in his incredulity. “Walk with me,” he says. Shayne opens his mouth to argue, to say he has to write up some pitches before his next shoot in a few hours, but Ian just nods over his shoulder. “Come on.”

So Shayne does. He sighs, but follows Ian out of the studio anyway. Not just because Ian’s his boss - which he is, so it’s probably unwise to disagree, anyway. But also because Ian’s a good guy and a good friend, and Shayne knows that he’s just looking out for him. Not that he really knows how to show it. “Dude, you’re a mess,” Ian says.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Shayne mutters. They walk past Kiana, who’s building a tower of toothpicks at her desk, and when she waves at them, it topples. He takes a little bittersweet satisfaction in the way she groans and puts her head in her hands. At least someone’s having a worse day than him.

Ian clicks his tongue. “I’m serious, man,” he says. He leads Shayne to the kitchen, grabbing a mug off the shelf and reaching for a K-cup. “You’ve been off all day. Are you okay? Are you, like, sick or something?”

They reach the coffee maker, and Ian slots the K-cup in and puts the mug down on the counter. Shayne watches, focusing on what Ian’s doing so he doesn’t have to think about the question. Are you okay? The answer is no, and they both know that. But Shayne wouldn’t admit it if there was a gun to his head. “Nope,” he says instead. “I’m fine.”

Ian snorts. “Bullshit, but okay.” He presses the button to make the coffee, but the machine makes an odd, low-pitched gurgling noise. They both look at it, confused.

“Coffee maker’s broken.” Shayne looks over his shoulder to see Selina, brushing something off her hands into the trashcan, giving them a grim look. When she turns to face them, it looks as if she’s taken a bath in glitter - everything, from her shoes to her glasses, is covered. On another day, Shayne might laugh and ask her what the hell happened. It’s not another day. “It’s on my to-do list.”

Ian sighs and sets his mug down. “Thanks, Selina,” he says. He nods to the door, and Shayne follows him back out, letting Ian guide him back towards the bullpen. “Anyway, I’m serious. It’s been, like, months now, and you’re starting to take it out on the cast.” He casts Shayne a sidelong glance - he can’t be sure, but he’s pretty sure it says something like, That’s not like you. Because it isn’t. Shayne knows that Ian is right. This isn’t like him. He wishes he remembered what to be like. “What’s up?”

As they continue to walk, Shayne can only respond with silence. He doesn’t know what to say - because there’s nothing really to say. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I have all this shit in my head, and I don’t know how to tell people about it, so I don’t know how to fix it. None of that makes any sense - not even to Shayne, and he’s the one thinking it. So he doesn’t say anything at all.

Eventually, Ian must take his silence as it is, because he shrugs. “Or don’t tell me. Whatever. I’m just worried about you, man.” Shayne doesn’t really know how to respond to that, either, so he doesn’t.

Ian walks him all the way back to his desk. Shayne resolutely does not look to see Damien’s desk empty and breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t. Ian stays quiet for a moment longer, just stands by as Shayne goes about sitting down and turning on his computer. “Hey, if you need a couple of days off or anything… That’s okay, you know?”

Shayne turns over his shoulder. What surprises him most about the whole thing is that it’s Ian - he’s not the guy who does big emotional conversations, who asks how you’re doing and says he’s worried about you. He’s not the guy who offers to give you a few days off. But he’s doing that, for Shayne. His chest aches. “No, I’m okay. Really.”

“I mean it,” Ian insists. “Like, if you wanna wrap up - Spencer can film something with Tommy or whatever, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

Ian’s kindness makes Shayne’s hard edges soften. He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I appreciate it, man,” he says. “Really. But I’m okay. I’ll… try to pick up the slack today and I’ll apologize to everyone tomorrow.”

Ian nods, as if that was the best he could have hoped for. “Alright,” he says. “But the offer still stands. And…” He lets his sentence trail off, frowning. “I was gonna say I’m here if you need to talk, but I really don’t think that’s gonna do either of us any favors.”

Despite himself, Shayne huffs a little laugh. Ian takes that as his cue and, with a nod, he leaves.

Shayne keeps that conversation in mind for the rest of the day. After lunch, he goes to his next and final shoot with Spencer and tries to reign in how much of an asshole he is. Not that it really matters; Spencer can take as much as he gives. But Shayne tries to be a little bit better, anyway, and Spencer matches his energy, so it works. They spend a while reviewing some fan-made Smosh memes, and a couple of them actually manage to get Shayne to laugh. It’s fine. Shayne tries not to focus on anything but the video and the steady sound of Spencer’s voice.

After it’s over - after Spencer pats him on the back and he and Kiana clear out - Shayne stays for a little bit. He checks his phone, to no notifications, which doesn’t surprise him. He isn’t really doing anything, besides procrastinating, when he hears a knock on the door. He looks up to see Courtney, smiling brightly. “Hey, man,” they say. They look at where he’s taken off his mic and left it sitting on the desk, see the camera Kiana had just turned off, and nod to the empty chair next to him. “Mind if I sit?”

Shayne shrugs. “I was just about to leave,” he says. That’s not entirely true, but Shayne doesn’t manage to feel bad. The sooner he goes back to his desk, the sooner he has to see Damien turn his back, put on his headphones, and do anything not to look at him. But he’s not feeling much like company, either

Courtney either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care. She comes in anyway and sits down in the chair, reaching out with one of her shoes to nudge him in the shin. “You okay, bud?” she asks. She fidgets with her hands as if she might reach out to comfort him, but she ends up dropping them to her sides.

He shrugs. “I’m fine,” he says, and as the lies continue, they scrape against his tongue like sandpaper. It’s awkward and heavy, but he’s not sure what else to say. Courtney, I’m fucking losing it? I’m exhausted and sad and empty? They’d think he was nuts. He probably is.

They click their tongue as if they don’t quite believe him. It all just feels awkward. Courtney swivels side-to-side anxiously in their chair, their hands gripping the edge of their seat, and he knows that they feel it, too. “Okay, well, some of us are going out tonight,” they say. “You should come with.”

“Courtney, we just hung out yesterday.”

She smiles and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, at your house, just you and me. But this is different - you haven’t been out with us in, like, forever. Everyone’s asking for you, you know.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? Who’s going?”

“I dunno,” they say with a shrug. “Kimmy, Tommy, Spencer, Amanda. Noah and Keith might stop by, but they’ve got their own thing, I think.”

It sounds nice. But Shayne feels the weight of his exhaustion heavy on his shoulders. Not to mention that he’s been a total asshole to almost everyone on the invite list. He’s not sure he’d make very good company. So he just says, “Sorry, man, but I’m just totally wiped. Rain check?”

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she looked hurt by that. But the flicker of sadness fades as soon as it comes, and she just bounces out of her chair. “Got it,” she says. She leans over and wraps her arms around his shoulders, soft but strong as she hugs him. It’s sweet, and he leans into it, lets her warm him for even just a second. “Maybe next time. But feel better, okay?”

He nods and watches them as they go. They seemed pretty disappointed. He feels the hole become more and more cavernous. 

--

Shayne heads home soon after. He doesn’t say goodbye to anyone, doesn’t join in on Erin and Heidi watching a scary movie in the conference room. He just slips out, quiet and lonely as always.

(Damien, he’s noticed, is already gone for the day by the time he packs up to leave. Not that that bothers him, or anything.)

He lets himself into his apartment. He works out, for a little bit, hoping it might make him feel better (even though it doesn’t). He makes himself dinner, a ready-made meal that barely counts as a meal. He reads a little bit - some book that he doesn’t really take in. And, after he’s felt like he’s bided enough time, he drags himself to bed.

He watches Courtney’s story, sees them singing karaoke with Spencer and Amanda doing body shots off of Kimmy. He sees Noah post his and Keith’s matching costumes. He sees Damien has something on his story, too, but he doesn’t watch it, just clicks off of Instagram and puts his phone down on his bedside table.

He curls up into himself as he closes his eyes and prepares to drift off, wrapping his arms around his chest like it might take away the ache. Like everything he’s done lately, it doesn’t seem to work. All he can do now is hope that tomorrow might be better. Even if he knows that it won’t.

--

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

Shayne wakes up gasping for air. He’s not sure what kind of dream he was having; he never really remembers his dreams. He just knows these three things when he wakes up: his lungs are aching, his head is hurting, and Taylor Swift is still playing.

Weird. Spotify usually never plays the same song two days in a row. But he did forget to take it off his playlist yesterday, so it’s really his own fault. Before he forgets, he goes into his playlist and removes it, watching the album cover disappear with a satisfying swoosh.

He follows the same routine, eats the same breakfast, and drives the same route to work. Oddly enough, the same episode of Therapy Gecko starts playing. Spotify must be glitching or something. This time, he skips preemptively and listens to the next episode. Really, though, he’s thinking about how he can make up today for the shit-fest that was yesterday.

As he said to Ian, he really should make a round of apologies. To Angela, first, and probably Amanda too, while he’s at it; Kimmy and Chanse, for sure. Hell, Ian probably deserves at least a thanks for giving him a pep talk, and he can tell Courtney that he’s sorry for passing on their invite. And…

No. Even the thought of Damien makes him tense up. He’s a fucking coward, and he knows it. But he can’t do it. Not yet.

As Shayne walks towards the entrance, just when he thinks he’s safe, Noah jumps out at him again, a raw scream ripping out from his chest as he lunges forward. Shayne flinches, but maintains his cool, a little more prepared this time.

Whe he’s done screaming, Noah just takes the mask off and grins. “Morning!” he chirps.

“Getting your money’s worth out of that thing?” Shayne bites, nodding to the wolf mask in his hand.

Noah looks at it and shrugs. “Yeah, guess so. It was, like, five bucks at Party City.” But he turns to Shayne with that grin again and shakes it. “Got you good, though, didn’t I?”

Shayne huffs. "Dude, it was kinda funny the first time, but now you're just being an asshole."

For some reason, Noah has the gall to look confused by that. "Huh?" he asks. "I’ve never done this before."

"Uh, yeah, you did. Yesterday." Noah’s confused expression doesn't budge. Shayne gives him a look, one that he hopes reads ‘please, dude, back off, I’m tired of this bit,’ but still, Noah doesn’t seem to understand. So Shayne continues: "You said it was Halloween and I should expect shit like that to happen on Halloween."

Noah frowns. "What? Today is Halloween."

That's the line in the sand. He rolls his eyes and shoves past, muttering, "Whatever. Real funny joke, dickhead." When he glances over his shoulder, Noah is still standing there, frowning. Shayne wonders if he thinks he’s getting the Academy Award for pulling a prank on an unsuspecting coworker. Or the Razzy for being the World’s Biggest Asshole.

He doesn’t wait for him; Shayne lets the door swing shut resolutely behind him. As soon as he’s in the building, he heads straight for his desk, pulls out his headphones, blasts some music, and begins the numb and mindless tasks he has lined up for the morning. He answers some emails he hadn’t gotten to yesterday, pleasantly surprised to find that no new ones have popped up since. After about 20 minutes of this, clicking the same boxes and typing up the same words over and over, he feels a tap on his shoulder and looks up to see Courtney standing over him. Her brow is furrowed, her mouth is turned down - she looks concerned.

Shayne pulls his headphones down and sighs. “Hey,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to catch you--”

“Are you okay?” they interrupt. Shayne blinks, looks from side to side, and then back up at them. They don’t seem annoyed, or anything; just like they’re genuinely asking if he’s okay.

He considers for a long moment and lets his apology hang in the air half-finished. “Uh,” he says eventually. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Really? It’s not like you to miss a morning meeting.”

Now it’s his turn to frown. “Uh, I didn’t. We just had a morning meeting yesterday.”

Their look goes quickly from concerned to confused. They look at him like he just grew another head. “What? No, we didn’t.”

He’s sure that to anyone else, they must look insane. Both are looking at the other incredulously; Shayne feels like he’s having a conversation with someone speaking another language, and judging by her facial expressions, Courtney feels the same way. “Yes, we did,” he says slowly. “Yesterday was Tuesday.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Today is Tuesday.”

Before Shayne can argue anymore (and he really, really wants to, because though he might be out of it, he’s pretty sure he knows what day it is), they lean over him to point at the calendar at the bottom of his computer. “See? It’s Tuesday.”

Shayne stares at the calendar. It seems to stare back. It reads: Tuesday, October 31st, 2023.

“Happy Halloween, by the way,” Courtney says. Shayne doesn’t answer; he feels sick, all of a sudden.

--

Shayne remembers a couple of years back when Damien kept making those stupid predictions that kept coming true. He’d call that a card was green, and it would be; he’d call out an answer before he was even asked a question. The fans caught on, and soon the office did, too - he became the resident psychic. It was an in-joke, and it always managed to bite him in the ass. Shayne wonders if, somehow, it bit him in the ass, too. Because that must’ve been some crazy premonition dream he had - or else he’s getting some serious deja vu.

Rather than the anger he felt the last time he lived through this day, though (or dreamed through this day, he’s really not sure), he floats through it in a haze of confusion. During Board AF, he watches as Angela knocks over the stack of cards without a word. When he walks into the kitchen, he still ends up with a shirt-full of clam chowder, though this time when Kimmy apologizes, he just mutters something about not worrying about it and wanders off.

Even though he’s not as miserable this time, though, his attitude must be evident anyway, because Ian still comes up to him after they finish Reading Reddit Stories. “Hey, man,” he says again.

Shayne looks up wearily, and Ian raises an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna bite, it’s okay. I was just wondering if you’d walk with me.” He pauses and wrinkles his nose. “Are you, like… doing okay, man?”

“I have no idea,” Shayne says plainly.

Ian just nods. “Alright, come on.” And so Shayne does.

They wander past Kiana again, and her tower of toothpicks falls, again. Shayne takes none of the perverse satisfaction he got out of it the first time. “Hello? Earth to Shayne?”

“Huh?”

Ian clicks his tongue. “I said you were a mess.” They enter the kitchen again, and Ian reaches for a mug and then a K-cup in that order. Shayne watches, fairly certain what comes next. “I’m serious, man. You’ve been off for months now, but you’ve been… out of it today. Are you okay? Are you, like, sick or something?”

As he goes to make coffee, Shayne looks over his shoulder to see Selina standing at the trashcan again. Some glitter does shake off of her, though it’s doing very little to actually clean her up. “Yeah, fine,” Shayne says absently. Then: “Hey, Selina, is the coffee machine working?”

She looks up, surprised. “No, actually,” she says. “It’s on my to-do list.”

Shayne looks over to see Ian staring at him, confused. “How’d you know that?” he asks.

“Man, I’m having the weirdest deja vu,” he says.

Ian nods, like that makes sense, even if it doesn’t. “Thanks, Selina,” he says. He nods to the door, and Shayne follows him back out, his feet already headed towards the bullpen before he even sees which way Ian is going to move. “Anyway, I’m serious. It’s been, like, months now, and you’re acting fucking weird.” He gives Shayne that same look, and Shayne ignores it, because if he wasn’t sure what his problem was before, he’s really not sure now. “What’s up?”

Once again, Shayne’s answer is a resounding silence. Believe it or not, I think I’ve lived this same day twice and I might be going crazy are even less acceptable answers than anything he’d thought before. So, still, Shayne doesn’t say anything at all.

Ian shrugs again. “Or don’t tell me. Whatever. I’m just worried about you, man.” Shayne still doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t.

When they arrive back at his desk, Shayne numbly turns his computer back on, and Ian still lingers. “Hey, if you need a couple of days off or anything… That’s okay, you know?”

That hazy fog is still over him; it’s like he’s not sure if this conversation is real, or the last conversation that he had with Ian was real, so he’s not really sure which one matters. So he just says, noncommittally, “No, I’m fine.”

“I mean it,” Ian insists again. It’s like he’s following a script or something; like there are cue cards everywhere and Shayne is just missing out on the skit. “Like, if you wanna wrap up - Spencer can film something with Tommy or whatever, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

It’s another version of the same day, yet Ian’s kindness is still touching. For just a moment, it shakes Shayne out of his fog and he smiles. “Really, I’m alright. Just a little tired today, but thanks.”

Ian just nods, even if it doesn’t really look like he believes it. “Alright,” he says. “But the offer still stands. And…” He lets his sentence trail off, frowning. “I was gonna say I’m here if you need to talk, but I really don’t think that’s gonna do either of us any favors.”

Shayne doesn’t even have it in him to laugh this time. They both watch the joke fall flat. Ian still takes that as his cue to leave.

Man, that must’ve been some dream.

--

Shayne follows most of the day as it was in his dream - he doesn’t lash out at his friends again or anything, but he does follow the script mostly to the letter. Board AF, doing some mindless menial work, Reading Reddit Stories, more mindless work, and then lunch. But as he arrives at lunch, he pauses. He’d taken the food they’d ordered for the cast and brought it back to his desk to eat yesterday. He remembers thinking that the food was terrible, and he would’ve rather just cooked his own stuff and brought it in instead.

Well, some strange power from the universe must have gifted him with foresight (or deja vu or psychic visions, whichever) for a reason. So instead of heading towards craft services, he turns on his heel and heads for the kitchen to grab some leftovers.

What he doesn’t expect, though, is to swing open the door and find Damien already standing at the fridge. Fuck. He freezes in place at the door, even as it swings shut behind him, and Damien looks up. A shadow of something passes over his face when he sees Shayne - disdain, maybe; annoyance, probably. But whatever it is, Shayne doesn’t catch it in time, just watches as Damien’s face resets to neutrality. “Hey,” he says.

It’s awkward, and suffocatingly so. Shayne feels his heart hammering in his chest and his mouth going dry. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t even move. He just freezes. Damien doesn’t seem to have the same problem; he continues doing whatever he was doing before he was interrupted, grabbing something and heading towards the microwave. Eventually, Shayne realizes they’re here for the same thing, and blurts, “You aren’t at lunch.”

This gives Damien pause, and he turns over his shoulder to look at Shayne, clearly confused. Shayne understands why; it wasn’t even what he’d meant to say. He wanted to say something like Great minds think alike! or Had a hankering for day-old lo mein, huh? or I miss you. (Not that he was ever going to say that last one - even if he tried, he’s not sure his mouth would wrap around the words the right way. Every syllable would come out wrong, the whole thing would morph into something ugly. He’s not sure he and Damien even speak the same language anymore.)

“Yeah,” Damien says slowly. “I know.” He turns back and starts punching buttons into the microwave, each followed by a satisfying beep. When he’s done, he turns back to Shayne, bracing himself on the counter behind him. Shayne watches him clearly resist the urge to hop up onto the counter. Instead, he just drums his fingers against the edge, a tune Shayne doesn’t recognize. “Didn’t really feel like grinders today, you know?”

Shayne thinks of the sad, dry sandwich he had for lunch yesterday, and knows the feeling. He doesn’t say as much; he’s not sure what to say at all. He feels like he’s on a trapeze, and he has no idea how the hell to catch himself. So he just walks past, too, straight to the fridge to get whatever leftovers Damien hadn’t grabbed. He roots around and finds some chicken tenders from a couple days ago - probably Noah’s, though he didn’t write his name on them, which means they’re up for grabs. It’s an unofficial rule of the office. When he grabs them and swings the door shut, he turns to see Damien still looking at him. Shayne jumps. “Uh,” he says awkwardly. Damien just sighs.

“Are you okay, man?” he asks

Huh? “Huh?”

“You’re acting all. I don’t know.” He gestures vaguely in Shayne’s direction. “Weird. Not like yourself.”

He sounds tired, maybe a little put out by the fact that he has to have this conversation, but still sincere. It brings Shayne back to reality a little; reminds him who they are, what they’re doing here. Damien is supposed to be his best friend. He doesn’t know when asking if he was okay began to feel like an accusation.

“I’m okay,” Shayne says. “Just… tired.” He doesn’t elaborate further, just reaches for a plate and starts to prep his food. Once he’s done, he tosses the styrofoam container into the trash, then, in a rare moment of bravery, he walks it over to the counter Damien’s standing by. He stops just a couple of feet from him, the closest they’ve been in ages. Shayne feels his whole body tingle with it.

Meanwhile, Damien stays quiet, watching him, and for a moment, Shayne wonders if that’ll be the end of the conversation. But after a brief lull, he speaks up again. “If you say so,” he says. “I’m just… I’m worried about you.”

Shayne’s head hurts from how hard it spins at that. He’d really thought he’d completely blown it with Damien - irreparably, maybe. But there’s Damien, with that soft look of concern, and all Shayne can say is, “Oh.”

He hears Damien huff, though it’s far from a laugh. “Yeah. You’ve been out of it for a while. And today you skipped a meeting - you’ve never done that, like, the whole time I’ve been here. Seems like a little more than just tired.”

There’s quiet, then, where Shayne doesn’t know what to say. It’s awkward but in a different way than when he’d first walked in. It’s awkward in a way that it’s clear that one of them knows where they stand and the other doesn’t. He should have known that Damien would notice - Courtney noticed; hell, even Ian noticed. Damien is - was? - his best friend. If Shayne let him, of course he was going to ask.

And yet, Shayne is left in a terrifying place of not-knowing, anxiety gnawing at the pit of his stomach, as he just looks at Damien and Damien looks at him. How could Damien still care for him? After all this? Even after Shayne has looked at him, and felt that ache, and then couldn’t even face him when he felt it?

Still, Damien’s face remains soft. Worried for him. “So, just to make sure - you okay?” he asks. Shayne abruptly becomes acutely aware of how close they are - he feels like he’s leaned too far in, and now he’s standing on the precipice of something dangerous. Damien’s turned towards him, and the urge to lean in is both strange and magnetic. Shayne feels himself swallow. “You know you can tell me anything, Shayne.”

Suddenly, the microwave beeps and the moment shatters. Shayne turns away abruptly, back to his dish, busies himself with anything - grabbing a napkin, getting a glass out of the cupboard. Whatever he can do not to look at Damien. “I told you, I’m fine,” he snaps. “Just… drop it, okay?”

Even out of the corner of his eye, he sees how quickly Damien’s face sours. His mouth pulls into a frown and his eyes narrow. “Right,” he says. “Sorry I asked.” Then he pulls his food out of the microwave and heads for the door without another word.

No matter how many second chances Shayne gets, he’s pretty sure he’ll always manage to fuck things up with Damien.

--

He tries to keep his cool through his shoot with Spencer, though he’s pretty sure he fails miserably. Surprisingly, Spencer tries his best to keep things light; he even makes a few jokes at Shayne’s expense, though none of them really land. The whole thing feels off, and he can tell Kiana is desperate to leave by about halfway through the shoot. At some point, Spencer suggests they just end things a little early, but Shayne insists that he’s fine. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t convince them - it doesn’t convince him anymore, that’s for sure. By the time they’re done, he’s pretty sure none of it will be any good. They’ll be lucky if they get a YouTube short out of it.

Kiana and Spencer practically run away when they clear out, shooting each other glances over Shayne’s shoulder when they think he can’t see. He doesn’t have the heart to be mad at them about it. At this point, he just wants to wallow in a dark room by himself.

He waits until their footsteps have fully receded, then sighs and tilts his head back into the chair, closing his eyes. He keeps replaying the conversation he had with Damien over and over. He feels like an idiot, a coward, and an asshole. Whether Damien was asking out of obligation or an urge to repair a friendship Shayne had thought was too far damaged, he was asking out of kindness. Because that’s just the kind of person that Damien is. And Shayne had totally fucked it up. He doesn’t know why he expected any different.

He has to bite back a groan when he hears a knock at the door. Seeing Damien had fucked with his head, and he’d totally forgotten about Courtney. Still, he turns to see her standing at the door, smiling at him just like the first time, ad he sighs. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey, man,” they respond. “Mind if I sit?”

Shayne shakes his head. “I think I’m headed home early,” he admits.

Her smile drops, quickly replaced by concern. She crosses the room to him and crouches down like she might put a hand on his forehead and check for a fever. Shayne is oddly comforted by the idea. “Oh, no. Everything okay, bud?” she asks.

He’s tired of lying - a partial truth is better than none. So he says, “Yeah, it’s fine. Damien and I just had a fight, is all.”

He expects them to laugh - what a silly reason to be so upset. But they don’t even look surprised. They just nod. “Yeah,” they say. “I get that.” They do reach up, then, and put a hand on his shoulder. He refrains from leaning into the touch. “But you guys are Shayne-and-Damien. You’ll work it out.”

He almost laughs. Almost, but he doesn’t. Because he knows she means it; he knows she sees something there that most people do. And Shayne sees it, too. He always has. Damien understands him better than anyone else. He knows him as well as he knows himself. But Shayne also knows that he is selfish. That he wants more than he can have. He knows that he has to push himself away.

But he doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he replies, “Yeah, maybe.”

She squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. “Well, if you’re feeling up to it, a bunch of us are going out tonight. People were asking for you.”

He doesn’t feel like disappointing them again; he just shrugs. He has no intention of going out, but he can pretend. “Maybe,” he says again.

She just nods, using her hand to push off of him and stand. “I’ll send you the address,” she says. “Stop by if you want, alright?”

He just nods. He lets her make it to the door before he speaks up again and stops her. “Hey - did you add Taylor Swift to my playlist?”

They pause, their hand half-raised to the door, then turn over their shoulder to grin at him. “Guilty,” they admit. “You need to step up your Swiftie game, bro.” Then they take their leave, waving over his shoulder as they go.

At least that’s one mystery solved. Still, he heads home, and after grabbing a quick bite to eat, climbs into bed, more exhausted and confused than he’s ever been.

--

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

Alright, what the hell?

This time, when Shayne wakes up and shuts off his phone, he immediately opens his calendar to check the date. He silently begs for it to say something, anything, other than the obvious. Then, when he sees what it says, he freezes.

Tuesday, October 31st, 2023.

Okay. Okay, Shayne, think.

He gets up, makes his breakfast, takes a shower, and drives to work. He skips his podcast altogether and drives in silence, because he’s too caught up in his thoughts to even pretend to care. Clearly, there are two options here: either he’s having a mental breakdown, which, while that may be far more likely, he’s not really sure what he can do about it, or he’s stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again.

It’s crazy. It’s insane to even think about, let alone to actually believe it. But there’s no other explanation he can come up with. So he’ll just have to roll with it.

He pulls up to work and parks, semi-haphazardly, he’ll admit. He grabs his stuff and climbs out of the car before he has time to think about it, and he stalks across the parking lot to the door. Noah jumps out, and Shayne shoves past him. “Sorry, buddy,” he says. “No time.”

Noah stands still for a moment, looking shocked, and then chases after him. “Not fair!” he calls out. “You totally saw me hiding.”

Shayne ignores him. Instead, he beelines for Zoe where she’s preparing her notes for the meeting. “Hey, I’ve got some work to do - mind if I skip?”

She startles when he speaks, and then looks up at him with a frown. “Everything okay, Shayne?”

It’s not a yes, but it isn’t a no, either. “Yeah, just falling behind on my pitches,” he says. “Ian said he needs them on his desk by lunch, and I’ve got a hell of a shoot lineup this morning.” Ian said no such thing, but Shayne is pretty confident that he’ll cover for him, anyway. Zoe still looks doubtful, so Shayne presses: “Please? Noah will fill me in.”

She glances over his shoulder, where Noah is sitting with Damien, his phone already out. She raises an eyebrow and turns back. “Try again.”

“Courtney will fill me in?”

“Okay,” Zoe relents with a sigh. “Go ahead.”

He thanks her profusely and heads straight for his desk. He doesn’t have any time to waste. He starts up his computer, opens up Google, and starts researching. Though he wasn’t sure where to start, he’s pretty sure typing “time loops” into the search bar can’t be a bad place.

Wikipedia doesn’t tell him much more than he doesn’t already know - just the basic definition, really. They say that time loops are a fictional device (God, he wishes) in which characters repeat certain spans of time over and over again. They list a few examples, most of which Shayne would have already made jokes about if he were in a better mood. But all of the citations are from various works of fiction, which doesn’t really help Shayne here in the real world, so he moves on.

He reads a lot about something called ‘closed timelike curves,’ which, believe it or not, goes mostly over his head. He’s got a degree in psychology from the University of Arizona - he’s not exactly a physicist. He gathers that it has something to do with a theory that time and space are woven together somehow, like a giant throw blanket of the cosmos, so someone could theoretically get stuck in one of those cross-stitches. Or something.

He tries to look into if it’s ever actually happened to anyone, and comes up mostly dry. He does find a case of some British guy who felt like he ‘constantly had deja vu,’ but Shayne’s pretty sure it’s different. That guy’s life kept going; Shayne’s stuck. At this point, he’s pretty certain he’s gone beyond deja vu and straight into ‘holy shit I didn’t know this was possible.’

Eventually, he changes his research from ‘is it possible’ (because he’s fairly certain, unless he’s completely lost it, that it is) to ‘how to fix it.’ Because that’s the real problem, isn’t it? He’s seen a few of these time loop movies and every time, the main character has to figure out the problem and set things right. Right? But how does he go about fixing something when he isn’t even sure what’s wrong?

The website he finds advises him to make checklists - run through parts of the very first day of the time loop, and the day before the very first time loop. Easy enough. It tells him to change up his routine, too, do things he’d never thought he’d do, and completely turn his life around. Well, that’s easier said than done. But he’s got to try. He resolves to take it in baby steps.

The last piece of advice it gives him is simple: “Keep trying. Don’t give up.”

He’s not sure what the alternative is.

--

Shayne spends the morning making checklists upon checklists, and because he’s not sure the lists will make it through the loop, he memorizes them too. Eventually, he’s pretty sure he’s broken down his day into its most notable parts:

• Morning routine
• Seeing Noah in the parking lot
• Meeting
• Board AF shoot
• Reading Reddit Stories shoot
• Talking to Ian
• Lunch
• Shoot with Spencer
• Talking to Courtney
• Going home

It seems simple enough. Because he’s not sure what’s important and he’s already missed the morning meeting, he decides to observe for the rest of the day. He takes a backseat and watches the day as it happens, just like clockwork. Board AF comes, and Angela wins, again; Kimmy bustles out of the kitchen while he watches from his desk; he shoots Reading Reddit Stories, Ian and Chanse have a great time; and, of course, Ian comes up to him and asks him to walk with him.

As always, Ian tells Shayne he’s worried about him. But, unfortunately, Shayne can’t do anything but pay attention to the people around them. Boom - Kiana’s tower falls, the coffee machine is broken, and Ian makes a joke about being emotionally unavailable. He’s not sure if it’s comforting or sad to see how reliable all of it really is.

He grabs a sad grinder for lunch and treks back to his desk to eat it. He follows Kiana and Spencer and reads some fan-made memes. He waits for Courtney and gives her an unemphatic ‘maybe’ when she asks him to go out. Then he heads home, and quickly turns his apartment into something straight out of Criminal Minds.

With Groundhog Day playing in the background, Shayne uses every surface area in his apartment to take notes. Every possibility, every probability, and every person he knows is accounted for. From the stack of cards that Angela knocks over to Ian’s coffee mug, he goes over every route he’s taken so far and what’s come of it. Finally, when there’s nowhere left to tack sticky notes to and Shayne’s physically exhausted himself, he’s fairly certain he’s come to a conclusion.

He has to fix everything.

--

When Shayne wakes up the next morning to Taylor Swift blasting from his phone, he has a plan. Of course, the plan doesn’t go right the first time - but by the sixth loop or so, he’s pretty sure he’s got it down to a science.

On the first day, he does all the major things that he can remember. He gets to work early and goes in through the back door so he misses Noah entirely. He probably scares some other poor sap, but Shayne decides that that is not his problem. Because he’s early, he grabs a seat at Courtney’s table. He talks to Angela, who hypes him up about Board AF (which he keeps trying to forget about; it’s getting increasingly harder to let her win after playing the exact same game four times now). She also mentions Eat It Or Yeet It - Shayne wonders if she has to eat that clam chowder he gets dumped on him every day.

He stays for the whole meeting and even takes notes. Then, he heads back to his desk and gets to work - he finishes up his pitches, answers every email, and then goes over his checklist. So far, so good.

The Board AF shoot goes relatively well - he lets Angela win, again, and even stops the cards from spilling everywhere. She looks at him, baffled, as she recovers. “Wh- how did you do that?” she asks.

He just stacks the cards back up and shrugs. “Foresight’s 20/20,” he says.

“Whoa, we’ve got a new psychic on set!” Noah jokes. “Careful, dude, you’ll be the new Damien.” Shayne laughs, because Noah truly has no idea.

He avoids the kitchen entirely, skipping out on his mid-morning coffee. Hopefully Kimmy doesn’t run into anybody else on her way out. He just goes back to his desk, gets some work done, ignores the looming presence of Damien with his headphones on over his shoulder, and then heads over to Reading Reddit Stories.

The chemistry is great; it’s the first time he’s matched Ian and Chanse’s energy in four days of filming this video. They’re joking, laughing, and making good commentary - even if it’s the same commentary Shayne has heard for the fourth time now. So he’s not surprised that, when all is said and done, Ian doesn’t approach him after the shoot. Still, he flags him down anyway. “Hey, man,” he says, “the coffee machine is broken, just so you know.”

Ian frowns. “Aw, really?”

“Yep,” Shayne confirms. “Selina’s on it, but it might be a while. Maybe order in or something.”

Ian sighs, like this is the worst news he’s ever heard. “Alright, Shayne, thanks,” he says. Then he pauses, and Shayne tries not to bite back a sigh. He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. “You doing alright?”

“Yep, never better,” he says. He puts the iPad away and speeds off in the other direction.

At lunch, he orders in some Postmates. He gets Spencer and Alex to go in on it with him, and he eats lunch by himself in the games pod. Not running into Damien? Check.

He goes to his shoot with Spencer and tries to act like he’s never seen the memes before (like, three times before). He laughs and they have banter and it’s good. He’s pretty sure the shoot goes on even longer than it was supposed to.

Of course, he still wakes up to Halloween again the next morning. Okay. No big.

The next loop, Shayne hovers in the kitchen in between shoots and meetings. When Kimmy enters, she’s rushing around with a call sheet still in her hand, and Shayne asks, “Can I help?”

She jumps about a foot in the air, then looks over at him, her hands still reaching towards the fridge. “Uh,” she says. “What?”

So Shayne helps Kimmy out. It’s fun; he’s always liked hanging out with Kimmy. She explains that one of the PAs dropped a dish, so she has to make a replacement before Eat It Or Yeet It shoots. They end up making an absolute abomination - the theme is international foods, and New England clam chowder becomes OId England clam chowder, also known as clam chowder mixed with Earl Gray tea and with some crumbled crumpets for texture. Kimmy’s a whiz in the kitchen, and they’re supposed to be making something disgusting anyway, and with his help, she’s done with more than enough time to get across the office.

“Hey, thanks, Shayne,” she says warmly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

He’s really just a wardrobe-saver. “No problem.”

He lingers after she goes, killing time until Reading Reddit Stories, and watches as Peter enters, headed for the coffee machine. “Oh,” he says. “Hey, Shayne.”

“Hey,” Shayne says. He’ll admit - he’s pretty curious to see what happens next.

Sure enough, Peter jams a K-cup into the machine with an absolutely sickening crunch. When he presses the button to make coffee, the machine makes the gross gurgling noise Shayne had heard a few days before. “Uh oh,” Peter says.

Well. That’s another mystery solved.

The next day, Shayne stops in on the kitchen to help Kimmy, and when they’re finished, makes two cups - one for him and Peter. As soon as Peter enters, he presses a mug into his hands.

“Here ya go, champ,” he says, before promptly exiting the kitchen. Peter just stares after him in stunned silence.

After that, he wanders off to find Selina. He finds her with Alex Aguilar, oddly enough. They’re both staring at a big yellow box when he enters, seemingly perplexed. “What are you two doing?” he asks.

Selina frowns. “Production for a games video,” she murmurs. She seems distracted, like pondering the box is taking up her every thought. “It’s, like, a Mario thing - but we need to know if it works.”

“What does it do?” he asks, knowing well the answer will be dousing at least one of them with glitter.

Alex looks up, suddenly suspicious. “Are you supposed to be in this shoot? Keith comes by asking to know shit in advance all the time, and we won't let him, so don’t--”

Shayne raises his hands. “Dude, I just wanted to know if I can help.”

The two exchange a glance. He can see how wary they are, but they look a little stumped, too. Eventually, Selina looks up and says, “Alright. It’s a glitter bomb. But we’re worried we used a little too much glitter and we don’t know how sensitive it is.”

He refrains from responding that it is too much glitter and it’s way too sensitive. Instead, he says, “I’ll test it.”

Somehow, Alex looks even more suspicious at that. “Really,” he says flatly.

It’s not really a question, but still, Shayne shrugs and says, “Yeah, why not? I’m on my way to a shoot, but I’ve got a minute.”

It takes a little more needling, but eventually they agree. Shayne grabs a plastic bag, gently deposits the thing inside, and heads straight for the back lot. Intrigued, Selina and Alex follow him.

“So what exactly is this thing supposed to do?” Shayne asks.

“The idea is that we break it over someone’s head and it explodes,” Alex explains. “But we were afraid to even, like, move it.”

He doesn’t tell them that they were right to be afraid. Instead, he stops by props and pulls out one of the mannequin heads they have on hand for some reason, then keeps going. Selina and Alex are still just steps behind him.

“I called Selina because I was afraid I was gonna make a mess out of the whole office,” Alex says. “It’s, like, seriously a lot of glitter.” Poor Selina.

He leads them out to the parking lot and puts the head down in the middle of it. He takes a few steps back, then gently drops the box on the mannequin’s head.

Glitter explodes everywhere - and he means everywhere. Luckily, he has the foresight to jump back, so it only gets on his shoes. But the pavement is completely covered, and the mannequin head is basically unusable now.

“Whoa!” Alex shouts. Shayne turns over his shoulder.

“I think it might be too much glitter,” he says.

Selina and Alex look at each other. “Holy shit, Shayne,” Alex says eventually. “Thanks.”

He’s been hearing that a lot lately.

(He stops by Kiana’s desk, too, with a hot glue gun he borrowed from the art department. She’s only just started on the base of her toothpick tower. “You’ll thank me later,” he tells her.)

At the end of it all, Shayne breathes a sigh of relief, and goes home exhausted, hoping to God he doesn’t wake up to Taylor Swift tomorrow. The whole day went off without a hitch. What the Hell else would he have to fix?

Of course, things are never that simple.

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried--

Shayne rolls over and groans into his pillow.

Well. There is one more thing he hasn't tried.

--

Courtney is thrilled when he agrees to go out with them and all of their coworkers. And without any argument, too. No fighting, no excuses, no questions asked. Just a simple yes. She sends him the location and heads off, telling him that she’ll meet him there. Shayne tries not to dread too much about what he just agreed to.

From the loops where he’d actually taken the time to look, he’s pretty sure he remembers Courtney and everybody else wearing costumes. Like he said, he’s not a big Halloween guy - he didn’t really have anything prepared this year. But he goes into his closet, pulls out a long-sleeved blue shirt and an orange vest, and decides half-assed Marty McFly will have to do. It’s kind of ironic, considering his situation. He doesn’t even have it in him to laugh.

He shows up at the bar just a little late, so he’s not the first one there. When he enters, there’s a whoop around the room as his friends spot him. People from all over - he sees Angela and Olivia playing darts, and Chanse and Arasha getting drinks from the bar. The place is packed, and yeah, there are plenty of strangers around too, but he can see Smosh members in every direction.

“There he is!” Before he can even blink, Courtney is standing right next to him. They throw their arm around his shoulder and pat him on the head. They’re dressed up in an orange onesie, a potato-sack-like hood over their head and a lollipop in their hand. Shayne’s not sure what they’re supposed to be, but he doesn't ask. “Come on, man, everyone’s waiting.”

She drags him to a table in the back, where a bunch of their coworkers are waiting in various states of sobriety. Most of them cheer when he arrives. Kimmy lifts a glass in the air; whatever drink she has sloshes over the side of her glass and lands on her dress. Her blonde wig is practically falling off of her head, her sunglasses are perched precariously on the table in front of her. She looks like a Barbie that’s been hit by a truck. “You made it!” she yells, and Shayne wonders who’s driving her home.

“Nice costume, man,” Spencer says from the other end. He has a cowboy hat on, black and glittery, and a button-up up partly unbuttoned. Much like Shayne’s, his costume looks severely half-assed. Tommy, sitting next to him, has a much better one, his own pink cowboy hat shimmering under the lights and a pink ascot tied around his neck.

“Yeah, whatever,” Shayne mutters. He squeezes in next to Amanda and Courtney pulls a chair up for herself.

Amanda smiles at him. She seems relatively sober-ish; this is probably before she does those body shots off of Kimmy. “Glad you made it,” she says sincerely. It’s nice; sweet. Amanda’s always been good to him. “It’s been forever since you’ve come out with us.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, but he trails off. He doesn’t really have a good excuse, besides how miserable he's been.

Kimmy leans over Amanda to put a hand on his arm. “Hey, you’re here now,” she says. Her breath wafts in the scent of tequila; Shayne resists the urge to turn his head away. “So let’s get this party started!”

He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Ah, I don’t know how long I can stay,” he admits.

“You just got here,” Tommy says. “Come on, Shayne, live a little.”

As with every day, the urge to go home and crawl into bed is pretty alluring. He’s an early riser; he’s never been the kind of guy to stay up all night. Hell, he doesn't even remember the last time he was awake past midnight.

… Huh.

Honestly, he feels like an idiot. He can’t believe he didn’t think of it before. Maybe if he stays awake past midnight, it’ll all be over - November 1st will come, and the loop will break. And where better to try it than here, with his friends to keep him company?

So he nods. “You’re right,” he says. “Its a party. Well, what’re we waiting for?”

Courtney cheers, then promptly grabs a shot off the table and drinks it. Kimmy follows her lead.

Anyway, Shayne sticks around. It’s weirdly nice. He finds himself playing darts with Olivia and Angela, and maybe he wins by a lot more than necessary, but it’s fine. They all have fun and laugh until their ribs are sore. He watches Courtney and Spencer do karaoke, and then gets dragged up by Amanda, who makes him do a truly terrible duet to Allstar by Smash Mouth with her, of course. “It’s our theme song!” she yells over the music, and he wonders if she’s done those body shots yet or not.

He, himself, doesn’t drink. Partly because he drove himself here, and he’d really like to just drive himself back to his apartment later. But he also wants to stay sober to watch the clock - to make sure the hands keep ticking down to midnight. To make sure he beats this thing, once and for all. It’s a scary thought. But it’s a hopeful one, too.

After karaoke, Noah and Keith drop by as promised. Keith is wearing a Miles Morales costume and Noah is dressed as Spiderman. Courtney coos when they come in, calls their matching costumes adorable. While Keith fends her off, Noah beelines straight for Shayne. “Hey, man, you made it!”

Shayne shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “Wasn’t sure, but ya know, it’s fun.” He points at Noah’s costume. “Surprised you’re not the wolf-man.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I tried to convince Keith to be Dracula, but he was afraid people would think he was Count Chocula, so.”

“Makes sense,” Shayne says, even if it really doesn’t.

Noah knocks him on the shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re here, dude,” he says, and though people have been saying it all night, it feels really sincere coming from Noah. Noah’s one of his oldest friends. When he says it, Shayne knows that he means it.

“Thanks. You too,” he says. And he's surprised to find just how much he means it.

The night goes on. As the hour draws closer to midnight, he sits and chats for a while with Tommy. He's been drinking pretty heavily, but he’s also notoriously great at holding his liquor, so he’s holding his end of their conversation well. They talk about everything - video games and movies and work and whatever. People come in and out. Keith sits with them for a while, and Chanse and Arasha drop by too. It’s good. It’s nice. It’s distracting. Because before he knows it, 11:00 ticks down to 11:30, which ticks down to 11:50, and suddenly, Shayne is holding onto his water glass so tightly he thinks it might break.

He tries not to watch the clock, tries to keep listening to what Tommy is saying - something about his music, he’s pretty sure. Shayne hums and nods and laughs in all the right places, and to be fair, Tommy is still pretty drunk, so he doesn’t notice if Shayne’s not all there. After a while, though, Spencer approaches them. “Alright, bud, time to get going,” he says. He tosses his car keys up and down in one hand and leans on the booth behind Tommy with the other. Shayne’s just glad Tommy’s got someone looking out for him.

Tommy sighs but nods. “Yeah, m’tired,” he mutters. He gives Shayne a smile. “Sorry, gotta jet. But I’m glad you’re here, Shayne, it was fun.”

“Yeah, it was,” he agrees.

As Tommy ambles out of his seat, Shayne feels a hollow pain in his chest. He was doing so well all night, too. But then it spreads - he feels it through his whole body, an ache that spreads down to his bones. This isn't just the normal kind of pain. This is something different. Something wrong.

“Whoa, are you okay? Shayne?”

He hears Spencer, but when he looks up at him, his vision begins to go black around the edges. Tommy and Spencer look down at him, concerned, but Shayne can barely see them through the spots. He takes a quick glance down at his phone - it's 11:59.

He hears Tommy tell him to hold on, that they’ll get him help. He feels Spencer’s hand land on his shoulder, concerned. He tastes iron on his tongue. And then it all goes black.

The next time he opens his eyes, he’s looking up at his bedroom ceiling.

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He’s back at square one.

--

On the seventh loop - or maybe eighth, because honestly, the days have begun to blend a little at this point - he decides not to go to work at all. It doesn't seem to be helping, anyway, and he could use a breath of fresh air.

He goes through the morning, following the same steps as always, but this time, when he gets to his car, he texts Ian to call out sick. Then, he turns his phone off, puts it into the glove compartment, and drives.

He drives as far as he can for as long as he can - down the coast and towards the beach. He stops in a cafe to have lunch - a nice coffee and some finger sandwiches at half the price of any of the bullshit he’d eat in LA - and then gets in his car and drives again.

Eventually, he ends up in some tiny beach town. He’s pretty sure there’s not a Target for miles, let alone anyone who’d know who he is, so he gets out and wanders. He visits all the shops; he even buys a cute little trinket - a fridge magnet, a picture of a lighthouse with the town’s name scrawled across it in cursive. He looks at all the Halloween decorations, noting how quiet it is, even in a place as small as this. He hasn’t seen a kid out trick-or-treating once. But still, he feels the spirit of the holiday more here and now than in any of the loops he’s been stuck in. Finally, he makes his way to the beach.

The air’s nice and cool as the sun begins to set, painting vibrant pinks, oranges, and purples across the evening sky. Salt and sun permeate the air around him, leaving him nostalgic for summers long since passed. The sand is warm, but not hot, and the sound of the waves lapping against the shore is pleasing to his ears. It’s nice. He knows he can’t do this every day he’s stuck in this stupid loop - he has to find a way out of it, somehow. But just for this one moment, he tries to forget about loops in time and holes in his chest and his work and his friends, and he just is.

He sits on the beach for what seems like hours; he watches the sun dip below the horizon line, then stays a little while longer, just taking it all in. It’s only when his eyes start to sting from the sharp smell of salt that he stands, brushes himself off, and wanders off to find a place to sleep for the night.

After he drives around for a while, he stumbles upon what seems to be the only hotel in town. The sign, in soft purples and greens, reads The Lilac Inn. Its windows glow with warm, inviting orange light; the arch around the door is adorned with vines and leaves. Shayne finds himself wandering inside, wallet in hand. He thinks about grabbing his phone, but eventually decides to leave it in the car. He’d say that he’d deal with all of the phone calls and text messages tomorrow, but he knows that he won’t.

The inside of the inn is just as lovely as the outside. It’s got lush, gray carpets and tan walls. It’s quaint and small. It looks like someone’s cared for it well over the years. A large wooden counter stands in the middle of it, and a woman with short black hair wearing a cozy sweater is manning the register, scribbling something in her notebook. She raises her head as he approaches and offers him a warm smile.

“Welcome to the Lilac Inn,” she says. “How can I help you?”

“Just a room for the night, thanks,” he says.

She nods and goes about setting it up for him. They make some small talk; she asks how long he’s going to be in town, and he replies that he’s just passing through. That seems to be an answer she gets pretty often because she just nods again. She asks what his plans are for Halloween, and he admits that he doesn’t have any. She tells him that they’ll be playing horror movies in the activity room. He tells her that he’ll think about stopping by, even if he won’t.

They go back and forth for a while, and then finally, she reaches back to get the key to his room. “That’s room 206,” she explains. “Second floor, first door to your right.”

He opens his mouth to thank her, but just as he does, the door behind her bursts open. “Mommy, Mommy!”

The woman oomphs as something bumps into her leg, though she recovers relatively quickly. Shayne looks down to see a little girl. As soon as she notices the stranger in her presence, she hides behind her mother’s legs. But Shayne can still see that she’s young, probably only four or five, and dressed in a little ballerina costume. She’s the spitting image of her mother, with the same full black hair and big green eyes.

“Go ahead back in, Eleanor, I’ll just be a minute,” her mom says. The girl - Eleanor - shakes her head stubbornly. “Eleanor, I’m with a customer.”

Shayne shakes his head. “That’s okay,” he says, and leans forward to give the girl a small smile. “Is that your Halloween costume?”

For a moment, she doesn’t respond. But eventually, she nods. “I like it,” he says, and he’s surprised to find how sincere he really is.

“Thanks,” she says, and her s gets stuck on a lisp. “I’m a ballerina.” She frowns, suddenly, looking him up and down. “What are you supposed to be?”

Shayne can’t remember the last time he wore a Halloween costume that wasn’t for a Smosh shoot - he had nothing against it or anything, it was just never his favorite. (And now, after he makes it out of this stupid fucking loop, he’s not sure it ever will be.) So he just flounders and responds, “Uh, I’m Shayne.”

Eleanor laughs at that. “That’s a silly costume,” she says sincerely.

“I’m a silly guy,” he replies. She nods like that’s the most reasonable thing he’s said yet.

After that, he trucks on up to his room, getting a big wave from Eleanor and her mother as he goes. He doesn’t have a bag, because he didn’t bring one, so he just climbs into bed and closes his eyes as soon as his head hits the pillow. His mind stays away from all the things he’s had to think about for the past few loops and stays here, in this tiny town. For the first time in a long time, Shayne feels the tightness in his chest unwind.

--

Of course, Shayne does not wake up in the only inn in a quiet beach town. He wakes in his own bed, to the mind-numbing melodies of Taylor Swift, all the peace and happiness ripped away from him at once.

In that moment, he decides to start getting really fucking weird with it. If he can’t fix the day, he might as well have some fun, right? If nothing else, maybe it’ll stop him from being so fucking miserable.

Shayne remembers when he used to have fun. It’s mostly a persona he plays on screen; the goofy, upbeat guy. In life, he’s much more down-to-earth. But he’d give anything to feel like that guy. So he just decides to start feeling that way.

In one loop, he plays the game they’re playing on Board AF and wins in ten minutes flat. He’s played so much he could go pro at this point, so it’s not really that hard. Angela, Amanda, and Noah all look at him like he’s grown another head, though, and that does get a laugh out of him. “How the hell did you do that?!” Noah yelps.

“I’ve been trapped in a time loop, playing the same game every day for a week and a half!” Shayne yells. The three of them stare at him for a moment longer, then all burst into laughter.

“Man, you’re crazy,” Angela says. Shayne couldn’t agree more.

On another day, Shayne gets to work early and hides by the front door. He stays hidden until Noah arrives, climbing out of the car with his mask in hand. Shayne waits for a beat, until the car door closes and beeps, and then he jumps out and screams. Noah’s resounding yelp of terror is pretty fucking awesome - Shayne suddenly understands the appeal.

“Jesus, man!” Noah yelps.

Shayne just grins. “Gotcha,” he announces, delighted, before skipping into the office.

He dumps the glitter bomb over Alex Aguilar’s head. He gets trashed and does karaoke with everyone at the office. He drinks the Old England clam chowder straight out of the bowl. He spends an entire day in an oversized pizza place shirt - and nothing else.

Shayne does everything and nothing. The loops continue to spiral on and on. He remembers what that one website said: “Keep trying. Don’t give up.” He begins to understand why they said that.

--

Once the bits have stopped being funny, Shayne finds himself running out of energy. The days seem to get longer and longer, and he seems to become more and more exhausted. He calls out of work some days, just to sleep, or else he goes to work and falls asleep at his desk. He’s pretty sure it’s just pure boredom beginning to get to him, but still, he even starts to worry himself a little. There are days when he can barely keep his eyes open.

It’s one such day that Ian pulls him aside after Reading Reddit Stories and, for the first time, insists he goes home early. “I’m fine,” Shayne says, rubbing a hand over his eyes, but it’s pretty clear Ian won’t budge.

“Shayne, you were falling asleep sitting up just now,” he says. “Go home. Spencer can find somebody else to shoot with, it’s fine.”

Shayne keeps trying, but Ian won’t take no for an answer, so eventually he’s forced to pack up his things and head home. He lets Spencer know that he’s going, and Spencer insists that it's no problem, and Shayne can feel Damien’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head. But Shayne just does as he's told: he goes home.

He drives home just fine, thankfully, but as soon as he gets back to his apartment, he climbs into bed and promptly passes out. He’s not sure what the hell is wrong with him, but he’s too exhausted to examine it.

He wakes later to a loud thumping sound - knocking, he thinks. For a moment, his chest seizes, and he feels something an awful lot like hope fill his chest. But then he glances at the clock. It’s around 6:00 PM. His stomach rumbles, his apartment is dark, and there is someone knocking at his door.

He throws on a t-shirt and some sweatpants, then heads for his front door, flicking on the lights as he goes. He has no idea who could be here - in all the loops, and he’s been through a lot, no one has ever come to his apartment. He wonders if this happens in every version of the loop that he goes home early. Who’s so concerned that they would visit him?

Shayne throws open the door and blinks in surprise. “Oh,” he says.

Noah raises an eyebrow. “You gonna let me in or what?”

Without a good reason not to, Shayne just opens the door wider and lets Noah walk past him. He kicks his shoes off by the door and shrugs his jacket off, throwing it over the arm of the couch. Then he seems to think twice, and reaches over to grab something out of one of the jacket pockets. As he makes himself comfortable, Shayne wonders aloud: “Not that I’m not glad to see you or anything, but uh… why are you here?”

“Sorry if I’m barging in, but I was pretty sure you said you didn’t have any plans. That okay?”

"I guess? I figured you'd be going out with Keith," Shayne says.

Noah just shrugs. "I will. Later." He shakes the small plastic bag in his hand - two joints, one for each of them, are inside. "You got Amazon Prime?"

Shayne's surprise gives way to confusion. "Uh, yeah?"

"Great," Noah says with a grin. "We're gonna watch M3gan and get high as fuck."

--

The movie and the weed are both pretty good. Shayne likes horror movies well enough, but he’s pleasantly surprised, especially as high as he is, to find that M3gan is more of a comedy. At least, he and Noah are laughing every five seconds, though that could be because they’re, as Noah put it, high as fuck.

They’re sitting on the couch shoulder-to-shoulder. There’s more than enough room for the two of them to spread out, but Shayne doesn’t mind the contact. It keeps him grounded, sane. He remembers the two of them at a party when they were practically kids, sitting close on a shitty couch in some child actor’s apartment, playing Mario Kart, and laughing like they didn’t have a ten-hour shoot the next day. Shayne misses it. This feels pretty close, though, and he’s glad to have it now.

As the M3gan drives through the city, some insane pop song blasting in the background, Shayne recovers from laughing so hard he might have bruised his ribs, and Noah takes another drag from his joint. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” he asks.

It’s out of the blue, but Shayne isn’t in the right state of mind to examine it. “Yeah.”

There’s a lull for a moment, where Shayne thinks maybe Noah forgot the question he was going to ask. Then, after a moment, he says, softly, “Are you okay, Shayne?”

Shayne feels his stomach drop. He opens his mouth, but when no sound comes out, Noah just continues: “I know you said you were fine, but - something seems off. For, like, months you’ve been slogging, man. And today… falling asleep at work isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

He’s not really sure how to answer at first. The weed is clouding his mind, a haze of comfort and nonchalance coming over him. But at the same time, he's exhausted. Down to his bones. He feels tired in a way he’s never felt before. Some part of it is that he's high, sure. But he knows from this morning that it's something else too. He's tired of this. Of running in circles, of living through the same shit again and again. Of lying, to everyone and himself. Of all of it. So he says, honestly, "I've been stuck in a time loop. Groundhog Day style, but, like, the shitty Halloween sequel."

Noah hums. The sound reverberates through his shoulders and shakes Shayne where they touch. "For how long?"

Shayne sighs. "A couple of weeks, I think. I lost track."

"That sucks," Noah says as if that isn't the understatement of the century. Shayne laughs at that, and suddenly, Noah does too. Like one of them had made the funniest joke they'd ever heard. Like they’re teenagers and everything is funny again. It's simple. Shayne feels more grateful for it - for Noah - than he could possibly say.

Eventually, their laughter fades, and Noah takes a deep breath as if to recenter himself. Shayne tries to do the same. Noah finds his voice first and speaks up again: "Well, have you told anyone else?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. Just you, and just ‘cause I know you’ll forget.”

“Kay, rude.” Shayne laughs again, even if it isn’t that funny, but at least Noah does, too. “Well, I’m too fuckin’ stoned to know how to handle this, man. Find me again tomorrow.” After a pause, Noah frowns and adds, “Wait. No, I’m too dumb to handle this. Who’s the smartest person you know?”

Shayne doesn’t even have to think about it, and he’s too high to pretend to. “Damien.”

Noah nods. “Yeah, me too,” he says. “So tell him tomorrow.”

“Huh,” Shayne says. Because it might be the best idea he’s ever heard.

There’s a lull in their conversation after that, as M3gan’s credits begin to roll. Shayne watches them, unwilling to read them but unable to look away. He’s too busy thinking about Damien and how soon he can tell him everything that he knows. He’ll have to wait until the loop resets; he knows Damien went out with some friends tonight, and he knows that he’s in no shape to call, anyway. So tomorrow. Maybe at lunch, if he can. He’ll go to Damien, and tell him everything, and Damien will know what to do. Because he’s the smartest person Shayne knows. He can do anything - really, the two of them together can do anything. If there’s anyone he trusts to get him out of this, it’s Damien.

The credits slowly come to an end, and the movie minimizes, the Amazon Prime screen asking Shayne if he’d like to watch Friday the 13th next. For a moment, it’s terribly quiet, but the silence doesn’t last long. “I want Taco Bell,” Noah says out of nowhere, and that might be the second-best idea Shayne’s ever heard.

Hours later, after they’ve ordered Taco Bell and Noah’s mostly sobered up, calling an Uber so he can get to Keith’s, he turns to Shayne. “You think he’ll believe you?”

Shayne frowns. He’s got a taco in his mouth and he thinks some sour cream on his chin, and he has no idea what the hell Noah’s asking him. He’s always been a lightweight, so although Noah’s worked it out of his system, Shayne’s still coasting. “Wha?” he asks. It sounds like nonsense. He thinks Noah gets the gist.

“Damien, I mean,” Noah says. “About the loop thing.” Shayne stares at him, and he stares back. After a moment, Noah raises his hands apologetically. “Not judging, just asking.”

This one takes a little bit more thought. When Noah’d first suggested it, he thought it was simple - Damien’s his best friend. Damien knows he wouldn’t lie about something like this. Sure, maybe they’ve been growing apart recently, but still. He’s the person who Shayne tells everything. He’s the one he always goes to when he doesn’t know where else to turn. And yet… Shayne’s not sure he would even believe himself.

So he shrugs and says, “I don’t know.”

As he pulls on his shoes, Noah hums again. “Huh. Well, I think he will.” And with that, he reaches for the door and pulls it open, waving over his shoulder. “Bye, Shayne.”

Shayne waves. He stays there, contemplating that, until he goes to bed.

--

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

Shayne wakes up the next morning with a plan and anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Correlation, in this case, is causation. Because the plan involves talking to Damien.

He reasons that Damien doesn’t remember the first few days of the time loop. As far as Damien knows, things have just been weirdly distant between them these past few months, and that’s it. That’s as deep as it gets. But Shayne knows. Shayne knows what an asshole he’s been; he knows that he’s brushed Damien off, even when all he’s done is ask if Shayne is okay. He knows that he’s pushed him away, that he’s the reason this distance exists in the first place. He knows that he wants too much. It’s because of his own stupid selfishness that he can’t even be near Damien. He knows that it’s all his fault.

So you see why he might be hesitant.

Still, he knows that Noah is right; if there’s one person who might believe him, one person who might be able to fix all this, it’s Damien. It’s always been Damien.

He goes in through the back this morning, avoiding Noah’s jump scare altogether. He just doesn’t have the brainpower to deal with that today. He enters to the dulcet sounds of people waiting for the morning meeting, and, for the first time in a long time, heads over to Damien’s table. “Hey,” he says.

Damien looks up, and Shayne sees surprise cross his face. But he masks it as soon as it comes, and says, “Hey.”

Shayne nods to the seat next to his. “Can I sit?”

“Whatever,” Damien says. “It’s a free country.” Shayne remembers the last time he said that, what feels like a lifetime ago, and that Noah had cringed. He feels pretty much the same now.

But he still sits and watches awkwardly as Damien pulls out his phone. Things are tense, he knows; this is the most conversation they’ve had outside of a shoot in months. But Shayne is determined, so he clears his throat and keeps going. “Hey, can I… borrow you at lunch today?”

At that, Damien looks up. He raises an eyebrow. “Why?” he asks. His voice is tinged with suspicion. Understandably so.

“I need to talk to you,” he says. Damien frowns; that seems to make things worse. He opens his mouth, probably to ask what about, but Zoe clears her throat and starts the meeting, so he just nods and turns away. Shayne is silently grateful, because he knows Damien would press, and he couldn’t even begin to explain now. Jesus, he’s not even sure how he’s going to explain later.

A few minutes into the meeting, Noah enters, this time with Amanda, looking fairly pleased with himself. She, on the other hand, looks annoyed, so Shayne can only imagine that she was on the receiving end of his bullshit this morning. He sits down next to Shayne with a sigh. “Ah, man, happy Halloween,” he says. Shayne tries not to roll his eyes.

After the meeting ends, Damien has a shoot to get to - You Posted That, Shayne thinks. He really should know by now, he’s lived this day enough. But every time, he’s avoided Damien. He’s actually done everything in his power to avoid Damien, time and time again. But here he is now, because he needs his help. He tries his best to swallow the guilt.

The day drags on to lunch. He makes all of his usual pit stops - the kitchen, the art department, Kiana’s desk. He goes through his checklist, marks off all the boxes, and, more than anything else, worries over what the fuck he’s gonna say to Damien.

When he explained it to Noah, they were both high as hell and in the safety and comfort of Shayne’s living room. He knew Noah would forget, or think he was joking. It was easy. But Damien… Damien’s different. Just being around him is different. Shayne’s on edge just looking at him; he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s gonna say.

Although he spends every moment watching the clock, lunch comes sooner than he expects. As noon hits, he’s turned over his shoulder looking at Damien, and when Damien meets his eye, he just sighs. “Let’s get this over with.”

Without another place to go, Shayne drags him across the office to the conference room. It’s the only place Shayne can even think to have this conversation; no one’s scheduled to use it until the end of the day when Heidi and Erin set up shop, so he’s pretty sure they’ll be okay for now. He sits them both down and then says, “Okay, so…”

He stops. The words stick in his throat when he goes to say them. Damien is looking at him, some mixture of concerned and annoyed, and Shayne just freezes. After a moment, Damien has apparently had enough, because he asks, “Okay, dude, what’s up with you?”

Shayne opens his mouth to respond - even if he has no idea what he’s going to say - but Damien doesn’t seem to plan on letting him, because he continues: “We haven’t talked, like, for real in months, and all the sudden, you just say you need to talk and give no explanation, and then when we’re here, you don’t say anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Shayne says, but it seems to fall upon deaf ears.

“I’m worried about you, I’ve spent months worried about you, and I’ve texted you and I’ve called you, and fuck, Shayne, I don’t even know if you care anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Shayne says again, and Damien frowns, but lets him continue. “Really, I’m sorry we’ve grown apart.” For some reason, Damien scoffs at that. But Shayne keeps going, because if he doesn’t get it out now, he’s not sure if he ever will: “But I’m… I have a problem and I need your help.”

Damien gives him a flat stare. Jesus, this isn’t going the way he thought it would. “You need my help,” he repeats.

“I know, it’s awful, but, if you just give me a second to explain--”

“Fuck you, man.” Damien stands up from the table as if he’s going to leave. He’s slipping away, and Shayne has no clue what to do to stop it. He just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind:

“I’m stuck in a time loop.”

That makes Damien stop in his tracks. He turns over his shoulder to look at Shayne, anger temporarily replaced by confusion. “You’re… huh?”

Shayne presses his mouth together, but forces himself to keep going: “I know. I know I’ve been an asshole, and I’m sorry. But I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been living the same day for weeks, I need your help.”

For a while, Damien just stares at him. Then, he sets his jaw. “Hilarious,” he says. “Really funny. Happy Halloween to you too, dickhead.”

“Damien, I’m serious.”

Damien shakes his head. “No, I’m serious. This isn’t funny, Shayne. You ignored me for months and for some stupid reason I kept caring about you, and then when I tell you how worried I am, you throw it back in my face with some stupid joke. I thought I knew you, but I never thought you could be cruel.”

That, more than anything else, hurts. That makes Shayne falter, makes the hole in his chest expand so far he thinks he might collapse. Time has frozen and Shayne is the focal point. He knows that he was an asshole; he knows that he was selfish. But to know that he’s hurt someone that he cares about that deeply… He feels himself begin to crumble.

“You were wrong, by the way.” Shayne looks up. Damien is standing on the other side of the room now. His face is distinctly and chillingly calm. Shayne knows Damien - knows him as well as he knows himself. Maybe even better. He knows that, in this moment, he is devastated beyond repair, and angry beyond belief. Shayne bites his tongue so hard he tastes iron. “We didn’t grow apart. I never stopped being your best friend. I still love you. Just not in a way that I thought mattered.”

And then he leaves.

Shayne stays there and contemplates that, too. Until he leaves work, drags himself through his apartment, and goes to bed. And maybe forever after that.

--

That conversation lingers with Shayne well into the next morning. He replays it, again and again, sees every moment where he went wrong and then some. And he decides it’s about time that he fixed it. When he wakes up, Shayne decides to forget that there’s a loop. He goes about the day with the goal he should have had in the first place - setting things right with his best friend.

It hurts. It hurts to be near Damien, to be with him but to want more. It hurts worse than any heartbreak he’s ever felt. But what hurts even more than that - what really tears him apart inside - is the idea that he hurt Damien. When Shayne pushed him away, he only thought about how he was hurting himself. Damien was moving on; Damien had different friends and different things to do. He had a different life. But really, Shayne was giving up before he’d even tried, and that wasn’t fair. Not to either of them. No matter how badly it hurt.

If Shayne wants Damien back, if he wants that simplicity he's chasing, all he has to do is ask for it. Damien's made that perfectly clear. So here he goes. Asking.

He leaves his house earlier than normal and drives to a nearby cafe. He grabs a coffee for himself and orders Damien’s favorite tea. Hell, he even grabs a coffee for Noah, because the loop will just reset and his wallet will forgive him anyway.

He pulls up into his regular parking spot and, for the first time in a long time, goes in through the front door. Noah jumps out at him from behind the car, and Shayne just holds out one of the cups in his hands. "Hey, man. Coffee?"

The wolf mask stares at him. "Whoa, you're, like, unscareable." But Noah takes the mask off and takes the coffee, following him inside to the morning meeting anyway.

Shayne joins Damien at his table and sits confidently in the seat next to his, sliding the tea across the table towards him. “Morning,” he says.

Damien looks suspicious, but takes it, lifting the lid to see what’s inside. After he sees it, he smiles. It’s small; tinged with confusion. But still, it’s something. Shayne can’t help but smile, too. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks, and Shayne shrugs.

“Thought of you,” he says, and Damien’s grin brightens.

They go through the morning meeting much better than in any other loop, and even better than in the days, weeks, and months before the loop. They’re chatting and joking under their breaths. It feels good. It feels like the syncopation he’s used to, where Damien knows his every move, every word before he even knows it himself. Shayne feels himself fall a little bit in love with the feeling.

Noah’s on his phone through most of it, as usual, but even he seems more comfortable. He laughs at some of Shayne’s jokes and smiles between the two of them. He seems more at ease than ever, and Shayne’s beginning to wonder why he hasn’t been doing this the whole time.

Courtney had said it, what seems like a lifetime ago now: You guys are Shayne-and-Damien. You’ll work it out. He doesn’t care how many iterations of this day he has to live through - if anything comes out of this, it has to be him and Damien. It has to be. It’s always been the two of them.

--

When lunch rolls around, Shayne heads over to Damien’s station. “Hey,” he says, and Damien looks up. His expression is guarded, but curious. “Want to go to lunch?” There’s a pause, and then he tacks on: “My treat.”

Damien considers for a moment, glances at the cup Shayne had brought him this morning still perched on the edge of his desk, and smiles. “Yeah, okay,” he says.

They go to some shitty diner, order greasy food, and laugh like no time’s passed at all. Damien makes some stupid joke about the way the napkins are folded or something, and Shayne loses it. Somewhere from the front seat of Shayne’s car to the neon lights of the diner, the ice breaks, and Shayne has his best friend back again. It feels like he can finally breathe. 

After a while, their laughter subsides, and Shayne watches Damien pick at his food. Damien’s still smiling, like this joy is a feeling he can’t shake. Though he doesn’t want to break this moment, eventually, Shayne says gently, “Hey, can I tell you something?”

Damien’s head snaps up. The ghost of his smile still lingers at the corners of his mouth, but he raises an eyebrow too, curious. “Yeah, of course,” he says, and Shayne believes him. So he takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.” Damien blinks, thrown off, but Shayne keeps going, because he has the distinct feeling that he either has to say something now or never. He cannot lose momentum, or he’ll lose this moment forever. “I’ve been acting like an asshole, pushing you away - and I’m going through a rough time right now, but that’s no excuse. It just felt… like you were moving forward where I couldn’t follow. Like I was stuck standing still and you were moving on. You’re my best friend, and I should have told you what was going on with me. So, I know it’s late and it’s kinda lame, but I’m sorry. Really.”

Damien lets him ramble and, more importantly, he listens. When Shayne is done, he reaches across the table and puts a hand on his wrist, softly giving it a squeeze. Shayne feels the gentle touch reverberate through his body, quietly willing his cheeks not to heat up. Even if they do, it doesn’t matter. He just let himself get close again - he can’t run away now. He’s here to stay. Living without Damien feels much worse than the ache he feels for him.

“I appreciate it,” Damien says sincerely. He lingers for a moment, then leans back, pulls his hand back to his own side of the booth. Then, he adds: “I don’t think there’s anywhere I’d go without you. I think that… maybe I was next to you the whole time. You just didn’t see me there.”

The weight of that hits Shayne in full force; that Damien was waiting for him, until he was ready to move with him. Maybe the world never stopped on its axis. Maybe Shayne was never frozen in time. Maybe he was resting, and Damien was waiting for him, holding his hand out and waiting for Shayne to take it.

Damien smiles. “I missed you,” he says, and Shayne can’t help but smile back.

“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.” More than Damien could possibly know.

--

He doesn’t say anything about the loop - not that day. He just takes the day as it is and lets himself enjoy it. He lets himself be, for the first time in a long time. He hasn’t felt this way since that day at the inn - peaceful.

When he wakes up the next morning, he does the same thing all over again - an early drive to the cafe, meeting Damien in the morning, and inviting him to lunch. He apologizes, too, and he still means it, and he thinks he’ll mean it forever, even if the loop ends and even if it never does. Then, when they get into the car to head back to the office, Shayne turns to Damien again. “Can I tell you something else?”

Damien clicks his tongue. “I don’t know, dog, we’ve already had one overly emotional conversation today. Can your lil’ pea-brain even handle a second one?” Shayne gives him a flat look and Damien grins. “I’m just messin’. What’s up?”

Shayne’s hands hover over the steering wheel as he steels himself. “I need you not to freak out.”

“I will not freak out,” Damien assures.

“Or laugh,” Shayne adds.

“I will not laugh.” Damien pauses for a moment. “Unless it’s funny. Then I might laugh.”

“And I’m not joking about this, okay? I’m serious.”

“Hey,” Damien says, and it’s soft, and Shayne turns to look at him. He smiles, soft, sincere, and kind. Shayne finds himself staring at his mouth for just a moment too long. “I promise. Whatever you have to say, I’m listening.”

Again, Shayne believes him. Because it’s Damien. Of course he’s listening. So he takes a deep breath and says, “Okay. So, I’m stuck in a time loop.”

Damien blinks. “Y… huh?”

“Yeah, that’s what you said the first time. Look, I promise, I’m not kidding - I’ve been living the same day, Halloween, over and over again, for…” He trails off, looking down. He tries to count the days and comes up blank sometime after he went to the bar. “Fuck, I don’t know how long anymore. Three weeks? Maybe four?” He shakes himself as if the uncertainty and fear will roll off of him. They don’t, of course. He is left with a spike of anxiety in his chest at the unknown number of days he’s spent trapped. He feels his heart rate pick up, his pulse nearly jumping out of his skin, his breath too hard and too fast. “I lost count… I--”

Suddenly, Damien grabs his hand off of the steering wheel and holds it close to his heart. Shayne can barely hear him - it’s as if he’s yelling at him from underwater. But he’s pretty sure he asks Shayne to breathe with him, and because it’s Damien, he does. He tries to follow the steady rise and fall of his chest, listening to Damien’s soft murmurs as he talks him through it: “Good, Shayne, you’re doing so good. It’s okay, I’m with you, man, I’m here with you. Deep breaths, come on, you’ve got it.”

Eventually, Shayne calms down; his heartbeat evens out, and he takes a long, ragged breath. When he looks over, Damien is looking at him with concern. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“Nothing to apologize for,” Damien says. It’s quick and quiet.

There’s a balloon between the two of them, taking up all the air in the car. At any moment, it might pop. If Shayne pushes Damien away, if Damien chooses not to believe him. But Shayne just says, “I didn’t realize how fucking scared I was.”

And Damien just says, “Start from the beginning.” He squeezes Shayne’s hand where it’s still pressed against the plain of his chest. Shayne feels his heart beneath his ribcage, warm and steady. Shayne commits the feeling to memory. “I’m with you. Tell me everything.”

Because it’s Damien, he does.

--

By the time they arrive back at the Smosh office, he’s told Damien everything. Well, mostly everything; he cuts around the more embarrassing or less relevant loops. But he tells him about how wrong the first day went, how he kept trying to fix things, and how they fought. How Shayne was afraid to lose him. Damien listens, nodding along, and asking questions when he needs to. To his credit, he does seem to be taking Shayne pretty seriously. Shayne thanks God their roles weren’t reversed, because he has no idea how he’d react.

When Shayne finally pulls back into his parking spot, Damien says, “Alright. How much time do we have before your shoot with Spencer?”

Shayne looks at his watch. “About an hour,” he says, and Damien nods.

“Cool. We’re gonna need all of it.”

At the end of the hour, Damien has every aspect of the time loop spread out in the conference room. He goes over every version of reality that Shayne has experienced and then some. There are itemized lists and mind maps and other organizational tools Shayne’s never even heard of. He even goes over some angles that Shayne hadn’t considered.

“So, time loops originated in 1965 in a Japanese novel,” Damien explains.

Shayne is just watching him from across the table. His face is excited and expressive, the way it always is when he’s passionate about something. Shayne realizes just how much he missed moments like this. His sweet smile, his bright eyes. His love for him fills up all the air in his chest; he’s lucky he can still breathe.

“The book is called The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - I’ve never read it, but I’ve heard of it, you know. Anyway, the main girl relives a day in her life and presents her friend’s deaths - which, unless you’re not telling me something and I don’t make it out of this, I don’t think applies to you. But she also meets a time traveler who was the reason she had this power, and they fall in love. Notice anyone acting super weird recently?”

Shayne frowns. “Other than Noah, every single day? No. But I’m pretty sure that’s just because he’s Noah.”

Damien laughs at that. “Fair enough,” he says. “Okay, so not that. Well, in most iterations of the time loop story, people are sent back to fix their regrets - to save their friend, or stop an accident, or whatever. You’ve been going around fixing things left and right, but this isn’t about Angela’s knocking over a stack of cards or how Peter abuses the coffee machine. This is about you.” He looks up at Shayne now and levels him with a curious stare. “So what do you regret most about that day?”

Losing you. The thought is unwanted and unbidden; it comes as easily as he tries to force it away. He remembers thinking that his and Damien’s relationship was over. That his best friend was gone, all because he couldn’t look at him without thinking about touching him, kissing him, loving him. The guilt sits on his shoulders, as if he is Atlas and world itself asks him if he tires of holding it. He regrets every unkind word he said, and even further, every word he didn’t say. He regrets hurting Damien. He regrets missing him. Most of all, and most unfortunately, he regrets not knowing.

But he doesn’t say any of that. “No idea,” he says instead.

Damien hums. “Well, maybe not that either, then.” And then he goes back to typing away on his computer.

Shayne watches him for another moment, and then says, “Thanks, by the way.” Damien looks up, surprised, but Shayne just keeps going: “For helping me out. And believing me. If I was you, I would probably think I was fucking crazy.”

There’s a moment of silence where Damien considers this. He looks down at the laptop, over at the stack of papers, and then back up at Shayne. “To me, it doesn’t really matter if I believe it or not,” he says finally. “It’s you. You clearly believe it, and you asked for my help. I’ll always be there when you ask me to be.”

They let that hang in the air for a moment. Shayne feels the air buzz with electricity as they do; Damien’s eyes are locked on his, soft, and kind, and the sweetest shade of green that Shayne has ever seen. He feels his heart pounding in his chest, knocking heavily against his ribcage.

It’s you. For Damien, it was that easy. Shayne knows exactly what he means.

The timer on Shayne’s phone goes off.

Damien breaks eye contact first, looks at where it’s lying on the table. “Fuck. Out of time.” He looks up at Shayne and says, “If you want, I can come over tonight and we can keep working on this.”

For a moment, Shayne wants to say yes. It’s selfish, he knows, but it’s felt so good having Damien’s attention on him like this, and he wants it to stay. But he knows better; he knows Damien has plans to get to, has a life outside of Shayne. “No, it’s okay. Go have fun with your friends,” he says.

“Are you sure?” Damien asks. He’s frowning. He almost looks like he wants something - Shayne’s just not quite sure what that is.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll just… find you and tell you tomorrow.” He gives Damien his most reassuring smile. “I did it once. I can do it again.”

That, at least, makes Damien smile. “Okay,” he says softly. They gather their stuff and head for the door. Damien hands over his stack of papers and reaches out to squeeze Shayne’s shoulder. He feels the heat go right through him. “Bye, Shayne. Good luck.”

Shayne watches him go for much longer than he has any right to; until he disappears into the crowd of their coworkers, and then for a little while after that, too. He feels that ache again - to chase after him. But he stays rooted to the spot.

--

Day after day, for nearly another week, Shayne repeats the whole process. Each day, he fills Damien in on what they did yesterday, and each day, Damien comes up with a new theory. Shayne’s favorite pitches are that he’s a child of Chronos and that he has to replay the entirety of Majora’s Mask in order to reset the loop. Of course, neither theory is right nor very serious in the first place, but Shayne still loves that Damien's thinking about it, anyway.

Sure, it’s tedious; it’s still driving him half-crazy, living the same day, doing the same things. But he’s with Damien, so it’s not so bad. Every day, Damien does or says something new, and Shayne lives for it. Every moment is one that he gets he gets to keep, and he does, close to his chest. Of course he falls harder. He can’t help it. Damien is Damien, and Shayne is Shayne. He’s fairly certain he’ll never stop falling in love with him.

Eventually, Shayne begins texting Spencer to ask him to do the video with Tommy instead, so that he and Damien have more time to themselves. Spencer does, no questions asked, because Spencer is just that kind of guy. At that point, they’re in the conference room for hours at a time, solving nothing and laughing at everything. Shayne doesn’t even find it in himself to mind.

It’s one of those days. They’re sitting on the small couch, having long since moved there over the course of the past few days. They’ve given up on serious research; now, Damien is just making pitches to make Shayne laugh, and it’s working. “Hmm,” Damien says, pretending to sincerely think through some theories. “Did you ever consider that you’ve been reincarnated as Yamcha?”

Shayne snorts. “Believe it or not, you made that joke yesterday.”

Damien’s face creases into a frown. “Aw, man, really?”

“Yeah,” he says. “And I didn’t get the reference, so you had to explain it to me. You have a weirdly expansive knowledge of Dragon Ball considering you’ve never read it, by the way.”

Somehow, Damien is affronted by that. “Excuse you! I actually--”

“Learned through Ify and a bunch of YouTube essays, I know,” Shayne says. “Still weird, man.”

For a while, Damien just looks at him. His head is tilted, and his eyes are almost curious; it’s like he’s examining him. Eventually, he says, “Shayne, can I ask you something?”

“Considering you’ve spent the past week listening to me talk about time loops, you can ask whatever you want,” he says.

Damien nods. He pauses, as if the words are hard to get out, but Shayne just waits patiently. They have all the time in the world. Well, at least until midnight. “Uh… why me?”

Shayne just blinks. “Huh?”

“I’m just wondering, like…” He shifts in his seat. He looks like he’s made himself uncomfortable with the question; like he’s unsure whether he crossed a line, either for himself, for Shayne, or for both of them. “Why do you keep seeking me out? How am I gonna help you in a way that, say, Spencer can’t? He loves sci-fi stuff. Or Ian? Or Courtney?”

Shayne considers this for a moment. He decides his best course of action is what he should have been doing all along - honesty. “Because you’re my best friend,” he says simply. “You’re the only person I trust this much. And I know I’ve made the right decision, because every day, you try to help me. You don’t ask me to prove it, you don’t tell me that I’m crazy. You just roll with it, because you’re… you. You’re the smartest person I know. The best person I know. Who the fuck else would I go to?”

He’s not even sure that he meant to say all that. That became a little too close to the actual truth; to the reason he pushed Damien away in the first place. But it’s out there now, and much to Shayne’s surprise, Damien doesn’t look shocked or overwhelmed or afraid. He looks awestruck; like Shayne had just said something he’d never expected to hear. To Shayne, those things were just universal truths.

Eventually, after a long moment of silence, Damien speaks up: “So I help you every single time, huh?”

Shayne’s a little thrown off now, but still, he nods. “Every time,” he confirms. “I find you, I tell you what’s happening, and you help me. Every single time.”

Damien licks his lips, and Shayne can't help but follow the movement. It's quick and soft and distracting. He notices, suddenly, how close they are on this couch; how he could just reach out and touch Damien at any moment. Shayne is so distracted by all of this that he almost misses what Damien says next. "Well, in any other loop, did I do this?" he asks.

And then Damien is kissing him.

It's awkward - their noses bump together strangely, Shayne doesn't brace himself and ends up leaning back, and Damien’s stubble scratches against his skin. Still, it’s not unpleasant. But he won’t lie - he’s thought about this a million times, and it’s never been quite like this.

After a moment, Damien pulls back, uncertain and small. “Sorry,” he says, “I--”

Shayne’s never really been that great of a listener. He puts his hands on either side of Damien’s face and tries again.

This is it. Damien sighs and brings his hands up to Shayne’s waist, and Shayne takes it as hopeful encouragement. He leans further into Damien and kisses him fervently as if this is the first and last time. Who knows, it might be - he might wake up tomorrow and this will never have happened. He might live this day a million times more, and never have this moment again.

But this? This might be enough. He could live through days, years, or infinities, but he will have this moment to hold onto. If the days drag by, if he feels like he is living through hell, he will come home to moonlight, quiet, and this.

Shayne continues to kiss him, and Damien allows himself to be kissed. Shayne’s not sure why Damien kissed him - whether Shayne had just become too pathetic for Damien to bear, or if he thought this might be the way to break the curse, like some kind of fucked up fairytale. And Shayne knows how selfish he is for taking it, for disregarding how Damien might feel in this moment, but he cannot bring himself to care. Not when Damien tastes like iced tea from the diner, not when the hole in Shayne’s chest seems to shrink until it’s nearly gone.

The back and forth is easy, just like anything between the two of them. Shayne takes as much as he gives, even when he feels like he might run out of breath. When one pulls away, the other follows; it’s magnetic. It’s electric. It’s everything that Shayne thought it would be and more. They are so wrapped up in each other that they don’t even hear it when the door clicks open.

“Oh!”

They both look up. Arasha is standing at the door, her hand still on the handle, her eyes wide as a deer in headlights. They all freeze; Shayne is still practically in Damien’s lap and Damien still has his hands tight around Shayne’s waist. Arasha’s eyes flit all around them, avoiding eye contact at all costs. “I just… uh…” She hooks a thumb over her shoulder towards the bullpen. “Sorry, Damien, Alex is looking for you.”

They still haven’t moved. Damien just nods. “Right. Well, I’ll be out in a bit.”

She doesn’t move, either. Shayne wants to bury his head in Damien’s shoulder and die of embarrassment. “Uh, look, I really don’t wanna interrupt whatever I just walked in on, but they said it was an emergency, so…”

Damien groans and drops his head back. “Alright, alright,” he grumbles. Shayne shifts back and Damien disentangles himself, standing and turning back to Shayne. He puts a hand on his shoulder, staring at him intently. It takes everything in Shayne not to look away. “We’ll talk about this when I get back, okay?”

Shayne just nods. Damien follows Arasha out, letting the door close behind them, and Shayne is alone again. He sighs and drops his head onto the back of the couch, closing his eyes. He has no idea what he’s gonna say when Damien gets back - it’ll probably be awkward, and they won’t know what to do. But at least they’ll do whatever it is together.

Or maybe, some small traitorous part of his mind whispers as he begins to drift. Maybe you'll pretend it didn't happen at all.

Maybe it's easier that way.

--

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried--

You've got to be fucking kidding.

Shayne doesn’t like to cry. In fact, he can’t even remember the last time he cried; maybe at a sad movie or something. But he usually doesn’t cry about anything real. If it’s real, he tries to deal with it and move on. But this morning, with a heavy feeling that resembles unimaginable grief, he finds that he cannot help it. It’s hopeless. It’s painful. It’s cathartic, in a way. His chest rises and falls rapidly; he rasps as saltwater tears drip down his cheeks and splatter on his pillowcase. It almost feels like he's letting it all roll off of him. Of course, he isn't; of course, he can't.

He's been through this day dozens of times, and nothing had ever felt right quite like that had. He thought, if anyone had the power to put him out of his misery, it was Damien. Maybe that was naive. But he was certain that if he could have that, that one moment with Damien, that might be enough. Sure, maybe it was just because Damien felt bad for him, or just because he felt like he was running out of ideas. Maybe it was a desperate solution to an unsolvable problem. But he must've dozed off on the couch, and the day had never reset in the fucking middle before, so now he's more lost and confused than ever.

Once again, he texts Ian and calls in sick for the day, which Ian lets him do, no questions asked. He's a good friend like that. He texts the group chat and lets them know, too. They all text him well wishes, friendly and concerned. Noah and Courtney both text him separately and threaten to drop by, but he assures them it's fine and begs them off. And Damien, of course, texts him too.

He takes a lot longer to respond to that one. He drafts up a hundred messages but deletes every one. He doesn’t know what to say to him now, or maybe ever again. It was like he’d thought yesterday - it’s easier to pretend this never happened. Not just for the time loop. That sucks, sure; maybe he’s back to the drawing board. Damien will never know what happened between them, and Shayne will have to hold it close to his chest for the rest of their lives. But it’s easier because they’re supposed to be friends. It’s one thing to fall in love with your best friend. It’s another thing to kiss him. 

He just got Damien back. The idea of losing him to some stupid kiss is more painful than he could possibly say. If he pretends it never happened, if he pretends Damien hadn’t kissed him - out of pity or desperation or whatever it was - maybe he won’t have to lose him again.

In the end, Shayne doesn’t answer. Instead, he rolls over and goes back to sleep. And, for the first time in months, he dreams.

His subconsciousness, of course, shows him Damien; that doesn’t surprise him. A slideshow of the past five, or eight, or ten loops. Every moment that Damien put aside for him, every moment he spent piecing Shayne back together. He sees every time that Damien looked at him and, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t look away.

Damien holding Shayne’s hand over his heart. Damien telling him that it didn’t matter if it was true, it mattered if it was Shayne. Damien asking if Shayne was okay, telling him he’d never go anywhere without him. Damien telling him that, even when Shayne was at his worst, he still cared. Shayne had been there, for all of this, the first time. But Damien was right - he was looking right at him, but he didn’t really see.

He sees yesterday from every angle. He sees Damien’s hands on his waist, hears the soft sigh that Shayne swallows. And he thinks that maybe he’s an idiot. Maybe Damien didn’t kiss him because Shayne was alone, scared, or pathetic. He didn’t kiss him because he thought it might fix things, or because Shayne wanted him to. He kissed him because he loved him. He loves him, and he’s been telling him this whole time, and Shayne hasn’t been listening. And he hasn’t been telling Damien that he feels the same.

Shayne wakes up again, gasping for air. He glances over at his phone, as it plays a tune he knows by heart:

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

He is an idiot. And he’s going to make this right.

--

He starts at the cafe. The usual barista takes his order; she’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Shayne’s gotten to know her pretty well over the past few loops, even if she doesn’t remember. Their idle small talk has kept him as anchored most mornings as much as anything else. Her name is Britney; she’s a college student, she’s studying botany, and she likes that brand of tea, too, no one’s ever ordered it from her before - she hopes he enjoys it. He lets Britney go through the same spiel as always, and then leaves a ten-dollar tip.

He drives to the office, parks in his normal spot, and gets out of the car, bracing himself to face Noah. When he does jump out, Shayne fakes being startled, just a little. Noah laughs and reaches for his mask. “Aw, man, I got you good,” he says. He points to the coffee in Shayne’s hands. “If only I’d been a little scarier, your coffee might be parking lot decor.”

“You’d better hope not,” Shayne says. He dislodges one of the cups and hands it over. Noah looks at it, confused, turning it over as if there might be an explanation written on the back. “One of them’s for you.”

Noah raises his eyebrows and holds it up as if Shayne might take it back. “What? What the hell for?”

Shayne smiles. He thinks back to being on his couch, smoking and laughing and feeling good for the first time in ages. “For being a good friend,” he says.

Noah blinks as he looks from Shayne to the drink to the wolf mask. “Well, now I just feel like an asshole,” he says. Shayne just laughs and claps him on the shoulder.

“Happy Halloween, man.”

With that, they enter the office together. Shayne leads them across the room to Damien’s table and sits, sliding the tea over to him. Damien looks up, just as surprised as always, and picks up the tea to examine it. “Morning,” Shayne says. “Cool if we sit?”

“Yeah,” Damien says, distracted. “Did you - did you get me tea?”

Shayne just hums. “Don’t ask,” Noah says. “He’s in a weirdly good mood.”

The morning meeting goes as well as always. The three of them are in high spirits, and it shows. At one point, Zoe actually texts him to ask them to quiet down, which, of course, only makes Shayne laugh. She texts him a total of three times before the meeting is over. After all is said and done, Noah clears out, off to go find Keith, and Shayne grabs Damien’s shoulder. Damien blinks, and looks down at his hand. If Shayne looks closely, he can see pink in the apples of his cheeks. Fuck, how had he not noticed?

“Hey,” he says, “Can you and I do lunch today?”

Damien looks up at that, confused. He looks at Shayne like he’s grown another head. “Uh, sure,” he says eventually. “What’s the special occasion?”

Shayne shrugs. “I miss you,” he says, because it’s true.

That makes Damien smile. He's so beautiful. Shayne aches with it. “I miss you, too.”

Shayne answers all his emails. He helps Kimmy in the kitchen. He makes coffee for Peter. He grabs Kiana a hot glue gun. He stops in at the art department and breaks a glitter bomb over a mannequin head. He lets Angela win Board AF, again, and manages to catch all of the cards before they fall. He reads all the Reddit stories like he’s never read them before. He even walks with Ian to grab his coffee, just because.

“Dude, you’re in a good mood today,” Ian says. Shayne watches as Kiana stacks the last toothpick on her tower. He gives her a grin and a thumbs-up as they go.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Shayne chirps.

Ian snorts. “Bullshit, but okay.” They enter the kitchen and Ian grabs a K-cup and his favorite mug off of the rack. He puts it all into place and makes the coffee with ease. Shayne revels in the sound.

They stand there in silence for a moment, and then Ian says, “I’m glad, you know.” Shayne looks up, surprised. It’s been a while since he and Ian have taken this little walk - when he got deep enough into the loop, he wasn’t in a bad mood all that often, so Ian had nothing to ask him about. But Ian has never done this - never said this. It's a change in pattern, a total anomaly. So Shayne just waits. “That you’re feeling better. You’ve been down the past couple of months, so it’s good to see you have, like, a good day.”

Shayne feels the absurd urge to give him a hug. But Ian is Ian, so he settles for a pat on the shoulder instead. “That’s good to hear coming from the king of downers.” Ian rolls his eyes but still smiles. “Hey. Thanks, man. You’re a good friend, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Ian says, picking up his mug.

For lunch, Shayne orders from that shitty diner. Damien’s wrapping up a shoot, so Shayne takes the time to snag the conference room and set it up for lunch. It’s not anything crazy - not a candlelit dinner or whatever. But he manages to grab a couple of plates and some glasses from the kitchen, set down napkins for coasters. It’s not a lot, but by the time he sets out the burgers and fries and iced tea, it looks semi-decent. When he’s done, he heads back to the bullpen to find Damien sitting at his desk. He looks up when Shayne approaches, taking off his headphones. He looks cautious but optimistic. “Ready for lunch?” Shayne asks.

“Yeah, man, let’s go.”

When Shayne leads him towards the conference room, though, Damien frowns. “I thought we were going to lunch. Are you trapping me in a pitch meeting? Is this an intervention for how many zippers I’ve got on my pants?”

He’s nervous - Shayne can tell. But Shayne just ushers him inside, saying, “Relax, I just ordered in.” He pauses at the door and, before thinking better of it, clicks the lock shut. He sends a mental apology out to Arasha and Alex.

Damien blinks, confused, at the tiny spread on the conference table. Shayne doesn’t blame him; this is something he hasn’t tried in any of the loops, so he’s kind of flying by the seat of his pants. “Shayne, if you told me you were ordering, I would have sent you cash.”

Shayne waves him off. “I wanted to do something nice for you. Come on, I got your favorite.”

They sit down, and things are nice. Comfortable, in a way that they have been for a small set of infinities, but still in a way they have not been for ages. They eat and make idle conversation; they talk about their days and their plans for the evening. They laugh, so hard that Shayne thinks his ribs might bruise. At some point, they move to the couch, sitting close for no real reason other than closeness. That is when Shayne takes a deep breath and takes a leap.

“Hey,” he says. Damien raises an eyebrow. “Can I tell you something?”

He watches as Damien’s face flits to concern. “Yeah, ‘course, anything,” he assures. And Damien means it; he always means it. Shayne knows that. But it’s still nice to hear.

So he begins: “I’m sorry. Like really, really, sorry. I’ve been an asshole; I’ve pushed you away, pushed everyone away, without saying why. I’ve been in a shitty place, but that’s not a good excuse - you would’ve been there for me, and I didn’t give you a chance to be. So I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

Damien’s face goes soft, every time it does when Shayne says something like this. Shayne could spend forever telling Damien how sorry he is - fuck, he just might. But he’ll never stop meaning it, and he’ll never stop treasuring the look on his face. “Hey, man, I really appreciate that,” he says. “Thank you.

Shayne nods. “Of course. Um… Like I said, it’s not an excuse, but over the past few months, I’ve been dealing with something, and I wanted to tell you because we’re best friends. And nothing can change that.”

“Damn straight,” Damien says, and the response is so quick that it makes Shayne’s head spin. He says it like it’s an irrefutable fact; like their friendship is something that Shayne can’t just take back. Shayne falls and falls, and just hopes that Damien will catch him.

He clears his throat, and then, finally, he begins. Once he starts, he cannot stop; the words pour out of him, an avalanche of all the truths he’s spent so long running from. They are irrevocable and irrefutable, even as he speaks them aloud for the very first time:

“I love you. Like, I’m in love with you. And I know that’s a shitty reason to be a shitty person, but I just didn’t want to ruin what you and I had. I ran away because I was too scared to say it before, but I’m not anymore. I’m not, because I’ve realized that it’s always gonna be me and you. Even when I’m being shitty and even when this is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. It’s us. It always comes back to us. And I love that. I love you. I’m gonna keep telling you, every fucking day, as long as you’ll let me. The moment you forget, I will count down the hours until I can remind you.

“I’ve lived in this loop for - Jesus, I don’t know how long, anymore. But the one thing that I’ve learned is this: I’ve spent countless days miserable without you, and I’d much rather spend the rest miserable with you. I don’t care how many more times I have to relive this day. I’ll be honored if I get to relive this one moment. And I’ll spend every next moment telling you how in love with you I really am.”

There’s a long silence between the moment Shayne stops speaking and the next. In that pause, there is an infinite number of loops within itself. Ones where Damien pushes Shayne away, ones where Shayne laughs as if he’s said a cruel joke. Ones where Damien lets him down, gently, of course, because Damien is always gentle. Ones where Shayne gets up and walks away. Ones where Damien does, too.

But instead, Damien just says, “Dude, I’m about to kiss the hell out of you.” And then he does.

They stay there for hours, a moment frozen in time. Damien whispers I love you between every kiss, and Shayne laughs into the column of his throat. As the clock keeps ticking, moving towards the day’s end, they begin a new infinity.

--

Friends break up, friends get married,

Strangers get born, strangers get buried,

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies,

But I'm right where you left me…

Shayne wakes to the bittersweet melodies of Taylor Swift, and freezes as soon as he opens his eyes. Panic sets in; his heart rate picks up, his blood freezes, and his eyes begin to well. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

But then he hears someone groan from behind him; he feels arms around his shoulders get a little tighter, feels a nose press to the base of his neck. “What the hell kind of music is this?” Damien grumbles. He’s groggy, and disoriented, and the sound of his voice sends relief flooding through Shayne’s body.

He reaches over Damien for his phone, and after he turns off his alarm, he opens up his calendar. And then he laughs.

“Damien,” he says. Damien, who’s still headfirst on Shayne’s pillows, just gives him a noncommittal hum. “It’s November 1st.”

Damien nuzzles his head further into the sheets. “That’s nice,” he says.

“That means yesterday fucking happened,” Shayne says.

At that, Damien cracks open an eye. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head or something? Did I accidentally clock you in the middle of the night and give you brain damage?” He sounds halfway between concerned and joking, waiting for Shayne to answer, but truth be told, Shayne can barely hear him. He’s too busy thinking about how it’s all over, about how he gets to keep it now.

(As much as he wanted to stay there forever, kissing Damien on their conference room couch, Shayne knew they had to leave at some point. Eventually, the handle shook as Arasha attempted to open the door, and Damien sighed. “I am suddenly realizing that we’re at work and probably have, like, jobs to do.”

Shayne just kissed him again. “Bummer.”

“Yeah,” Damien agreed, chasing him as he pulled away. “Fucking bummer.”

Damien managed to convince him to get up and go their separate ways for shoots. When they got to the door, Damien said, “I’m coming over tonight.”

Shayne thought about that for a moment. Caught between wanting nothing more than that and wanting Damien to enjoy his Halloween the way that he’d intended. He settled on a non-answer: “You have plans, don’t you? You don’t have to change them for me.”

“Wasn’t a question,” Damien quipped, and then kissed him again, just because he could.

Shayne’s shoot with Spencer went great; better than ever, even. Of course, Shayne couldn’t help but be in a good mood, so he supposed it was only natural. Before they started, though, Kiana did have to reach over to fix his hair. “Jesus, Shayne, you look like you got fucked on the office couch.” After a moment, in which he said nothing, Spencer and Kiana exchanged a glance.

“Oh my God,” Spencer said. “Did you actually get fucked on the office couch?”

Shayne swatted Kiana’s hands away, knowing there was nothing he could do to hide how red his cheeks went. “No. Shut up. Let’s just do this, alright?” They mostly agreed and left him alone. Mostly. Though Spencer did make kissy noises in between shots, and Shayne found the incredible patience he needed not to murder him for it.

Finally, after they finished up, Spencer and Kiana left. Shayne stayed, though, and waited until he heard a familiar knock on the door. “Hey, man,” Courtney said from the doorway. “Mind if I sit?”

They promptly invited him out with the cast, and Shayne grinned. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Sounds like fun.”

Her eyebrows raised to the top of her head. “That felt way too easy. Where’s the lame party pooper I know and love?”

Shayne just laughed, which seemed to surprise Courtney even more. He reached out and lightly knocked her shoulder with his fist. “Hey, thanks for inviting me. I know you’re just looking out for me and I really appreciate it.”

Courtney smiled. “Of course,” they said. “What are friends for?”

After that, Shayne went home, ate some dinner, and got dressed. They had planned for Damien to go out with his friends for a little bit before coming to Shayne’s anyway, so he texted him and updated him on the change of plans. Damien said it sounded good; Courtney had invited him to go with, but he’d been busy, so he could just meet him there and then they could leave together. Shayne wondered for a moment how that would look to their coworkers, and then decided he didn’t really care.

Shayne went to the bar again and had just as much fun as the first time. He sang karaoke with Amanda, played darts with Angela and Olivia, chatted with Noah and Tommy and everyone else. He had a great time. His love for his friends filled his chest with warmth, golden, like sunlight. The black hole had finished its collapse; it was time for the birth of a star.

Eventually, though, Tommy stopped midsentence and looked somewhere over Shayne’s shoulder. “Oh, hello,” he said, and Shayne turned to look, too. Damien was walking up behind them, a smile on his face as he approached. He was wearing his Halloween costume, which, in all of the loops, Shayne had failed to see - a full army suit, epaulets and medals included. Shayne was fairly certain he was dressed as a character he had voiced, but whatever he was, Damien looked stunning. His shoulders were broad, his hair was combed nicely, and he walked with a confidence he so rarely had. Shayne tried not to let his breath catch in his throat; from the snort that Tommy let out, he failed miserably.

“Hey,” Damien said, sliding into the booth next to him. He gave him a smile just for him, then turned to Tommy. “Tommert!”

“Damien,” Tommy said. He looked deeply amused; Shayne resisted the urge to kick him under the table.

Of course, everyone was excited to see Damien, so they stayed for a while longer as he did the rounds. Even if Shayne was itching to go; even if Shayne was counting down the moments until he could touch him. They stayed until Damien himself couldn’t take it anymore. He bid them all goodbye and marched Shayne out the door.

“No offense to them,” he said, “but if I didn’t kiss you in the next ten seconds, I was going to lose my damn mind.”

Shayne laughed into the kiss. “You’re so in love with me it makes you look stupid.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Damien sighed.)

Here and now, Shayne leans in to kiss Damien. Damien, though still clearly half-asleep, meets Shayne halfway. He kisses him with a renowned enthusiasm, like he’ll never get tired of it. Shayne hopes he never does. Eventually, though, he pulls away and asks, “Okay, not that I don’t love that and want to keep doing that for, like, forever, but what the Hell is going on with you?”

Despite his protest, Shayne just kisses him again. “Halloween is over,” he says. “Halloween is finally fucking over.”

“Your hatred for Halloween might cause some serious issues in our relationship,” Damien points out, though he doesn’t sound like he means it.

Shayne pauses to think that over. “Oddly enough, I think I like Halloween better now. You would think, after I lived through it, like, a million times, I’d be sick of it. But it lead me back to you, didn’t it? So I couldn’t hate it even if I tried.”

There’s a moment of silence, as Damien blinks up at him. “Dog, I have no idea what the hell you just said,” he admits.

Shayne just laughs. “I’ll tell you later.”

Damien raises an eyebrow. “What are we gonna do now?” he asks.

“Whatever we want,” Shayne replies.

It turns out what they want is to spend the morning in bed. Shayne keeps learning Damien, inch by inch. He thinks he’ll probably never stop learning things, though. Not even after every loop, not even after every infinity. He spends the morning falling even harder and harder than ever before.

He thinks, that if every morning can be like this, he might even become a morning person again.