After the Fanfic Reading (SmoshGames fanfic)

Battle Ships

They renamed the new show when they were ironing out the details. They agreed that, while 'Ship Wars' was a great name, 'Battle Ships' seemed more appropriate. It took them a few weeks to sort everything out, but eventually the day came around to film the first episode. Wes and Joven drove over there together, and Joven was a complete bag of nerves. He was sat in the passenger seat, fidgeting constantly. Wes glanced over at him, frowning slightly.

"Josh? Everything okay, hun? You look nervous."

"I... er, um..." He couldn't look at Wes, and after taking a deep breath he blurted out, "I'mnotreadytotellpeopleaboutus," so quickly that it took Wes a moment to figure out what he'd said. When he had, he frowned.

"You're not ready to tell people about us? You mean... the fans? You're not ready for them to know yet?" Joven nodded, and Wes smiled, shaking his head.

"We don't have to tell them yet. Just because we're on the same team for Battle Ships-"

"But how else do we explain putting us two together? Iancorn and Marhinki make sense, 'cause those are really popular ships, but how do we explain why it's you and me and not me and Anthony? And don't suggest we mention my song, we are not drawing attention to that!"

Wes frowned thoughtfully. "We'll think of something. Maybe we'll show Anthony and Flitz picking each other? That would draw attention away from us. Don't worry about it, hun. It'll be fine." He briefly placed a hand a Joven's knee while they stopped at traffic lights. Joven smiled at him weakly. Wes checked the traffic quickly, then reached across and kissed Joven. It was brief and sweet, and it made Joven feel much better.

- - - -

When they entered the game room, the only people still absent were Ian and Lasercorn. Anthony greeted them cheerily.

"Hey guys! You ready to battle it out?" He grinned at them, and they smiled back. Wes was about to bring up Joven's concerns about announcing the team choices, but Mari cut him off.

"So we've been talking about how we're gonna explain the team choices, 'cause obviously neither you guys or Iancorn are ready to be public about this, so we've come up with two options."

"Option one is we pretend to pick names out of a hat, so like we'll have eight bits of paper in a hat, and someone will pull out two at a time and read off names to make it seem like we ended up this way randomly." Sohinki had taken over the explanation, and now it passed to Flitz.

"Option two, we say that Iancorn and Marhinki are so popular that we decided to start with them, and then we let Anthony choose who he wants to partner, and he says..."

" 'Well since we're kicking it off with a dancing game, I'm gonna have to go with Flitz. He's the best dancer left.' So what d'you reckon? Which way sounds better to you guys?"

They looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to the group and saying as one, "Option one." Then Joven continued, "Option two is pretty much what we discussed in the car, but making it all seem like chance... I think it'll work more effectively."

"Yeah, and Ian and Lasercorn will probably like that one better too, it doesn't make it seem like they chose each other. Although they never seemed to mind joking around about their relationship, so it might not make that much difference to them."

"You guys were discussing this in the car?" Sohinki looked surprised.

"Well, yeah, since your attempt to out us failed, I got all jittery about the concept of possibly making it public with this video." Joven still hadn't completely forgiven Sohinki for posting the song. Sohinki winced slightly at the venom in Joven's voice during his accusation.