Milkshake Hearts: The Oneshots

Two Months in London (Part Two)

Shayne wakes somewhere between three and four in the morning to the loud buzzing of his phone just beside his pillow. He isn't annoyed – he'd left it there on purpose, and he scrambles to grab the phone and blinks heavily as his eyes rapidly wake up and focus on the screen.

Just as he had hoped, it's a text from Courtney, and he opens the message to be immediately greeted by a selfie of her grinning lightly, twisted around in her first-class seat to show the tarmac of the airport out the window.

"Promised I'd text you as soon as I could – literally just landed in London a few minutes ago. I slept through most of the flight, I hope you've slept tonight too baby. Love you xx" the text below the picture reads, and he lets it seep warmly into his heart and his sleep-laden mind as he smiles softly.

"I slept okay (with the help of two cats and one Courtney sweater). Glad you're there safely. Love you too xx" he replies, quickly, before shifting to stare up at the ceiling. He knows he'll get a smattering of texts from Courtney through his morning (and her middle-of-the-day) after she gets through immigration and to her hotel-apartment that will be her home for the next two months, but he also knows it'll be a while now.

Shayne had honestly put a lot of thought into exactly how he was going to manage two months with the person that defined a significant portion of his time and his mood halfway across the world, and he'd settled heavily on the idea of routine. The gym was the easiest part of that routine, and to his relief, his gym is in fact open 24 hours most days. It means he can push himself out of bed after replying to Courtney's text, changing into his gym gear and heading out of the house to push himself through one of the more intense workouts he would do.

He returns home after the gym, topping up the cats' food and giving them a few minutes of attention before he makes himself a protein smoothie and flicks through a chapter of a book he's been reading on-and-off for a month or so as he drinks his breakfast. He has a relatively early call time, and by the time he's finished the smoothie and cleaned up a little he has a convenient twenty minutes to finish getting ready and head off to the studio for the day.

The routine becomes his everyday, and just as he'd hoped, it helps. He goes to the gym, he goes to work, he hangs out with the cats, he reads, and every second night – quite late at night, but he can deal with that – Courtney video calls him from London. And, to his relief, it's okay. He misses her, especially in the quiet moments at home, but he knows he can keep himself busy, and she tells him all the things she's getting to do, how great her cast and set and the London studio is, and he beams with his own happiness each time.

He's always loved watching her succeed.

It helps that for the first couple of weeks she's away, Shayne doesn't actually have much time alone at home. He has early call times and late days as they pack together filming at his studio – the director wants to get ahead at the start of the year, and he's honestly not super convinced there's good reason for that and it probably feeds the uncomfortable rumbling that the studio might be wanting to move said director on, but this time he'll take it. Damien and Saige drag him to some niche gaming convention – that isn't Comicon, that was a few weeks ago – the first weekend Courtney is away, and the second, Brian and Josh are in town and he makes a point of doing a couple of hikes and getting dinner with them.

It's as it drags into his third week with Courtney approximately 5,400 miles away that Shayne starts to feel the emptiness creeping up on him. It's fine when he's at work, he swears, but every night he returns home to the quiet of their house – which is much too big for one person and two cats – it seems just a little bit more stifling. He starts hearing more and more random, creepy noises leaking in from outside as he lies awake in bed every night, grimacing as he shudders in annoyed paranoia. It's probably nothing, but still, he slowly slips into the habit of dragging one of their heavy dining chairs in front of the back door every night before he goes to sleep.