The Switch / Shourtney

Chapter Nine: Smashing Pumpkins

Filmed October 16th, 2017- Released October 26th

Keith, Noah, Courtney and I were sitting in the studio behind a long table, each with a pumpkin in front of each of us. We were definitely milking the Halloween season for all it was worth in our videos recently, not that any of us were complaining. I had loved pumpkin carving growing up. But, although I was excited for this video, I could feel a bit of a pit in my stomach.

Pumpkin carving had always been mine and my ex's Halloween thing. We would drive out to the farmers' market to pick out pumpkins for each other. We would make a night of it, carving scary faces into the orange vegetables and putting up other decorations. This year, obviously, we weren't, but, if I was going to carry on the tradition with anyone, I was glad for it to be the squad. And honestly, I was quite a bit more excited to be smashing the pumpkins afterwards.

We made a couple jokes about the picture we were supposed to be copying being of Ian's dick before starting the timer and picking up our carvers. Keith immediately began complaining about how difficult this task was, and Courtney and Noah were poking fun at his antics. On the other hand, I was focusing hard on my pumpkin, hardly paying attention to the rest of the group.

"Shayne is looking intense over there," Keith commented, breaking my concentration.

"Sorry I'm not being very entertaining", I apologised, still carving away at my pumpkin. It was slightly out of character for me to have my mouth closed during a video and I pushed back down all the memories of me and my ex that had been rushing through my mind to join in on the jokes with the rest of the squad. I played along with Noah's comment that I looked like dad working in a garage on a Sunday, and began creating a completely false history of the first ever Jack-o-lantern.

"I'm so sad I can't trick or treat" sighed Courtney as she readjusted her pumpkin.

"You can" I replied at the same time as Keith said "Of course, you can, what do you mean?"

"No, because then people think I'm trying to get in their bed."

"What?" All of us said at once. That wasn't really a response I was expecting.

"I just go 'knock, knock' and they're like 'Hmm what's this lady doing at my door', and I'm like 'Trick-or-treat', And they're like 'Mmm I'll give you a treat' and I'm like 'No.'" Courtney rambled, her voice at a comically high octave.

"Has that happened to you before?" I questioned, dreading the reply I knew was coming.

"Yup!" She replied nonchalantly.

"Oh my god Courtney," Keith moaned.

"What?" I said in disbelief into the camera.

"When you take kids trick-or-treating that's what happens, even if you're in a Harry Potter costume not showing any skin."

We fell into silence again, my brain spinning fast as I thought about what she had just said. It sucked that she didn't feel comfortable enough to go trick-or-treating anymore. I started quickly stabbing at my pumpkin to make Ian's beard, Courtney immediately joined in using her carver.

"Hey Stop," I say, sounding like a 10-year-old telling his siblings off. She laughed and leaned back in her chair which gave me an opening to stab her pumpkin.

"Shayne!" She screamed, wrapping her arms protectively around her pumpkin, and I laughed at her horrified expression.

With three minutes, left on the clock, I put down my carver. "Yeah, I think mine's good."

Courtney picked her pumpkin up and leaned over the table tipping it over and letting its insides fall onto the floor while making a fake barfing noise.

"That was uncalled for," I commented. "There is literally a trash can right over there." Which just made her dump the rest of it onto my lap.

"God Courtney!" I shouted, and she stabbed her carver into my pumpkin for good measure.

"I hate you so much, I hate you so much, you're psycho, you're a crazy person." I said shaking my head as she cackled at me. This girl was going to be the death of me.

We all joked about Noah's, interesting is the only way I could describe it, depiction of Ian's butt until the timer rang and Sunny went to get Ian to judge our work. Keith complained that he needed more time and we all told him to shut up.

Noah's very questionable pumpkin-Ian wiped the floor with us, earning all the ribbons, but Courtney won the well-deserved honour of final over-all winner. With the "awards ceremony" out of the way, we set up for the best part of the video, smashing the pumpkins. We made an absolute mess, destroying our pumpkins with hammers and bats. It was slightly therapeutic to be able to smash them to bits. Once we were done, we stood in front of the carnage to do the outro.

"We learned something today, no matter what your pumpkin looks like they all get smashed in the end." Courtney exclaimed.

"Uh yeah, and they're all thic." I added, gesturing to the half a pumpkin I was still holding in my hand.

"Thic spaghetti boys"

"Alright Bye!" We called at the camera.

"Cut! Good job guys", Sunny said with a thumbs-up.

We all relaxed and Courtney went to talk to Sarah about something as me Noah and Keith started to clean up.

"So you and Courtney were pretty crazy this video" Noah commented as he dropped his smashed pumpkin into the trashcan.

"You mean she was," I replied, wiping the stringy gunk off of my hands. "I was just defending myself like a normal person."

Noah shot a look at Keith who just shook his head looking amused. I was about to question them about it when I saw Courtney moving off set. I left the boys and hurried to follow after her down the hall.

"Hey!" I called to her slightly louder than intended and she flinched, before turning around to face me.

I stifled a laugh, "Sorry 'bout that, I didn't mean to scare you."

"Yeah right," She grinned, "What's up?"

"I was thinking," I started, "I'm really sorry that all that stuff happened to you when you went trick-or-treating."

"Well, it's just one of the wonderful realities of being a woman." She said, voice laced with sarcasm.

"Yeah," I looked at the ground awkwardly, "Well, it sucks. Things shouldn't be like that."

"Don't worry about it Shayne, there's not really anything we can do about it" She sighed.

"Well actually, I was thinking that there is. We should all go trick-or-treating together this year."

She started to protest but I continued, "Think about it, we can stay as a group, you can even invite Wahlid. I'd walk with you to every door and make sure no one makes any inappropriate comments."

"My hero," she smirked sarcastically.

"Just think of me as a wet blanket," I grinned. "What do you say?"

She hesitated before nodding.

"Ok yeah. I'm down."

"Awesome!" I exclaimed. "You better bring your costume A-game Miller." I added as we continued walking towards our office.

"I'm already way ahead of you Topp."

A/N: Yup, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, this one was heavily based on the pumpkin carving video on smoshpit but I just wanted to give some context for the trick or treating chapter I'm writing and I thought it would be a good way to show Noah and Keith sort of seeing their connection. Also, when I watched the video it was just so incredibly Shourtney-filled that I felt like I had to talk about it!