Starting Over / Shourtney

Chapter One: Is It All Over?

A/N: Hey guys! So, the idea for this story has been rattling around in my brain for a couple months but I wanted to finish up more of The Switch before I really dived into a new story! I actually started doing a draft of the first chapter for this fic a week before Smosh was SAVED by mythical. So, I had to change a bit of it as the cast talked about the actual time line of how the shutdown went down in more recent videos and podcasts. 

BUT - The timeline for when they knew about the shut-down is a little blurry so excuse any mistakes I make. Some of this is still guess work and creative license lol

When I heard about the Defy shut down, I was really sad and worried for what it meant for Smosh. I can only imagine what it felt like to be in that situation and I know Ian and the rest of the smosh fam worked really hard during that time to both produce new content for us and look for a new parent company. It must have been ROUGH and I'm so freaking happy it all worked out in the end! This story is a glimpse into the aftermath of what the shutdown would look like with a Shourtney twist. - here we gooooo

Friday, November 2nd, 2018.

<Courtney POV>

"What??"

I felt like the world was spinning, or like a rug had been pulled out from under my feet. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't. I must have misheard, or this must be some big practical joke. No way could this be real.

The suit on the end of the phone coughed, and repeated himself, "Well by California law, we are required to let everyone know that we're giving you a sixty-day notice. You have until January 2nd to work and then we are officially shutting down DEFY Media and all its properties."

I looked around at my friends who were all staring at the phone speaker, open mouthed. I saw Ryan, our head writer look up to the ceiling and shake his head in a mix of disbelief and resignation. I looked to my right and saw Shayne's brow furrowed, as though he couldn't quite accept what he was hearing, I didn't even know what expression I had on my face.

Without taking time to answer any questions, the DEFY rep on the phone ended the call. The click of the phone was followed by a heavy silence as we all tried to process what has just happened. It was so unbelievable. We had just been talking about how amazing our stats were over this past week in the writers meeting half an hour ago. How could it all change so quickly?

"Well..." one of our writers said, breaking the silence, "This is it guys."

The finality and acceptance in his tone is what got me, and I felt the first pang of anxiety in my chest. This wasn't just a bad dream. Our parent company was shutting down in two months and there was nothing we could do about it except wait. Ian quickly excused himself from the room, telling us that he was going to try to get some more information about the situation and told us to wait for him. So fifteen minutes later I was standing in the office surrounded by the squad, Smosh games, and many of our producers and crew members.

The room was buzzing as everyone started talking about finding new jobs and I tried to block it out and think positively but my brain was starting to realize that there was an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting otherwise. This was actually happening. Finally, Ian walked through the door, his face was a bit grim as he spoke.

"Well, communication has never been Defy's strong suit but from what I just gathered, the company will be shutting down come January."

The office buzzed as everyone started speaking at once.

"Why is this happening?"

"How can they just shut down?"

"What are we going to do?"