Ten Years of Anniversaries

Sixth: Iron (and Coffee)

To say the year between their fifth and sixth anniversaries had involved a lot of change would be a complete understatement. A lot of it was expected: Shayne was now working full-time on a TV show that had been picked up for at least 3 seasons as an initial run, but they'd already shot the pilot and had network interest before Smosh finished. Courtney was now firmly off-camera working exclusively in directing, at a completely different company and studio lot to his own (granted, their studios were physically down the street from each other).

Some of the other change came out of nowhere. Damien and Saige had got married with almost no notice, Shayne stepping up as Damien's best man (of course) and spending most of his free time in the six weeks between when they decided to get married and the actual wedding date on planning and making sure everything was perfect for his friend. Ian moved to Europe temporarily and kept inviting them to visit, although they were yet to find a time it worked. Shayne's parents moved back closer to LA-proper (and to the coast).

And, in a flurry that they really didn't expect, they had decided to move to a larger house themselves, fully intending to just quietly look while they waited for their current house to sell... until they found the perfect house for them not five days into their search, and someone put an offer much higher than they were expecting on their house a day later.

They'd wanted to try and move somewhere in mid to late Summer, when they'd both be in quieter periods of work, but it instead has them hurriedly packing up and moving into their new house exactly one week before their anniversary.

Much of their first week in the new house had involved adjusting to the fact that they had much more space now – even though there was only one extra bedroom, the non-bedroom areas were all much larger – and a sizeable backyard. Nutmeg had the hardest time adjusting: for the first two days, he'd almost exclusively hidden under their bed, only emerging to jump up onto said bed and curl up near Shayne's feet every night. He had begun to settle into it, though, and by their anniversary a week after the move, he takes to walking up the bed with Mocha somewhere on 6am to meow for food, successfully waking up both Shayne and Courtney.

"Could you guys not let us sleep in for our anniversary, even?" Courtney mumbles, rhetorically, prying one eye open only to find Mocha directly in front of her face, standing on Shayne's chest, "that's my husband, go get your own."

"I don't think she's claiming me that way, I think she's claiming both of us as parents. Or servants," Shayne mumbles in response a moment later, slowly shuffling around so he can gently prompt Mocha to jump off him and back off the bed. It's the signal both cats need to trot over to wait expectantly by the door, still looking up at the bed.

"I'll feed them," Courtney offers, her voice a little more awake as she slowly shuffles to sit up and slide out of the bed, "you actually wanna sleep in, baby? They should be fine after they're fed, I can come back after."

"I kinda want to take advantage of being up early and get back to unpacking the office," Shayne comments, sitting up himself as Courtney glances back at him, nodding lightly before she turns to follow the twisting, disorganised footsteps of both cats as they all move downstairs to where their food and water bowls sit in the (large, in a way Courtney is still trying to adjust to) dining room.

She has absolutely no complaints about his plan to spend the quiet early morning unpacking a bit more. They've both been at work all week, and it means a good half of their belongings are still sat inside boxes and containers strewn across the floors of rooms empty except for the bare bones of furniture – they'd concentrated on unpacking their bedroom and wardrobe, bathroom, and the kitchen, but everything else had mostly sat in waiting.

She grabs her Alexa speaker from the dining table after she serves the cats' breakfast into their bowls, wandering back upstairs to the office – between their bedroom and the two other upstairs bedrooms – and finding Shayne already sat on the floor, still in the shorts he wore to bed only with a tee thrown on too, starting to pull books out of a box.