Right Here Waiting - The Untold Story of Smosh's Favourite Bromance

Part 9 - Paradise

2022: 

David and Ian watched as the sunset shirked away from the horizon, shirking away the last glimmers of light as a deep shadow set over the beach, the yellow, flickering light from the adjacent streetlamps casting their long silhouettes out in front of them. The other beach goers had since long gone, the footprints cleared away by the cool evening sea breeze, which rifled through both their hair and T-shirts as they sat next to each other on the sand, contemplating in silence as they stared out towards the ebb and flow of the ways. 

Finally, Ian broke the silence, "I'm glad we could get together to do this. With you living on the other side of the country now, and with both us getting really into work and having families - man, kids are wonderful, but boy can they be annoying sometimes - we no longer really have the time to get together and just do absolutely nothing. Especially this place..." He scanned around the shoreline, as if to check that no one was there, "This had always been our special location, where'd we go chill after an especially long week of work. At least this hasn't changed over the past few years." He let a faint smile cross his face. 

David smiled back, "I'm glad that we managed to resolve our differences. That incident in the hotel room almost tore us apart forever, it created such a deep rift between us that I didn't think we'd manage to crawl back. But we did: I guess the saying does have a truth to it, that time really does heal all wounds. And I'm very glad that it did, that we were able to reconnect after all these years." David lay back onto the sand, allowing himself to ease into the fluid grains. "I'm surprised you use the ancient device as your phone: it's so outdated at this point it's practically a rock." 

Ian lay down next to David and inched in closer until their arms were touching, "Some things are better just the way they are, that their numerous flaws and failures are what makes them perfect. Kind of like you: even after all these years, you're still the immature goofball that I met over a decade ago...and you're still playing video games. Seriously. You're almost 40, and you still play video games?" Ian flung up a gush of sand scrambling away as David attempted to elbow him, "What? I didn't say anything that wasn't true! Not that I'm really one to talk, continuing to make ridiculous comedy videos, but...you were always the practical one in our friendship, nagging constantly about bills and taxes and responsibility and all kinds of pointless jibber-jabber." 

David sat up incredulously, "Excuse me? I am not that annoying. Besides, you're the one practically running a squadron of people: you've got to have at least some sense of responsibility to do that." He plopped back down, scattering the grains everywhere, "I really hope Tyler finds a friend as good as the one I found in you someday, one that even after...that-incident-that-we-bury-in-memory-so-that-we-never-speak-of-it-again, that will stand by him through thick and thin." 

...

Pam cradled her infant in her arms, softly cooing at her. "Like clockwork, every Saturday night huh? Man...it's really taking a toll on him." 

Brina held onto Tyler with her right hand, also glancing out to the beach, "I knew they were close, I just never knew that this could have such a profound effect on David...he wasn't even there when it took place. Even the doctors can't make heads-or-tails of it." 

Pam gently rocked her infant from side to side, "Do you remember when it started? I think it was quite a while after the incident." 

Brina mulled over it for a moment, and then solemnly replied, "It was a month after he first heard about the news. At first, he seemed to take it well, but over time, he started talking about Ian randomly, and then one day he just upped himself and flew over here. The trips became more frequent, and then at some point his absence forced me to uproot and move myself back here. He seems distant, far-away, and I just..." Tears began to roll down her cheeks, causing Tyler to hug her legs, "I just...I don't know what to do! My amazing, beautiful, incredible husband has been reduced to a yammering pile of nonsense, and there's nothing I can do about it! Nothing!"