#dan read my fic and went 'she's right i should be a dad' and then he did it

[twoidiotwriters1]

Until The Very End -(WITS Sequel)

A/N: Daniel Radcliffe is going to be a father at the same time I’m posting this plotline did I manifest that baby into existence??? -Danny

Words: 3,776

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March—May 2004

"You're joking, right?"

"Why would I be joking?"

"Because you just had Josephine..."

"The sooner we have them all, the better," Erick shrugged.

"Anne," Mel blinked. "How many children are you planning to have?"

"Six!" Anne said. "Or Five. Depends."

"On what?"

"How long it takes to have a boy."

"You keep getting pregnant 'cause you want a boy?" Ginny snorted. "That's mental!"

"I mean, if they want to have a boy then by all means do! But... isn't it easier, like, adopting? Or maybe use magic?" Mel suggested.

"That would be cheating."

"Having children is not a game," Erick stated. "Listen, if it were up to me I'd be happy with the girls we have, but Anne insists on having a boy, so we keep trying."

"Not the worst sacrifice you've had to make, is it?" Mel teased him.

"If my wife wants it so badly, how can I refuse?" He grinned.

"Be careful, you could end up like Mel and Harry," Ron mentioned as he entered the drawing room.

"Very funny," she scowled at him.

"I still can't believe you're having twins!" Hermione shivered. "It's a bit scary to think of two mini Mels running around—"

"They could be mini Harrys!" Mel responded angrily.

"Yeah, but that is so frightening we prefer to ignore it," Erick joked.

"Stop it!" Harry threw a chicken bone at the man across the table.

Mel turned it into a butterfly. "Don't do that in front of the kids!"

"They're not paying attention!" He looked over his shoulder. "They're braiding Padfoot's tail..."

Emily, Elizabeth, Teddy, and Regulus were dressing up the boy's dog like a fairy. The black pet was sleeping soundly, unbothered by the children's game.

"So when is your baby due, anyway?" Mel returned to their former subject.

"December," Anne smiled. "It'll be our Christmas present to the girls."

"Ah, the only thing a rich man can't buy—"

"A baby?" Ron chortled. "Pretty sure he could do it if he asks around..."

"Happiness," Mel kicked his foot under the table. "A real family."

"I had a family already," Erick looked at the group with endearment. "I just wasn't a father."

"Have you seen the babies' room? Ginny and Mel just finished it yesterday," the mention of fathers pushed Harry to talk about his near future. "It's really nice."

"It was loads of fun!" Ginny said blithely. "I bought loads of toys, it's so fun being able to spoil children that aren't mine..."

"You sure are putting to use all of the money you've got," Ron raised a brow. "And you still won't give your poor brother free tickets for your games."

Ginny raised a brow. "Last I checked I had no poor brothers."

"C'mon!" Ron complained. "Not even as a wedding gift?"

"That's supposed to be something for the both of you! Not just the groom—"

"I wouldn't mind free tickets, actually," Hermione announced. "I'd like to see you play."

Ron and Hermione's wedding was approaching, it would be far smaller and more private than Harry and Mel's, but it was still an exciting event for everyone.

"Really?" Ron stared at her in surprise.

"Well, I used to enjoy watching you lot play at school, I just didn't like that you were so intense about it."

"It was the only thing I could do without your help," Ron quipped.

"That's right, you would ask for ours instead," Harry retorted.

Ginny chortled. "If you guys really want tickets, I can give you some. Would you like to go too, Annie? You've never been to a Quidditch game, have you?"

The woman's eyes brightened. "I'd love to!"

"Can I go too?" Erick inquired.

"What about you guys?"

Mel looked down at her growing middle in worry. "As long as it's not in August..."

"Oh don't worry about it, I'm sure the staff will make sure Mel Dumbledore remains comfortable and happy if she goes to watch our games," Ginny smirked. "Would give them a good rep in front of everyone else."

"That without mentioning they would hate to face Harry's rage if she's mistreated," Ron added.

"Look at these!" Mel beamed. "They're so sweet!"

"Are we going to be those parents that dress their twins in the same way?"

"No! That's nonsense," Mel chuckled. "Buying two of everything sounds like a waste, and if they grow as quickly as I did, the clothes won't even last them for a year— if I could, I would just have them wear a diaper all day and then maybe a little coat if it gets cold..."

"That way they would catch pneumonia," Harry raised a brow. "You have been reading the parenting books Erick lend to us, right?"

Mel gave him a look. "I was joking."

Harry smiled a little, he looked back at the small trousers in front of him and sighed. "I never had new clothes after I was sent to my aunt. It feels nice, being able to buy stuff for my kids."

His hand went to Mel's belly in a gentle action, he would do that quite often, as if trying to convince himself that it was real, that their family was about to grow twice as big.

"What do you think?" He asked the babies. "Would you like to spend your first year fully naked?"

Mel waited to see if the babies would kick, but nothing happened. She sighed. "They'll do it soon, hopefully..."

Hermione was ten years older than when the Yule Ball had taken place, but she was just as breathtaking when she stepped into the aisle. Ron's eyes remained on her throughout the whole ceremony.

Mel, who still enjoyed taking pictures with her old camera, realized how big her family was now that her friends had started to get married and have children. Everywhere she looked, she saw kids running around and laughing.

Everything they'd achieved during the last few years had done wonders. The recovery of her uncle, his healthy sons, her sturdy relationship with her grandfather, Mel's mother working as a magizoologist next to Newt Scamander's grandson...

"Everyone gather 'round!" She called. "We have ten seconds and not a large lens!"

Mel was pulled into the group and was squeezed next to the bride. Harry, Ron, Hermione and her were at the centre of the picture, and probably the happiest of the whole crowd.

She thought of her parents at James and Lily's wedding, and how different everything had ended for them. She would never be able to repay all of their sacrifices. At least they knew, somehow, that everything had been worth it.

"Now, that's a belly!" Emily exclaimed.

Mel got to her mother's house looking tired, she and Harry had been looking at cars the whole day and she was exhausted, all she wanted was a nap. Sure, being five months pregnant was not much, but it was starting to get uncomfortable.

It was strange, how she was losing her agility. She didn't like it. Mel had always been active and graceful, but now she was clumsy and slow, which was keeping her in a constant bad mood.

"Don't," she walked past her mother and stepped right into the drawing room. "My feet are killing me."

Reggie ran up to her and hugged her, Mel grimaced when he crashed against her stomach. "Let's play outside! I taught Padfoot how to walk on two legs!"

"In a minute, Leggie," she rubbed her lower back. "I've been standing for hours."

"I'm sorry," Harry said guiltily, entering the room after greeting Emily. "You did insist on coming along, though..."

"Going together is fun!" She argued. "I hate this... not the babies, of course," she added quickly, "but the whole..." she gestured vaguely. "I used to climb trees and hit bludgers with a killing aim, and now look at me... running out of breath after a five-minute walk..."

"That's normal," Emily reminded her, "you'll start to get tired more as time goes on, don't be so... you, Mel."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She frowned.

"You're impatient," Regulus was still tightly wrapped around her even now that she'd sat down. "Everything always has to go fast, fast, fast! Otherwise, you get all pissy about it."

"Who taught you that word?" Their mother frowned.

He grinned. "You swear a lot when you're distracted, mum. Mel does too. It's a bit of a miracle how I'm so well-behaved, isn't it, girls?"

"Little prat," Mel pinched his nose.

"Reg, you are too cheeky since you learned to use words," Harry sat next to them, ruffling the young boy's tufts of hair. "You're a lot like your father."

Padfoot rushed into the house then, he was a young dog with a lot of energy that really reminded them of Sirius' animagus form, only that this dog was definitely a dog only. Butt sniffer and all. The pet wriggled his tail with delight as soon as he saw Harry, who was very fond of the animal. The puppy placed his head on the young man's lap and demanded to be petted.

"If I put my ear really close to your stomach, d'you think I'll hear the twins?" Her brother inquired with curiosity, already pressing his head against her.

Mel laughed. "I don't think that's how it works, Paddie."

"But they are there, aren't they?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we can't see them, so how do you know they're there?" He frowned. "How do you know if they're still alive?"

"Leon, don't say that," Emily replied in disapproval, but Mel waved a hand dismissing it.

"It's alright, it's a fair question," she said calmly, "I don't know if they're okay all the time, I just hope for the best until my next appointment with Daphne."

"And doesn't that scare you?" Reg looked at her with his big grey eyes.

"I'd be very scared if I didn't know I have you looking after me," she ran a hand through his hair lovingly. "Cause you are looking after me, aren't you, Leggie?"

"Don't call me that," he wrinkled his nose, pushing her hand away. "That nickname is plainly terrible."

"Tell me about it," Harry looked at her with mirth.

"That was great, how you handled Reg's question," Harry said to her once they were back home.

"It's nothing," she brushed it off. "The first time he asked about his father, I promised myself I would never lie to him. Regulus won't have to doubt me the way I doubted everyone when I was younger. The truth has never scared him."

"You think so?" Harry hesitated. "There are things I'm not certain he ought to know."

"What things?"

"What happened to us during the war, who is he related to— you know, the Lestranges..."

"Why not?"

"Well... I don't know if a kid can understand that completely. It might just hurt him."

"Harry, whatever happens, he'll face it without flinching. I don't mean he'll bury his feelings or anything like that— he's not like me. Regulus simply has no ounce of fear in his body."

"You are no coward," he replied promptly.

"No," she smiled in her Dumbledorish way, "but I've run away from things many times, I've never seen Reg do that."

"So what I'm hearing," Harry continued, amusement written on his face. "Is that we must pity whoever ends up crossing him?"

"I just hope is not a Malfoy," she chuckled.

Harry was barely waking up when he heard his wife gasping in the kitchen and dropping a plate.

"Mel!" He ran, his heart beating wildly. "What's wrong?"

He reached for his wand on instinct but stopped as soon as he saw her smiling face.

"They're moving!"

"What?" He stammered in confusion.

She gave a start, pulling her nightgown out of the way. "They did it again!"

Her free hand seized his, she snatched his wand away and placed his palm on her belly, now considerably bigger than it was at the start of the year. Harry's heart did a summersault the moment he felt the movement under his touch.

"You felt it?" She asked. "That's them!"

He was speechless, too focused on what he was feeling to form a coherent thought.

"Twins..." was all he managed to say.

Mel's eyes were so bright they might as well have been stars robbed from the sky. "I was just singing to myself, listing the chores I had to do— I think they're responding to my voice!"

Harry could relate to that, Mel's voice had always pulled his attention, even when he was fifteen and trying his best to ignore her, he would constantly catch himself looking for the sound of her in every room he walked past.

"Talk," she encouraged him, "maybe they'll move for you too!"

Harry stared at her belly feeling nervous. Why was it so scary, he couldn't tell.

"Er... hullo?" He tilted his head. "Babies?"

"C'mon, Harry!" She pouted. "Talk like a dad!"

"What's that like?" He frowned. Harry looked down again, he cleared his throat. "Your mother wants me to speak to you."

He stopped, it was the first time he'd referred to Mel as someone's mother. The words rolled out of his tongue easily, he didn't even have to think about it. After he did, his entire world was flipped upside down. Mel would be a mother. He would be a dad.

Mel sat down on the nearest chair and encouraged him to keep talking. He crouched before her and placed one arm on Mel's lap and stroked her silky pants with his fingertips. His other hand moved up and touched her middle, his index finger grazed one of her old scars.

"You know, your mum is the bravest woman I know," he said. "Even before we planned on having you, she did many things hoping she'd get to meet you one day, so you better appreciate her, or I will let her dress you in nothing but diapers until you're three years old."

Mel laughed, and they started moving again.

"There you are!" He exclaimed happily. "You two love Mel's laughter, don't you? You're just like me! Em says I would always pinch Mel's cheeks whenever she laughed when we were little, she never understood why I did that, but my dad thought it was funny. He said that I was trying to figure out if Mel was a mermaid."

Mel watched him ramble for a while, beaming at the way his voice got increasingly more joyful with every story he shared. She could see him five years in the future, telling all kinds of stories to their children.

"They stopped," he looked positively disappointed. "Should I try something else?"

"I think you put them to sleep," she tried not to laugh. "I know who'll be reading them bedtime stories once they're born."

He got up stiffly from his place on the floor, grimacing a little. "Merlin, we need more comfortable kitchen tiles."

Mel bit back a smile. "Don't make me laugh..." she looked at the broken plate beside them. "I should clean that—"

"Let me," Harry quickly got to work, vanishing the broken plate and the ruined eggs. "I'll cook you something else."

The witch stared at her husband adoringly. "I don't know why you keep freaking out about being a bad parent, Glasses, you're already doing a wonderful job."

"You know, one thing wizards did right, was this," Mel sat down happily on the tall bench at the bar and pointed at her clothes. "Robes! Haven't bought a single piece of clothing since I started to get bigger!"

"D'you wear 'em when you go to the muggle town near your house too?" Aberforth asked her with a barely noticeable grin.

"Yeah, most of them think I just have a weird taste," she grinned.

A group of men entered the bar, they stopped when they saw her, but Mel smiled at them and nodded her head as a greeting.

"Maybe you should go upstairs, girl," Aberforth suggested, staring at the strangers with a glare.

"Oh, but I came here to see you!" She pouted. "And Reggie wanted to visit as well, you know he loves you..."

"That boy tells everyone that walks into the bar that he's my grandson! He should stop that, confuses people..."

"Oh, only the idiots get confused," she brushed it aside. "You're the only grandad he knows, Abe! What's the matter with him wanting to adopt you as his family?"

"I'm not his grandad."

"Do you hate my brother?"

The old man grumbled a reply, and she giggled.

"You adore that boy."

Regulus came in from the back door, his pants were stained green and he had a bunch of flowers in his hands. "These are for you!"

Aberforth stood in shock at the bouquet the boy was offering. "Are you talking to me?"

"Who else?" The boy frowned. "They're for the bar!"

"My bar?"

"It's so quiet and sad here, these might cheer things up!"

Mel snorted at her brother's explanation, Aberforth was not amused.

"Take him out of my sight before I turn him into a toad! Wouldn't be that hard... already born with those eyes..."

"The more you push him away, the more he'll follow you around, Abe, I'm warning you..." Mel got to her feet. "Come on, Leon, let's visit Fred!"

"But if it isn't my favourite customer and his rich sister!" Fred welcomed them into the shop with open arms. "Had lunch yet? Jo will get here in five, we can all go to the three broomsticks!"

"Can I have a butterbeer?" Reg asked him.

"Abe didn't let him have any," Mel explained.

"Sure! Go take a look around the shop, mate, I'll give you anything you want with a fifty-percent discount."

"Really?" Reg's eyes went wide.

"As long as you promise to use it on Harry and Ron," he winked at him.

Mel hit his shoulder.

"There you are!"

The young woman looked up and found the teachers from Hogwarts at the entrance of the establishment. Hagrid was the first to get to her, he'd never been as gentle as in that moment, hugging her like she was a porcelain doll.

"Yeh getting quite big, aren't ye?" He beamed. "How're yeh?"

"What are you doing here!" Mel exclaimed delightedly.

"They heard I was having lunch with you and Fred, and they decided to come along," Joseph said with a smile, kissing his boyfriend shortly before taking a seat.

"We've been planning to pay you a visit, but now that you're here, might as well see you now," McGonagall handed her a primly wrapped parcel.

"This is not a broom, is it?" Mel teased her.

The woman laughed, it was weird how friendly she acted now that Mel wasn't a student.

"Open it!" Flitwick urged her. "We all put something in!"

Mel was so intrigued by his statement that she obliged. A small blanket was on display when she finally ripped open the wrapping. It had a faint scent of lavender mixed with something that reminded her of the greenhouses in the castle.

"This is..." she stared at it in awe. "Is beautiful."

"Having twins is a lot of work," Sprout said.

"It's our o'n making," Hagrid said proudly. "I knitted it."

"Pomona mixed some soothing herbs from the greenhouses and washed the fabric with the result, Filius and I put protection and cheering spells in it, that blanket will keep your twins warm and cosy no matter what."

"And if you pay a little visit to the castle, Slughorn will give you something extra to take with you, he's so enthusiastic about the news," Sprout added with a smile.

"Merlin, you're all so sweet!" Mel teared up. "I don't know what to say... this is... don't deserve..."

"Oh, hush dear," McGonagall said sternly. "You were one of the bests students we've had the pleasure to teach. Watching you grow and accomplish things beyond our expectations is more than enough payment for a lifetime."

"If I grow to be smart will you give me presents too?" Reg piped up from his seat, he'd been watching the group attentively.

Mel had a hard time hiding her laughter. McGonagall's face adopted a more serious expression.

"Young man, if we're still around by the time you attend Hogwarts, I assure you we'll do our best to keep that mind of yours as occupied as possible."

"We're home!"

"Brilliant!" Harry's voice came from the kitchen. "We're baking!"

Mel heard her young brother give a short gasp before running out of sight. Harry and Teddy were spending some quality time together. However, when she walked into the kitchen she found the Flint girls also seated at the table.

"We have a lot of guests tonight!" She smiled. "Are we celebrating something?"

"Mummy and daddy went to the baby's appointment," Emily explained shortly. "To see how is our sibling doing, you see."

"I see," Mel said in amusement. "And Harry and Teddy are making dinner?"

"Teddy wanted to use the oven, but I didn't want him to set our house on fire, so I'm helping him," Harry replied.

"I want to help too!" Regulus run straight to the faucet and washed his hands in a hurry.

"You can set the table if you want," Harry offered. "But be careful!"

"I'm always careful," Reg said proudly.

The girls waited patiently in their seats, watching such tiny little witches behaving like royalty was always entertaining, it was obvious Erick and Anne had done their best bringing up their daughters.

In their own home, though, they were very different. Emily continued to be similar to her father, clever and charming, but Elizabeth was all Anne, with light brown hair and green eyes, and freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. She was always running outside in their garden, getting her overalls stained with mud and cat prints. Josie was too young to know precisely what kind of personality she had, but she'd definitely inherited her father's dark curls just like Emily, though her eyes were darker than Erick's.

Since Mel was so entertained, she also took a good look at Teddy: he was a little too short for his age, and his hair at the moment was purple. His eyes were brown like his father's but he was definitely as clumsy as his mother. He seemed uncomfortable when people paid attention to him, and he would give Leon Regulus wary glances whenever he was loud and dramatic.

"What's that you got there?" Harry asked her.

"McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick went to Hogsmeade with Jo and Hagrid to say hi, they gave me this!"

"It's supposed to help you shut the twins up if they get too whiny," Reg said bluntly, setting a plastic cup in front of Josie and patting her head as he walked past.

"They put soothing stuff in it," Mel gave her brother a mildly annoyed glance before continuing. "It was really nice of them, I went up to the castle to say hi, and you won't believe what Slughorn told me."

"What?"

"McLaggen is thinking of applying for a position as an Auror."

"No!" Harry blurted out. "Not that idiot!"

All the kids stopped and stared at him in shock, some more delighted than others. Harry blushed and apologized briefly, he was always careful not to swear in front of the children.

"Maybe he's not such a pain now, maybe he actually grew up!" Mel said humorously. "Can't be worse than Movak..."

Harry groaned. "Maybe, but if he shows no respect for authority during the trials I'm kicking him out."

Mel laughed. "Since when do you care about respecting authority?"

Harry glanced at the children. "It's not how it used to be when we were their age, Mel."

"That's true," she looked over his shoulder. "Smoke's coming out of the oven, by the way."

Next Chapter—>

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[topaz-witch-tea]

Hello ! I love love love your yanqing family au! I’m a PhD student so I have very limited time when it comes to sitting down and reading fan fics so I really appreciate the little drabbles you post on here! Whenever you’re able to, I’d love to see a fic where yanqing gets sick and his father (and aunts) fuss over him

Hello! I'm very happy you love it! 🥰

Totally understand on the PhD part, I hope you are doing your best to stay healthy and hydrated.

I do enjoy writing drabbles since they don't need to be as clean as fics are, so please have a drabble of Yanqing being sick. This is a bit longer than some of my other drabbles.

*****

Mimi woke up to whimpering and the body of her young master tightly curled in the blankets. He didn't him to be awake but his breathing was labored and as Mimi walked over to poke the bundle with her nose, it seemed to curl even tighter into the blanket.

Worried, the lion quickly opened the door and rushed to her owners' room. It was a cold night and the three were all curled together in the middle of the bed. Mimi jumped onto the bed, startling Jing Yuan awake.

"Mimi?" The general rubbed his eyes, "what's wrong?"

Mimi made no noise, instead choosing to prod the others awake as well.

"Mimi…stop." Yingxing groaned, stuffing his face into the pillow. Dan Feng blearily opened his eyes, also displeased at being awoken in the middle of the night.

Mimi, displeased by how tired everyone was, started to pull at Jing Yuan's robe before hopping off the bed. She took a couple of steps before looking back to see if they were following her, a growl at the ready if they were still too tired to understand her urgency. Jing Yuan was already walking in her direction as Dan Feng was scrambling off the bed to get to his robe.

Yanqing felt horrible. He felt hot and cold and his body hurt all over. All his thoughts were foggy and when he wanted to call for his dads, it hurt his throat.

"Yanqing?" A voice called out, but Yanqing could only respond with a whimper.

Warm arms rolled him on his back and a slightly cold hand brushed his forehead. He could hear murmuring but they sounded as if they were talking to him underwater. Something wet and cold was placed on his forehead and a bitter liquid was fed to him from a cold, metal spoon. His thoughts went black again and he felt hot and icky for hours until a voice called out to him.

"Come on, little bird. Wake up, you need to eat."

Yanqing opened his eyes to see Jing Yuan. His bright, golden eyes filled with worry as he helped the boy sit up.

"A-die?" Yanqing muttered out. His throat not hurting as much anymore.

"How are you feeling? You didn't want to eat earlier so we just gave you medicine and let you sleep." Yingxing came over with a bowl of soup on a tray.

"I don't feel good," Yanqing said before burying his face into Jing Yuan's gray robe.

"I know, it'll be okay. Ba is getting medicine for you right now. But you have to eat before you can take more okay?"

"Okay," Yanqing murmured before being spoonfed soup by his Baba.

"It's just broth so try to finish the whole thing." Yingxing held out another spoonful.

"It tasted weird."

"Yes, that's normal. Food doesn't taste good when you're sick."

Yanqing was halfway done with his soup when Dan Feng arrived, a small brown paper bag in his hand. He set the bag down before coming over and playing his hand on Yanqing's forehead. The hand was cold like the water in Scalegorge Waterscape and for Yanqing, who felt like he was burning up, it was a welcome respite.

However, his father quickly drew his hand away. "You're burning up. You should take some medicine now and finish your food."

Dan Feng pulled out a brown bottle and a metal spoon from the bag. Pouring the amber syrup into a spoon, he held it up for Yanqing to drink. The medicine was bitter and had a sharp, tangy aftertaste. He hated it and quickly ate the rest of the soup in order to get rid of the taste. Jing Yuan helped him lay down again and with a little bit of Cloudhymn magic, Yanqing quickly fell asleep.

"It pains me to see him like this," Dan Feng said as he adjusted the blanket.

"I know. He's a strong boy now, so there's no need to worry." Jing Yuan scratched Mimi's ears, a reward for her ever-vigilant care.

"He'll be hungry when he wakes up. I'll prepare another soup for him when he's up." Yingxing said, standing up and collecting the bowl and medicine spoon.

Yanqing woke up a couple of hours later to Mimi laying by his side, her cold nose poking his arm and her sharp blue eyes were as watchful as ever.

"Oh, you're awake! How are you feeling?" A cheerful voice spoke up, though her purple ears were flat against her head- a telltale sign that she was worried.

"Auntie Baiheng? Why are you here?"

"I came to visit you, little bird. I heard you got sick last night. Are you feeling better?"

Yanqing nodded. His body was still tired from the illness.

"Good. Auntie Jingliu is here too. She brought some special ginger tea for you. I think she's still preparing it now." Baiheng gently smoothed away the hair that clung to his face.

"Ginger is spicy." Yanqing didn't like ginger but his family always made him eat it since it was good for him.

"I know. But it's good for you." The little boy pouted and somehow looked even more pitiful than he already was.

"Where are my dads?" His fathers were usually by his bedside when he was sick, so it was strange not to see them there.

"You're A-die got called into work for a quick thing but he should be back soon. Baba is in the kitchen with your auntie preparing food and tea. Ba is probably looking at medicinal herbs to make more new medicine for you."

"I hope the new medicine is sweet like candy. The one I got tasted really yucky." Yanqing made a face, earning him a laugh from Baiheng.

The door opened again and Yanqing could hear the tinkling of glassware.

"Are you feeling better Yanqing?" Yingxing placed the tray down before moving to sit on the bed and placing his hand on Yanqing's forehead. "You aren't as hot as earlier."

"I feel better. But my throat hurts a bit."

"Here, drink this." Jingliu placed a small, ceramic teacup into Yanqing's hands.

He knew better than to fight them when it came to drinking tea and medicine so he took a deep breath and finished the tea in one gulp. The tea was hot and spicy and burned his throat and tongue. When he was younger, he cried when they made him drink it.

"Good job." Jingliu patted his head and took the cup away.

Yanqing heard the door open again and this time, Mimi jumped off the bed. "Why hello to you too, Mimi!" Jing Yuan laughed as the lion rolled onto her stomach, obviously lacking in belly rubs as the family was busy.

Dan Feng paid little mind to them, instead walking over to check Yanqing's temperature.

"I just checked it. He's fine." Yingxing spoke up.

"One can never be too sure."

Yingxing rolled his eyes as he pulled up a chair to the two new arrivals. "Do you want to eat dinner now?"

"You're eating here?" Yanqing asked.

"Of course!" Baiheng fluffed up the pillows so he could lean back properly. "It wouldn't be fair to have to eat here on your own."

The five of them sat by Yanqing's bedside happily chatting with dinner in hand as Yanqing finished his soup. Mimi, after finishing her meal, was curled up at the end of the bed.

"When I get better, could we go somewhere?" Yanqing asked after finishing his soup.

"Where would you like to go?" Jing Yuan replied.

Yanqing thought for a moment. "I want to go to the Artisanship Commission Auction!"

"The auction?" Yingxing looked taken aback, "You have no money to bid with."

The comment earned him a kick to the shin by Dan Feng.

"I'll give you however much you need!" Baiheng said cheerfully, always happy to spend on her nephew.

"Stop spoiling him." Jingliu looked over to her wife, knowing full well how much would be drained from their account next month. Those words fell on deaf ears anyway and she was just as guilty.

"I don't see why not. I think it's a wonderful idea. But you have to take your medicine and rest if you want to recover in time." Jing Yuan said.

"I will!" Yanqing beamed, ready to take that horrible-tasting medicine and dream of all the swords he could have.

****

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to send me asks!

[phantasticworks]

If You Don't Love Me, Pretend - Epilogue

Well. So here we are. it's been a long time (about three years actually) since I started writing this fic and it's grown significantly out of my control since then :') if you've been along since the start, or if you've just found this fic today, thank you for coming along this journey with me. It's been incredible and I'm forever grateful for all the support this fic has gotten <3 thank you so much for reading. keep your eyes peeled for bonus content!

read on ao3

Words: 3.9k

Summary: Three years later

Warnings for this chapter: none

It’s nearly six in the evening and there’s a chiming noise coming from the laptop in the lounge. Dan curses under his breath as he makes his way from the kitchen, hoping and praying the volume isn’t loud enough to wake a certain someone.

He gets there just as the Skype call is about to end, and is quick to press the “accept” button as he scoops the laptop up, retreating back to the kitchen with it. “Hi,” he whispers.

“Hey,” Phil says from the screen, a little smile on his face. “I thought you forgot about me.”

Dan rolls his eyes, setting the laptop on the island countertop and settling on a barstool. “Right. God forbid I’m two seconds late to our Skype call.”

Phil does an adorable pout. “I’ve been gone a week, I miss your face. Is that a crime?”

Dan smirks. “Yep. I’m gonna call the police, have them arrest you on the spot.”

“Hm.” Phil considers it for a moment. “I don’t think I like handcuffs enough for that.” He’s got this smug little look on his face, like he knows a secret.

Annoyingly, Dan blushes at that. “Shut up. You don’t get to flirt when you’re, like, on the other side of the freaking planet.”

Phil gives him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, hon. I’ll be back home in a couple days, though.”

Dan nods, propping an elbow up and resting his chin in his hand. “I know. I just miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Phil replies easily. Dan loves that even now, after all this time, they’re still this disgustingly obsessed with each other.

“How’s work been?” Dan asks, changing the subject before he gets sad. He hates it when he gets sad during their Skype calls, especially when he starts crying.

Phil sighs, shrugging. “It’s been alright. I’m exhausted, though. You’d think I’d stop offering to go to these sorts of things for the BBC, but apparently I can’t help myself.”

Dan smiles at him. “You’re a dedicated worker. It’s a good thing.”

“Not when it takes me away from you guys for weeks at a time,” Phil mumbles petulantly. Dan has to agree there. “Speaking of, where are our kids?”

Nearly three years since the adoption was finalized and Dan still adores the sound of that. “The twins are upstairs, I think doing homework. I was starting dinner when you called.”

“Oh, sorry,” Phil says, smiling sheepishly.

Dan waves him off. “It’s fine. I’m doing stir-fry tonight, it won’t take long anyway.”

Phil nods at this, then asks, “Levi out with Charlotte?”

Dan smiles and nods. “Yeah. They went to see a movie, I think.”

“Did you make sure he had enough money?” Phil asks. He’s always got this perpetual fear that their son will be stranded somewhere with no money and no way home, so Dan’s gotten good at reassuring him.

“Yes,” he says patiently. “I let him borrow the car, and I told him that there’s some in the console if they need it.”

Phil nods, but his face is stricken with another worried look. Dan knows what’s coming before he says it. “Did they wear seatbelts? Are you sure he’s ready to drive on his own? I mean-“

“Babe,” Dan interrupts. “He’s nearly eighteen. He’s passed all his tests, gotten his license, and he’s practiced a lot. He’s earned a little bit of trust, yeah?”

He can tell Phil is still a little nervous and weary, but he nods in agreement. “Okay,” he says with a breath. “I just worry about him.”

Dan looks down, hiding his smile. His husband could be such an anxious mess when his kids were involved. “I know. But he’s fine. They’re fine. Charlotte’s aunt said she could stay the night, so they’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

“Oh, make sure you make her a separate serving of the stir-fry. She’s still doing the vegetarian thing, and I don’t want her to go hungry,” Phil says.

Dan’s heart clenches. He’s so full of love and that ooey-gooey affection that hasn’t dulled at all over the years.

“Sure,” he agrees with a smile.

“How’s-“ Phil begins to speak, but before he can, a piercing cry comes from the lounge. Dan jumps, and Phil laughs. “Speak of the devil,” he grins.

Dan makes a protesting noise. “Don’t you dare call our daughter a devil,” he chastises playfully.

Phil rolls his eyes. “Go get her, I’ll wait.”

Dan nods and quickly makes his way to the lounge, straight over to where the crying noise is coming from the bassinet in the corner. “Oh, dear,” Dan tuts in a high-pitch voice. Phil makes fun of him when he does that, calling him Winnie the Pooh every time. Dan leans down, smiling at the little bundle resting there, the crying softening to a sniffle when Dan scoops the baby up.

“Shh,” he whispers. “There we go. Daddy’s here, love.” He strokes her little fingers, grinning wetly when she clutches onto his pinky. “Aww, what a sweet thing. Do you wanna see your other Dad? Yes! Let’s go see Dada.”

He’s careful as he makes his way back to the kitchen, and he glances up at the laptop, smiling when he sees the way Phil is beaming at him through the screen. “Hello there,” he coos softly. “Oh, sweet angel. How’s she been today?” His tone shifts when he speaks to Dan, and Dan glances up at him again, having gotten lost in staring at her cute little face.

“She’s been a lot better today. I think Kath was right about the colic,” Dan says, absently stroking her little hand as he rocks her gently.

Phil nods. “So it was probably just gas?” He asks.

“I think so. I gave her a warm bath and did the bicycle thing with her legs earlier and she seems to be loads better now,” Dan replies.

“Good,” Phil says with a smile. “I read somewhere that if they’re still having trouble you can have them lay on their tummies and that might help.”

Dan nods. “I’ll try that if she gets fussy again. But the crying finally stopped, thank god.” He’s not religious but he’s not kidding in his thanks. The crying was literally about to drive him insane.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry I haven’t been there this week,” Phil says, his eyes dropping with something like shame.

Dan wishes he could kiss him right now. “It’s fine, Phil. We’ve been fine.”

“Still...” Phil shrugs. “I wish I would’ve been there.”

Dan smiles. “I know. But next time you will be, yeah? At least the BBC isn’t sending you out all the time these days.”

Phil nods. “Thank god. And thank god that Bryony lets you work from home.”

“I know, right?” Dan grins. He’s still a little over the moon about his career shift, even though he does find himself struggling to do both jobs part-time. But that’s something he won’t let himself worry about now.

The baby gurgles in his arms, and Dan coos at her. “What? Is our baby girl hungry? Hm? Time for din-din?”

“I guess I should probably let you go,” Phil says, sounding sad.

Dan glances up at him, frowning at the thought. He really does miss him a lot. “You don’t have to. Do you want to talk to the kids before you go?”

Phil smiles and nods. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

“Let me go grab them. Hang on,” Dan gently bounces the baby as he goes to the end of the stairs, covering her little ears gently before calling out, “Mia! Jai! Come here for a second!”

There’s some shouts of agreement and then Dan listens to the stampede of little feet as they race down the stairs. Thank god they’d finally moved into a house that they actually own, with neighbors far enough away that they can’t complain about the sounds that fill a house full of children.

Still, old habits die hard, and Dan gives them a look when they reach the bottom. “What did we say about running?” He asks.

The nine-year-olds at least have the decency to look ashamed. “Sorry,” Jaiden says, stepping closer and stroking his baby sister’s cheek with a gentle finger. “Hi, Nat-Nat,” he coos.

Dan smiles at that. “Dad’s on Skype, he wants to talk to you guys,” Dan says, and the words are barely out of his mouth when the twins are barreling off towards the kitchen. He rolls his eyes as he follows after them, mumbling to the baby all the while. “Sure, Daddy’s been feeding them and keeping them alive this week, but as soon as Dada is mentioned, it’s like I’m chopped liver,” he complains with the same baby-voice he always uses when talking to her.

She gurgles and Dan sighs. “You’re right. Dada is the best.”

When he reaches the kitchen again, both kids are hovered by the laptop, rambling about their day. They’re interrupting each other more often than not, but Phil seems to be getting the gist of everything regardless. Dan busies himself with preparing a bottle for Natalie, humming to her as he heats up the water. He smiles and makes faces at her to keep her occupied, and his heart leaps when her lip curls just a little.

“Aren’t you Daddy’s little angel? Hm? Our precious girl?” He says in a sweet voice, smiling when she smacks her lips. “Oh, someone is hungry, huh?”

Apparently Amelia is listening to him, because she pipes up from across the room. “I’m hungry,” she says loudly.

“I know, love, I’m going to start dinner as soon as I feed Nat and put her down for another nap,” Dan replies.

Amelia huffs. She mutters something, and Dan tenses. Things had been a little tense since they brought Natalie home over a month ago, and Amelia was not shy about telling them how much she didn’t want a little sister for the months leading up to Natalie’s birth. Dan hates to think that this is their reality for the rest of forever, Amelia disliking her little sister to the point of contempt, but at this point, he wasn’t sure.

“Amelia,” Dan hears Phil say over the Skype call. He’s using his fatherly warning tone, and Dan is partially relieved. This week has been hell trying to balance four kids and a job (thank god it’s summer and his school counselor tasks were more sparse this time of year) as well as the weird energy Amelia has towards the baby, so it’s a relief for Phil to finally step in.

“I know,” Amelia says with an irritated sigh, rolling her eyes. Dan gives her a look, and she looks down.

“Honey, I know you don’t like this change in our family, but that’s just the way things are now, okay? Natalie is here to stay, and sooner or later you need to figure out how to live with that,” Phil tells her firmly.

Dan’s careful not to say anything. There’s been many times, over the years, where he’s been inclined to argue with Phil over their parenting methods, and there’s been times when those arguments have become proper fights. But they’re working on communication, both with each other and their kids, so this time, he keeps his mouth shut. Honestly, there’s not anything Phil said that he doesn’t agree with, so it’s not a hardship to let him take the lead on this one.

Amelia rubs at her eyes. “Fine,” she says tersely.

Dan’s heart clenches. He hates to see any of his children in pain, and he knows that Amelia isn’t wrong to be upset. A new sibling is an upending of her life, and especially since she’s gone from being the only daughter to just the oldest. He thinks about how he felt, at seven years old, when Adrian was born. He gets it.

“Mia, do you want to help me cook dinner tonight?” Dan asks.

Amelia brightens a little at that. “Can I chop peppers?”

Dan smiles. “You sure can. I need my favorite sous chef if I’m going to feed the masses in an orderly time,” he says with a wink.

She giggles, and he relaxes. Amelia starts to tell Phil about something that had happened earlier that day when Dan took them to the park, and Dan hurries about finishing Natalie’s bottle so he can feed her. She’s starting to get fussy, and he’s bouncing her carefully as he readies the bottle, checking the temperature on his wrist.

“Here we go,” he says softly, tucking the bottle nipple in her mouth. “Good stuff, huh?” He smiles down at her, stroking her soft little cheek. Her eyes drift shut and he allows himself to relax, wandering back over to the laptop and standing behind the kids so he can see Phil again.

“And Daddy said that tomorrow we’re gonna go to the zoo,” Amelia announces proudly.

“Might,” Dan says, emphasizing the word strongly. “I said we might go to the zoo.” He rolls his eyes at Phil, shaking his head in exasperation.

“But Daddy-“ Amelia whines.

Dan’s already shaking his head at her. “Nope, don’t start. I said we might go. Honestly, I don’t know if I can handle toting all three of you around by myself.”

“Toting all three of them around where?” A voice says, interrupting Amelia’s next complaint.

Dan turns around where Levi and Charlotte are walking into the kitchen and smiles at them. “The zoo. Possibly. Hi, Lottie. How was the movie?”

Charlotte shrugs, going to settle on the barstool closest to Amelia, accepting the hug Amelia gives her with a smile. “It was alright. The special effects were horrible. You’re going to hate the ending.”

“No spoilers!” He protests, shaking his head adamantly since he doesn’t have an empty hand to gesture with.

She grins and pretends to zip her lips before turning to the laptop, the Skype call still open. Phil is smiling at them, that goofy kind that Dan knows well. It usually means Phil is thinking about how lucky they are to have this life. Dan understands the feeling.

“Hi, Phil,” Charlotte greets with a little wave.

“Hi,” he waves back with a smile. “Did you guys wear your seatbelts?”

Charlotte nods, but Dan notices her give Levi a pointed look and Levi sighs, pulling out his wallet. Dan watches in amusement as he takes out a couple pounds, handing them to her with a roll of his eyes. When she notices Dan looking at her, Charlotte shrugs, looking only a little bit sheepish. “We had a bet on whether or not one of you would ask us about that,” she explains.

Dan snorts. He turns to Levi, giving him a fake disappointed look. “Probably should’ve seen that one coming, Levi.”

Levi sighs. “I knew that you probably wouldn’t, and I wasn’t counting on Dad being here when we got home.”

“Sorry,” Phil says with a grin.

“Are we ever gonna have dinner?” Amelia wails, interrupting whatever it was Phil was going to say next.

“I’m starving,” Jaiden agrees from beside her. He turns to look at Dan, pouting. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just order pizza?”

Dan looks straight at Phil, giving him a very pointed look. “That one is all yours,” he says, nodding to Jaiden.

Phil at least has the decency to look almost embarrassed. “I mean... he’s got a fair point, babe,” Phil says with a little grin.

Dan sighs. Natalie’s bottle makes a snapping noise and Dan looks down to find she’s only got a couple swallows left in the nipple. He’s careful to watch and pull it out of her mouth before she can start swallowing any air, placing it on the counter to be washed later as he grins at her. “Well done Nat-Nat! You finished all your din-din.”

The baby gurgles at him and Dan smiles as he takes her up to his shoulder, burping her gently. The kids are still talking amongst themselves, but Dan catches Phil watching him through the screen. He smiles helplessly, shrugging at his husband, and Phil grins back.

“I guess I should let you go so you can put her down and start dinner,” Phil says, a resigned sigh in his voice.

Dan hates it, but he’s right. Dan could sit here talking to Phil all evening instead of ever bothering to cook dinner, and with a houseful of hungry children, that’s hardly an option. “Yeah, I guess so,” Dan agrees. “Everyone, say goodnight to Dad, he’s gotta go eat some dinner and get to bed, and so do we.”

The kids all make their noises of complaint but he watches, rocking the baby with a smile, as each of the kids tell Phil goodnight. Dan shoos them all out of the kitchen with Levi’s help, and then it’s just Phil and Dan and the baby.

“I miss you,” Dan says.

Phil smiles. “I miss you more.”

Dan shakes his head, resting his cheek gently against Natalie’s little head. “I seriously doubt that,” he says softly.

“It’s true,” Phil replies, dropping his chin to rest in his hand. “But I’ll be home soon, okay?”

Dan nods. “Right,” he agrees. “I love you.”

Phil blows him a kiss, their usual parting on these calls. “I love you too, bub. I’ll text you later, yeah?”

“Okay. Goodnight. Love you.”

Phil grins when Dan repeats himself. “Goodnight, Dan. I love you. Tell the kids I’ll be home soon.”

“Of course. Bye,” he says, waving for a second before the screen goes black. He sighs, looking down at Natalie’s sweet, sleepy little face. “I can’t wait for your other Dad to come home, munchkin. This one needs a break and a good snuggle.”

She smacks her lips and closes her eyes and Dan smiles, rolling his eyes. “I know, your life is so hard, being a baby. Let’s get you down for another nap, love.”

~~~

The next night, Dan wakes up from a deep sleep to warm breath on his neck. At first he’s confused, grunting as he tries to roll over, but a heavy weight around his waist stops him. “What the...”

“Shh,” a deep and unmistakable voice murmurs in his ear. “‘M tryin’ sleep.”

Suddenly, Dan is wide awake, rolling over quickly despite the protests from his husband. “Phil,” he breathes, warm and happy.

Phil blinks at him, a goofy, exhausted smile on his face. “Hi,” he says sheepishly.

Dan wraps himself around Phil immediately, peppering kisses to everywhere he can reach. “I missed you,” he kisses across Phil’s brow bone, feeling Phil’s breath on his collarbones. “So much.”

“I missed you too,” Phil replies with a little laugh, kissing at Dan’s throat.

Something occurs to Dan then and he pulls away, staring at Phil with a furrowed brow. “I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow.” He doesn’t mean to, but he can’t help but be a little accusatory. He wanted to make sure the house was clean, maybe do some laundry. Just the sort of husband things one did when they were in the best relationship of their life.

Phil gives him a sheepish smile. “I changed my flight so I could come home early and surprise you.”

Dan feels so much all at once, it reminds him of how it was in the early days, before the kids, before the fostering, before they even knew that they had feelings for each other. It’s overwhelming for a moment, and then Phil is tilting his chin, guiding their mouths together in a perfect kiss.

“Mm,” Dan hums against his lips. “I love you.”

Phil laughs. “Love you more.” His hand slips down Dan’s waist, his fingertips dipping just under the hand of Dan’s pants. Dan is hit with a wave of arousal so strong, and it’s not lost on him that it’s been more than a month since they had proper sex. He loved Natalie more than life itself, but raising a baby on top of the three children they already had was proving to be much more difficult than they’d anticipated. But after all they’d been through, the strain of no sex was nothing they couldn’t handle. After all, they’d gone ten years without it before.

Still, he’s only human, and when his husband is petting the soft skin at his hip, he can only react like any mortal man would. “Baby,” he sighs.

“Hm?”

It hits Dan what he’d just said, and he quickly remembers the other inhabitant of this room. “Phil. Phil, the baby,” he mumbles, tapping Phil’s arm.

“Already took care of her,” Phil replies back, kissing at Dan’s jaw.

“What? When?” Dan asks, pushing him back a bit.

Phil smiles. “When I got home. You were already asleep so I checked on the kids and then took Nat downstairs for a bottle and some cuddles.”

“Oh.” The image of that, of Phil coming in late and taking their baby down for her midnight bottle, is nearly enough to make Dan cry and definitely enough to turn him off. “Well, thank you for that, but I don’t think I feel like fooling around tonight, if that’s okay.”

Phil pecks him on the cheek with a little giggle. “Of course that’s okay, you idiot. I didn’t just come home early for that, you know. I mostly missed having my little space heater,” he says with a grin.

Dan rolls his eyes, but can’t help the way he smiles and leans in for another kiss. “Sometimes I think you only married me for my good looks and my stupidly hot body temperature.”

Phil kisses him back, but he’s smiling so hard that it’s sloppy. “Oh for sure. Those were my top two requirements for a husband. Is hot, runs hot.”

Dan snorts. “Right. So, father of your children was somewhere further down that list, I’m assuming?”

“Something like that,” Phil teases.

“You’re such an idiot,” Dan smiles, kissing Phil’s cheek before snuggling in for the night.

“But I’m your idiot,” Phil says in a stupid, sleepy voice.

Dan smiles, pressing one last kiss to Phil’s chest. “Always.”

[thelastspeecher]

A Case of Mistaken Identity - Chapter 4: Fear No Weather

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4   AO3

I don’t often just sort of, discretely, without warning, update a multichap.  I usually mention ahead of time that I’m working on the next chapter and it’s getting close, maybe I even post a small screenshot.  But this time, I was so focused on getting the next chapter of this fic up that I forewent that.

Anyways, this chapter has Stan being a cynic and Mabel being a delight and Fiddleford being suspicious of what exactly Ford is up to when he’s not around.  Enjoy.

———————————————————————————————————–

              Ford gaped at Stan.

              “What do you mean, ‘who are they’?  They’re your children!” Ford protested.  “I told you that-”

              “Yeah, you said that I had two kids that showed up at your place,” Stan said.  He crossed his arms.  “I was an idiot to believe you.”

              “They are your-”

              “Hey, kids,” Stan barked.

              “Yes?” Dipper squeaked.

              “You twins?” Stan asked.  Dipper and Mabel nodded.  “How old are the two of you?”

              “Twelve,” Mabel replied.

              “Twelve.”  Stan narrowed his eyes at Ford.  “If they were mine, I woulda had to knock up some poor girl while I still lived at home. I know you don’t think much of me, but do you really think I’d be a teen dad?  After everything Pops pounded into our skulls?”

              “I wouldn’t put it past you,” Ford said shortly. Stan huffed impatiently.  He began to walk away.  Ford raised his voice.  “After all, you seem perfectly fine abandoning your children!”  Stan rounded on Ford, his face beet red.

              “Fuck off, you prick!” he snarled.  Fiddleford let out a yelp.

              “Stanley, please, there are children here!” Fiddleford protested.  Stan didn’t even look over at Fiddleford, instead continuing to glare at Ford.

              “Shut up, Ford’s ‘partner’,” he ground out, etching air quotes around the word “partner”.  Fiddleford flushed.  “First off, kids should learn swears.  Second, I don’t give a damn about keeping a clean mouth when Ford’s telling me I’m a deadbeat dad and fine with it.  He knows that I always swore I wouldn’t do that.”

              “You also swore you’d stand by me, only to sabotage-” Ford started.  Stan threw his hands into the air.

              “Wow, it only took you five minutes to bring that up, huh?  I went outta my way to come see you ‘cause you insisted-”

              “As if you were doing anything of note-” Ford scoffed.

              “For all you know, I was solving cancer!”

              “You were either dumpster diving or being thrown out of a casino!”

              “Like you’re doing something more important, holed up in a romantic cabin-”

              “Gentlemen!” Fiddleford said loudly.

              “You’re not involved, hayseed.  And trust me, you don’t want to be,” Stan snarled.

              “Don’t call Fiddleford-”

              “I’ll call him whatever the damn well I want to!” Stan’s voice was now a low roar. Ford raised his to match.

              “Oh, Lord,” Fiddleford muttered, kneading his forehead.

              “Just let them tire themselves out,” Mabel said. Fiddleford shook his head.

              “Sweetling, I grew up with five siblin’s.  I know when an argument will turn into a fist fight,” he said tiredly.  Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look.

              “Should we spill the beans?” Mabel whispered.

              “They’ll figure it out eventually.  We might as well tell them before they bring the house down,” Dipper hissed back.  Mabel nodded. She hopped off her chair and walked over to the brothers, who had progressed to screaming at each other.

              “Stan’s right,” she called over the noise.  Stan gestured at her.

              “See, Sixer?  I told you I didn’t have any kids.”

              “What?  But…” Ford seemed heartbroken.  “I don’t-”

              “Stan isn’t our dad.  He’s our great-uncle.  And as far as we can tell, so are you, Ford.”

              “Great, huh?” Stan snorted.  He crossed his arms.  “Kid, we haven’t known each other long enough for you to know what I’m like as an uncle.”

              “Not great as in like, good.  Great as in…”  Mabel looked at Dipper, who got down from his chair and joined her.

              “Great as in two generations removed,” he explained. Ford frowned.

              “A great-uncle is the brother of a grandparent. Are you saying that Shermie is your grandfather?”  Dipper and Mabel nodded.  “That’s impossible.  Shermie’s children aren’t old enough to have children your age.  Not to mention, Shermie’s too young to be a grandfather.”

              “Right now, he’s too young,” Dipper agreed. Ford’s eyes widened.  He crouched down to the twins’ eye-height.

              “Are you suggesting you are from the future?” he asked breathlessly.  Dipper and Mabel nodded again.  Ford’s eyes, brown like theirs, sparkled behind his glasses.  “Remarkable.”

              “Really?  You believe them?” Stan demanded.  “You’re not even gonna ask for proof?”

              “I’ve seen far stranger things in Gravity Falls than time travelers,” Ford said.  He raised an eyebrow.  “Though maybe Stanley has a point.  Do you two have any proof to offer?”  Wordlessly, Dipper drew the journal from his jacket.  Ford’s jaw dropped.  “My journal!”

              “Don’t read anything in it,” Dipper said quickly. Ford nodded.

              “I won’t even open it, my dear boy.  Just seeing the outside is enough to fully sway my opinion.”  Ford looked the journal over a few times, then handed it back, despite clearly wanting to hold on to it longer.  Stan scoffed.

              “He shows you some book and you’re convinced, huh? Y’know, pulling a prank doesn’t have to be this damn complicated,” Stan said snidely.  Ford stood.  He frowned at Stan.

              “This is no prank.”

              “If you want me to believe you, I’m gonna need some proof.”  Stan stared directly at Dipper and Mabel.  “Tell me tomorrow’s lotto numbers.”

              “We don’t know those,” Dipper said.  Mabel shook her head.

              “If you’re really from the future, you’d have some fancy future tech,” Stan said.  Dipper and Mabel shook their heads.  Stan’s face hardened.  “Yeah. Figured.”

              “Uh, give us a moment,” Dipper said.  He pulled Mabel over to the side to whisper to her.  “How are we supposed to convince Stan?  He’s a notorious cynic!  I mean, he lived in Gravity Falls for years, but refused to acknowledge the existence of the supernatural!”

              “Well, we don’t have any technology that is future-y enough,” Mabel said slowly.  “Maybe we let him know something that we know about him?”

              “That would only work if Ford didn’t know it, either. If it’s something Ford would know, then Stan will just think Ford told us.”

              “So it has to be something that happened after Stan left home,” Mabel said.  Dipper nodded.  “Hmm…” Her eyes brightened.  “Oh!  I’ve got it!”

              “Really?”

              “Yeah!”

----- 

              A couple weeks into their stay in Gravity Falls, Mabel woke up before Dipper.  Knowing how late her brother tended to stay up, she decided to let him sleep in, and happily traipsed downstairs for some breakfast.  Her bubbly mood was slightly stifled by the sight of Stan in just his boxers and undershirt, cooking at the stove, looking more ogrish than usual.

              He probably just hasn’t had a chance to freshen up yet.

              “You’re up early,” Stan grunted.  Using a large wooden spoon, he poked whatever was cooking in the skillet.

              “I don’t need much beauty sleep,” Mabel replied. To her delight, the comment elicited a small smile from Stan.  She bounded to his side.  “What’s for breakfast?”

              “I went classic today.  Bacon and eggs.”

              “…Bacon?”

              “Yeah.  You heard of it, right?  It’s the best dam- darn food in the world, kid.”

              “No, I’ve heard of it.  I’ve even had it.  But Dad told us that you keep kosher, like Grampie Shermie.”

              “Heh.  He probably thinks that ‘cause Shermie told him we kept kosher as kids.  But the day I left home, I said ‘screw it’ and tried bacon. Never looked back.  Best decision I ever made.”

              “Really?  You haven’t done anything else in your entire life that was better than deciding to eat bacon?” Mabel asked doubtfully.  A sudden somber fell over her grunkle.

              “…No,” he said.

              “Oh.”  It was as though Stan’s mood was contagious.  Mabel could feel herself getting more serious as well.  “That’s kinda sad, though.”

              “Eating bacon is the best thing I’ve done so far,” Stan said brightly.  His mood switch was so abrupt that Mabel doubted it was genuine.  “I might be old, but I’ve still got some time to do something even better than eat bacon.”

              “Like what?” Mabel asked.  Stan raised an eyebrow at her.

              “Whattaya think?”

              “Hmm…”  Mabel frowned thoughtfully.  She beamed. “Oh!  You could write a series of mystery novels called Crime Grandpa!” Stan snorted.  Mabel took this as a sign to continue.  “You could teach a bear how to drive!”

              “That’s actually not half bad,” Stan said.

              “You could save Dipper from magical math!”

              “Magical math, huh?” Stan asked.  Mabel nodded.  “How would I do that?”

              “You’re the one that saves him, not me.”

              “Heh.”  Stan ruffled Mabel’s hair.  “Guess I’ll have to work on that one, then.  Now, stop bugging me, or I’ll burn breakfast.”

              Mabel went over to the kitchen table.  She sat in her chair, kicking her legs idly.  As she waited for food, she could barely make out Stan muttering to himself.

              “I bet Dan could find some bear I could use…”

----- 

              “What did you think of?” Dipper asked, dragging Mabel out of the memory.  Mabel grinned and trotted over to Stan.  She leaned her head back to look into his face.

              “Grunkle Stan, your favorite food is bacon!” she said. Stan’s face went slack.

              “No, it’s toffee peanuts,” Ford said.  “Stan’s never even had bacon.”

              “The day after he left home, he tried bacon,” Mabel said, “and he never looked back.”  Stan swore softly under his breath.  “Do you believe us now, Grunkle Stan?”

              “I don’t think I fully believe you, squirt,” Stan said after a moment.  “But you’ve got my attention at least.  I’ll hear you out.”  Mabel’s grin broadened.  Stan looked over at Fiddleford.  “Why are you so quiet, hayseed?  No comment?”

          ��   “I already said my comments when they told me the truth the other day,” Fiddleford said with a shrug.  Ford’s jaw dropped again.  “Stanley, since yer willin’ to at least listen now, would ya mind joinin’ us fer breakfast?”

              “A free meal?”  Stan marched over to the table, grabbed a chair, pulled it out, and sat. He put his feet up on the table. “Like I’d turn that down.”

----- 

              While Dipper and Mabel told their great-uncles how they wound up in the past, Stan practically inhaled multiple bowls of breakfast scramble doused in sausage gravy.  The kids watched in almost awe as their grunkle put away food at an unnervingly fast pace.  The speed was actually concerning to Dipper, who began to wonder if there was a nefarious reason for Stan’s appetite.

              It’s like he hasn’t had anything to eat in days. A strange sensation squeezed Dipper’s gut.  That might actually be the case.  Who knows what he’s been up to?  Judging by Fiddleford’s concerned expression, he was thinking along similar lines.

              “Where is this time travel device?” Ford asked, once they had finished their story.

              “We gave it to Mr. McGucket,” Mabel said. Wordlessly, Fiddleford drew the tape measure out of his back pocket.  He placed it on the table.  Ford picked it up.  He let out a long breath of astonishment.

              “This is incredible.”

              “Looks like something you could get at the hardware store for two bucks,” Stan said in between mouthfuls of food.  “Why are you believing these kids?”

              “Do you still doubt they’re from the future?”

              “Yes.  I already said that,” Stan said impatiently.  “I’m just hearing them out so that I can decide whether I actually believe ‘em or not.  So far, I’m leaning towards thinking they’re pulling some sort of weird con.”

              “How else can they convince you?” Ford asked. Stan shrugged.  “If you can’t provide an example of the evidence needed, how-”  Ford was interrupted by a beeping sound.  “What is that?”

              “Hell if I know,” Stan muttered.  He began shoveling food into his mouth again. “Some sorta weird, nerdy, mad science thing?”

              “If it was something Fiddleford or I made, I would recognize the noise it makes,” Ford said irritably.

              “Maybe it started working right while you weren’t looking,” Stan said.  Ford glared.

              “You-”

              “It’s my watch,” Dipper said quickly.  He shut off the alarm on his digital watch. “It’s letting me know the battery’s getting low, that’s all.”

              “That’s yer watch?” Fiddleford asked.  Dipper nodded.  “I’ve never heard a watch make that sort of sound.  What kind is it?”

              “Uh…a digital electronic wristwatch?” Dipper said warily.  Ford and Fiddleford’s eyes widened.  Stan, however, held out a hand.

              “Show me,” he instructed.  Dipper hesitated.  “I won’t steal it from you.  I know better than to pocket something people are looking at.”  Dipper reluctantly removed his watch and handed it over.  Stan held the watch up to his eyes, squinting.

              Why is he holding it so close?  Dipper abruptly remembered how blind Stan was in the future.  Does he need glasses?  Ford does.  Finally, Stan set the watch down on the table.  He slid it back to Dipper, who put it on his wrist again.

              “Why didn’t you show me that from the beginning?” he asked.  Dipper and Mabel’s jaws dropped.

              “Wait, you believe us now?” Dipper asked.  Stan nodded.

              “But…it’s just a watch,” Mabel said.

              “It’s a watch I’ve only ever seen in movies. There’s no reason someone like you would have one.  So I’ll ask again.  Do you kids know any future lotto numbers?” he asked.  The twins shook their heads.  “Dammit,” he muttered.  “Coulda used the dough.”

              “Even if we knew, we wouldn’t tell you,” Mabel said. “We can’t change the future too much.” Stan smiled, but the expression seemed more sad than amused.

              “Kiddo, you two definitely already screwed things up.”

              “But-” Mabel started.  Ford held up a hand.  She fell silent.

              “Stanley is right,” he said solemnly.  “You two have, undoubtedly, altered the future from the one you came from.”

              “So…we won’t be able to get back home?”

              “Not by using the device that took you here alone. You’ll need to also utilize a tool allowing you to travel between realities, as you now come from an alternate universe, as well as the future.”

              “How are we supposed to find something like that?” Dipper asked.  “We stole the tape measure and wound up breaking it!  We have no idea how to go to a different reality.”  A smile spread across Ford’s face.

              “Luckily, I happen to know someone who has much expertise in other realms.”  That got Fiddleford’s attention.  He watched Ford warily.  “I will go consult him.”  Without another word, he got up from his chair and left the kitchen.

              “Great, just great,” Fiddleford muttered under his breath.  He began to clear the table.  “He’s gettin’ his lil friend involved.”

              “You seem peeved, Fiddlesticks,” Stan commented. Fiddleford sighed.

              “I ain’t met this person he said he’ll talk to, which ain’t a crime in and of itself.  But I get a bad feelin’ ‘bout it.”

              “You gotta trust your gut,” Stan said softly. He eyed Dipper and Mabel.  “And my gut says that there’s something big that you two are either leaving out or just flat-out don’t know about.”

              “Why?” Dipper asked.  Stan raised an eyebrow.

              “You guys only think Ford’s your great-uncle. Which to me, makes it sound like you two didn’t even know Ford existed before you came here.”

              “I mean…sort of,” Dipper said, rubbing the back of his neck.  Mabel looked at him questioningly.  “We might as well tell him, Mabel.  You heard Ford.  We already messed up the future.”

              “Yeah,” Mabel said.  She took over for Dipper.  “We knew you, but we thought your name was Stanford.  We didn’t know you, or Ford, or, uh, both of you, had a twin.” Stan swore.  “What?  What’s wrong?”

              “How long was I going by Ford’s name?” Stan asked.

              “You didn’t go by Ford, you still went by Stan,” Dipper said.  “You just said it was short for Stanford.”

              “That’s a bit better, but still not great. Answer the question, kid.”

              “I don’t know how long you went by Stanford. But as far as we knew, our dad thought that was your name, and so did Grampie Shermie.”  Fiddleford, who had progressed from clearing the dishes from the table to washing them, froze.  “We were really confused when we got here.”

              “Yeah.  Yeah, I can see why,” Stan mumbled.  He closed his eyes.  “Shit.”

              “You need to explain yer sudden concern, Stanley,” Fiddleford said, propping a sudsy hand on one hip.  “We can’t read yer mind.”

              “Like you’re not concerned about this new information,” Stan snapped.

              “Oh, believe me, I am.  But yer clearly comin’ to some conclusions that ya need to share with the rest of us.”

              “Fine.”  Stan paused. “I don’t always like my life, but I wouldn’t try to take over Ford’s.  Sure, we pretended to be each other to confuse people when we were kids. But this isn’t tricking our mom. This is…this is something serious. I mean, what happened to Stanley? Ford wouldn’t be me, so what did I do with my real identity?”  Stan was silent for a moment.  “There’s only one circumstance I can think of, where I would pretend to be Ford for years and act like the real me didn’t even exist anymore.  Ford isn’t around.”

              “You think he’s passed, by Dipper ‘n Mabel’s time?” Fiddleford asked softly.  Stan shook his head.

              “I wouldn’t take over Ford’s life if he was dead. That’s wrong on more levels than I can count.  No, Ford’s alive.  Or at least, future me thinks he’s alive.  But he’s missing, in some sort of trouble, and I decided the easiest way to help would be to pretend to be him.”

              “Would you try to help him?” Dipper asked quietly.

              “Am I pissed at Ford?  Yes.  Do I hate his guts?  Yes.  But would I do everything I could to help him?” Stan asked.  He paused. “Yes,” he said.  “We might not be friends anymore, but we’re still brothers. We’re still twins.  I wouldn’t turn my back on him if I thought he was in danger.”

              “Maybe right now, that’s yer reaction, but there’s always the chance that you change,” Fiddleford said.  Stan nodded.

              “Yeah, hayseed, that’s possible.  Maybe I’m a different person in the future.  But at least right now, I can only think of one way to wind up in the situation these kids are describing.  Ford’s in trouble.”

              “What kind of trouble?” Mabel asked.  Stan let out a bark of laughter.

              “If I had any idea, little gremlin, I’d tell you.”

----- 

              Glad to have a reason to leave his twin’s presence, Ford entered his study.  He closed the door behind him, then sat cross-legged on the floor.  Excitement filled him at having such an excellently unique circumstance to consult his muse for.

              I highly doubt, even in his millennia of existence, he’s come across a situation like this.  Ford closed his eyes and began to empty his mind of thoughts.  His excitement made the simple act difficult; it took much longer than usual.  But finally, his head had been cleared.  And in the darkness and silence, his muse came.

              “Well, well, well,” sounded the familiar and welcome voice.

              Ford smiled.

              “Hello, Bill.”

[popsiclemania]

My 2020 in K dramas (+1 J drama)

I began watching k-dramas in 2018 but I’ve never watched as many shows, Korean or otherwise, as I have in this one. 2020 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think what helps me really enjoy this over Bollywood+Malayalam+ American pop culture I grew up with is that a smirk on the wrong character’s face doesn’t make me seethe with rage and want to burn everything down. It’s not like growing up with SRK on screen and then having SRK wannabes leave you with lifelong trauma in reality. I can just move on. It’s removed enough from my everyday life but still familiar in a generic Asian family way. Does that make sense? It’s not perfect and it’s not free of its own harmful stereotypes and narratives, but there’s enough of the good stuff to make you stick around. This year I fell in love with Nana, Kim Hye Soo, Han Yeri, Park Eun bin, Ahn Eun jin, Kim Bum, Kim Yong ji, Flower Boy’s Go Dok Mi and Search:WWW’s Bae Tami. Cancelled Ji Chang wook (bye). Desperately missed Kim Jae Wook. Had thoughts on Hwang In Yeop, which were mostly heart eyes. Discovered J dramas and fell in love with Cherry Magic’s Adachi.

My year-in-review below:

LOVED

Into The Ring - I am so glad I saved this for a rainy day because it’s exactly the kind of upright citizen shenanigans my unemployed ass needed at the end of the year.

Goo Se Ra thinks the govt should work for the people but that doesn’t mean her own moral compass always points north. Her purpose is to make steady money, and I love seeing her go hard to survive and cobble together what she needs. The thing that really works for me is that she wants to be good, but she isn’t always. And you get to see her be disappointed, upset, embarrassed and hurt from being publicly kicked in the gut as she navigates a job where she appears, on the surface, to be a supremely confident, self-serving, accidental politician. What you see as her naiveté is mostly just her being a regular person in an environment dictated by backhand deals and rich people politics. She gets hit again and again, and you see what it does to her sense of worth to get back up again, how she grapples with her self. And through all this the show is funny?! Se Ra is what writers of manic pixie characters think they are doing and not doing at all. Love her friends, and Jang Hye-jin is *chef’s kiss*!

Hyena - Kim Hye Soo’s Jung Geum Ja is perhaps Se Ra’s older and darker contemporary.  Geum Ja is a survivor and will get what she wants and where she wants to, however many hells she has to cross. She’s single-minded about her success, ruthless and has no qualms about bending morals to get the outcome she needs. She’ll never compromise on who she is or justify how she lives, can build people up and also tear them down, but she also knows care and kindness.

I turned to Signal for more Kim Hye Soo but was disappointed in how the first few episodes seemed to shortchange her. May try again in 2021.

(Highly recommend @saltr0se​’s  fic series which just GETS Geum Ja so well. Fic writers are the best)

Search: WWW (Finished in 2020) - It took me half a year to finish this. I started watching Search in Oct 2019 and raced through the first 6 episodes because I couldn’t take my eyes off the rollercoaster of Bae Tami’s life. And then I had to take a break because it was a little too close to the frenetic pace of my own industry. As @drivingsideways wrote, a lot of Search is premised around ‘patriarchy? who dat?’, which is why watching its politics play out is so fascinating.  It’s also deliciously turmoil-y to watch a very clear-sighted, weathered Tami put on rose-tinted glasses for her romance and then frequently peer over them to evaluate whether it could actually meld into her life.

Catch The Ghost - Kim Seonho oozes charm and perhaps Startup was a showcase of how effectively he can be a typical male lead. But Catch is exactly not that. Go Jiseok and Yoo Ryeong have moulded their lives around to meet their most desperate wishes in life and in the process also left parts of themselves untended. There is guilt, pain and need. Now guess who will tend to whose wounds? Their dynamic is electric even when the central mystery flags towards the last few episodes of the show. I really hope Moon Geun Young is doing well and gets more amazing roles soon. She is so good here.

(Highly recommend @melonatures​‘s fic for putting that sizzling on-screen chemistry into words. HOW?!) Cherry Magic - Stories about painfully awkward people are my jam and Eiji Akaso gets Adachi’s shy, nervy energy so right. Cherry Magic is straight up just 12 hours of 🥺🥺🥺. 

Stranger/Secret Forest - I’ve been devouring the entirety of Agatha Christie’s work this year after Stranger reminded me how comforting murder mysteries can be. I love Bae Doona. I also love characters who don’t get social norms, not always because they are out to flout them but because that’s just not how their mind/brain works. (have to watch S2)

Flower Boy Next Door -  Honestly, the opening scene introducing Park Shin Hye’s character Go Deok Mi sold me on this immediately. An introverted, penny pinching copy editor living alone and working from home thanks to extreme social anxiety? Love. All the side characters are a lot of fun and I’ve never loved Kim Seulgi and Go Kyung Pyo more. It’s a warm show, slowly rounding off the sharp edges of every character.

JUST FUN

The Spies Who Loved Me -  It’s been a year of disappointing rom-coms and Spies kind of quietly turned it around for me. I want to be the fly on Yoo In Na’s wall as she figures how to play her characters. I’ve only seen her in 3 roles but somehow she always manages to be in character arcs that don’t short change her. Spies could’ve been and sometimes is the regular heterosexual fare, but In Na ups the ante over and over again, coming out on top as the smartest person in the room.

ENJOYED WITH *RESERVATIONS*

I have to watch A Piece Of Your Mind again because I don’t understand how Jung Hae In and Chae Soo bin built SO MUCH warmth and crackling chemistry with barely a kiss. I was iffy about how the whole AI thing started off and the tortured musician plotline (angsty male artists will forever be an eyeroll for me).

Park Min Young is a queen who never disappoints and When The Weather Is Nice is everything you want in a winter romance. My reservation was in how they explore so much of domestic abuse and the complex ways its traumatised the women in this family. I’m ok with the characters having imperfect ways of processing and understanding the violence, I welcome it. I’m not ok with the show dancing around whether the pivotal crime was justified/ self defence (it was).

A lot of dramas did this. I loved Han Yeri and Choo Ja Hyun in My Unfamiliar Family, I didn’t like the free pass the show gave their dad’s abusive character. 

Hwang Jung Eum’s comedy style is generally not my thing but she was pretty great in Mystic Pop-UP Bar. But I’m side-eyeing the sanctity surrounding motherhood. Maybe I should read more about babies and Korean folklore.

Hospital Playlist was my comfort watch through June and July. I think its wholesomeness and non-plot writing came at a good time for me. But I noticed then that the throughline for all main characters was moral superiority and hence what I then saw as *wholesomeness*. It’s kind of what makes it a grating rewatch in parts. Plus the real life of misogyny of Yoo Yeon Seok makes me want to push his angelic catholic character off a cliff. (For context, i was raised catholic). I want to continue loving Chae Song Hwa, and for that the showrunners need to stop cornering her with overbearing romantic interests (let that woman breathe! she literally ran away to another city!) 

Hospital is good at creating moments of comfort, so much so that I went to watch Reply 1988 after it, but had to drop it coz I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll come back to it next year.

Once Again is what I call joint family propaganda. What it does well is lay bare the mechanics of living in a society that prizes the heterosexual family structure, the loops you have to jump through to hide when you break its rules and what happens when you are found out. I love the characters, their fights, their frustrations. I just don’t love the validation of joint families. (context: i grew up in an oppressive joint family lol). In my au, Nahee and Gyujin don’t get married again or immediately have children, but take the long route to figuring out how to love the person the other is. Gahee is openly dating Hyo shin and her parents have to figure out how to process her success and her romance. Young dal and Ok boon have to learn to stop dictating their children’s lives.  Joon sun runs his company from home, so his wife Hyun kyung can work on what she wants. Choyeon, Joori and Ga-yeon go back to being flamboyant AF and the market learns to not judge. Gyujin and Jaesok have to actually work on the relationship with their mother and what sent her into depression. Just a lot of learning involved.

Just Between Lovers was a nice watch, i just don’t get how Kang doo and Ha Moon So’s relationship will survive his constantly simmering anger. 

Crash Landing on You was so much fun until the main romance turned angsty, but it gave us North Korean soldier shenanigans and the epic romance of Seo Dan and Alberto Gu that we needed more of.

Tale of The Nine Tailed is probably what Goblin wished it was. I, however, will never be over Lee Rang. (Also, when can gods stop meeting their love interests as babies? Asking for my sanity)

I literally ignored everything in Oh My Ghost except Park Bo Young and Kim Seulgi and it was amazing. 

NOPE

Goblin, Dinner Mate, Oh My Baby and My Secret Romance were a whole lot of NO, NAHI, ILLAAA. 

I loved hate-watching The King:Eternal Monarch with the rest of k drama tumblr but someone please take away Kim Eun-sook’s access to gigantic budgets and all-star casts.

It was painful to watch Do You Like Brahms squander away its potential but I’m glad to be introduced to Park Eun bin. Age of Youth is next on watchlist.

More than Friends to me is only Ahn Eun jin. Someone give her amazing lead roles asap.

Why did Record of Youth do that to Park So Dam and her clothes? Just why

WANTED TO WATCH, BUT COULDN’T BECAUSE *INTENSE* 

World Of The Married, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay, Sweet Home, Extracurricular, Penthouse, Flower of Evil, Lie After Lie

WILL WATCH NEXT YEAR

SF8, Stove League, Birth Care Centre but I’ll start the new year with School Nurse Files coz it looks very good.

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

how would rank nate's girlfriends (in terms of their relationships with nate and them as people)? lmao

hmm. this is hard. what’s easy is saying i loved natessa best, and hated naterine most. more under the cut!

i think i’ve mentioned enough times that most people know i think nate & vanessa were the best - they both supported each other equally, their relationship was very 50/50, they both respected & valued each other, etc. their relationship was so real and so balanced, i really loved watching that play out and think it made no sense, the way they caused the dissolution of it? especially since after breaking up with vanessa he suddenly seems really into commitment - see how he is with bree buckley!! where was that energy when you were dating someone who was actually cool, natie! 

i don’t know where to put serenate, because i love serena as a character, and i think nate was very committed to that relationship from day 1, but i don’t think serena ever took him as seriously as he deserved to be taken / as HE took her, & i don’t see that particular relationship to be fulfilling in a long-term way for similar reasons that i don’t ship danessa romantically. their break up felt organic to me. that said, serena WAS his best friend and she did care about him and want him to be happy, which is more than you can say for most of nate’s girlfriends.

blair & nate may not have had any sort of romantic spark when we saw them on the show (& honestly, i think nate was initially not a very good bf to blair)- but blair did her best to be there for him, and the implication of childhood friends is that she was there, paying attention for him & being there for him for a really long time. i think blair/nate had a really strong platonic connection that the show never went into, and i think by virtue of that they still rank relatively high from a nate pov at least. 

jenny/nate is also complicated to place, partially because i’m always going to be partial to lesbian!jenny & probably won’t write her as anything else. that said, of late, i’ve been seeing people who love her as much as me, if not more, who see her as someone who likes men, and the last thing i want to do is start a fandom war over ‘is this female character with unspecified sexuality lesbian or bi?’ because those NEVER end well. anyway i’ve become more tolerant to interpretations of jenny that aren’t her being lesbian, and i HAVE read a decent chunk of really good n/j fic. i think they had a closeness on the show that neither of them had with anyone else, where they could talk about their trauma with each other, which makes them special to me. that said, i don’t think their canon dynamic was necessarily the healthiest - jenny often used nate as a means to like, obtain social power, and nate became more passive than ever and just let jenny do whatever she wanted? it’s interesting to me because i feel, theoretically, like nate & jenny could be really healthy together but the show didn’t do that. 

i have a really weird soft spot for jenate shippers though, ever since i got those hateful jennycourse anons. i just hope y’all are having a good time in fandom, and not being dragged down by losers who send anon hate. (unconnected fun fact: sending me ship hate only makes me ship something more! and feel the urge to validate people who ship it.)

now we have a ton of guest stars & relatively unmemorable girlfriends. 

i liked lola and raina!!! raina & nate > lola & nate, for me, tbh. raina & nate had such a childlike enthusiasm and during that day that they do things they’ve never done before, they were both SO happy and it was so cute. eating ice-cream together, talking about starting an ice-cream company, raina kicking nate’s ass at just dance... i wish we’d gotten more raina. i think i actually like raina x nate more than serenate, come to think of it. we didn’t have enough of her, though. raina would’ve been such a GOOD series regular. 

i liked lola & nate!!! lola reminds me of kelsi from hsm for some reason i cannot articulate, and her relationship with nate was VERY chill. low-pressure, drama free, etc, from what i remember. twas cute.

now we are into the less nice ones!

bree :( nate was so into this relationship and there were times when he seemed like he would genuinely be happy with her, but i disliked bree as a character so much that i just could NOT get behind his happiness. it baffles me how men settle for bree buckley after vanessa abrams.

juliet, next. i never liked juliet from the beginning, and i say this as a flex ;) idk she was just really pushy, and her whole “I Can Help You Improve Your Life Even Though You Have No Idea Who I Am” thing felt like a major red flag. i felt vindictive glee about my judgement being right on that one, lmao.

sage goes here, because we only have catherine & diana next. but to be really honest, i think the problem with the sage/nate relationship was nate. he should not have been dating her once he realised she was in high school. teenagers have crushes on people in their 20s!! it’s normal!!! it’s the responsibility of the adults to Not engage and to turn them down if they try to initiate something!! 

diana is the second worst to me - the fact that she’s working for nate’s grandfather, the hashtag workplace harassment of it all... it’s really devastating.

i’ve implied before on this blog that catherine (& naterine) was the worst thing - genuinely traumatic, and it’s implied that after a point, she’s manipulating him & all the sex is coerced, which is undeniably the most terrible. like... the implications are of caon rape, so it really does not get worse than this.

i have not counted jordan steele or ivy dickens (she was never really his gf, she just kissed him + i can’t take her really seriously, given that she was cheating on dan’s dad with serena’s dad and apparently this was completely unironic and non-satirical) because the wikia says that they never officially dated & unlike jenate, those 2 aren’t even Main Characters.

[nanoland]

mazikeen/eve/michael fic in progress

title: Ponder on the Narrow House

fandom: Lucifer

characters: Mazikeen, Eve, Michael 

blurb: In which Mazikeen isn't finished with Michael yet. 

warnings: Spoilers for Season 5. 

0  

In 2019, Fodor’s had crowned LAX the worst airport on Planet Earth, comparing it – much to Mazikeen’s amusement – to Dante Alighieri’s Hell.

She couldn’t comment on the comparison’s accuracy; she’d never read Divina Comedia. Human poetry bored her.

Up against the real thing, however? Hell was quieter, cleaner, and smelt better than Los Angeles International, and it wasn’t even close.

Granted, Mazikeen was biased. Hell was her home and she liked it quite a lot. But surely even a human – even an angel – would sooner take a stint in one of Lucifer’s loops than spend more than thirty minutes in Terminal 3.

Yet there he was, leaning against the wall, watching the bustling crowd with a faint smile on his face, like a man in the park resting his eyes on the ducks. Perfectly content.

“Do you know,” he said as she approached him, “that around forty percent of all humans are scared of flying?”

She hadn’t been sure how this encounter would go and, being innately practical, had dressed accordingly. Black satin skirt, flattering and loose enough to both conceal several demon daggers (invisible to the full-body scanner she’d just sauntered through) and not impede her reaction time in a fight. Red silk wrap blouse, easily unwrapped to serve as a garrotte or tourniquet. Hair down, curled, dyed pitch black with bronze-gold streaks – possibly a tactical disadvantage if he grabbed it, but possibly a distraction. She knew he liked her hair.

When she was satisfied he wasn’t about to lunge for her throat, she took a gamble and moved in to lean against the wall alongside him, following his gaze. “Not surprising. Think of it from their perspective. They don’t have wings. Actually – huh. I guess that’s a perspective you can sympathise with now.”

He sneered. “You’re trying to bait me, Miss Mazikeen. That’s cute. But I’m not in the mood, dollface. This? This is me time. I’ve had a shitty few days and I came here specifically to soak up these idiot mortals’ fear and chill out. Get lost. Go play with my twin if you’re so starved for entertainment.”

Mazikeen stretched. “That’s the problem. He’s hanging out with the rest of your lousy family. Gabriel. Raziel. Jophiel. Now that he’s in charge, they’re all trying to crawl up his ass. It’s pathetic. And annoying.”

His jaw clenched and she knew exactly what he was thinking: ‘That should have been me.’

“Also,” she added, after a pause, “they don’t like me. Most of them have never met a demon. There’s no outright hostility but… they talk to me like I’m some gross exotic pet Lucifer found and adopted.”

“They’re afraid of you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nope. I’m wrong about some things. Never about fear. They can tell how much you matter to him, how much he’d do for you and vis versa, and it scares them shitless. Chloe Decker they can understand – she was Dad’s gift, after all. You, though? Lucy was never supposed to love you. No one was.”

She fiddled with her earring; big, gold, shaped like a swallow with rubies dotting its tail feathers. A gift from Eve. “Whatever. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. With you. Instead of them. You’re the worst, most obnoxious, most cowardly creep ever. I mean it. Christ, do you suck. But you always talked to me like I was a person. Right from the beginning.”

Ugliness flared behind his eyes. “Seriously? Now you’re being nice? Lucifer sent his general to console me? Ha! That’s how pitiful he thinks I am?”

“Pfft – no. Lucifer doesn’t give a crap about you. I’m here because I wanna offer you a job, moron.”

“A… job.”

“Yep. Ever heard of ‘bounty-hunting’?”

He nodded. Slowly. Smirking, she pushed off the wall and twirled on her six-inch heels to face him.

“Here’s the thing, o Angel of Dread; I’ve spent centuries in Hell learning how to terrify people. I look at you and you know what I see? Potential. Sure, you’re rough around the edges. Still got some celestial baby fat clinging to you. Still a little squeamish when it comes to certain tricks of the trade. But Mikey, honey, six months under my tutelage and I think we can turn you into a bona fide fucking nightmare.”

She let the skin on her face’s left side melt away and grinned at him. “So? How about it?”

“Eh,” he said after taking one last glance around the terminal. “Fuck it. Why not? Nothing better to do.” 

0 

“Los Angeles is kinda like me,” Mazikeen told him, taking off her red-lensed cat-eye sunglasses as she strutted down the pier.

“Doesn’t have a soul?”

A withering glare. “Tough. Pretty on the outside, mean on the inside. It’s easy to make enemies around here and when you’ve made ‘em, you need to stay on your toes. Stay nimble. Stay mobile. Ready to fight or flee at any moment.”

Michael nodded. “And that’s how you justify living on a tugboat.”

“Ahoy!” called Eve, standing on the deck in a polka dot bikini and pirate hat Mazikeen had presumably stolen for her off the set of some summer blockbuster or other being shot nearby, the salty breeze playing with her hair.

“It’s a yacht,” Mazikeen growled.

“No. That’s a yacht,” Michael replied, pointing to the gleaming white MCY 70 Skylounge docked nearby. “What you have is a glorified raft that can, at best, accommodate two people and maybe a toaster.”

He should, perhaps, be trying harder to ingratiate himself with his new boss.

But he was tired.

Getting in his face, she snapped, “Hey! That’s our headquarters, asshole. Show some respect.”

“It’s covered in seagull crap. It looks older than me. There’s a very obvious bloodstain on the helm. Jesus, doesn’t Lucifer pay you?”

She pushed him into the sea.

Offering him a hand when he bobbed to the surface, Eve said, “Don’t take it personally. She’s just mad because we weren’t able to steal a bigger one.” 

0 

It was while Michael was towelling himself dry down below decks that the chunky-faced cop wandered in, took one look at him, and strode across the room.

“Mister Espinoza,” he drawled, “what can I-… oh. Oh, wow, you really thought that was going to work, huh?”

Curled up on the floor, clutching the fist he’d very mistakenly slammed into Michael’s jaw, Dan hissed, “Fuck you. You killed me.”

“Poppycock. I had you killed. That’s entirely different, buddy.”

Dan staggered to his feet and shouted, “Maze! Eve! What the hell is he doing here?”

Taking off his wet jacket and draping it over the rack alongside the towel, Michael said, “I was invited, thank you very much. No one told me you were part of the arrangement.”

“What arrangement, asshole?” Dan snapped, turning red. “I’m just here to help Maze fix her boat’s engine.”

“Oh. You don’t work with her, then? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. As we’ve established, you’re entirely too killable.”

“You sleazy son-of-a… Maze! Get down here!”

Grumbling, Michael’s new boss stalked below deck carrying a crate of beer on her left shoulder and a sleeping bag under her right arm. “Goddammit – Dan, I told you to wait. Is your hand bleeding, you big meathead? We seriously just dragged your ass out of Hell and you couldn’t go two whole days before breaking yourself again? Ugh. You’re impossible. You’re worse than Decker.”

“Maze, d’you wanna explain what the actual fuck Lucifer’s psycho twin is doing here?”

“Interning,” Michael said, cheerfully.

His face now practically purple, Dan half-yelled, “What is he talking about? This is not okay, Maze! Does Chloe know? Does Amenadiel? Why is he even still on Earth? Lucifer’s God now; can’t he stick him on Mars or turn him into a bug or something?”

“Look, Dan, just calm down-…” she began.

“I died! I actually, literally, physically died! Because of him! No, I’m not going to calm down!”

Michael scoffed. “Please. Like that’s what you’re really upset about. You’re not angry about dying. You’re not angry at all. You’re scared, buttercup. And not just of me; of her, of Lucifer, of everything, and to be honest, I didn’t even need to use the ol’ angel juice to work that out.”

Mazikeen set down her cargo, pulled a knife from her belt, and flung it. It embedded itself five inches deep in the floor between them. “This? This is not Lux, dickheads. Mortals and celestials don’t hang out here to have a good time while I sit behind the bar and tolerate them. This crummy, crusty-ass, piece of crap boat is my domain. Here, I don’t have to put up with one femtometre of your bullshit. If you want to fight, do it somewhere else. If you want to fuck, do it quick and clean up afterwards. If you want to make yourselves useful, help me get the weapons on board.”

“Wait – wait, weapons? What weapons?” said Dan to her retreating back. “You said you were going fishing. Maze! What weapons?” 

0

“Where’s all your stuff?” Eve asked when she showed him to his tiny cabin.

“I’m an archangel. I don’t have ‘stuff’.”

(Michael had already decided he didn’t like her. She was bubbly.)

“Heh. You should travel with Lucy sometime. We went to Vancouver for a weekend and he brought seven bags, five watches, and six pairs of shoes. Okay, do you – uh, do you at least have a change of clothes? Because those look kinda soggy.”

To his annoyance – and embarrassment – she spend twenty minutes hunting down a shirt and pants that would fit him.

“They’re mine,” she said, dropping them into his lap. “But I bought them to sleep in and I like loose pyjamas, so they’re a dozen sizes too big on me. Oh! Also found you this.”

She presented a hot water bottle in the shape of a fat, cuddly sheep.

He accepted it carefully, wondering if it was booby-trapped. “You’re Lucifer’s ex, right?”

“Er… yep? Amongst other things. The Original Sinner. First Woman, First Wife, First Mother. Mother of Mankind. Second Human. First Knowledgeable Human. But sure, I was also your brother’s girlfriend for a while.”

“And now you’re Mazikeen’s. Do you also work with her?”

“Sure do!” she said, interpreting the question as an invitation to sit down next to him. “I’m The Choronzon’s captain. That’s our boat’s name. My idea. I know she’s not much to look at but she’s got so much history. There’ve been fourteen homicides on her! Plus, she’s fast; way, way faster than she looks. And I know the beds are hard, but we’ve got three hammocks stashed away and getting them set up is easy as pie.”

“Wow. Those suckers up in the Silver City don’t know what they’re missing.”

She nodded, blinking slowly. “Hmm. Maze was right. You are mean. That’s cool. I get on well with mean people. Anyway, just in case she hasn’t told you; we’ve got a job lined up and we’ll be setting sail tomorrow at dawn. You get seasick? Not a problem; we’ve got a medical kit full of antiemetics. On that note, should we pick up something for you before we leave shore?”

“No.”

“You sure? Just that – uh – I mean, my third son, Seth, the one nobody talks about – he also had pretty severe scoliosis. Wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it back then. But these days they’ve got tons of stuff; opiods and anti-inflammatories and memory foam. Science is so, so cool. And I’m going shopping for sunscreen anyway, so dropping by the pharmacy wouldn’t be a problem.”

For a moment, he reviewed a list of responses that would deeply, profoundly hurt her, responses that would ensure she didn’t approach him again.

But he was tired, tired, tired.

“Here.”

He took a folded piece of A4 paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “These are what the last human doctor I went to recommended. Getting hold of those three I’ve circled is tricky, but I know a guy. Call him on that number down there and he’ll meet you wherever. If he gives you any trouble, remind him that Michael knows about the vacuum cleaner. That’ll shut him up.”

As soon as she’d bounced out of the room, he shut the door, locked it, and laid down to sleep. 

0

It was night when he awoke.  

He went upstairs to find Mazikeen and Eve sitting on the deck, admiring what stars could be seen through Los Angeles’ perpetual light pollution and sharing a pizza.

“Mickey! Get over here,” called Mazikeen, clad in a black dressing down and slippers shaped like plump pink pigs.

“It’s freezing,” he complained.

She snickered and threw him the prickly blanket that had been resting over her knees. “Wimp. Eve told you about the job, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to use any weapons?” Eve asked. “Maze sticks with her knives most of the time. I prefer my traps and crossbow. But we’ve got guns, if that’s more your speed.”

They were clearly expecting him to sit down. Eve had even scooted to the left to make room.

He opened the blanket up and wrapped it around his shoulders, remaining standing. “Can I ask a question? What, precisely, is my role here?”

“For now, you’re a meat shield,” said Mazikeen, talking through a mouthful of pepperoni and violently yellow cheese. “Me and Eve are both vulnerable to bullets. I mean – I’m less vulnerable, obviously. But I don’t hate any of my relatives enough to go about finding out exactly how many bullets it takes to snuff a demon. So your job, at least tomorrow, is just to soak up enemy fire until we’ve got our hands on the target.”

Scowling, he said, “Getting shot does hurt, you know.”

“Yeah,” she replied, eyes shining with spite. “Dan sure seemed to think so.”

When the tense silence had stretched for over thirty seconds, Eve clapped her hands, smiling anxiously, and said, “So! Anyone up for rummy?”

(to be continued) 

[jwillowwolf]

Magic and Miracles - Chapter 12

Sanders Sides Big Bang fic, Chapter 12!

< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter > | Masterlist

Summary: “You are all insane,” Everleigh declared blankly.

“We are perfectly sane,” Logan replied.

Remus shrugged. “Well, sane enough...”

Warning/s: food mention.

Characters: Logan, Virgil, OCs, Roman, Remy, Remus, Patton, Janus, Emile.

Tag List: @theimprobabledreamersworld @remy-please-come-back

Read on AO3

12 | Searching

“No! We can’t just close it!”

“Virgil, there’s nothing we can do.”

“We could find the miracle.”

“That’s an impossible quest and you know it.”

“But there is a chance.”

After Remy told Tanya they needed to close the porthole, Virgil had snapped and was now fighting to keep it open. No one else dared to speak up while the pair argued over the matter. Instead, they just stood to the side, watching with growing anxiety over what the outcome would be.

“If you leave it open then that earl will attack.”

“Not if we find the-”

“There’s nothing you can do, why can’t you accept that?”

The room fell into near-complete silence as everyone waited for Virgil’s reaction. For the moment, he was just standing there stone-faced and staring at Remy. Remy looked uncharacteristically angry. Honestly, the students had seen him upset but never this upset. Still, Virgil just watched him.

“...There is something I can do. That’s why I won’t give up on them.”

Remy’s expression morphed into empathy and regret as he realised what he meant. To Virgil, closing the porthole meant giving up. It meant letting his grandmother die alone in that tower. It meant abandoning an entire realm, a race of people, to a power-hungry usurper. It meant accepting that there was nothing more he could do. And Virgil couldn’t do that.

Before Remy could apologise though, Virgil’s wings sprouted from his back and he flew away. The others were simply left in shock to absorb the meaning of his words.

Remy sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Tanya shrugged. “You could have been a tad more… understanding, but he does need to understand that what he’s suggesting is far too dangerous.”

“...I should go after him-”

“Or maybe it’s better if we go,” Janus interjected, gesturing to the class. “He’s been through a lot. He might not be ready to forgive you just yet.”

Logan nodded. “We’ll make sure he’s okay. Don’t worry.”

“The best thing for Virgil right now would be comfort. You can counsel him later,” Willow said.

Remy sighed and nodded defeatedly. Logan then led Janus, Willow, Patton, Remus, and Roman to where he remembered Virgil’s room was. Or where he hoped was Virgil’s room. He’d been quite overwhelmed last time he was here so he was only 92% sure they were at the right door. Before any of them could knock though, Virgil opened the door and looked like he was leaving with a bag full of supplies.

Logan frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Uh… nowhere.”

“Lying to your friends now, eh? And here we were coming to comfort you,” Janus remarked.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “I won’t be talked out of it.”

“Who said we’re here to talk you out of it?” Remus refuted.

“Are you going to try finding the miracle? By yourself?” Patton questioned.

“Maybe…” Virgil muttered, avoiding his gaze.

“Well, you can forget that idea. Because we’re coming with you.” Roman declared.

Virgil looked at the group disbelievingly.

“Come on man, we were ready to follow you into a realm of magic and mystery. We’re not letting you drop us that easily.” Willow remarked.

“Are you guys sure?”

Logan nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re here for you. To support any way we can.”

“Thanks, guys. Now, I’m not sure how to sneak us all out of here.”

“Have you forgotten about magic? We can make a porthole.” Janus reminded him.

“Where to go though?” Roman asked.

“Everleigh,” Willow said. “She should know about or have access to some maps that can help us find the Miracle sooner.”

Logan nodded. “She should actually be at the library working right now. I’m sure she’d be happy to help.”

---

“You are all insane,” Everleigh declared blankly.

“We are perfectly sane,” Logan replied.

Remus shrugged. “Well, sane enough...”

“Please Ev,” Willow begged with puppy eyes.

Everleigh squirmed. “Don’t do that face, it makes me agree to anything and you know it.”

“Please~”

“You guys know the Miracle hasn’t been seen in like three thousand years, right? How are you even sure it’s alive?”

“The dream said we needed to find the Miracle, so it must be alive,” Janus stated.

“Come on, Everleigh, this is an important mission. The lives of thousands hang in the balance.” Roman declared.

Everleigh huffed. “Pure pressure and pleading are not going to work, no matter how good you all are at it.”

Logan put a hand on her shoulder. “Please. If not for thousands of lives then just for the Queen’s life. She doesn’t deserve the fate she’s facing.”

Everleigh looked at him then glanced at Virgil for a split second before looking at Logan again. “What was she like?”

“Surprisingly held together for someone near their death. She acted quite strong and accepted that this was the end for her, but… her eyes… They were full of mourning. Full of fear. It reminded me of my mom…”

“I’m sorry you had to see her like that,” Virgil said. “My gran and your mom.”

Logan smiled weakly. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Everleigh sighed. “Fine. I’ll help you guys. But I’m coming too.”

“It will be dan-”

“Dangerous, I know, but if you don’t let me come along then you’re not going either. Someone needs to keep you all from being completely reckless.”

Logan chuckled. “Fair enough. Welcome to the team, Ev.”

After convincing Everleigh to help them, the team jumped straight into analyzing everything known about the Miracle for clues about it. The main problem was that any primary information was thousands of years old and therefore kept away in the restricted area of the library. This meant that only Everleigh, with her apprenticeship, could read through those articles.

The others didn’t stay idle while she did that though. They took to looking through what was available to the public. By sunset, Virgil was starting to worry about Remy coming to look for them, but that was when Everleigh came through.

“I found something!” She exclaimed. A nearby co-worker shushed her, but she paid them no mind. “Here, check this out.”

Willow raised an eyebrow. “Volume three of the Quest of Nigel Hawk? What does that have to do with our search?”

“Okay, so I was looking at the primary accounts from people who had met or knew the Miracle. They don’t normally describe it, but those who did, mentioned things like bright silver eyes, dark skin, and feathery wings. It reminded me of one of Nigel’s stories, the one where ze sails to the Misted Isles,” Everleigh explained, opening the book and searching through the pages for whatever she’d found. “Uhhhhh, here! Look at this sketch.”

She turned the book around for everyone to see, and featured on the page was indeed a lovely black and white sketch of a human-like creature. Its skin was shaded dark and its eyes were a light colour that could be silver, and on its back, there were two sets of wings.

Remus tilted his head to the side. “Isn’t that Nitya, the stranger that Nigel met at the harbour?”

“Yes. Nitya and Nigel were both looking to go on an adventure somewhere. Or rather Nigel was looking to go on an adventure and needed a friend for the journey. Nitya happened to be staying at the same inn as zem and the two decided to go together to the Misted Isle. Except, Nitya never returned, Nigel wrote ‘on the day we were meant to sail back to the mainland, Nitya and I were standing together on the beach watching the sunrise. It looked at me and said it would be staying here. It felt that this was the perfect place to spend the rest of its time.’”

“So then, the Miracle aka Nitya is on the Misted Isle. We must go there at once!” Roman enthused.

“How? We can’t make portholes to places we haven’t been, and none of us exactly own a ship.” Janus pointed out.

“Could we make one?” Patton wondered. “I mean, theoretically, by using our magic we could make anything. So, why not a ship to get us to the misted isle?”

Remus lit up. “That’s a perfect idea, Pat! We can’t teleport all the way to the isle, but we could at least get to the harbour. Roman and I were there when we sailed over from Lyrecrest.”

“And using my proficiency in plant magic, I could grow a tree into the perfect shape of a ship,” Roman added.

“Well then, is there anything we need before we go?” Willow asked.

“Food and fresh water, plus maybe a change of clothes, just in case,” Remus listed.

“Alright then, let’s get everything so we can go!”

Following this, the team split up, Everleigh went to her house to get the things, while the others used portholes to grab things from their rooms. While Logan was getting his things together, he felt a sense of unease settle in his gut as he thought about his dad. Sure, Emile had agreed to him going to the fae realm, but going to the Misted Isle was a whole different thing. He decided that he could at least drop by to fill him in, and made a porthole to his room back at the bakery.

Once he stepped through and looked around, he felt a twinge of nostalgia. The room was just the same as he had left it. Still neat and tidy as it had been when he left all those months ago for his first day at the manor. While he knew it hadn’t been all that long ago, he still felt as if it were a distant memory. Gods know he’s made so many more since.

As he was about to open his door, he heard his father speaking, “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down? Ems, no offence, but I just lost seven kids. Including the freaking crown prince! I can’t calm down.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine, Remy.”

“But what if they aren’t? What if they run into assassins? Or monsters? Or monster assassins?!”

“Rem-”

“Oh gods! How am I going to explain to Joan that I lost Thomas’s only kid? The heir to the throne!”

“Re-”

“And the other parents. One of them is a freaking dragon! They’ll roast me. Literally!”

“R-”

“What if they end up starving to death? Or getting overly dehydrated? Or poisoned?!”

“Remy!” There was a moment of silence as Emile walked to where Remy was. “I understand. I’m worried about them too. I don’t know what kind of parent wouldn’t be. But you need to calm down dear. Stress isn’t going to help us find them any sooner.”

“...Do you really think they’ll be fine?”

“They do seem to have a… skill for finding trouble. But they always get themselves out of it in the end.”

Remy sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

Quietly, Logan stepped over to his desk and wrote a note for the two adults. Then, he made sure to make a noise that would cause them to come and check the room before he left again through the porthole. He felt guilty for the anxiety he was putting them through, but he hoped that the letter would ease some of their concerns.

---

“You told them where we’re headed?”

“Only that we’ve figured out where and are going to find the Miracle,” Logan replied.

Virgil nodded. He had been feeling a bit guilty about leaving the adults in the dark, so Logan leaving an explanation at the very least eased his conscience. “Well, looks like there’s no turning back now.”

“Technically, we could turn back. The shore isn’t that far away, and with Patton using his water magic proficiency to guide the ship we’re sailing much faster than any normal vessel,” Logan stated.

Virgil smirked. “It’s an expression, L… what do you think the isle will be like?”

“Similar to how Nigel described it. Full of mystery and magical creatures. Maybe we’ll see a unicorn,” Logan mused.

“Would you like to see a unicorn?”

“Perhaps. It would be an interesting encounter.”

“How long have you wanted to see a unicorn?”

“Um, what?”

“I know you like to think of yourself as some emotionless rock, but I can see right through you. You definitely want to see a unicorn for more than because it would be an interesting experience.”

“Seeing a unicorn would be an interesting experience. And perhaps one of the things I’ve always dreamed of doing,” Logan admitted sheepishly. “My mom used to tell me stories about them when I was younger. They were my favourite.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ve never heard you talk much about your mom.”

“Well, I was very young when she passed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No, but I shouldn’t pry.”

“Perhaps… but I don’t mind talking about her with you... I only remember a few things since I was so young. Her stories about magic and adventure. The way she disliked singing but still loved music. Her light laughter and tender voice. How she always comforted me when I felt down.”

“She sounds like she was a wonderful mother.”

Logan smiled softly. “The best… if you don’t mind my asking, what are your parents like?”

“Well, Papa writes a lot of songs in his spare time. Mostly sappy love songs though occasionally he just makes up silly rhymes about any nobles he doesn't like. Dad likes singing too, though he loves acting even more. Whenever he told me stories as a kid he used so many voices and expressions. It was the coolest experience,” Virgil recalled fondly. “...Logan… do you… do you think they’re really gone?”

Logan frowned. “I don’t know. But they must have gone somewhere and wherever that is we’ll find them and bring them back. Until then though, you’re not alone Virgil.”

“...thank you.”

Nothing much else happened that night. The kids slept in shifts aboard the ship as it smoothly glided through the waters in the direction of the misted isle. When the sun rose over the waters to the east, everyone woke up and together ate a small breakfast of their supplies. They didn’t have much to do apart from telling stories or play sitting games as they waited to arrive at their destination. Before noon though, they saw looming on the horizon, an island strangely covered in a mass of fog that made it nearly impossible to actually see the island.

“Here we are, guys. The Misted Isle.”

---

A/N: thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this. I'd love to hear what you thought about the chapter if you wouldn't mind commenting. Thanks again for reading! Here's hoping you have a magical day 💜

[gaydiekane]

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME DOING A CUT SO IF IT DOESNT WORK IM SO SORRY IM CLOGGING UR FEED ANYWAYS-

before we start~~

greyson- ahhh yeah they/them pronouns but originally greyson used he/him so if you see any stray he/hims that i forgot to change please lmk (comment with the sentence or smth it'd be greatly appreciated)

link to chapter 1

i do not own any of the characters or settings from the riordanverse, all rights go to richard russell riordan. i also don't own perry the platypus, that goes to dan povenmire

finally, this is only my current draft, so when this whole thing is done and completed this chapter could be entirely different. i'm also a cHiLd so my writing isn't that good please bear w me 💀 i also suck at titles if u have any other ideas lmk 💀💀

anywaysssss..

The Currently Unnamed Fic

Chapter 2 - i think this is now named An Intro to New Life but im not 100% sure?

The boy led me down the hill and to the Kansas house. There was a man and a few other people playing a card game. I mean, I thought they were people, but they looked like goat boys. Something was nagging at me in the back of my mind, like something about this was familiar, but I couldn't figure it out.

"Mr. D," the kid said, "we have a new camper. And- hold up," he turned to me, "what are your pronouns?"

"She/her."

He turned back to Mr. D. "She's fifteen!"

Mr. D placed his cards face down on the table. "Fifteen? Whoever your parent is is awfully stupid."

Some useful information, I suppose. And, parent? My mom said she was bad at math in school, and my dad. . .

"My mom mentioned something about my dad when she dropped me off here," I said.

"Well, you're not one of mine," Mr. D said, and averted his attention back to the game. "Owen-"

"Oliver."

"-would you mind showing her around?"

"Oh, I would love to, but," the kid, Oliver, flashed the book he was reading, "I've got some reading to do. And I'm also redirecting mortals, so. . . . Catch ya later," he said walking away.

"He could've just said he didn't want to," Mr. D said under his breath (but still loud enough for everyone to hear). "Uh, Garrett Smith! Can you show around the new kid?" he asked to the nearest kid in the strawberry field.

The kid looked around my age, maybe a bit older. They had curly strawberry blond hair and tan skin like they spent almost all of their time outside. "Sure thing, just let me put this-"

"Nonsense, Sandra over there will take care of whatever it is." Mr. D interrupted. "I've got a card game to finish, so if you would please, George Salazar, show around, er, what's your name?" He turned to me.

"Elizabeth Herman," I answered. "I go by Ellie, though."

"Yes, show Lizzy Henderson around."

"On it Mr. D," the kid said. I didn't trust that their name was Garrett Smith or George Salazar.

I left the table and met the kid at the bottom of the stairs. They greeted me with a bright smile. "Hey, I'm Greyson Summit," they said. "I wish I were George Salazar. Oh, to be on Broadway, instead picking strawberries for the god of wine," they said dreamily.

I returned a smile. "I'm Ellie. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, and don't worry," Greyson added, "you don't have to bow down to Mr. D. He doesn't do much."

I nodded my head. Like Perry the Platypus, I thought. "Why would I need to bow down to him?" I asked.

"Oh, right, I should explain," Greyson said. "That's Dionysus, the god of wine and all that. You said your mom said something about your dad, right? I'm assuming she meant he's a god too."

I felt like I had been hit by a brick. I probably was at some point if I didn't remember basic stuff from sixth grade English, but that's not the point.

"Wait, I think I've read about this place," I said.

Greyson got a confused look on their face. "Like, in The Lightning Thief?" I nodded my head. "Woah." They laughed. "Not to be dramatic, but you should probably be dead. Let's head to the east."

Greyson began walking off towards what I assumed was the east, leaving me the opposite of "no thoughts, head empty."

I ran to catch up with them.

"By the time we're done it should be time for lunch, then I'll show you the other side after," they were saying.

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

We made our way along the creek towards the east woods. Greyson wasn't the best tour guide. We would pass by something and they'd randomly point out what it was. At least it wasn't a safari. I nearly giggled at the thought.

"Volleyball court. Art's and crafts. Hermes kids doing. . . something. Oh no, there's fire again."

I watched as a couple kids tried to stomp out a small flame in the grass.

"Again?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Greyson. "Come on."

They tried to strike up small talk. Unfortunately, both of us were quite bad at making conversation. Maybe it was best we weren't as good at striking things up as those Hermes kids.

I tried thinking of some icebreakers and introduction questions while we walked around.

"What are your pronouns?" I asked.

"They/them," Greyson said. "I'm genderfluid, but it's easier to use they/them pronouns than correcting people all the time. But if it really bothers me sometime I'll correct you, just a heads up."

"Cool. Thanks for letting me know."

More silence.

"Your pronouns are she/her, right?" they asked.

I nodded.

"So. . . where are you from?" Greyson asked after a bit more silence.

"Arizona," I answered.

"Oh, cool," they responded.

More silence.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"Kansas."

Out of all the new and crazy info I'd gotten that day, that one won first place by far. "But I thought Kansas didn't exist?"

"What?"

I shrugged.

We made it to the rock wall. The heat emitting from it reminded me of Arizona summers. A girl dropped down nearby where we were standing.

"Beat ya!" she shouted up. She looked over at us. "Oh, hey Greyson. Who's this?"

The girl was short. Well, maybe short to me, I'm 5'8". She was maybe 5'4"? (Is that short?) She had dark brown skin and vitiligo. She also had brown eyes and dark brown coily hair.

"This is Ellie," Greyson said. "Do you think Kansas exists?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Do you think Kansas exists?" Greyson repeated.

"Yes, of course," the girl answered.

"Even before you met me?" they asked.

She paused, before answering, "Well, I hadn't given it much thought before."

"Damn, alright," Greyson said. "Ellie, this is Leila."

"Nice to meet you," I said.

Another girl dropped down from the wall. She had black hair with a split dye that was hot pink. Her hair was steaming, and her tan skin looked blistered in a couple spots. "You cheated!" She pointed at Leila accusingly.

"How do you cheat at a rock wall?" I asked.

"How can you think Kansas doesn't exist?!" Greyson asked me.

"Hold up, you didn't think Kansas existed?" the new girl asked me. "Wait, who are you?"

"I'm Ellie," I answered.

"Cool, I'm Chleo," she said. "Anyways, you thought Kansas didn't exist?"

"I thought it was made up for the plot of the Wizard of Oz!" I said. They all just looked at me. "How many people have you met that are from Kansas? What has ever happened in Kansas? What exists there?" I asked.

"Well, I know Greyson. . . ." Chleo said.

"The National World War I Museum is in Kansas City!" Greyson claimed. We all just stared at them. They put their hands up defensively.

"So. . . how do you cheat at rock wall climbing?" I asked again, hoping to drop the subject of Kansas.

"Oh I'm a daughter of Hecate," Leila said. She snapped her fingers and her and Chleo had switched places as Chleo went to rest her arm on Leila's shoulder. "The mist is easy to manipulate for me." She shrugged, ignoring Chleo on the ground.

"You bitch!" Chleo exclaimed from the floor. "Which also means, she cheated," Chleo said, getting up.

"No, I just used my resources!" said Leila. "They tell us to do that."

A horn sounded in the distance. "Come on Ellie, we have to line up for lunch," Greyson said. "We can go with the Hermes cabin, since they're here." He glanced above my head before walking towards a forming line of kids with mischievous looks on their faces, like I was told I had.

"Who's your godly parent?" I asked Greyson.

"My dad's Apollo," they said quietly. "We're not really supposed to talk in lines but lots of people do anyways."

We walked in silence to the dining pavilion. We went over the creek, passed by a huge arena, an archery range, the cabins. I knew there wouldn't be much left for Greyson to show me after lunch, but I knew continuing to let them show me around was better than to be friendless.

I was handed a plate of food and sat on the end of table eleven next to a kid with curly light brown hair and hazel eyes. He looked older than me.

"Oh, hey newbie!" he said. "I'm Austin."

"I'm Ellie," I said. "Nice to meet you Austin."

"Nice to meet you too Ellie," he said. "I'm the head of cabin eleven and one of the camp counselors this year. It doesn't matter too much, but I suppose it's good to know. Come on newbie, it's our turn at the fire." We all got up and walked over to the big bronze brazier in the middle of the pavilion.

I watched as Austin pushed a portion of his plate into the fire. "Hermes," he said.

I pushed a portion of brisket into the flames. "Hermes?" I said, though it came out as more of a question. Austin laughed and shook his head, and we went back to table eleven.

Back at the table I talked a bit more with Austin. He told me he has a twin sister, Kaite, and how he's from Michigan and moved to New Jersey a few years ago. He's turning nineteen this October and is really into crafting because he grew up doing it with his mother as a kid.

"What did you mean it didn't matter that you're head of cabin eleven?" I asked.

"Not that part, the part about being camp counselor," he said. "Camp counselors and cabin counselors are different. We call cabin counselors cabin heads to avoid confusion, but you'll hear both. Cabin heads just make sure none of their siblings are being absolutely stupid and lead them to their activities. Prep for inspection, all that. Camp counselors are more of like, the older sibling to everyone, they're all cabin heads, they do inspection, stuff like that. Kinda take charge. They're the people you go to if you need something. Some cabins have more than one counselor, by the way."

"What about Chiron?" I asked.

"Well, you'd go to him for super important stuff, like emergencies. A serious injury, an attack. Mr. D, well, just, never go D with an emergency. He'll most likely do nothing. Actually, he's good to go to if you have any questions regarding sexuality or gender identity." He paused for a moment, before continuing, "Camp leadership! Right!

"So once Percy and Annabeth -- you know who they are? -- Coolio, once they left everyone realized they forgot how to run the camp because they did everything and wars and all that jazz. Instead of trying to remember, they made new over-complicated systems to run the place. They work though. Until the older heroes came back. A couple summers ago the older campers came back to teach here." He pointed to the director's table. Along with Mr. D, I saw a few other adults chatting and eating. "Ever since they came back, us camp counselors have been kinda demoted. No one comes to us much anymore. Granted, they do know more, but it kinda sucks being demoted. Some of the cabin heads get replaced by the adults too, if they have an adult sibling here. But since they teach they're not around much for their cabin. It doesn't make too much sense." He shook his head.

"Maybe it's just that awkward telling a twenty year old what to do," I suggested. "Who are all the camp councelors?"

"There's me, Emma from the Aphrodite cabin, Ricky from the Apollo cabin, and Asia from the Iris cabin," Austin answered.

"You see? I just came to you for a question, you're not useless!" My words of encouragement didn't seem to make him all too much better. Though, I was never too good at encouraging others.

"I guess," he said. "That reminds me, after lunch is over I need to get you a copy of the Camp Half-Blood Confidential. And a shirt."

"The what now?"

"Years ago, after the last war, they were talking about what they would change about camp and all that, and Nico said the orientation video, which only he had seen. Everyone ended up watching it and they decided, 'Woah, this is terrible!' So they wrote a book."

They did what now? "That's stupid," I said. Who would write an important informational book for kids with dyslexia to read?

Austin looked at me questioningly. "What do-" He was cut off by a loud voice from elsewhere in the pavilion.

"Alright everyone," Mr. D stood up for announcements, "we have a new camper. Everyone say hi to Lizzy Henderson." There was a bit of hesitant applause before someone else from the director's table stood up.

"Maybe we should let her introduce herself," she said, giving a quick glare to Mr. D. He muttered something about how he did a fine job before the woman continued. Her gray eyes scanned the tables for the new face. "If you want to stand up so we can all see you..."

The blonde lady began to reminded me of a middle school English teacher. And I don't know how she didn't notice me, I was the only one not in bright orange. I should've stuck out like a sore thumb.

I stood and her eyes fell on me. Her smile wavered and she said something I couldn't make out to the man next to her, whose back was still facing me. She looked up again and continued, her smile returned. "How about you tell us your name, your age, and where you're from?" she asked.

Most eyes were on me, which bugged me because now I didn't know where to look. I decided to try keeping my eyes on the woman. "I'm Ellie Herman, I'm from Arizona, and I'm fifteen," I said.

I heard a few people start whispering around me. The lady furrowed her brows and looked back down at the man next to her, who then turned around to look at me. I noticed the man's black hair and sea green eyes, along with a nasty scar under his right eye, the same way I had imagined Luke's while reading the books. Then it hit me. The woman talking to me was Annabeth Chase, like, the Annabeth Chase.

"Do you know who your godly parent is yet?" Annabeth asked, sounding almost hopeful.

I shook my head. "No."

After a moment her smile returned. "Well, we're glad to have you here, Ellie." Annabeth turned to the rest of the campers. "Everyone welcome Ellie Herman, undetermined."

[lizzzybooo]

Your Mess Is Mine

Summary: “I know what you’re thinking,” he said with a serious tone, catching Dan off guard.

“Do you?” honestly, it wasn’t that hard to guess.

“Yes. You’re thinking that this hat totally clashes with everything else I’m wearing, and you’re not wrong.” He was looking at Dan with round, shiny eyes. Dan blinked at him a few times, dumbstruck.

——————————— A university!au where Dan is a third year student dealing with demons from his past, and Phil is the peculiar guy from his Greek mythology class who he just can’t quite get out of his mind.

warnings: mention of suicide (not discussed in detail), Minor Character Death

read on ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12640926/chapters/56116090

also check out the amazing art @ninapons made for this fic!! hereand here and here

chapter 15

words for this chapter : 5k 

total word count:  58409

notes: so... yeah haha i’m back! sorry for the (unreasonably long) wait guys, i hope some of you are still interested in this story ^.^ a huge thank you to @honeywreath for the moral support <3 she’s as aweet as they get <333 also as i’m really nervous posting this, i would really appreciate your feedback, so please tell me what you think! and... hope you like it lol 

read last chapter here

start at the beginning

For the first time in his life, Dan was grateful for exam season.

The days went by in a blur, meshing together while he was trying to focus all his energy on studying and passing his exams, instead of his unanswered calls and messages.

Ezra was finally back from the holidays, dividing his time between their dorm room and the library (as it turned out, Ezra’s uncle refused to take him back to work at the shop, even with his mother’s insistence, so Ezra was still out of a job and apparently pretty stressed about the whole thing).

Dan found that he actually preferred the times they were both in their room together to the times when Ezra would disappear to the library to study. Ezra wasn’t big on conversations, and honestly they didn’t have a lot in common either way, but even so, having a constant presence of someone familiar next to him brought Dan a surprising amount of relief. Ezra was constantly making some kind of noise, clicking his tongue or sighing loudly when he couldn’t get something right, filling the room with sounds and liveliness. And even though it used to drive Dan crazy, he started taking comfort in those sounds, in the knowledge that someone else was present in the room with him, welcoming the distraction. (Dan briefly wondered if it was a result of Phil’s never ending chatter that made him suddenly uncomfortable with silence, but he pushed the thought away quickly, not liking the way it made his heart clench painfully).

After a few days of feeling uneasy every time he was left alone in their room, Dan even started following Ezra to the library whenever he went (a fact that made Ezra unbelievably flustered and surprised the first few times, before getting used to the new arrangement). As it turned out, Ezra (like Dan) didn’t have a thriving social life, and more often than not spent his time studying by himself, so Dan didn’t really feel bad for intruding.

They studied next to each other in silence, each of them focused on their own laptop and books, and sometimes, when they both needed a break and a change in scenery, even went out to eat lunch together or drink coffee (though Ezra always stuck to tea, mumbling how coffee wasn’t good for his still growing body).

They usually sat opposite each other in the campus cafeteria, sharing the occasional word, but mostly Ezra kept his nose stuck in one of his textbooks, mumbling to himself, while Dan just stared at him absentmindedly, drinking his coffee or eating his sandwich.

It was on one of those coffee breaks that Dan noticed, to his surprise, that Ezra was actually quite handsome. It was an odd thought that popped into his mind suddenly, and it made Dan feel a little embarrassed, a little ashamed, that he never considered Ezra anything close to handsome before. If he was being honest with himself, Ezra’s odd personality and awkward behavior never let Dan look at him as anything other than his strange roommate.

But, he had to admit, Ezra was actually pretty good looking. Not in a flashy way, no- Dan didn’t think he would have noticed him or payed any extra attention to him if they have met somewhere outside their small dorm room (even if he didn’t know about his weird Beethoven obsession.) But even so, he had a nice, quiet kind of appeal to him.

He was two years younger than Dan, 19, and his face was still pretty boyish and soft (not unlike his own). He wasn’t as tall as Dan, but he definitely wasn’t short, and Dan had to admit his hazel eyes had a nice, cat like shape to them that he quite liked.

“You should get a different haircut,” Dan told him out of the blue, making him lift up his eyes and look at him in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“Your hair, I think you should try having it a little longer, it would suit your face.”

Ezra was staring at him with wide eyes, pink coloring his freckled cheeks. Definitely cute, Dan thought.

“I always had it like this,” he said, his hand subconsciously moving up to the top of his head, petting his short trimmed hair.

Dan smiled, amused. “Of course you had,” he said, laughing when Ezra turned his face from him in annoyance, always quick to get offended by Dan’s teasing. “You have a pretty face though, I think longer hair would look good on you, but there’s nothing wrong with the way it is now,” he tried to say reassuringly, stopping himself from laughing more when Ezra’s face became unbelievably red and his eyes blew even wider.

“I don’t have a- a pretty face!” he protested, as if Dan threw an insult his way instead of paying him a compliment.

“Just my opinion mate,” Dan said, raising his hands in surrender, watching in amusement the way Ezra was avoiding his eyes pointedly.

He was quiet for a minute, looking stubbornly at his textbook before finally peeking at Dan. “You actually think I have a pretty face?” he asked, sounding suspicious and a little accusing, and all Dan could do to ignore that little painful pinch of Deja vu was nod. (Phil’s sweet, timid voice, asking him “do you think I’m cute?” while sitting on top of him, face pink but eyes a little mischievous, was the last thing he wanted to think about at that moment.)

“I do,” he confirmed, taking another sip from his coffee mug.

Ezra looked conflicted for a moment, looking between his book and Dan. “But… don’t you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

Dan almost choked on his coffee, coughing awkwardly. “I do,” he said, ignoring the way his heart dropped to his stomach at the mere thought of Phil being called his boyfriend. they were still together, Dan told himself, even if Phil was ignoring him, he was (almost) sure of that. “I wasn’t… hitting on you,” he said carefully, feeling his own cheeks heat up.

“Oh, of course!” Ezra said, looking so embarrassed Dan genuinely felt bad, trying to think of something to say to make the mortified expression on Ezra’s face disappear. He wasn’t sure how many people had ever expressed any interest in Ezra, and he was generally a pretty awkward guy, so really, he couldn’t blame him for jumping to this kind of conclusion, as unlikely as it may seem to Dan.

Also, Dan thought, maybe his comment wasn’t as casual as he thought. Maybe he actually said something weird. Maybe, he thought, a little horrified, after spending all his time with Phil and Martyn, he started to forget what was actually socially acceptable to say to a person you’re not all that close with.

Before he had the chance to say anything though, Ezra continued, his cheeks still red and his voice a little nervous. “It’s just that… you’ve been spending all your time with me since I came back. I don’t even have to tell you to stop talking on your phone at night anymore, so I thought maybe you guys, you know, broke up.”

Dan had the immediate desire to loudly protest. To defend his relationship, to get angry at Ezra for assuming. But he caught himself in time, taking a big breath. Truthfully, he himself wasn’t sure what was going on between him and Phil.

Dan felt like since Christmas, they’ve made a huge progress in their relationship. They talked openly about their lives and past, they expressed desire to have each other in their futures and Dan was serious in his conversation with Phil’s dad, he wanted to be there for Phil, always, to support him and make him happy. He wanted to trust him and trust their bond, but still, it was hard to do when he couldn’t stop the feeling of rejection from seeping into his body.

It hurt, to put it simply. It hurt and it frustrated Dan to no end and it made him a little angry. He gave Phil every reason to trust him, he gave him all that he could, more than he ever gave anyone before, and even though he wanted to be understanding, wanted to give Phil his space, he also wanted to get some kind of a sign. A sign that even in all this, Phil was still thinking of him too, that Phil could trust him with his grief, that they could share each other’s misfortunes instead of hiding away. That Dan wasn’t wrong in assuming they both felt the same way about each other.

More than anything though, Dan knew, even if he was more than a little irritated, that what he really wanted was to hold Phil and comfort him and be there for him. It made his heart ache to know that when Phil was at his lowest, it wasn’t Dan’s company that he sought out. It made him frustrated, upset, that when he finally decided to give himself to someone again, to give Phil all he could, Phil was pulling away with no warning. It made his heart ache, because he knew all too well what the possible result of not being trusted enough with another person’s pain could lead to, and even though he knew he was projecting, he couldn’t make his mind stop spinning with these thoughts.

Was he really that untrustworthy? Was he really someone the people closest to him couldn’t rely on?

“He’s going through some family stuff right now, but we’re still together,” Dan said, a little sharply. He definitely didn’t want to open the subject up for discussion.

“Oh,” Ezra said, looking back at his book “okay then.” He tried to regain his composure, but his cheeks were still pink and Dan knew he was extremely uncomfortable with the whole situation. Even so, he didn’t say anything else, letting Dan finish his coffee before returning with him to the library.

That night, when Dan couldn’t fall asleep, he put on a compilation of Beethoven’s finest for the second time since starting to live with Ezra, playing it loudly on his laptop speakers, ignoring the sparkle of hazel eyes staring at him from the other side of the dark room.

He lied back down on his bed, turned around to face the wall. “Don’t get used to it,” he said, his tone coming out more annoyed than he intended, and he cursed himself quietly.

To his surprise, he heard an unfamiliar chuckle coming out from the other’s bed, a soft airy sound that Dan was pretty sure he’d never heard Ezra make before. “I won’t,” he said, before Dan let himself close his eyes and let his mind be filled with the music, trying to push the intrusive thoughts away.

**********************************

Phil didn’t turn up to their Greek Mythology exam. Dan scanned the exam hall 3 times, his eyes shooting up to the entrance door every time a new student walked in, but he couldn’t spot the familiar blue eyes and black hair anywhere.

He had to finally give up, a sour taste in his mouth, when the doors where closed and the exam started, leaving his mind desperately trying to focus on the questions before him while his chest was clenching uncomfortably.

He got up from his seat half an hour before the time was up, knowing full well his answers were just good enough to pass the exam and nothing more. He ignored the misplaced envious glances from the other students and quickly got out the door, leaning against the nearest wall, trying to calm his heart down.

Phil wasn’t Oliver. He told himself. He wasn’t he wasn’t he wasn’t.

Dan had to trust him to be okay, he had to. Not because he was sure of it, no, but because at that point, there was nothing else he could do.

****************************************

Two week into January Dan got a phone call from Ezra. It was one of the rare times Dan wanted to be by himself, deciding to go walk around town one evening to buy some stuff he told himself he desperately needed for no other reason other than to distract himself.

He was desperately clinging to his exams, going to the library with Ezra and searching the campus hopefully whenever he was there. Neither Phil nor Martyn were answering his calls and texts, and when he tried going to their apartment one time, it seemed that nobody was even there. He wanted to respect their wishes to be left alone with their mourning, and he didn’t want to intrude, but he just needed, so badly, to know they were okay.

His chest was in a constant state of a dull ache, his mind hazy from useless exam information and worry, but he had to admit, walking around from shop to shop in the chilly January air was making him feel surprisingly better.

He was sitting in a coffee shop, looking outside the window and observing the people walking by while eating his lunch when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

Without his permission, his heart leaped in his chest in expectation. No one aside from Phil, and occasionally his mother, ever called him (and since he had an awkward, six minute talk with his mother the day before that consisted of him avoiding all her questions and telling her he was too busy studying, he was pretty sure it couldn’t be her).

But when he took out his phone and saw Ezra’s caller ID, he couldn’t mask his disappointment, even though he wasn’t really expecting Phil to call him at this point.

“Hello? Dan?” Ezra said the minute Dan picked up the call, sounding hesitant and urgent at the same time, making Dan’s heart speed up again in expectation.

“What’s up?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but something in Ezra’s voice was making him feel on edge, making him start to pick up his things absentmindedly, not bothering finishing his half full cup of coffee. Somehow, he had a feeling what this was about.

“Hmm, I’m outside our room right now, and your, uh, Phil, came here a few minutes ago. I told him that you’re out but he insisted on waiting for you, so he’s inside now, I hope that’s okay.”

Dan was already outside the coffee shop when Ezra finished his sentence, feeling his heart beating loudly in his chest, making his way quickly to the bus stop. “Yeah, that’s okay. Thank you, I’m on my way back now,” he said, not able to mask his urgency. “Can you just… can you make sure he doesn’t leave before I get there?” he added.

Ezra let out a distress noise. “He, uh, doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere,” he said, sounding so uncomfortable from the whole situation that Dan even started to feel bad for him.

“What do you mean?”

“He just… he looks like he’s planning to stay here, until you come, at least.”

Ezra’s vague answer did nothing but put Dan even more on edge. “Just… stay there, please, until I get back. I’ll be there soon,” Dan said, before hanging up the phone, not letting Ezra have a chance to respond.

Dan wasn’t sure what to think. A mixture of relief, confusion and anger was swirling in his stomach, making him feel a little car sick on the bus ride back. Logically, Dan knew he shouldn’t be that upset. It was only two weeks. Two weeks after a big, heartbreaking loss, and if Phil wanted to take a step back and be by himself a little, to proses, how could Dan hold it against him?

But still. The radio silence from both Phil and Martyn, Phil not showing up for his exam, practically disappearing completely… could anyone really blame him for finding it alarming? Dan knew, better than most people, that he had no way of knowing what people actually think. What they would actually do. He felt powerless and terrified, so even though he understood, he couldn’t blame himself for the way his palms were sweating with nerves, his heart racing in his chest, his stomach filling with angry, fluttering butterflies he couldn’t force to calm down.

He couldn’t blame himself for feeling the strange combination of longing and bitterness settle in his guts. He wanted an explanation, maybe almost as much as he wanted to hold Phil in his arm again.

******************************

When Dan got to his dorm room he didn’t quite know what to expect, but still, the scene in front of him managed to catch him by surprise.

Ezra was standing awkwardly at his side of the room, watching Dan’s bed with carful, uncertain eyes. On Dan’s bed there was a big, human size lump under the covers, showing no signs of movement nor letting out any kind of sound.

Dan felt his heart clench at the unmistakable sight of Phil, curled up hiding under the blankets. He felt weirdly uncomfortable, awkward, not knowing how to approach this silent version of Phil after two weeks of chasing any kind of communication.

“Phil?” he tried saying, legs stuck to their place by the door, heart speeding up at the lack of answer. The slight movement under the covers was the only indication Phil was actually there, acknowledging Dan’s presence.

Dan felt something tight in his stomach loosening, just a bit. It’s fine, he’s here, he’s fine, he told himself, finally finding the will to move his legs and approach the bed.

He sat down at the edge, carefully and slowly, as if we was approaching a scared animal and not his boyfriend he hadn’t seen in two weeks, gently laying his hand on where he assumed Phil’s shoulder was.

“Phil,” he tried again, voice soft and a little pleading, sliding his hand up the blanket, moving it a bit to reveal the top of Phil’s head.

Phil was still silent, but he moved to curl around himself even more, trying to hide his head under the covers again.

“Phil,” Dan leaned down, his upper body covering Phil, mouth near his hidden ear.

There was silence again for a moment, but just when Dan was about to actually start panicking, Phil finally spoke.

“Do you hate me?”

His voice was small, sad, muffled by the pillow and blanket, but even so, just hearing it sent something sharp and quick through Dan’s chest. Something like longing, and want, and relief.

“No,” he answered, pressing himself even closer to Phil, who was still clinging to the blanket like it was the only thing that could protect him from Dan’s wrath. Dan wanted to laugh, almost as much as he wanted to cry. As if he could ever want to do anything other than hold Phil close and cherish him. As if Dan could ever actually hate him.

“Are you mad?” Phil asked, voice a little stronger, wiggling a little under Dan’s weight.

“A little,” Dan answered honestly. He was, and he didn’t want to hide that from Phil. He was mad and hurt and confused, and he wanted Phil to know that. He needed Phil to understand that even though he could never hate him, he was still upset about being left behind, being left to worry and speculate.

“I mostly worried about you,” he added, when Phil stayed silent, and then when he was sure Phil won’t flinch away anymore, he reached his hand to the visible top of Phil’s head, tugging on his hair.

There was a sudden movement under the blankets and before Dan could register what was happening, Phil was turning around under him, throwing himself on Dan’s lap, arms squeezing Dan’s waist tightly.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he said against Dan’s stomach, voice muffled and watery. Dan let out a shaky breath, letting his hands settle on Phil’s shoulders, rubbing them soothingly.

“Um,” Dan almost jumped at the sudden sound coming from the other side of the room, turning his head to look at Ezra (who he completely forgot about), still standing in the corner of the room, looking extremely uncomfortable. Dan’s hold on Phil’s shoulders tightened instinctively, afraid that the reminder of the presence of someone else in the room would make him retreat again. But Phil didn’t respond to the sound at all, staying still, curled around Dan’s middle.

“I, eh, can go out for a bit,” Ezra said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. Dan was suddenly filled with gratitude towards his odd, kind roommate, who tolerated his moping and company and moods, and stayed in the room until Dan got there as he asked, even though it clearly made him uncomfortable.

“Thank you,” Dan said, softly, smiling at Ezra and making him flush bright red in response. Ezra nodded once, before moving from his spot by the wall to put on his shoes and quietly exit the room.

Dan let his attention go back to Phil, who was silently clinging to him and giving no signs of letting go any time soon. “I’m sorry,” Phil said again, a little more clearly, lifting his face a little to look at him, chin digging uncomfortably into Dan’s stomach.

His face was pale, even paler than usual, and his eyes were pink and wet behind his glasses even though he didn’t cry. He looked… tired, devastated, uncertain. And Dan was once again overwhelmed by the need to take all the pain away for him, to somehow make it all better.

“I know,” he said quietly, hand moving from Phil’s shoulder to his head, pushing his messy hair back. He wanted to say “it’s okay,” or, “you don’t have to be,” but he couldn’t. He couldn’t lie. It wasn’t okay, and Phil should be sorry, at least a little, for leaving Dan like he did. For making him sick with worry and speculation, for making him relive his biggest fears and insecurities.

“I was really scared,” he said instead, surprised to find his voice thick and tight with emotion. “I didn’t know where you were,” his throat felt like it was closing up around the words, making everything inside him burn painfully. “I wanted to respect your grief and I wanted to give you your time but I was so scared that… that-“ he couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t say it out loud. Two weeks of anxiety and loneliness and fear where catching up to him all at once, and it was too much for him to take after refusing to let himself think about it, trying to stop his mind from wandering into forbidden territories.

Phil moved urgently then, sitting up in front of Dan on his knees, eyes big and blue and regretful. He reached out with both his hands, cupping Dan’s cheeks, thumbs brushing the wetness Dan didn’t even realize was leaking out of his eyes. The cold, soft hands felt so familiar against his warm skin and Dan found himself leaning into the touch.

“Dan,” he said, and his voice was so pained it made Dan’s inside feel even tighter. “I would never do that to you.” Dan gave a small sound of protest, before he could stop himself, and Phil shook his head, leaning closer and pressing their foreheads together. “I know you hate when I say things like that, I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t I wouldn’t.” Phil was crying too now, fat tears running down his tired face, “I wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Dan said, because he didn’t know what else to say, and wasn’t sure he could even produce a longer answer with the burning pain in his throat.

Phil let his hands slide down to Dan’s neck, pressing his face closer to him, nuzzling his cheek. Dan felt his own arms wrap around Phil’s waist instinctively, without his permission, holding him close.

“I needed… I don’t know exactly what I needed, I’m sorry.” Phil said against his cheek, quietly, softly, ”but I love you too much Dan, I love you, I would always want to come back to you.” Dan’s heart was beating loudly in his chest, Phil’s words screaming in his head. I love you I love you. It was so typical of Phil, to just say it like that, straightforward and honest.

“that is… if you still want me, of course,” Phil said, letting his hands fall down from Dan’s neck and scooting back a little to look him in the eyes, looking like he was genuinely scared to hear Dan’s answer. As if there was any way Dan wouldn’t want him anymore.

“I do, I do, of course I do,” Dan found himself say urgently, desperately, leaning closer and kissing Phil’s forehead and cheeks and eyelids. “You idiot, as if I would not.” Phil giggled at that, small and wet and a little sad, but Dan could feel his entire body fill with warmth at the sound.

“I just… please, just let me be there, for you, with you. That’s all I want, for you to let me be there, don’t leave me in the dark like that,” he said, clutching Phil’s sides tightly. “I know, I know I’m not good for a lot, but I’ll do anything for you, if you let me. Please trust me a little more, to be there.” He could feel the vague feeling of embarrassment, making his stomach flutter uncomfortably. It was still new to him, saying things so honestly, so openly, but Dan figured they needed a little honesty right now. Needed to put their cards on the table and hearts on their sleeves and tell each other what they wanted.

Phil shook his head in protest, “you’re good, you’re good,” he said, hands moving back to Dan’s face “you’re so, so good.” Phil leaned in, but stopped himself before his lips touched Dan’s. “Can I? Or, I mean-“

Dan didn’t let him finish, closing the space between them. Phil’s lips where unusually dry and chapped, and they both tasted salty from their tears, but it still made everything inside Dan’s body melt with relief. They kept it sweet, not pushing for more, and when Phil pulled away and pressed his forehead against Dan’s lips, demanding as always, Dan kissed the skin almost giddily, pulling Phil impossibly closer against his body.

“I’m so tired,” Phil said, leaning all his weight on Dan’s body, like all his energy drained out of him at that moment, all at once.

“You want me to take you home?” Dan asked, rubbing soothing circles on Phil’s back. There was still a lot to say, a lot to ask and a lot to understand. But it could wait. Right now, he just needed to worry about Phil. he just needed to take care of him, as much as he’ll let him.

Phil shook his head, pressing closer to Dan. “No, please, just… let me stay here, just tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do whatever you want, we’ll talk about whatever you want, but I can’t go back there right now.”

“Yeah... that’s… okay,” he couldn’t help but think about poor Ezra coming back to the room later to find him and Phil sleeping there in the same bed, the poor guy would probably combust on the spot. But he couldn’t say no to Phil. Not when he was like this, not when he knew how hard it was to be surrounded by all the things that remind you of your loss.

They moved to make themselves comfortable under the covers, not bothering to change clothes or turn off the light. It was probably not later than nine, but Dan could already see Phil’s eyelids dropping as he took off his glasses and put them on the nightstand. Dan felt too full of nervous energy to sleep, but he wanted nothing more than to lay there together, with Phil in his arms, for as long as he wanted him to.

Phil laid his head on Dan’s chest, cuddling close, letting himself be wrapped in Dan’s embrace.

“Hold me tighter,” he mumbled, and Dan couldn’t help but laugh, tightening his hold.

“Better?” he asked, but only got a soft hum in response, and then nothing. Dan lay there quietly, listening to Phil’s breath as he fell asleep. He still felt a little uneasy, a little on edge, but he supposed, for now, this was good enough.

Ezra came back to the room about 40 minutes later, when Dan was just starting to doze off. He opened the door quietly, carefully, his eyes scanning the room and landing on Dan’s bed. He averted his gaze immediately, face flushing bright red, still standing at by the door.

“Sorry,” Dan said, trying not to wake Phil up, feeling genuinely bad for making Ezra uncomfortable. “It’s just for tonight, he had nowhere else to go.” It wasn’t really the truth, but it was easier to put it like that, in hopes that Ezra would understand.

“It’s fine,” Ezra said, moving into the room and not looking at Dan’s direction. Dan wasn’t sure it was really fine, but he had no choice but to take it, hoping he could make it up to him at some point.

“Thank you, really,” Dan said quietly, trying to convey how actually grateful he was. Ezra’s face became an even brighter shade of red, if possible. He moved to lay down on his own bed, over the covers, back facing Dan.

They were silent for a few moments before Ezra spoke again. “Are you guys okay now?” he asked voice a little muffled against his pillow, catching Dan by surprise.

Dan looked down at Phil’s sleeping face, lips parted and a little bit of drool smeared against the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he said, feeling all his different emotions swirling in his head, making him dizzy. “We will be.”

[paradisobound]

Follow You Home

Summary: Dan and Phil are neighbours who are there for each other whenever they need help. When Phil breaks his ankle, Dan helps him take care of his dog, and their friendship begins to grow to something more.

Word Count: 5.2k 

Warnings: None 

Written With @dayevsphil for the @phanfictionevents Collab Fic Event! 

A/N: we had a lot of fun writing this and we hope you'll like it too!

[Read on Ao3]

Dan is kind of an expert at procrastination. The deadline for this article is approaching at a steady, unrelenting pace, which means that it's the perfect time to clean out his refrigerator.

He's sitting on the cool tile in his pants and an old hoodie, sorting condiments by use-by dates, when his phone rings.

Most people don't bother to call him - it's easier to reach him by text or email, although he's also been known to ignore those until they go away - so he's a bit confused by the noise until it clicks in his mind. He digs in his hoodie pockets for his phone and if he grins at the caller ID, there's nobody here to see him except a very dubious bottle of mustard.

"Phil," he says, trying to sound casual and not like he jumps every time his neighbour calls.

"Hey, Dan," Phil's lovely, sweet voice comes through the line. He also sounds weirdly sheepish, which isn't unusual for him. "I've got kind of a weird favour to ask."

"Do you need a boost to your unlocked window again?" Dan asks. He's having a staring contest with the mustard, unsure if he should make any sudden movements to throw it out.

Phil laughs, and Dan feels a little smug about it. "No. Actually - okay. I did need that. But that was a few hours ago, and I thought I could get myself up there, and - anyway. I don't have as much upper body strength or coordination as I thought I did. Can you maybe, uh, walk Buffy for the next four to six weeks?"

"You know I love that dog," Dan says slowly. "But why? Did you fall off the building?"

"Yeah," says Phil. "And I broke my ankle."

Oof. Dan knows that Phil isn't exactly the most balanced guy in the world, but it still makes Dan wince to think about him getting himself hurt.

"Alright, I'll be over in like half an hour," Dan offers, decisively putting the mustard in his bin. "I'm sure she's buzzing by now, yeah?"

"Yeah," Phil laughs. He sounds relieved, like he thinks Dan would have said no to hanging out with a cute dog for money. "It'll feel weird because I'm, like, home, but I can't take her out myself."

Every time Dan has taken care of Buffy for short or extended periods, it's been because Phil is out of town. He vacations with his family a lot and travels for business every once in a while and Dan, well... works from home and could always use the extra income and the puppy cuddles.

Plus, it helps that Phil is one of the most attractive and funny people Dan has had the pleasure of meeting.

"Don't worry," Dan says. "I'm here to help."

“Oh thank you!” Phil exhales. “Actually, do you think you could take her for a walk right now? She’s a bit restless and I can’t…”

“Say no more! I’ll be right over.”

Dan hangs up, pressing end on his phone and washing his hands of whatever ended up being sticky on the outside of that mustard. He goes to brush his hands off on his legs when he suddenly remembers he's just in his pants.

Looking down at his legs, he figures that while he and Phil could be considered close or even bros, that didn’t mean that they were on the same page about Dan showing up to Phil’s in just his pants. Of course, a secret part of Dan wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that scenario, but that’s something that’s stored deep inside Dan’s brain for another day.

He grabs the first pair of joggers that he sees on his floor and pulls them on and adjusts the waistband. He hesitates for a moment, debating if he should change his hoodie but then decides that it’s just a hoodie and it’ll be fine.

He grabs his phone from the kitchen counter and his keys from the stand next to the door and heads out down the hall.

Phil’s second-floor flat is right down the hall from Dan’s, which makes it convenient in most cases when they both needed help with the whole climbing through unlocked windows thing. But it also is nice when Phil went away because it means Dan doesn't technically have to leave to go and dog-sit Buffy.

He knocks on the door and then cringes to himself with the fact that Phil probably hasn’t learnt how to navigate yet with his broken ankle and—

The door opens and Dan tries to hide the blush that creeps over his face every time he comes face to face with beautiful blue eyes and stark black hair. Except that black hair is looking a little brown and Dan feels his cheeks heat up even more because how could a man already so attractive become even more attractive? Is that even possible?

His thoughts are interrupted by the bounding of chestnut fur leaping towards the door. Buffy is a big dog—well, she's a labradoodle—but she is very energetic and more than friendly. She's the sweetest puppy Dan’s ever met.

Phil’s leaning on a set of crutches and Dan sees the complete relief on Phil’s face now that they’ve both comprehended the situation.

“Buffy didn’t like being stuck here while I was at A&E so she’s very eager to go out for a walk,” Phil says, hobbling back from the door to make his way over to grab her lead.

Dan just watches and bends down, giving Buffy a few quick rubs before he decides he should help Phil with that. He stands back up straight and helps Phil detangle her lead and then he takes it back to the prancing pupper and hooks her on.

“I can take her to the park for a bit to let her run around?” Dan asks, already being dragged a bit by the over-energetic dog.

Phil nods. “That would be great!”

Dan’s turning back to lead Buffy down the hall when Phil speaks up again. “Hey, Dan?”

Dan turns around and looks back at him. “Yeah?”

“I really appreciate this, you know? I really don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t know you.”

Something resonates deep inside Dan and he struggles to keep back the giddy feelings in his chest as he just smiles and Phil smiles back, shutting the door.

Buffy is extremely eager to go for a walk. Dan isn't exactly a small person, and he still feels like he's being yanked down the stairs by a small horse. He laughs and half-jogs after her once they reach the pavement. He gets out of breath quickly and has to keep pulling her for frequent stops, but she doesn't seem to mind now that they've got some forward momentum.

The dog park isn't very busy at this time of day, when the majority of people are at work and their dogs are at home waiting for them to come home, so Dan lets Buffy off her leash and chases her around to try and get the zoomies out of her.

Buffy is a big girl with a ton of energy, and Dan has to lie down in the grass to catch his breath more than once. She thinks this is all a part of the game every time and licks all over his face until he's giggling and getting back up.

Sometimes Dan thinks about getting a dog, because his flat gets kind of lonely sometimes and the routine of going outside and actually getting exercise can only be good for him, but then again, he's already got Buffy. A small, secret part of Dan has domestic fantasies locked away in the back of his mind, where he gets to hang out with Buffy all day while her dad's at work. The sheer idea of Phil coming home to them every night and beaming at them like they're the best things to ever happen to him is honestly more salacious than Dan's filthiest fantasies.

Eventually, Dan's lungs and legs are protesting far too much for him to keep tiring Buffy out. He takes her back to their building, both of them panting the whole way.

Dan hesitates in front of Phil's door. He doesn't want to make Phil hobble over again, but it feels weird to just let himself in as well… Dan could overthink this for a long time if left to his own devices, just standing in the hallway like a weirdo, but Buffy is having none of that.

She whines and scratches at the door, and Dan makes the decision to just open it for her. She bounds inside when he lets her off the lead and he pauses again before following her inside.

"We're back," he calls through the flat. He hangs Buffy's lead up on the coat rack and toes off his shoes. "I'm just gonna get her a treat, alright?"

"Er, yeah, of course," Phil's voice comes from the direction of the kitchen, and Dan starts moving towards it like he's been magnetized. When he gets there, he's startled into a laugh. Phil is leaning against the counter, a crutch under one arm and a mug in his free hand. He looks alarmed as he watches Buffy go to her water bowl, like he's afraid she's gonna jump on him.

"She should be too tired to tackle you, at least for a little bit," Dan laughs. He grabs a couple of treats from the top of the fridge and makes Buffy sit and shake paw for them. "Good girl," he coos, scratching behind her ears.

"The best," Phil says, looking relieved when Buffy settles for licking the hand on his crutch and going to lie down.

"Mind if I also get a water?" Dan asks, feeling equal parts awkward and giddy. He never really comes back to Phil being here when he dogsits, so this is different.

Phil smiles and shakes his head. "Make yourself at home. I have to get dinner on the go, soon, but…" He trails off, gesturing with his half-empty mug at the cast on his foot. "It was annoying enough to make coffee. I've got no idea how to do any of this without, like, falling over or breaking something."

"You could order in," Dan suggests, and then laughs at the state of Phil's fridge. "And you might need to, mate, you've got nothing here."

"I know," Phil says. He grimaces a bit. "Not looking forward to grocery shopping."

"Well, why don't you leave me a list," says Dan, "and I'll pick up some stuff for you when I go tomorrow?"

The way Phil's face lights up with a sort of sheepish gratitude warms Dan to his core.

"That'd be really nice of you," Phil says, sounding so sincere about it that Dan is tempted to crack a joke and break the moment. Phil sets his mug down and starts patting around his pockets for his phone before he can. "What do you like on your pizza? You should stay."

Dan definitely wants that. He wants to sit on Phil's sofa and eat Domino's and watch a series that's new to both of them so that maybe he has another excuse to keep coming around. Dan is maybe a little pathetic over this guy.

Unfortunately, Dan is also very aware that he's sweaty and a little dirty from rolling around in the grass with Buffy.

"I like pretty much anything," says Dan, setting his water bottle on the counter. "Lots of different dips, please. I'm gonna go take a shower while you order if that's cool, I'm fucking rank from the park."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Phil grins. Then his expression turns mournful as he looks down at himself again. "That's… another thing I'm not sure how to accomplish."

Dan mumbles something that might be English words and hightails it out of the flat before he does something very stupid, like offer to help Phil with that, too. It's not until he's standing on the other side of his own door that he realises he left his shoes in Phil's entryway.

--

Dan feels too awkward to go and get his shoes from Phil’s flat so it takes him a little over a day before he does. And even then, it’s because Phil texted him about taking Buffy on another run—Dan doesn’t call it a walk anymore because Buffy literally makes him run.

So, Dan does what any awkward person would do when they left their only gym shoes at their neighbors flat and they need them. He walks barefoot to said flat and waits with his socks stepped onto a seemingly wet front entry mat.

Dan knocks on the door and after just a moment, Phil opens it open with same big smile on his face and an excited Buffy on his heels.

“You left your—”

“I left my—”

Phil lets out a chuckle and it briefly cools the heat that is definitely seeping up Dan’s cheeks now as they both attempted to say the same thing. God, this made him want to actually crawl into a hole in the floor.

“You left your shoes here,” Phil says still chuckling. “Buffy found the left one and thought it would be fun to drag it around by the shoestring.”

Dan winced and forced out a laugh. “Yeah, sorry about that. I don’t know why I walked out and didn’t even notice I wasn’t wearing any shoes.”

“Well you’re also not wearing any right now so maybe your subconscious is telling you something.”

Dan let out a proper laugh this time as he pointed a finger at Phil. “Listen, I…”

He’s stopped by the sound of other voices coming down the hallway and he suddenly feels weird standing outside of Phil’s door in a pair of joggers and a jumper with no shoes.

Phil moves out the way, as best as he can anyway with Buffy right behind him and his crutches making it difficult. Dan shuts the door behind them and notices his shoes sitting perfectly paired next to Phil’s own and his heart does a slight flip as he realizes that he actually kind of likes the way that that looks.

He picks up his shoes and slips them on as Phil is struggling to get the lead clipped on Buffy’s collar. Dan reaches out to help when he manages to get it hooked and Buffy is now running to the door.

“Guess this is my cue.” Dan laughs and Phil nods.

“I know I’ve already said this but thank you again, Dan! It does mean a lot!”

Dan smiles and looks down at his shoes just happens to notice the small signs of a bite mark on his left shoelace.

—

Two weeks pass with this new system in place while Phil is healing. Dan still comes over to Phil’s every day and he still takes Buffy out on a walk. Her energy was still the same and every day, Dan walked back slightly dirty with a layer of sweat.

Phil said that in two more weeks, the doctor told him he would be able to start wearing a boot on his foot and he seemed extremely glad for that from what Dan can tell.

Phil didn’t look like he was exactly happy being cooped up so much and the past few days, Buffy has even taken up to whimpering and pushing her head into Phil’s hip to get him out the door. But Phil’s lack of mobility makes it not possible for Phil to even walk a bit of the way to the park because his crutches leave him so exhausted.

Dan feels bad. And he wishes he had more that he could do to help.

He knows that Phil is an introvert, like himself, so he’s surprised by how many times Phil tries to get him to stay and hang out. Dan only caves a couple of times, because he hates being around Phil when he’s gross from the run, but Phil seems to be getting more and more desperate for someone to just sit and watch Bake Off with him while he can’t work. Dan makes up excuses most of the time, but it’s getting as hard to say no to Phil as it is to say no to Buffy.

“Dan,” Phil says when Dan and Buffy come back from their morning walk. “Hey, what are you doing today?”

“I have an article to write,” Dan says automatically. He holds up his laptop bag as evidence.

Phil’s face falls, even with Buffy licking his hand, and he nods. “Oh, okay. Sure. Just… if you wanted to, you could work here. It kind of sucks to only have Buffy to talk to all day, you know?”

Well, great. Now Dan feels even worse.

“Alright,” Dan says, following Buffy into the narrow entryway of Phil’s flat. They’re all standing very close together for a long moment, and then Buffy barks at both of them and runs off to the kitchen to wait for her treat.

“Sorry, I know you’re busy with work,” Phil says, sheepish. He looks like he’d be scratching the back of his neck if he didn’t need both hands to balance his crutches.

Dan is really, really not busy, but he’s been telling Phil that he is for two weeks now, so… he nods and pulls an exaggerated face. “A little, but I really don’t mind hanging out with Buffy.” Phil still looks vaguely sad, and that just shouldn’t be allowed. He’s way too handsome for that, all Dan ever wants to see him do is smile. He adds, “And I like hanging with you, too.”

Phil’s whole face brightens up, and Dan knows he’s made the right call.

And then that is part of their routine as well, Dan hanging out in Phil’s flat for a few hours every day. It's nice, because it's all that Dan ever wants to be doing, but it's also nerve-wracking - how is he supposed to keep hiding his stupid crush like this?

It's a good thing Phil is so oblivious.

But at the same time, it’s not. Because Dan can be a bit of a wuss when it comes to letting his feelings out. It’s how it took him nearly three months of pining to eventually to ask his prior ex for their number.

They work together in silence inside Phil’s flat. Phil is busy doing his own work on his laptop while Dan is on his own on the couch adjacent to Phil. Buffy is off in the corner of the living room on her bed taking a nap, snoring away with her legs twitching every so often. It makes Dan smile when he watches her for a bit.

“See something good on your computer?”

Dan snaps out of his trance and turns his head to Phil who is staring at him with a smile.

Dan shakes his head. “No, I was just watching Buffy sleep.”

Dan realizes how creepy that is after the world leave his mouth and he worries that they came off as weird. So he waits on baited breath as Phil lets out a sigh and turns his head towards the sleeping pup. “When I first got her, she slept in bed with me and it made me feel calm.”

Dan bit his lip, warm feelings coursing through his veins.

“I liked having a warm body to sleep next to,” Phil continued. “I don’t know, she just made me feel really safe. And it felt really nice to not be alone for once.”

“I’m sorry.”

Phil shrugs and lets out a smirk. “Don’t worry about it.” Phil says. “It’s definitely a me thing and I shouldn’t be involving you in my problems.”

Dan quickly shakes his head. “No, it’s nothing like that at all.” He pauses. “I really like hanging out with you, Phil. And I’m not just saying this because you have a cute dog.” Phil lets out a laugh and Dan snorts too. “But you were one of the first people I met when I moved here.”

“You were too.” Phil says. “I had just moved here from Manchester and I didn’t know a single person around here. And just to think that we got to know each other over the balcony incident of 2016.”

Dan lets out a loud laugh as he remembers how he came back from the store one day to see Phil attempting to get into his flat via the balcony. Dan had never laughed so hard in his life as he helped Phil out to get back inside. It was also during this time that Dan had seen just how attractive Phil really was.

“Dan?” Phil interrupts Dan’s thoughts and Dan turns his head.

“Yeah?”

“When I get my boot on in a week, can I--” Dan’s heart starts racing and Dan waits as Phil hesitates before finally saying, “Can I take you out to dinner?”

Dan feels his cheeks heat up and blush creep over his skin as he nods and smiles in agreement.

--

Phil gets his boot just a week later to wear for the next few weeks while his ankle finishes healing. Dan had asked him about his mobility level with it and Phil had assured that the doctor told him that he could take short walks but not over do it.

Dan had taken to going over to Phil’s every day to just sit and talk with him and play with Buffy. They haven't mentioned the ‘dinner’ since Phil had asked him but Dan still holds onto the hope that Phil meant it.

Dan wants nothing more than to be able to finally go on a date with Phil. At least, he hopes that's what Phil meant, because if he just wanted to take Dan to dinner as a thank-you then Dan is going to fling himself off the nearest bridge.

It's a few days after Phil gets the boot on that Dan receives a text. He's lying in bed and grinning at his ceiling because Phil wants to know if he's free tonight. Dan is always free when it's Phil asking, if he's honest.

Getting ready for the day is difficult. Dan changes his mind on an outfit roughly a dozen times, because Phil has only ever really seen him in his comfy 'house' and 'walking' clothes, and Dan's got a whole closet full of too-expensive things he rarely wears. He tries some of it on before he gets lazy and just holds things up against his body to the mirror. He plays the coin toss of washing his hair, hoping that when it dries and has product in it won't look like a frizzy mess.

The last time Dan went on a date was before he moved to London, so he's a little bit rusty with it all.

Dan leaves it until the last possible minute to get dressed after getting lost in a Reddit cave, and he ends up just grabbing from the stuff he'd laid out before at random. The wide neck on this jumper used to bother him, but he thinks it looks nice now. His ripped jeans feel tighter than usual around his legs, but he doesn't know if that's because they shrunk in the wash last time or because running around after a dog twice a day is actually good exercise. Maybe they'll be more difficult to take off later, but he likes the visual effect of it.

He manages to shove his clown feet into some sneakers just as someone knocks on his door. He does one last once-over in the mirror before taking a couple deep breaths and going to answer it.

"Hey," Dan breathes, feeling his mouth stretch into a wide grin.

Any worry that this isn't a date is swept away, because Phil looks really good. He's got his shirt buttoned up all the way and his brown hair has actual product in it for the first time in weeks.

Phil beams right back at Dan. "Hi!" he chirps. Dan feels gratified by the way his gorgeous eyes look Dan's outfit over. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," says Dan. He steps out into the hallway, a thrill going through his whole body when Phil doesn't take a step back to let him lock the door. They aren't touching, but Dan can feel Phil's body heat like they're about to be, and he's sure that he's blushing like an idiot when he turns back around.

Phil's smile widens, but he doesn't draw attention to whatever's going on on Dan's face. "Let's go," he says, "I got us an Uber and I'm still getting used to this boot."

--

There are a couple of awkward moments with the boot, like getting in and out of the car, because Phil is a naturally clumsy person and the depth perception with his own limbs isn't great either. Dan is there to help him, though, steadying Phil with a hand to his arm and feeling his stomach flutter whenever Phil smiles at him.

"You've got, like, three left feet," Dan giggles, holding Phil's elbow to guide him through the restaurant. The hostess is being accommodating now, but if Phil keeps knocking into other people's chairs, Dan is sure her attitude will change.

"Guess I'll just need to keep holding on to you, then," Phil grins, a little sheepish.

Dan blushes and steadies him the best that he can before they get to the booth and he helps Phil sit down. In hindsight, Dan feels like he should have asked the hostess to get them a table. But Phil is sitting quite comfortably in the booth with no apparent mind towards his own leg sticking out to the side a bit so Dan doesn’t bother her anymore.

The waitress makes her way over and offers them each some wine and they both take a glass of it before she asks if they wanted any water as well.

It’s awkward, and Dan’s not even going to try and say otherwise. Their feet are hitting each other under the table and Phil just tried to put his napkin on his lap but has now thrown it on the floor. Dan tries so hard to keep his composure, but as he sees Phil attempt to bend down and reach for it without totally jarring his foot up and kicking the table was actually a bit funny. So he stifles a laugh.

“Do you know what you’re going to get?” Phil speaks up now that he’s managed to grab the cloth napkin again and fold it over his lap.

Dan is still looking down at the menu and he bites his lip in concentration as he tries to decide what to get. “I’m not sure.”

“You can get whatever you want,” Phil said. “I’ll pay.”

Oh, this was a proper date then.

Dan set down the menu and he looked at Phil who was staring at him with a blush and a smile. “You don’t have to do that.”

Phil just shook his head, clearly not taking no for an answer.

The waitress came over and Dan ended up ordering a prawn spaghetti dish while Phil got a specialty pizza that Dan didn’t catch the name of. As they sipped on their wine and waited for the order, Dan found himself looking at Phil.

Phil was just so attractive and the fact that Dan was actually on a date with him was making his heart swell a bit. He found himself feeling floaty, his chest feeling hot but his stomach feeling fluttery. He loved it. It reminded him of when he had crushes as a teenager, except now he freely expresses them.

“I want to thank you again for helping me with Buffy.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “You’ve already thanked me enough, Phil.” He says with a playful tone. “You don’t have to keep thanking me for something that I genuinely enjoyed.”

“I know she can be a handful but she keeps me company,” Phil says. “She keeps me on my toes.”

“Not right now she doesn’t.” Dan jokes.

Phil’s eyes crinkle as he lets out a laugh and his tongue does the little thing that Dan has noticed it does when Phil is genuinely laughing, which is poking out of his teeth.

They continue having mindless conversations about Buffy and work and life in general. They don’t get too deep or too personal.

When their food comes, they barely speak as their starving stomachs protest more than their mouths and they both hungrily consume their food. When they’re both done, Phil asks for the tab and then he pays without Dan getting a single say in the matter, and then they get ready to leave.

Walking back out of the restaurant isn’t nearly as hard as walking in and they get outside to an Uber already waiting for them. Dan helps Phil get inside again and they sit next to each other the entire ride back to their flats. But this time, Phil’s hand makes it way over the seat and touches Dan’s with the lightest of touches and Dan turns over his palm and lets Phil put their hands together.

It’s such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but Dan feels genuinely happy and content in that moment.

They take the lift up to their flats and as they stop outside of Phil’s, their hands still connected, Dan feels a bit of sadness crest in his chest as he realizes he was going to have to say goodbye to him for the night.

He knows it shouldn’t be this hard. They live nearly across the hall from each other. But for some reason, that short distance feels like oceans tonight and it’s weighing heavy on Dan’s chest.

Dan goes to say goodbye and dislodge their hands from each other, but as he goes to do so, Phil leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek. It’s nothing big, but it’s enough for Dan to feel himself blush. Phil pulls back after the quick peck and just smiles.

“I’d love to do this again sometime if you’d like?”

Dan quickly nods. “Me too. I really would too.”

They part ways and Dan walks back to his flat with his shoulders a bit slumped and his chest a bit heavy. But his cheek still feels the tingle of Phil’s kiss and when he shuts the door to his flat, he reaches up and feels the space that Phil had pressed his lips to.

He gets out of his clothes and into a pair of joggers and an old uni hoodie and is laying down on his couch when his phone buzzes and he looks down at the screen and sees a message from Phil.

Buffy misses you :( maybe we can have a sleepover?

Dan doesn’t need to be told twice as he rushes out the door of his flat with his toothbrush in hand and is greeted by Buffy and Phil in the doorway. And as he steps inside, he knows for a fact that this time is different than any other time he’s come over before.

[maybeformepersonally]

Fic: from up here you can't beat the view (just watch me now)

Authors: kishere (@filisaceaf) & maybeformepersonally

Beta: @always-okay-katie

Artist: @kthnwss

Word Count: 22.6k

Rating: E / Explicit

Warnings: some slight internalised biphobia (it’s not a main plot point in the story) and brief mentions of Dan being bullied before the story starts. 

Summary: It's 2009 and Dan finds Phil on the internet when a well-meaning mate of his recommends him to a certain site she likes. Dan quickly becomes a fan: watching Phil's videos religiously and interacting with him on his socials. And, soon enough, Phil starts noticing him. 

A familiar enough story on the surface but here's the catch: Phil has never been involved with YouTube. Phil is a camboy.

Author Notes: We'd like to thank @phandombigbang for organizing this event and finally giving us the opportunity/excuse to write together that we had been searching for. We've been talking about this universe for a while and the Big Bang seemed like a great way to start the series with a bang so to speak. That does mean there are going to be other parts coming out in this series!

They always said it takes a village to raise a child and this is ours. I would love to thank our wonderful beta @always-okay-katie and our exceptional artist @kthnwss they dealt with our (reallyreallyreallyREALLY) erratic writing process and they are a blessing. We also have to thank the Phanfic Writing Discord (in particular @counting2fifteen and @sudden-sky) for alleviating some fears and looking over the fic along with the encouragement and support you have given.

Link to art: here!

(We don’t have enough words for how blessed we were to get these absolutely stunning art pieces to illustrate our story. The art is so ridiculously good guys, go show Kate some love and appreciation.)

[Read on ao3]

Chapter 1: sometimes you gotta try something new and that something new is a cam site

Dan could do this, he thought as he slowly hit the letters on his keyboard. 

Nicole had recommended the site when he’d been rolling on the floor of his room, going back and forth about finding men attractive. Again. He was bisexual, but he wasn’t sure just how bisexual he was. The occasional sneaked look in a locker room and some sweaty kisses at a party in the woods didn’t seem like enough to base wanting to have sex with guys on. 

“Have you ever even watched porn, Dan,” she had asked before laughing at him as he choked on the swig of Jack he had swiped from downstairs. Dad had been drinking more lately and wouldn’t notice the bottle had dipped low if he watered it down. He flipped her off and coughed a few more times to clear his throat. 

“You’re vile, Nikki,” he said, ignoring her as she gave him the finger in return. 

“Well? Have you,” she challenged, pulling her hair back into a ponytail, going from ‘funny Nikki’ to ‘serious, going-to-give-you-advice Nikki’.

“I mean... a little, but it didn’t really. You know,” Dan said, flustered as he didn’t make eye contact. “It didn’t feel… real.”

“It’s porn; there aren’t that many plumbing problems in the world. Have you tried live cams?”

“Live cams,” Dan echoed back hesitantly, feeling his nose wrinkle in confusion. He didn’t want Nikki to know he didn’t know what those were, but from the knowing looking on the girl’s face, he was failing. 

“Yeah. People like, film themselves getting off live and you can pay them for more private shit if you want,” Nicole explained. “I have a site I like sometimes. The girls on it are pretty hot.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dan muttered, glad about the shitty Skype connection between here and America. “I’m not having an issue with hot girls though.”

Nikki rolled her eyes at him and stared at him. “You… could look for guys on there… Daniel.”

“Brill idea Nicole,” Dan sassed back. “Let the underaged boy try to find… something… on the porn site.”

“Adult cam site,” Nicole corrected immediately. “And you don’t have to pay. There are plenty of people who use it just because they are exhibitionists.” 

“I… maybe. Send me a link,” Dan said after thinking it over for a minute.

So here he was, three days later in a finally blessedly empty house. He was sitting in a shirt and some boxers as he slowly typed out the link into a Firefox window. Dan could have just clicked on the link, but that felt too definite. Typing it out himself gave him some sort of… plausible deniability. ‘Haha, what a mistype,’ he joked with himself as the page loaded and wow. 

That was a lot of naked skin. 

Like a lot of skin. 

Mostly tits, but he spied a few chests that looked like they could potentially belong to dudes. He clicked on the first one he saw and made a face. It was a little too hairy for his taste. Not that he was averse to a hairy chest. Maybe. He didn’t know what he wanted, really, but he knew it wasn’t older with an extremely hairy gray chest that had the kind of moans that he thought made porn so inauthentic. 

Dan huffed in disappointment and looked in the top left corner, finding a drop down menu. He clicked on it and blinked at the… staggering amount of choices on the site. BBW, Anal, Trans, and… Gay. There it was, that stupid label, in gaudy, yellow letters, waiting for Dan to click on it as his cursor hovered over it. He clicked on it and felt his body relax as he saw so many more options available to him, and scrolled. And scrolled. Clicked on a few streams and exited out but none of them felt right until him.

xoxoAmazingPhiloxox 

First of all, he was hot. Inky black hair and insane blue eyes that Dan kept looking into when he wasn’t looking at Phil’s hand squeezing himself through (of all things) Donkey Kong boxer-briefs. Dan realized after five minutes that his eyes weren't just blue; it was a kaleidoscope of blue, green, and yellow. Second of all, the username had a little star next to the name, which Dan assumed meant they were good at what they did. Dan certainly thought Phil was good at what he was doing. Phil was talking as opposed to sitting there and just moaning, which… kind of helped actually, even if he was answering questions from another viewer about why he chose those hideous pants. He didn’t even have his dick out yet, just squeezing the outline of his dick through his boxers and Dan was hooked like the other 1500 people watching the stream.

“Well bigduck71, thank you for the tip, sometimes, I just get hard playing video games. It’s not that I’m attracted to the characters,” Phil was explaining, breaking off to moan into his elbow, “it’s just that I imagine that someday I’m going to have a boyfriend. I’m going to have a boyfriend to cuddle up next to me while playing video games and then if we want, we can. You know.”

Phil looked shy for a brief moment, but he stopped talking to pull out his dick after a very generous (at least $10 seemed generous to Dan, it was his first time after all) tip and Dan felt himself go from half-hard to fully hard. Fuck. His dick looked so good. Dan wanted to kiss it because it was pretty, the way its head was red and looked shiny, and it looked girthy from how wide Phil’s fingers were stretched around it. No guy should have that pretty of a dick and face and body all together; it was going to give the rest of mankind a complex, Dan thought as he reached down and squeezed his own erection, letting out a whimper as Phil continued to speak.  

“If we want, I could push him down and kiss him. I don’t think I would rut against him immediately; I think we could just make out, me laying on top of him, and the sounds of the Sonic title screen playing in the background,” Phil broke off here to hum the opening from Sonic Mania. “And I would kiss him until his lips were swollen. Slide my hands slowly underneath his shirt and touch how warm his stomach and sides are. Wait until he’s grinding up into me and grind back against him. I hope he grabs my ass, to pull me against him. Like it’s a decent ass, right? It deserves a little grab?”

Phil turned around and showed off his ass. He gripped it, his nails digging into the pale flesh that was dotted with the occasional mole, pulling apart a miniscule amount. Not enough to expose his hole, but enough to tease and show what he wanted his imaginary boyfriend to do to him.

Dan estimated he had bigger hands than Phil. He could probably grip his ass well, he thought as his hand sped up against his dick. Dan came embarrassingly quick when Phil turned back around and he was staring into those multicoloured eyes. He was mortified at how fast he came and no one was even in the room with him to justify him feeling this level of mortification. Reasons why Dan’s a fail, Dan thought as he felt the come cooling on his hand. Coming to an emo talking on a shady cam site and Dan hadn’t even typed anything into the chat yet to let Phil know he was watching him.

He waited until his heart rate slowed down a bit before typing in a simple ‘thank you’ with a little heart emoji attached to it before closing out of the screen to go clean off his hand.

*

“So how did it go?” Nikki asked him a few days later on Skype. Dan shrugged which made her roll her eyes. “You didn’t even do it, did you? Wimp.”

Dan sighed and looked up to meet her brown, judging, judgy little eyes and nodded. “I did do it. It was...”

Dan trailed off, unsure of how much he wanted to divulge to her. Because he did jerk off and while Nikki was pretty chill, he didn’t want to gross her out either. Did he want to say how enlightening it was to see a guy who had such beautiful eyes he wanted to go swimming in them? Did he want to talk about how he hadn’t stopped thinking about the show the past three days and was going to try and find him again because his face kept popping up in Dan’s mind all the time? Did he want to talk about how reaffirming of his sexuality it was to know how insanely attracted he was to men and that it definitely wasn’t a phase?

“It was fine,” was what Dan went with. 

“Ahhhhh,” Nikki said, her face transforming into something teasing. Apparently his poker face had been slipping since he no longer had to use it on a daily basis to survive. “Dan’s got a crush.”

“I don’t have a crush,” Dan huffed, voice going embarrassingly high for a moment. He took care to speak at a normal pitch after that. “Just… I have a mild curiosity.”

“Sure, buddy. Sure,” Nikki said, her tone drawing the words out before diving into a tangent about how insanely hard one of the missions in Black Ops was, and how it had been kicking her ass.

*

The “mild curiosity” kind of becomes a thing: Dan will get horny and instead of just using his ‘wild imagination’ (thanks every teacher he had in primary school), he’d go on the live cam site if he needed something to visualize. He didn’t always go straight to Phil’s page to see if he was online; he does try and look at other camboys, but none of them keep his attention like Phil. Dan was pretty sure it was because he treated the audience like a regular audience, but he just happened to touch himself while talking and playing music. 

Dan was a bit obsessed with Phil’s accent; it was very Northern and different than the chav accent he heard at school from the wannabe gangsters. Like today for example, Phil was just talking about something random going on in his life and Dan wasn’t even watching him to see if he was touching himself. He was working through his maths homework and had his headphones in to just listen to Phil talk as he tried to remember what his completely unintelligible maths teacher had said during class. He gave up after a while and turned his attention to Phil’s show, cushioning his head on crossed arms as he laid on his stomach. 

“So today I filmed something for my class,” Phil was explaining on the webcam. “It’s kind of different but a couple of my mates really liked it.”

Phil broke off to laugh at something in the chat.

“No, no, tiittyfucker96 nothing like this. I don’t think I could look them in the eye if I showed them a recording of me doing this,” Phil said, idly twisting a nipple and letting out a laugh that trailed into a moan as he (assumingly) pinched his nipple harder. Dan never thought someone could be so care-free during sexual situations. He was constantly worried that someone would hear that he had been with a girl and say that his bisexuality was a phase or that he was faking being straight which made him nervous to be intimate with anyone, even his ex-girlfriend. So watching the way Phil’s eyes would flutter in enjoyment as he gripped himself, watching the way Phil would give choked off laughs as he read filthy comments? It… it made Dan want to gain that kind of confidence. 

Before he had fully thought through his actions, he was typing into the chat-box, lucky that the basic, no-payment level of being a site member still allowed for chat interaction with the cam-workers. 

‘how r u able to be so confident on camera?’ 

Dan waited after hitting send and felt himself start to grow antsy after a mere second. He had sent messages before, casual things like ‘is that muse in the background’ or simple thank yous after he’d come. He didn’t think he was going to get anything out of Phil, but then he heard his now familiar laugh, and when he looked up he saw Phil’s tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, something Dan shouldn’t be fixated on but he was rapidly learning that his fascination with anything and everything Phil didn’t make any sort of rational sense and his dick simply didn’t care. 

“Well Dennis, no Danis. Danis-snot-on-fire.”

Dan wanted to die. He had been noticed and for all the wrong reasons. Why did he use the worst username known to man? Now everyone probably thought he had a snot fetish or some shit. 

“Very creative username,” Phil chuckled, looking right at the camera and giving the world’s most awkward wink Dan had been on the receiving end of. Mainly because he was trying so hard to wink, tilting his head to the side and trying but only managing to blink. Dan muffled his laughter into his elbow because if he was laughing, his mum would know he wasn’t completely focused on his homework and come in to check on him, and he really didn’t want to explain why he was doing his maths homework shirtless.

“Watch out guys, it’s about to not be a sexy time for a moment. But to answer your question, Danis,” Phil said as Dan resisted the urge to throw himself out the window every time Phil called him the wrong name, “I get my confidence from all of you guys. It’s actually part of why I first started camming in the first place. When I first started, I was pretty awkward. Like I did bad angles and there were times I got so nervous that I’d uh. You know. Go soft. But everytime someone said something encouraging, it really helped boost my confidence to what’s in front of you now. I kind of just learned that the worst thing that will happen is you’ll have to try again. So yeah!”

Phil ended the talk with jazz hands.

Dan hated how he tracked the way Phil’s hands moved, imagining how warm they would feel in person. His maths homework sat uncompleted as he had himself a wank to the freckles he wanted to bite on Phil’s shoulders.

*

It only got worse with time. This… infatuation. He’d still search the site for new camboys sometimes, but he got bored easily, grew frustrated when he didn’t find what he liked. He knew what he liked, was the thing. He knew who he wanted. The problem was: he only had access to the open camshows Phil made, at the moment. 

There was a whole library of old camshows archived on the site, but it was locked for paying clients, and paying clients needed to have a credit or debit card and to be verifiably 18 or older, which Dan wouldn’t be for another month. And even then, he’d still need to get some kind of card. Which was way too much trouble just to get more porn, right? There was plenty of free porn on the internet. He didn’t need a paid membership. He didn’t.

But he wanted one, he really, really did. There were years worth of Phil camshows in there, plus some kink-themed clips, and special features like the superchat, and Dan craved. 

He tried to hold off his burgeoning interest, but soon enough he’d fallen into a rabbit hole of online sites where Phil interacted with his subscribers and answered questions and uploaded photos with funny commentary; fallen never to be seen again. He couldn’t stop scrolling, couldn’t stop reading his twitter, his #asks tag on tumblr, his dailybooth (especially his nakedbooths, which he posted whenever he hit a milestone), his answers on formspring (almost all of them were sexual, and fuck, Phil had a way with words).

He had now reached the point where his mind drifted automatically to Phil whenever he wanked, or even when he got turned on, like the two things went together, a Pavlovian response. He’d accrued quite the collection of Phil-specific fantasies, and all his old fantasies had now cast Phil in the starring role. And he’d become addicted to checking Phil’s socials more than was maybe reasonable.

Like now.

Dan refreshed tumblr at just the right time to see that Phil had answered a few asks. 

anonymous asked: how big is ur duck

amazingphil: [picture of a rubber duck next to a 50 cm ruler]

Dan couldn’t hold back a snicker at the response. He’d discovered that Phil was hilarious very soon after discovering that he was gorgeous, and though he mourned the loss of opportunity to get a Phil dick pic, he had to hand it to him. It was funny.

Dan clicked on the ‘amazingphil’ url to check if there were any more answers yet. Phil normally did a few at a time.

And today was no exception. 

anonymous asked: is it true that you did linguistics at uni?

amazingphil: it is! I’m an english language and linguistics graduate. sounds professional, huh? i got good grades and everything. i could totally tutor you if you’re having trouble with your homework, i’ll even bring out the glasses if you’re into it… (i’m into it)

anonymous asked: whats your favorite sex toy

amazingphil: oh, this is a hard one. mmm... probably my blue vibrator? tho the purple dildo that comes inside you gets a special mention too, maybe it’s that it’s new and i’m still super excited about it lol but if you saw that one camshow where i used it you saw how much fun i had with it ;) and i’ve used it a few more times already so...

Dan had seen that camshow. That thing was huge. And Phil had taken it like it was nothing, moaning and pushing back on it like he couldn’t get enough of it. Dan had come twice during the half-hour-long liveshow. Dan refreshed the page, and a new ask appeared.

anonymous asked: hav you tried bondage? i’d luv to tie u up ;)

amazingphil: i haven’t actually! but i might be up for it with someone i trust. but i’ve thought about it! it’s a hot fantasy. i’d like my partner to tie just my wrists the first time, to ease me into it, but a second time i think it could be fun to be spread eagled, wrists and ankles, back to the bed. i’d like to be on one of those four poster beds so that you could have my legs up in the air. i think i’d like to be fingered slowly when i can’t move away, teased a little and then fucked into the mattress while spread open like that with no friction on my cock so i can’t come until you’re done with me and then you get to decide how to make me come, i bet that’d drive me wild. i can get a bit needy in that kind of situation haha but that’s half the fun of it, yeah? that’s y’know, sth i think about sometimes :)

“Ngh.” Dan was suddenly very hard, his mind having taken a wild swerve into the gutter as soon as he’d clicked on Phil’s blog if he was being honest, but that took it to a whole new level. He wasn’t sure how true these were, but the idea that these were actually Phil’s fantasies, that this was what he thought about when he got off by himself, it always made it so much hotter for Dan, so much more effective. He wasn’t sure if it was just that Phil talked about his actual fantasies differently and he was picking up on it on some wavelength, or if he just got off to the idea of knowing something so intimate about someone he was attracted to.

He wanted more, so he refreshed the page again, barely resisting the urge to touch himself as he squirmed just a little on his seat.

The page refreshed, and there was a new answer.

anonymous asked: ur so hot i love ur cock i want to sit on it and ride u until u scream

amazingphil: mm… this cock? [gif of phil’s groin from the chest to his thighs, completely naked, he’s pumping his cock slowly, once, twice, the third time, as his fingers reach the head, a few drops of precome slide down his fingers, then the gif loops] yeah that sounds nice. but i think i could make you scream first... race you? ;)

“Fuck,” Dan breathed out, his own cock twitching sympatheticaly inside his pyjama bottoms. He reached down to squeeze it and couldn’t help but buck up into it, breathing ragged and mind already lost in the fantasy. How would it feel to sit on Phil’s lap, to tease him by rubbing against him, to have Phil finger him open and then kiss him while he slid down onto that pretty cock, feel it stretch him until he bottomed out and then stay still, perfectly, maddeningly still, until Phil couldn’t take it anymore and said “please, Dan,” and then to move up, feeling that cock dragging against all those hidden places, making fireworks go off behind his eyes, until he was almost all the way out, and then-

Dan had pulled out his own rock hard dick and was pumping it furiously, basically fucking his fist by this point, imagining himself bouncing on Phil’s cock, picturing how Phil would grab his ass, how he’d grip him by the thighs as he pushed him down into his cock, how he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking up into him, hips rising without even thinking about it. 

In the stark reality of Dan’s bedroom, he brought his hand up to pinch his own nipple and moaned; in his fantasy, it was Phil’s long, elegant fingers doing it, Phil’s fist around his cock as he fucked him, Phil leaving bite marks on his collarbones, telling him how fit he was, how good he felt, how much Phil wanted him, and just like that Dan was spilling into his hand and his shirt, pressing his mouth into the fleshy inner side of his bicep to muffle the whiny, breathy moans he couldn’t quite keep in, and the pleasure came in waves down his body, had him writhing in his computer chair for several long moments that felt like a short eternity, and left him a boneless lump, breathing too hard and staring unseeingly into the computer screen.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself once he’d come down from it. That was... really good, actually. 

The gif was still playing on the screen. Dan right-clicked over it and saved it on his computer. For reasons.

*

Next came the not-so-natural progression of his little hobby into a whole new level. It began as a fantasy.

He’d been spending so much time in that damned camming website that it was hardly shocking that the thought would form in his mind. What would it feel like to be in front of the camera? What must it feel like to feel so confident about your own body and sexuality that you can put yourself on display like that with the expectation that people will come, that people will watch, that some will even pay for the privilege of telling you how good you look or to ask you to touch yourself in a specific way? How did someone like Phil feel, knowing he can turn on his webcam and have thousands of viewers’ undivided attention based purely on how hot he looks as he gets himself off, thousands of eyes following his every movement, his every word, feeling their blood rush and their flesh crave at the stroke of his fingertips? 

The first stray thought was followed by another, then another, and it all built momentum until he found himself caught up in the fantasy of having all those anonymous eyes on him, wanting him, wishing they could be touching him, thinking he was so desirable that they wanted to pay him in exchange for scraps of attention. 

So Dan laid down on his bed, over the covers, naked (so that the anonymous men from his fantasy could take him in, could watch him, all of him, on display like-like art, or a celebrity, or something worth attention. Someone deserving of this kind of attention). Instead of following all the shortcuts he knew would get him to the finish line faster, he thought about what Phil (and the few other camboys he’d tried watching) did to tease and titillate their viewers. What would they like to see, if there really were people watching him?

He ran the fingers of one hand lightly down his neck, shivering slightly at the sensation, then down his collarbones and further down his chest until they reached one nipple. His other hand was resting to his side, gripping the duvet in an attempt to anchor him and help him pace himself. He tweaked his nipple, squeezed it between two fingers, and his hips swivelled a little in place at the bolt of pleasure. Dan’s eyes never strayed from his own body, trying to see what others would see if they were looking at him right then. His cock was hard already, resting flush against his lower belly and throbbing a little. 

He trailed the fingers down, teeth catching on his pink plump lower lip as his hand reached the crease where his hip met his thigh and he bypassed the hard flesh aching for attention between his legs in favour of running his nails down his inner thighs, leaving reddish lines on the pale soft skin and moaning softly at the sensation. Would his viewers like the noise? Would they like him? Would these hypothetical men (and while he knew the people who watched the camshows weren’t all men, it was important to some recondite and unexamined corner of Dan’s mind that they would be primarily men) be intrigued enough to want to stay and continue watching him?

Dan imagined it, countless men watching him in lust, unable to resist sneaking a hand down pants that felt too tight and rubbing one out, never taking their eyes off Dan’s form as they fantasised about all the filthy things they’d like to do to him.

He dragged his fingers down to grab a handful of his own ass, squeezing one cheek and  spreading it slightly to reveal the puckered flesh between the cheeks, spurred on by the mental image of faceless men rutting into their own hands at the sight. He ran his fingers teasingly around the rim, sparks of pleasure shooting up from the place where his fingers made contact and moving all the way into his core. He tamped down on the urge to thrust his hips into the air in a natural bid to find friction.

He considered his options briefly, fingers tapping a delicious rhythm and making his legs spread a bit wider by reflex, and reached out with his other hand to fish out the lube from his drawer. He didn’t do this every time - it meant more work and cleanup - but right then he knew it was just what he needed. 

He coated three fingers as quickly as he could and returned his hand to its previous position between his legs, bending his legs and planting his feet firmly on the mattress for leverage.

He teased around his rim for a bit longer, his other hand wandering aimlessly up his body as he pretended that he was waiting for a hefty enough tip before indulging his audience. Someone would crack, he thought; someone would want it so bad that they wouldn’t even care about the money, they’d just send it over, and Dan would smile at the camera in satisfaction before dipping one of his slick fingers slowly inside.

He’d talk to them, probably, during the whole thing. He’d tell them how badly he wanted it, how hard he was, how much he needed it. It was quite unlike anything else, that particular feeling; and when he craved it, nothing else would do. He’d ask them playfully if they wanted to see how well he took his own fingers, he’d beg them so nicely to please hurry up, he needed more, one finger wasn’t enough and he was ready, he was so ready for more, but he couldn’t until he got another tip, right? So please? Pretty please?

And then another tip would come, maybe more than one, and he’d thank them, looking straight at the camera again, and he’d reward them by sliding another finger with the first, twisting them slowly (and here he’d be unable to keep his hips on the bed, he could feel himself losing that battle as they bucked up into the air by their own accord), and fuck he couldn’t keep the noise down, not when he was like this, but that was fine, wasn’t it? His viewers would like that, they’d probably compliment the whiny moans he couldn’t keep down whenever he brushed his prostate, they’d love them, if anything they’d ask him to make more noise.

Another? he’d ask, he’d request, and the tips would flood, as would the praising comments. He was close, and he hadn’t even touched his prick at all. He pulled out the two fingers he’d been using to furiously finger himself and dropped some more lube on them, before reaching back down and slowly, too slowly, sinking three fingers inside. It burned a little, but the pleasure was far more intense; it made his eyes close and his jaw slacken and he had to grip the duvet again to resist touching his throbbing cock. 

It didn’t take long before he was thrusting his fingers in and out, effectively fucking himself on them and letting out high, desperate-sounding short little whines. He imagined countless people (men) watching him, devouring the picture he made with greedy eyes and tight fists, getting off to the fantasy of him, fantisising about what it might feel like to fuck him, what he might look like with their cock up his arse rather than his own fingers, thinking probably that they could wring out even sweeter sounds out of him with a proper cock, like some of Phil’s viewers said to him all the time.

He was feverish with the thought, the sensations, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this hard (he’d certainly never sounded this desperate, this needy before), and the stray thought of Phil’s viewers made him think of Phil and what if he was watching too? Pretty much everything Dan knew of camming he’d learnt from him. Would he think Dan was good at it? Would he be proud? 

Would he want me too?

The thought settled like an itch under his skin, setting him on fire. He unclenched the hand gripping wrinkled cloth to grip himself, felt his cock twitch as soon as it was (finally, finally) given some attention, and he tried to go slowly at first but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, the pleasure had been building for so long, so he just thrust into his fist and fucked himself on his fingers and imagined being watched and wanted and desired for all of it until the pleasure undid him. Wave after debilitating wave, all he could do was lie there and let it wreck him, and whine through it. 

He was left in a messy, sweaty, shaky tangle, quite sure that he’d just had the single most intense orgasm of his life and wondering if he’d even be able to walk to the bathroom for cleanup before his parents came home from work. 

(He was, eventually, but it was a close thing.)

*

Okay, so he’d discovered he had an exhibitionist kink. No big deal. It didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. 

Sure, he liked the idea of being watched by people who found him attractive, but that didn’t mean he’d necessarily enjoy the reality of it… Not to mention, exposing himself in the way that he’d been imagining - by doing a camshow where strangers could watch him - worked great as a fantasy, but who knew what kind of people he might attract... What if he got awful comments instead of praising ones? What if no one turned up? What if they didn’t even like him? 

The thought caused a ball of anxiety to settle somewhere around his lower chest, much as he tried to dismiss it. This kind of thing self-regulated, right? If someone checked him out and didn’t like him, they’d just leave to find someone more to their taste… 

Well, that thought didn’t help at all. With a grimace, he pictured a stream of people opening his camshow only to leave moments later, when they saw what he looked like, or heard how awkward he was. That’d be even worse than no one showing up.

And why was he still thinking about this, anyway? It wasn’t like he was actually going to go ahead and do it. It was just a crazy idea. 

He didn’t really want to do it. And he couldn’t, anyway. It’d be a disaster. 

And who knew how dangerous it might be. Better to file the thought away for wanking purposes and move on to more realistic endeavours in the real world.

...Right?

*

Apparently not.

He could not stop thinking about it. 

Every time he got off, even when he was watching Phil’s shows (and Phil’s shows were as captivating as they came), his mind drifted to this shiny new fantasy of his. He imagined himself in Phil’s place, imagined that the comments and tips were for him, (imagined that Phil was watching him, one of his regulars, that Phil was thinking about him when he grabbed and tugged and teased his own skin, when he lost himself in the pleasure, when he moaned and shuddered so prettily, when he talked about his future boyfriend).

And it wasn’t just that he was fixated on the sexual fantasy (though, that was how it got started). No, he’d started actually thinking about it. What it might entail. How it might go, as a job. How often he’d have to do it to live off it. 

He didn’t actually know if it would be viable as a way to make money, as a lot depended on whether people tuned in to watch him, and he couldn’t predict that. But surely it had to be a more attractive prospect than his shitty job at Asda, which he was barely holding on to as it was.

Going by the terms and conditions posted on the camming site (which he’d obsessively read several times over, heart in his throat and cheeks burning and feeling foolish and young and inexperienced), he’d get a fixed rate for number of subscribers, but the amount was negligible unless you were one of the heavy hitters. The real money would come from tips and private shows, and Dan was not sure he was ready to try doing private shows yet.

He wasn’t sure that he was ready to do any of it, if he was honest, but the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that he wanted to try. He wanted this.

It was a bit mad, yeah. Not the sort of thing you could bring up at Sunday tea time with grandma, that’s for sure. Not the sort of thing you could list on your resumé as a professional lawyer, either. And that wasn’t even going into the matter of romantic relationships, and how potential partners might feel about it. 

It was atypical, socially transgressive, scorned and undervalued by mainstream society; in a word, it was decidedly queer, in every sense of the word, but damn it if that wasn’t Dan all over. 

That’s how he felt, anyway. 

Maybe he should embrace it.

[Read the rest here!]

[itsmyusualphannie]

school rivalries (or not)

Title: school rivalries (or not) (ao3) Beta: @sudden-sky​ (patchworklove on ao3) Word Count: 4.4k Rating: T Warnings: Guns (sort of) Summary: how PJ took over the school - aka the mostly-crack fic where PJ becomes a high school gang boss because Dan and Phil are too busy making out in dark theatre rooms to do their jobs Author Notes: i wrote this in a 4-hour coffee-fueled haze in the middle of the night so you definitely need to read it. also happy anniversaryyyyy to our favourite idoottsss (ಥ﹏ಥ)

The kid stared wide-eyed at PJ for a good ten minutes before PJ finally gave in. He waved away the henchmen hovering behind him as he had been devouring his lunch, then he reluctantly motioned the kid forward. He was tiny, PJ noted, although he couldn’t be much younger than PJ. They were both in Year 11, after all.

The kid’s blond hair even seemed to bristle attentively when he hurriedly sat at the table across from PJ, his eyes even wider now that he had been acknowledged. “Hi,” he said in a partial squeak, then coughed and tried again. “Um. Hi.”

PJ glanced him up and down and sighed deeply. The kid did have potential - Louise wouldn’t have recommended him for no reason. “Hey. Tyler, is it?”

If possible, the blond’s eyes grew even wider at the realization that PJ, overlord and ruler of the biggest gang in school, knew his name. His voice definitely squeaked this time. “Yes?”

PJ glanced down at his unsatisfactory meal of mashed taters and gravy, then mournfully took another bite. It was too bad he had decided to eat the same thing as his minions - it wouldn’t do to lord over them, after all. It was the little things that counted. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Tyler nodded hastily. “My family moved in the middle of the school year, so I just started here a few days ago.”

“You got in with the right people at school here pretty quickly,” PJ noted and chewed on some more taters. They really were just flavourless mush. The gravy didn’t help much.

“I…?” Tyler hesitated. “I helped run a group at my other school.”

“Hmm,” said PJ. He swallowed the bite of food and frowned at his empty bottle of water. It took only a flick of his finger to summon one of the minions inconspicuously drifting nearby, a whisper into her ear, a dash across the room and a dash back, and he had another bottle of water. He tipped it in thanks and then took a few gulps from it. “Good stuff. So, Tyler, what is it you think you can do for me? Why do you want to join?”

“Well,” Tyler ventured, “you always need more members.”

PJ waved a dismissive hand. “Irrelevant. Everyone at school wants to join me, ever since the main ones melded to create mine. Subservience costs little. I want something…” and here he leaned forward, and let his gaze become piercing as it met Tyler’s, “...unique.”

“Ah,” chirped Tyler, but there was a ring of white around his irises.

PJ sat back and smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have bothered even trying to talk to me if you weren’t prepared.”

“I...am,” said Tyler, and squared his shoulders. “I have prepared. I mean, I do have something I think you need.”

“Do tell.”

Tyler took a deep breath. “Well, I haven’t been here long enough to take full stock of the entire situation, but from what I’ve seen, I think I’ve discovered what’s most in-demand. The item that’s hardest to get, yet constantly confiscated by teachers. It’s not cheap, either.”

PJ felt a bubble of grudging respect rise up his chest, not at Tyler’s observation skills, but at his shift from a nervous wreck to a still-nervous-but-fully-prepared-to-bargain wreck. He thumped his palm against his chest a few times to disperse the bubble. “Ah, have you now? Impressive, I suppose. Anyone could find that out, though. You’d just have to come across a gang battle.”

Tyler’s lips fell open a little at “gang battle,” but he pressed on. “It’s not just that. You see, my dad’s the manager of that new store downtown. And…” here he paused for effect, “he’s asked me to work there after school.”

PJ could feel a reluctant smile making its way across his face. This...this, he could work with. “Hmm, I see. What’s your discount?”

“Fifty percent.”

Nodding slowly, PJ thought carefully about the veiled proposition. “I like your style, kid. We might be able to hammer something out.”

Tyler looked a bit offended at the moniker but seemed to shrug it off as he leaned intently toward PJ. “First,” he said in a whisper, “before we decide on any details, I want to know something first.”

PJ took a sip from his water bottle and raised an amused eyebrow. The only people who were close enough to overhear anything from this conversation were his most trusted minions, but he doubted Tyler would say anything that important anyway. “Yes?”

“Well, two things,” Tyler amended. He hesitated, then ploughed ahead. “Is it true that your older sister married Phil Lester’s older brother?”

PJ’s other eyebrow rose. “Yes. Well, they’re engaged. What of it?”

If possible, Tyler leaned even closer. The side of the table had to be cutting into his stomach at this point, PJ mused, and these lunchroom tables weren’t all that comfortable to even look at, much lean intently against.

“How did you become head of this school-wide clique? I’ve heard a few whispers about Phil Lester and Dan Howell, the previous heads of rivals cliques here. How did you get control from them?”

“Ah. I see.” PJ smiled now, a genuine one pulled forth by the sincerity of Tyler’s questions. He supposed, from an outsider’s perspective, it was strange. “That’s easy to tell. You see, their followers abandoned them all at once. It was devastating for them, truly.”

Tyler seemed more confused. “But...they don’t seem bothered. They seem,” he considered the word for a few moments, then admitted, “happy. Like they don’t even care that they entirely lost their cliques.”

“Just say gangs,” PJ said dismissively. “It doesn’t matter, in any case, we’re the only real gang at this school now. We only fight against other schools at this point.” He regarded his water bottle, his brows furrowing, and then they smoothed out as he laughed quietly. “You see, since Phil’s practically my brother-in-law now, I can’t exactly abandon him - imagine the family dinners! And Dan just comes along with that.”

“But…” Tyler looked frustrated. “On my very first day, when Louise started talking to me, she said that Dan and Phil were like the rival overlords of the entire school and you started out as Phil’s right-hand man. How did you…? And how did they end up now like…” He made an indecent gesture, and PJ laughed loudly now. One of his hench people stood up in alarm, but he waved them down.

“Ah, Tyler. You’re so new here, but I can tell that you’re clever. What do you suppose happened? They were rivals, but now they’re not, and their rival gangs have abandoned them.”

“I guess…” Gaze uncertain, Tyler hazarded, “They made up, and their followers didn’t like it, so they left them?”

“More like made out!” PJ chortled and slapped the table in his burst of amusement. He had been right, the table was not comfortable. “God, okay. I guess I should just tell you what happened.”

Tyler shifted in anticipation, his eyes hungry with eagerness. PJ approved. This kid would probably make a great informant, the way he devoured information like this. It would be better that he heard this story from PJ, though, since there was no knowing what others might tell him.

“The rivalry started the first time Dan and Phil laid eyes on each other when Phil accidentally tripped Dan so Dan punched him in the face. Their friends, and then followers, flocked around them both through the following years, all agreeably despising those on the opposing side. Their groups grew and grew until someone initiated the first battle, and it was war from then on. We kept it on the down-low, though, to avoid the teachers. It was beautiful, back then.

“Then came their downfall.”

~~~

“You’re dead, Liguori,” came a hiss from behind PJ as he settled into his desk.

PJ cast an innocent smile over his shoulder, which only widened when he caught sight of his classmate’s limp blonde-and-pink curls and her furious expression. “Oh, hullo, Louise. I didn’t see you when I walked in. How are you?”

A putrid scent drifted toward him when she spoke. “You set the bomb in my locker, you dick, you know perfectly well how I am.”

Delicately waving his hand in front of his face, PJ blinked slowly. “Dear me, I believe you need to take a shower.”

“Fuck y - ” she started, but didn’t get to finish as their instructor entered the room.

“Good afternoon,” the teacher chirped as he set his bag on the desk.

“Good afternoon,” a few students obediently droned back.

PJ used the time while the teacher set up to check his phone for messages. He typed out a few brief replies to fellow members’ inquiries about the meeting this afternoon, then opened his chat with Phil and sent a quick “U were right, she went by her locker right b4 class. smells gr8 in here. slight regrets lol”

The door thudded against the wall as another student walked in. PJ’s head snapped up, immediately attentive. He always noticed when this student was late.

“Good afternoon, Dan,” said their teacher, a little terse, as he always was when someone walked in after him.

PJ had never known it was possible for someone’s eye roll to be loud, but Dan’s practically screamed at their teacher as he crossed the room and dropped into the desk beside PJ. He scowled when he caught PJ glancing at him and lifted two fingers in a succinct gesture.

PJ shrugged and went back to his phone. Phil had replied with a “lol wb dan” so PJ typed out “just walked in. looks his usual mad af self but nothing. did u not get him?”

There was no reply. PJ frowned down at his phone until the teacher began lecturing and he had to tuck it away.

~~~

“I’m here!” announced PJ as he threw open the door to Phil’s room. He had let himself in through the back door, received a cheery wave from Phil’s mum, and trotted upstairs. The other gang members wouldn’t here for at least another thirty minutes, and judging by the rich chocolate scent wafting throughout the house, Phil’s mum was making cookies for everyone. PJ sometimes wondered if Kathryn knew that Phil was literally running a gang at school with dozens of members.

“Hrnh,” said Phil into his pillow, a muffled reply to PJ’s exuberant greeting. He was lying facedown on his bed, the spread crumpled around him. PJ sighed deeply upon seeing him.

“Phil. Come on, we need to have a pre-meeting before everyone else gets here.” The bed sank beneath him as he sat next to Phil and patted him comfortingly on the back. “It’s okay, I know you’re upset because you didn’t get Dan this afternoon as we planned. We can plan something else today. Want another gang battle? Those always cheer you up.”

Phil tore himself from PJ’s pats with a ferocity that almost shocked PJ. Almost.

“I don’t want a battle,” Phil snapped, throwing himself off the bed and pacing by the window. He looked distraught, and it was unsettling. PJ blinked at him.

“Well,” said PJ. “What do you want?”

Phil stopped pacing and turned toward PJ. His eyes were drawn, tired. He dropped back onto the bed, his hands covering his face. “Are you ever...tired of the same old thing, year after year? Do you ever want to just...stop?”

PJ carefully considered Phil’s words. He wasn’t quite sure what Phil was talking about, but as Phil’s right-hand man and best friend, he had to think long and hard before answering. Whatever Phil was talking about, it seemed to be important. Maybe he meant the pranks. It was tiresome coming up with unique ways to trick Dan or Louise, Dan’s right-hand woman, or any of Dan’s other numerous followers, but they were just filler activities between the main battles. The big gang battles were the main events and what everyone in the gangs looked forward to.

“Get tired of what?” PJ finally asked, cautiously.

“God,” said Phil, and drew a hand across his face. His eyes looked hooded when they reappeared. “I don’t know,” he eventually said. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Exams are coming up,” PJ offered sympathetically.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just stress. Let’s just...let’s just plan for the next ambush attack.” Phil laughed, but it was a little too shrill, a little too throwaway.

PJ resolved to watch him carefully from then on.

~~~

“Of course,” said PJ, “that was just when Phil brought up his doubts to me. I’m sure he’d been thinking about it for a long while before that. He was sort of right, though.” He shook his head regretfully. “I was so naive back then. All I could think about were pranks and gang battles.” 

Waving a hand in demonstration, he gestured to the chattering students around them. “Look at them all eating their lunches. They never really know what’s going on around them. They never really know what we supply until they need something.” 

He took another sip of his drink. “Only a week after Phil had that outburst, there was a huge warning sign that I should have noticed. But I was oblivious, utterly dedicated to Phil. I didn’t see anything until it was too late.”

Tyler listened intently.

~~~

“in position?” PJ texted.

He waited a few moments, and then the group chat flashed with message after message. “Ready here” “we’re set” “in position!”

Pleased, PJ closed out the app and dialled Phil. He raised the phone to his ear, waiting only a moment before Phil picked up.

“You ready?”

Phil’s voice was tinny on the other end. “Uh, yeah. I can’t see you, but I’m across the street behind the hedges.”

“You said they’d be crossing in about five minutes?”

A pause. “Yeah,” said Phil.

“Great! We’re all ready.” PJ hung up and laughed under his breath, sliding the phone into his pocket. They had been planning this ambush attack for almost a week, and it was a relief to finally put it into action. Phil had still seemed hesitant after his outburst, but PJ had been relieved to see him throw himself into the planning with his usual vigour.

This ambush had been a little less difficult than usual - Phil apparently had a mysterious informant somewhere in Dan’s gang and was so careful to hide their identity that even PJ didn’t know who they were. PJ only knew that Dan had his bi-monthly gang meetings somewhere around here, but now thanks to this informant, Phil had learned that this was the route they took. The group obviously switched it up every few months, but this time PJ had a feeling that they would get lucky. After all, yesterday one of Dan’s lackeys had smugly sidled past PJ in the hall and dropped a slug down his shirt. Revenge would be sweet.

A few minutes passed in silence, PJ’s phone still and quiet in his pocket. Then another few passed. PJ’s thighs began to cramp in his crouched position, so he shifted a bit until he was more comfortable. A bird chirped somewhere across the street.

PJ’s phone buzzed. He yanked it out with urgent fingers, but it was just a message from his sister about her date last night. He swiped it away with a roll of his eyes, then pursed his lips thoughtfully and opened up the group chat.

“any sight?”

Rapid negative responses filled the screen. PJ frowned and glanced at the phone’s clock. It was only a few minutes after Phil’s time estimate, but even that was strange. Phil was rarely wrong.

“heard anything from your spy?” he sent to Phil. A long minute passed before he received a simple “no” as a response.

“Goddamnit,” he said aloud and then continued waiting.

It took another twenty minutes, with aching thighs and impatient shuffling, before PJ gave up. He huffed loudly as he stood from behind his stout bush, then called down the street, “Come on out, everyone!”

A disgruntled group emerged from an open garage, another from the cars parked along the side of the road, and further down the street, a few more people. A few moments passed before Phil also stood, his expression downcast as he surveyed his despondent followers.

PJ crossed the street in a dozen quick strides, clapping his friend on the back. “Don’t look so dejected, it happens,” he muttered, then raised his voice so everyone else could hear, “It’s a bust, sorry everyone! We got some bad information. Come on, let’s go to the coffee shop next to the library and re-plan!” He then hastily turned to Phil. “Is that okay?”

“What?” Phil had been glancing at his phone. He slid it back into his pocket with a nonchalant shrug. “Um, yeah. Let’s go.”

PJ eyed him with a frown but obediently fell in behind him as they all started down the street toward downtown. They could make another plan, a better plan. Phil would be fine.

~~~

“Yeah, at that point I was lying to myself,” PJ mused. “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself, much less to anyone else.”

“Did you ever confront him?” Tyler asked.

A burst of air wheezed forth from PJ as he laughed helplessly. It took a few long moments before he was able to regain his breath. “God, oh my - god. Yeah, but no. It’s more like I was slapped in the face with it. And it happened only two weeks later.”

~~~

“I need volunteers,” said PJ’s art teacher. He received approximately zero volunteers, and in fact, no acknowledgement that he had even spoken.

“PJ!” barked the instructor. PJ hastily closed his textbook over the phone which he had been using to type out another message that would be ignored by Phil.

“Yes?” he began in an overly sweet tone, but was drowned out by the teacher’s announcement of, “...and Louise! Both of you, come up here.”

PJ and Louise exchanged the appropriate sneers as they reluctantly joined their teacher at the front of the room. He handed them each a massive poster board and stepped back, dusting his hands with a satisfied expression. PJ determinedly did not stagger under the weight of the board when he noticed Louise hoisting it with ease.

“Excellent,” said the teacher. “Take these to the theatre room, if you will. It’s just down the hall, so it shouldn’t take long at all. I expect you back in less than five minutes.”

PJ and Louise jostled each other as they left the room.

“Just down the hall,” PJ could hear Louise mocking as they trudged down the empty hall. “We do know where the theatre room is, we’re not incompetent. Five minutes.”

PJ felt a rush of comradery but ruthlessly quelled it. It would not do to joke around with Dan’s right-hand woman, no matter how much they mutually disliked their art teacher or how accurate her mockery was.

They reached the theatre room in only a minute. PJ managed to fumble for the handle and shoulder the door open, while Louise haughtily stood to the side and allowed him to struggle. PJ attempted to kick it shut as he ducked through, but she was right behind him and shoved him aside with her shoulder so she could get in.

It was dark inside, and PJ was tempted to just dump the poster board on the floor and be done with it, but instead, he leaned it against the wall as he scrabbled for the light switch. The overhead lights flared on and PJ blinked against the sudden change.

“Oh,” said Louise, behind him, and the single word was such a blatant mixture of shock and horror that PJ felt obliged to turn and see what she was reacting to.

“Oh,” he said, instantly regretting turning, and then he hurled the poster board in his hands at the sight before him. It fell only a few feet from PJ and thumped sadly against the floor. “Are you kidding me?” hissed PJ.

“Um,” said Dan and Phil in unison. They looked mortified and had every right to be. Phil was already hastily doing up his shirt and Dan was adjusting his trousers.

“You absolute wankers,” PJ snapped, then emphasized, “fucking prats.”

Louise’s hands were on her hips and PJ felt a kinship in their mutual glares at the couple still awkwardly sprawled against the costume wardrobe. “I can’t believe you,” she said, her tone outraged. “You…?” and she trailed off, choked with rage.

“Look,” said Phil, hands outstretched and gaze earnest. “We meant to - ”

“What?” PJ shrilled. “Were you going to tell us when you invited us to the wedding? You prick, how long has this been going on?”

“I. Four months, but - !”

“Months,” said Louise, strangled.

“So!” said PJ. “This is why you’ve been acting shifty lately. You thought...you thought it’d be totally okay to just, I don’t know, keep pitting your loyal subjects against each other while staying out of the crossfire?”

“You didn’t think to maybe tell us that there wasn’t a point in fighting each other since the bosses are making out in a dark theatre room?” Louise had dropped her hands but they were flexing in rage.

“It’s not like that!” Dan blurted. “We just wanted to - we didn’t want to fight anymore.”

Phil tilted his chin up defiantly and added, “We had a meeting a few months back and decided to tone down the gang stuff. Then it just...led to this.”

PJ was fairly sure his face was purple if it even vaguely resembled Louise’s. He took a few deep breaths to make sure oxygen was getting everywhere it needed to reach. “And you. Didn’t think. To tell us.”

“We were going to!” Phil insisted. “We were just...trying to think of the best way to say it. Everyone was so into it - it’s not like anyone ever got hurt, they were just pranks and a few fights here and there.”

“Just pranks,” said Louise, in so low a voice that even PJ felt a tremble of fear. Dan didn’t quiver under her glare though, just reached out and defiantly linked his hand with Phil’s.

“I wasn’t really doing anything, anyway,” Phil concluded, and waved his free hand at PJ. “You were planning everything, I was just there as a head figure. You don’t need me. You don’t need us.”

“We’re out,” Dan said resolutely.

Louise picked up her board and heaved it across the room. It got a few feet further than PJ’s before it landed heavily, a suspicious cracking noise breaking the silence. “Right,” she said, her chest heaving.

“Right,” PJ repeated. He took a deep breath and reached down to tug up the left leg of his trousers. He retrieved the slender weapon from his ankle holster, then levelled it at Dan and Phil and fired it. Once. Twice.

PJ and Louise stood there for a few long moments, then they glanced at each other and, in unison, turned and left the room. PJ spitefully switched off the light again. They walked back to their classroom in a horrible silence but stopped before going inside.

“Well,” said Louise. “That’s that.”

They looked at each other.

“Ready to take over for Dan?” said PJ.

Louise thought about it. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think so. I’m better suited at behind-the-scenes work. Will you take over for Phil?”

PJ also thought about it. “No,” he echoed, and then smiled. “I have a better idea.”

~~~

“You shot them?” Tyler’s voice was almost high enough to call forth a pack of dogs.

PJ hoisted his leg up onto the chair beside him and tugged up his trousers, taking out the gun. He handed it to Tyler, whose hands trembled as he took it.

“Oh,” he said after a moment.

“Yeah,” said PJ, and took it back. “It’s just a water gun. I sprayed them in the face, though. They probably needed it after all that making out. The water guns are our biggest seller, you know, since they’re what we use to fight other school gangs.”

“So that’s how it all started?” asked Tyler, sounding awed.

PJ put the water gun back, then took a bite of his cold potatoes and chewed them slowly, mournful once more at the taste. “That’s how it all started. It was easy to get everyone together once they knew Dan and Phil had dumped all of us and Louise backed me as the new leader. Phil got what he wanted, though. The pranks and the fighting stopped and we went on to bigger and better things, such as smuggling and counterfeiting. Water guns and roasted peanuts are our most popular products right now.”

“And I can get anything you want from a toy store,” said Tyler.

PJ clapped him on the shoulder. What a great kid he had here. He had a feeling Tyler would do amazing things. “And you can get anything we want from a toy store.”

The bell rang. Students rushed from the room as they headed to class, and within seconds, more students escaping their classes entered the room. Some of PJ’s hench people left and were replaced by others as they got their food and subtly arranged themselves in a staggered perimeter around PJ’s table. Both PJ and Tyler stayed seated - PJ because he was uninterested in history class and his decrepit teacher wouldn’t notice if he never arrived, and Tyler because this was his free period.

The doors at the far end of the room thudded open and PJ glanced toward them. With the usual dramatic flair, Dan and Phil strode into the room, their power couple aura emanating throughout it. Heads turned and chatter dwindled as they crossed the room toward PJ and his new lackey.

PJ just watched coolly until they sat on either side of Tyler, trapping him across from PJ. He looked terrified.

“Dan,” said PJ, tone icy. “Phil.”

“PJ,” they said in unison, extraordinarily creepy.

PJ stared at them both, jaw stiff, for a few more long moments before he cracked and released a laugh that bubbled up from his chest. Dan and Phil both broke at the same time, Dan throwing his head back as he chortled and Phil giggling helplessly into one hand.

“Oh god,” PJ finally said, wiping his eyes. “Wow.” He reached across the table to pat Tyler’s hand. “It’s okay kid, you can relax. We’re all cool. It’s just an initiation thing, they like to scare the new guys and make sure they’re fine to join. They might not be the big bosses anymore but they still have the moves.”

Tyler slumped in his seat, visibly relieved, but his eyes were still tight around the edges. “I’m going to regret joining this, aren’t I?” he asked, resigned.

PJ smiled. “Yeah, probably.”

[summerohnine]

you won’t be alone

warnings: homophobia

word count: 2k

summary: in which dan comes out to his parents in 2010 and things don’t go as planned.

a/n: this is something i wrote that combined a number of one-line prompts i received. they are sprinkled throughout and in italics.

[read on ao3]

read more of my fics!

This had been a terrible idea. Dan knew it as soon as he saw the expression on both of his parents’ faces when he finally let the words slip from his mouth. Why did he decide that the first day of his week-long stay at his parents’ house would be a good time to come out?

Maybe it was because he didn’t expect his parents to react this badly. He thought his parents were better people than this.

Now, as he gathered up the few belonging he had brought with him, shoving them into his suitcase along with the many tears that had surely fallen in, he knew his expectations were set much too high. His parents were kicking him out. They had begged and begged him to come back home over break, yet didn’t even hesitate to make him leave after only a few hours of him being there.

He left their house with his suitcase, throwing his jacket on and slamming the door without a word to either of them. He didn’t look back as he cried and pulled out his phone, calling the only person he could think of talking to.

“’Ello?” Phil picked up after only a few rings. At the sound of Phil’s voice, a loud sob escaped Dan’s throat that he failed to contain.

“Phil?” He felt bad for bothering Phil but he didn’t know what else to do other than call him. Dan had nowhere to go. He was a three-hour train ride away from Manchester and he hardly had enough money to buy a ticket.

“Dan? Why are you crying? What’s going on?”

Dan took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down. It helped but only slightly. “Phil, I-” He cut himself off with a hiccup and tried to hold in the sobs. “I came out.” Dan came across a bench as he was walking and decided to sit down, knowing he would just get lost if he kept walking. It was late November so it was already completely dark outside despite it only being a little past dinner time. The only source of light was from the eerie glow the streetlamp gave off and the occasional light from passing cars’ headlights.

Phil was silent on the other end for a moment, probably waiting to see if Dan was going to continue. “They didn’t take it well, did they?” Phil sounded disappointed.

Dan laughed bitterly. “They kicked me out, Phil.”

“Oh my god, are you okay?” There was shuffling on Phil’s end.

“Well, I’m about as okay as I can be for someone who just got kicked out of their parents’ house with nowhere to go.” Dan tried to laugh it off but neither of them really saw any humor in the situation.

“Are you safe?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, that’s a start. Do you have a ride home?”

Dan chewed on his lip, taking in a breath. “I don’t have enough money to buy a train ticket, so no. I don’t even have enough for the taxi fare to the fucking station.”

“Okay - hey. It’ll be alright, Dan. Just breath, okay?” Dan’s breath had quickened and Phil must’ve picked up on his growing anxiety. “Can you get a taxi from where you are to my apartment?”

“How would I ever pay for that? That’s way too expensive.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

“No, you can’t. I won’t let you.” How was it fair for Phil to pay so much because of Dan’s own mistake? He should be responsible for it himself.

“Dan, I’m doing it. .” Phil’s voice was stern. Dan knew how stubborn he could be so he didn’t attempt to argue. Not now, at least. “Just order a taxi then call me when you’re done. I’ll stay on the phone with you until it gets there.”

Dan wanted to cry. Well, technically, he already was. But this was for a different reason. Phil, this boy who he had just happened to stumble upon on Youtube, who somehow ended up replying to Dan on Twitter and sparking up a conversation, was doing this for Dan. He was offering to pay for a taxi just so Dan could get home safely. He was picking up the broken pieces of a mess that was Dan’s to clean up. It was Dan’s own mistake that he should have to deal with himself. They had only been together for a little over a year, yet Phil had already done more for Dan than anybody else had in his entire life. Dan didn’t deserve it.

----------

Phil stayed true to his word and talked to Dan until the taxi arrived, trying to keep his mind off the inevitable. They both knew they would have to talk about it eventually, but for now, Dan just needed a distraction. Phil told him about the crazy lady he saw at the grocery store earlier that day and about what he made himself for dinner, explaining in detail how he supposedly almost set the kitchen on fire. Dan couldn’t help but laugh despite everything that had gone so horribly wrong for him that day. Phil always had that effect on him. He couldn’t help but smile whenever he talked to him.

“The taxi’s here.” As much as Dan wanted to keep talking to Phil until he could be held in his arms and sleep beside him, he really wanted to spend the taxi ride listening to music and ignoring everything.

“Okay. I’ll let you go, then. Text me when you’re close so I can be waiting outside. You’ll be okay, right?”

Dan chuckled, some of the coldness having left his tone. “It’s only three hours, Phil. I think I’ll survive.”

“Okay. You know I just worry about you.” Dan could hear the smile in Phil’s voice. “I love you. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

Dan sighed. “Love you, too. Bye.”

----------

The taxi ride passed by in a haze. His mind was too clouded by emotions to focus on the passage of time so it both felt like only a moment and an entire lifetime by the time he was pulling up in front of Phil’s building. Phil was already standing outside even though Dan had failed to text him. He must’ve timed it out well enough that he knew right when Dan would arrive. Either that or he had been waiting outside in the cold for far too long.

“We’re here, kid,” the driver said in his scraggly voice. Dan sat up slowly, mumbling his thanks and watching as Phil came around to the driver’s window, handing him his credit card and explaining that he would cover it.

Dan got out of the car and walked around to grab his suitcase from the trunk, being met by Phil’s arms around him as soon as the taxi drove away. Now that he could feel Phil’s embrace and smell his familiar cologne, his mind cleared enough for everything to sink in again. His entire body began to shake again and he felt tears threatening to escape his eyes.

Phil rubbed small circles on his back, only squeezing tighter when Dan began to sniffle. “Hey, don’t cry. Let’s go inside, yeah? We can talk there.”

Dan just nodded and let Phil take his hand, leading him all the way up to his apartment. Dan dropped his suitcase right inside the door and immediately ran back to Phil, swinging his arms up around his neck and allowing himself to break down. Phil said nothing. He just held him because he knew it’s what he needed.

Dan thought he had cried himself out earlier as he packed his things and walked from his parents’ house, but he had clearly been wrong. That had only been a small sample of the complete mess that he was now. Snot dripped from his nose onto Phil’s shirt and the noises coming from him were more screams than sobs.

After Dan calmed down enough that his entire body wasn’t convulsing with each heave, Phil pulled back slightly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Dan nodded and followed Phil into his bedroom. Phil handed him his York hoodie and Dan graciously took it, pulling it over his head and wrapping his arms around himself as he curled up against the headboard. Phil sat next to Dan and opened his arms as an invitation for Dan to crawl into which he accepted instantly.

“So what happened?”

Dan told him everything. How he sat them down after dinner, how he told them he was bisexual and that he was in a relationship with another man. It didn’t take much for them to understand who that man was, seeing as the only person he ever really hung out with was Phil. Dan’s mother hardly said anything. It was his father who went off.

He screamed at Dan that “no son of mine would ever be with a man” and told Dan multiple times that there was something wrong with him.

“Nothing is wrong with you, Dan,” Phil said as soon as Dan recounted that part of the story. “Don’t let him make you think that.”

Dan intertwined their fingers, cheek pressed against Phil’s chest. “I know.” They were both quiet for a moment, Dan enjoying the comfortable silence while he thought of what to say next. “This whole situation just sucks, to put it lightly.” Dan smiled sadly to himself, staring down at their hands clasped together. “I always thought my parents would understand, or at least try to. When I was younger, my parents were the only people I had. I didn’t have many friends and my brother was too young for us to actually be close. As sad as it sounds, my mum was honestly my best friend for a while. I told her everything. And she listened. Now here she is letting my dad throw me out of the house without any protest because I’m not turning out to be exactly what they wanted me to be.” Dan didn’t mean to go on a rant, but the words just continued to spill from his lips and he couldn’t stop them. He figured it was probably good to get it out, though. Too many times in his life he had gone without saying anything to anyone and it only ever caused the problem to get bigger within his own mind. “What do I have now? My parents were my backup plan, as sad as it sounds. If college didn’t work out, I was just gonna go back there and get a job at the cinema like every other college drop-out does where I’m from.”

Phil shifted so he could kiss Dan’s lips lightly, not moving his head away when their lips parted. “You’ve always got me,” he mumbled, looking Dan in the eye intently. “I’ll be here for you. If college doesn’t work out you can come live with me and I’ll help you through it all. You won’t be alone - at least not if I have any decision in the matter.”

Dan didn’t have words for how he felt. Phil was too good for him, and he had to remind himself of this every day. Dan didn’t know what he did to deserve such an amazing person in his life. Phil did something every day that showed Dan how much he truly cared for him, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder when he would finally wake up from this dream and come back into the real world. It was too good to be true.

Instead of telling Phil all of this, he just lurched forward and smashed their lips together, much harder than Phil had kissed him just moments ago. After all, actions speak louder than words, and he had a lot he wanted to say.

Phil moved so they were both lying down next to each other, never once breaking the kiss as they shifted down the bed. Phil’s arm came around him to pull Dan flush against his body, wanting to be as close as physically possible. Dan let out a noise of surprise when Phil pulled away suddenly.

“Stay here tonight.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dan whispered quickly before pulling Phil back in to kiss.

reblogs/comments are appreciated!

[shookethbrooketh]

Mistakes

Summary: Dan and Phil grew up in a society where their love lives were all planned out for them; at the age of five, they were given a diary to write to their soulmate in every day, and it would only show them the gender and skin shade of their future partner. Everything else about their soulmate would remain hidden, regulated by a secretive government agency. At the age of 25, Dan finally attends the national convention to search for his soulmate, and he meets someone he’s sure is his soulmate; every detail matches up. But the writing in their diaries are different. Dan’s sure he and Phil are soulmates, but the system begs to differ. The system guarantees it doesn’t make mistakes, but somewhere deep within him Dan has no doubt. He and Phil are soulmates, no matter what some records say. Mistakes have already been made, but he’s about to make a lot more. 

Rating: T

Genre: Soulmate AU, Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Implied Sex, Swearing

Word Count: 12.6k

Challenge: Trope Challenge

A/N: Another fic I wrote for the @phanfichallenge :)

Read it on Ao3! Read it on Wattpad!

It’s crazy, isn’t it? How your entire life can be in complete shambles, shattered like a flimsy piece of glass, and you feel like the ground is crumbling underneath your feet and nothing could possibly stop it, and then something appears out of nowhere to change your life. How suddenly one unexpected aspect of your life, your day, your being is able to save you from yourself and everything around you threatening to attack. How we as humans put all our eggs in one basket whose wicker lining is sure to break someday. It really is purely insane how everything finally feels alright, but deep down there’s still pain because you know, and you knew from the very beginning, that the one thing keeping you alive and happy is temporary, and soon everything will be shattered once again.

Dan woke up at noon, as he did often on days he didn’t have to work. He was exhausted from the late night he’d had sitting up and doing casework; he’d rather leave his job at the law firm and spend his evenings on his laptop scrolling like he did when he was younger, but he was so overwhelmingly consumed by work that there was no way out. 

He stretched his long arms and legs, dragging his lanky body out of bed and over to his desk. It was cluttered with files from the previous night, but he brushed them all aside and pulled out his pale white diary, rainbow on the front glistening as he opened it up to the day’s page. 

Before reading the already filled out left hand side, he paused to think. This is a marvel he experienced every few months, and especially around that time of year. 

Sometimes he just paused and thought about their world. He stared down at the little diary and thought about how utterly crazy it was that the tiny book controlled their entire lives. That they were in control of what they wrote in it, yet they really had no control at all. That there was such a good chance that he’d never know whose handwriting sat elegantly in the left hand side of his diary. 

Still, twenty years after after he began writing in it, the entire concept of the diary blew his mind. He still remembered on his fifth birthday when the entire family gathered around the cleanly wrapped box that nobody got him, the one that simply appeared like all diaries did. He remembered tearing through the paper and opening the box, lifting the book out of it. He was young, yes, but all children, even at that age, understood the severity of the diaries and what each little factor of it meant. He took a moment to admire the vampire-white cover, symbolizing the almost albino skin tone his soulmate held. Quickly, though, his eyes settled on the rainbow lying square in the middle of the cover; he knew of it, but he’d never seen it before. It told him that his soulmate was a boy, not a girl. That wasn’t a weird factor, but it seemed different to him simply because both his mom and his dad had a simple straight, black line across their diaries. It wasn’t bad even in the slightest; it was just different. Dan didn’t mind. 

He tore himself back out of his own mind, focusing on the same diary sat on his desk. It was open to the date’s page: July 1, 2016. That’s why Dan was flashing back; it was July 1. Everyone knew the date July 1. That was Description Day. 

Once a year, on July 1, everyone would take up their daily diary page to write a description of themselves; they’d write about their physical appearance, job, and general life, but leave out any details about where they live or even their name. Those were the two unspoken traits; there was a government censor on the diaries so that if anyone attempted to write them, they would immediately be erased. It couldn’t be that easy. 

But this year, everything changed for Dan. At the age of 25, July 1 also became Convention Day. Everyone over the age of 25 who hadn’t yet found their soulmate was expected to attend a national convention every year to attempt to find them. They were often so large there was no chance of finding anyone, but the success rate was high enough to where they went on. Dan had turned 25 only two weeks earlier, and it was time for his first one. In an hour. 

He leaped from his seat, suddenly realizing he had only an hour to get to the convention. Luckily, he lived right in the heart of London, where the convention would be held, but eating and getting ready would take him a while. Within five minutes he had downed a bowl of cereal and found himself in the shower, rushing to make himself look presentable for the convention. Everyone always dressed to impress at these things. Half an hour later he rushed out wearing his nicest suit and clutching his diary in his arms, a pen hidden away in his pants pocket. It took him five overly frustrating minutes to hail a cab, and when he finally settled into the back of the taxi with 20 minutes to spare, he let out an exhale he didn’t know possible. 

“Convention?” The driver asked. Dan probably wasn’t the first one she’d driven there. 

“Yeah,” Dan said, out of breath. 

“Mind if I park and come in with you? You should be my last run.” 

“Sure, why not?” Dan said. “Description?” That was a one word question almost anyone who met on the street would ask each other. It was almost expected as a conversation starter. 

“Woman, medium-white,” she said. 

“Nice. Man, pale as hell.” 

She chuckled. “Good luck with that.” 

“And to you.” Dan pulled the pen out of his pocket and opened his diary, not yet taking time to read the other page. 

“You haven’t written yet?” 

Dan rolled his eyes. “Overslept.” The woman nodded and left Dan to jot down his description. He wrote about his freakish height, curly brown locks, chocolate eyes, and tendency to wear nothing but black. He told his soulmate all about his shitty law job, his lack of sleep, and his long list of extremely odd habits. After running out of space, Dan decided his description was probably good enough and turned to read his soulmate’s. Hey, it’s me. You probably already know all this, but i’ve got a jet-black quiff, sea blue eyes with flecks of color, and extreme height. I should probably be a basketball player, but I’m just a simple zookeeper. You could probably guess I love animals, which is why I spend 90% of my free time wearing quirky animal shirts and mismatched socks. I’m so glad you’re finally old enough to come to the convention; I’ve skipped the last four years because there’s not much of a point if you won’t be there, but I’m glad we can finally both have our first time going. Hope to meet you there today :)

Dan smiled at the diary, rereading the entry and visualizing the same man he’d spent years perfecting in his head. He just seemed so adorable and lovable to Dan; how did he get lucky enough to have such a wonderful soulmate? 

He felt a bit bad for him though, with their four year age difference. The man wrote to nobody for four years, even fearing that there was a mistake and he didn’t have a soulmate. The day Dan finally wrote back was the best of his life. Or at least that’s what he wrote. Dan knew the man best from his scraggly yet beautiful handwriting that curled across his pages every morning. He felt he knew everything about him, how he’d get up early and drink way too much coffee to get through each day, how he’d stick his tongue in between his teeth when he laughed, how he’d take time out of his day to spend with each and every one of the animals at his zoo. Somehow, he knew all these things, all there was to know about him, yet they’d never even met.

The diaries were almost like email in Dan’s mind. They would write back and forth to each other, like pen pals. Except instead of writing happy letters to each other, they’d each describe their lives until one fell in love with the other, and it was beautiful. 

By the time Dan finished writing and reading, they were pulling into the convention center parking lot. Having lived in London for years, he’d seen the scene before, but it was the first time he’d be venturing into it. The driver parked and they climbed out of the car, Dan stretching his freakishly long legs and taking a deep breath of the warm, summer air. There were two entrances; one with a rainbow over the doors, and one with a straight, black line. Dan and his driver both entered the rainbow door then parted ways upon finding a split between women and men. That was as much as they could split people up; they’d end up intermingling anyway if they divided any further. After that, it was simply up to the people to find their soulmates. 

For once, Dan’s height played to his advantage. He managed to peer over the heads of the rest of the crowd, searching for a black quiff at his own eye level. Although he could see over most heads, he was still overwhelmed by the sea of people he was forced to attempt to wade through. They were packed in the room like a can of sardines, left to roam, if they could even move. Dan would have thought the convention would have a bit more order. 

He kept looking around, but he couldn’t see anyone near him that seemed to meet his soulmate’s description. Every now and then he’d come across a couple of men smiling and chatting, their diaries seeming to match. Dan wished he could have that. He clutched his diary in his arms, holding it close as he wandered the room of people with almost identical books. Of course, in all the chaos and focus on the book, he forgot to protect the pen he had sticking out of the top of it. 

Dan slid through groups of people searching for someone, anyone that might be their soulmate, and found people jostling the diary secure in his hands. He managed to maintain control of the book, but the pen fell to the floor, and Dan instinctively bent down to pick it up. That proved to be a horrible decision, as the masses seemed to close in over him as if he wasn’t even there. Finally he grasped the pen and looked around, trying to find a hole to pop back up. All he saw were legs, legs, and more legs. One pair caught his eye; he noticed two mismatched socks peeking out of the pant legs of one man standing above him and remembered the sock description in his diary that morning. He pushed himself up through the crowd and came out face to face with the man, mere inches from their noses touching. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dan said, his social anxiety kicking in. “I dropped my pen and the crowd is so thick that I could barely stand back up.”

It was then that he finally started to get a good look at the man; he was just as tall as Dan, had the darkest black quiff that must have been dyed, and his eyes, oh, his eyes. They were a marvel to look at; they were a beautiful shade of turquoise, but looking close enough Dan could see little flecks of gold, almost as if they were scattered in just to make them worth so much more. 

“You look like-”

“And you look like-”

“Do you want to get away from this crowd for a while?” 

“Yeah, I’d like that.” 

“I’m Phil, by the way.” 

“Dan.” 

Phil took Dan’s hand unexpectedly, sending sparks through his body. They searched the crowd for any open space or even an unoccupied corner, but the place was packed, and people were still continuing to flow in. “I don’t usually think people do this before checking each other’s diaries, but do you just want to get out of here?” Phil yelled over the chatter of the crowd with the high ceiling’s echo. “We can come back if things don’t work out. Besides, I have a good feeling about you.” Phil smiled at him, and he couldn’t resist, nor could he seem to speak. All he did was nod, and then they were gone. 

Fresh air entered Dan’s lungs as they escaped from the convention center, hand in hand on the sidewalk outside. “There’s a Starbucks down the street,” Phil said. “You wanna go there?” 

Dan shrugged, just wanting to keep his hand in Phil’s. “Sure.” 

They walked to the fork in the sidewalk, and Phil began to turn left while Dan went right. Their hands were nearly torn from each other, but Dan held on, pulling them back together. “Phil, isn’t the Starbucks that way?” Phil thought for a moment before pulling out his phone and pulling up what Dan assumed was Maps. 

“Oh, you’re right,” Phil said, blushing as they walked in the correct direction. “I assume you’re from around here?” 

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Just a few minutes down the road. And you?” 

“Just outside the city. That explains why you know the area better than I do.” 

Dan couldn’t help but notice that they were still holding hands. It seemed odd to him with the fact that they technically didn’t even know they were soulmates, but it seemed so right; it wasn’t even awkward, and Dan was the king of awkward. They were soulmates. They had to be. 

“Anyway, Phil, what do you do?” 

“Uh-” Phil stuttered, seeming nervous. “I’m a zookeeper.” 

Dan smiled, knowing that was what his diary told him. “Great. I’m a lawyer.” 

Phil smiled too, and Dan assumed his diary told him the same. “Awesome.” 

“I can’t believe I found you,” Dan blurted, the awe finally setting in on him. He went to his first convention and found his soulmate in the cheesiest way possible. It was a movie he’d pay to see in theatres. 

“Me either. First convention too!” 

Dan chuckled at the fact that it almost seemed that Phil read his mind. “I know right? I’m sorry I’m so much younger than you; I can’t even imagine what it would be like to fearfully write to nobody for four years.” Dan stared at his feet as he walked, feeling the weight of the guilt he’d had about that for years.

“It was rough, but my parents assured me it happens all the time. The day you finally wrote back was the happiest day of my life,” he said, looking to Dan. “Well, aside from today, obviously.” Dan couldn’t help but smile at that, still in utter disbelief that any of it was even happening. 

There were a few seconds of silence before they came up on the Starbucks, and Phil held the door open for Dan as they walked in. Dan’s heart beat out of his chest, every little action of Phil’s pulling him in deeper. They ordered their coffees, each of them taking careful note of the other’s order for future reference, and sat down at a booth. 

“This is unbelievable,” Dan said for what he was sure was the second or third time. “I never thought I’d find you so easily.”

Phil smiled, cradling his coffee cup in between his hands and taking a ginger sip. “Me either. Do you think we should?” he said, nodding his head to their diaries they set on the table. Phil’s was the slightest shade darker than Dan’s, making the difference between the two distinct enough to tell which was which. They slid the diaries across the table and opened each other’s diaries to the day’s page. Dan looked to the page he wrote on earlier, expecting to reread what he wrote Phil this morning, except it wasn’t there. The writing on the page was in completely different handwriting, and said something completely different. Phil’s writing was different than the one Dan read from his soulmate that morning as well. 

“We’re-” Dan stuttered.

“I guess we’re not-”

“Yeah, here’s your-”

“And here’s your-” 

“Yeah.” They awkwardly exchanged books, neither of the pair able to complete a sentence. Dan couldn’t go on like that. “You seem really nice though... Do you want to hang out sometime? As-uh-as friends?” 

“Yeah,” Phil said, disappointment clear in his tone. “That would be nice.”

Dan took a napkin from the holder on the table, pulled the pen he somehow still possessed from his diary, and jotted down his number on it, sliding it across the table to Phil. “Here,” he said. “Text me later.” 

Dan stood up, swiping his diary and coffee cup off the table, tossing the latter in a bin on the way out. The warm, summer air hit his face as he stepped out of the air conditioning and hailed a cab, not having the energy to walk home. 

After a short, silent taxi ride, Dan dragged himself up the stairs to his flat and threw himself on his bed, sighing. He could have gone back to the convention, he knew, but after that experience he just couldn’t. He let his diary drop to the floor, barely even caring about it at that moment, and left himself to just lie motionless there on top of his bedsheets. 

Dan awoke a few hours later, the sunset visible outside his window. It had to be around 8 or 9; after his nap he wouldn’t stand a chance at sleeping a wink that night. He’d have to do something else beside sleep. He glanced to the pile of work on his desk, but he couldn’t think of anything but Phil. Thoughts of the man had occupied his mind since his eyes opened a mere few seconds earlier, and they weren’t leaving any time soon. He reviewed the afternoon with Phil, how strongly he felt about him, and, over and over again, when he found out that they weren’t soulmates. 

Dan threw his head back on his pillow, frustrated. How could Phil not be his soulmate? He connected better with Phil than with anyone he’d ever met. Dan sighed, leaning over to pick up his laptop from the bookshelf beside him and rant about his experiences on Tumblr, but something caught his eye. Glimmering against the floor was the diary he’d thrown there earlier, left open to a page that was only half filled out. Dan picked it up, glaring at the page. He’d never seen it before. 

It was only then that Dan realized he’d never read any of Phil’s-his soulmate who wasn’t Phil’s-entries from before he got his diary. They were written there his entire life, but as a five-year-old, he never thought it important to read them, and as he grew up he simply never had the time. Now of all times he thought he’d settle in and take a look. The first entry was written in huge, messy handwriting and poor spelling and grammar. 

Hi there!!! My name is-oh wait. I cant say that can I? Im sorry. Im new at this. I just got my diaree for my birthday and Im super exited too write to u. Daddy says that sense Im writeing first that u mite not ansir four a wile, but hopefuly its soon becuz Im reely exited too meet u. its reely wild that we all have this thing they call soulmates isnt it? that each of us has one speshal person were suposed too spend our entire lifes with? i guess im thinking about it to hard. i just hope that sum day ill be abel too actually meet u and we can get maryed, witch daddy says hapens four most peeple. i reely hope im one of them. well, im starting to run out of room, so im going too stop writeing four today. ill talk too u again tommorow XD 

Dan laughed at the message. It was so obvious that a five year old wrote it, but it was adorable. He imagined a tiny Phil sat at his desk in his childhood home, his legs swinging back and forth under the seat because his feet couldn’t yet touch the floor. He could only imagine the excitement on his face as he finally started writing to Dan-except it wasn’t Phil. It never was. Dan hit himself in the head, trying to remind himself that Phil wasn’t on the other end of that diary, but something told him it wasn’t working. 

Still, Dan pressed on, turning the page and continuing to read. Hours and hours past as he read his soulmate’s writing. He would occasionally cringe or laugh at the events of the boy’s life; after all, he was no older than nine years old by the time Dan finished. Every page of the diary made him fall more and more in love with the man on the other end. The only issue was that the only one he could imagine as the man was Phil, and even though they weren’t his, nor did they have anything to do with him, he still attributed every single word he read to Phil in his mind, and he was still ten times more in love with Phil than with the man who was really on the other side of the diary. 

....i can’t believe u finally answered! i can’t wait 2 get 2 know u. maybe someday i’ll even get 2 meet u... that would b so cool... i’ll talk 2 u tmrw :) 

Dan read the first entry he ever received as a kid from the nine year old soulmate-who-definitely-wasn’t-Phil, smiling at it and slowly shutting the book. He looked over at his bedside clock and saw a glaring, red 3:29 on it. He really had been reading for hours. Technically, though, it was the next day, which meant he could write his own day’s entry. He looked to the floor and found the pen strewn there from when he threw the diary down earlier, picking it up and clicking it to prepare to write. 

He flipped the diary to the day’s page and smiled at the thought of -not- Phil’s face when he would see that Dan wrote before him for once. Almost every day the other man wrote first. He set the pen to his respective side and began to write. 

Today, I met a man. Not romantically, of course; that’s not how the system works. But we were at the convention and I met him, and he was a lot like you, to the point where we really thought we were soulmates, and then we looked in each other’s diaries and learned that we weren’t. It was devastating, but I think we’re going to be good friends in the future, and I can’t wait to meet you someday too. I know it’s odd to see me up this early, but I’ve been up all night reading your old entries from before I got my diary. They’re absolutely adorable; they just make me want to meet you even more. Someday, maybe. Have a good day :)

Dan signed his entry off the same way he normally does; he tends to either wish his soulmate a good day, or tell him he hoped he already had one, depending on how busy he was and if he managed to write before work or had to wait until after. Dan yawned, setting his diary aside and picking up his phone. He didn’t bother looking at it, as a sense of exhaustion had suddenly come over him, and he wanted to get some sleep before the morning. It was a Saturday, so he’d have all day to relax, but his sleep schedule could only get so fucked up before it started affecting his daily life, so he might as well at least make an attempt to fix it. He simply put his phone on its charger and rolled over, clutching his diary in his arms as he drifted off to sleep. 

Dan woke up to sunlight streaming through his window, illuminating his face. He groaned and rolled over to face his clock, which read 10:38. At least he’d almost slept adequately. He forced his phone off its charger and saw a singular notification on the screen: a text from an unknown number.

Hey.... It’s Phil. 

Dan almost spasmed himself awake upon reading the text, memories of the previous day flooding back in. Dan took deep breaths, trying to keep his cool; Phil couldn’t see him, only his text. 

hey phil! i had a lot of fun with you yesterday :) 

Dan sighed, setting his phone done and leaning to pick up his laptop. As he settled back under his covers, he saw his phone light up, and there it was: another text. 

Me too! You wanna hang out sometime? 

Dan’s eyes popped open, surprised at his immediate response. 

yeah, totally! tonight sound good? we can go to the bar down the street. 

Down WHAT street? 

i’ll send you an address lmao. tonight good? 8ish?

Sounds great! 

Dan threw his head back against his pillow, sighing and letting his phone fall next to him. What was he doing? What were they doing? It was all moving so fast, except it wasn’t moving at all. Nothing was moving; they weren’t soulmates. They were just going to hang out. As friends. Except Dan still thought of him as more than friends. He would give anything to spend time with Phil, but he knew it would only be digging him deeper into a hole that could cause him a lot of trouble, or worse. 

But then again, he missed Phil more than he could possibly have imagined, and it had only been a day. If he didn’t see him again, he could very well go insane. Besides, pining over Phil in the diary he wrote to his actual soulmate probably wouldn’t go the best. He had to let out his pent up feelings somehow. 

He took deep breaths, telling himself over and over again what was going to happen until he managed to accept it. “I’m meeting Phil at 8. I’m meeting Phil at 8. I’m meeting Phil at 8.” He repeated the phrase until it sunk in to the point where he was almost comfortable with it. Almost. By then it was 11; he had 9 hours. He might as well get some work done. 

He sent Phil the bar address before putting his phone on its charger and sitting down with the pile of cases on his desk and letting time pass. That was his least favorite part about this law gig; there was so much boring, arduous casework that it nearly put him back to sleep. How was it even possible for a 25 year old who hadn’t even worked at the firm for a year to have so much work? He managed to work through a few cases before he started getting so overly hungry that he couldn’t focus anymore. He managed to scrape together a meal, and by the time he had finished that and a few YouTube videos, it was 6:00. He didn’t want to get up, and quite frankly he didn’t need to, but he decided he might as well pull himself out of bed and start getting ready early. 

Dan let himself stand in the shower twice as long as he needed to and absorb the warmth of the soft water droplets. He knew the evening could bring more stress than he could handle, so he set himself on making sure he was as calm as possible before going. He then spent twice his usual time in front of the mirror fixing his hair and therefore destroying any sense of calm he may have had. By the time he felt ready to walk out the door, it was 7:30. He thought he may as well head out early; it was a beautiful night, and that would give him enough time to walk and take in the city instead of taking a cab. 

The walk down the stairs seemed longer than ever today; the enclosed space was terribly humid from the summer air, and all Dan wanted was to get outside into the open and out to Phil. Eventually he reached the bottom, and he pushed the door open, taking a deep breath and stepping into the evening light. 

It was beautiful, really, the walk to the bar. The sun was due to set in about an hour, so the light was already beginning to dim as it disappeared behind the cityscape. He began the walk in that glorious hour when he felt the need to photograph everything around him; the glare on each tiny detail made the entire city a work of art. By the time he reached the quaint bar, the light had dissipated, leaving a light blue sky to soon turn to many shades of oranges and pinks. It was calming; the situation made Dan’s heart beat at a mile a minute, but the walk was the relaxation he so desperately needed. 

Dan checked his phone outside the bar; the time was 7:55, making him five minutes early. Phil could arrive at any moment. Dan decided his best option was to head on in; Phil would find him. 

He took a seat at the grubby bar, taking a look around him. It wasn’t a gross bar, not the type where he felt like he’d be surrounded by drunks by the time Phil showed up. It was more of a neat little place; it wasn’t the cleanest, but it was nice and welcoming, a place where you’d meet someone once a week for a beer. 

“What’ll ya have?” The bartender said, sliding his way over to Dan, isolated at the end of the bar. 

“Just a beer, please.” 

“What kind?”

“Pick your favorite.” 

As the bartender turned to pour from his tap of choice, Dan heard the chime of the bell over the door signal that someone had entered the bar. His barstool swiveled at the speed of lighting and there was Phil, jet-black hair messy from the humidity. 

“I’ll have what he’s having,” he said, sitting down beside Dan as the bartender slid him his beer. A few seconds later, Phil got a drink of his own, and the night officially began. 

“Is it weird that I only met you a day ago and I already missed the hell out of you?” Dan wasn’t even one beer deep and he already sounded drunk. Maybe that was just him as a person. Drunk while sober. 

“Is it weird that I feel the same way? Almost like...” he trailed off, sipping his beer.

“Almost like what?” 

“Nothing.” 

Dan gave him a bit of a side eye before finishing the phrase himself. “Almost like a long lost friend; it’s almost like we knew each other in a past life, and now that we’re back together there’s some sort of vibrant force drawing us back towards each other.” He looked to Phil, who had his eyebrows raised. “Bit of a weird analogy, but it was the first thing that came to mind.” 

Phil stared off into the distance for a few seconds, seeming deep in thought. When his eyes finally focused back on Dan’s, all he said was, “Actually, that’s really accurate.” 

Two beers in and things were getting deep. They weren’t drunk yet; no, they weren’t even close. But they were a bit buzzed, and their third round was already sliding down the bar. It was almost like being up late at night; they were completely alert and mentally sound, yet it seemed as if they had less of a filter than usual. When it gets late enough, you don’t really think; you just do what you want. Late nights usually only end in texts you’ll probably regret sending in the morning; this alcohol buzz, however, caused them each to let things slip that they would normally decide against saying, and those slips ended up being the deepest conversation Dan had ever had with another person. 

“I don’t even know why I became a lawyer,” he said, pausing to take a sip of beer. “This isn’t the life I wanted to live; I never planned on growing up and sitting at a desk all day working cases until my hand cramped and ending up still having to take my work home with me. Why the hell did I think this was a good idea, Phil?” 

“I couldn’t tell you, Dan. Being a-uh-zookeeper,” he stuttered, eyes widening a bit for the moment, although Dan ignored it. “has its downsides too. It’s generally really cool, getting to interact with the animals and even sometimes with the people, especially with me being such an animal lover, but you definitely don’t want to be an elephant’s pooper scooper every Wednesday afternoon.” 

Dan laughed openly and childishly, something it felt like he hadn’t done in a long time. “That’s oddly specific.”

“I’ve pinpointed the worst moments of my existence, and that’s my expression of them to you. Be grateful.” 

“You be grateful. Your job is way better than mine. You’ve got one quite literally shitty part of your week, but my entire job is shitty. The only fun part is getting to go to court and get paid to argue with people, but I rarely get to do that. It’s mostly just sitting at a desk day in day out. Boring as hell.” 

Phil smirked. “I could commit a crime if you want. Give you something to argue about.” 

“Hell no,” he chuckled. “Another case? I’d rather not. Besides, your court date wouldn’t come for a few months, so that wouldn’t do me much good. I’d rather have you here. You’re the happiest I’ve been in quite a while.” 

“I feel special.” 

“You are.” 

After each of their fifth beers, they were each starting to feel the effects. They still weren’t quite drunk; they’d had enough beers in their day to learn how to hold them. But they weren’t quite thinking straight, and they’d be too drunk to drive in a matter of a beer or two. So, of course, they decided the best idea would be some harder liquor. 

“Phil, are you sure about this?” 

“Of course! It’s a Saturday night; have a little fun, Dan!” he nudged him softly with his elbow, his tongue pointing through his toothy smile. 

Dan couldn’t say no to that. “Bartender! Two shots of tequila.” Phil smiled. 

The night from then on would best be summed up in a television-style montage. The camera would zoom in on the shots as they clink together, Say Amen (Saturday Night) by Panic! at the Disco beginning to play in the background. You’d see at least five more scenes of shots and beers sliding down the bar, and probably Dan falling off his barstool once or twice as a clock ticks the time past into the morning. You’d see Phil laughing at Dan’s falls and hiccuping, his words slurring as he felt his morals caved in because he loved Dan as much as Dan loved him. You’d see them finally leave by around 3:00, no care left in the world for sleep. 

But this isn’t a montage. This isn’t a television show. There was no music, and there was no zoom. There was just the two of them, drinking and drinking and drinking until they could barely stagger out the door. There was nothing glamorous about it; there was nothing montage-worthy to be shown. There was just the air against their faces as they each tried their best to keep the other from stumbling into the highway. Just the same walk Dan took earlier, except he could barely remember his way back anymore. Just the fumbling of keys with a chuckle in the background because oh boy was it funny that Dan couldn’t work a lock. Just the two of them finally getting inside Dan’s flat and stumbling up the stairs, somehow making it to his bed intact. Just the attack of lips, the loss of clothes, and regrets. There was no montage. There were only regrets. 

Morning came, and sunlight streamed through the window as Dan came into consciousness. He groaned, covering his face with his pillow to protect himself from the light; he was hung over. Very. Hung over. Although he was practically dead, however, his ears still worked, and he could very clearly hear shuffling at the foot of his bed. This drew him to remove the pillow and very cautiously glance up to the visitor. 

There he saw Phil, facing away from him, the blue shirt he was wearing the night before falling over his back as he put it on. Everything came rushing back to him. “Phil?” he called out, his voice raspy. Even the bit of loud sound made each of them cringe. 

“Oh, Dan, you’re awake...” Phil whispered, obviously as hung over as Dan yet still rushing to get out. 

“Were you just going to leave?” 

“Yeah, I was! What did you expect me to do?” 

“I don’t know, but the answer definitely isn’t leave!” 

The scream whisper fight would probably be comical to any outsider, but to the two of them it was full of pure rage. “I’m sorry, but I just need to leave as soon as possible. You and I both know we weren’t supposed to do that. We aren’t soulmates.” 

“Do you remember doing anything?”

“Well, no...”

“And neither do I, so who’s to say anything happened.” 

“There’s a condom in the trash can, Dan.” 

“Huh. Practicing safe sex even when hammered. Who knew?” 

“Dan!” Phil yelled, causing them each to almost fall over from the sound. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But we’re not soulmates, and that means I’m going to have to leave. I’m sorry.” 

“Wait, Phil, maybe there’s been a mistake!” 

“What do you mean a mistake?” 

“I know mine’s right, but maybe that accidentally isn’t your diary?” 

“It is; I checked.” 

“Well, then maybe the system messed up, and we’re really supposed to be soulmates? Like in the movies?” 

“We don’t make mistakes,” Phil said, his voice dead serious. The light illuminated his face, making it look ominous as he turned to leave. It was a miracle either of them could take the sunlight without cringing. 

“What do you mean we?” Dan said, his brow furrowed as Phil opened the door. “Phil Lester, don’t you dare leave this room.” Dan didn’t know when he learned Phil’s surname, but he somehow knew it, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. 

Phil sighed, closing the door in front of him and slowly lowering himself to sit on the foot of Dan’s bed. “I haven’t been exactly truthful with you.” 

In the split second, Dan’s mind went insane. There were now so many possible explanations for this mess. Phil was really someone else pretending to be him, and that was why they weren’t soulmates. Or maybe that did make them soulmates. Or maybe he stole someone’s diary. There were so many possibilities, but of course he didn’t even think about the reason the conversation started in the first place. 

“I’m not a zookeeper. I guess almost everything else about me is true, as you can tell just from looking at me, but I’m not a zookeeper. I work for the IDMA.” 

Dan’s eyes practically popped out of his head. If the world was a cartoon, his jaw would have dropped to the ground. The International Diary Monitoring Agency was the most infamous organization on the planet. Yes, someone had to monitor the diaries to make sure nobody was trying to break any of the many rules in place, but it still felt like an invasion of privacy. It wasn’t a hard job either; they were all taught the rules when they were first given their diaries. It was just a matter of who was willing to take the shit of doing it. It was public knowledge that most people who worked at the IDMA lied about their jobs; however, nobody knew if it was their choice or if they were mandated. 

All Dan could manage to say was, “Wow.” 

“I know, that’s why I’m so upset! Crazy, an IDMA monitor cheating... How’d I even let myself do this? I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world.” Phil banged his head on the wall, making a loud noise each of them cringed at. Through the intensity of the conversation, they’d almost forgotten about their hangovers. Almost. 

“Wait, you’re an actual monitor? Like, you watch people’s diaries?” 

“Sure do.” 

“How do you not run across your soulmate?” 

“There’s someone above all of us that goes through the monitoring lists and makes sure nobody gets their soulmate.” 

“Have you... Have you ever seen mine?”

“It’s not on my monitor list, but I may or may not have looked it up this morning, and for fuck’s sake, Dan, be careful what you write. If I didn’t go ahead and check you off the list this morning you would have been put on a watchlist for that last entry.” 

“You guys have those?”

“Sure do.” 

“Damn. Guess you won’t be a topic in my diary anymore.” 

Phil seemed to look a bit sad at that, but he shrugged it off. “Anyway, I guess you know that secret now.” 

“Were you allowed to tell me that?” 

“Not in the slightest.” 

Guess Dan knew a second secret. “So... now what?” 

Phil pondered that for a moment, obviously having never been in that situation before. “Either I walk out this door and we never speak to each other again, or we do something crazy and stupid.”

Dan grinned. “I think you already know what I’m going to pick.” 

“Crazy and stupid?” 

“The stupidest.” 

Dan’s room suddenly looked like he was hosting a study session. Once their hangovers wore off, they had snacks and drinks galore piled on the floor, each of them sitting on the bed brainstorming. “How do you think we can do this? You know the place better than I do.” 

“Well,” Phil said, staring off into space. “I think the only way to fix the situation is to alter the data to make us soulmates; the only issue is that I’m not sure if it’ll change our soulmates’ diaries through the past, making it obvious that we’ve altered the system. However, we have the biggest fucking handbook on the planet, and enough searching should get us an answer.” 

“Can’t we just Google it?” 

“No!” Phil shouted immediately, catching Dan off guard. “You can’t. They’re watching the Internet, constantly. You’ll be on a watchlist in minutes.” 

“They really like watchlists, don’t they?” 

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous. But I’ll head home and grab the handbook; I’ll be back in about half an hour if I can catch a cab.” 

“Cya,” Dan said as Phil left the room. Dan watched him somehow immediately manage to hail a cab and climb in, disappearing off into the distance. As soon as he saw the little, yellow speck that was the taxi leave his vision, the anxiety set in. What if he wasn’t coming back? What if he was going to report him? What if something happens? He found himself watching every moment tick by; his eyes darted constantly between the clock and the window, waiting impatiently for Phil to reappear. 29 minutes after he left, Dan saw no sign of him, and his breathing was starting to become heavy. He ended up pacing the room for a few minutes until he heard a rough knock on the door. It must be Phil, he thought, trying to shove away the negative thoughts attempting to push their way into his head. He opened the door, not bothering to look through the peephole. In front of him stood Phil, but this time he brought back two other men, both dressed in suits. “IDMA. We’re gonna need you to come with us,” Phil said, a stern look on his face. Dan was stunned. 

“Hell no!” he yelled, rage running through his veins. Before he could even turn to run, Phil had grabbed his hand, and in the split second to spare he found that the touch no longer affected him; he felt nothing towards Phil in his anger. 

A needle was plunged into his arm, and all he could hear was a faint “I’m sorry” before all went black. 

Dan’s eyes opened to a blurry, white ceiling with a singular fluorescent light on in the center. He took a moment to focus before sitting up and looking around; he found himself in an oddly neat prison cell. He walked over and pressed his head against the bars, looking as far in either direction as he could. He appeared to be in a hall full of cells just like his, although all that he could see were empty. The only place he could possibly be was IDMA. 

That was when it all rushed back to him. IDMA, Phil’s betrayal, and most of all, his anger. And damn was he pissed. He couldn’t believe Phil did that to him; maybe they weren’t soulmates after all. 

Dan decided to familiarize himself a bit more with his surroundings. He woke up on the bed in one back corner, sheets as white as the rest of the room. In the other corner was a toilet he honestly felt uncomfortable using even though there was nobody else around, and beside the bed was a desk with a diary sitting on it. His diary. Of course IDMA would bring his diary to his prison cell. They’d have an aneurysm if he didn’t write daily, even when he was in their own jail. 

He decided he might as well write, although he had no clue what time it was. He was assuming it was still the same day; besides, there wasn’t much else to do. There was a white cup full of freshly sharpened pencils; those and the rainbow on the front of his diary were the only non-white things in the entire room. It was almost creepy. Dan picked up a pencil out of the cup, the sound reverberating through the entire empty hall. He glanced at the pencil for a while, considering how odd it was that his society preferred giving a sharp object to a prisoner to not having them write to their soulmate daily. He shrugged it off and put his pencil to the page, pausing it as soon as it hit the paper. Words were appearing on the other page. 

Only once or twice in his life had Dan managed to write at the same time as his soulmate, and it was always a feat to watch the other person’s words roll in. He could physically see each stroke of the pencil, each eraser mark. It was almost magical. 

It’s been quite a day, (soul)mate. I’m almost surprised you didn’t write first again. I usually have Sundays off, but I’ve been at the zoo all day dealing with a sick giraffe. He passed away this afternoon, and I’m kinda down now, so I’m not really talkative. Hope your day’s been better than mine.

Dan laughed at the entry; it was really quite sad, but in comparison, his day seemed like nothing. Alas, he had to just suck it up and answer. He couldn’t exactly vent to his soulmate about how he was in jail for cheating on him. 

It has! I hung out with my new friend all morning and now I’m just chilling. I saw you write; it was really cool! Sorry about the giraffe; hope you have a good day TOMORROW! 

The only real lie there was that it was a good day, he thought, so it was good enough. He tossed his pencil back into the cup and shut the book, letting his eyes linger on the rainbow on the front. It was really the only brightness in his life. That was when he noticed his clothes. They were all white, just like the entire room around him. He furrowed his brow, glancing down and slowly pulling forward the band of his white pants. Even his underwear was pure white. “Are you fucking joking?” Dan let his waistband snap back and flopped on the bed. This was bullshit. 

Suddenly, he heard the jingle of keys in the otherwise silent hallway. He immediately assumed someone was unlocking the door at the end of the hall and leaped out of bed to press his head against the bars. In walked Phil, and his first instinct was relief, but then he realized Phil was a massive dick and threw himself away from the bars. 

“Damn, can you believe we still have to use keys in this sector? I’ve accidentally put my badge up to a non-electronic lock five times in the last half hour,” he said, settling his gaze on Dan.

“What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Relax, Dan, I’m here to get you out. Here, take these,” he said, tossing his clothes from earlier in the day through the bars. “It’s 11:00; everyone else is already gone. Let’s get this over with.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I got you into the facility, Dan. It’s time to go make a few edits.” 

Dan’s mind was racing almost as quick as his heart. He didn’t know what to believe anymore; he was still madly in love with Phil, but he didn’t know if he could trust him. There was no reason for him to get him arrested, especially with no warning. That wasn’t something you’d do to someone you loved. But alas, Dan awkwardly threw on his own clothes. There was no privacy in the cell, so he made Phil turn around because they didn’t need any sort of awkwardness between them in that moment. 

“And before you come out,” Phil added. “Trash that thing.” He pointed to Dan’s diary on the table. “You won’t be needing it.” 

Dan glanced at the book he’d been writing in every day for twenty years. Every day, for twenty years, he wrote a message to a person he’d never met; he wrote to someone he was supposed to be destined to fall in love with, although he’d never even heard their name. He knew everything about the other person, although he really knew nothing. The only person he really knew everything about was Phil, not the mysterious ‘soulmate’ hiding behind the pages of a little, white book. In one swift motion, he slid the diary into the tiny trash can beside his desk, pencils along with it. They were all part of the same sham. 

Phil unlocked the door, and it screeched open, causing each of them to cringe a bit out of fear; Dan didn’t know what kind of security there was around there at night, but he definitely knew that the less sound they made, the better. Dan slipped out once the door was wide enough for him to fit through, and he followed Phil down the hall the opposite way from which he entered. 

Dan honestly had a lot of things to be confused about; he had no clue where they were going or why, nor did he know how Phil managed to get all the keys he needed to get them there, but all this work was done behind the scenes, and he honestly couldn’t complain about not having to be involved. 

“Where are we going?” Dan spoke in a whisper, thinking back to when they were hung over just that morning. Or at least he thought it was that morning. “And how long have I been out?” 

“Only a few hours. Sorry you didn’t get anything to eat; we can go out afterwards.” 

“Oh, great, now I’m hungry. Thanks.” 

“Anytime. Now, back to the topic at hand. We’re going to the Ancient Library.” 

“The what?” 

“You’ve never heard the legend of the Ancient Library?”

“No?” 

Phil took a deep breath and spoke in a mystical voice. “The Ancient Library is rumored to be the place where the records of all the soulmates are held. Legend says that if someone can find and access the Library, they’ll be able to see who everyone’s soulmate is. It’s even said that it’s possible to change the records, although I’m not sure how. This immense power is why it’s said that the library is very well hidden, although it’s rumored to be somewhere in this building.” 

“Wait, so you’re telling me we don’t even know this place exists? How is that a good idea? We’re just going to search this entire building head to toe for something we don’t even know is here?” 

“Not exactly,” Phil said, grinning. “Us employees have our own rumor that it’s hidden inside the Director’s office, although the security there is so intense that nobody’s ever figured out how to get inside, even with our badges.”

“So how are we going to get in?” 

Phil immediately flushed red, biting his lip. “I may have uh... slept with the Director...” 

“Man is that ironic.” 

“We’re not gonna talk about it.” 

They continued down the hall in silence, Phil leading the way to where Dan was sure he’d know where the office was; he was assuming he’d at least been in there once or twice. 

It was a decently long walk; Dan honestly had no clue where he even was, nor how big the facility really was, but it seemed huge from the inside. Dan’s legs were exhausted by the time they reached the huge, wooden doors, although that could’ve just been due to the fact that he was extremely out of shape. That was more likely.

Phil walked up to a glowing sensor beside the doors and flashed his badge in front of it; the white light turned green, and he pushed the doors open. Dan was a bit surprised that there was no human security around the facility, but he assumed the government just couldn’t be bothered with spending the money. The security outside was enough, until the threat came from the inside.

Dan wandered into the room behind Phil, looking around the extravagant office; there were animal heads lining the random fireplace that was for some reason in the long room, and there was a corner that just contained a bunch of gold and silver bars in a case. Behind the huge, messy desk of the Director was a certainly three times larger than life picture of who Dan assumed was the man himself. It all reminded him of Mr. Burns’s office from The Simpsons. 

“So where are we going from here?” 

“I’m pretty sure the entrance is around here somewhere; we just need to find it.” 

The two began searching the room from head to toe, feeling around every inch for something suspicious. Dan honestly felt a bit stupid pulling on the horns of dead animals to see if they activate a hidden door, but he was in too deep to care. Finally they had searched the entire room except one spot. The two of them made eye contact before each glancing at the desk. “We’re gonna have to go through that, aren’t we?” Dan asked.

“Very carefully,” Phil answered. “If we don’t leave everything exactly as it was, he’ll notice in the morning.” 

Dan nodded, and they began carefully opening drawers. After a couple moments, Dan found a drawer that opened to a control panel. “Phil?” Phil perked his head up from his own drawer and looked over Dan’s shoulder. “What the hell is this?” 

There must have been dozens of tiny buttons in all different colors, none of them labelled. 

“I have no clue.” 

“What kind of powers does this guy have? What happens if we push any of these buttons?” 

“Once, again, I have no clue. But my guess would be to push the big red one.” On the left side of the control panel, there was a red button. It was twice as large as most of the others and on its own, but it too had no label. Nevertheless, it was their only hope. Dan pushed the button. 

Suddenly, the ground beneath them both collapsed in on itself, sending them straight through the trapdoor and down a chute. Dan was relieved simply to feel a slide beneath him instead of the bottomless void. He felt the curve of the chute increase, and suddenly he was spat out in a dark room. 

Dan could see, but very little. There was dim, blue lighting, but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. “Phil?” he whispered.

“Dan?” came back, and he saw Phil approach him and take his hand. 

“Is this good or bad?” 

“I don’t know.” 

The two edged forward, Dan focused on his feet to make sure he didn’t step on any more trapdoors. Phil’s hand was tightly in his, and he appeared to be searching the room intently. 

“This way,” Phil said, suddenly walking briskly towards what Dan finally recognized to be the sources of the only light in the room; there was a small door, light shining through the frame, and another ID sensor. 

Phil flashed his badge in front of the sensor and it flashed green, much to Dan’s relief. “Hard to believe the security on something so important is so loose,” Dan said as Phil opened the door and blue, fluorescent light poured into the room. 

“That’s because nobody knows how to get here. In all honesty, I can’t even tell you for sure that we’re in the right place.” 

“You’re real mysterious, you know that?”

Phil smiled at him, his face glimmering from nervous sweat in the blue light as he climbed through the door. “It’s my best quality.” 

He followed Phil into the room and took in his surroundings; the room was massive, to the point where he could barely see the end of the hall, where something he couldn’t identify sat, and there were rows of filing cabinets as far as he could see. On the top of each was a cloudy screen with blue letters on them distinguishing alphabetical order, some with solely last names. 

“Wow. This is really it,” Phil said, eyes full of wonder.

Dan hesitated, simply looking confused. “What kinda Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix shit is this?” 

“Where do you think we got the idea for the blue?” Phil grinned. 

“Nerds.” 

“Your tax money.” 

Dan rolled his eyes. “So every person in the UK is in here?” 

“Yup. Buckle in for the ride; it’ll take a while to get to our names. This one room is underground the entire facility; it’s nearly a mile wide.”

“You didn’t tell me there would be walking involved!” 

It was Phil’s turn to roll his eyes. “Come on, we don’t have all night.” 

The two took off down the hall, and after about five minutes of agonizing walking they came to a shelf with “Howell” at the top. 

“Popular name, eh?”

“Shut it, Lester.” 

On the third shelf from the top Phil found the Daniels, and it took him a few tries to find the right one. They may print diaries with skin color and gender on them, but they were way too lazy to print files with clarification. They were lucky Phil was tall; if he was any shorter they’d have to find a ladder. 

“Let’s roll,” Phil said, heading back to the main walkway.

“The hell do you mean ‘let’s roll’? What are you doing with that?” Dan asked. Being in the presence of his file made him want nothing more than to look at it. 

“We need to go find mine!”

“Can I at least see my file?” 

Phil straightened his shirt and puffed up his chest. “Classified information,” he said, turning on his heel and walking deeper into the labyrinth. 

“Classified information,” he said mockingly, “my ass. It’s MY file! Besides, we’ve broken enough laws today.” 

“Fair enough,” Phil said, holding the file out behind him as he walked. Dan grabbed it and immediately began violently flipping through it. It had all the normal records, like date of birth, full name, address, and medical records, but behind that were the soulmate records. Dan felt as if he had hit the holy grail of records. Phillip Lester. That was his soulmate. He looked up at Phil. “Phil?” 

“Yeah?” he said, not turning back.

“Isn’t this you?” 

Phil stopped, furrowing his brow, and took the file. “No, it isn’t. There’s only one L in my name. That’s weird.” 

“Sure as hell is,” Dan said, thoughts racing as they made their way to the Ls. Finally they reached the two cabinets full of Lesters, and Dan stuck his tongue out at Phil to show that he was superior. 

Phil rolled his eyes and found his record, opening it himself. “That’s classified information!” Dan mocked. 

“Hypocrite,” he said, turning to the soulmate page. “It says my soulmate is a David Howell.” Phil looked up at him, eyes wide with awe and adventure. “This is so bizarre. Do you really think there’s two other guys on this planet that look exactly like us, have almost the same names as us, were born on the same days as us, and have practically the same lives?” 

“Maybe if you were really a zookeeper.” Dan grinned. Phil strode purposefully back over to the filing cabinet and pulled out the file of a Phillip Lester, flipping through it. 

He looked up, mouth seeming stuck open. “He’s just like me. Just like your diary says.” Phil’s eyes suddenly changed, as if he was filled with determination he didn’t have before. “Run back. And I mean run. And get David Howell’s file. Make sure it’s the right one. Then run to the end of the hall. I’ll meet you there.” 

“Why do I have to run?” 

“Because you don’t know what you’re doing at the end of the hall.” 

"Do you?” 

“Not really, but I have an idea.” A few seconds passed. “Go! We don’t have much time.” 

“Ominous.” Dan turned and ran off, watching each letter pass until he finally reached the H’s. He panted over to the files and found a David Howell that matched every description of him. He dragged himself back to the walkway and doubled over, realizing the worst of the two runs would be the one back. He sighed and took off running, focusing on the wind on his hair until he finally caught up with Phil.

“Happy.... now?” he panted, heart beating faster than he was sure a human heart should. He really needed to get into shape. 

“Very much so,” Phil said, taking the file and checking to make sure everything was in order. Dan glared around to find that they were in the S’s, and the object at the end of the hall was growing nearer. As they inched closer, Dan realized the mysterious object was actually a triple-monitor computer, just like he’d imagine the IDMA spying system would be. Finally, Dan’s heart rate slowed to almost normal, and they reached the end of the hall. 

Phil sat down and woke up the computer, and all three monitors popped open at once. Dan couldn’t help but notice the pieces of tape over all of the cameras. Ironic. Phil put his ID up to a sensor again, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder how much power that little piece of plastic could give a person. It was kinda creepy, to be honest. 

“What are we doing here?” 

“Well, I’m not quite sure-” 

“You’re telling me we’ve done all this and there’s only a chance that you know what to do?” 

“Uh-” Phil stuttered, turning to face Dan. “Maybe.” 

Dan groaned. “Just try your thing.” 

“Well, I have one idea...” he said, opening his own file and pulling out his basic information paper. “There’s a barcode here, you see?” Dan nodded. “Maybe it’ll register with the scanner.” Phil put it up to the scanner, and nothing happened. Fear began to settle into Dan’s heart. “Damnit,” Phil said. “Work, you dumb thing!” 

“I don’t think it’s working,” Dan said, after he tried to scan it about ten more times. 

“Damnit, Dan,” he said, his head hitting the computer desk. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay, Phil,” Dan said. “You tried your best.” He glanced at the time on the computer monitor, reading 4:36 AM. “It’s almost five. Janitors and security will start getting here soon, right?” 

Phil sat up and nodded. “They come at five.” 

“Then let’s get out of here and go home.” 

Phil sighed and stood up, beginning to walk alongside Dan. “Well, about that...” 

Dan’s head snapped towards Phil. “What?” 

“You have to go back to prison.” 

Dan looked down at his all white clothes. “Oh, yeah. That. You can’t get me out of that?” 

“Nope, sorry.” 

Dan groaned. All the power of that damned badge and he couldn’t even get a man out of prison. He could get into the Ancient Library, he could get into the computer, he could-

“Wait, Phil!”

“What is it?” Phil asked, excitement evident on his face.

“You said you slept with the Director, didn’t you?” 

Phil rolled his eyes away and went back to a normal expression. “Didn’t I say I didn’t wanna talk about it?” 

“No! Doesn’t that mean you could talk to him about there maybe being a mistake?” 

Phil gritted his teeth and sucked in air. “I don’t know; that’s a bit risky. You know, we never make mistakes.” 

“Phil, this was obviously a mistake! What do you think this is?” 

“Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we’re not soulmates.” 

Dan stopped walking. “What?” 

Phil paused beside him, seeming a bit annoyed at the holdup. “Dan, our real soulmates are almost exactly like us. If we’re in love with each other, we’d probably be in love with them too. Maybe it was right, and we’re wrong.” 

“Or maybe we’re right, and it’s wrong! You said it yourself, we’re in love with each other. Maybe my ‘soulmate’,” he said, throwing in air quotes, “is similar to you, but he’s not you. You’re the only you out there, and damnit, Phil, I’m in love with you.” 

Phil sighed, starting to walk again. “I’m in love with you, too; I just... I don’t know.” 

Dan took his hand, pulling him back and putting both his hands in his. “Phil, aren’t we here to do something crazy and stupid?” 

“I mean-” 

“What are we here to do?” 

Phil sighed again. “The stupidest...” 

“Exactly.” 

“Let’s just go back to your cell. I’ll think about it.” 

‘I’ll think about it.’ Try thinking about it when you’re stuck in a jail cell with nothing to do all day. Dan was bored out of his mind, with nothing else to think about. He pulled his diary out of the trash and wrote some positive bullshit to his soulmate. He was pretty sure lying in his diary was illegal too, but what were they gonna do? Lock him up? Dan flopped on his bed, sighing. Phil better pull through with the director. 

It was late at night again when Phil came. As soon as he appeared at the bars, Dan was up against them, eyes wide. “Did you do it?” 

“I bullshitted so hard for you, Howell.” 

“Oh, thank fuck. What did you tell him?” 

“I told him how we met and thought we were soulmates, and that we thought we loved each other, but you came on to me-” 

“Hey!” 

“Sorry, it’s what I already had to tell them to get you arrested.” 

“Thanks.” 

“But you came on to me so I turned you in, but I still felt in love with you and I just wanted him to check to see if there was a mistake. He didn’t take it too well, assuring me that no mistakes have ever been made in the IDMA, but I know how to get what I want from him.” 

“Thanks. Now I have to think about that until I get out of here. So he checked?” 

“He’s having someone look into it right now. The results should be back by the end of the day tomorrow.” 

“That’s so long!”

“Better than nothing.” 

The next day was undoubtedly the longest of Dan’s life. He much enjoyed bullshitting yet another diary entry to Phillip. This time, he really did. It was more fun when he was lighthearted enough to be creative with it, even more fun when he knew who the person on the other side was, and a hell of a lot more fun when he hoped it would be the last one he’d ever have to write. 

The time passed slowly; if his life was a cheesy television show, that episode would show frames of him lying on the prison bed in different positions to symbolize time passing. Dan was perfecting the beautiful dragon he’d drawn on his desk after dinner when he finally heard the door open. He threw down his pencil and leaped from his seat, rushing over to the bars, where he was met with two men in official-looking suits, with an older man standing behind them. He jumped back from the bars, moving up against the back wall.

“Who the hell are you?” 

“I’m Director James Osborne of the IDMA,” he said, showing a badge that looked similar to Phil’s. Dan inched forward to read it; it seemed legitimate. “These are my bodyguards. We’d like you to come with us, Mr. Howell.” 

“What’s happening?” he asked, suspicious. As hopeful as he was that this was good news, he couldn’t trust the IDMA, and he knew that.

“I can ensure your safety; we’re just going to my office.” Dan nodded, and he unlocked the cell. The four of them walked, the bodyguards making sure Dan stayed ahead of the group at all times. They gave him directions, but he already knew most of the way; it was the exact place he’d gone to the night before, but they didn’t, and couldn’t, know that. Dan took a moment to recall everything Phil had told him to make sure he made his story line up with Phil’s if necessary. 

When they reached the office, the bodyguards ushered Dan from the door as the Director put his badge up to the sensor and opened the door. When they entered, an ebony head turned from a seat across from the Director’s desk and Phil was staring at him. “Phil!” 

“Dan,” he said with a smile. It didn’t seem like a good smile. It seemed like a tired and hopeless smile. Suddenly Dan was filled with fear. He felt a bit safer with Phil’s presence, but he was still terrified of whatever news was about to be shared with him. 

“Take a seat, Mr. Howell,” the Director said, sitting in his overpriced office chair. Dan took a seat in the guest chair beside Phil, and the bodyguards took their place on either side of the Director. 

“So,” the Director said, placing his hands on the table and leaning in towards them. “It has been brought to my attention that something very bizarre has happened with both of your soulmate assignments. I have to tell you, this is something that has never happened before.” He paused for a moment, and Dan and Phil made brief eye contact with each other before looking back at him expectantly. “There was a Phillip Lester and a Philip Lester born on January 30, 1987,” he said, looking at Phil. He turned to Dan. “There was a Daniel Howell and a David Howell born on June 11, 1991.” He cleared his throat, leaning back in his chair. “The two people born on each day grew to be very similar; they have strikingly similar appearances and lives. Phil, this Phillip man grew to have the career you use as your alibi. Dan, this David man has chosen a law path similar to yours. London is a big city, and the United Kingdom is a big country. This is something that is so unlikely to happen that it is the first time in human history that it has occurred.” 

“What is it?” Phil asked, finally speaking up for the agony they were both experiencing. 

“With all the similarities, our system misperceived whose soulmate was who.” 

“There was a mistake?” Dan asked in awe. 

“There was a mistake,” the Director said. 

“We’re soulmates?” Phil asked, too nervous to react without complete confirmation. 

“You are soulmates.” At that, Phil leaped into Dan’s arms, and their lips finally connected without the feeling that they were doing something wrong. They weren’t doing anything wrong; they were two men kissing their soulmate, and they were finally allowed to be happy.

Phil finally tore back, disappointing Dan, but he realized how awkward the situation must have been given the affair Phil had with the Director. “What happens now?” 

“Well,” the Director said. “Firstly, both of you are prohibited from speaking of this incident, or else you will be incarcerated. And, of course, Daniel, you will be released.” Despite the anger that he didn’t get to finish drawing his dragon, Dan couldn’t help but smile at that. “The other two people in question will be brought in independently and informed of the error as well as the consequences for sharing it and given new diaries. You, of course, no longer need yours.” 

“Director?” Phil spoke up.

“Yes, Mr. Lester?”

“I’d like to resign from my position here.” 

The Director was taken aback. “Why?” 

“Through this experience, I’ve seen how corrupt a system that plans your life for you can be. I’m not here to change it, I just don’t think I can be a part of it anymore.” 

The Director sighed deeply, his age visible in his appearance. “I’ve seen a lot of corruption in my time here. The system has its issues, just like every other. Some of it is just plain unnatural, but it’s how this world functions. Disassembling it would never work. I can respect your decision.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Phil said. 

“You two may go.” 

The two scrambled from their seats, eager to get out of the facility and into their new lives together. As soon as the door closed behind them, they fell into each other’s arms in a deep embrace. “I love you,” Dan murmured into Phil’s chest. 

“I love you too.” 

The two locked fingers and began the walk to claim Dan’s belongings from the prison wing. “Can we stop by my cell and grab my diary?” 

Phil turned to him, shocked. “Why would you want that thing? We both know it’s full of corruption; if I could leave mine in this hell, I would.” 

“Yeah, the system is corrupt, but that book isn’t the system. That book is a story of my life, chronicled with every day since I was five years old. It’s not a piece of the system; it’s a piece of me.” 

“Huh,” Phil said. “I’ve never thought of it that way before.” 

“Sometimes I’m insightful,” Dan said. 

After grabbing Dan’s diary and taking a five minute break to make the finishing touches on Dan’s dragon (with Phil’s help), Dan was changed back into his normal clothes. “This is definitely nice,” he said as they made their way to the facility’s exit. 

As the setting sun shined in Dan’s face for the first time in days, he turned to Phil and smiled. “You don’t make mistakes, huh?” 

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

So I was reading your WIP list (they sound great!!!) and that part about Rufus's shitty parenting you mentioned in the Blair/Jenny fic section really resonated with me. Rufus, I feel, gets cut a lot of slack in the parenting department by virtue of like, not being Lily or Bart, but honestly his parenting decisions really had a negative effect on especially Jenny, but Dan too. While season 6 was mostly a dumpster fire for Dan's characterization, something that stuck out to me in 6x02 was that

it ultimately wasn't losing Blair or being betrayed by Serena that solidified Dan's decision to publish Inside Out, but his father's relationship with Ivy following everything that happened with Lily. Dan's talking to Georgina about it, and she says something to the effect of having once considered Brooklyn a moral high ground, and Dan's response of his father "having fallen off his pedestal" in his eyes really stuck with me. As much as I hated the way they wrote Dan as the  ~villain~, I think there's a lot to be said about how heavily Rufus influenced Dan and Jenny's perceptions of themselves and what they consider right and wrong. To me, it seems like a lot of the inner turmoil vis-a-vis their relationships and their careers that Dan and Jenny both go through throughout the show ultimately traces back to Rufus's "standards", even if Rufus himself isn't directly involved.

OH you’ve said this better than I could ever have! this makes a lot of sense.

so, i do not want to disappoint, but while rufus’s shitty parenting comes up and comes up explicitly, it’s not the focus of the fic! it’s something dan and jenny talk about in the context of jenny, where dan goes ‘i never realised how difficult things were for you when we were kids, i’m sorry about that’ and jenny’s like ‘well, at least you weren’t dad.’ i was describing this fic to a friend as “it contains a lot of heavy themes, but it’s very much like everything is happening around jenny” - jenny is the focus of the fic! her past, the other characters’ stuff, that’s all there but not as focused on. if that makes sense. 

rufus was a lot harsher on jenny than he was on dan, in ways that make no sense - like you should not pick fights with your 15 year old daughter. what are you trying to prove!! he handled jenny’s stuff so badly! and he was always so much more patient/understanding of dan, i think because he and dan had a lot more in common than he and jenny did, which made it easier for him to understand dan. he never extended the same courtesy to jenny - he was very “oh i guess you’re a Bad Child Inside” or whatever, which. a lot of jenny’s drama and trauma - esp everything in s3 - could’ve been avoided if she had a good parental figure to talk to. she shouldn’t have needed to keep calling nate to protect her!! anyway this isn’t really a New Take, i think a lot of people HAVE spoken about this.

with dan and rufus i think it’s different because, like, rufus has never been as explicitly awful to dan as he has to jenny. i think that’s sometimes an abusive parent thing where they treat one sibling far worse than the other (tho tbh i don’t know if abusive is the right word for rufus, i think he’s far more neglectful. ah, whatever.) anyway, dan was able to grow up idolising rufus, like you said, and yeah, the thing with rufus and ivy really hit him badly. which i think makes sense - remember how when ivy first shows up as “charlie”, rufus cautions dan against being with her romantically because she’s too young for him or something?? rufus and ivy being together felt like bad writing, but that aside, i think a huge part of dan wanted to grow up to be just like his dad. and i think a huge part of growing up IS realising that the adults around you are not perfect. though of course, it’s a bit more complicated than this in dan’s case - he adores his dad AND he adores his little sister. so, while everything hits dan a bit differently, it still does make an impact.

anyway!! what you said makes a lot of sense, and i think dan and jenny have vastly different experiences with rufus’s shitty parenting. it’s a bit ironic i guess but rufus and lily technically did have the same sort of way of regarding their children - they set impossibly high standards, judged their kids too quickly, etc. 

i think for jenny, rufus deciding that she was Inherently a Bad Person would’ve added and contributed significantly to all the shady stuff she was doing around that time. if your own father (who, you know, used to love you Before Everything Went Wrong) decides you’re not capable of being a good person, what incentive do you have to be better? and for dan i think it’s safe to say that the conflict comes from like. how much of him is really what he believes and how much of his self-image, ideology and ways of reacting to things are things he consciously or subconsciously modelled off rufus. & of course, growing up and being like ‘how can i live for myself knowing that the foundation that is my values are shaky’ / ‘i’ve seen my dad hurt people and now i know that i’ve probably hurt people too in the same ways’ etc etc -> there’s definitely stuff to explore from dan pov there! just different stuff from the jenny pov.

sorry this is a bit rambly - i’m a self declared humphrey sibling apologist! was considering making a url with some variant of humphreyapologist in it, but i stopped myself because i did not want people to think i support rufus. i do not!