#going back to the knot of the three words & pulling up the old screenshot ended my life

[dukeofqueers]

feeling like absolute shit i just want Deogracias back

[celestialvoid-fanfiction]

Falling in Love All Over Again

Stiles wakes up in hospital after an accident, but he doesn’t remember anything… or anyone.

 For @evanesdust - Happy Birthday!

  He slowly blinked his eyes open, wincing as he stared up at the bright LED lights and the white insulated panels of the ceiling. He struggled to keep his eyes open, blinking heavily as his vision slowly came into focus.

He felt weak, his body aching as he struggled to move, trying to turn his head and look around the room.

His breathing felt heavy, every breath sending shooting pain through his chest.

He let out a weak groan.

“Hey,” someone said, their voice soft.

He turned his head slightly to look at the woman who stood beside him. She was in her thirties and wore teal scrubs. A small gold necklace hung around her neck, the pendant was woven strands of gold with four gemstones set into the design. Her soft face was worn with creases, a kind smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were like dark smoky quartz and her gaze was soft. Her long dark hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, falling in messy waves down her back. A few curls had escaped the elastic tie, falling down around her face. She smelt like roses and something nostalgic.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

He paused for a moment, taking everything in.

“Sore,” he answered, his voice raspy and broken.

“I’ll give you something to help with that,” she said. “Can you tell me your name?”

He paused, searching his mind for anything that seemed familiar, but he couldn’t think of anything. His eyes widened slightly as a sickening feeling of fear settled in his stomach. He shook his head.

“That’s okay,” the nurse reassured him. “Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital,” he guessed.

His answer brought a smile to her face. “Which hospital?”

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“Okay, do you remember what happened to you?”

He shook his head, fighting back the tears that welled in his eyes; he didn’t like feeling this way, he didn’t like feeling lost, confused and helpless.

“Do you know how old you are?” the nurse asked.

“No,” He answered.

“Do you know your birthday?”

He shook his head.

The nurse nodded, bowing her head slightly s she looked down at her chart.

He swallowed hard against the growing lump in his throat, fighting back the wave of nausea as his stomach twisted in knots.

“What happened to me?” he asked.

“You were in an accident,” she explained. “You took quite a blow to the head and it seems to have affected your memory. But it’ll be alright; a lot of the time, memory loss is temporary and your memories come back after some rest or by triggers—people, places, smells, etcetera.”

“How long do you think it’ll take for my memories to come back?” he asked.

A solemn look passed over her face. Her voice was apologetic as she said, “It could be a few hours, or a few days—maybe even a few weeks. There’s no way to know for sure.”

He nodded.

“I’ll check in on you in a little while,” the nurse said as she returned the clipboard to the end of his bed. “Try and get some rest, okay?”

“Wait,” he called after her.

She stopped and turned back to him.

“What’s my name?” he asked, trying to hide the desperation in his voice.

“Stiles,” she answered. “Stiles Stilinski.”

------------------------------------------- 

 Stiles let out a sigh as he woke to the sound of voices.

“Just take it easy,” he heard the nurse – Melissa, she’d said her name was – said quietly.

Stiles shifted slightly, pushing himself upright slightly and sitting back against his pillows.

Two men entered the room. The first looked to be middle age, his fawn-brown hair thinning slightly and his face worn with wrinkles. His hazel eyes looked at Stiles with a mix of pain, worry and love. He wore a dark windcheater with a logo on the sleeve that had the letters B.H.P.D embroidered into it and a brown shirt with a gold-plated name badge pinned above his breast pocket that read STILINSKI.

The other man had raven-black hair and a strong jaw shadowed by the thin scruff of a beard. His pale aventurine eyes were mesmerising. He wore a faded grey Henley and a worn black leather jacket.

Stiles looked between the two of them, hoping his nervousness didn’t show.

“Hey, kiddo,” the older man said softly. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Stiles lied.

The man with the black hair let out a sigh that ended in a breathless chuckle.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“That’s what you always say when ‘fine’ is the last thing you’re feeling,” the man said.

Stiles dropped his gaze.

These two seemed to know him well—one called him ‘kiddo’ and the other could read him.

“Do you know who we are?” the older man asked.

Stiles looked at him, letting his gaze linger as he took in every detail of the man’s face. There was something familiar about the lines on his face—as if every one of them told a story. There was something familiar about the hints of brown in his hazel eyes. There was something familiar about him, but Stiles couldn’t place it—like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue.

Stiles looked at him apologetically and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” the man said.

“Your nametag says Stilinski,” Stiles pointed out. “Melissa said my name was Stilinski.”

“Yeah,” the man replied. “I’m John Stilinski… I’m your dad.”

“My dad?” Stiles repeated back.

“Yeah,” he replied. He looked across to the man who stood at the end of the bed. “And this is Derek.”

Stiles met his gaze.

The corner of Derek’s lips turned up in a soft smile.

“Your boyfriend,” John clarified.

Stiles’ eyes widened with shock. He turned to John. “Seriously?”

John nodded.

Stiles looked at Derek then back at John. “You’re kidding, right? He’s way out of my league.”

Derek let out a low chuckle, bowing his head slightly as he tried to hide the rosy blush that coloured his cheeks.

“John,” Melissa called from the doorway, nodding towards the hallway.

“I’ll be right back,” his dad said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze before heading towards the door.

“So,” Stiles started slowly when it was only him and Derek. “How long have we been dating?”

“Six years,” Derek answered. “Nearly seven.”

Stiles was stunned. He bowed his head, his mind reeling as he tried to make sense of everything—tried to grasp at threads of thoughts or hidden memories.

“It’s okay,” Derek said softly. “You don’t have to remember everything right away. It must be weird looking at a stranger and being told you’ve been together six years.”

“It’s a little unnerving,” Stiles admitted.

“Don’t worry; I’m not going to try and kiss you or do anything that’ll make you uncomfortable,” Derek reassured him. “I’ll give you as much space as you want, but I’ll be here if you need me.”

Stiles let out a soft sigh. “Thank you.”

Stiles looked down at the foot of his bed.

“Can you pass me my chart?” Stiles asked.

Derek’s brow furrowed slightly with confusion, but he stepped down to the end of the bed and passed the clipboard to Stiles nonetheless.

Stiles read it.

“Wait,” he said, his brow knitted together as looked down at the page. “That’s not my name.”

Derek stepped over to Stiles side, looking over his shoulder at the clipboard.

“Yeah, it is,” Derek said. “It’s your given name, but you go by Stiles.”

“I don’t even know how to say that,” Stiles said.

“Mieczyslaw.”

“Mieczyslaw,” Stiles repeated. He skimmed down the page as he read aloud, “Broken ribs, fractured left wrist, ligaments in shoulders strained and slightly torn, blunt force trauma to head, bruises and lacerations, memory loss—possible retrograde amnesia.”

He set the clipboard down in his lap, trying to hide the broken look on his face, but apparently Derek knew him better that Stiles thought.

“It’s going to be okay,” he reassured him. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it.”

Stiles looked up at him, his dark eyes full of gratitude.

Derek offered him a reassuring smile.

Stiles smiled in return.

“What’s your favourite colour?” Stiles asked.

“Orange,” Derek answered. “Like a sunset.”

Stiles thought for a moment. “What’s my favourite colour?”

“Blue,” Derek replied.

Stiles nodded, thinking it over.

“Tell me about yourself,” Stiles said, a hint of pleading in his voice.

“Um… My name’s Derek Hale. I have two sisters—one older, one younger. I was born and raised here in Beacon Hills – like you. I was orphaned when I was fifteen and older sister took us to New York, but we returned a few years later.” Derek thought for a moment. “I like dogs—and we planned to get one as soon as our house is ready.”

“We live together?”

“Yeah, we’ve lived together for three years now,” Derek answered. “We’re building a new house on my family’s land.”

“Wow,” Stiles said quietly, taken aback by how wonderful his life seemed.

“Sorry to interrupt,” John said, stepping back into the room. “Melissa said that maybe some photos will help.”

John set a plastic back down on the table at the end of Stiles’ bed. It had a bright red band across it with bold white letters that spelt out EVIDENCE. John opened it and pulled out the phone inside, passing it to Stiles.

Stiles looked down at the screen as it lit up. The phone was locked by a password.

Stiles swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as he tried to think.

“1107,” Derek said softly.

Stiles looked at him, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“It’s my birthday,” Derek explained.

Stiles typed in the password and the phone opened.

“You’re a romantic,” Derek teased.

Stiles let out a breathless chuckle. He opened the photos on his phone, starting at the most recent – a screenshot of a dog on a rescue site; probably the one they were going to adopt once their house is finished – and scrolling back through the photos.

There were pictures of him and Derek, him and his dad, him and a young man with short brown hair and a khaki police uniform—Jordan, his dad told him. There were several photos of him and Derek hanging out with a group of people that looked to be their age: a girl with copper-coloured hair and soft green eyes, a boy with a mop of brown hair and a crooked smile, a girl with long blonde hair, a boy with dark skin and a kind smile, and another boy with thick blond curls. Derek told him each of their names.

“You don’t remember anything about Scott?” his dad asked.

Stiles looked down at the picture again and shook his head. “Should I?”

“You’ve been best friends since you were four years old,” his dad explained. “Inseparable. Partners in crime. I thought maybe seeing his face would spark a few memories.”

Stiles set the phone down. His dark eyes glistened as tears began to well.

“I’m never going to remember, am I?” he said quietly, his voice strained and breaking. “I don’t remember my best friend, my boyfriend, or my own dad. I didn’t even know my own name until Melissa told me.”

“Hey,” Derek said softly, reaching out to take his hand. “It’s going to be okay. Maybe your memories will come back in a day or two.”

“Or maybe they’ll never come back,” Stiles countered.

“Then you get a second chance at life; not many people get that,” Derek said, trying to stay positive.

“I don’t want a second chance,” Stiles said, his voice quiet. “The life I had sounds pretty good.” He glanced at Derek, feeling shy as he added, “You sound great.” He blinked back his tears, his voice broken as he said, “I want that life back.”

“I know it must be frustrating, but we’ll give it a few days and see if there’s any change, okay?” Derek said, craning his neck to look Stiles in the eye, lovingly and reassuringly.

Stiles met his gaze, feeling the waves of anger and anxiety wash away. The weight in his chest lightened as he let out a calming sigh and nodded. He picked his phone up again and began to scroll through the photos.

There were photos of friends that Derek named for him, a lacrosse team, and a photo of four of them: Stiles, Scott, Lydia, and a young girl with long dark hair.

“That’s—”

“Allison,” Stiles said quietly, interrupting Derek.

Derek looked at him with a mix of confusion and hopeful excitement.

“Allison,” Stiles turned the name over, pulling on the tangled thread of memories.

He remembered her smile, her laugh. He remembered the way she held a bow and arrow with strength and unwavering composure. He remembered the sound of her hand hitting the ground—he hadn’t seen it, but he’d felt it. He remembered slowly returning to consciousness as he and Lydia stumbled out of the darkness and into the cool night air. He remembered the moment his heart broke when he saw her lifeless body cradled in Scott’s arm, her unmoving hand fallen aside.

There was a glimmer of a memory in the corner of his mind. He reached for it; the image of Allison’s silver necklace – a family heirloom in the shape of a crest with a rampant lion in the corner.

It was like a row of dominoes; one crashed into the other and the floodgates burst open. Waves of memories crashed over him.

“Stiles?”

Derek’s voice drew him back to reality.

Stiles looked up at him.

“Gerard,” he said.

“What?” Derek asked.

“Gerard Argent,” Stiles replied. “He’s the one who did this to me.”

“Gerard kidnapped you years ago, Stiles,” his dad said

“No, I remember. He drove me off the road and when I woke up again, I was in some kind of basement. My hands were in chains and I was hanging from the ceiling,” Stiles explained.

“Are you sure you’re remembering what happened a few days ago?” Derek asked.

“Titus,” Stiles said abruptly. “The dog we adopt, he’s a black Great Dane and we were going to call him Titus. I wanted that name because it’s the name of Damian Wayne’s dog from Batman comics and you agreed because it’s a reference to Shakespeare. You also wanted to adopt the German Sheppard at the shelter but we had to see how he goes with other dogs first. We were going to call him Achilles. But I also saw the way you looked at the Australian Sheppard, the old boxer, and the Bernese. And if we’re both being honest, we know we’re not leaving with only one or two of them.”

Derek just stared at him, stunned.

Stiles turned to his dad. “Whenever you order take out at the station you always order a beef burger with onion, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and ketchup, but Parrish always orders you a salad as well because you’re meant to be looking after your heart health after you were injured eight years ago. Your full name is Noah John Stilinski, but you’ve always gone by John because Noah was your father’s name. My given name is Mieczyslaw – after my maternal grandfather – but I could never pronounce it right so Mum would always jokingly call me ‘Mischief’—although the nickname got more fitting as I got older. And after you and Mum had a falling out with her family, you hated calling me by that name, so you came up with ‘Stiles’ and you’ve called me that ever since.”

He turned back to Derek. “Every morning, you make me a cup of coffee. I never ask for it, you just do it because you love me, and I love you. Your favourite book is The Little Prince because your dad used to read it to you every night when you were little—I got you a hard-cover version of it for your birthday last year.”

He looked between the two of them.

“I remember,” he insisted. “I can even tell you where I hid the ring I was going to propose to Derek with.”

“You were going to propose to me?” Derek asked.

“The night I went missing,” Stiles admitted.

Derek let out a quiet laugh.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“I was going to propose to you that night too,” Derek confessed.

Stiles couldn’t help but laugh.

John stepped out of the room, but from the hallway Stiles could hear his dad call in a police search for Gerard Argent.

“So… Out of curiosity, if I had proposed to you, would you have said yes?” Derek asked hesitantly.

“Without hesitation,” Stiles said, smiling at Derek.

Derek let out a sigh of relief.

“I am still going to propose to you,” Stiles told him. “Just in a more romantic setting than this.”

Derek leant forward and pressed a soft kiss to Stiles’ bruised cheek.

“About the dogs,” Stiles started slowly as Derek sat back in his chair.

“You only want one?” Derek asked, heartbroken.

“Oh no,” Stiles replied. “I want all of them. Including the really old Great Pyrenees and the wrinkly little bulldog puppy.”

A bright smile lit up Derek’s face. “Deal.”

[yepiamthesmileyface]

Just Friends(?)

[Image description: screenshot of an ask sent by @nemesis-is-my-middle-name​ reading “38 - Everyone thinks we’re already dating, but we’re just best friends- oh wait? (if ur taking prompts idk)” end image description]

Read it on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347906

Going to a Denny’s after a case was always a gamble. On one hand, there was hot, cheap junk food at whatever ungodly time they wrapped up their investigation; but on the other, sometimes the Denny’s had specimens like this. Vivi sighed, shoving a huge bite of her pancakes in her mouth and trying to tune out the ravings of the old white man who had stormed up to their booth — at three in the morning, mind you — and started screeching about how you should be ashamed of yourselves, displaying such perversions in public!! and three people living in sin!!

Normally, Vivi would have at least been making snarky comments, if not actually challenging him to a fight for insulting her and her boys like that, but...she was tucked comfortably under Lewis’s arm, the hand that wasn’t holding her fork reached across and resting on Arthur’s thigh. Also, it was literally three in the morning, she was covered in mud and slime from chasing a giant frog-creature around in a nearby river, and she had been awake for twenty-one consecutive hours. She took another bite. The pancakes tasted extra good for the exhaustion and ache sunk into her bones, strawberry topping and whipped cream and thick fluffy pancakes and maple syrup...it was almost enough to get her to forget about the man shrieking at them. She glanced back over at him, idly noting that his face was turning an interesting shade of puce.

The waiter walked back over with the same jaded, unfazed look he wore when the three of them had staggered into the Denny’s, soaked to the bone and absolutely covered in muck. He folded his arms and stared at the old man. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re disturbing the other guests.” The old man turned to look at the waiter, puffing up not unlike the giant frog the Mystery Skulls had captured and returned to its actual habitat not half an hour ago, and rapidly deflating as he took in the completely impassive, almost dead-eyed stare of the late-night Denny’s waiter. He hurried out of the building, spitting one last insult about how they were all going to hell for living in sin. Given that he had used that particular phrase about nineteen times, it had kind of lost its fire, as far as Vivi was concerned.

Vivi felt some of the tension drain out of Lewis, and she turned her head, looking over at her boys. Lewis looked relieved and tired, catching her eye and smiling at her, soft and warm and completely unguarded. There was a streak of mud high on his cheek, almost matting in his no-longer-pristine hair. She smiled back, the expression billowing up like a balloon on a current of love, and reached up to wipe the smear away. Lewis leaned into her touch, and she cupped his cheek for a moment before wiping her hand on her skirt and leaning forward a little to peer around Lewis’s chest in order to check on Arthur. In contrast, Arthur looked like a live wire of tension, like he would either shatter or vault over the table and sprint away if anything else happened. Her smile dropped.

The waiter turned to them, ready with a scripted apology that actually carried a note of sincerity that Lewis quickly waved off. As he took care of talking to the waiter, Vivi leaned across him, patting Arthur’s leg quickly to get his attention. 

Arthur jumped, nearly hitting his knees on the table. Vivi felt a little guilty, but quickly pushed through. “Hey. It’s alright. He’s gone.”

Arthur met her gaze, eyes wide and grin forced. His hair hung limp around his face, framing him beautifully in dark gold. “Y-yeah. Plus — plu-plus, h-he — was, wasn’t even may-making any, any, any se-sen-se.”

She bit her lip. If his stutter was coming out that strong, he was either much more anxious or much more tired than she thought. Probably a combination of both. Pulling up a warm, playful grin from the depths of her chilled bones, she said, “Yeah. I mean, his argument was both really painfully dumb and also really Christian-centric! I mean, hello, not everyone is Christian, I’m definitely not, so, like…”

Arthur continued on like he hadn’t even heard her, leg starting to bounce under the hand she just realized she never moved. “I me-mean, I mean, he — h-he — we, we’re — I mean, we’re jus-just, just friends. Wh— I do-don’t kno— I dunno why h-he tho-thougth we we-were —”

Vivi felt Lewis freeze under her, and she wasn’t far behind. She felt breathless, like she had been punched in the gut, like he had slapped her in the face instead of saying those three little words bouncing around her head. We’re just friends?! “Wait. Wait, what?!” The words came out closer to a whine than she would have liked them to, but she was too stunned to really care.

At the same time, Lewis gasped like he had been shot. “You’re — are you breaking up with us?!” He sounded like he was two seconds away from bursting into loud sobs in the middle of this Denny’s.

Arthur’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at them with eyes the size of dinner plates. A stunned silence fell over their booth, broken only by the wavering sound of Lewis’s breathing.

Before any more drama could happen, Vivi held up her hand, forcing the words out past the cold spot that had taken up residence between her lungs. “No. Nuh-uh. Arthur, one word answer, and we’ll talk about this all when it’s tomorrow. Are you breaking up with us?”

Arthur opened and closed his mouth a few times before volunteering a tentative, “N-no…?”

Her shoulders slumped as she let out an explosive sigh. “Alright. Let’s — tomorrow? Tomorrow, when we’re not all so tired, we’re gonna talk about this, yes?”

Arthur nodded slowly, still boggling at them for some reason. Vivi was too tired to puzzle his behavior over properly, so she just glanced up at Lewis, who also nodded, unwinding his arm from around her to wipe at his face.

The rest of the night seemed to pass in snapshots to Vivi’s tired mind. Their dinner being boxed up. Walking back to the motel, just across the parking lot. Patting Mystery on the head and telling him he’s a good boy yes he is. Collapsing face first into the delicious crisp coolness of the starched motel bed. Lewis’s deep, tired chuckle as he took her glasses off her face. The weight of another body next to hers, but not the two she had become accustomed to after countless nights on the futon in the van. 

The next morning, she woke up slowly to the smell of coffee, and made to roll over so she could sit up. Instead, the world plummeted around her as she rolled right off the bed with a sharp, panicked yelp, caught in a devious trap of tangled blankets and sheets. A soft, almost stifled snort came from her left, and a pair of hands reached into the gordian knot of fabric, deftly untangling her. She squinted up at the blur of color and fuzz, the pale yellow-orange blur instantly recognizable as Arthur.

Vivi huffed, knowing full well he was smirking at her, the bastard. “Oh, like you’ve never rolled off the bed before.” She flailed her hand towards the bedside table, groping around blindly and not finding her quarry. “Where the hell’re —” A yawn interrupted her, wide enough to make her jaw crack. 

The Arthur-blur disappeared for a second, and when he came back, he slipped her glasses into her hands, his hands nice and warm where they made contact with hers. “Lew had ‘em over on his side of the bed for some reason.”

She slipped her glasses on, and the world came into rose-tinted focus. “Thanks, Artie.” She looked around the motel room, noting a distinct lack of giant purple-headed fops and talking dogs, and frowned. “Speaking of, where is he?”

“He’s grabbing all our meds from the van, I think. At least, I’m hoping he’s grabbing all of ours, he just said he’d get the meds, but I didn’t —” Arthur cut himself off with a swig from his travel mug. “Oh, and Mystery took himself out for a walk a couple’a minutes ago.”

Vivi laughed. “He’s probably definitely grabbing all of our meds. Did he make coffee, or did you?”

“It’s from the breakfast buffet, actually. Burnt, but not horrible. Better than that place in Staccatto, anyway,” Arthur shrugged, walking over to sprawl on the couch. “I grabbed you a cup, too, don’t worry.”

“The mud we were wading around in yesterday woulda been better coffee than that place in Staccatto,” Vivi grumbled, picking herself up and making a beeline for the coffee. “I’m pretty sure it was dirt. At least fifty percent dirt.” Leaning against the wall as she drank, she picked at the feeling that she was forgetting something. Something important, not just the fact that she forgot to shower last night and as such was still covered in itchy, flaky mud and sweat and her socks were sagging down without fresh sock glue — she shook her head to clear it. She was forgetting something important, something that had happened the night before. The case had gone well, they were paid half upfront and they would get the other half later that day, Lewis was getting their meds, breakfast was either the buffet or leftovers...leftovers. Wait. Her eyes widened as the whole Denny’s escapade came back to her in a flash. The bigoted old man who had practically burst a vein yelling at them, Arthur’s comment about them being just friends — but he wasn’t breaking up with them, apparently???

Downing the rest of the coffee in one gulp, she glanced towards the door, then back to Arthur. She should wait, Vivi told herself sternly. She should wait for Lewis, because Lewis was an important part of their relationship, and he should not be left out of serious relationship discussions.

Luckily, she was saved from the antsy feeling creeping around under her shoulder blades by the sound of the door opening. Lewis ducked in, a tote bag bearing the logo of a kitschy tourist trap in his hand. He beamed as he noticed her, walking up and giving her a good morning kiss.

Vivi laughed, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him away lightly. “Lew, I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet! No morning breath kisses, we all agreed those were the worst.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Arthur start, but Lewis just laughed, walking over to the table and setting the bag down on it. He started to unpack, first his own rainbow pill caddy, then Vivi’s cylindrical one, and finally Arthur’s loose assortment of orange bottles. “Fine, fine. Meds, everybody, come and get it.”

Once they had all taken their various medications, and Arthur had been chided into using his coffee to take his meds instead of taking them dry, Vivi took a deep breath. “Okay. Boys, I think we need to have a serious conversation now.” Arthur stiffened, and his eyes darted towards the windows. Vivi immediately strode forward, sitting down on the couch next to him. “I will sit on you if I have to, Artie,” she warned him, only half joking.

Arthur sighed and slumped against the couch, covering his face with his hands. His ears were cherry-red, and Vivi couldn’t help but find it cute.

Despite the cuteness, she shared a worried glance with Lewis as he settled down on the bed across from the couch. Lewis shook his head, a worried frown pulling at his face. She took another deep, grounding breath, setting her shoulders and sitting up straight before she looked at Arthur. “Okay. Arthur. What was that last night? You — you said we were just friends,” and those words still stung like a winter wind, “But then you say you’re not breaking up with us?”

It came out a touch more accusatory than she wanted it to, and Lewis took over with a gentle, “We’re not mad, Arthur. Not disappointed, either, but — if you don’t want us to even say we’re dating when we’re in public, I wish you’d told us earlier. It’s okay if you don’t! It really is, I get it, but…”

Arthur went impossibly redder, and curled in on himself, drawing his knees up towards his chest. “I dndwrdn…” he whined, muffled by his hands.

“I didn’t catch that, sorry,” Vivi said, wrapping her hands lightly around his wrists and tugging gently, trying to get him to lower them. 

Arthur took a deep breath, dropped his hands, and half yelled, “I didn’t know we were dating!!!” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his hands shot back up so fast he practically slapped himself in the face.

Vivi sat back, stunned. He...didn’t know? How could he possibly not know?!

“I — I, I, you — you never asked!” Arthur yelped.

Oh, she had said that out loud. “What do you — Arthur, we asked you out two months ago!”

Lewis raised his hands in a T, using the same tone he used on his sisters when they were getting too rowdy. “Okay, you two, time out!”

They both fell silent, turning to face Lewis.

Lewis tilted his head, looking at their boyfriend. Who...apparently didn’t know that he was their boyfriend. “Arthur...do you really not remember? We asked you out when we were back home, almost two months ago.”

“Okay, yes, it was a month, four weeks, and five days, not two months, but I don’t think semantic arguments are gonna be a big help here, babe,” Vivi grumbled.

Arthur shook his head wordlessly, still hiding his cherry-red face.

A month, four weeks, five days, and a handful of hours ago…

“It honestly feels so weird not living out of the van, doesn’t it?” Vivi mused, taking a bite of pizza.

“It really does. I’d completely forgotten what it was like to be woken up in the morning by forty pounds of overenthusiastic child launched directly at my sternum,” Lewis laughed, rubbing at his chest.

“Lew, we’ve only been road tripping for three months. That’s a bit quick, big guy,” Arthur snickered, pausing to shove half a slice of his weird oyster pizza in his mouth.

“It was so nice, though! The most I had to deal with while living with y’all is your pointy elbows!” Lewis leaned over and mussed Arthur’s hair. A laugh bubbled out of Arthur as he batted at Lewis’s hand futilely, trying to save his cone of hair gel. Laughing, Lewis subsided, pulling back. “But, yeah, I woke up this morning with a Cayenne-shaped bruise right on my sternum.”

Vivi winced sympathetically, shaking her head. “Ouch. Did she mean to?”

“Nah. Just excited.” Lewis’s smile turned fond. “They missed me. Demanded souvenirs and made me sit down and be their personal giant teddy bear as they watched Moana for the eighth time. Then Paprika gave me about twenty bead bracelets. When y’all come to the Paradiso, she’s got your piles waiting.”

“She’s still doing bead bracelets?” Vivi asked, a note of excitement in her voice. The last time they had all gotten bead bracelets from Paprika, it was right after the Peppers had explained what transgender meant, and the three of them had all gotten a bead bracelet with the word transgender wildly misspelled, the pink, white, and blue of the flag slapped randomly on there. It was the best piece of jewelry she owned — hers said “trasgenner”, Arthur’s said “trainsgandr”, and Lewis’s said “trasgeneer”. Paprika had been very determined to do it on her own, and had just gone with her best guess on each one.

“Yep! She’s got one for both of you that has your favorite animal as a charm,” Lewis revealed, grinning.

“Perfect!” Vivi did a very restrained fist pump.

Arthur hummed, staring at the pizza boxes on the table. It was almost a full twenty seconds before he grabbed another slice. “That actually sounds really nice. Both the, the bracelets and the personal teddy bear Moana thing.”

“Honestly, it wasn’t bad at all.”

Silence descended on their table, comfortable and companionable. Vivi shut her pizza box, setting her elbows on the table and propping her head on her hands, studying the two in front of her. Butterflies were building in her stomach — they were just both so beautiful, the warm noonday sunlight making both her boys glow in different ways. Arthur looked like he was wreathed in gold, his hair and eyes shining the same color as the sunlight. On the other hand, the warm light brought out the full richness of Lewis’s skin tone and made his hair gleam like the satin of his ascot, as well as glinting off his sparkly magenta nail polish. She made eye contact with Lewis, jerking her chin towards Arthur and wiggling her eyebrows.

Lewis blushed, glancing at Arthur nervously. Arthur, completely oblivious, simply leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting closed. He didn’t look tired, or, at least, not drop dead exhausted, just relaxed, happy, and full, so Vivi took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders.

“So, Artie...there’s something we’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Arthur opened his eyes, meeting her gaze curiously. There was no undercurrent of nervousness in his eyes, and Vivi was warmed to the core by his trust in them — she had asked an extremely open-ended question. “Huh? What’s up?”

Lewis cleared his throat. “We want to ask you if...Arthur, would you like to go out with us?”

“I thought that’s what we’re already doing right now…?” Arthur looked adorably confused, brow furrowed as he looked between them. 

Vivi shook her head. “No, like, as a date. Will you go on a date with us, and-or be our boyfriend?”

Arthur sat very still for a long moment (she wasn’t even sure he was breathing) before a grin unfolded across his face, as resplendent as the sun itself. “Yeah. I’d — I’d really love that. I — yeah. Yeah, I’ll go out with you and be your boyfriend.”

“Oh, perfect!” Vivi squealed, barely restraining herself from launching across the table and kissing him until he was more lipstick-mark than man. “When works best for you? Should we go somewhere in town, or wait til we’re on the road again? There’s this sushi place in Tremolo that I’ve just been dying to try, we should go there, if we’re waiting til we’re on the road again. Or just in general, it seems really good and I haven’t had good sushi in ages.”

Arthur tilted his head, clearly considering her words. His smile took on a wistful edge. “...y’know...I don’t really need all the fancy date stuff. Just...I’m happy to do what we’ve been doing, just...together. Having you guys be — being with you guys, romantically — that...that would be enough for me,” he said softly.

Lewis grinned over at him, soft and sappy, and opened his mouth. Before he could say anything, his phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out, grimacing a little as he checked the caller ID. “It’s Papá. Hold on, I gotta take this.” He stood up, stepping a bit away. Not a minute later, he stepped back, regretful smile firmly in place. “...sorry, guys. I’m needed back at the Paradiso for free childcare,” he joked.

“Aww…” Vivi was really only half disappointed. They had pretty much finished up lunch, only a few slices left between the three of them (none of them hers), and she had a shift at the Tome Tomb coming up soon, anyway. And, more importantly, they had asked Arthur out and he said yes! Their couple was now officially a polycule!

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. “I can — give you a ride. I gotta get back to Uncle Lance’s place anyway, I’m...” he trailed off, and Vivi waited maybe ten seconds for him to finish his sentence before accepting that he had lost his train of thought.

“Well, then...the Tome Tomb ain’t far, I can walk. I guess this is the end of our first date,” Vivi sighed. She stood up, standing on her tiptoes and pulling Lewis down for a chaste kiss before walking over and pressing a kiss to Arthur’s stubble-roughened cheek — familiar territory that should have been safe enough, she did that in the post-case exhilaration at least half the time. 

Arthur blushed bright red anyway, and she left with a bright laugh, walking on clouds with the universe held in her hands.

A month, four weeks, five days, and a handful of hours after that…

Arthur groaned, running a hand through his hair. “Really?! I — guys, I had been awake for, like, two solid days at that point!”

“So you — you don’t remember us asking you out at all?” Lewis asked, shocked. 

“No! Or — well — ki-kinda? I — kinda thought I was dreaming…” Arthur trailed off into muttering, fidgeting with his bracelets and not making eye contact.

Vivi paused for a moment, eyebrows creeping up. “Wow. Way to inflate our egos, there, Artie,” she joked. 

“Wh— how am I inflating your ego?!” Arthur jerked his head up to look at her.

“We asked you out and you literally thought you were dreaming. We’re literally your dream partners!” She cackled.

Instead of laughing, Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, looking down, his words spilling out in a jumble. “Um. Y-yeah, actually...I — didn’t think it was — I, I mean, I’d, um I’d had dreams...like that...before. And...uh. Since then if I’m being honest.”

Vivi felt a blush rising in her cheeks, and she covered her mouth. 

“That’s...that’s incredibly sweet, Artie…” Lewis managed, blushing harder than she was. 

Vivi cleared her throat. “Sap,” she managed, shaking her head fondly.

Arthur took a deep, shaky breath. “So, um. Can...can we start over? On dating? I do — I really, really do want to date you guys, for real, I just...didn’t...know?”

“Of course!” Vivi and Lewis exclaimed in accidental unison.

“And this time you’ve definitely slept enough to be lucid,” Lewis added on lightheartedly. “You were snoring before I fell asleep.”

“Well…” Arthur smiled, lopsided. “I’m pretty sure I am, anyway. Lucid, that is — and how could you hear me snoring over Vivi’s, anyway? But, uh —”

“— Hey!” Vivi interrupted. “I don’t snore that loud!”

“You sound like a train, Vivs,” Arthur teased, before clearing his throat. “But, uh. Anyway. Wanna...wanna pinch me so I’m sure I’m not dreaming this time?”

Vivi smirked at him. “I’ll do you one better, actually.” 

Before he could respond, Vivi leaned over, pressing a kiss to his lips. It took him a moment to react, startled, but he hesitantly started to kiss back after a second or two. There weren’t any fireworks, at least for her; if anything, it felt like being electrocuted, but in a good way, sparks shooting through her whole body, curling her toes and making her fingertips tingle. Arthur’s hand came up to grip at her sweater. Vivi kept the kiss chaste, and pulled back after a moment, glancing at Lewis.

Lewis pouted at her, a smile tugging at his lips and his voice. “Aww, I wanted to kiss him first, you got to do it at the restaurant.”

Arthur licked his lips, breath coming out a little funny, and swallowed hard before he got up and stepped towards Lewis, grinning crookedly. “W-well...consolation prize?”

Lewis let out a bark of laughter, startling Arthur into jumping a little, and pulled Arthur close with a gentle hand. “I can live with that,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss him. 

Vivi settled back, watching her boys kiss from the lumpy motel couch. It felt like coming home, like kicking off her shoes and shedding her stress as easily as taking off her scarf. She ran her tongue over her teeth absentmindedly, and grimaced. “Whoops. Sorry, Artie, didn’t mean for our first kiss to be a morning breath kiss.”

Arthur broke away from the kiss he was sharing with Lewis to blink at her, swaying a little bit. “...huh?” he managed, brain visibly rebooting. “Oh! Uh. It’s okay, I don’t think I...noticed?”

“Still, it’s the principle of the matter,” Vivi wrinkled her nose, standing up. “I’ll be right back, you two keep doing what you’re doing.” She tossed in a wink for good measure, and made her way to the bathroom with the accompaniment of Arthur’s flustered squeak and Lewis’s deep, rich laughter.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Can you maybe contextualize the Homestuck epilogue for someone who has never read Homestuck but is curious what all the hullabaloo is about?

It’s 200,000 words following 8,000 pages of comic, so I’m not sure if I can really explain it “simply”, but I’ll do my best. *ahem*

Spoilers, obviously. 

tl;dr;, by the way, I actually really liked it. But I can see why a lot of people didn’t. 

So, I can, have, and will rant about the myriad of reasons everyone hated the ending, but for the sake of context let’s only focus on the main ones:

1. The climax of the story was meant to be “John masters his powers, goes back in time, and undoes a lot of the terrible things that happen”. This didn’t at all feel like a climax, so everyone expected a “real” climax and was confused when we didn’t get one. Worse, because the solution to, say, Rose’s alcoholism was that John changed things so that she never started drinking, it felt less like characters overcoming their struggles and more like the characters we loved being replaced with alternate, better versions, and we never saw how things went for the “real” characters (John’s main change, preventing Vriska’s death in Act 5, invalidates something like 15% of the entire comic!). 

2. Because the climax fell so flat and the big bad wasn’t defeated (and because [S] Collide ended with the music turning all sinister), everyone went in to Act 7 expecting one last huge twist. But while we were given enough information to figure out the basic gist of how Lord English was defeated, we don’t actually see it.The above screenshot, of Caliborn powering up into his Final Form, comes in the last fifty seconds of Homestuck.  

So, that’s kind of the context of the ending. Everyone went in expecting like a full act, was wildly confused that Act 7 was a victory lap, and then we all kind of figured out eventually what Hussie was going for and we were like “Oh. Okay” in a monotone. So, everyone hoped for the epilogue to “fix” the plot, but the plot wasn’t so much broken as it was badly told.

Phew. Okay, now lets talk about the epilogue. 

So, John is given the choice of whether to actually go back into the comic and kill the bad guy or not, represented as a choice of eating meat or candy for lunch. The canon, alpha timeline choice is to kill Lord English (”meat”), and the choice to stay behind and leave a time loop/plot thread unclosed (”Candy”) creates a doomed timeline. Doomed timelines in Homestuck exist as physical bubbles you can fly to, so the two “timelines” are really physical places in Paradox Space. There are three such location in the epilogue 

1. The “meat” timeline, which is the actual “canon” alpha timeline with no unbroken time loops, where most of the Meat Epilogue takes place. It takes place in the normal universe 

2. The furthest ring, a void above and around all timeline bubbles where John fights Lord English. This is normally where all the doomed timelines are, but they are getting sucked into a black hole that’s sweeping out all the “irrelevant” stuff

Nepetaquest 2019 was never meant to be

3. The “candy” timeline, which is doomed, irrelevant, and thus sucked into the black hole. The whole thing looks like this

The reason I’m explaining all this is because the two epilogues are actually one epilogue, and one affects the other such that you need to read them both. 

In the Candy timeline, Dirk immediately realizes that he’s no longer canon/alpha, and immediately kills himself. Rose and Kanaya are happily married and adopt a troll. Roxy goes all stepford wife and decides all she really wants is to crank out babies with John. John is all “you seem to be wildly out of character for reasons that won’t be explained but okay”. Jade, Dave, and Karkat have a miserable polyamorous relationship where the boys don’t admit they want to each other’s dicks but are willing to settle on Jade’s furry knotted dog penis, which she apparently grew after becoming a dog girl in [S] Cascade

Pictured: The exact moment in Homestuck that Jade Harley grew canine genitalia. I had a print of this artwork and I’ll never look at it quite the same again

There’s relationship drama, but the most important part is Jane, who is now TrumpHitler for basically no reason,. She marries Jake but Gamzee cucks him and, well

There’s a scene of Jake talking to Jade and thinking about maybe murdering a baby while his wife has rape-play sex with a clown in the next room. We don’t have time to unpack all that, because Jane is also TrumpHitler now, and sets out to commit a literal holocaust on all the Trolls for….um…..well for no reason. She’s just evil now. Jade’s corpse crashes from the sky, which is a shock to everyone, most of all Jade. Then Aradia and Sollux show up and Jane’s corpse comes to life as a god and everyone kind of just….nods…..and ignores it. The JadeCorpse is possessed by a version of Calliope who’s basically God, whom Aradia serves. Calliope explains that nothing in this timeline matters and it would normally just dissolve but she’s keeping it around because letting everyone dissolve into nothing when you can stop it seems like kind of a bitch thing to do and also she needs somewhere for Lord English’s body to land. Everything in Candyland gets as comically terrible as possible, full-on civil war. John has an existential crises about being irrelevent but gets over it, and Calliope finally finds Lord English and eats him, gaining the power to escape the black hole. Somewhere all this Dave meets up with Barack Obama (??!!?!?!) who is a god (!!!!!!!!!!!) that fucked Dave’s bro (!efefiebnfuewf) and merges all Daves together into one Ultimate Dave that he puts in a robot. Davebot, Aradia, and Calliope all leave the black hole and close the door behind them such that nothing inside (which includes the “canon” Vriska and every single alternate Timeline that existed or will ever exist) can ever get out to interfere with the canon timeline ever again. 

Also 16-year-old Vriska fucks 40-year-old Gamzee and is so embarrassed about it that she kills him. 

Feel free to take a break here

==>

In the Meat timeline, Dirk has ascended and god from God-Like-Thor to God-Like-God, and can now manipulate the story in a fourth-wall breaking way that’s effectively nigh-omniscience and mind control. He’s also evil now, but that makes more sense then Jane being Hitler. 

John recruits the pre-retcon versions of Dave, Rose, and Jade, who with John are the closest thing to the “original” versions of the main four that Homestuck is gonna give us at this point. They fight Lord English and successfully boot him into the black hole, but all die in the process. John is mortally wounded but survives long enough to bang Terezi in the back of his dad’s car and get them both home (said car ends up in Candyland, where Candy John finds it and recognizes Terezi’s cum because thanks Hussie). Jade lives long enough that she could get to Earth C herself, but this version of Jade doesn’t even know about Earth C and decides to die via black hole. Dirk tries to stop this, but Calliope, who is more powerful than Dirk, pulls her in

It is indeed to late, and OG! Jade gets sucked into the black hole, crashes into Candyland, and leaves behind a fresh corpse for Calliope to control and all the people in Candyland to be weirdly blase over because deep down they know their world doesn’t matter. Having control over this Jade lets her possess the alpha Jade in Meatworld, which in turn lets her influence things there. She and Dirk fight about who gets to be president of earth (which doesn’t seem important unless you read Candy and know what president Jane will do), and Dirk manages to tranquilize Jade and keep Calliope from affecting anything else. 

Jane becomes president of Earth and starts off and the path of becoming God Empress of Mankind. John dies, and we get more than a hint that Dirk killed him for being insufficiently grateful of their paradise planet

With things on Earth taken care of, Dirk mind controls Rose into become his (sex?) slave, and mind controls Kanaya into thinking that’s cool. He tells Terezi (who he can’t control, since Mind is her power) that if she comes with they can maybe revive John, and they all home into a spaceship and fuck off to a new planet. Dirk is the new Lord English, Jane is the new Condesce, and Rose -now a dreambot - is the new Handmaid. And Terezi is….also there. They find a new M-Class planet and set up to evolve some life there for a Sburb game. On earth, now of of range of Dirk’s mind control, everyone realizes that him kidnapping Rose was actually kind of fucked up, and they hop a spaceship to chase after them, with Jade-possessed Calliope giving them advice.  

And that’s the epilogue! Dirk has kidnapped Rose and become unto god, and is setting up a nefarious plan we don’t know the details of, and a the heroes are racing to stop him. Good night everybody!

I’m assuming there’s going to be an Epilogue Epilogue, because this was just a straight-up cliffhanger, and I’ll guess I’ll see when I think when that happens or when it becomes clear that won’t happen.

Hopefully that was easy enough to follow, I did my best. 

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (4)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, mystery, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.9k (this chapter), 13.5k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Phil did not invite Chris and Sophie to come to Rossendale with him. Not because he doesn't like spending time with them, but because he wouldn't know how to explain a situation to his parents that he doesn't even understand himself. To his knowledge, PJ also did not invite them.

"Change it," Chris whines from the backseat. He'd lost the scuffle against Phil to claim the front, and he's been complaining about Phil's music choices for half the trip so far in retaliation.

"You like McFly," Phil huffs, continuing his search for an album that won't elicit a loud sigh from behind him.

"That's fucking slander, is what that is. You hear that, PJ?"

"Oh, I hear you both," PJ says, flat. "Loud and clear."

They've only been driving for probably forty minutes and PJ already looks like he wants to kick them all out of his car. Phil doesn't exactly blame him, although he resents being lumped in with Chris in the 'annoying background noise' category.

He has no idea how they've managed to invite themselves along, but Phil was too polite and PJ was too smitten to tell them off when they came out to the car with their bags.

So, this is a group activity now. Phil's parents had been thrilled to hear it when he texted them the updated situation - they're taking it as a sign that Phil has a motley crew of good friends again, like he'd had as a kid and again in uni. He supposes that they're not wrong, exactly, but he's definitely anxious about introducing them to Chris.

"I like this song," Sophie says, mild, and Chris closes his mouth.

"Fine, this one is alright," he says begrudgingly. Phil glances at them in the rearview - Sophie is patting Chris' knee and giving him the sort of smile that always makes Phil feel like he shouldn't be present. He looks back down at his phone so he doesn't have to sit with that feeling too long.

PJ turns up the volume, probably to curb any more bickering before he has to toss them all out of his car, and Phil tries to just lose himself in the music for a little bit.

His friends sing along at varying levels of obnoxiousness and Phil tries not to keep opening the Tumblr app to see if someone has messaged him. Well, someone specific. I'm going north today!, is the last message sent between them, and Phil is still waiting for Winnie to offer to meet up or something.

After their non-starter interview, Phil and Winnie kept missing each other's free time to finish it over Skype. Phil kind of wants to hear more from them before he checks it out himself, but that's not looking likely at this point, especially if he's lugging his housemates along with him all weekend.

Phil opens a puzzle game on his phone and lets the mostly-mindless swiping distract him. It's a long drive up to Rossendale, and the last thing Phil wants is to be left alone with his thoughts.

--

Phil's parents love having guests round almost as much as they love to have him home, so Phil isn't at all surprised to walk in and smell a roast cooking. He expects that treats will be made as soon as the oven is free, because that's what his mum is like.

"Hello," Phil calls into the house, kicking off his shoes. His friends follow his lead - PJ puts his boots carefully on the mat that Phil didn't bother aiming for, and Sophie struggles with a particularly stubborn knot in her laces - as he hangs up his jacket. "Mum? Dad?"

"Child," his mum greets him happily, appearing in the entry to the kitchen and making grabby hands at him until he envelops her in a hug.

"Missed you," Phil tells her, quiet enough that his friends won't hear to make fun of him.

"Oh, I missed you," she says, giving him a kiss on the side of his face. She turns her beaming smile onto his housemates, who all pause in what they're doing like a frozen tableau. It's a little funny. "More children! Hello! I'm Kathryn, it's so nice to meet you. And so nice to see you again, PJ," she adds in that somewhat pointed voice that Phil hates so very much.

"Hello, Kath," PJ says, grinning wide. He gives her a hug, too. Chris holds out his hand for her to shake when she's done squeezing the life out of PJ, but Kath will have none of it.

"Don't be silly," she says, wrapping her arms tight around Chris' waist with a laugh. "We hug in this family."

"Really?" Chris asks, and the look he gives Phil is almost more embarrassing than if he'd asked 'so why isn't your son a hugger?' out loud. "Something smells absolutely delicious, Kathryn. Is that you, or is supper cooking?"

Phil stops himself from groaning out loud, but barely. He probably shouldn't be surprised at all that Chris' cheeky, flirtatious charm extends to mothers as well. Kath laughs and smacks lightly at Chris' chest before she turns to Sophie.

Skilled at making people feel comfortable in four seconds flat, Kath chatters away about supper and how lovely Sophie's curls are and how long it's been since she's seen Phil, did they know how long it's been? She herds them all into the kitchen like they're cattle and insists that Phil take their things upstairs while she puts the kettle on.

"Er, alright," Phil says, looking at the small collection of bags that they'd brought with them. Their clothes and toiletries are all there, of course, but so is all the filming and hunting equipment. He'll have to make at least two trips.

"Your father got the guest room and Martyn's room all set up before he went out," she tells him, either not noticing or ignoring his internal struggle.

Oh, wonderful. Phil had somehow forgotten about the part where they had three beds for four of them. He's positive that his housemates won't mind sharing with each other, but now he's been tasked with the anxiety-inducing puzzle of whose bags to put where.

"Okay," Phil says again, even though they've moved on to talking about their favourite kinds of cakes so that Kath can wow them all with her skills. He tries to catch PJ's eye, but PJ is too wrapped up in a conversation about strawberries to notice.

Alright, well. Phil grabs as many bags as he can carry and brings them upstairs, feeling some tension deep inside him get a little tighter as he notices that most of their personal effects are packed away, either in storage or already on the island, and his childhood home looks more like a show home than he's comfortable with. The stairs only creak a little under his weight, nothing like the old house in Brighton, but Phil still feels unsettled.

In the end, he throws PJ and Sophie in the guest room. It's a selfish move more than anything, because he's brought PJ for enough visits to be familiar with the way his parents look at each other every time PJ teases him.

They don't ask. They're not the type of people to pry, and Phil isn't the type of people to offer information unprompted. They've all been in this limbo for years where Phil doesn't tell them that he likes boys and they don't outright question if PJ is just a friend and, frankly, Phil is tired of it. So, Chris can sleep alone.

He takes his own bags up last, because he knows that stepping into his bedroom and seeing all the personality stripped from it is going to make him feel things he isn’t prepared to feel. Phil takes a deep breath before he goes inside, and releases it shakily as he drops his things on the floor.

The beige carpet is almost mocking him, telling him that it's time to grow up, and Phil leaves the room as fast as he can.

--

God it is so hard to get anything done here. Sorry to complain at you randomly but like... I forgot how hard it is to work when my parents are hovering and asking a million questions lmao

Winnie still hasn't responded to Phil's early morning message, but the frustration of his parents distracting him and his friends from their work is starting to get to him. Chris has completely charmed them, somehow, and both Sophie and PJ are too polite to put headphones on and ignore them the way Phil has decided to.

Surprisingly, he gets a reply right away: omg how have i never considered the fact that you had to tell your parents you wanted to hunt ghosts for a living thats so fucking funny also that sucks i live in a house full of students and i always have to go to the coffee shop to work on essays and shit

There's nothing good like that where my parents live. Your coffee place is in the city, right?

“No! He didn’t!” Chris is laughing, somewhere in the living room, and Phil has to turn up the white noise on his headphones. The idea of his parents and housemates trading embarrassing stories about him while he's holed up at the table with audio files he hates makes him itch.

yeah, Winnie says. Phil is so thrown off by the short message that his fingers pause on the keyboard.

Is he annoying them? He doesn't mean to. Phil thinks over the messages they've exchanged since talking on Skype, the wheel of worst case scenarios spinning quickly.

Before Phil can apologise or even really get his anxious mind to settle down, his laptop bloops again, once, twice, three times. Relief from the worry that Winnie doesn't like talking to him curls around Phil's shoulders, relaxing them.

It's a screenshot of Google Maps with an address pulled up, a different building circled in a bright blue. yeah i hella recommend and it's really close to wilkins as well, is the message accompanying the screenshot. Then, right afterwards, 10/10 hot chocolate if i do say so myself.

Phil isn't very big on hot chocolate on its own, but he is very big on quiet coffee shops.

It takes a lot of cajoling and promises that he won't be out too late for Phil to convince his parents that they'll be fine to drive to the city by themselves. His dad gets the same look on his face that he always does when Phil talks about work, but his mum merely pats his cheek and says, "Oh, love, be careful. I'll be cross if I have to get you from the police again."

"That was one time," Phil says, feeling his face flush as Chris looks at him with glee.

"One time too many," Nigel says, a bit too sternly to be a joke. Phil wonders if his friends pick up on it or if they just think he's banting like he's been all through supper, that same dry humour that Phil can see in Martyn making him funnier than his housemates had expected.

PJ and Sophie both laugh a bit, so... probably just Phil's knowledge of his dad making it more pointed than it really needs to be.

The coffee shop is open late, so Phil and his housemates decide to do some recon at the Wilkins place. The sun hasn't quite set yet, and the street isn't completely deserted or anything, so they have to wait for a good moment to leave the car.

They're careful. They've done this before.

The Wilkins place is an older townhouse in Rusholme with windows that have been boarded up since the early noughties because they kept getting broken. Technically, someone still owns the property, but the Wilkins family either didn't care about it or had forgotten it existed, because it's been abandoned as long as Phil can remember.

It also isn't very scary in his memory. It's draughty and has rats scurrying about, but the electricity and heating still worked, somehow, and the social situations he'd gotten thrown into at Martyn's shoulder were definitely more nerve-wracking than the house itself.

All of these things are still more or less true, according to everything Phil has been told, but when Phil climbs in through the loose boards of the kitchen window, the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. He hesitates for so long on the sill that Chris pushes a bit at him, reminding him to move before some annoyed neighbour calls the police.

It's dim inside but not so dark that Phil's eyes strain; the streetlights and setting sun filter in through the boards and showcase the dust covering every surface.

Phil helps Sophie and then Chris through the window, PJ giving them boosts from the outside. They take the various bags from PJ and Sophie immediately pulls out the camera, ignoring the thuds that PJ's feet make as he launches himself up and clambers in like a monkey.

"Sexy," Chris drawls as PJ nearly tumbles onto his face. He's grabbing out equipment of his own, and so Phil is tasked with getting PJ through the window safely.

"At least I've got a modicum of upper body strength," PJ says. Neither of them are bothering to whisper, and that's making Phil anxious.

He can't put his finger on it, but... it doesn't feel like they're alone in here. There's probably someone hiding out from the chill of late October in one of the various empty rooms, and Phil's worst case scenario wheel is spinning so fast it's making him dizzy.

"Do you hear that?" Sophie asks, hushed. That stops PJ and Chris from continuing their bickering, and all three men freeze as they strain for whatever it is that Sophie's hearing. After a moment of complete silence, Sophie shakes her head. "It stopped. Hopefully the mic caught it over you lot."

PJ looks appropriately abashed, but Chris just shrugs. He's got a flashlight and an EMF meter, and he slings one of the bags over his shoulder before disappearing.

This is technically for Phil's channel - they're checking the place out, and Sophie is filming just in case something happens - but Phil still feels weird when PJ ducks off in another direction and Sophie stays at his side instead of following one of her boys, camera steady in her hands and the tip of her nose pink from the cool air.

"What did you hear?" Phil murmurs, beckoning her further into the house. The sound of creaking wood is so loud, like it's right above their heads, and Phil can only hope that it's one of his friends going upstairs.

"It could have been the wind," Sophie says mildly. "Or rats."

"Is that what it sounded like?"

Sophie blinks up at him and her mouth twists in an emotion that Phil can't place. "No. No, it sounded like a person talking."

Yeah, that's what Phil was afraid of. "Someone might be living here," he whispers, focusing on the dark hallway and trusting that Sophie is following.

The creaking again, this time from beside them, and Phil peeks his head around the corner to confirm that the staircase is what he's hearing. Chris is halfway up it, flashlight off between his teeth as he grips the railing like he's afraid the stairs are going to give out under him.

Phil hates this part. He'd rather do this completely alone than have to herd his friends like sheep. He leaves Chris to his own devices and moves into the lounge. This is where the majority of the litter is, empty bottles and cans and crisp bags everywhere. Phil takes a couple photos of it all and sends them to Martyn.

Remember your friend who used to bring a garbage bag to every party? Looks like he was the only one lol

He pauses. All too aware of Sophie's eyes and possibly the camera lens on him, Phil sends the photo to Winnie as well with a different caption: Does it always look like this?

Neither of them respond by the time Phil has picked his way through the first floor, which is at least good for his focus, but it doesn't explain why the house feels so much different than it had seven or eight years ago. Phil feels unsettled here in a way that he doesn't usually get anymore, goosebumps down his arms that aren't from the cold and the constant, unnerving feeling that someone is looking at him from the shadows.

Phil's phone buzzes as he and Sophie debate in whispers if they should go upstairs. Phil hates leaving anything to someone else, even if it's just a few rooms that surely PJ and Chris are capable of exploring on their own. He's in the middle of trying to explain that to Sophie when his voice catches in his throat.

"Peej says we should go," Phil says, interrupting himself. "He found something weird in the attic."

"What's he doing in the attic?" Sophie hisses.

"Dunno. I didn't even know there was an attic."

"We should go, then," says Sophie, like that decides it. Although it does rankle a bit to be lower on the totem pole of his own project, Phil has to admit that Sophie is right. If PJ is saying that it's time to go, then it's time to go.

Phil climbs out of the window first, taking the equipment with him, and then helps hoist Sophie safely down. She's so small that it's not even a strain, really, even with how little exercise Phil gets. They wait, huddled together, and Phil feels some of the knot in his chest start to loosen when he hears Chris and PJ arguing in whispers before the window boards get slid out of the way again.

"What did you find?" Phil asks immediately, and PJ hushes him on his way down.

"Let's go, I'll tell you at the café," he whispers, leading the way down the pavement with strides so purposeful that Phil wonders if he's been in this area before. It's all the rest of them can do to keep up with him, and Phil spares a moment to feel sorry for Sophie and her short legs.

He hangs back with her and lets Chris keep pace with PJ. Chris is still talking at a silent PJ in a hushed, passionate tone, like he's fighting with a brick wall, and Phil doesn't need to be involved in that.

The coffee shop is only a couple of streets away, but the tension that the Wilkins place and PJ's subsequent discovery has brought to the group makes it feel much further. PJ stops in front of a purple door, and Phil has a begrudging respect for his ability to remember where something is after simply being told the address. The shop is small and a little dingy, but the lighting inside is soft through the narrow windows and there's a fireplace that Phil longs to curl up in front of like a cat.

Chris scowls at PJ and holds the door open for him in the same breath. Phil doesn't understand their relationship and at this point he's too afraid to ask, but he ducks into the inviting warmth anyway to try to get the goosebumps off his skin.

The two employees behind the counter look at the door like they've been caught with their hands in a cookie jar. A girl with brightly-coloured hair is holding a bunch of marshmallows, a hand poised mid-throw, and an unreasonably tall guy with an unreasonably large mouth is gawping as one of the marshmallows hits him in the chin.

"You missed," Phil informs them, grinning a bit as he unwinds his scarf.

"Oops," the girl laughs, setting the marshmallows down and pulling up a customer service smile. "What can I get for you guys?"

While PJ and Sophie pore over the menu and Chris starts asking if she'll throw marshmallows into his mouth if he asks very nicely, Phil's eyes drift to the other worker.

His mouth is still open, a bit, and his face flushes when their eyes meet. "Er," he says, glancing behind him as if Phil is looking at someone else, and that's so endearing that Phil is sufficiently distracted from the mystery down the street.

Phil isn't extremely self-conscious or anything, but he also knows he's not going to be the hottest guy in a room, so he's a bit flattered and a lot confused about this guy's reaction to him.

The thing is, the guy is very attractive. A couple of perfect curls poke out from under his cap, and there's some type of shimmer on his face that Phil could not put a name to if you paid him. He knows literally nothing about makeup, but he knows that it makes this giant of a man look softer and his blush even more obvious when it deepens.

"Hi," Phil says, giving him a little wave. He can still hear Chris chattering on and Sophie debating the merits of a hot chocolate versus a cappuccino, so he's pretty sure nobody is paying them any attention. The guy twitches like he wants to look over his shoulder again, but he stops himself.

"Uh, hi? Sorry to be, like, weird, I just - I didn't expect -"

The voice is familiar, the rambling is familiar, and then it clicks. "Oh, hi," Phil says again, warmer this time. He steps closer to the counter and grins up at them - an unusual thing in itself, since Phil doesn't meet many people taller than him. "You didn't mention that you work here."

Winnie's shoulders slump forward in a kind of relief, and they scratch the back of their neck, looking awkward and out of place even in an outfit that coordinates with the colour scheme of the whole shop. Phil looks the uniform over and immediately regrets it, because he didn't mean to see Winnie's name tag and now he feels weird about knowing something he wasn't actually told. He doesn't feel too weird about being here, though, because - well. Winnie had technically invited him.

"Honestly, I didn't know you'd be 'investigating' so soon," says Winnie. They're still blushing and the finger quotes are somehow cute, even though they're being used to poke at Phil's career. Their nails are dark and sparkly, and Phil desperately needs to stop noticing things about their hands. "I would have told you, probably, or I'd just - I dunno, try to make a better first impression."

"You're making a fine first impression," Phil assures them.

Winnie snorts. "Oh, bullshit."

"Phil," PJ says, nudging him. Phil suddenly remembers that there are, in fact, other people around him, and he can't just keep looking at Winnie's long, dark eyelashes. "What are you having?"

Honestly, Phil hasn't even looked at the menu. He's so easily distracted by pretty boys with big hands and - oh, right, he's got to be careful about that, even in his own head. Especially in his own head. Winnie isn't a pretty boy, he really shouldn't be thinking about them like that at all.

"Uh," Phil says eloquently. He's very particular with his hot drinks, usually, but he's got a lot going on in his mind right now and it's easier just to shrug at Winnie than to look away and think. "Dunno, actually. Surprise me?"

Winnie smiles, and Phil's stomach twists. "I can do that."

[ashleaannya]

The 2200, Chapter 1

Everything for Kamiya started with a deep breath. She took a deep breath before writing her hit single “Marketplace,” an semi-autobiographical Indy rock ballad about how men (her exes) treated women’s bodies like a grocery store. It was a hit. “It resonated” was how Billboard described her riffs and runs about feeling like, quote, a “man’s meat market”, with no say in how she should be loved. That was five years, two Grammy’s and three tours ago. She still took a deep breath before approaching the microphone, before recording herself in the studio, and before giving her fans the BTS (Behind The Scenes) content her 35 million fans craved—no, demanded.

           “Let’s do this,” Kamiya said to her herself, breathing deeply and sitting on the goose feather bed in her presidential hotel suite. She adjusted her DSLR camera to better frame her upper body and flipped the lamps on the hotel suite’s end tables. The tripod creaked with newness as she made the micro-adjustments to get her and her hotel suite backdrop in perfect focus. It was a little dark, but it would fit the mood she was about to create for her fans.

           Her phone pinged and vibrated beside her as another thousand comments on her social media rang through. Text messages burst through as people who wanted her money, attention or both made their voices heard in all capital letters, exclamation points and emojis. Without looking away from the camera flip screen, Kamiya reached beside her and powered her phone off. She glanced over at her hotel door, looking at the silk and gold furnishings and designer dresses hanging on a rolling rack. Rows of flowers from athletes, and fellow musicians wanting to sleep with her wilted on a glass dining table designed to seat twelve. No one ever ate there. It was a reservoir for gifts and miscellaneous stuff. She lived in this room now. The floor of this hotel was more her space more than the three homes she paid ghastly mortgages. Kamiya’s eyes lingered on the cream colored double doors, making sure it was locked. What she was about to do would cause her team to beat her door off the antique hinges. By then it would be too late.

           The camera’s light flickered and then settled on a bright amber. Kamiya knotted her fingers in her lap seeing the word “REC” blink in the upper corner of the screen. It was time. She had already left written, detailed instructions for her manager, accounting team, design team, social media team, and news outlets she wanted to break the story. The courier would deliver her instructions in exactly one hour. The timing mattered. Her wishes were explicit and once her video aired, the necessary parties would have no choice but to honor her demands. There would be nothing to second-guess. The video especially would be very clear. She practiced how she would do it and even recorded herself doing mock versions of the act to make sure she would not loose her nerve.

           “You got this, Miya.”

           Kamiya also knew that nothing else “groundbreaking” would be going on in the social media sphere that would distract from her message. The good thing about being connected was other celebrities in her circle and members of famous teams (say a stylists or nanny) told her what dates to avoid. For example, when Kamiya’s second album was set to drop on Sept 1st, a friend of a friend whispered that she should not use that date because TMZ was about to report on an impending divorce. Divorces in her world were common enough, but this divorce was a megachurch pastor and there was digital evidence the break-up of his marriage was due to a transgendered mistress who had a massive social media following. Needless to say, she changed the date. Her album release would have been overshadowed and her release week would have been abysmal. She released a week earlier to the delight of her voracious following and debuted at number one on the Pop charts. The same connections would today make sure her choice went viral. This was her one life. She should get to live her life on her own terms. A tear fell down her cheeks, realizing that her freedom was on the other side of this post. She would have her body back, her mind, her music, her voice. Should she go live instead? That way people knew it was real.

           Kamiya jumped up off the bed and grabbed her laptop. She would record both. Just in case.

           “Hey guys,” Kamiya said, waving at the screen.

           The numbers in her Live Chat jumped from 300 to 3,000 to 2 million instantly. Kamiya swallowed. Her mouth was dry and her hands were damp with sweat. Texts jumped up on the bottom of the screen as her followers flooded the Live Chat with emojis, declarations of love, and sexual comments that would make a porn star blush.

           “Whoa, whoa, guys, this is going to be quick so I can’t answer a million questions right now—um, guys, whoa, um, no, no I can’t do a video chat with anyone. Thank you though that went bad last time,” Kamiya said, laughing awkwardly.

           She glanced up to make sure her camera was still recording. It was.

           “Ok. I have an announcement. I wanted to record it and make it all fancy, but my career started here, right?”

           Thumbs up emojis and hearts flooded the screen in unison. She smiled and tears pricked at her eyes, but she coughed and rubbed her eyes into her sleeves. People were commenting about how they had followed her since abandoned building days.

           “Wow, that’s a throwback. Um, for those who don’t know, let me explain all of the abandoned buildings comments.”

           Kamiya sat up and twisted her long curly extensions in around her fingers. She dug her nails into her spray-tanned legs, leaving pink nail marks. She was already black, but her team told her, going a shade darker would make her skin look even and was the ideal skin tone for her audience.

           “Ok. So most of the videos have been deleted because, well, I was fat then.”

           That comment was met with encouraging remarks and angry emojis. She felt relieved at that response. Then as if reading her mind, onscreen comments appeared. Some people were proud of her ‘healthy weight loss journey’. This pride flooded the comments. She ignored them. She was thin now with the dimensions of a doll, narrow waist and all. She ate 400 calories per day and had more cosmetic surgeries than a Kardashian. She was discrete about them and timed everything so it looked more believable, but nothing was healthy about her new body.

           “Um, yea. I actually started on social media for singing in abandoned buildings with my sister. She would record me singing in old churches and subways and other random places that were technically condemned but had great acoustics. That’s how I build my fan base and YouTube channel. A lot of people think it was from Marketplace, my first single, but I didn’t get attention until after my Abandoned Concerts page went viral or whatever.”

           The comments zoomed by so fast she could barely ready them. The emojis were all wide-mouthed shocked faces and then there were demands for her to post the old videos. Kamiya shook her head and laughed. She did not want to see her old body ever again. Kamiya froze seeing a familiar handle enter the Live Chat. It was @Camera_Cat, her sister. She was in the hotel lobby grabbing dinner and would likely be banging on her door at any moment. Everyone knew that Kamiya hated going live so Cat would be giving her the Catrina patent “WTF” face.

           “Okay, guys, real quick. I have an announcement,” Kamiya said, straightening her back and lowering her voice. She had to say this seriously or people would think she was playing a game. As you all know, I hate social media and, like, hardly ever post, because—well, let’s keep this all the way real, okay. You guys are trash.”

           Question marks and angry and shocked emojis flooded the screen at lightning speed. Kamiya smirked ready to drop every bomb in her arsenal before the grand finale.

           “Yes, you are. Half of you lie to yourself and to others every day and will never accomplish your dreams because you are inconsistent and talentless. There. Now you know.”

           Kamiya jumped hearing rapid knocking on her hotel room. She pulled her laptop closer and swallowed. She could hear her sister calling her name.

           “I don’t care if it hurts your feelings. It’s true. You aren’t loyal to yourself or your dreams so why should I expect you to be loyal to me or care about my mental health. I have done so much and sacrificed so much to make you bastards happy. I’m literally so damn lost right now I barely recognize myself. I hate having you guys around me.”

           Some of the comments were consolatory and others were curses and name-calling. Kamiya did not care. She was right and she would show them.

           “If half of you were forced to be honest about how jealous you are of my life before you could comment on my posts, you would never hate on me. You hate me because your dreams are dead and your work ethic is trash. Do you have any idea what I go through to be here. I’m supposed to be nice to you hateful bitches when you are all collective trash.”

           The banging on the door sounded like thunder. Muffled yelling echoed outside of the room. The voices were getting louder and Kamiya was glad the deadbolt was on because her sister and manager had keys to her room. Well, technically, they could access her room through the hotel app. The app could not work against a deadbolt and an old fashioned chain.

           “I’m being honest when I say I hate most of you. I wish you never heard of me. I wish I never shared my music with you. You don’t deserve me. I give so much to you people. You people who are supposed to be the woke generation. I hope you die alone.”

           Kamiya sat back and watching as the number of people watching her quadrupled. Screenshots of her and clips of her ‘rant’ would be viral in seconds. She smiled ready for the final blow.

           “Effective immediately, my social media is closed. My website is closed. My brands are closed. I am closed. You hear me? You no longer have access to me. You all have officially been fired from being my fans.”

           The word ‘no’ with about a hundred Os flooded the screen, followed by side-eye emojis and comments about her going crazy.

           “There is one exception,” Kamiya took a deep breath. “Moving forward, I am only accessible to 2200 loyal fans. I will hand select these people. If you look at my main page now, you will see that no one is following me and I am following no one. You will also notice that all of my posts are now gone. In one hour, my page will be private, so get your screen shots now. Yes, I’m talking to you Shade Room.”

           The number of people watching her, now exceeding the number of followers she had ever had on any platform. Tears pricked her eyes realizing she finally had their attention. The same question kept popping up: “How do I join the 2200?”

           “You don’t join. I choose you.”

           Kamiya slammed the laptop closed and fell backward on the overstuffed pillows of her European king bed. Phase one was complete. Now on to phase two.

[ineverhadmyinternetphase]

In My Way - Chapter 20

AO3 link, First Chapter

Genre: Chaptered. Actor!Dan AU, fluff, bit of angst, slow burn, getting together (eventually)

Summary: Fiction. Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.

Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.

Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor   Daniel Howell.

Warnings: Swearing, Ace!Phil, Bi!Dan, slight a- and bi-phobia, discussions of sexuality

Word Count: 3000-5000 per chapter (ish)

A/N: Aaaaand I’m finally back. I’m just going to go ahead and say updates will forever be slow for this fic :P BUT it’s only 25 chapters, so we’re getting there! Just five to go now (well, four and a sort of epilogue thing). Thanks to everyone sticking with this story/commenting/sending me messages about it, that means an awful lot <3

Also massive thanks once again to @mecaka for betaing this despite drowning in her own schoolwork!! You are the best <33

---

Dan looked good.

Phil had to admit it, begrudgingly. He was curled up on his bed with his laptop open under the covers, buried deep in his own blanket fort, watching the interview Dan had given that morning to promote the premiere of Last Man Standing. As he’d promised, the media attention was definitely growing leading up to the premiere, which was apparently going to be a big sparkly event attended by all the most prominent members of the film industry. There was even Oscar talk.

Ordinarily, Phil would have been grumbling about a big film company profiting from one of his favourite books, but, well. That would be slightly hypocritical, seeing as he’d watched most of it being filmed, and it looked good.

Plus, they had Dan, so. It was bound to be a success.

Dan in the interview looked smooth and comfortable, exactly in his element. Gone were all of the awkward mannerisms that Phil knew he had, aside from the way his fists were clenched over the skinny jeans he was wearing (black, of course). Dan also had his public voice on, sounding smooth and suave and nothing like the stuttering and rambling rants he went on in Phil’s presence.

Phil was slightly proud of that. That Dan was solely his.

Not three minutes into the interview, Phil’s phone buzzed with a series of texts.

Dan: are you watching it

Dan: you’re watching it aren’t you

Dan: tell the truth do I look like an idiot

Dan: hated the seat they put me in it felt like a thousand bees stinging my butt

Dan: as you would say

Dan: Phil this is killing me are you watching

Phil rolled his eyes, but it was hard to deny the affectionate little flip his stomach did. The Dan currently blowing up his phone notifications also didn’t sound much like the Dan in the interview, who was cool and joking and just the right side of confident. Phil struggled to believe he’d ever thought of Dan as arrogant. Now he saw it for what it was – nerves making him talk a lot, and a deep-set fear that he really wasn’t good enough for the life he’d found himself in.

Phil planned to take every opportunity to reassure Dan that he was perfect exactly as he was. Starting with a text back.

Phil: Yes I’m watching it cool your beans

Dan: Well am I doing alright have I fucked up yet

Phil: As if. You’re the epitome of professional. Plus you look cute

There was a beat before the next reply, which had Phil gnawing nervously on his lower lip. Ridiculously.

Dan: You have to say that (but thanks <3)

Dan: Call me after?

Phil grinned at that, texting back immediately of course. Calls would do, they were the best thing they had right now, and Phil had to admit it was a little ridiculous, the amount of time he spent on the phone to Dan. Whenever he wasn’t working at the bookshop or working on his thesis then he was on the phone. He hadn’t called his mum all week, but he’d called Dan at least twice every day.

Did he have a problem? Was this level of co-dependency normal in a healthy relationship? Phil honestly had no clue, what with having no scale or measurement or any previous experience to relate it to, but it didn’t feel bad. Quite the opposite. What felt bad was not talking to Dan, when the gaping hole he’d carved for himself in Phil’s life and then unceremoniously abandoned started to itch and ache and fray at the edges.

Phil turned back to the interview, but it wasn’t long before he found his attention drifting. He got caught up in the crinkles that were just a shadow at the corners of Dan’s eyes, the hint of his dimple appearing on his cheek, the way his hair was ever so slightly wavy from the heat of the lights. These were all things Phil knew well, had studied in their private moments, but – it was different, seeing them up on a screen like this.

Sometimes, because Phil hated himself, he’d search Dan on google images. The pictures that showed up were always heavily choreographed, shot in some fancy studio or other, or screenshots from his films. Phil’s favourites were still the screenshots from Reckless, the film he’d loved for longer than he’d known Dan, and that was weird to think about, to look back on a time where he’d loved one of Dan’s characters but not known Dan himself. It made something funny twist inside Phil, something almost like nostalgia. He longed for Dan in every way he knew.

Which was why, as soon as the interview was over, Phil was pulling up a skype tab and calling Dan.

Predictably, Dan answered straight away, still in his rumpled pyjamas with his hair a mess. “It was awful, wasn’t it, don’t sugar coat it,” he said before the screen had even loaded properly.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, how dare you ever appear on television,” Phil deadpanned.

“Shut up.” Dan glared at him, flopping over on his bed and dragging the laptop in closer. “Ugh, I’m the worst.”

“You are,” Phil agreed mildly.

“The lines were all wrong, they didn’t ask the questions in the order they told me, and I swear the interviewer wouldn’t stop looking at my left cheek – like just my left, why was she so obsessed? – and—”

“Your dimple is there,” Phil stated, as if it was obvious.

Dan shot him a slightly startled look.

“What?” Phil answered defensively. “It’s a nice dimple.”

“Glad to hear you approve.” Dan was smiling again, which was good, though he still looked a little bit distressed. “It was terrible.”

“You were perfect, as ever,” Phil assured him gently. “It’s as if you’ve been doing this for years.”

“You know I have,” Dan grumbled, but he looked mildly placated. He gave Phil a soft smile, one that just hinted at the creases at the corners of his eyes. “Missed you.”

“Me too.” Phil dragged his laptop further under the blanket fort with him, missing having something to wrap his arms around. He felt kind of hollow. “This whole being apart thing isn’t going too well.”

“For me neither,” Dan agreed. He looked a little shy through the grainy, pixelated screen, and the picture wasn’t clear but Phil thought he was maybe a little pink. “It’s almost the weekend, though.”

“Does that mean you get a breather from all the interviews?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded. His eyes darted up to meet Phil’s, and then away again, and he was squirming against the bedsheets. “I could. Um. I have some free time, so like… I could come up and visit.”

Phil’s eyes widened. “Don’t you have to be in London?”

“Well, I’m supposed to be.” Dan made a face, hastening to add, “But, like, I could get out of it for a weekend. There’s this thing where I’m supposed to be picking out a suit, and a few invites but I ignore them all anyway, and—”

Phil tuned out for a moment. Dan could be back here, actual and tangible and real, a person with a presence and a warmth and a scent, and Phil could have that. Phil could have him back. For however short it might be, Phil could have him back.

“But you aren’t supposed to leave London,” Phil interrupted Dan’s rambling.

Dan looked a little bit nervous. “Uh, yeah, but like I said, I could get out of it—”

“What if I came down to you?” The words were out before Phil could catch them.

Dan blinked, lips twitching as he stared straight through the camera. “Like, you’d visit here?”

“I mean, I could.” Phil hesitated, tracing every flicker of emotion across Dan’s face, worried he’d missed something or accidentally put his foot in it, or something. “I mean, my thesis is due by the end of the week so I’d have to leave Friday evening at the earliest, but—”

“But you’d come down to London?” Dan was staring at him with something like awe through the screen. It was a look Phil was having to become accustomed to, but sometimes it was a little hard to be looked at like he was the most amazing thing in the universe. Dan just thought so much of him, when Phil really didn’t think he was that special at all.

It was Phil’s turn to smile a little shyly at the camera. “Yeah. I’d come down to London.”

Dan’s entire face lit up.

“I mean, if I was welcome,” Phil hastily added, “And assuming everything goes well with my thesis, and you wouldn’t mind, and Tyler wouldn’t mind, then yes. I could stay the weekend.”

“Of fucking course you’d be welcome,” Dan answered, his voice light. “Tyler’s actually been bugging me about meeting you properly for weeks.”

“He’s met me on skype,” Phil said defensively. There was a little knot of worry balling up in his stomach. He’d never really met anyone from Dan’s world – not properly, aside from Louise perhaps. But Tyler was an old friend of Dan’s, someone important to him, and he actually scared Phil a little bit. Tyler was just very… exuberant.

“Yeah, but he says it isn’t the same.” Dan rolled a bit on his bed, curls flopping into his eyes as he peeked up at Phil. “I have to say, after this I’m inclined to agree with him. Not having you here isn’t fun.”

“I know,” Phil agreed. He cuddled up a bit smaller in his blanket fort. “But this weekend?”

“This weekend.” Dan’s face lit up again, all bright smiles and twinkling eyes and the crease of his dimple appearing again. “Five days. You’ll come down Friday evening?”

“Booking a train right now,” Phil agreed, and clicked straight over to the site to do so.

--

Why was finishing a thesis so hard? Phil had made a big mistake. Why had he stayed in education so long? Why hadn’t he gone out and got a proper job like PJ and the rest of their uni acquaintances? Literally no one else had stayed on to do a PhD apart from Matt, and he’d randomly decided to become an accountant four months in because it was too much hard work. Phil had made an error of judgement.

Well, at least, he thought so when he was busily reading through his entire thesis for the seventh time, furiously editing as he went. It had to be perfect. He was sending it off to be bound today, and it had to be quadruple checked for any errors and all his reasoning had to be perfectly outlined. His viva would happen afterwards, after all, and then he’d be sat down in a tiny room with two experts who were going to question him intensely on every single aspect of his thesis. And if he didn’t pass that, then he wouldn’t be graduating.

So his thesis was important.

Dan had already phoned him that morning, but Phil had actually hung up because he was too stressed to listen to Dan tell him about calming breathing techniques and ways to find inner peace when he was drowning in rows and rows of paper.

Phil’s phone buzzed just as he was figuring out the final bits of formatting, and he glanced down without really caring to see, to his surprise, a twitter notification from Dan.

@danisnotonfire: guys pls send @amazingphil some love his final day working on his thesis is here

Something in Phil’s chest tugged.

He hadn’t been expecting something like that. Today of all days, when he was stressed and cranky and he knew he’d been short with Dan on the phone earlier, but rather than getting upset and mad, Dan had instead done this. It was clingy and sweet, and Phil had a feeling that Dan just wanted to get attention from him somehow. But Phil was rather flattered by that thought. Especially when it resulted in this kind of sweetness.

Suddenly, Phil missed Dan even more than usual. He was glad he’d booked those train tickets earlier – just one more day and he’d be back in Dan’s space.

Slowly, he abandoned his laptop and instead scooped up his phone, glancing down to see a stream of replies already flooding in. Dan and he had calmed down a bit on twitter recently, tending towards texting and skyping each other instead of publicly announcing things (plus they weren’t in the same city anymore, which meant spontaneous photos had had to stop). But the same old people were back, replying once more to Dan’s tweet and tagging Phil in every response.

@dansfans123: @amazingphil good luck omg that is so exciting

@phantrash4ever: look at @danisnotonfire being a supportive bf gl @amazingphil

@dangirl98: @danisnotonfire @amazingphil thanks for brightening up my twitter again missed you guys

There was a dusting of something warm fluttering in Phil’s chest from all these messages. People on the internet who he didn’t even know were wishing him well – people who’d been following him for a while, sure, but no one he knew personally. He’d always thought they were just following him for his sneaky creepshot photos of Dan, anyway – he’d never expected to get this kind of support from them.

It was a surprise, but a welcome one.

With a little smile, Phil reached for his phone and sent a quick text to Dan before he went back to battling with his thesis.

Phil: thank you <3

Dan: no problem now go back to work

Phil did so, but it was with a smile on his face.

---

His thesis was over.

Phil was sweating when he finally sent the email with the finalised copy to the people who would bind it for him. He felt like he’d just run a marathon. Well, more like ten marathons back to back whilst being chased by a rabid baboon, but the fact still remained that he’d made it. His thesis was done. The biggest part of his PhD was finished, actually finished, and he thought he’d maybe even be proud of it after a few hours’ sleep and a shedload of coffee.

As it was, he sat grinning at his sent emails for probably too long before he finally set about the rest of his day.

Clearing away the giant piles of books was rather like saying goodbye to old friends. At least he could finally give Lilith back a lot of the books she’d lent him over the past four years, and maybe even actually get back to doing a few shifts at the store rather than spending his entire life buried in his documents. He’d missed the shop. Everything always felt peaceful there (never mind that it also contained some rather fond memories of Dan).

Speaking of Dan, Phil was going to have to start packing. He was heading off to London that evening, after all, a thought which had a tight little knot of nerves and excitement balling up inside his stomach. He was so excited to see Dan again, there was no denying that, but there was also the tiniest hint of fear tied in with everything else.

Well, maybe not tiniest – more like a growling monster threatening to grow bigger with every moment that Phil spent thinking about this weekend. Being with Dan again would be wonderful, yes, but there was everything else that came with it. Being in a big city, one Phil had only visited a few times before, away from his family and friends and everyone who knew him and made him feel safe. Aside from Dan, of course, who for some reason was the only person who Phil would move across the country for, because he made him feel safe.

Temporarily. There was no guarantee this was going to last, but… Phil would be lying if he wasn’t thinking about the future a lot while he set about throwing things into his suitcase.

Dan was a haphazard packer, but Phil was anything but. It was a difference he’d noted when Dan was first preparing to move back to London, once the film set up here had finished. For weeks afterwards, Phil’s flat had played home to a constant stream of Dan’s possessions that had taken up every corner of his flat, watching with despair as Dan threw them casually into his many cases. Dan had simply laughed at him, calling him overly worried, until Phil ended up walking away with a despairing shake of his head, letting Dan create whatever mess he desired within Phil’s life.

When Phil packed, it was ordered. He had everything folded up into neat little piles, and then proceeded to worry that he didn’t have everything he needed, or that he’d overpacked for just a weekend. But it was a weekend with Dan. It had to be perfect.

Phil was just putting in his favourite Stephen King book for the fifth time when his phone rang. The caller ID said Dan with one of the derpiest pictures Phil had taken during their Twitter creepshot war, so Phil was already smiling as soon as he hit ‘answer’.

“Did you hand it in?” Dan asked immediately, as soon as the ringing tone stopped.

Phil let out a loud sigh. “Do you have so little faith in me?”

“I don’t know, with the panic you were in earlier I had no idea,” Dan defended himself.

Phil couldn’t even be mad. He was already smiling just from hearing Dan’s voice, and he caught himself pressing his phone tighter to his ear, as if that would somehow make Dan be closer. “Yes, I handed it in.”

“I knew you could do it.” Dan sounded smug. “And you were sooo stressed about it.”

“I’m the one who’s entire life is dependent on this going well,” Phil grumbled. “I think I can be allowed to stress.”

“Of course, you’re absolutely right, stress is of course allowed.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Would I do that?” Dan chuckled. “Have you packed?”

“Staring at my suitcase right now,” Phil promised, settling on sliding the Stephen King book back into its bookshelf. He wouldn’t need it in London when there was a Dan to keep him occupied.

Dan made an odd sort of squealing noise down the line.

Phil grinned. “Same.”

“I’m going to be waiting on the platform when your train gets in,” Dan promised, and there was so much eagerness in his tone that it made Phil’s chest tug.

Every the practical one, though, Phil answered gruffly, “Isn’t that impossible? You won’t have a ticket, the barriers—”

“Do you think barriers can stop Daniel Howell,” Dan scoffed. “Speaking of which, we should talk about what might happen.”

Phil arched a brow. “That sounds serious.”

“It is, kind of.”

Phil stepped away from the suitcase in favour of settling down on his sofa cushions, feeling the sofa groan as it took his weight. Everything in this flat was old – he’d been here almost four years, it was tired and full of nothing but his student life. Hardly a home, really.

Home was the other person on the phone.

“I’m just aware that there may be… people on the platform who might… recognise us.” Dan sounded sheepish, a little nervous even, but his words were a bit of a relief to Phil. Phil had been imagining all sorts of bad scenarios from the moment Dan said it was serious – like, hey Phil, actually I don’t want you to come to London at all, see you never again!

But that didn’t seem to be the case. Dan would probably laugh at him if Phil admitted to even thinking that in the first place.

“Oh.” Phil sighed, but tried to keep the levels of relief in his voice fairly normal. “Well. Ok then.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” Dan was torn between sounding amused and annoyed.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” Phil scratched at his hair. “I mean, I’m kind of used to the idea that being around actual Dan Howell means people are going to stare.”

“But are you ok with that?” Dan sounded concerned, more than Phil had been expecting. “I mean – we haven’t properly talked about it.”

“We can talk about it tonight, if you like.”

“That’s a bit late.” Nerves were evident in Dan’s tone. “I mean, like, we’ll have already been seen out in public, probably. But I really want to meet you at the station.”

Phil deliberated over that for a while, considering what Dan was really getting at. A part of Phil wanted to tease Dan for thinking he was important enough to be spotted even on a quick trip out to a train station, but the other part of Phil knew that Dan was probably right – hardly a day passed when Dan wasn’t getting photographed with some fan on Twitter.

Phil wasn’t jealous. Not really.

He also wanted Dan to meet him at the station.

“We can talk about it tonight,” Phil decided. “And you can meet me at the station. Nothing too bad can happen between the station and your place, right?”

“...Right,” Dan agreed after a moment, if a little hesitantly. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” Phil said, a lot more decisively than he felt.

---

The closer the train got to London, the more Phil’s nerves increased, until he felt rather like there was some kind of giant fluff monster trying to fight its way out of his stomach. Leaning his head against the cool window helped to settle his nausea some, but Phil was still feeling distinctly less than well as the train started to slow on its approach into the station.

Dan would be waiting there. On the platform, if he had indeed managed to wangle his way past the security barriers without a ticket (Phil wouldn’t put it past him, that face of his was annoyingly charming). Either way, very shortly Phil would be back in Dan’s space, and he was – honestly, he was terrified.

It had never felt this difficult in Manchester. There, Phil was at home, he’d never been the one to move into Dan’s world. No, Dan had always been the one visiting Phil, invading his spaces with his breezy charm and hasty personality, eyes dark and usually glittering with some annoying plot or other. Phil had got used to it, having Dan around, and not having him around left this awful ache that just kind of congealed inside Phil’s chest.

But this – travelling to Dan’s space, preparing to see him again – this was also just terrifying. Phil knew, logically, that he was being irrational – this was still just Dan, after all, his Dan – but that didn’t stop him from rolling around in nerves. Dan was Daniel Howell, so far out of his league it was basically a joke. Surely in these few weeks apart, Dan would have realised that he could have so much more than Phil could give.

He told you you’re enough, Phil reminded himself. He just wished that was easier to believe.

The train pulled to a halt. Phil got shakily to his feet (his knees were actually trembling, what was this), scooped up his rucksack, and joined the throng of people battling their way off the train and onto the platform. He felt awkwardly tall, as ever, and wished for Dan to be there to at least match his ridiculous height.

It took what felt like ages to get off the train, with all the commuters going to London, and the platform was crowded when Phil finally stepped down onto the concrete. The noise of the crowds sounded like a faded buzz to Phil, though, who was already scanning the crowd for another awkwardly tall, fringe-bearing human who would probably be lurking in a dark corner somewhere.

Sure enough, one glance around the station revealed a black-clad figure sequestered away under the stairs, near the lift. Phil was breaking into a smile before he realised. Dan looked just the same as ever – his Dan, not the Dan that appeared in TV interviews. No, this Dan had his head down and his fringe falling into his eyes, his shoulders bent in posture almost as bad as Phil’s own, hiding away from the crowds other than quick darting looks he sent towards the train.

One on such quick darting look, he caught sight of Phil. Phil’s smile widened instantly, and he lifted one hand in an awkward half-wave. It was different, seeing Dan here, in public when they were deliberately meeting. It made Phil almost… shy.

Dan, it seemed, had no such qualms. The minute he caught sight of Phil, he was striding across the platform with purpose in his steps, but a smile just gracing the corner of his lips. Phil reached for him automatically as soon as he was close enough, but their conversation earlier was enough to make him hesitate – what if there was someone watching? So in the end, Phil ended up just kind of tugging on the edges of Dan’s sleeves in lieu of actually holding his hand.

Dan grinned and tugged on Phil’s sleeve in return. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Phil was a bit breathless. “Wasn’t sure you’d charm your way onto here.”

“Never doubt my charms,” Dan admonished him, giving another tug on Phil’s sleeve. He was smirking, that stupid expression that made him look arrogant, but Phil could read the slight nerves dancing behind his eyes.

Phil could understand that.

“You’re ridiculous,” Phil ended up telling him. “And a pain, and I thought I’d never see you again.” He tugged once more at Dan’s sleeve, and then took one more step forward, right into Dan’s space. They weren’t touching, but Phil could finally breathe him in again, cement the fact that this was somehow real.

Dan was smiling, holding back a grin if the tightness to the edges of his mouth was anything to go by. He ducked his head a bit, nudging in closer, and murmured, “Of course you’d see me again, you spork.”

“I don’t know,” Phil confessed quietly. “Figured you’d have found someone more your level down here in the big city.”

“Better than you northerners,” Dan agreed, but he tightened his grip on Phil’s sleeve anyway. “Come on. I want to take you home.”

Phil could feel the tightness in his chest already receding just at those words. That fluff monster of nerves that had been trying to fight its way out of his stomach all day finally disintegrated, slowly, leaving him relaxed and feeling secure again.

So, with another deep breath, Phil reached out and took Dan’s hand in his own.

He felt Dan startle a bit, saw the way Dan turned his head with a questioning glance to Phil, but Phil just nodded his head firmly. “Home. Take me there.”

A beat of silence followed, but then Dan’s face relaxed into his open, easy, crinkly-eyed smile – Phil’s favourite. “Alright. Home.”

He kept his hand in Phil’s as he led him out of the station.

---

In all the nerves about getting to London and seeing Dan again, Phil had kind of… forgotten that Dan had a flatmate.

Tyler Oakley was larger than life, bouncing around the room like an excited weasel and leaving a whirlwind of order in his wake. The kitchen was so clean it almost sparkled, the sofa cushions were plumped and soft and arranged with aesthetic looking cushions, and the whole place smelled like flowers and lemon.

Phil blinked upon walking in, and then turned straight to Dan. “There is no way this is your doing.”

Dan looked vaguely affronted, which honestly just made the whole thing better.

Tyler shook Phil’s hand enthusiastically upon meeting him, looked him up and down in a way that made Phil shift a bit uncomfortably, and then turned to Dan with an approving nod. “I give you leave to like him.”

“Bit late for that,” Dan answered wryly, giving Phil’s hand in his a squeeze. “But thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Phil added stupidly, and then wanted to burst into embarrassed flames.

Tyler, thankfully, just smirked at him with that odd thin-lipped smile, eyes twinkling. “And if you can put up with Dan for multiple hours when he’s working on set, then I know you’re already a saint, so.”

“I am not that bad,” Dan huffed.

“No?” Tyler turned to Phil. “Did he do that thing to you where he fell asleep in random inconvenient spaces?”

Phil arched a brow. “Yes, actually. In my bookshop.”

Tyler sent Dan a triumphant look. “And get you out walking at random hours so he wouldn’t have to be lonely?”

“I got many 5am calls,” Phil agreed with a heavy sigh.

“I hate you both,” Dan announced. “Officially.”

“Ooh, we’re terrified.” Tyler winked at Phil, and then proceeded to flick the hob on.

Tyler was a good cook, to add to his many talents, and he didn’t mind wittering on about nothing important while Dan and Phil curled up together on the sofa. Phil listened occasionally, feeling a bit bad about ignoring someone he’d only just met, but it was hard to focus on Tyler’s stories about stage make-up when he had Dan crawling rather determinedly into his lap.

“Do you mind,” Phil grumbled, but Dan just hushed him and got settled a bit more comfortably.

“There,” Dan said, with great satisfaction, and laid his head on Phil’s lap.

Phil pretended to grumble for a moment more, but he couldn’t keep it up for long when Dan was wriggling about and warm and here. They were in the same space again, and Dan had wasted absolutely no time crawling back into Phil’s space, attaching them together firmly and simultaneously quieting all of Phil’s fears that this wouldn’t last, that he wouldn’t be enough.

It didn’t take long for Phil’s fingers to find their way into Dan’s hair, which only made Dan melt more against him. When Tyler next turned around, it was to find the two of them cuddled up close, hands held, Dan’s head in Phil’s lap, Phil leaning down over him with the softest little smile on his face.

Tyler smiled at both of them, and went back to cooking dinner.

Having Dan back in his space was the best thing Phil had ever felt. He’d known he’d missed Dan, but it hadn’t quite felt as real or visceral as this before. When he had Dan’s hair under his fingers, Dan’s breath warm against his wrist, the warm weight of Dan’s torso sprawled across his lap, it was hard to remember what the empty space without him there had felt like. The unsettling ache that had burned its hole into Phil’s chest was placated somewhat when he had Dan so close.

Even when they ate, Dan made sure to keep touching Phil whenever was possible – a brush of the shoulder, a quick grip to his finger between courses (because Tyler was ridiculous and had cooked a full four courses, despite Dan insisting it wasn’t necessary, Tyler said he wanted a proper greeting for Dan’s Boyfriend). Phil appreciated it, even if the way Tyler’s gaze lingered on the two of them occasionally made him uncomfortable.

Phil tried to put it to the back of his mind. It was easier to do that than he’d imagined, what with Dan still insisting on lying on him at every possible opportunity.

The meal went well, and Tyler was surprisingly easy to get along with. At first, Phil found his brash, quick nature a bit difficult to get along with, but Dan and Tyler had a sort of easy banter that it was easy to listen to, so Phil fit himself in around that (and tried not to get jealous of how easily Tyler was able to tease Dan. Phil wanted to do that, too).

They cleared up together, but then Dan tugged at Phil’s hand rather determinedly and turned to Tyler, saying rather firmly, “We’re going to my room now.”

Tyler arched a brow at the both of them. “Will I need earplugs?”

Phil sputtered, but Dan spoke over him smoothly enough. “Don’t be a shithead.”

Tyler shook his head, backing up a bit to wave them on through. Phil did everything he could not to meet his eyes. He was sure his cheeks had gone a disgusting red colour, but Dan was still tugging on his hand, so he felt slightly more sheltered than before. Besides, he was quite looking forward to curling up with Dan without worrying about what Tyler was doing.

Heading into Dan’s room was oddly familiar, if only from the background to many skype calls. Phil instantly recognised the black and grey pillows on his bed (so depressing and so typically Dan trying to be cool), the soft fluffy blanket he had thrown carelessly across his bed sheets, the shelf in the corner of the room that housed many anime DVDs as well as a few of Dan’s own films.

Phil grinned a bit when he saw them. “A fan of yourself, are you?”

“Shush, someone has to buy them,” Dan grumbled. He’d already sprawled himself across his bed and was making grabby hands at Phil, accompanied by a pathetic little whining noise.

Phil bit his lip to try and hide his grin. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Stop being a dick and get over here,” Dan grumbled. “It’s been ages.”

Phil would have argued, but he was really itching to be back with Dan again too, so he just let out a put-upon sigh and crawled up onto the bed with Dan. Dan immediately attached himself to Phil, which was really quite ridiculous seeing as they were both tall lanky humans who didn’t really fit, but Dan was insistent and Phil wasn’t complaining.

They ended up a tangle of limbs, Dan sprawled mostly on top of Phil with his head nestled on Phil’s chest, just over Phil’s heartbeat. Phil wrapped both his arms around Dan’s back and squeezed, placing his face into Dan’s hair for just a moment.

“Missed you,” he confessed, which made Dan give a little wriggle against him.

“Missed you too,” Dan answered in his softest inside voice. Looking down at him, it was hard for Phil to imagine this as the same human who’d been smooth and suave in an interview on TV just a few days ago.

This Dan and Daniel Howell didn’t always match up in Phil’s head.

But he would learn. And besides, Phil really quite liked this Dan, so he squeezed him tight again and nestled his face into Dan’s hair.

“You’ve done nothing but cling at me since I got here,” Phil remarked casually into Dan’s hair.

Dan made some kind of muffled snorting noise into his shirt. “Are you complaining?”

“Never.”

“Good.”

Phil chuckled softly, jostling Dan a bit, and squeezed him close.

Dan blinked up at him, a question furrowing his brow. “So earlier, at the station, what did you mean?”

Phil tilted his head. “Uh, you might have to be a bit more specific?”

“When you said you thought you’d never see me again.”

Phil bit his lip. “Oh. That.”

“Yeah.” Dan shoved at him. “That. I wanted to ask you all through dinner, but—”

“Tyler,” Phil supplied wryly.

“Tyler.” Dan agreed. “So what did you mean?”

Phil let out a sigh. He debated for a moment just how honest to be, how much he should let Dan in. But Dan had already seen everything of him – and Phil had literally travelled across the country for him. It should be safe enough, shouldn’t it? Phil should feel secure enough to say this.

And the odd thing was, he did. With Dan there, back in his arms, it was much easier to feel secure.

“I don’t know,” Phil finally murmured. “I just – when you were in Manchester, right there every day, it was easy to think about this. About you. But when you were gone—”

“Are you saying you never thought about me when I was gone?” Dan demanded indignantly.

“No, no, of course not – I mean – you were always on my mind, but in a bad way.”

Dan squawked.

“Not bad bad,” Phil hastened to rescue the conversation. “I mean like – it was hard to imagine it had happened at all when you weren’t there.”

Dan tilted his head up enough to send Phil a hard stare.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Phil defended himself. “It was easy to imagine you never looking at me twice again, you’re actual Dan Howell.”

Dan continued to stare at him, though the look had turned into one of consideration. Thoughtfully, he answered, “We really need to work on your insecurities.”

“Thanks,” Phil grumbled gruffly.

“And you’re an idiot,” Dan added casually as if Phil hadn’t spoken. “Do you really think I could look at anyone else when you’re just sitting around in the north waiting for me?”

Phil hid a smile in Dan’s hair. “It just didn’t seem believable when you were on TV instead of sprawled all over my lounge.”

“I do not sprawl.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Not sprawling,” Dan grumbled, even as he shifted to be more comfortably settled on top of Phil.

Phil chuckled, squeezing his arms tight around Dan’s body. “If you say so.”

“Can you be quiet now,” Dan mumbled into Phil’s shirt, wriggling and stretching out and burying his face more firmly into Phil’s shirt. “Only get to have you here for so long, would rather not spend that time together bickering.”

“So you want me to be a faceless lump for you to sprawl on,” Phil deadpanned, chuckling again when Dan whacked at him. He pressed his face back into Dan’s hair and breathed him in, and really, he wasn’t complaining about this either.

Dan was right, after all. They only had this weekend, and Phil would really like to just hide from the rest of the world for a little while and focus only on having Dan back in his space.

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