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imnotinclinedtomaturity · 5 years ago

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Love Yourself: Chapter 35

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 5.5k story words: 289k (so far) chapter: 35/? rating: e warnings: language, alcohol, sex mentions, some bi/homophobia, eventual explicit smut, some depression, consensual d/s undertones genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn [[ao3]] [[first chapter]] [[previous chapter]]

a/n: hello all! apologies for the VERY long wait. i had this chapter in basically this exact same condition a MONTH ago and didn't post because i intended to be nice and add to it. however, i kept NOT, because tbh i'd always planned to end the chapter here, and didn't want to end it here just because of the long wait, and then the wait became longer... and then it became a whole cycle.

but i had an impulsive moment tonight, and basically demanded the ever-lovely elizajane's attention and cleaned it up for posting. i knew i'd just sit on it for ages if i didnt post, and the odds of adding it to it was probably low. now that it's out there, the odds of me moving forward and writing shoot up dramatically haha.

thank you each and every one of you for your never-ending and ever-present support. i love how patient and enthusiastic you are, even when i make you wait literal months for a chapter. my work life has been very hectic lately (i'm applying for a big thing this fall and it's a lot of time and effort and writing), but i promise i'm dedicating actual time in the next week to actually sitting down and sketching out how i want to get from here to the intended ending. i want everyone to experience the ending i have in my head for this fic, and i wanna figure out how to make that happen for all of us.

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Taking a break from the world and enjoying each other’s company was a wonderful decision. And sure, they had spent half the day working, but they’d been working together. In bed. Alone.

This was a development that Phil was very okay with. For one, working in bed was a lot more comfortable than the chairs at B&G. And while skype calls were better than the coffee shop, where Phil was at least able to sit on his sofa instead of a stiff chair, they didn’t hold a candle to this setup. Because in this new arrangement, Phil had been able to reach out and touch Dan anytime he’d wanted. And Dan could touch him back — in fact, Dan had spent the majority of the day touching him back.

Plus, once they’d finished their work, they’d been able to set computers and journals and pens aside and focus on each other. Three hours, a nap, and another round of making out later, Phil was feeling… content. He couldn’t quite place the feeling. It was domestic and warm, nice in a way he hadn’t ever really experienced before. In a way he very much wanted to experience for as long as possible.

It had been a solid twenty minutes, maybe thirty — Phil couldn’t see the clock from his current position — since Dan had settled in Phil’s arms again, arm looped around Phil’s bare waist, head tucked into Phil’s shoulder. For a while, Dan had been tracing faint, tickling designs on Phil’s side, but somewhere along the way, the movements had stopped. Phil was beginning to wonder if Dan had fallen asleep again. It wouldn’t have been that surprising; in fact, it might have been the only explanation for Dan being this quiet and this still for this long. Quiet and still weren’t exactly Dan’s normal behavior.

Curious, Phil grazed his fingers up and down Dan’s arm, keeping his touch light enough that it wouldn’t wake Dan if he was asleep, but just enough that Dan would still be able to feel it if he was in fact awake. Phil was surprised when Dan let out a quiet hum. Stilling his fingers, Phil turned his head to peek at Dan’s face. His eyes were closed, but his lips were quirked up into a small smile, giving away the fact that he was undoubtedly awake. Awake — and maybe, just maybe, happy. Phil’s mouth twitched up into a small smile of his own — Dan’s happiness made him happy.

“That felt nice,” Dan murmured, just a smidge of petulance in his voice. Phil took the hint and resumed gently stroking Dan’s arm. “Good boy,” Dan mumbled, so quiet that Phil could barely hear him.

Chuckling, Phil bit back a quip about how Dan was the good boy here, because now didn’t seem like the right time for that. Now was too soft of a moment to have a serious conversation about it, and it certainly wasn’t the right moment to… derail with sex. It was too nice. So instead, Phil relaxed quietly and let his fingers draw aimless paths from Dan’s shoulder to his wrist, enjoying the moment.

“This is nice,” Dan murmured again, this time sounding nothing but pleased as he wiggled closer to Phil, his head burrowing ever so slightly deeper into Phil’s shoulder and his grip tightening just a hair.

“It is,” Phil agreed lowly, as if speaking too loudly would shatter the moment.

A beat of silence passed between them, and Phil wondered if Dan was just as reluctant to break the reverie as he was.

But the silence couldn’t last forever — Phil didn’t expect that it could. A few minutes later, Dan was tilting his head up to look at Phil, his eyes already filled with dread. “I’m beginning to feel a bit badly about ignoring the rest of the world, though.” Dan didn’t sound like he felt guilty, his voice the same serene, easy tone as before.

“Get up on the count of three?” Phil offered, stilling his hand on Dan’s bicep.

“I don’t feel that bad,” Dan whined with an exaggerated eyeroll.

Phil giggled at the adorable manchild in his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of Dan’s head, his fingers once again resuming their path. “You can count at whatever pace you want, silly old bear.”

Dan’s gaze softened, and his lips shifted from an immature pout to a playful smirk. “Fine, but we’re starting at negative five,” he compromised smugly, sounding sure that he’d gotten the best of Phil.

“Deal,” Phil agreed readily. His desire to move Dan was half-hearted at best, really only driven by Dan’s ambivalent efforts to get up.

Dan, apparently satisfied with Phil’s response, settled his head back into the crevice of Phil’s neck, and looped his arm snugly around Phil’s stomach. Burrowing his head closer to Phil’s chest, Dan murmured a quiet and unconvincing negative four.

It took Dan fifteen minutes to count to zero, and another ten to get to three. True to their agreement, though, Dan pushed himself up and out of Phil’s arms as he called out the last number. Seeming to capitalize on his momentum, Dan swung his legs to the floor and climbed out of the bed, swiping both their phones off the nightstand.

“Is it time?” Phil asked, unable to curb his reluctance, even as he caught his phone when Dan threw it at him.

“It’s time,” Dan confirmed, still standing by the bed. He didn’t sound any more pleased about it than Phil felt, but he was already in the process of unlocking his own phone, so Phil figured there was no escaping reality at this point.

Pressing his thumb to the home button, Phil unlocked his phone, only getting as far as his home screen — where there were approximately fifty thousand notifications — before he was sidetracked by a sharp what the fuck from Dan.

For a second, Phil was torn on what to do first. It seemed like every app had at least a dozen notifications — and some had literally hundreds. His finger froze, debating if he should open his email or twitter or instagram or tumblr or messages or whatsapp or —

Jesus, even Phil’s calendar app had notifications. That never happened, not outside of previously-discussed meeting invitations at least.

“What in the actual fuck?” Dan muttered, drawing Phil’s attention up; Dan, and his confused distress, seemed like a better place to start than the notifications anyway. Everyone else in the world could wait — and not just because they weren’t right in front of Phil.

“What is it?” he asked, trying his best to keep the apprehensive fear out of his voice (and doing a bang up job of it, he was certain).

“I— someone— last night—” Dan stopped and started several times, his voice growing higher and higher pitched with every attempt, his eyes still focused on his screen. Each start gave no more insight to his increasing distress than the last.

“Dan,” Phil urged, his voice just this side of commanding. He was nervous and increasingly worried, and his anxiety was already getting the best of him.

“There’s— picture,” Dan finally spat out, voice strangled, panicked.

Realization — and his own fair share of fear — washed over Phil, a deep sense of dread churning in his stomach as his mind flashed through image after erotic image of what could have been photographed from last night: Dan blushing at the table while they talked about rimming, Dan straddling his lap in the club and grinding down, Phil pressing Dan against the bar and feeding him limes in the most suggestive way possible, Dan grinding his arse into his crotch and dancing on a crowded and anonymous dance floor…

Phil’s imagination was saved the effort of conjuring up more wonderful but wildly inappropriate memories by Dan thrusting his phone into Phil’s face, far too close for Phil to actually focus on the image on the screen. Calmly, or at least in some version of what Phil hoped seemed calm but probably wasn’t, Phil plucked the phone out of Dan’s hand and held it at a reasonable distance, preparing himself for the worst.

His eyes adjusted, and he took in the picture.

The first thing Phil noticed was that the photo was dark and grainy, but there was no mistaking it was them, not with Dan’s brown curls and dark clothes, and Phil’s dark quiff and brighter outfit. Still, it was far better than any of Phil’s fears — it wasn’t from the restaurant or the club or the dance floor, they weren’t grinding or kissing or teasingly touching each other.

The picture didn’t scream platonic friends, but at the same time, there wasn’t anything explicitly confirmatory about it. There were no obvious hickeys, no lips pressed against lips or throats or collarbones, no hands straying to explicitly private parts.

There was still a shred of plausible deniability.

Oddly enough, the picture seemed to capture the same thing Dan’s new lyrics had — the softer, more romantic and gentle part of the night, the part where they’d sunk into each other. The part where they were full of lust, but undoubtedly full of something else, too.

No, the photo wasn’t some dirty, grainy shot of them at their horniest. It was taken from the back, which explained why they hadn’t noticed the photographer — although the absurd amount of alcohol probably explained that equally as well. They were stopped at a crosswalk, standing side-by-side on the corner, their arms looped around each other’s waists.

Or, well, Dan’s arm was looped around Phil’s waist. Phil’s arm was a bit — a lot — lower. His hand wasn’t so much gripping Dan’s hip as it was the side of his arse.

The placement of Phil’s wandering hand wasn’t great, but compared to their faces…

Dan’s head was tipped sideways onto Phil’s shoulder, chin angled up so his mouth was very obviously accessible for Phil’s. Phil’s own face was turned to look at Dan, bent down at an unnatural angle, his expression a blurry picture of fondness.

Phil couldn’t help but wonder why the photographer — whoever they were — shared this moment, and not the one immediately after. The moment where Phil was nearly certain he’d closed the small distance between them and kissed Dan’s begging lips.

It looked coupley, of course it did, it couldn’t not. But there was room to spin it.

Probably.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Phil schooled his face into a neutral expression and lowered the phone — not that it mattered that much; it wasn’t like Dan’s phone was big enough to hide Phil’s entire face, and Phil was certain that his initial expression hadn’t been the most… composed of all reactions he could have had.

“Okay,” Phil said shortly. His one-word response was clipped, monotone. Drawing a deep breath, he tried his best to sound a bit more alive, a bit more positive, when he continued. “Could’ve been worse, all things considered.”

There. That was a true statement.

Dan raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, shrugging his shoulder in a noncommittal I guess fashion. He snatched his phone out of Phil’s hand and studied the picture for a second longer before looking back up to Phil.

“You can’t tell if either of us are hard, I guess that’s something,” Dan finally conceded. He pursed his lips, his mouth scrunching to one side as he stared harder at his screen.

“True,” Phil agreed, genuinely thankful for the small victory — he knew he’d been at least semi-hard for a large part of the previous night, and he was pretty sure the same went for Dan, too. Phil’s branding could handle some drunk walking and cuddling with a friend (or someone more, his audience didn’t need to know the specifics). He wasn’t sure how well his branding would mesh with stiff cocks and hot lips and groping hands, though.

Twirling his own phone between his thumb and forefinger, Phil trained his gaze on Dan’s face, carefully watching for any minute hint of emotion. Dan’s expression was steadfastly neutral, albeit pinched, though, making it nearly impossible for Phil to read what Dan was thinking.

“What next?” Phil finally relented when the silence went on for too long. The desperation to do something — whether it was responding to every single tweet they’d been tagged in or deleting every contact who’d messaged them about the picture — was gnawing at Phil’s nerves and his fingers were itching to do anything at this point.

Antarctica could be nice, Phil thought. At least penguins were cute. And probably easier to please than excited fans.

Dan sighed, dropping his attention back down to his phone. “I reckon we should start by seeing what people are saying,” Dan mumbled, already tapping about on his phone as he collapsed back onto the bed, his back leaning against the headboard, his side pressing up alongside Phil’s. “No point in talking ‘bout what we want to do until we know what everyone’s thinking.”

“Great,” Phil agreed, an uncharacteristic note of sarcasm creeping into his response — maybe it was from being around Dan so much, or maybe it was the only way he could cope with the severity of the current situation. “Reading through all my twitter mentions is exactly what I want to do right now,” he huffed, punctuating his complaint with an eyeroll.

Dan and his sass were definitely beginning to rub off on him.

Whining aside, both Dan and Phil opened their twitters. Phil swiped directly over to his mentions, impatience getting the best of him. Almost all of them mentioned Dan too, and a not-insignificant portion were in response to the original tweeted picture of them. Phil had learned from experience: the more people responded to the source of gossip, the more people the gossip reached.

As Phil scrolled through his tweets, he gathered that most people's reactions were positive — ranging from excited keyboard smashes to multi-tweet threads of encouragement, support, and firm warnings to respect his and Dan’s privacy. Somewhere in between the extremes, though, were a bunch of overly intrusive, speculative tweets that had Phil groaning. There were tweets that tried to guess at the context of the photo, tweet threads that in-depth speculated on the nature of his and Dan’s relationship, back-and-forth tweets arguing about the timeline of their romance.

It was too much to keep reading, and besides, Phil had well gotten the gist of it all by now. He glanced over at Dan, mainly to see his reaction, only to find that Dan was scrolling through a hashtag that Phil had only noticed in passing, not fully registering its popularity.

#Phanconfirmed

“There’s a hashtag?” Phil asked wearily, despite the fact that between his feed and Dan’s screen, the answer was obvious.

“It’s trending,” Dan confirmed, his voice still flat as he scrolled through page after page of tweets. “Worldwide,” he added.

“Fuck,” Phil mumbled, incapable of much else at this moment. Dan might have been hung up reading tweets in the hashtag, but Phil was pretty certain he didn’t have it in him at this moment in time. Closing out of the app, Phil switched over to his calendar, then his voicemail, then his messages.

Just from the badges on the apps, Phil knew it’d be bad. All things considered, though, he wasn’t nearly as prepared as he should have been. “I’ve got eight missed calls, five voicemails, and three virtual meeting invites from my manager,” Phil said, half to himself and half to Dan. “And a rather demanding text.”

And those weren’t even counting the ones from PJ and Martyn and his mum. Now definitely didn’t seem like the moment to deal with those.

“Shit,” Dan cursed under his breath. “I should probably check mine, too,” he conceded, this time a little louder.

Phil tore his eyes from his screen — he didn’t particularly want to keep staring at Marianne’s assertive call me asap message anyway — and watched as Dan tapped through his own phone and message apps.

“Sixteen calls, nine voicemails, and ten texts from Louise,” Dan read off unnecessarily, still sounding like he was in a state of shock. Tapping back to his full message list, Dan continued, “Adaline texted five times, too. I’m sure those aren’t hunting for gossip at all,” Dan huffed, dropping his phone and burying his face in his hands.

Phil made a sympathetic noise. His brother wasn’t much of a gossiper, but his whole family knew Martyn was more likely to get dirt out of Phil than anyone else, so he was willing to bet his brother’s texts had the same intentions as Dan’s sister’s.

Dan rubbed his face, clearly agitated. “Fuck, I don’t even want to think about what my parents are saying — I kind of put a moratorium on discussing my love life with them.”

As much as that statement piqued Phil’s interest, he couldn’t bring himself to focus on it right now; his mind was too focused on his own parents — and the fact that he'd barely gotten around to telling his mum anything. He’d shot her a text while they were waiting to board their plane to New York, just a vague message about how she might be seeing his name pop up in celebrity gossip columns and yes he was dating someone and no he didn’t have time to call her and regale her with the details right then. That definitely wasn’t enough anymore, not given the fact that there was now actual photographic evidence of Phil intertwined with a very obviously famous boy that his mum would definitely recognize. So Phil filed Dan’s stray comment about keeping his parents and love life separate into the discuss later part of his brain.

Turning his focus back to the problem at hand, Phil tried to search for a solution. “We should call them, right? Our managers, I mean,” Phil asked, uncertain and unconvinced with his own suggestion. “Or should we talk about this first, just us?”

Dan clicked his phone off, chucking it haphazardly into his lap, and rolled his head to face Phil. His face was still tense with stress, his eyes lit up with something far too close to regret for Phil’s comfort.

“I’m sorry I was all over you last night, I feel like this is my fault,” Dan lamented, his eyes fluttering shut for a few seconds. It wasn’t an answer to Phil’s question, it was just an… unnecessary apology.

“Hey,” Phil said softly, nudging his shoulder against Dan’s and tipping his head up with gentle fingers on Dan’s chin. Their gazes finally met, and Phil pressed a sweet kiss to Dan’s forehead. “Last night was just as much me as it was you,” Phil assured him.

“Yeah, but I was the sloppy, needy one who practically begged his boyfriend to take care of him,” Dan rebutted, his face still filled with far more remorse than Phil ever wanted to see on it.

“Shush,” Phil admonished kindly. “You may have been a bit needy, but I was more than willing to take care of you, baby. I don’t want you to ever feel bad for asking for what you need, I want to give it to you no matter what.”

Dan’s eyes snapped shut again, his breath coming a bit heavier than it had been a minute ago. A tense moment passed before he finally spoke.

“Fuck, Phil. You can’t just say shit like that,” he grumbled, eyes batting open and boring into Phil’s. “Not if you’re not willing to fuck me, anyway,” he added, a hint of a smirk toying at his lips.

“Later, babe, after we deal with this.” Phil kissed Dan’s forehead again, this time letting his lips linger for a few seconds before pulling back and letting Dan’s chin dip back down. Gaze trained on the top of Dan’s head and eyes tracing the messy curls, Phil’s mind drifted back to the problem at hand.

Fiddling with his phone in one hand as he searched for what to say next, Phil’s mind fumbled through vague, half-formed ideas. But before he could articulate any of them, the harsh, unexpected vibrating of his phone derailed his thoughts. Even as he glanced down, Phil could already guess that the call was from his manager — in hindsight, the buzzing really shouldn’t be that surprising, given all the other missed calls.

“I can let it go to voicemail,” Phil offered, making no move to answer the call. “That way we can talk first.”

“No, it’s fine,” Dan sighed. “Stalling won’t make things any easier. Just… figure out what she’s thinking and don’t agree to anything major, and I’ll do the same with Louise and then we can figure it out together.”

“Mmk,” Phil hummed in agreement, swiping to answer the call at the last second. “Hi, Marianne,” he greeted when the call connected. His voice had none of its usual enthusiasm, and his attention was only half focused on the call — the rest of it was watching Dan dial his own call, presumably to Louise, as he made his way to the bathroom and shut the door.

As much as Phil wanted to know what was happening with Dan’s conversation, the separation was probably for the best. Phil was certain that he wouldn’t be able to focus on his own conversation if Dan was still in the room.

Marianne didn’t beat around the bush; there were no pleasantries, no polite inquiries about his trip to the US. Instead, she jumped right into the crux of the drama.

“Phil, I didn’t push you to address the rumors when Dan came out,” Marianne said, her voice stern and leaving no room for discussion. “But you cannot ignore two scandals in a week.”

“I —” Phil started, intending to push back. But even as he pieced together his rebuttal, he knew she was right. His silence would only fuel the rumors, and besides, he felt like he needed to tell his audience something. In the past, he’d always been open about his friends, had always regaled his audience with tales of his travels, had always acknowledged any drama he was dragged into.

Phil sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he was definitely going to have to do something publically. “Fine, you’re right. What do you have in mind?”

“The sooner you respond, the better,” Marianne answered immediately, sounding like she’d already thought this through — and she probably had. Unlike Phil, she’d known about this for almost the whole day, not a handful of minutes. “I think you should move your liveshow up to tonight. You should probably start by saying that you’re in New York with Dan, even though that’s well obvious at this point.”

Phil huffed a laugh, but Marianne continued without pausing.

“You can let the picture come up naturally — I’m sure plenty of people will be asking about it. Don’t just answer the first one on a whim though, wait until you find one that you feel comfortable answering. One you think can be a good opening to the topic. And then you can tell your version of the story.”

“Okay,” Phil said slowly, his mind already fast-forwarding to the liveshow, spinning the story different ways and imagining how his audience might respond. Sighing, Phil asked the question he knew Marianne would answer anyway, but that he just wanted out of the way at this point. “I know you have an opinion about what I should say, so let’s hear it,” he mumbled, resigned. At this point, he had no idea what he should do, and he was open to just about any suggestion.

“Of course I do,” Marianne said. Phil bit his lip, waiting with bated breath to hear her assessment. “But,” she continued after a second’s pause, “this isn’t just about your career, it’s your life. And it’s Dan’s life, too. Whatever you say, it needs to be what’s right for the both of you, and I can’t answer that.”

“I — yeah. You’re right. Thanks,” Phil said gratefully before running through the logistics of the liveshow. One of his favorite parts about working with Marianne was that she wasn’t overly controlling, especially when it came to stuff that would actually impact Phil’s personal life.

“So…” Marianne broached tentatively. “Do you think you know what you want to do?”

Phil cast his gaze about the room, his eyes catching on movement from the hallway; the bathroom door was opening and Dan stepped out, one hand aggravatedly rubbing down his face.

“Not yet, Marianne,” Phil answered, his eyes trained on Dan. “I’ll figure it out before I go live tonight, though.”

“Sounds good,” she agreed politely. There was a brief pause before, “Phil?”

“Mmm?” Phil hummed in response, thrown off by the uncharacteristically tentative tone.

Marianne took a deep breath. “Do whatever you think is best,” she said, strong and sure. “You have my full support.”

“Thanks,” Phil murmured, taken aback by the sincerity of the moment — he always had known Marianne cared for him, she’d been his manager for years after all, but their relationship was always based on business. They weren’t like Dan and Louise, they weren’t friends first and professionals second.

The unconditional support, while perhaps surprising, was certainly welcomed.

“I’ll let you know what we decide,” Phil promised softly. After saying goodbye, he hung up and turned to Dan, who was already off the phone with Louise and hovering near the entrance to the bedroom.

Phil tapped his phone against his thigh, his nervous energy needing some outlet. He glanced down and saw that the screen had gone back to the last thing he was looking at before the call came through — twitter. “So Marianne wants me to—”

“Do your liveshow tonight,” Dan finished for him swiftly. He moved further into the room, sitting back on his side of the bed. “Yeah, I gathered.”

Turning his attention to his phone, Phil navigated back to his profile. He clicked on the picture and gave it a good, long stare, trying trying to analyze it objectively. Trying to see it through his audience’s eyes.

Trying to decipher his own feelings about it.

“What do I say?” Phil asked, holding his breath. His own indecisiveness aside, he needed to know where Dan’s mind was at. Phil knew Dan hadn’t wanted to get into the specifics with their audiences, but, well, things had clearly changed. And now, Phil had no idea what to expect — he wasn’t sure if Dan would want to hold onto that shred of deniability, or if Dan’s newly-loud bi-pride would mean he’d want to fully embrace the implications of the picture.

At this point, Phil wasn’t even sure how he wanted to handle the picture. Objectively, he knew the most on brand way spin it: find the most platonic, innocent angle and double down, deny any sexual or romantic implications. He didn’t need to say it out loud, didn’t need to hear Marianne say it, to know it was the most AmazingPhil reaction he could muster up.

But even as he played out the fabricated story in his head, he was pretty sure he hated it.

Phil glanced up at Dan, waiting with bated breath for his reaction. For several seconds, the world was silent; it was just Dan biting his bottom lip, his eyes trained on the photo on Phil’s screen, and his face betraying absolutely no indication of what was going through his mind. Finally, his gaze flitted back up to Phil, his eyes clouded and unclear. “That I was drunk and cold and you were taking me back.”

Phil quirked an eyebrow, a million follow-up questions immediately badgering his mind — the same follow up questions that everyone would have. Where were they before? What had they been doing that got Dan drunk? Were other people with them? Was Phil drunk, too? Had this happened before? Were they going back to the same room? Was Dan this touchy with everyone when he was drunk, or was that just Phil?

Dan shrugged but didn’t avert his gaze. “That’s enough of an answer. If people want to assume that back meant to a shared room, fine. If they assume it’s to a different room in the same hotel, fine.”

“Mmm,” Phil hummed noncommittally, just enough to show Dan he was listening.

Dan’s eyes shifted to the desk, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. Phil had known Dan long enough to recognize his thinking face, so he waited, swallowing back all the questions he was tempted to ask. Finally, Dan continued, once again meeting Phil’s gaze, a spark of resolution in his eyes. “I don’t want to lie,” he said firmly. “But also, the past few days have been… a lot. Significant. I wanted to… let them stand alone. And my relationships — I’ve always tried to keep my personal life private, but I also haven’t exactly ever been forced to ever own up or deny them.”

Phil nodded slowly. “That’s fair,” he agreed, his words like molasses. He understood Dan’s points, he really did. He was so, so thrilled that Dan didn’t want to hide this relationship — a distinct change from the relationships Dan had described having with other boys (and most girls, for that matter). Nervously, Phil cocked his head. “And, hypothetically, what if I’m forced to confirm or deny?”

It was an entirely unnecessary question, really. Phil was planning to do a liveshow — the audience was always entirely separated from him, there was never a way for them to know for certain which questions Phil had and had not seen. Unless literally every single question was about Dan, Phil’s hand wouldn’t be forced.

But still… Phil wanted to know. He needed to know where Dan stood, where his mind was at right now. So Phil stared at Dan curiously, brow cocked and head tilted, until Dan finally responded.

Once again, Dan shrugged, but this time it wasn’t as… apathetic. This time, it was just… resigned, maybe? Phil couldn’t quite tell; he didn’t like not being able to read Dan’s body language.

“I’m not gonna dictate what you should and shouldn’t say to your audience,” Dan said, lips pursed. “If you feel backed into a corner, say whatever you want. I know you’re not gonna fuck me over.” Dan rubbed his hands over his face, nervous energy lacing the movement. He dropped his hands and looked back at Phil. “Like I said, I don’t wanna lie, but I also don’t wanna make you feel like you have to tell your audience anything in particular.”

“So just to be clear,” Phil started, a smile creeping onto his face and into his voice. “If — for some reason — I have to say yes or no, it’s okay if I say either?”

“Phil.” Dan’s voice was low and uncharacteristically sincere, his pupils blown wide, and his hand twitching like it was fighting back the urge to reach for Phil’s. “I’m having an amazing time with you and I’m...I’m in this... for the long haul,” Dan’s gaze flickered to the side, resting on his black notebook next to his leg. His words were slow and deliberate, like he was carefully selecting each one.

Phil couldn’t tune out the butterflies that were beating against his stomach, and could barely bite back an overly enthusiastic me too.

But Dan ploughed on before Phil could say anything, and maybe that was for the best. “I’m having trouble imagining a world where it’s not eventually completely obvious what you are to me, so...” Phil’s mind jumped to all the possible whys behind that statement; he couldn’t help it. Dan’s lyrics and album theme flashed through his mind, but so did Dan’s instagram posts and flirty tweets.

Dan’s eyes finally shifted back to Phil’s, determined, tenacious. “So I’d rather not lie,” Dan said, sure and confident. “If they know something for certain, I’d rather it be the truth. Because I don’t want to spend the rest of — of —”

Dan’s gaze dropped again, and Phil bit his lips, holding back a smile as he imagined what the rest of Dan’s sentence might be, what it might mean. Everything Dan had said today seemed half shared, just a small portion of what Dan seemed to want to say. Phil didn’t want to be overly presumptuous, to pretend he knew what Dan was thinking, but he felt confident in his guesses to the end of at least a few of Dan’s sentences.

Dan opened and closed his mouth, over and over, not speaking. Finally, he sighed, and Phil expected him to say something, anything, concrete — more because Dan was strong willed, and less because Phil couldn’t predict what he might be thinking. But instead, Dan rose up off the bed and headed for the bathroom, halting just before the door. Eyes trained on the floor, Dan muttered, “If you have to say something, say whatever you want — I trust you. I’d just prefer it to be the truth.

#phan #phanfiction #phanfic #slow burn #singer!dan #barista!phil #phan au #coffee shop au #au #ly #mine #iminclinedtowriting #love yourself

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jestbee · 6 years ago

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THE FINAL GOOGLE FEUD - timestamps

That video was one of my favourites in a while so here are some timestamps under the cut

They’re quite Phil heavy... for some reason.

00:20 Dan advises we shouldn’t get up to anything we wouldn’t tweet. Phil disagrees and saying you ‘get up to a lot when you aren’t tweeting’ um... what things, Phil?

00:29 they’ve tucked their webcam on the tv away - They’re so into privacy. Not that they’re shouldn’t be, of course, it’s just an observation.

00:43 Phil sometimes runs through the lounge naked when he forgets a towel. I mean the bathroom is on another floor entirely Phil but... good to know.

01:00 Dan says “people aren’t going to delete their hard drives so what are they going to do with these recordings...” I mean, I know he’s talking about the recordings from Siri etc but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of recordings Dan has on his hard drive he doesn’t want someone getting a hold of

01:22 Crazy eyes Phil is in full effect in this video. They’re both a mess. I love them.

01:31 not too crazy to forget getting that spon in though, are you Phil?

01:45 Phil’s northern ‘where my bloody phone’ is just lovely

01:49 Phil’s voice is a lil bit off-camera and I like it

02:03 Dan used to have dry skin, now it’s oily. I think it might be just age mate, mine used to be oily now it’s dry... these things happen.

02:07 you ‘forgot’ did you Dan? Or maybe you’re not as up on your memes as your purport to be and had to look that one up

02:23 the ice cap was better. Thank you for an opinion, Phil.

02:38 Dan doesn’t want one of the Try New Things t-shirts. I am disappoint.

02:42 garbled amazingphilshop.com spon

02:46 I love it when they instantly know which song the other is going to sing and join in. Synchronised

02:54 Phil back with his nipple obssession

02:55 do they call it a Prince Albert in other countries? Do people outside the UK get that joke?

03:00 Phil is offended nipple isn’t included

03:10 “the dirty place” Oh, Phil. Come on.

03:16 Ladydoor, really? I thought we got past this

03:27 Dan’s whiny little “you don’t deserve it” nice.

03:34 Phil dreams some weird stuff, and Dan is sceptical because he knows all of Phil’s family

03:52 Phil thinks eyebrow piercings look pretty cool

03:57 Phil is offended at the idea of people getting BOTH nipples pierced. apparently his nipple obsession only extends to one nipple at a time.

04:20 Phil calls Dan out for not being cultured.

04:29 synchronised rocking starts

04:36 synchronised rocking stops

04:49 The phone rings - Phil’s phone voice is adorable

05:53 This entire section is pure GOLD - Why is Phil so flirty?

05:03 Phil’s “No I can’t, I don’t have legs” reminds me of interactions between @ineverhadmyinternetphase and @charlottekath for some reason. I am surrounded by adorkable nerds who are too cute for this world.

05:13 them unspokenly knowing they’re doing best of 3 in rock paper scissors... just that long standing tradition going strong to this day. beautiful.

05:19 Phil: Shall we do a mukbang instead of this video? (Not that I’m not enjoying this video, Phil. But Yes please eat your pizza and 10 thousand dips with us!)

05:32 How Phil managed to keep that white tshirt clean while eating pizza is beyond me.

05:58 Phil: Men can be milked Dan: *oh-my-god-why-is-he-like-this expression*

06:14 Phil almost does that shoulder punchy thing he does to Dan

06:21 Phil back with the nipple talk - this time it’s about whales

06:27 Dan makes bull semen joke, Phil explains it away to simple kicking

06:54 no Capita£ester jokes because they are getting tired but, like.. Phil you are a millionaire.

07:05 I’m not sure what Dan is really trying to say here but lol for the extra spinning tour spon.

07:09 Dan guesses dog AGAIN. Also, ‘Same’ suddenly those pet play fics aren’t that far fetched huh?

07:29 Dan is so done with this game

07:41 Phil is starting to get annoyed - cute lil neck grab

07:49 Phil has told the whole kid-drawing-hands story before, I’m pretty sure

08:08 Dan guessing dog pays off - Phil is not amused

08:25 even less amused that cat doesn’t work

08:40 - 08:58 Phil debates on whether to put sharks as an answer

09:12 Phil: “A tampon, see I said!” When? What did they cut out?

09:18 Why the eyebrows over shingles... what do you think shingles are, Dan?

09:28 Dan is done with this game again because it isn’t relatable to him specifically

09:31 Phil gets it wrong again and head desks for the first time

09:36 I can’t help but think the Jestina thing started as something a little closer to home and Phil is in on the joke. Idk. Does Dan have an Aunt Jess or something? Also, why Peru? idgi

09:52 Phil’s expression on the “what?” is... idk. I liked it.

10:02 finally Phil gets one right - Dan isn’t impressed

10:07 Dan, wtf is this accent?

10:14 Phil attempts to skip the question and cut it from the video. Didn’t work, did it?

10:20 Phil forgets the category they picked

10:28 Phil is surprised he is the only one in the world that hates cheese - hands in hair and on the back of his neck... I’m not ashamed to say I rewound this little bit.

10:36 Phil is concerned this will be a bad video because they aren’t winning. Oh Phil, do you think people come here for the gameplay?

10:40 Lean in further Dan, I dare you

10:45 Dan intensely wants to know who this person is. Who is the person I don’t know Phil? Have you been speaking to other people without me there Phil? Who is it who is it who is it? Oh wait... someone hates Christmas?

10:51 Dan with the accent again

10:56 please stop dabbing. it wasn’t funny when you started and it still isn’t. sometimes I wish they wouldn’t latch on to every internet meme that children find funny tbh

11:04 I know that in your household spoon is used as a term of endearment and that has therefore left you a little confused but here in not-dnp land, people aren’t generally confused as to why they’re called spoons enough to google it.

11:10 Phil is really losing the plot rn. More head-desk hide-in-tshirt combos

11:12 attempts to put his head directly in Dan’s lap

11:20 Phil writes ‘Dan sucks’ as an answer - why is this so cute?

11:26 Don’t pretend you didn’t linger on that arm touch there

11:28 Dan being loud and Phil telling him to shush is my favourite. Also Dan actually looking chided and listening? Amazing.

11:42 I’m going to kill you to death

11:53 Phil’s face at getting the answer wrong looks so done. Why do I like this? Why... I have issues.

12:10 I will never forgive them for the jump cut before Phil booping Dan’s face softly with his fist. never.

12:16 They didn’t used to roughhouse this much did they? I’m almost used to it except that I’m not

12:22 Dan... why the accent? I know you’re trying to suggest the common google user is stupid and this is the voice you are using to express that but just... stop. I just realised... it’s Jessica. He thinks the general google user is Jessica.

12:31 Phil asking the questions we’re all thinking

12:44 Phil throws down the gauntlet

12:49 Phil knows what he’s done

13:04 Phil is mad and I am... into that? apparently? - at least he’s courteous enough to be quiet about it unlike Daniel

13:13 Why would I want to make someone cry? Jealous. Um, Phil, why would you want to make someone jealous? And why is that where your mind went first?

13:23 they mock all of the vaguely sentimental answers just in case we think they might have googled them at some point. Protest too much boys?

13:37 Phil is intense while Dan sings us a song from the ii playlist

13:41 you are children.

14:00 smug Dan is smug

14:08 More angry Phil and I need a minute

14:20 Srs bsnss Phil is concentrating with everything he has

14:30 Yeah, I don’t really get that either, Dan

14:42 Phil loses. No more Google Feud.

14:49 Phil stops the end screen to propose something crazier

15:10 Dan tries to wheel Phil out of shot again as is his go to move. But... I mean, did you notice he isn’t pushing on the chair? That’s just Phil’s knee. I felt like you needed to be made aware of that fact. Just... for reasons.

15:20 Phil attempts to continue his all or nothing with a forfeit of licking something and looks around the room for something that he could lick as punishment... I could suggest something if you like, Phil.

(At this point this video might have driven me a bit crazy)

15:27 Phil head desks right on to Dan’s arm

Blah blah blah end screen.

#timestamps #dan and phil #dnp #I'm ill today and this is the first thing I've done that isn't laying still in the dark so apologies for the incoherency #also the times may be one or two seconds out

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punchmedanny · 7 years ago

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@h-owllslide tagged me approximately ten years ago, but imma go ahead and get on this

what are your favourite songs to sing or hum to? First of all, i’m the least musical person ever. That being said, i can’t not sing along to “Reflection” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from the Mulan soundtrack. Same goes for “You Can’t Take Me” and “Get Off of My Back” from the Spirit Soundtrack. I also know Dan’s Diss Track in full and will rhythmically speak along.

what’s your favourite flower/tree/plant? roses/lilacs/honeysuckle - not so coincidentally also high in the rankings for fave scents

favourite colours? very dark purple - one might describe it as rich

what do you always doodle? i mean no? i did in school and i still like to do shitty drawings, but i can in fact control myself with a pen and and a blank page (usually)

how do you take your coffee/tea? coffee strong and black or some monstrosity of a latte that hardly counts as coffee any more. tea strong and plain. Basically i want my drinks to reflect the bitterness in my soul

favourite candle scent? who even knowwws. my current is sand and driftwood and i like it quite a lot. I have a thing for fall scents, but i have a thing against cinnamon

what perfume do you wear? i generally don’t. I have like a random perfume an old manager gave me but i rarely wear it. I also typically go for unscented soaps/lotions/etc.

go to dance move? omg this is embarrassing but like kind of moving my ass/hips in time to the music hahaha

one of my favourite quotes? “all good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath” f. scott fitzgerald

favourite self care routines? remaining in the land of the living? ummm running the hottest bath my water heater is capable of and attempting to cook myself in it

fuzzy socks or house slipper? fuzzy socks - i want them to stay on my feet even if im not paying attention

what colour are your eyes? blue? sort of greyish blue-green tbh

what does your happy place look like? this is a leftover and romanticized childhood memory - but the clearing inside a lilac bush

what’s your favourite eye colour on others? damn idk man. my gut says green but ive never had an actual crush on someone with green eyes? blue eyes tend to scare me. Brown eyes are fun because they look ordinary at first glance but they never are in my experiance

favourite season? fall

favourite breed of dog? smol pupper: Pomeranian heckin doggo: german shepherd

do you ever want to get married? i mean i wouldn’t rule it out but it would take an extraordinary situation to convince me

cursive or print? for my own use: cursive if anyone else will need to read it: print

favourite weather? cloudy and cool

tagging: @phandommomlovesyou

feckin no one anyone (?) cuz im a social wreck, but please do this if you want and say i tagged you then i can come back and edit it to actually tag you and we can pretend none of this ever happened...

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wellntruly · 8 years ago

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LEGION Recap: 1x03

For an intro to this one just imagine a stream of hearts pouring out my own heart while I flail around in a sea of my heart’s hearts splashing and laughing and gently gnawing on one and you should have ABOUT THE STATE OF THINGS.

Season 1, ‘Chapter 3’

The first three minutes of Legion, ‘Chapter 3’ are perhaps the most masterfully bewitching opening of an episode of television I’ve ever watched. Trying to explain what they are and what they did to me just with words feels like one of the more comically hopeless things I’ve attempted in a while, because it’s so rooted in what you can do with television, with image and sound, with that form of storytelling told in installments. This opening couldn’t have come earlier than the third episode, for instance. A big part of its power is in how it draws together elements we’ve already seen to make a new piece of music.

Also: the music. Lovely darkening movie-score strings, overlaid with a spoken-word melody of a man’s voice telling the fable of the poor woodcutter and his wife who found a crane in the woods — a man’s voice playing from a beautiful silver & wire Rube Goldberg machine of a coffee maker. The strangeness, the gorgeous strangeness! A sort of mid-century A.I. doing the scene-setting heavy lifting of paaaages of dialogue.

But more than anything, the magic in this opening is in how it renders the feeling of telepathy. It is of telepathy, of the stuff of it. Not that we’re supposed to parse everything we see as being experienced by David, sitting at the end of a sunlit dock, but we should get the sense that some is, or that it can be. That there are certain threads of connection he’s beginning to feel between sensation and image and thought, a web of humanity, gone mysteriously tangible under his attention.

The fear people have about telepathy, of course, is the idea of someone observing our private lives. And this episode does something brilliant: it gives us telepathy ourselves. It shows us people literally bare. We see a room of people showering, and see it for all that it is: just human bodies bathing. All skin feels the same under soap and water. Telepathy, Legion says, is not inherently voyeuristic --- it’s inherently experiential.

It’s just a stunning sequence. I’ve watched it over and over trying to put these words in order, and every time I’ve just been SWEPT BY GOOSEBUMPS TBH.

“Shall we begin?”

Normally, Dr. Bird explains, the Memory Work would go systematically — they’d chart David’s life together step by chronological step, looking at each instance of his mental illness through the lens of mutation, and in that way discover how his powers manifest. But Division 3 has captured Amy and time is of the essence, so instead they’re gonna try to just crack him open right to his chewy nougat center by applying pressure at, as Ptonomy has it, “The shit that scares you the most.” Lord.

One of those fault lines runs right through the kitchen in his old apartment.

Melanie asks David to tell them what’s going on here. He explains that he and Philly used to fight a lot, and he doesn’t know which particular blow-up this was. The breadbox starts rattling, then falls open with its little *plonk*.

“Oh,” David almost echoes.

Remember last time on Wellntruly’s Way Long Legion Recaps when I pondered whether David was hiding things not from Melanie and Ptonomy, but from himself? Yeah ABOUT THAT.

Then the kitchen erupts.

Omg their faces.

Dr. Bird: “So I was right, you’re not just a telepath! You can control objects with your mind.” David: “Control might be an- overstatement.”

But Melanie, delighted over this Raw Power, and that is the actual phrase used, just eagerly asks David what had happened before this, what had set this off. Unhappily, arms wrapped around himself, David turns toward the living room, where he had been getting high off his ass with Lenny — until Philly came home.

Philly, who it turns out, was decidedly NOT on board with the drugs.

Shout-out to Dan Stevens’ High Eyes btw, god those are glassy af.

Melanie thinks she knows what she’s dealing with now. Girlfriend unhappy with his self-destructive lifestyle, he’s lashing out — tale as old as time. She wants to go back to look at the RAW POWER.

Ptonomy obliges, but then that thing happens where he just kinda judders in place. “He’s resisting again,” Ptonomy tosses back at David, frustrated.

“It’s not me,” David insists, and then in the space of about one shaky breath he becomes a TERRIFIED WRECK. “Oh god,” he whispers, as the Devil With the Yellow Eyes wraps his fingers around the doorjamb, and lumbers into view.

And here is where we learn the very disquieting fact that this horror is David’s alone. Melanie and Ptonomy are bewildered, peering into the kitchen and seeing nothing while David trembles against the door behind them. Finally he can’t take it and the kitchen door slams shut in a gust of wind.

Ptonomy is DISCONCERTED, because David shouldn’t have been able to do that in a memory. That’s very interesting, but then Dr. Bird asks what he saw, and all my attention is overtaken by David stammering “I don’t I - I don’t remember, it’s just fear.” Oh my god. It is, it is actually my childhood nightmare. I could never remember what the monster looked like, all I knew was that I was so, so scared. Wow this show sure is getting to some Places for me!!

All varying degrees of shook up, VIEWER INCLUDED, everyone readies themselves to take another pass at this memory, just maybe from a little farther back this time.

Instead we end up in a room at Summerland, back out in the world. Huh. How…?

“Listen to me David…” Melanie starts.

“I didn’t—”

“Yes,” she insists. “This was you. There was something you didn’t want us to see.”

Something that spooked him so bad that he somehow TELEPORTED THEM 600 FEET FROM THE MEMORY CUBE. Love do you have ALL the tele-powers???!

Or you know, as Ptonomy bluntly puts it:

Ok, maybe ease off the monstering phrasing? Ptonomy? My guy?

Later, and for the second time today, Syd finds David sitting on a dock along the river. He asks her where she grew up, and she starts telling him a bit about her life growing up in a high-rise — well mostly about her mother, who tended to intimidate others.

“She knew people. Traveled in circles. She was famously smart. She wrote these essays people Talked About. We had these parties, salons she called them — artists with mustaches and men with money clips like big game hunters trying to bring her down. We kept their heads instead.”

Listen I already liked Sydney Barrett, and now I’m OBSESSED WITH HER?? What a childhood! What a heritage! WOW, yes.

David has another question. He wonders… so sometimes he feels like he has long hair, from when he was her.

He’s trying to illustrate this with these expressive dancer’s hands, unsure but unselfconscious, and my entire body is tipping toward the screen in wonder at what I’m seeing.

“And it’s not like I just remember having it — I reach for it to like, brush it out of my face and it’s just, not there. Does that, does that ever—?”

Syd makes this face:

and asks him to please go on. Like OH PLEASE, I just breathed in and out so shaky I am so excited by what is happening right now????

In this same attitude of like, such sincere interest in the experience, David tells her sometimes he feels like his center of gravity is off, something in his hips — “Watch it…” Syd teasingly warns him, and he does that head-dip laugh. His whole manner right now, his body language — he’s so charmed and intrigued by the sensation of having a female body and this is just, dang this is like, this is gorgeous. THIS SHOW.

Now that he’s come this far David wants to be totally honest, he wants Syd to know that yes he did have to pee while he was her, but that it was all business. Though, he confesses, “When we switched, I did…”

“Well, that’s okay,” Syd responds, in her standard deadpan. “I, uh…”

“What!” David yelps.

“No I didn’t,” she admits. They both break into laughter. “I should have, but I didn’t.” Listen I love her so damn much.

Syd then explains that she doesn’t really think of this as *her* body, since other people can come and go. My god that is fascinating. Her identity truly is her mind, her thoughts and her soul, holy fuck I’m obsessed. “Everywhere I go, I’m me.” Aahhhhh.

“Well, I liked it. Being you,” David smiles at her.

THIS. SCENE. My god I nearly knocked stuff over in a PAROXYSM OF DELIGHT. The girl who is her mind above all, and the boy who reeaally didn’t mind being a girl! Fluidity. This mental and physical fluidity of both of them! I’m so profoundly into what has happened here.

We flash then, for a moment, to poor Amy, mascara smudged under her eyes, assuring the man in the silver suit that she doesn’t know where her brother is, talking about how he has to take his pills or he’ll get in trouble. Silver sighs, says she doesn’t truly believe her brother has schizophrenia, does she? LISTEN IT’S LIKE A WHOLE DISCUSSION RIGHT NOW, can we get back to u.

Return to Summerland, where Cary is apologizing as he places electrodes to David’s temples.

Yes, but

Hahaha, Jokes I’m Probably Gonna Regret

Cary asks someone to hand him something, and Kerry materializes out of his back to do so, because btw did I mention that THEY CAN DO THAT APPARENTLY? WHAT IS THIS!! ARE THESE TWO PEOPLE WHO CAN SHARE ONE BODY OR ARE THEY EACH PART OF THE SAME PERSON EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY OR — ?!

Anyhow, Cary checks to get David’s express permission before injecting him with a dye, good work doc, and David grudgingly gives it. Though when Cary hopefully asks that he not break everything this time, David just goes “I’m not promising that.” Lol.

As she goes to join the others Syd blows him a little kiss in the cutest hottest way I’ve ever seen and he grins like it’s the cutest hottest thing he’s ever seen and I’m so about them I can hardly stand it.

But right now, as is usual when Cary (and Kerry??) have David in an imaging lab, shit’s about to go cray.

Cary: “This time, I want you to think about something…STRESSFUL. The worse the better.” UH, ARE YOU SURE?

David goes back to Halloween.

He’s trick-or-treating with Amy and their beagle, when King suddenly runs off through a broken fence into a yard. Little David follows him, with his father reading The World’s Angriest Boy In the World running through his curly little messed up head. And then — he sees him.

THE WORLD’S ANGRIEST BOY IN THE WORLD

He stalks up to Little David and grabs him and — we’re back in the lab. Cary asks if David’s alright, and, a little confused, he says he is. But we cut to inside the glass, and from that vantage point, David is just staring straight ahead, silent. Oh my fuck.

Back with David, he’s looking around trying to find the source of a whistle and a “Hey kid!” That’s when Lenny literally rolls in, straddling a wheelie chair, his own eye-linered lemure.

“It’s sweet, really. They think they can save you.”

AAAHHHH. Shit I love this.

Inside with the monitors, Cary says the speech centers of David’s brain are active, but they’re looking at him right now and he’s not talking. Okay, you know what, we need a control, bring in a known telepath and get some SCIENTIFIC PROCESS up in here.

Meanwhile, Lenny is HIGHLY dubious that anything valuable is coming out of this Summerland set-up, and that David’s not just wasting time ~working on himself~ while he sister gets gangbanged by commandos, as Lenny has it. Yeah, I’m increasingly thinking this Lenny is probably just a manifestation of David’s own worried feelings, doubt and guilt and the like. But at the same time this kid’s mind is a toy box so who the fuck knows.

“No, Melanie said—” David tries to interject and Lenny just parrots back: “Melanie said! You think Melanie’s on your side? That bitch’s secrets have secrets.” Ok listen I think we should hear Figment Lenny out.

David, who also seems unclear on whether this is actually the spirit of Lenny talking to him or what, asks why she, his friend, is messing with his head like this. Lenny just pouts exaggeratedly and turns into Amy, begging David to save her from the commandos. He scrunches up his whole face, then goes laser-focused. The room rocks.

Cary, absolutely hilariously: “He’s-he’s heating up!!”

No joke I rewound that line three times and I’m still laughing as I type this.

The lights go red and the glass cracks. Syd rushes into the room to find David MAGNETO LEVITATING, and how am I supposed to cope with with someone who has both Charles skills AND Erik skills, I ask you!!!

Oh and also WHATEVER THE FUCK SKILL THIS IS? Listen — I know absolutely zip about Comic Book Character David Haller/Legion and I intend on maintaining my blissful ignorance so that this show can repeatedly knock me on my ass, thank you.

Over in Division 3’s torture grotto, Amy is still bewildered that this strange man is not only telling her David isn’t schizophrenic, but that she has always known. “Amy, didn’t you once tell your husband it felt like you grew up in a haunted house?” Oooooo. Shivers.

David and Syd flicker into view by the door, looking sort of like reflections on water. They can see what’s going on, but when David calls Amy’s name we can only see his mouth moving.

“Your brother is a god. And you let them turn him into a fool.” That is so cruel, oh my god Silver shut up.

But Silver does not shut up, and is now trying to convince Amy that she needs to help them find David so that they can “shut him off.” Amy, probably pretty cleverly, starts weepingly rambling about how if she even gets a paper cut she has to lie down, so torturing her with those weird leeches would definitely have worked if she knew something.

It’s about this point when The Eye sees something out of the corner of…his eye, and stalks over to where Syd and David are wavering. He snatches at them, and they vanish.

...Only to reappear in the river at Summerland. Well this ability is a trip. Syd, also feelin’ it: “Hey, if you learn to control that, you’re gonna be a world-class badass.” David wheeze-laughs, bent over along the riverbank trying to catch his breath. “Ok, come on,” she directs him, heading back up to the facility, sopping wet and the adult here. God I love her. I love that she has to like, handle him.

Inside, Melanie is not pleased to hear about who they ran into. “David this is very important — you are not to go back there.”

“I know I know I know,” David replies excitedly, “but maybe, maybe if I can take Syd there, maybe I can bring Amy back—”

This show is so funny. I don’t know if I have given it credit yet for being deliberately and very funny. I mean sure I arrange screenshots and commentary in way that makes all shows seem like Jokes, but this one really is Jokes a lot of the time and I love it so much I feel like I could levitate.

Anyhow Melanie puts the kibosh on that plan. When Syd asks how she knows The Eye, she begins recounting a bit of her biography and singlehandedly confuses the hell out of my timeline. She says that her husband Oliver inherited this land in the ‘40s (that’s him on the coffee machine, w o w hi), then says that he and Cary built this place 30 years ago. So maybe we’re in like, the early ‘70s? I mean it’s not like the calendar switches from 1969 to 1970 and everyone immediately puts on brown bellbottoms, so perhaps we’re in the ‘60s spillover period?

Regardless, Cary and Oliver (definitely also a mutant, Melanie actually maybe not??) wanted to bring others like them to Summerland, and one of the first ones they found was someone named Walter. I’ve just checked and it turns out I never mentioned my belief that Olive Green was a mutant working for the other side, but look he is! Also, he, quote: “wanted to hurt people.”

David’s face is also mine listening to this. Btw did you ever see such a comic book panel on ur television screen.

So if it were not already of highest import that we rescue Amy, now we know she’s being held by a sadist. Unfortch, we still don’t know what makes David tick and his powers go *boom*, and going into his memories is only getting more strange and dangerous.

“It’s like your brain is defending itself,” Dr. Bird tries.

SPIN-BACK, Legion Recap 1x02, looking at the MRI machine smoking on the lawn: “It’s interesting. He almost always uses his telekinesis defensively.”

I love when I meet a showrunner who thinks like I do. Noah Hawley, I do get the feeling I am picking up what you are putting down.

Syd is also picking something up, when Melanie starts talking about how important David is to The War Effort. “You wanna fix him so that you can use him?” she asks, judgment registering quietly but strongly.

“No. I want to fix him because he deserves to be healthy. And he deserves to be happy. And then…I wanna use him.” Well as long as we’re clear on that.

To that end, Dr. Bird announces that she wants to sedate him, and I CROAKED. Just enough to “lower his defenses.” Oohohhohohokay no, no no, don’t take his walls from him. Don’t mentally tie him down and plunder through his mind ARE YOu kidding me, this is…woof. Upsetting!!

Syd wants to be there, literally starts rolling up her sleeves, babe. But on this point Melanie and David are on the same side, and that side is ohhhmygod no. David claims Therapy Rights, that he needs to do this particular bit of unpleasant soul-searching on his own. Syd takes her leave without another word.

That night, David’s mind wanders. He sees many things, including Lenny cooking up a very confusing skillet of something on her stove while the alleyway kingpin dances with his associate.

I could watch this show all day long, it is just a never-ending buffet table of treats.

In the middle of the night, Sydney gets up and finds David sitting on the floor of the bathroom. If you were to make a pie chart of how scenes in this show start the largest piece would definitely be “Syd finds David sitting alone somewhere.” That is totally not a criticism. In fact I would like to this to continue and exaggerate. I want David to be sitting in increasingly forlorn, ridiculous places, until eventually it’s like, here’s David perched on a ledge of a cliff overlooking the sea and Syd comes silently hoisting herself up in rock-climbing gear.

“I used to be a junkie,” David cold-opens. It would also be great if all of these moments begin with some revelatory pieces of personal history, because that has been the trend as well. (On the sea cliff David’s like, “I didn’t…drop out of college. I was expelled when I couldn’t find a book and accidentally turned the library into something out of a Borges novel. And then it lit on fire.”)

In the bathroom, Syd tells him that they’ve all done things they’re not proud of. But David is worried that if she sees these memories that Dr. Bird is interested in, sees what he has done, she won’t want to be with him anymore.

David: “My doctor used to say that ‘monster’ is not a noun. That to Be A Monster you first gotta, do something monstrous.” Oh hun.

“Do you love me?” Syd asks simply. David sighs in like, helpless adoration, turning his head to the wall like he’s nuzzling her temple.

I am dying.

Of course he does. Of course they do.

David looks out into the shadows. “Everybody in here keeps saying that I’m sane. What if they’re wrong?” She doesn’t have a response.

It’s so weird to be rooting for mental illness, but HEY AM I.

Some time later, and we’re in a literal and figurative dark alley in David’s mind. By the way if you want to try to tell when we are off Melanie Bird good luck, as the woman apparently dresses in nothing but drapey neutrals at all times.

Syd remarks that she thought David would be here too, and Melanie just goes oh, he’s here.

The most ABSURD little “Oh!” I made at this reveal of TINY MUFFIN DAVID, oh my god. Help, I can’t do this. G o d they’ve been coding him as such a babe in the woods and now THIS.

Dr. Bird explains that sedating him keeps his adult, “rational” brain from being there, leaving just the little kid at his core. She ALSO EXPLAINS that Syd can touch him here, because this isn’t her physical body. Hmm. Noted.

Syd kneels down, and Little David falls into her arms.

Ohhhh, it’s so weird and so sweet I love it so much!

But right now they need to follow Grown David, Stripy Shirt David, as he breaks into his therapist’s office and begins stuffing his pockets with knickknacks and projector slides, I think? You are a terrible criminal. David is suddenly transfixed by a pale blue overlay of himself and Dr. Poole talking in the chairs, about what the stars said. We can’t hear it though, gaahhhh, torment. “Interesting,” Ptonomy remarks. “Memories within memories.”

David then apparently gets it in his head that he should take all the cassettes from his appointments. It’s around this point that the room starts shaking, pictures thudding on the walls. Fascinatingly, only Syd and Little David notice.

Then Syd suddenly sees a nightmarish flash of David eating the tape, oh the image from the pilot, oh my GOD.

This is when all the lights go out, and a terrifying red crack begins to widen in the wall, terrible hands curling around the edges, Melanie and Ptonomy still registering none of it. Syd is panicking, and then Little David darts out through the door, running into the adjoining room — the adjoining room in his mind. He hops over his and Lenny’s legs as they fall back stoned on the carpet in his apartment, aaahhhhhhhh, it’s gone slo-mo, I’m losing it ~aesthetically~

Hey, you know what this is?

BRRAAAMMMM. Honestly I was thisclose to calling Ptonomy ‘Arthur’ last episode as a joke, and NOW.

Back inside the dream the memories, Syd chases after Little David into the apartment, aspect ratio narrowing in on her as the film speed starts to go wonky, hell do I love it when they do that. She spins into the kitchen, where Grown David is having some sort of argument with Amy, all silent, slow rhythmic drumming in our ears, everything at oscillating speeds, that nightmarish lingering…. Little David slips into the next room, and Syd wheels after him.

In here, David and Philly are having sex. Oh my god this is so weird, I love how very very weird this is??! Syd keeps her eyes averted, and then spies Little David hiding beyond the bed. “David!” she whispers, “Come here!” It’s so very very very weird! How many Freudian layers deep is this situation!! WOW.

Syd finally cajoles Little David over to her and pulls him through another doorway — into this David’s bedroom. Syd drags a desk behind the door and asks him where he likes to hide. In the heating vents, Sydney! Alright, I guess.

Have we mentioned the considerable plant life in this house and wondered yet if it was there in reality or is just an illustrative feature of the memory?

But then, at the end of the hall: The World’s Angriest Boy In the World, oh no. David and Syd crawl into the vents, but after them comes The Devil With the Yellow Eyes, oh nooo.

“David,” Syd pleads, “you need to wake up! I can’t help us anymore. It has to be you. Babe, if you’re in there, you need to WAKE UP, RIGHT NOW.”

Topside, Sydney suddenly wakes with a gasp, like she’s coming up from underwater. But everyone else is still trapped inside his miiiiinnnd! GOD, YES, fuck me up. Syd grabs a pillow and starts whacking it against Ptonomy’s chair trying to wake him, amazing. He comes to with the classic™ waking up response of “—what happened?”

“Yeah,” Syd replies firmly, leaning over his chair. “We’re gonna have a long conversation about that.” Listen when my no-touch girl is being physically intimidating you know she means business.

But while Syd was able to wake Ptonomy, Melanie is still under. Maybe she’s like, another level deep? Idk man you give me Inception, what else am I gonna do.

Rather bolstering my choices, we find that Melanie is now also in the haunted house David grew up in. But unlike that first time, she can see his parents faces, and oh my fuck is that ever CREEPIER.

WHAT THE BALLS WHY IS THIS SO UNNERVING

I have no idea how this house is arranged but hoo boy I bet that’s intentional. Following the sound of King whimpering and pawing at something, Melanie winds her way into David’s bedroom, and pushes the desk away from the closet door. Oh WOW it stayed there! Oh wow they’d come in through the closet!

The closet where Melanie finds: The World’s Angriest Boy In the World. She starts to flip through it, Bird do you have a death wish. Sure enough, on an alarming page where The Boy is evidently walking away from a burning town where he’s enacted some sort of massacre, the book SLAMS shut on her hand. In agony, Melanie finally pulls it free, to find it DEFORMED. She wakes with a choking cry.

Her hand is fine. But David still won’t wake up. maybe because you fucking SEDATED HIM

Behind David’s closed eyes, he sits on a chair, hands tight over his face, surrounded by a screaming, raving crowd. Oh honey, on what unprotected promontory have they forsaken you.

END EPISODE 3. YES I’M SERIOUS THAT’S WHERE IT ENDS. I’M YELLING.

***

Wellntruly’s Way Long Legion Recaps Chapter 1 • Chapter 2

#Wellntruly's Way Long Legion Recaps #Legion #Legion spoilers #Tarra recaps stuff #X Men Content #X Men

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