#this is what happens when phil starts posting stories at this time of night

[dandp]

Have we ever actually seen dnp on a ferris wheel? Do they even actually enjoy the experience of one?

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Fics Written in 2025 (So Far) (3) Masterlist

part one, part two

am i up to this? (ao3) - howdothestarslook

Summary: dan is having a hard week and needs some advice/reassurance.

Blue (da ba dee) (ao3) - thatsmistertoyou

Summary: Post TIT stream, Dan and Phil have a blue mess to contend with.

Breathe with me, dear (ao3) - beemuffin

Summary: Dan and Phil go out for the first time in a while, much to Dan's dismay. They're used to their fame by now, expecting to meet fans wherever they go. On this particular occasion though, Dan's anxiety wins and it's up to Phil to bring him back down to earth.

choked up, face down, burnt out (ao3) - jonsaremembers

Summary: Dan needs to feel something.

Death and Loss Don’t Exist When Phil Lester is Plowing You Into the Floor (ao3) - Wrennie_Pennie

Summary: Dan speed walks to the taxi, opens the door and swings himself in. Phil’s already laughing before the door is closed.

“You think they believed me?” Dan turns to face Phil, who gives him a once over, eyes sticking to the obvious hard line of his cock through the thin sweater, snorts out a laugh, and pulls him in for a kiss.

“Not a chance.”

Digital Desires (ao3) - fictitiousponies

Summary: If Dan were a smart Alpha, he would have messaged Phil and canceled their planned skype call as soon as he felt the tingling under his skin and fire in his belly that indicated his rut was imminent.

Dan was not a smart Alpha.

Falling for the phlonde (ao3) - beemuffin

Summary: Phil is excited to show Dan his new blonde hair, but his reaction isn't exactly what he was expecting.

Inspired by Dan's story he told in 'Dan and Phil massive pizza mukbang 2' about fainting seeing Phil's blonde hair lol

Get Wrecked (ao3) - httphowell

Summary: Dan’s dreams have been haunted by a new version of Phil—blonde, bold, and unrelenting. When Phil refuses to stop asking about his dreams, Dan cracks, confessing every detail of how dream-Phil ruined him. Now, Phil is determined to see if he can make those dreams a reality.

Heaven is a Bedroom (ao3) - lobotomist_at_claires

Summary: it's Christmas 2009, and Yazi Howell is finally learning what love is.

I Love You, I’m Sorry (ao3) - httphowell

Summary: While cleaning the house, Phil discovers a shoebox filled with letters he and Dan exchanged during their time apart at the start of their relationship—when Phil was at university and Dan was in Reading. Some are lighthearted, others deeply personal, but one holds a message Dan never had the courage to send.

I should be over all the butterflies (But I'm into you) (ao3) - blankbluestare

Summary: In which Dan is stupid and scared, but so is Phil, so it has gotten them more than a few years to get together.

And how easy it all is despite the time, because it’s them.

Or

A canon-verse AU in which everything’s the same, except Dan and Phil put an end to their romantic relationship very early on, so they've remained platonic best friends who’ve been pining for each other for years. And how they finally get back together.

I'm Going to Tell Father About You (ao3) - dimpledcherries

Summary: r/redactedphan anon ask. post cinnamon bun baking video, heavy on the fucking. Phil gets ruined by sister Daniel and she enjoys every minute of it.

If You Seek Dani (ao3) - phovaries (lasagnaboxlesbian)

Summary: Fi expects the start of the new term to be exactly the same as always. Luckily, she just so happens to be wrong.

Inventory (ao3) - philsmeatylegss

Summary: Guncles Dan and Phil dealing with first periods

Like a Prayer (ao3) - harrysbabyboo

Summary: Shy, girl teacher Phil Lester is convinced to go for a night out at a new lesbian bar with her friends. It’s there that she meets exotic dancer and everyone’s favourite girl, Sister Daniel.

lion 2 u (ao3) - serendipnpipity

Summary: Dan is PhilsLion. Phil doesn’t know.

Long distance loving (ao3) - harrysbabyboo

Summary: “Thank you Phil, I really am going to miss you, but you’ve made things easier, I love you.” Dan lets out a small yawn and Phil kisses him on the forehead.

“It’s okay baby, you sleep, I love you.” The elder shuffles them both down and starts to drift off, but not before Dan pipes up one last time.

“I think I’m going to miss your cock the most.” He mumbles before letting out a snore, yet Phil’s eyes are wide open in shock and wonder.

Or Dan’s on the American leg of the WE’RE ALL DOOMED TOUR and he and Phil have phone sex

(make me) your fantasy (ao3) - blossomsphan

Summary: "Oh," Phil mocked as he pulled Dan's hand out of his hair, letting his arm flop back limply on the mattress. Dan was all freckles and flushed pink skin, responsive and lovely and warm and pliant and his, and Phil had admired him enough— he wanted to see him wrecked.

(Phil wants to take pictures.)

not overdramatic (i know what i want) (ao3) - jonsaremembers

Summary: Phil tries on a new persona.

no volcano can stop us now (ao3) - possumdnp

Summary: Dan and Phil are set to go on their first holiday together to Portugal when a volcano ruins their plans. They end up taking an unexpected trip to Blackpool instead.

(Set in April 2010.)

(please me) show me how it's done (ao3) - lesbaurinkos (pluginbaby)

Summary: “Just. Could you– I just…” Dan mumbles, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. There’s a lovely flush blooming over his cheeks, blotchy and wonderful, swallowing up his freckles, and Phil aches.

“…Tell me I’m good?”

(or: sometimes dan just needs to be taken care of.)

Take Me Back to 2009 (ao3) - coldbrewreaper

Summary: 18 & 22-year-old Dan and Phil are transported into a room with their future selves, and they have a sit down conversation.

Test of Patience (ao3) - httphowell

Summary: Dan and Phil's editing session takes a steamy turn when Phil tests Dan's patience with teasing, pushing him to the edge of control. As the tension rises, their casual interaction turns into a game of power, desire, and restraint. But Dan’s determination to stay in control might just backfire in the end.

The Brain Swap: A Dan and Phil Story (ao3) - AnxiousAsexual5

Summary: Dan and Phil sign up for an experiment in which their consciousness is uploaded to a computer for the other to experience, in a bid to see how the other thinks and get to know each other better. But while in each other's brains, they both learn things that they'd kept secret from everyone, including each other, and are forced to reconcile how this affects their relationship now it's out in the open.

Tours and Broken Ribs (ao3) - beemuffin

Summary: Dan and Phil are practicing for the boxing segment of their stage show: Terrible Influence Tour. But disaster strikes when Phil gets injured.

turning saints into the sea (ao3) - espresso tonic (espressotonic)

Summary: Phil sees Jealous! Dan for the first time.

Unbuttoned, Unbothered, Unstoppable (ao3) - httphowell

Summary: After their Terrible Influence Tour show, Dan and Phil return to their hotel room, where Phil, still buzzing with energy, lounges in a half-unbuttoned shirt, golden trousers, and a pair of ridiculous wolf ears. Dan wants to make fun of him, but instead, he finds himself staring, caught off guard by just how good Phil looks like that.

Inspired by that picture... yeah, you know what one I'm talking about (it's included if you don't know, come find out)

what doesn’t kill you makes you weird at intimacy (ao3) - foxtrot_writes

Summary: Dan is kinda weird about being touched.

What If (ao3) - httphowell

Summary: Even though they’ve been together for over a decade, they still haven’t tied the knot. After reading lots of comments about wedding theories about them hiding their fingers, Dan suddenly craves the intimacy of pretending Phil is his husband for the night.

You looked at me like I was your way out (ao3) - clparks

Summary: ‘Fifteen years is a long time to love someone, long enough Dan felt he understood what Phil needed even if he didn’t know it himself.

(dan knows phil is overwhelmed, phil knows dan can help bring him back to life.)

[tobi-smp]

you know, I think the thing that made c!phil's writing kind of janky and discordant is Also exactly what makes cc!phil's Strength as a roleplayer

the best way to put it is that phil is the epitome of Yes And. wilbur tells him to kill him and it was a Choice, there was no script that told him that wilbur Had to die that night. but wilbur asked him to and so he did.

wilbur Also asked him to look after tubbo and tommy, So He Did. he fought for l'manberg on the 16th (fought Against dream and techno), and agreed to become a part of l'manberg's government as a mentor figure.

but techno was his friend and they wanted to spend time together when they were online so why be anything else in lore? of Course they're old friends, of Course they spend time together.

the problem arise when there's Conflict between these two groups. because phil Must choose what to do and say and believe at any given moment, to justify Why he would choose to do whatever it he is about to do. but at the end of the day that choice Mostly comes down to what would be cool or fun or interesting in the moment.

and I think ! that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it's actually a Really good mindset to have in the context of this kind of roleplay. and it worked really well early on. it's Interesting that phil Would have a completely uncomplicatedly loyal relationship with techno right away when he Did explicitly stand against him on that first day. it Says Something about their relationship. maybe even implies that they've fought each other before, but it doesn't impact their relationship with each other.

the problem is when it starts contradicting and Twisting and being weird. mainly when it comes to characters that he Both has major conflict with And want to have a positive relationship with him. it becomes a question of Why phil would do something that would hurt them if he cares about them.

after all, it's not just hurt feelings, it's war. even if they had no Intent on killing anybody, it still Could Have ended with people dead.

and again ! that's not an inherently Bad Thing. it actually opens to the door for a lot of interesting character conflict and introspection !

phil is a Very old being, his best friend is famous for being unkillable, his wife is Actually Death who casually possesses him sometimes. having phil be somewhat out of touch with humanity in a way where he doesn't Really understand the emotional weight and Danger of what he's done would make sense ! and of course, that's just one possible explanation that could be replaced with or coincide with another reading.

but it's all complicated Further by there being a very strong ideological bend to the conflicts he's involved with. because it Feels like for him to engage with said conflict Meaningfully he must weigh in with his own take on the ideological conflicts. he's playing a supporting role to technoblade after all, and on paper his entire character Is one big ideological conflict.

but what phil's ideology actually Is shifts to suit whatever story line he needs to support at a given moment, rather than being set in stone First with his role in those story lines being chosen based on a preexisting belief.

and honestly I really Don't blame cc!phil for this, because On Paper the jump in justification for these supporting roles he's played don't look very different. and in fact, you can See where one follows the conclusion to another.

but "choose people" above all else, to the point of being Shocked that tommy might hesitate in the conflict with dream that has the weight of protecting the entire server riding on it, really Does Not gel with whatever happened on doomsday or with letting dream out of prison.

moreover, it only highlights a conflict in ideology between phil and techno. the use of violence as default Even Against active allies or people who'd been considered allies 5 minutes ago doesn't seem to gel with whatever phil had going on in the post-prison break out era.

having phil enable dream to torment tommy during doomsday feels very contradictory to phil's shocked offense that dream would torment A Child the first chance he got after breaking out.

and again ! none of this is inherently a Flaw, it could all be very interesting as set ups for character conflict and as an examination for phil's Own character flaws. having contradictions like this isn't inherently Bad writing when it can so easily be Interesting. open up the door for Richer character writing.

the problem isn't even that none of this was intentional at the time that it was happening, but rather that nobody really seemed to notice it at all. so rather than it being used as a tool to bounce off of For that character examination and conflict. it just kinda. Is.

I think ! what phil needed, and what the server As A Whole needed, was stronger Direction. it's what made the early arcs work as well as they did, because Everyone knew the what the core story Was and could figure out ways to cohesively bounce off of them.

the revolution, the elections, the civil war, they were all Strong skeletons with clear factions and ideologies at play. and so even when people were doing their own things it all Felt Cohesive.

and of course, the dream smp Stopped having a key writer for the those big plot moments with the intent of giving people more personal freedom in their writing. but I think it only served a Lack Of Identity. people who didn't already have a stake in the key conflicts that were already on the server struggled to find their way into them. and struggled to find relevancy Without them.

and I think this was felt the most in the way that people were both afraid of stepping on anybody's toes while Also getting in each other's way like a football field.

like, I Loved tommy's death and resurrection arc. and the sheer Surprise of it and the aftermath was truly incredible to see.

but it was also Weird that people weren't given the chance to react to it on their own terms. like, why did they plan the syndicate meeting months in advance just to have it dropped on them with no way to prepare for or modulate their responses?

phil and techno's reactions to tommy's death are So Weird when we consider their relationship with him both before And After. and it's difficult to reconcile because it's Understandable that the cc's didn't want to derail their planned lore to make it About tommy's story line. But It's Not Like We Can Pretend It Didn't Happen Either.

and there's lots of ways that people have tried to reconcile this, lots of ways that I've even personally Enjoyed. but in terms of what's actually In the source material It Just Kind Of Is.

phil cares about tommy, he wants to guide him and protect him because he recognizes that he's a child in a dangerous position, but he also laughs when he hears dream beat him to death in prison and he also laughed while dropping bombs on tommy's head with dream at his side. and these all just kind of Are.

I can't even tell if this is all weirder before or after canon sbi was retconned.

and so these inconsistencies tug at all of the major story beats that phil's character is involved with, all while all of them Mostly work well in isolation. and it's so easy to see how this could've been avoided with stronger direction and story planning.

in other words, It's Dream's Fault.

[themculibrary]

Daisy Johnson/Jemma Simmons (Skimmons) Masterlist

Addicted To You (ao3) - DeceitfulHonesty E, 26k

Summary: A raid at the SHIELD lab where she was working, leaves Jemma in the hands of her greatest enemies. As she tries to stay alive, Jemma finds herself drawn to someone who destroys all her expectations of Hydra: a specialist who calls herself Skye.

and i can go anywhere i want (anywhere i want just not home) (ao3) - autismboard G, 5k

Summary: She defined herself by the things that she loved: she was a scientist, a wife, a best friend.

At that moment, she was sure of only one of those things. So the only conclusion she could draw was that there was no more Jemma. --------

Jemma post 5x14 attempting to make sense of the situation at hand (aka girlie is struggling)

and if you're still breathing (you're the lucky ones) (ao3) - plinys M, 6k

Summary: She’s seen Groundhog Day and every other story about being stuck in a time loop. Though normally the people in these loops are unwilling participants, unable to change anything significantly, but needlessly repeating the same cycle until they learn some sort of moral of the story.

The thing is Jemma already knows the moral of this story. At least, she thinks she does.

can you see me using everything to hold back? (ao3) - midnightstrawberries T, 6k

Summary: Sometimes, late at night, unable to sleep and sprawled under bed sheets, head hanging upside down off the left side of the bed, Skye likes to imagine her parents. What they were like, who they were, how they lived. She dreams until her head starts hurting too much and she has to sit back up.

Skye is sixteen years old and she has never lived in the same place for more than a year at a time. (Something tells her she never will. Something else tells her to believe otherwise.)

~

Skye and Jemma meet in high school instead of at SHIELD.

Follow Me, I Know A Shortcut (ao3) - nerdwegian G, 1k

Summary: Jemma is acting weird around Skye.

I found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) (ao3) - EB_FanficFan_1458 mack/yo yo, jemma/daisy, kate/bobbi, clint/natasha T, 24k

Summary: “Is this what gay stargazing is? Stars and confessions?” Nat whispered. Bobbi laughed silently. “Yes. Now you’ve experienced that, you’re officially with us. Welcome to the family.”

For the first time in years, Daisy and Bobbi feel safe at their home with Phil Coulson and Melinda May. But what happens when Phil and Mel decide to adopt Natasha as well? The demons of their pasts come back to haunt them. Can they stay safe and happy, or will everything fall apart?

I'll Be The Rock Star If You'll Be The Scientist (ao3) - nerdwegian T, 10k

Summary: "Wait, wait, wait! Sir, are you telling me the dinosaur escaped our plane in your flying car?"

It's All About Biochemistry (ao3) - Selenay

Summary: Jemma pulled in a calming breath. "Just. I'm not really used to this kind of thing yet."

"What kind of thing?"

"Post emotional crisis kissing," Jemma said. "It's new to me."

Love Me at the Corner Cafe (ao3) - Heylittleyahtzee (HeyYahtzee) T, 36k

Summary: Skye likes to keep an eye on her regulars, so when Jemma Simmons comes in entirely flustered one morning Skye can’t help but reach out to her. It turns out that Jemma Simmons can’t help but return the favor. Unsurprisingly there is no going back from this

Slytherin to My Heart (ao3) - happypugfics E, 82k

Summary: Skimmons Hogwarts AU Skye and Jemma find themselves in their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry dealing with the same old issues it has to offer: homework, tests, quidditch, house points, their relationship...and oh, the Triwizard Tournament.

The Hydra Disaster (ao3) - Rhino (RhinoMouse) M, 39k

Summary: Jemma's time undercover at Hydra gets far more interesting and Important when she gets pulled into project World Killer. She is not prepared. But SHIELD needs her to succeed. Which would be easier if her boss's boss's boss, Agent Daisy Johnson hadn't taken an interest in her. It would also make Agent Morse's life easier if the scientist she's supposed to protect would stop breaking every rule of spy craft. Every. Single. Rule.

The Way Our Horizons Meet (ao3) - plinys M, 50k

Summary: Four years ago Skye married Jemma in order to keep her from being deported, now when the day has come to end things she can't help herself from wondering how they got here and how she can get her to stay.

Until We Get There (ao3) - Pitkin E, 275k

Summary: “I’ve got a tail,” Daisy announced, loud enough to hear through the phone as she watched the silver truck appear around the fourth corner, having made a successful square with the truck following. She made a left at the next possible road, deciding she would head back toward the highway to get to a better populated area.

Lily gasped. “You do??” She asked. “CAN I SEE IT!?!” She screeched in excitement.

Under normal circumstances, this reaction would have been more than enough for Daisy to roar with laughter and come up with an excuse for why Lily wasn’t allowed to see her non-existent tail. Today she was quiet as she glanced behind her in the rearview again.

wandering (ao3) - cardiganweather E, 4k

Summary: Jemma Simmons has survived an alien virus, jumped out of a plane without a parachute, and worked with an Asgardian to solve a murder mystery. She can handle sharing a bed with a girl she likes in a too hot hotel room.

Right?

Want to Annoy Your Family This Thanksgiving? Call Skye! (ao3) - DeceitfulHonesty T, 4k

Summary: "I’m a 25 year old, unemployed hacker with no high school degree who lives in a van that’s older than me. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but pretend to be in a serious, committed relationship with you to irritate your family, I’m game. I require no pay but the free meal I’ll get as a guest and the joy of spending an evening with people I can aggravate! Call Skye." Based on the Craigslist ad that people love to share this time of year.

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

One More Step Out of the Pit: Chapter 25/26

Summary: It had been Tommy and Tubbo for practically forever. They clawed their way out of hell together. They discovered their superpowers together. They started working for the Superhero Guild together before even coming of age. Tommy probably owed Tubbo his life ten times over. So, when the three supervillains he’d been assigned to bring in managed to take Tubbo hostage, well, there was really only one thing to do.

He knew, of course, he was signing himself up for torture and death by offering that trade, but that was okay.

It’d have to be okay.

AO3 Link (See AO3 for Warnings.)

(This story is finished and has been posted on AO3 for a while, but I’m posting it on Tumblr so it’s somewhere else too. The author notes will all be kept as well. If you are following the blog and don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #backlog.)

Phil awoke to screaming on the fourth day or, perhaps more accurately, during the third night as the sun was still far from rising. By the time he’d rushed out of his bedroom, he’d already worked out that the problem was not as serious as he’d believed when he’d startled awake, and he had a good guess about what the problem likely was. There more yelling coming from down the hall now, but it was less of going-to-die yelling and more I-want-to-be-heard yelling. Still not great, but Phil didn’t feel the need to grab a weapon. Technoblade was also there, having been faster than Phil by a few seconds despite his bedroom being the furthest away from the altercation going on in the hallway.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry,” Wilbur was saying, words slurred just slightly. He was just barely awake, and Phil would guess by context clues that he had not woken naturally in any way. His brow was drawn in pain like when he had a headache, and his eyes were squinting in the dim hallway light implying that Ghostbur had probably forced himself awake rather roughly. He was lingering a couple of steps outside of his bedroom door from where the two parties of this discussion had met halfway.

“What the fuck was that?!” Tubbo asked.

“Calm down, Tubbo, it was just Ghostbur,” Tommy tried to interrupt from behind Tubbo.

“Just Ghostbur?! You said it was a dog, not a half see-through man who was going to hover over our fucking bed in the middle of the night! What the fuck where you even doing?!”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Wilbur said, rubbing his nose bridge and curling in on himself miserably. “I didn’t mean to.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t mean to? How do you not mean to wander into the room we’re sleeping in?”

“Tubbo,” Tommy pulled on the back of his sweater. “It’s really not that big of a deal. He’s…”

“Not that big of a deal?” Tubbo snarled, rounding on him. “I don’t know what the fuck they did to you, but since when has someone watching us, spying on us while we’re unaware, been ‘not the big of a deal’?” This wasn’t fully about Ghostbur, Phil realized, which was probably obvious, but in Phil’s defense he’d been in REM sleep not 50 seconds ago. He wondered what on Earth had happened to them for Tubbo not to even pause at confusion or fear and instead go straight to rage. It piled on to other things like Tommy assuming everything Phil tried to feed him at the beginning was drugged and him jumping out of a window to ‘check’ if they’d rigged his room with alarms.

“I wasn’t,” Wilbur said weakly.

“Bullshit.”

Technoblade had apparently had enough then, because he stepped forward, pulling Wilbur back by the arm a step and putting himself between the two. It was clear that Tubbo was not a fan of Technoblade’s involvement in this altercation by the way his body shifted from an aggressive stance to a more defensive one. Wilbur had been making himself smaller and had been clearly uncomfortable which made him easy to lash out against, but Techno was a solid wall that would not be bending anytime soon.

Tubbo was bracing for a fight as they eyed each other up for a moment. They were both on the defense now, though it wasn’t always easy for people to tell with Technoblade. They made for an interesting mirror of each other standing opposed in the cramped hallway. Both stood in front of another boy that was taller than them, though the difference in height between Wilbur and Techno looked a lot less silly. To be fair, Tubbo had proven himself plenty capable, yet he probably knew he was no match for Techno in this environment.

“Ghostbur gets anxious when he doesn’t have anything to do at night,” Techno said simply, calmly. “He panics about people getting hurt while they’re asleep and vulnerable, and so he likes to check on people. He does it to Phil and me too. It’s a little creepy sometimes to see him there, but he’s not spying. He just wants to make sure everyone in the house is okay. There isn’t any malicious intent there.”

“And how am I supposed to know that?” Tubbo asked, arms folding over his chest.

“I guess you can’t really,” Technoblade acknowledged. “It’s just our word, but we haven’t lied to you yet.”

“That I know of,” Tubbo said.

“Tommy didn’t mind Ghostbur watching him at night. He stayed with him a couple of nights to keep him company. It’s why his face is so blue. I acknowledge that we should have addressed the issue more thoroughly with you before it became an issue.”

“Sorry,” Tommy whispered quietly. Phil wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to or for what precisely.

“Not your fault, Tommy,” Technoblade said and then addressed Tubbo. “What would make you feel better?”

“Him not just going into our room whenever he wants for a starter,” Tubbo said.

“Okay,” Techno said, “and?”

“I don’t want any of you in our room, actually,” Tubbo said, “awake or whatever is up with him when he’s asleep. If it’s really our room and you’re serious about that, you won’t come into it without permission.”

“That sounds like an easy enough request for the most part,” Techno said. He turned to look behind him. “Will?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur said quietly. “I don’t think… I think Ghostbur will be able to keep himself from going into their room after this.”

“Alright,” Technoblade said. “We can do that then. Anything else you need?”

Tubbo shook his head. “Just,” he said, arms hugging himself. “Just that.”

“Okay then,” Technoblade agreed.

After a few seconds of silence, Phil cleared his throat, hoping to kickstart a change in conversation. The occupants of the hallway turned to look at him with varying levels of surprise. Technoblade had been aware he’d been there from the beginning, and Phil was pretty sure at some point Tommy had clocked him, but both Wilbur and Tubbo had clearly been too distracted to notice he’d followed Techno down the hall. The knowledge he was there seemed to calm Wilbur slightly, but it clearly did the opposite for Tubbo.

“Well,” Phil said once they were looking at him, “that was a bit tense for,” he squinted at his watch in the hall light, “3:23 am. I’m going to make myself some tea to calm down a bit before trying to get some more sleep. If anyone else would like some, you’re free to join me.”

He pushed gently past Wilbur and Techno to get to the kitchen door, having punctured the tense air in the hall and being content to let them decide where to go from there. He went about getting the kettle from the shelf they stored it on when not in use and started to fill it in the sink.

To his slight surprise, Tommy was the first member of the household to enter the kitchen and without Tubbo hovering over him like Phil might have expected him to be right now.

“Uh,” Tommy said. “Tubbo didn’t want tea. He went back to bed.”

“That’s alright,” Phil said with a smile. “Do you want tea though?”

He nodded.

“Well, I know Tech and Will are also going to want some. Could you get us four mugs down?”

“Sure,” Tommy agreed. He’d only lived in the house for a few days, and no one had ever told him where things were, but he didn’t hesitate to walk directly to the correct cabinet. Phil wasn’t sure if he had a naturally good memory and had noticed Phil get mugs from there before or if he’d just cased the joint. Either way, he brought the mugs over to the counter next to the sink Phil had just finished filling the kettle in. “What’s that?” Tommy asked as Phil put the kettle back on its base and turned it on.

“It’s an electric kettle,” Phil said. “It’s for warming up the water for the tea.”

“Is that why your tea’s better than Tubbo’s?” he asked. “He warms his water up in a microwave.”

“Well,” Phil said. “The taste probably has more to do with the quality of the tea being brewed, but if it’s not the right temperature because the microwave heats it unevenly, then sometimes it could scorch the leaves and make the tea taste bitter.”

“The kettle heats it better?” Tommy asked.

“Yes,” Phil replied. “It’s more even and it also has sensors that stop it at exactly the right temperature.”

“That seems like a much better way to make tea than Tubbo’s way.”

Phil shrugged. “Tubbo’s way works in a pinch for just one person,” he said.

Tommy shook his head. “No,” he said decisively, “Tubbo’s way sucks.”

Phil couldn’t help but laugh a bit, reaching forward to tousle his hair. “Oh, you are going to be a tea snob, aren’t you?”

“I am not,” he denied. Now, Phil’s son would be smacking his hand away immediately when he started messing up his hair, but Tommy either did not realize that was the socially accepted response or did not care to push away the affection because he just allowed Phil to mess up his hair without resistance.

“We’ll see,” Phil said.

He glared up at Phil through the strands of hair now in his eyes, but then turned to look back at the kettle. “So, this tea is supposed to make me go back to sleep unlike the other tea?” he asked.

“I’m making herbal tea or a tisane,” Phil explained, opening the cabinet that held their tea stock. “It doesn’t have caffeine, and warm drinks usually help people relax so they can fall asleep easier. How does honey lavender sound?”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

Phil grabbed the tin from the shelf and opened it.

“That’s the tea?” Tommy asked looking at the revealed leaves.

“Yep. It’s loose-leaf tea,” Phil said. “It’s the same stuff that they put in bags, but we usually use infusers for our tea because Wilbur’s picky when it comes to tea.”

“I hear I’m being slandered,” Wilbur said as he entered the kitchen. He still did not seem particularly awake but seemed slightly less foggy.

“It sounds more like Phil is telling facts,” Techno commented from right behind him.

“Shut up Technoblade,” Will said, but it did not have its usual bite to it tonight. “It’s too early to be mean to me.”

“Nah.” Yet, Wilbur was currently sporting a not so stolen Technoblade hoodie, so Phil wasn’t sure how much stock to put in Techno’s denial.

“Phil, he’s being mean to me at 3:30 in the morning,” Wilbur complained, seeming to have forgotten Phil had been the one being ‘mean’ to him first.

“Oh no,” Phil said dryly, but Wilbur did not seem to care about his slight mockery. Instead, he stumbled a couple of sleepy steps forward to collide with Phil’s chest, arms wrapping around him in a hug. Phil hugged him back and Wilbur responded by just squeezing him tighter. “You good?” Phil asked quietly into his curls. Wilbur nodded slightly against his shoulder and then pulled himself away.

He turned to Tommy with a half-smile. “Sorry for freaking Tubbo out.”

Tommy shrugged one shoulder. “It wasn’t just your fault.”

“Still,” Wilbur said. “I should have thought and made sure I wasn’t going to scare him.”

“He’ll come around eventually,” Tommy promised. “Everyone likes Ghostbur. I like Ghostbur.”

“Aw! You like Ghostbur?”

“No!” Tommy said immediately, cheeks reddening as Wilbur’s eyes lit up. “I mean, shut up! I mean, he’s nicer than you, you prick.”

“Aw! You like me,” Wilbur said, throwing his arm around Tommy to wrestle him into a side hug.

“I literally just said the only tolerable version of you is when you’re unconscious,” he said, straining to shove Wilbur away.

“Settle down you two,” Phil said. “We want to try to go back to sleep tonight. Plus, the water for the tea’s almost ready.”

Wilbur gave Tommy one last head pat before releasing him obediently to drag him over to the table right as the kettle clicked off.

Phil brought over the mugs of tea a few minutes later, choosing to take the spot next to Technoblade which put him across from Wilbur who was next to Tommy. Things seemed to calm down a bit once they had their tea, everyone remembering that it was 3:30 in the morning and they had been woken up in the middle of deep sleep.

Technoblade was not as bothered, because his sleeping schedule was atrocious, but even he was clearly feeling tired. Wilbur was also tired, but probably still fighting a bit of a migraine that would hopefully be gone by morning. Tommy, though, quickly became a lost cause. He got exceedingly droopy as the minutes dragged on, his eyelids getting closer and closer together as the level of his tea dropped until he finally finished his tea and propped his face up on his elbow. As Phil watched, his eyes slid closed completely and his elbow slipped a bit as he woke himself back up with a jerk.

“Alright,” Phil chucked, “we should probably be getting back to bed.”

Tommy slow blinked at him and then nodded tiredly. He stumbled to his feet and paused briefly in front of Phil with his head tilted down. Phil couldn’t help but smile warmly, reaching up to give him the same goodnight gentle hair ruffle that he had the last three nights. Tommy hummed something unidentifiable and went stumbling down the hall back to his bedroom.

Phil turned to Wilbur and Techno then. “You two too,” Phil told them. “You need to get some sleep.”

“You’re probably right,” Techno agreed.

Wilbur nodded once, looking down to stare into his mug.

“Come on Wilbur, finish your tea,” Techno said. “You’re sleeping with me for the rest of the night.”

Wilbur glanced at him and nodded, quickly finishing off the last of his tea. Phil sighed as they left, picking up their mugs and putting them in the sink to deal with them in the morning. Then, he himself crawled back into bed for a few more hours.

Phil had figured the strict no one is allowed in Tommy and Tubbo’s bedroom rule would last a long while considering how worked up Tubbo had been about it, but they had seemingly all not factored in Tommy. Tommy apparently liked having Ghostbur around when he slept, and Phil found him sleeping on the couch the very next night after the bedroom’s ghost embargo began. He’d said he’d wanted to see Ghostbur and had snuck out into the living room where he’d then accidently had fallen asleep. Phil could not be sure if it really was just a mistake or if he was trying to send a message to Tubbo and he didn’t know enough about their relationship to hazard a guess at this point. He could, however, tell that after three nights of this, neither boy was sleeping particularly well, and both were miserable. Of course, then Wilbur was also upset because he’d caused it and Techno was upset because Wilbur was upset. Not to mention that Wilbur had ended up sleeping in Techno’s room 2 of the 3 nights and in Phil’s once. Ghostbur would be less likely to go wandering around to different people if he fell asleep already in someone’s bedroom, so Wilbur felt more secure going to sleep when someone was with him. However, considering Techno and Wilbur had very different sleeping habits, they were exhausted too.

It all came to a head when Tubbo and Tommy had an argument that had Tommy storming out of the house before breakfast, and Tubbo locking himself in their room for hours. The rest of them did not have to hear the argument to have a pretty good idea of what it was about considering Tommy had just returned to the room from another night on the couch.

Phil took one of his own spare coats (since the ones Wilbur had gotten for Tommy were behind a firmly closed door) and a plate of breakfast to go find Tommy. Luckily, he hadn’t gone marching into the woods, but was simply sitting on the roof.

They didn’t talk about it. Phil had brought him a thermos of the tea he’d liked so much that first morning (though he only brought the one and they ended up splitting it this time). Tommy wrapped himself up in the coat, not seeming to be bothered by the fact that it was made with wings in mind. Phil got the feeling he wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.

By the time they came back inside, Wilbur and Techno had somehow managed to get Tubbo out of the room, apparently having renegotiated. The rule became that no one was allowed physically in the room without permission, but if they left the homemade Do Not Disturb sign flipped to blue instead of red, Ghostbur (and only Ghostbur) had permission to come in.

This seemed to satisfy everyone much more than the previous deal and tensions in the house eased quickly. Whatever conversation they’d had seemed to endear Wilbur to Tubbo the slightest amount as well. He’d already liked Techno the best from the beginning, so now both boys had a bit of an in.

He still hated Phil though.

It did not matter what Phil did, and it became increasingly obvious that it wasn’t actually personal. He got more comfortable around Phil as the days went by, no longer tensing like he thought Phil was a snake ready to strike at him, but he still obviously did not like or trust him yet and there was no sign of it even inching in that direction the same way it seemed to be for Wilbur and Technoblade.

He did not lash out at Phil directly, not seeming to want to test or challenge him. He simply did not like him. Phil could work with that though especially as he got to the point where he was willing to be alone in the same room with Phil for a few minutes at a time. He was clearly projecting something on Phil that wasn’t actually there and hopefully he’d eventually realize that.

For now, it was trying to figure out how this would all work. It was learning that once fully rested, Tubbo would get up after Phil, but before Wilbur (luckily Techno was almost always already in the kitchen to prevent too much awkwardness by then) whereas Tommy seemed to get up around the same time as Wilbur. It was getting many very vehement opinions on food out of Tommy and trying to tug them out of Tubbo like pulling teeth until they realized that half of ‘Tommy’s opinions’ were actually Tubbo’s. It was learning that with enough food and sleep, Tommy had even more energy than they’d thought, and flowers sometimes bloomed spontaneously from Tubbo’s hands when they were idle. Both of the boys seemed surprised about this themselves. They were amazed by what a few good meals and getting enough rest could do for them.

They were both calmest after someone suggested they get outside instead of sitting around the house. Beyond the fact that they lived in the woods and Tubbo had ample access to plants while outside, the calm also came from being able to burn off their newfound excess energy. Wilbur had always been skilled at convincing hardened individuals who insisted they were far too old for silly games to play them, and he slowly taught them children’s games to play outside. Phil got the impression the two friends had never had a chance to actually play together before.

An interesting dynamic developed where Tubbo and Tommy would team against Wilbur in any game or competition until Wilbur tried to drag Technoblade into the game to help him, at which point, more often than not, Technoblade and Tubbo would somehow end up teaming to completely obliterate both Wilbur and Tommy. Except for on the one special occasion where the game was tag and Tommy and Technoblade ended up teamed and Wilbur somehow ended up in the freezing cold lake ‘on accident.’

Today, however, there were no dramatic betrayals and screaming from outside for once. It had taken 5 days for the city to realize they were no longer actively under attack from plants and a week more to even start to clear paths through the foliage to rediscover streets. Now that there was some travel possible in the city, it was back to business for them, at least a little bit. Yet, it wasn’t the kind of business that would leave Tommy and Tubbo out quite yet.

Wilbur had invited them this morning to go help pick up a large load of the harvested vegetables from the community gardens and both had jumped on the offer. Technoblade had, of course, also gone since he would never pass up and opportunity to get coffee from Niki’s. So, Phil was left alone for a couple of hours, allowed for once to get caught up on a book in his living room without all of the chaos that had been the last few weeks.

He was a couple of chapters deep and his tea had cooled to lukewarm when his cell phone began to ring.

He recognized the number of course. He’d been expecting this phone call weeks ago at this point. By now he’d almost forgotten it was coming.

“Hello,” he said as he answered.

“Philza.”

“Dream,” Phil replied, calmly.

“I’m calling about the Red Glider.”

Phil tipped his head back to stare at his living room ceiling, the book he’d been reading laid out on his lap. “I would assume,” he said. “I’d expected to hear from you much earlier.”

“We’ve been a bit busy here at the Guild,” he replied. His voice was level, but it was clear Tubbo’s actions in the city had enraged him and that anger was bubbling right under the surface.

“I’ve heard,” Phil said, unable to keep the amusement from his tone. “Quite the supervillain you had on your hands.”

“He’s not a supervillain,” Dream said, his voice hard. Well, Phil thought. We’ll have to see about that. “He’s a misbehaving child, who thankfully seems to have ceased his tantrum.” Phil frowned at that. Convenient for him to do an adult’s work but be considered a child when he did not do as ordered. “Speaking of. The Red Glider.”

“Hmm,” Phil said, not quite ready to let the topic drop. He wanted to know exactly what was going on in this man’s head. “I get you were busy, but still. It’s been over two weeks, Dream. Seems rather callous to leave one of your own in the hands of a group of supervillains”

“Well, it was his own fault, wasn’t it?” Dream scoffed. “He went against my direct orders and those choices led to their natural conclusions. Not to mention, his friend’s been throwing a fit for no reason. It wasn’t like I could just do what he wanted until he’d given up. Otherwise, it would have looked like I was giving in.”

“So what?” Phil asked, barely restraining the rage elicited by that little speech from bleeding into his voice. “You outsourced his punishment to us?”

“He needed to learn the consequence of his own actions,” Dream said mildly, and Phil felt his face twist up into a nasty snarl even though he knew Dream couldn’t see it. “Besides, I figured getting a go at him might placate you for a bit. Whippoorwill especially seemed to dislike him from what was reported back.” Reported back by Tommy because he’d been fucking terrified of them. “I will be needing him back soon though, so how much do you want for him?”

“Oh,” Phil said. “You’re not getting him back.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, not happening, mate,” Phil informed him.

Silence again. “Well, I don’t think you would have killed him,” Dream mused. “That doesn’t seem to be your MO even if you don’t like him. Do you plan to keep him prisoner indefinitely? He’s got to get boring at some point.”

“He’s not our prisoner,” Phil said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Phil said. “Fuck you Dream. A child? Really? What exactly did you think we were going to do to him? I thought we were supposed to be the bad guys, but then again who’s really the villain if the heroes do that?”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“Let’s put it in a language a hero like you can understand then, Dream,” Phil said. “You ever lay a hand on that kid again, and I will give you an in-person demonstration of the reason I can still take The Blade down in a fight to this day.” He sat forward and lowered his voice even though there was no one to see it. “And the thing is Dream, I care about Technoblade. I don’t love you.” The line was quiet in the two second Phil paused before he hung up the phone.

Author Note:

It was in that moment that Dream realized, he fucked up. (Took him long enough to figure it out, huh?)

Well, this is the last proper chapter of One More Step Out of the Pit. The last chapter is an epilogue that's going to take place 6 months later and set up the sequel "One Stone Loose Upon the Footpath." To get to the sequel though, I will need to finish "One Step Forward," "Like Footprints Upon the Seashore," and "Out of Step" because each contribute things needed for the sequel. So, the main storyline will be taking a break after the epilogue. I'll probably also do some one-shots that take place between this chapter and the epilogue. So, enjoy the prequels and midquels in the meantime!

Thank you all for reading and enjoying! :D

[isa-ghost]

honestly I think you are so awesome and deserve all good things in life and I appreciate your role in the community sm, like I think I'd stick around even if you posted about things I know nothing about because just seeing you on the dash makes me go "omg its isa!" (even when its discourse lmao)

What The Fuck this is so sweet!! ;^; 💚💚

Worry not, I'm not leaving QSMP yet. Even if it hurts. If Phil's done, I'll likely migrate to Fit for it. Provided he streams when Phil doesn't. 😅

And I'll be damned if this stops me from completing AMFMN. Apollo has hinted during a brief reading with him that he'll kick my ass. We NEED more Phil centric fics, it's half the reason I said fuck it we ball and started AMFMN to begin with. That goblin of a deity is INVESTED in the story. I think I'd get sunburn for eternity if I left it incomplete.

And I have a perhaps therapeutic idea to write Phil coming home to the Hardcore World via Rose after departing with the kids. I think I'm gonna go for it, even if it hurts to write and I cry during doing so. :p

I'm not sure what'll become of that QSMP AU I was cooking on but I don't think I'll discontinue that before it even begins either. Additionally, I've played with the idea of just. Continuing some kind of AU storyline post-AMFMN. Like writing stuff (headcanons or short story(s)) after the events of the fic. We'll see.

I've been miserable at worst and palpably sad at best the last 2 days, and we'll see what happens during and after Phil's stream today, but.. at least for now at this good hour of 10am, I'm feeling,, better-ish. Cautiously optimistic. I don't want to leave (and I especially don't want to lose the amazing mutuals and friends I've made 😭). I'm not going anywhere.

But if you're curious, here's some other interests you'll see here besides QSMP:

I'm a Phil main first and foremost. Even if he's done on QSMP, I watch every minute of EVERY stream. Hardcore my fucking beloved. I won't hesitate to start cooking up more hardcore Phil headcanons or a fic or AU.

After Phil, I watch Sneeg second most. I also watch Hermits/Lifers & friends, Ranboo (yes hello I love Genloss), Tubbo & a bunch of others. Like I said, Death Family's end on QSMP isn't my end in QSMP, nor MCYT. :)

I barely post abt it anymore bc it's more bitter than sweet for me, but DSMP will always hold a place in my heart. I'm always down to talk about it if asked.

D&D/Critical Role/Candela Obscura (I've been dual-wielding hyperfixations on Phil & CR this whole time, you'd be getting Phil & CR primarily if I fell out of QSMP for some reason)

Related, I plan on getting into Dimension 20 sometime and I also want to watch LA/NY By Night. TTRPG enjoyers that follow me will be getting FED.

I FUCKING LOVE DRAWFEE!!!

Anime!! Bungo Stray Dogs, JJK, Soul Eater, Apothecary Diaries, Frieren, and a bunch of others are my faves/current faves :)

I'm actually primarily an OC and roleplay person, it's my biggest special interest and I've been doing it for 12+ years. It's why I love mcrp so much. I'd probably post this stuff on @isas-oc-asylum and then reblog here if anyone was interested, idk. But I have an entire original world + country full of lore and characters I could talk about for eternity

I FUCKING LOVE HORROR PODCASTS. Magnus Archives & Protocol, Welcome to Night Vale, Old Gods of Appalachia!!

Veteran followers of me know I was originally a Jacksepticeye & Markiplier ego theorist blog before 2020! I have so many AUs of them and I love them still even though new content with them is slow. (I like Sanders Sides a decent amount too!)

I love talking about witchcraft!! I'm always down to infodump, answer questions, or gush about my goofy ass deity circle!! <3

Controversial (/s) but I love the Hazbin & Helluva series. I also love other indie series like Murder Drones, TADC and Lackadaisy!

I'm also slowly watching The Dragon Prince with friends!!

I've reblogged stuff plenty of times but I fucking love The Owl House & Gravity Falls

When will Arcane return from the war,,,, 😔 (soon)

I won't hesitate to plunge into the Monster Prom series deeper. Milo Belladonna and Damien LaVey my lomls I will get monsterfuckery on main I s2g

Basically... I'm a fuckin charcuterie board of interests!! Realistically, I'll still mainly be Phil/Sneeg/CR. But I'm always down to be abnormal about all that 👆🏻 and more.

If any of that interests anyone reading this, feel free to stick around. Or keep beating me with QSMP & Phil stuff in my asks. I'll still always be down to write headcanons and talk about fic stuff. I love qPhil too much to shut up forever.

And if it doesn't? Congrats, I'm also a massive shitposter. I have like 3 different tags for it. Feast your eyes upon how funny I am. It's like the one thing I'm confident in about myself, I'm fucking hilarious.

Honest Opinion Anon Asks

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 33

Chapter 33: “Action, Part 2”

Again, no indication of the lullaby being hummed, but I love that the anime includes her doing so. I love her voice so much, both sub & dubbed. But damn ma’am, no need to sound so relieved that you’ll finally be free from your own son. (even though she didn’t really know Ray was her true kid until six years ago.)

Okay, so here’s where the timing of midnight sends me into a state of confusion, at least in the anime’s case. With the manga, we know Emma enters the dinning room to meet Ray at 23:38 and I can believe their whole conversation takes up until midnight when Ray drops the match. We also learn in this chapter Isabella finishes putting the babies to sleep at 23:45 and then does whatever in her office until she’s alerted by Emma’s scream. The manga makes more sense to me for this scene because it doesn’t specify exactly how long she’s in her office for or when Isabella reacts to the commotion in the dinning room. It’s easier to believe the kids had enough time to set up for Emma’s grand performance when we have no idea the current time of night.

With the anime however, we get Isabella hear Emma’s scream just seconds after midnight which baffles me greatly since that scream of Emma’s happens way after she catches Ray’s match! After singeing her hands, she has Thoma & Lani set up Ray’s replacement, takes out Ray’s tracker, made the boys vacate the premises so she can start the fire and then lets out that scream.. all of that certainly can’t happen in a matter of seconds just as the clock finishes its twelve midnight chimes! I dunno man, anime time is weird, but at least Emma’s voice actresses nailed that scream.. you don’t wanna know how often I just replayed it back.

Anyways, my nitpicking aside.. the fire is quite the spectacle, especially with how quick it was able to spread. We already got walls coming down. I also love how we don’t get a perfect look at Emma actually wearing her shoes, whether they’re drawn completely dark as they are here or covered by speech bubbles. You can still notice them sure, but it makes it fun to look back at once Isabella notices the footwear and how little focus they received.

Ah Isabella, a renowned caretaker who spent many years acting like the perfect mother in order to provide high quality merchandise to the farm.. and she ends up gets fooled by one of her own children in a very spectacular fashion. Sorry honey, I think you raised Emma a bit too well to be a proficient actor.

Props to Gilda as well for the subtle act she put on in front of mom and leading the other kids out. I gotta wonder though, what did the younger kids do when they all evacuated? Did they not see the fifteen escapees at all? Or if they did, even wonder where they’re all going and if they should follow too? Maybe Phil kept them under control.. yeah, let’s go with that.

The speed at which this girl ran away from the fire is exactly how quick she earned a permanent place in my heart. I know she resorted to cutting her ear off simply because she had no time (literally about ten seconds in the anime) to effectively take her tracker out with Isabella nearby, but damn girl! Ya gotta be so strong physically, mentally and emotionally to even pull off a stunt like that. Fair reminder that she’s only eleven!

The squad!! I love these kids, but I wish the majority got more spotlight, aside from Don, Gilda and Anna. The rest don’t do too much in the story? like they’ll have their own moment but the impact of it ranges from impactful to forgettable. I just wanna know more about them individually too. But yes, huzzah, big relief washed over me seeing Ray still alive.

OH! And see! The time once again! Manga basically telling us it had to take about twenty minutes for everything post-match drop to happen up until Emma reunites with the group, so the fact the anime had that whole operation finished seconds after midnight is so strange to me.

Much more intimidating than how the anime adapted it, even though this panel kinda ignored how Emma’s palms got a little scorched from catching the match and are now seemingly fine.

Favorite panel/moment:

I dunno, I like the panel of all the escapees and Emma reciting Norman’s words, but I really love this silly one of Ray too??

“I’ll explain later” ... yeah, this shouldn’t give me ch144 flashbacks, but it does.

[succubusphan]

Two Man Team - Chapter 4

Summary: This is the story of two struggling friends who after many trials and tribulations find their way back to each other and build the life they've always dreamed of.

Or how Phil changed his life by talking to random strangers on the internet.

Rating: E

Tags/warnings: Friends to lovers, Friends with benefits, mental health issues (mainly anxiety), Slow burn, Dan is a psych student. Canon divergence (the timeline is altered and some things never happened), Slutty Phil, Angst with a happy ending. The fic spans many years.

Author's Note: Written for the OSPBB 2023 @oldschoolpbb. Thank you @effingmeteors for being my life saviour and beta as usual and to my artist Lin @anironsidh.

Edits and the art will be added at some point, we are busy bees.

POSTING EVERY DAY UNTIL IT'S COMPLETED.

Total Word Count: 75k ish

Read on Ao3

CHAPTER 4: We Should Be Friends

May 2010

After they’d posted their first collab a few months prior, their YouTube channels had started to receive a lot more attention. It was very evident that people preferred their chemistry and energy together rather than apart, so they decided to capitalise on that as often as they could. Why not? They had an amazing time filming together anyway.

During Phil’s first visit to Whockingham, he and Dan decided to give pinof (like everyone, including themselves, began to call it) a mighty counterpart, not a sequel, but… a different twist on the concept, this time on Dan’s channel. The questions were quite different from those they received for pinof, or as Dan put it, they were the same fans but they found it easier to express themselves on his channel. That might’ve been true since Dan received creepy mail from them often, while Phil got drawings and cute things for the most part.

A surprising aspect of sharing their friendship online was that people really shipped them. They didn’t say it out loud at first, but then the conversation started shifting from fans speaking to them to fans speaking about them, usually in places where Dan and Phil could easily see it, like Tumblr and Twitter.

It was no big deal at the time so they decided to carry on without paying the shippers any mind as long as they were not rude or super invasive.

---

January - June 2010 

Moving back home with his parents after his master had been good the first few months. He even felt that he had a better relationship with his dad. It’s not that he didn’t love Phil, but he’d had so many expectations that didn’t align with what Phil wanted whatsoever, so there was no way Phil was going to fulfil them. The cordless hammer drill he’d given Phil for his birthday was testament enough of it.

Phil could be many things but the so-called ‘manly type’ was certainly not one of them. He was sensitive and he wore skinny jeans and eyeliner - and he liked men. But still, he felt a bit closer to his father now that they had shared a home as adults for some time.

Phil threw himself back onto his old bed and let out a huff. He felt like such a couch potato but he didn’t want to see anyone or do anything. As of late, he just felt like sleeping all day and playing games all night. His family was not fond of the little routine he had going but at the same time he was 23 years old, it’s not like they could tell him what to do like when he was a child. On the other hand, they were still his parents and this was still their home so the situation was a bit strange. 

He was an adult, but he still wasn’t any good at it. It was as if he hadn’t fully developed yet and he often felt like everyone else had things figured out except for him. Anja had a good job and lived with her girlfriend. Most of his childhood friends had moved out and were able to support themselves - even Richard - and Phil was finding it hard to find a steady job.

He had a gig editing… “Adult videos” for the summer but then he was done. 

Phil’s stomach growled, reminding him that he had refused to go down to eat all day to avoid his dad and the talk he so eagerly wanted to have. He had managed to put it off for nearly 24 hours but if he didn’t eat something soon he was going to faint - again.

Huffing, Phil sat up and regretted it immediately when his world spun. He took a deep breath and got out of bed, making his way downstairs with one hand to the wall to avoid falling. He walked into the empty kitchen and thought luck would be on his side this time, but when the microwave dinged announcing that the leftovers were ready, his dad appeared seemingly out of thin air.

“I thought you were never going to come out,” his dad joked, making Phil feel like shit for avoiding him.

“Sorry, I was just sleeping,” he said, grabbing the plate from the microwave and sitting at the breakfast bar.

“Are you sure?” his dad asked suspiciously, eyeing him carefully. “You look pale and your dark circles are only getting deeper.”

“Jeez, thanks Dad.” Phil rolled his eyes, already angry, even if he didn’t know why.

His dad raised his hands and took a small step back. “I’m just worried about you, that's all.”

Phil let out a small sigh. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m still tired. I’m alright.” He pushed the rice in his plate around, not really eating anything. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Your mum and I were talking a few days ago and… we are wondering what your plans are - for the future,” he said, finally coming to sit next to Phil.

“I don’t know yet,” Phil mumbled, trying to make himself smaller in his stool.

“We think it would be best if you find a job and move out j-”

“You’re kicking me out?” Phil said, dropping his fork and looking at him.

“No, Phil. Well… we know that you don’t really want to live here, but you don’t seem to know what you’re doing. You can’t sleep all day and stay up all night playing games forever. You’re wasting away.”

“I can’t believe you are kicking me out,” Phil said, his voice shaking a little in a mix of anger and hurt.

His dad put a hand on his shoulder. “We are not kicking you to the streets, just giving you a little push. We will help you move and give you money if you need it. And you’ll always have a place to return to if anything were to happen, you know that. We are worried about you,” he said. “And we want to see you do well, living your own life as an adult.”

Phil looked into his eyes.“I guess… you are right. I just don’t know what I’m doing,” he mumbled.

“That’s normal. Nobody is born knowing these things. We have all summer to figure it out - together.”

Phil nodded and finally took the first bite. The rice was already a bit too cold.

---

August 2010

Moving to Manchester turned out to be a blessing. He managed to land a job at the Disney Store that didn’t totally suck, and he had his very own place. His flat was basically a shoebox on Jefferson Place overlooking a prison but he didn’t have to share with anyone for the time being. 

Well, he wasn’t officially sharing with anyone, but as Dan had promised in one of his YouTube videos, as soon as he started uni at Manchester, he “dumped all of his shit” at Phil’s and visited as often as he could. It was amazing to have his friend so close by, he was a great source of entertainment, and it kept Phil from going insane or staying in and getting cabin fever - if you could get cabin fever by living alone in Manchester. 

Dan had helped Phil so many times in his life, just being there, being his friend and listening to his weird rants, and Phil was glad to have the opportunity to pay Dan back by being a bit of the voice of experience when it came to uni matters, and to provide Dan with a quiet place to study, or to have a breakdown when he needed it.

One fateful afternoon, barely 10 minutes after Phil walked in from work, the doorbell rang and when he opened the door, he saw Dan, soaking wet with a huge pile of laundry in a trash bag, lips trembling and eyes filled with unshed tears. 

He knew better than to ask, so instead, he pulled Dan into a hug and grabbed the bag from him slowly, setting it on the floor. “It’s ok,” he mumbled into Dan’s hair. “Go sit on the sofa and I’ll make us some tea.”

“Thanks,” Dan said and made himself at home, taking his spot on the sofa, just like always.

Phil put on the kettle and set the cups on the counter before putting the first load into the washer; it looked like it would be probably three. “Are you having laundry problems again?”

“I’m having all sorts of problems… laundry is only one of them.”

“Anything I can do about it?” 

Dan let out a huff and stared at the ceiling. “I guess… I just don’t fit in - anywhere. I thought this would be different, no rocks, no punches in the locker room, but it’s still the same. I’m still too fucking lame to make friends, my roommates are insane, people still gossip about me and I hate most of my classes. What’s the point of studying psych if I can’t figure out my own fucking problems?”

“You are cool, Dan. If your roommates don’t like you, that’s on them. You are one of the kindest people I know, who wouldn’t want to be your friend?” Phil asked, pouring the hot water into their mugs and bringing them over to the coffee table very carefully before sitting at his side. “Just hang out with other people, you don’t need to be their friend.”

“It’s easy for you to say, you make friends so easily.”

“I don’t, not anymore, I think. It was easier when I was a kid and I didn’t realise people found me weird, and then I figured out I’m gay and nobody else was,” Phil said, thinking back to high school. “Well, Anja is a lesbian but I didn’t know that until much later. I’ve been awkward all my life, but I eventually learned to pick the right people and to leave the judgemental ones behind. If they don’t like me, I don’t like them either.”

“You have the best personality ever. Anyone who doesn’t like you is crazy,” Dan said after a long pause.

“Well, that’s how I feel about you too,” Phil said, patting Dan’s knee. 

“Thanks, Phil, really,” Dan said. “You’re a good friend.”

Phil nodded and tried to keep a straight face. “Now, about the laundry-”

Dan pushed him. “Shut up! Someone just took my load out and left it on the floor soaking, I’ve fucking had it.”

“That’s at least 3 loads, it won’t wash properly if you put too much in.”

“Your mum has too much in,” Dan retorted.

“Hey!”

“Fine, you have too much in!”

“Well, sometimes, but good friends keep quiet about it,” Phil said, giggling.

Dan blushed and hit him with one of the sofa cushions.

Their tea mugs sat on the coffee table, untouched.

-----

December 10th 2010

Phil sat on his bed staring at Dan through the pixelated Skype call, restlessly rocking back and forward, fixing his fringe and picking at his fingers absentmindedly. He wouldn’t have even noticed he was doing it if Dan hadn’t pointed it out.

“What’s with you, mate?” Dan asked.

Phil huffed at his computer and consequently at Dan’s smirking face on Skype. “I feel like I’m about to get sick. There’s something wrong with me.”

Dan’s face dropped. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just not normal,” he whined.

“Phil…” Dan said, his tone a clear warning.

“I just - Listen, Frasier got into a relationship, Mark is away chasing some guys from Essex and my other regular just stopped answering my texts. I haven’t had any sex in like two months and I feel like I’m going insane. Is that normal?”

Dan’s eyebrows shot up and he cackled.

“I’m serious! Sometimes I feel like there’s something wrong with me. I feel like I need to have sex constantly or I start getting in a bad mood. People can actually tell when I come back from someone’s house because I’m all smiles and I’m cheerful, then my mood drops as the days go by and now I think my friends are actually avoiding me. Am I sick?”

“I think it’s normal at our age. You got used to always having an option at hand and now your endless supply has run dry. You just need to get laid,” Dan said.

“Well, with whom? I don’t want to go ‘hunting’?” Phil said, meaning going out to a pub and meeting someone new. He was a bit over that.

“Ok, since you are not taking the hint, I will be more clear. I mean me. Do me,” Dan said with an awkward wink.

Phil’s mouth nearly hit the ground. To be honest, he had thought about it but only vaguely since Dan didn’t seem interested. “A-are you serious?”

“Yeah… if you want,” Dan said, scratching the back of his head.

“You don’t have to do this for me if you don’t want to, really. I don’t want you to feel pressured into it, I was just venting,” Phil said, feeling a bit embarrassed but also quite interested. 

“You would be doing me a favour. I am also out of options and we are friends, why not enjoy it, right? It would be fun.”

Phil contemplated it for a moment but smiled and nodded. It would definitely be fun, like everything he did with Dan. It would be great. “Ok, so… when. And Where?”

“Since your parents are in Miami, why don’t I come over tomorrow and help you desecrate your childhood bed?” Dan smirked. “Ever had anyone over?”

Phil shook his head. “Not for sex.”

“Perfect,” Dan smiled.

---

They met in Manchester Piccadilly once again and took the bus to Phil’s childhood home, no extra stops or sightseeing this time. They hadn’t agreed on when it would happen so the anticipation, the tension between them and the little smiles Dan was giving him were driving Phil mad. He wanted to take it slow but he also wanted Dan in his bed immediately.

Phil took a calming breath as they entered the house, taking their coats and hanging them. The silence was deafening. “Do you want to order pizza and watch a movie?” he offered, trying to cut the tension.

“Yeah,” Dan said, looking relieved. He dropped his bag on the ground and went about checking Phil’s new DVD collection while Phil ordered.

Once the pizza was safely on the coffee table, they plopped down on the sofa and pressed play. Phil smiled when he saw the title screen for Wall-e; he had been meaning to watch that movie but he didn’t enjoy movies as much if he was home alone so watching it with Dan for the first time was just ideal. 

The night was a bit of a rollercoaster. They commented along with the plot, marvelling at how cute Wall-e was, laughing at the jokes and nearly choking on the pizza when they thought Wall-e was dead. Dan was fully sobbing at that point but then… then Eva saved him, she helped him get better; just like Dan and Phil helped each other through the rough times.

Without giving it another thought, Phil wiped away Dan’s tears and pressed their lips together, pulling Dan into a hug and rubbing comforting circles on his back. It was a brief and sweet moment but when he tried to pull away, Dan looked into his eyes, buried his fingers in Phil’s hair and pulled him even closer, kissing him again.

Phil gasped and before he knew it, Dan was all over him, kissing him with more enthusiasm than anyone before. He ran his tongue on Phil’s lips, pulling at his hoodie and pressing him into the sofa, their breaths quickening.

Laughing, Phil pushed at Dan’s chest gently until the other paused, looking at him with wide eyes. Oh, how Phil loved those beautiful brown eyes. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said, breathlessly.

“Ok, yeah,” Dan said, helping Phil to stand and running up the stairs, but once they got to the bedroom door, he hesitated, not wanting to go inside.

Phil squeezed Dan’s hand in reassurance. “Hey, it’s ok if you don’t want to do anything. You know that, right?”

“No! I mean - I know that!” Dan said, biting his lip. “It’s not that, it’s just that… there’s something I haven’t told you, something big.”

Phil frowned, trying to guess what Dan was talking about. “What is it? You can tell me anything!”

“You remember my girlfriend, right?” Dan asked. “From high school.”

“Yeah, are you still together?” Phil asked, his stomach dropping. He had honestly no idea where this was going.

“No, no-no no,” Dan said, stalling. “I had a girlfriend but it was like only two months because I couldn’t do it with her,” he gestured vaguely. 

Phil cocked his head at him. Was Dan trying to tell him that he had issues getting it up? He didn’t say anything hoping that Dan would elaborate so he didn’t have to think of something to say without putting his foot in his mouth.

“I couldn’t because… for the last 3 years I’ve been fucking Emily,” he mumbled, trailing off as he went to the point where Phil could barely make out the end of that sentence.

Phil’s face dropped and so did his jaw, his stomach, his heart. “What!? Your ugly cousin???!”

“NO!” Dan said, his brow burrowing into a frown. “Oh, my god! I said EMILIO!... Emilio,” he repeated, this time lowering his eyes to the floor.

“Oh,” Phil said, remembering that name. That was one of Dan’s emo friends.

“It’s over, but I haven’t been able to be with anyone else,” Dan said, barely breathing as he continued to explain himself. “He manipulated me so much, that’s why I didn’t always reply. He was constantly checking in on me and he didn’t want to make it official, but he also didn’t want me to be with anyone else. I don’t even know if I’m gay or if he just damaged me that much. I never thought about it, he just offered sex and I said yes because why would I say no? I was just horny.”

“Oh, Dan,” Phil said, pulling him into a hug. “We don’t have to do anything, you don’t need to prove anything to me or even yourself. It’s ok to take your time to figure it out, you know?”

Dan pressed his face into Phil’s neck, making the next words that came out of his mouth sound quite muffled. “I know, but I feel like - like it’s different with you. I’ve always known you were hot. I don’t need to figure that out, I just didn’t want to keep that secret from you. Nobody knows, none of our friends.”

“Do you still have feelings for him?” Phil ventured, letting go of Dan. He needed to know where Dan stood even if nothing else happened between them.

“No, I don’t think I ever did,” Dan said, letting out a frustrated huff. “It’s complicated. There was always so much drama. In the end he stopped texting me and one day he shows up at my door with a kid, because he had a girlfriend in another town and he got her pregnant and oh, and the name of the kid? Dan! He gave the kid my fucking name.”

Phil blinked and ran his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to say. “That’s a lot.” Fuck, that was a stupid comment.

“I know, that’s why I wanted you to know. Do you think I’m disgusting?” Dan asked.

“Dan… for having sex with a guy? I do that! Why would I think it’s disgusting?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know… It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”

“It’s not stupid. You’re not stupid,” Phil corrected himself, knowing what Dan meant. “I’m sorry that you felt so confused and manipulated by him. You deserve love and attention and an untainted friendship.”

“Do you think I will ever have that?” Dan looked at him as if Phil held the truth at the tip of his tongue and could simply speak it into existence.

“Yes, of course,” Phil said. “I would wait until you figured out how you feel about your own sexuality before you get into a relationship, but that’s it.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Dan admitted. “I don’t think I will figure it out anytime soon. I’ve been bullied for being gay my entire life when I didn’t even know if I was gay or not,” he said. “But I still want to try with you, if you want. I feel trust you enough to know that everything will be ok.”

“Are you sure?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded and pressed their lips together. “Please,” he mumbled against Phil’s lips. Somehow, after the difficult talk they’d just had, Phil could tell that Dan was more relaxed and confident, so he let himself be guided to the bed and undressed at Dan’s pace, trusting him to know what he wanted. 

Dan took a step back and looked at Phil’s naked body with hunger. “Do you have lube?” he asked.

Phil scrambled to open his nightstand drawer, making sure to put the different lube flavours and types as well as condoms at the top.

Picking one of the tubes, Dan stared at the label. “Cherry?” he asked, quirking one eyebrow.

“The flavoured ones are only for oral,” Phil explained. “Those don’t mix well with condoms.”

Looking at Phil’s cock, Dan smirked. “Actually, that’s an amazing idea,” he said, uncapping the lube, pouring way too much of it on his target and sinking to his knees. 

Phil felt a bit at a disadvantage being the only one naked, but once Dan’s lips enveloped him, all his hesitation went out the window. Once Dan started to bob his head and use his unfairly huge hands on Phil, he knew he was in trouble. Try as he might, it was embarrassingly fast, but it made Dan super proud of himself if his wolfish smile was any indication. 

Then it was Phil’s turn to undress Dan and explore his body, taking his time to learn what made him gasp and what made his toes curl. Feeling a bit competitive, Phil used every one of his tricks on Dan, pushing his buttons one by one until he was trembling, and only then did he take Dan cock in his mouth as far as he could take it without gagging and swirled his tongue around. Phil went tortuously slow, edging Dan until he was begging him and finally finished him off by hollowing his cheeks and taking him down his throat as he massaged his perineum, making sure to swallow every single drop.

Dan gave him a bewildered look. “You swallowed.”

“I did,” Phil smirked, rubbing his teary eyes with pride. It was the first time he had managed to deepthroat anyone without gagging, but he was not going to admit that to Dan.

“I don’t usually do that,” Dan admitted. “I don’t like the taste.”

“That’s perfectly fine. You don’t have to,” Phil said, his voice a little hoarse. “I don’t usually do it because it’s not ideal to do it with people you don’t know.” He lay down at Dan’s side and laced their fingers together. “It’s good to get tested every six months or so anyway, if you are active at least.”

“I never got tested,” Dan commented.

“You didn’t know, but now you do,” Phil smiled. “And you know I’m clean because I got tested last month.”

Dan nodded and turned towards him, laying one leg over Phil’s before leaning in for a kiss. It was sweet but deep and it lasted for what felt like forever. It made Phil’s head spin, reminding him of their first kiss, just over a year ago. The kiss that had definitely made an impact on him but left so many questions too. At least now he knew the answer to most of those questions, except for… what it all meant for Dan.

Phil turned towards him and pulled him closer, pressing their bodies together. He smiled into the kiss when he felt Dan’s hard on pressing against his. “Already?” he murmured.

“It’s your fault for being so hot,” Dan said against his lips.

Phil felt one of Dan’s arms reach for something behind his back but didn’t think much about it until he felt Dan’s slick hand wrapped around both of their cocks. Phil hissed at the cold feeling which felt strangely nice mixed with the touch and the warmth coming from Dan’s gorgeous body. He let Dan do as he pleased as their bodies moved in tandem, their kiss turning into a symphony of gasps and moans, the pressure slowly building within Phil as his orgasm surged. He tilted his head, kissing Dan’s neck and feeling him twitch as he let out a high pitched moan.

“Yes!” Dan hissed, as he began to tremble, trying to keep some semblance of a rhythm as he approached his orgasm.

“So hot,” Phil mumbled and bit Dan’s neck, perhaps a bit too hard. 

“Fuck!” Dan moaned, his back arching as he came all over their chests, his hand going a bit lax until Phil wrapped his hand around Dan’s and both of their cocks and thrust into the fist. 

Dan’s over stimulated whines only added to the fire. With a few more thrusts, he joined Dan, coming even harder than before.

“Lester,” Dan panted, a smile on his lips. “You’re a demon.”

Phil laughed, trying to catch his breath. “Maybe I am.” He buried his face into the crook of Dan’s neck and hummed, falling asleep shortly after.

The following morning, Phil woke up first and crawled over Dan, pulling a pair of joggers and a hoodie on before going to the bathroom to rinse his body and brush his teeth. He wanted to make Dan breakfast but he needed to look presentable; well, that and nobody likes to walk around with dry come all over their body. He made a mental note to avoid falling asleep without cleaning up next time.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a bit of fruit and cereal. He was almost done and about to carry the tray up when he decided to add toast and eggs to the menu. It was fairly late anyway.

He walked into the bedroom and stopped in his tracks. He was shocked to find Dan gone and was considering checking the bathroom when he felt a pair of arms wrapping around his waist and something hard pressing against his ass, causing him to nearly drop the tray to the ground. “Jesus!”

“It’s just Dan, but if you want to worship me I’m in.”

Phil laughed. “I’ll worship your mum,” he said, setting the tray on the bed.

“I was hoping to worship yours.” Dan wiggled his eyebrows. 

“Actually, shut up!” He nudged Dan’s chest gently.

“Alright, alright. I’ll worship this gorgeous ass,” he said with a hint of a question in his tone. 

Phil could tell that it was a joke but perhaps also a request. “I’m in if you want.”

“Really?” Dan squeaked, his eyes a bit wide.

“Yeah!” Phil said with a smile.

“Ok.” Dan let out a happy sigh and looked much more relaxed after Phil’s reassurance. 

They sat sideways on the bed, resting their backs against the wall and started eating breakfast. Time escaped them as they sat there for three hours without them even noticing, eating and chatting about life, especially everything that Dan had been stressing about - and kissing. In fact, they kissed so much that their lips were sore and puffy, and Phil was sure they would fall off at one point or another, but that didn’t happen. 

An incredible feeling of happiness and inner peace filled Phil in such a way that he couldn’t stop smiling. He had honestly never felt like this, like his heart was going to crawl out of his chest. He briefly wondered if Dan felt the same, but even if he did, he knew that Dan was never going to admit it, not yet anyway. So instead of asking that, he decided to go with a different question. “Did you have fun last night?” He asked, setting the tray on the floor and scooching closer.

Dan got really quiet for a moment but his smile never dropped. “You know I did.”

“You know what I mean. Like, in general. How did you feel?” Phil pressed a bit.

“It was… the best. I could do that every day,” Dan said, being serious for only a moment before he smirked and continued. “So you better keep up, Lester. I’m going to wear you out.”

“We’ll see,” Phil said, smiling and biting into Dan’s neck without a warning. The whine Dan let out was evidence enough that he had won.

They eventually rolled out of bed and showered separately, so that they could actually wash up properly and go to the cinema. He scrolled on Twitter while Dan finished straightening his hair and saw the tweet from the previous night. 

@danisnotonfire: All I can taste is cherry, all I can smell is cherry, all I can hear is cherry and all I can feel is cherry. Can’t really see much though.

Phil snorted and shook his head, giving it a like before shutting his computer. They were almost late to see Paranormal Activity at the cinema. 

---

They talked animatedly about the movie as they made their way back home through the snow. It had been a freaky experience but still super fun. Dan had clung to him the entire time even though Phil was just as scared, but it felt good anyway. 

Phil hesitated before opening the door, Dan was giving him such an adoring look that it made him almost want to kiss him right there, in the street, where his prying neighbours could definitely see them. Almost. He shook his head and unlocked the door, letting Dan walk in first and watched him turn around on the spot and give him a look that made Phil’s heart skip a beat.

They threw the wet outer layers to the floor right by the door and sprinted upstairs. 

Dan didn’t waste time taking over, undressing Phil and removing his own clothes swiftly. There was electricity in the air, but this felt different somehow. 

Dan was in his element, all confidence and poise. “Suck,” he said as he made Phil sit on the edge of the bed and stood before him, and Phil did. He wrapped his lips around Dan’s half hard cock and used his tongue to tease Dan until he’d had enough. Dan pulled his hair lightly and climbed over him without a word. This was a side of Dan that Phil had never seen, he was almost feral yet methodical. He kissed every inch of Phil’s body that he could reach as he prepped him, using perhaps too much lube and pointedly avoiding any contact with his cock, but when Phil finally asked him to get on with it, Dan hesitated. 

“Everything alright?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded, blush creeping into his cheeks as he pulled his fingers out. “Yes, I just - I want you to ride me. If that’s ok.” 

“Whatever you need, just ask,” Phil said, pressing a kiss to Dan’s lips and letting him settle in the middle of the narrow bed. He made sure that the condom was probably in place and added more lube for good measure before pressing the tip of Dan’s cock to his hole, slowly taking him in, letting out a happy sigh as he bottomed out. He set his hands on Dan’s chest and watched his face intently as he began to rock back and forward first, teasing him a bit, relishing in the smouldering look on Dan’s face. “How’s that?”

“Good,” Dan said, letting out a snort that soon turned into a moan when Phil rose and let himself fall once again. 

Phil smirked and repeated the motion a few times until he got used to the feeling and there was barely any resistance. Once he felt ready to really go for it, Phil shifted his weight forward, resting his hands on Dan’s shoulders and began to ride him in earnest. Watching Dan’s face and hearing him moan loudly was almost better than the feeling of having him inside, he could’ve almost come just from the view before him.

The bed was creaking under the pressure, the headboard slamming against the wall and Phil was in heaven. He’d found the perfect angle, stars bursting in his eyes as the sound of flesh against flesh filled the room.

“Ah! Ah! Phil!” Dan whined, holding onto Phil’s hips, trying to slow him down. 

Phil slapped his hands away, he knew that scrunched up face Dan was making. “Don’t you dare hold it!”

“But I can last a bit longer, I- fuck! I can, I swear!” Dan said, but Phil felt his cock getting even harder.

“Sex is made to be enjoyed, stop trying to hold it!” Phil said, picking up the pace, his thighs screaming at him and his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he was also coming too close to the edge. “Yes!” He hissed through his orgasm and leaned down to bite Dan’s neck.

Dan set his feet flat on the bed and thrust up into Phil twice’s stretched hole before coming deep inside of him.

“That’s it,” Phil smiled, his mind floating. He pecked Dan’s lips. “Good boy.” He felt Dan twitch inside of him at the praise but didn’t mention it.

Laughing, Dan wrapped his arms around Phil and kissed his forehead as he tried to catch his breath. “That was so good,” he said.

“Yeah,” Phil said breathlessly. “We should clean up before we fall asleep.”

Dan hummed and rolled his hips only a little bit, dragging his soft cock into Phil’s sensitive walls.

Phil clenched around him wordlessly and watched Dan flinch. That was enough to make Dan pull out and dispose of the condom.

They awkwardly shuffled to the bathroom for a quick shower that turned into round two between laughs and kisses.

After a much needed bedding change, they got into bed and cuddled up together, showing each other memes and funny videos. 

Phil decided to check Twitter where he saw yet another picture of Stephen and Charlie together. They didn’t even look happy, but it made his mood sour anyway. Then he got a notification from Dan that put a smile right back on his face.

@danisnotonfire: Uma Thurman just watched me have sex.

The fact that Dan added a picture of the Kill Bill poster that appeared in many of his videos made him a bit proud. Dan was not hiding him, even despite all the fans already shipping them together. 

---

December 16th 2010

On a whim, they decided that Dan would stay back for a few more days even after Phil’s parents returned. It was exciting to have Dan finally meet his family after mentioning him so much. It went better than expected: Dan was a charmer, Phil’s mum loved him right away and his dad was friendly as well, although he kept a close eye on them both for some reason. Maybe he could tell, Phil didn’t know if he cared at this point; Dan was important in his life and it was time for some people to know. 

What was there to know? Well, things between them had escalated a bit from how Phil usually did casual sex. There were random kisses in non sexual situations, hand holding, and - most importantly - Dan started to “claim him” publicly. It was not just about the tweets with pictures that were very clearly taken in his room in the middle of the night, or the sexual replies to his tweets. Charlie, for whatever reason, was still an annoyance in his life, trying to make it seem like there was something between him and Phil when he was still with Stephen. Maybe they were no longer together since Charlie had punched him - totally not cool - but the issue was that Charlie wanted to get in between he and Dan at all costs, and Dan had made it very clear that Phil was his, telling him to back off and he even replied under one of Phil’s tweets “I think I have a crush on you.”

It was still very confusing for Phil. Dan didn’t acknowledge any of these things in person even when they were sitting together at the time, but he was semi playing a boyfriend role in his life. For once, Phil tried not to let anxiety get the best of him and went along with whatever Dan wanted, except for filming, he had plans of his own in that regard.

It was a very ambitious project to say the least. “The Interactive Christmas Adventure” consisted of a main storyline with Dan and Phil’s mum as characters in a ‘choose your own adventure’ format and many easter egg type of videos that people could find by clicking in different annotations. He and Dan had an amazing time filming and editing most of it, but Phil was left alone to finish the mystery gifts his friends sent him when it finally came the time for Dan to leave.

Of course, once Dan was on his way back home and the video was posted, Phil proudly sat his family down to watch the final result only to have his dad get the mini video called “Dan and Phil sex tape” on the first try. It was just them goofing around, but it was still a very awkward moment. 

Thankfully, that didn’t ruin his parents’ impression of Dan. They really liked him and Phil couldn’t be happier about that. The fact that his dad had only laughed about it had blown Dan away. He’d told Phil that he wished he had a dad so cool.

[chellyfishing]

i haven’t done a what i’m playing/watching post in awhile so let’s do that (no spoilers)

(thanks for finally fucking adding a read more button in mobile, jeez)

been watching nge with phil for a bit, we’re quite near the end and would be done by now if i hadn’t had to press pause cause my mental health unexpectedly got real bad 😔 thank u bestie for your patience with me 🙏 i’ve been promising to do this with her since forever and i feel pretty shitty bringing it to a halt like this lmao.

last night bella and i started watching channel zero on a whim, we’re nearly through the first season aka teeth child the child made of teeth. i don’t know how intentional some of the humor in this has been but i’ve actually guffawed out loud at some points. i feel like it is somewhat meant to be a bit cheeky and dark since it’s kris straub-derived, you know in that way when something fucked up happens and somebody smiles and says “everything’s fine” as if you didn’t see the fucked-up thing with your own two eyeballs. that kind of funny. (“these are tortillas.” you know what i mean.)

we also binged good omens season 2 in one afternoon. uhh i really enjoyed it. i liked how it decided to tell a smaller story this time. you know how so often in shows and things the stakes have to keep escalating. and good omens started with the literal end of the world so they were like hm. let’s just scale it back and tell a love story or two. all on this one little street. like… it feels like fun supplementary material to the first season. like a tie-in novel kind of thing if that makes sense. i dunno it just feels kinda like… the right move. it makes it more, dare i say, human and personal, which kind of dovetails well with the themes of the first season. like a little complement. and ofc. the casting and acting are just so exemplary. i have a crush on every boy.

we’ve also watched some movies. i’m not sure i remember them all but here are the most recent ones:

i watched the heathers musical (a proshot is free with adds on roku). here’s a confession: i’ve never seen the movie and didn’t fully know the plot other than murder? so i was like hm maybe the teen suicide satire was not the best choice for a bad mental health episode. but anyway i watched all of it. the performances are really good, especially heather chandler who just ate every scene and knew it. the songs were pretty good too, dead girl walking and i say no were probably the best ones. ohhhh and i loved the actress who played martha, she was flawless. it was pretty fun(?) but weirdly like… sincerely uplifting for being a dark satire. more has been written by people who know much better than me about the “musicals for teens” trend so i won’t go into it but it feels like this is an extension of that.

i also watched legally blonde the musical (uploaded probably not legally to youtube from when it aired on mtv in 2007 so the quality isn’t amazing but it’s perfectly watchable). it is a lot of fun. a couple of weird added-in race things? but again, it’s from 2007. oh but i hated paulette’s intro song and i just don’t understand why they decided to do… that with her character. just a baffling choice. the actress was really good though. we also did some dissecting about how they gave elle less agency in her own empowerment in favor of emmett doing it which wasn’t a great choice!!!! anyway definitely not as good as the movie but very fun as a supplement to it. and dogs!!!!

i saw the autopsy of jane doe for the first time. it was a pretty good time! some really good spookenings and lots of little fucked-up things happening, which is what i like in a horror movie. i’ll definitely watch it again.

we watched infinity pool and i just don’t know exactly how i feel about it! i prrrrobably won’t watch it again actually, but not because it was bad, just because it was like, ah well that was an experience, but not one that needs to be repeated. the themes and ideas were good and executed in an interesting way, i think ultimately it’s just not exactly For Me. however mia goth as always is perfection. remember when i saw emma period and i said harriet stole the show. i was ahead of my time.

we also watched influencer which might kind of be a new favorite! such good acting especially by the lead. just loved all the choices it made, most of which i was not expecting. a good fucking time tbh. also absolutely gorgeous scenery, every frame a painting truly.

a little while back i watched gone in the night with winona ryder. i need to stress that i watched this in two halves a couple days apart cause that really drove home how fucking off the rails this movie gets in the latter half. the first half is a pretty standard intriguing mystery and then the second is just like let’s answer all these questions in the most out-there way possible short of bringing anything supernatural or aliens into the mix. not a good movie i’ll be honest!!

i really want to see talk to me, which will maybe be on streaming next month but probably only for renting/“owning” blah. also red white and royal blue drops next friday! i think that’s gonna be a fun time with the girlies.

i haven’t really read anything lately, i started a book a few weeks ago but haven’t really had the mental fortitude to focus on it.

as for the games i’ve been spending some time with my switch lately. i’ve messed around quite a bit in zelda, did my third divine beast. i have to admit, guys. i just really fucking hate the weapon degradation system. combat in general in this game just isn’t a thing i enjoy at all. it’s very hard for me to get stuck in which is why it’s taking so long to finish it. i have to spend so much time breaking and changing weapons and i just really really don’t like that. and then hitting with the weapons isn’t fun and then they break again. which is a shame cause i like so many other things about it. exploration is like my favorite thing to do in games. if it wasn’t so bogged down by the stupid weapon system i’d be having a lot more fun. idk why this choice was made. it wasn’t a good one. at the very least they could have made things not be SO brittle so that it’s not SO VERY MUCH of the gameplay. but anyway. I like collecting all my little items and making little gear upgrades and throwing things in a pot and seeing what comes out, especially when it makes that little noise that means you did real good.

i also have finally got back to hadesgame. I remember why i stopped!!!!! because i feel like i’m hitting my head against a wall and not actually getting any better!!!!! but i have done lots of little side things, upgrades and relationships and prophecies and things. plus it’s just a really good time sink, which i’ve kind of needed lately. i could switch on god mode at any time, but i know i can succeed without it, i just… don’t know how. cause i am constantly not succeeding. blaaaaaaaah.

(playing it has made me need to listen to hadestown several more times tho. as an aside.)

i also started kentucky route zero. i like it a lot so far, but it’s like reading in that it’s not an instant gratification colors and noises game, it’s something i gotta focus on, so it’s been a bit slow. still, definitely my shit and i’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. might have slightly spoiled myself trying to find out if the dog dies but. whatever. the journey not the destination.

i’ve probably watched more stuff but i don’t really remember it. that’s probably the bulk of things from the last couple months anyway. happy august ig.

[factcheckandchill]

Rough Realism and Realizations, A Visual Story of Neglect

I graduated high school with my eyes set on moving to Philadelphia. Mainly to attend Temple University and participate in the skateboarding culture that the city fostered. A culture communicated to me in my teenhood through YouTube videos of skateboarders and Tumblr posts.

Pop-Punk band ‘The Wonder Years’ used Philadelphia as a theme and backdrop in some of their music. Lines like “the fountain was off” from “Local Man Ruins Everything”, delivered in their extremely emo, punk, angsty style portrayed and delivered ideas of the city to people who might never have seen it before.

When it came to Philly, I saw a lot of the white working-class experiences in the media, whether it’s catchy and gritty pop punk, or low-class bar owners in South Philadelphia. Valid experiences that deserve portrayal.

Nevertheless, the idea of 'Philadelphia' mediated is a diluted version of the reality its majority experiences.

Philadelphia is not limited to those mediated experiences, which do reflect the experiences of some people. People who live in the central high rises have a different experience of the city than those who live in the various neighbourhoods of Philadelphia. I happened to live in North Philadelphia, close to the Temple University campus where I matriculated.

On a given day, tourists staying near sights like the liberty bell or the home where the Declaration of Independence was written, by slave owner Thomas Jefferson, wouldn’t come up to that area. Students of the university living temporarily in the area were not good guests and looked down upon the local residents for a variety of reasons, mainly related to their misfortune and lack of wealth.

Students sought out affordable housing close to campus, and the area, because of neglect by the city, was cheap.

Living there, many complained about the aesthetics and blamed local residents instead of the lack of funding for upkeep. Exacerbating the discomfort of residents. 

Lack of funding and student dissatisfaction was a great excuse for what the administration at Temple University was planning to do in the area. 

Temple University, my alma mater (well one of them), was actively pushing local residents, who the university was established for, out of the surrounding area. To build a goddamn stadium. This was unpopular with many students and those who lived in the area. The 2008 mortgage crisis made it easier for the university to do this.

This consideration for the football stadium started in 2015. Temple University was started as a night school for ministers-in-training to attend classes at night in a church. That is why its mascot is the Temple Owl. The consideration was immensely disconnected from the university’s history. 

Anyone living in North Philadelphia knew that it was ridiculous. The thumbprint of the area would be changed forever and it would just destroy the thumbprint of the area. Temple University’s administration claimed that this was going to help the community when in reality everyone knew that this would tear it apart further. From one end, youth were struggling to get adequate schooling due to the state’s gutting of funding for public schools in Philadelphia, and on the other end, landlords who did not live in Philadelphia were buying up row homes and as many buildings as they can (thanks to the mortgage crisis) and building cheaply made, “luxury” student accommodations that were too expensive for the local residents to rent.

The empty lots started to pile up as “investors” and Temple both were waiting for houses on either side of each lot to empty up. Meaning, be able to get the residents out.

Communities knew they had to stick together or no one will fare any better due to the systematic imposition on people’s lives.

Dinner time in some Philadelphia neighbourhoods wasn’t just a family occasion, they were a time of community survivalist action. I regret not doing more for the people. 

It went beyond North Philly to Kensington and South Philly. People who cared about the city and knew how it affected the residents personally knew this was unfair. Philly may become a "nicer", more "polite" city someday, but the people who made it Philly won't be there. Just like Brooklyn. 

Right-wing students were among the few who supported the stadium project. They saw little wrong in this and believed that if the residents of North Philadelphia wanted to stay in their homes, the homes that their families have lived in since before the inception of Temple University, then they should build up the ability to afford to do so. In other words, “if they want to keep their house, they should just have more money.”

Anyone coming from a poor, working-class environment knows that it's not as simple as working a bit and saving. The realities of life are much more complex in Philadelphia. Where food desserts are normal in North Philadelphia and you are doing well if you have 50 dollars leftover from your paycheck a month.

The view of houses ‘moving’ across the window before the sun set evoked excitement. At the time, Kensington was hosting political meetings of many leftist parties. The PSL and other parties were headquartered there, with the express intent of supporting the community. I enjoyed partaking when I could, but I have to say I might be more of an anarchist than a socialist - probably due to growing up in the middle east and being connected and aware of the community aspect that allowed my recent ancestors to survive. Maybe that’s why I could never commit to being as disciplined a comrade as the others, despite my regret of not doing more for the people I was living amongst. And looking back at it, I am glad I wasn’t committed to the ideals. But I continue to be committed to collective survival in the circles I do occupy. 

I see now that collective action is necessary for survival, but I have no material possibility at the moment to participate in that. You don’t live in a collection of buildings and famous streets. You live around people who are housed (if lucky) in those buildings. They are what make the city or town, and it in turn makes them.

Where do we go from here? I would ask someone who lives there. Someone who is struggling with housing issues, food access, and lack of school funding in Philadelphia.

[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] Virat Kohli in action vs KKR in the IPL 2025 (PC: Debasis Sen) Self confidence, often mistaken for arrogance by some, is the key to understanding Virat Kohli. “He might appear flamboyant but he has great peripheral vision,”  Sachin Tendulkar had once said. “He can read the game brilliantly and can anticipate what is likely to happen five or six overs down the line. That’s what makes him different from many of his contemporaries.” Did Sachin mean that Virat has a great sense of how an innings is poised and how to pace his own knock? In other words, was Sachin crediting him with some kind of cricketing prescience? “He reads a game very well,” he said. “That’s why he is so good in a run chase. He knows and understands where a match can be and that helps him marshal his resources accordingly.” This was yet again evident at the Eden Gardens last night. Phil Salt had started to pepper the boundaries and Kohli knew KKR were under pressure. And when Salt attacked Varun Chakravarthy, Ajinkya Rahane had no other option but to go back to Spencer Johnson. In fact, it was when Varun bowled the fourth ball  of his first over that Rahane gestured to Johnson that he would be on next. Johnson had bowled a neat first over and KKR desperately needed a wicket. Kohli, however, knew this was his chance. If Johnson was attacked, the powerplay was won and there was no way back for KKR. And that’s what he did. The very first ball of Johnson’s second over and Kohli was on to it in a flash. As the ball sailed over the boundary ropes, chants of “RCB! RCB!” and “Kohli! Kohli!” started to reverberate around the stadium. KKR were under pressure and it started to tell. Johnson, with a slight shake of the head, ran in again and this time Kohli was even better prepared. It was as if he knew where Johnson would bowl, and even before the bowler could lift his head up after delivering the ball, the shot had crossed the rope. That was game, set and match RCB. Johnson and KKR had been beaten, and between Salt and Kohli, they had sealed the match. For the Latest Sports News: Click Here Virat Kohli vs KKR in the IPL 2025 (PC: Debasis Sen) Narendra Hirwani, former India leg-spinner, was watching the game with me. “Each time Virat bats, I just love to sit on my sofa and enjoy the experience,” he told me. “He is the sort of player who will bring fans to the ground each time he plays.” But the Kohli-RCB story, despite the sheer scale of his achievements, isn’t complete yet. It is the IPL title they are after and the start, may I say, was perfect. Much will be written about Kohli’s effort from last night. But will it matter to him how we label him? Does Kohli, the person, really care? I guess he doesn’t, for he is at peace with himself in his gym, at training, in his marriage and, most importantly, over the 22 yards. A passionate human robot with single-minded determination. The 70,000 fans at the Eden Gardens witnessed it yet again last night. And yes, while many went home sad with KKR having lost, not one fan I met was unhappy with Kohli having played a match-winning hand. KKR may have lost but the IPL won with a blockbuster start, and the broadcaster now has enough to make multiple promos all of next month. The two sixes off Johnson – Kohli goes down the ground, Kohli goes out of the ground. The aftertaste lingers. Also Read: King Kohli steals opening show after Badshah SRK rules opening ceremony The post Virat Kohli and his matchless game sense appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[news365times]

[ad_1] Virat Kohli in action vs KKR in the IPL 2025 (PC: Debasis Sen) Self confidence, often mistaken for arrogance by some, is the key to understanding Virat Kohli. “He might appear flamboyant but he has great peripheral vision,”  Sachin Tendulkar had once said. “He can read the game brilliantly and can anticipate what is likely to happen five or six overs down the line. That’s what makes him different from many of his contemporaries.” Did Sachin mean that Virat has a great sense of how an innings is poised and how to pace his own knock? In other words, was Sachin crediting him with some kind of cricketing prescience? “He reads a game very well,” he said. “That’s why he is so good in a run chase. He knows and understands where a match can be and that helps him marshal his resources accordingly.” This was yet again evident at the Eden Gardens last night. Phil Salt had started to pepper the boundaries and Kohli knew KKR were under pressure. And when Salt attacked Varun Chakravarthy, Ajinkya Rahane had no other option but to go back to Spencer Johnson. In fact, it was when Varun bowled the fourth ball  of his first over that Rahane gestured to Johnson that he would be on next. Johnson had bowled a neat first over and KKR desperately needed a wicket. Kohli, however, knew this was his chance. If Johnson was attacked, the powerplay was won and there was no way back for KKR. And that’s what he did. The very first ball of Johnson’s second over and Kohli was on to it in a flash. As the ball sailed over the boundary ropes, chants of “RCB! RCB!” and “Kohli! Kohli!” started to reverberate around the stadium. KKR were under pressure and it started to tell. Johnson, with a slight shake of the head, ran in again and this time Kohli was even better prepared. It was as if he knew where Johnson would bowl, and even before the bowler could lift his head up after delivering the ball, the shot had crossed the rope. That was game, set and match RCB. Johnson and KKR had been beaten, and between Salt and Kohli, they had sealed the match. For the Latest Sports News: Click Here Virat Kohli vs KKR in the IPL 2025 (PC: Debasis Sen) Narendra Hirwani, former India leg-spinner, was watching the game with me. “Each time Virat bats, I just love to sit on my sofa and enjoy the experience,” he told me. “He is the sort of player who will bring fans to the ground each time he plays.” But the Kohli-RCB story, despite the sheer scale of his achievements, isn’t complete yet. It is the IPL title they are after and the start, may I say, was perfect. Much will be written about Kohli’s effort from last night. But will it matter to him how we label him? Does Kohli, the person, really care? I guess he doesn’t, for he is at peace with himself in his gym, at training, in his marriage and, most importantly, over the 22 yards. A passionate human robot with single-minded determination. The 70,000 fans at the Eden Gardens witnessed it yet again last night. And yes, while many went home sad with KKR having lost, not one fan I met was unhappy with Kohli having played a match-winning hand. KKR may have lost but the IPL won with a blockbuster start, and the broadcaster now has enough to make multiple promos all of next month. The two sixes off Johnson – Kohli goes down the ground, Kohli goes out of the ground. The aftertaste lingers. Also Read: King Kohli steals opening show after Badshah SRK rules opening ceremony The post Virat Kohli and his matchless game sense appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Sister Daniel (2) Masterlist

part one // part one

blasphemous. (ao3) - razussy

Summary: sister daniel helps lucifer lester get on the path of reformation.

cheek & tongue. (ao3) - razussy

Summary: being your true self to the person you love is a special kind of feeling.

Confessions of the heart (ao3) - Frog910

Summary: Sister Daniel always knew he was different. A male accepted into the Covent. Many whisper in the halls, but he knew they didn't matter.

But sister Daniel starts to struggle after hearing father Philip talk about love.

Can they move past their positions and be together?

Don't Blame Me (ao3) - ForeverJustAnEmoKidAtHeart

Summary: When Phil gets a new job at the Tops Only Bar, he's just looking to make ends meet over the holiday period. He doesn't expect how he'll feel about one of the performers or how hard that'll make his job.

God, what have you done? (ao3) - gaydreaming

Summary: When Dan bought the sexy nun costume at a random Spirit Halloween in Florida, he meant it as a joke. By the time he leaves the club in Nashville, about two states past where this would have been a good idea, having cried in a bathroom, downed a glass of wine, and experienced one of his most formative nights, it's not really a joke anymore. Something has changed. Something has been awakened.

goddess on stage (human when we're alone) (ao3) - jonsaremembers

Summary: "You're very unfair on stage sometimes, you know that? Flirting with me, showing me your ass, calling me Daddy -"

"It's for the show," she protests.

"It's not." He flicks her nipple.

i will not ask you where you came from (neither should you) (ao3) - Anonymous

Summary: Dan was seven years old when he knew what his calling in life was. He had sat, squished between his parents and infant brother, in the front row of Sunday mass. As he swayed along to the choir singing Amazing Grace, he looked up at his mom and said: “Mommy, I want to be a nun when I grow up!”

or, sister daniel is a nun who wants to make some extra money. he starts a demon-magic etsy shop offering penis enlargement spells and summons the demon phil to fulfill his orders. he quickly becomes infatuated.

I'm Going to Tell Father About You (ao3) - dimpledcherries

Summary: r/redactedphan anon ask. post cinnamon bun baking video, heavy on the fucking. Phil gets ruined by sister Daniel and she enjoys every minute of it.

If You Were Church, I'd Get On My Knees. (ao3) - nebulaedaniel

Summary: Phil is 22, fresh out the closet and forced to hit up the gay club at the last night of pride. Sister Daniel happened to spot him in the crowd and decides to show him a good time.

Impulse Buy (ao3) - sleepyslag (galacticneighbor)

Summary: Dan needs new underwear to go under his Halloween costume. 4,000 miles away, Phil wants to see them.

indirect. (ao3) - razussy

Summary: luci wants something that means more than what he actually says. dani listens.

Like a Prayer (ao3) - harrysbabyboo

Summary: Shy, girl teacher Phil Lester is convinced to go for a night out at a new lesbian bar with her friends. It’s there that she meets exotic dancer and everyone’s favourite girl, Sister Daniel.

look at you // useless boy (ao3) - skygremlin

Summary: There’s something different about Dan when he’s in drag - maybe it’s the confidence of unlocking a different side of him that makes him want to dial up the flirting and the teasing, who knows. Phil’s always had a thing for Sister Daniel, so it’s not all that surprising he’s just as into this new persona Dan’s trying out after tour.

My Sanctuary, You're Holy to Me (ao3) - skygremlin

Summary: Sister Daniel isn't very good at being a nun, but she's stuck living in a convent because she's got no other plans. The church needs a new priest for Sunday mass, and the responsibility falls on her to meet him for the first time. Will he see through her false devotion?

Sister Daniel/Father Philip convent au (Sister Daniel's origin story)

Not the Jealous One (ao3) - imademon

Summary: After Brighton Terrible Influence show, Dan as Sister Daniel flirts with PJ and makes Phil a little jealous.

Praise With Your Body (ao3) - galacticneighbor

Summary: Phil has a thing for being called Angel.

Sister Daniel doesn't mind getting on her knees for him.

prayer for love (ao3) - lionxlioness

Summary: “You're ridiculous,” said Dan, unable to stop one side of her mouth from curling up. I love you, she thought. But she couldn't say it. Not out loud, in the way that she meant it, which would be more an admission of sin than anything else. Maybe not ever.

Dan and Pippa meet as sisters at a convent.

Sheets and sharpies (ao3) - wwoodles

Summary: “Are you going to be good for me?”

He hovered above Dan’s face, awaiting his response. Dan was always taken aback that Phil had this power in him. The ability to completely disarm him.

“Yes, Father.”

Or, in the moments after the end of Dan’s birthday stream, Dan is not only incredibly grateful for Phil, but also incredibly horny.

"Should I get a boob job?" (ao3) - Scuddleduck

Summary: Dan tries on his breastplate for the first time

So let them talk (ao3) - skygremlin

Summary: Phil wants to watch the process of Dan transforming into Sister Daniel, but having only done it alone off-camera or quickly backstage, Dan’s not quite sure how to go about it without feeling burned out and just done with the whole concept. But with a little bit of time, patience, and letting go of old habits, creating a new persona without the pressure of performing for cameras and lights might just open up new possibilities and bring back the energy he felt that first night in Nashville.

Sun's out, nun's out (ao3) - m_katiep

Summary: It's pride month, Phil hears about an interesting drag event. He goes and sees a slutty nun. The nun is the most gorgeous non-binary brunette, who gets horny when drunk. They end up spending a night together <3

The altar is my hips, even if it's a false god (we'd still worship this love) (ao3) - philsslit

Summary: As she watches Dani dance around in that incredibly short skirt she is filled with a mixture of love and lust. She can't take her eyes off of her.

or

dan and phil are lesbians. featuring sister daniel. and strap. that's it that's the fic.

You go down just like Holy Mary (ao3) - lesbosz

Summary: No matter how hard she tries, how much she prays Sister Daniel can't stop the sinful thoughts. The beautiful nun in the convent doesn't make this any easier for her.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've watched a whole lot of stand-up hours in the last couple of months, that's what I've decided to do with my media time lately. I've written about a few of them that particularly stand out, though there are lots of others that sort of run together, or I'll watch them at a time when I don't have a chance to write posts, so even if I really liked them, I end up not mentioning them.

However, I really have to specifically mention this one, because it was so good and so memorable:

I'm pretty sure this was the last Phil Nichol show that's been recorded but I'd not seen - I've seen the others on GFS, and the two older ones that are on NextUp (they include his 2006 one that won the Edinburgh award). I've liked all the Phil Nichol stuff I've seen, but this one, Welcome to Crazytown, was really different and showed off incredible skill and I enjoyed it a lot.

It's all written in verse, tightly scripted yet chaotic, deep in character yet all the fast-paced energy that is distinctly Phil Nichol. I must admit it took me until about five minutes in, at first, to work out that he's 100% in character and none of this is based on reality, and then I had to re-start the video and watch with that understanding.

So, if anyone wants to hear an hour-long comedy poem, in character as an American slam poet telling a night in a gritty and crime-ridden city, told with the speed and ferocity of someone who's taken a lot of drugs that increase their speech's speed and ferocity (that last thing isn't only in this show, that's just how Phil Nichol talks), I recommend purchasing that GFS video. It's an incredible feat of writing and performing.

That show reminded me of how much I like Phil Nichol, and I ended up listening to his very recent episode of the Angel Comedy Podcast, which is two hours long and very interesting:

I nearly skipped this when I saw that the episode description mentions that he discusses "cancel culture". Phil Nichol is a bit "old school" in a few ways, he's one of those edgy comedians where I could imagine that he has the potential to be among those guys who react to the cultural "wokeness" tide with defensiveness and a reactionary nature - I didn't know whether this had happened to Phil Nichol, I could just imagine it was possible, and to be honest, if it had happened, I didn't really want to know.

But I decided to trust how articulate Phil Nichol is whenever I hear him talk, and figure this podcast episode would be worth listening to even if it does apparently mention "cancel culture", and I was glad I did. The discussion went up and down across its two-hour runtime, and I certainly didn't agree with everything he said. In fact, he said a lot of stuff with which I disagreed. But he said it thoughtfully, and without reducing people to "woke" cliches, and with a genuine effort to consider multiple points of view, and it made for an interesting discussion. Overall, I did not come out of that thinking he's gone down the anti-woke rabbit hole - even though he easily could have done that, and many of his contemporaries have. I don't think he's right about everything (in my personal opinion), but I think he's reasonable. And it was interesting to hear a conversation like that - one that gets into the incredibly overdone and now-boring topic of cancel culture - in which I disagree with a person, but still feel like the discussion was reasonable.

Here's one thing that stood out to me at times while I was listening to it: Phil Nichol had all these cool stories of comedians he respects and has worked with and wants recognized, and as a comedy nerd, I loved hearing stuff like that. But as he told story after story of all these different comedians and their place in history, I did find myself thinking, occasionally:

Most of Phil Nichol's comedy stories are 20 or so years old, and of course things were different back then, white men made up a far greater proportion of British comedians, so it makes sense for them to be featured in his stories. I'm thinking of that interview that Russell Howard did in 2008, when he complained (in a very un-PC way that I'm sure he wouldn't say now - at least, he wouldn't say it into a microphone while being recorded for a podcast) that sometimes women are more likely to get panel show spots than men (again, it was 2008 when he made this complaint, long before the BBC ruled against all-male panel lineups, back when Mock the Week had plenty of those, but apparently it was still a problem that occasionally they put one woman on there, anyway I'm getting off topic and didn't mean to start going on about that again, but seriously, what the fuck, Russell?), because the women have a "USP". That's a problem, isn't it? If just being a woman - given that women are 50% of the population - counts as a unique selling point to make you stand out from the crowd, then there aren't enough women in the crowd.

Anyway though, I recognize that being a woman in comedy was, in fact, in some ways a USP back in those older days, as there were fewer of them than there are now. But still, there were some of them. I also recently listened to Oliver Double's episode of the Angel Comedy Podcast, and he told a lot of old stories about comedy in the 80s and 90s, and he named plenty of women. They had women back then. I think it might say something about Phil Nichol's perspective, when he feels like the type of comedy that used to be funny is now unfairly maligned, but also, when he's listing the centrepieces of that golden age of comedy, they're all white men.

(I'm also aware that saying this is hypocritical of me because my own blog can get too focused on white and/or male comedians sometimes. My main obsession is the Chocolate Milk Gang, which is almost all white and almost all male. But at least they had, like, Josie Long. Occasionally Isy Suttie. There were women in comedy back then.)

To be clear, Phil Nichol did not go on that podcast and say "I hate that racism and misogyny aren't considered funny anymore!" If he'd said that, I would not be writing this post about how I like him. He said a bunch of stuff about how cultural norms are changing, and people's reactions to comedy change in good and bad ways, and people aren't on the same page about how to interpret stuff. But he did manage to have a discussion about cancel culture in comedy that was actually interesting, which I'd thought would be impossible by late 2024.

He also said he hates a comedy show with a strong message or that tackles an issue, which was a very weird thing for Phil Nichol to say, given that he won a large award for his 2006 show that was explicitly (very explicitly) an anti-war protest. And his 2005 show definitely tackled some issues. Tackled them brutally, I'd say. Tackled them so hard that someone should have brought in the concussion assessors. This will make more sense if you've seen his NextUp shows, but not a lot more sense, just like the shows themselves. They're very good though.

[themculibrary]

Post-it/Sticky Notes Masterlist

All's Fair (ao3) - cakeisnotpie clint/phil T, 5k

Summary: “That’s it,” Phil declared. “I’ve had enough of this menace.”

“You don’t know he did this,” Maria reminded him. “This thing’s always been an old piece of crap.”

“Oh, it’s him,” Phil declared. “And this time, it’s war.”

Everyone has that one person they work with who drives them crazy, and at a big place like SHIELD, you might not even know their name. A C/C enemies to lovers story with a dash of mistaken identity, a pinch of miscommunication, and side of misunderstanding. Written for day one of the Clint/Coulson appreciation week 2022, Trope Day.

And Another Thing... (ao3) - thehotzone N/R, 7k

Summary: [Post-Civil War]

Someone in the Compound has memory problems. Little things like how to live with themselves, which date it is, what to put in their coffee. Stuff like that.

Tony Stark has other problems. Little things like living with the guy who killed his parents, threats from space, neon-green sticky notes.

Stuff like that.

Building Blocks (ao3) - tielan maria/steve G, 1k

Summary: Building a relationship, note by note.

End on a High Note (ao3) - tisfan bucky/tony T, 1k

Summary: Someone's been leaving Bucky little notes...

It's Just Us (ao3) - purpleicedtears steve/tony, past pepper/tony T, 4k

Summary: For their first Valentine's Day together, Steve asked Tony for one thing: a poem.

No one could say that Tony Stark didn’t throw himself completely into his projects.

Cue research, frustration, and workshop shenanigans.

Love Notes (ao3) - brodiew pepper/natasha T, 823

Summary: Peggy wakes up to an empty bed and discovers a post-it note where Nat should be.

Notes of happiness (ao3) - Mimisempai loki/mobius G, 1k

Summary: Sometimes to work out his nightmares, Loki goes flying and Mobius waits for him, knowing that he will always come home.

Of Cats and Baking: A Tale Told In Sticky Notes (ao3) - Persiflage daisy/phil G, 1k

Summary: AU: Daisy and Coulson are neighbours who 'talk' via sticky (post-it) notes on her apartment door.

Post-it Notes (ao3) - redshineJasper (MrsPummeluff) steve/bucky G, 6k

Summary: They live together. One day Steve starts leaving notes all around the house for Bucky. Bucky adores them. Some make him remember, some are just great. Others make him laugh and happy. One day Bucky decides to return the favor.

OR

First, it had started one morning when Bucky had woken up after a nightmare-free night. But the decision to return the favor had struck after a bad night

Progress (The One With The Post-It Notes) (ao3) - Paraxdisepink steve/bucky M, 5k

Summary: Bucky is alone for a day and Steve leaves post-it notes on his metal arm.

Stuck on You (ao3) - starkly tony/thor G, 1k

Summary: Thor figures out what to get the man who has everything for Valentine's Day.

Unpack Your Heart (ao3) - enigma clint/natasha G, 3k

Summary: The first note appears on a Friday that just happens to also be Valentine’s.

Way With Words (ao3) - hitlikehammers steve/bucky T, 2k

Summary: “You’re perfect, you know that?”

Bucky’s lips quirk, and god, Steve really doesn’t know what he did without that steady, sly grin in his life for an instant, let alone for years.

“I’m pretty aware, yeah.”

-

Bucky and Steve, navigating the cold (and warmth) of the holiday season.

we were in screaming color (ao3) - fakeplasticlily steve/bucky T, 12k

Summary: Bucky isn’t quite sure how it happens, at first.

All he knows is this: one moment, he’s chewing leftover pizza on the couch, making his way through JARVIS’s list of must-watch sci-fi films from the last century. Then the boy on the 128-inch premium Stark-issued television screen rides his bicycle with his alien friend into the sky.

The next thing he knows: he’s standing in front of the fish bowl in the hall, and there are post-it notes stuck to at least eight different surfaces in the apartment. There’s a memory on each of them, sometimes with a year.

Or: how Bucky discovers post-it notes, makes an apple pie, and comes to discover a few more uses for post-it notes along the way.

Yellow Post-It, Black Ink (ao3) - WanderingAlice steve/bucky G, 869

Summary: Steve leaves post-it notes on Bucky's arm. Bucky returns the favor.

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

One More Step Out of the Pit: Chapter 21/26

Summary: It had been Tommy and Tubbo for practically forever. They clawed their way out of hell together. They discovered their superpowers together. They started working for the Superhero Guild together before even coming of age. Tommy probably owed Tubbo his life ten times over. So, when the three supervillains he’d been assigned to bring in managed to take Tubbo hostage, well, there was really only one thing to do.

He knew, of course, he was signing himself up for torture and death by offering that trade, but that was okay.

It’d have to be okay.

AO3 Link (See AO3 for Warnings.)

(This story is finished and has been posted on AO3 for a while, but I’m posting it on Tumblr so it’s somewhere else too. The author notes will all be kept as well. If you are following the blog and don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #backlog.)

Tommy might have to reconsider the whole ‘the bed is evil’ thing. While sleeping on the floor wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him while captured by supervillains, he found that it wasn’t actually that much fun. This was probably due to the fact that it was a linoleum floor and he’d not put a lot of blankets on the bottom of his nest.

He’d had a bit of a restless night. His face was probably completely blue by this point since he had vague memories of Ghostbur reaching out to sooth him back to sleep every time he stirred.

Ghostbur was already gone by the time Tommy woke up, woke up. Instead, Technoblade was with him, sitting on one of the chairs in sight of Tommy’s blanket pile and reading a book like a nerd.

“You’re a nerd,” Tommy greeted with a yawn.

His eyes flickered up to Tommy and he put the book aside. “Hello, Tommy,” he said, and Tommy paused in rubbing his eyes because something was just barely off about his tone. He was also looking at Tommy a bit weird.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Tommy asked.

He blinked at Tommy, clasping his hands together as he frowned. “What do you mean?”

Tommy squinted at him. “You’re acting funny.”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed in on the way the skin around Techno's eyes crinkled briefly and his nose twitched once. “I literally just said hello,” he said.

“Yeah, but you did it funny.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Technoblade’s thumb rubbed a circle into the back of his own hand. “Phil’s cooking you breakfast,” he changed the subject.

Tommy narrowed his eyes at him, doing his best to see behind that statement to whatever was going on in his head. There was clearly something going on in his head, not that Tommy didn’t expect him to be up to things sometimes. He was literally a supervillain. It just seemed… narrowed in on Tommy and Tommy wasn’t a big fan of that. “Okay,” Tommy said after a moment.

“Okay.”

And… that was clearly all that Technoblade planned to say unprompted this morning. He did the same thumb rubbing thing to the back of his hand. It was a barely noticeable movement, and he didn’t look like he was even aware he was doing it. That probably meant it was genuine. It was probably nervousness or anticipation. Tommy doubted it was anger. The movement was too smooth for that. Though he couldn’t know for certain. Different people had different tells.

“Should I be nervous, man?” he finally asked after a few more moments of silence.

“About what?” he asked doing the nose twitch again.

“I don’t know,” Tommy puffed out, taking that as a ‘yes.’ “What’s going on?”

There was a pause and his shoulder twitched up just a bit. “I have been instructed not to tell you.”

Oh, well, Tommy did not like that. He did not like that one bit. “What the fuck does that mean?” he asked.

“I’m not telling you, Tommy. You’ll figure it out soon,” he said. His voice left room for no arguments and Tommy just stared up at him. He stared back and there wasn’t anything particularly cruel or violent in his eyes, but Tommy still didn’t like it.

Okay, so, shit was about the hit the fan then. Great. What the fuck should Tommy do about that?

He really, really hoped it was just something like they’d managed to make a deal with the Guild and they were about to ship Tommy home, but why the hell would Technoblade not be allowed to tell him that?

Technoblade eventually looked away and Tommy’s own eyes dropped to the blankets on his lap.

Obviously, something worse was about to happen and his mind was easily able to make a few guesses. He found himself gnawing at his bottom lip and picking at the blankets surrounding him. His fingers brushed the stuffed cow that Phil had convinced him to name the night before and he felt a bit ill.

Bad things happened when he named things. Bad things happened when he showed he was attached to things. Now bad things were going to happen. Why did he let Phil convince him to name the stupid cow?

Maybe that had been the point, actually. They’d been really, really nice and gentle with him so far, but sometimes Dream would be nice for a bit to lull Tommy into a false sense of security before a punishment. He was never quite as nice as they had been and never for so long but maybe it was a balancing act. More kindness meant more pain. Maybe lulling him so much into security that he was willing to do something as dumb as name a stupid stuffed animal was the tipping point.

Phil opened the door with a tray full of breakfast after a few long minutes of awkward silence. He gave him a gentle smile and a soft, “Good morning,” but Technoblade practically bolted from the room the second he entered. Tommy eyed Phil with distrust. He was acting mostly normal, but if Technoblade had fled the room to get away from him, there was obviously something Tommy was missing.

He still took the plate of food though, because he was hungry and they did always give out good food. It was toast and some egg thing that looked like a muffin. He found the egg muffin thing had meat and cheese in it, and it was pretty good. Plus, Phil had been sensible enough to toast him normalish bread instead of weird lumpy bread, so that was nice.

He managed to relax a bit during breakfast because Phil really wasn’t acting too weird, but his hope that whatever was up was just with Technoblade went out of the window as soon as Tommy was finished with his plate.

“Would you like to leave this room for a bit?” Phil asked, and Tommy’s anxieties came back full force.

“Why?” he asked, warily.

Phil gave him a steadily warm smile. “I just thought you might want to go on a short walk,” was the answer. That was suspicious on its own before Phil added on, “and there’s something I want to show you.”

“Uh,” Tommy said, mind racing. “Okay.” Phil gave him an expectant look. Oh, this was happening now, he guessed. He took a steadying breath and worked on detangling himself from the mess of blankets he was in. His injury protested as he stood. Honestly, when would the stupid stab wound shut the fuck up? He’d had enough of this.

Phil leaned down once he’d struggled to his feet and swept up the pile to dump it on the bed. That action gave Tommy pause. That was something someone would do when they were expecting to take all of the blankets and bedding out of the room soon. His stomach clenched in anxiety, and it only got worse when Phil picked up Henry from the pile and handed him to Tommy.

“You should bring him,” Phil said, and Tommy swallowed a lump in his throat as he took the cow. Why the fuck would Phil want him to take a stuffed cow on a walk? He clenched his hand around the stuffed animal anyway as Phil moved to unlock the door.

Tommy had never seen the inside of their base, he realized. He’d been blindfolded for the walk here. All he’d seen was the dressing room and the inside of his cell. It was clearly a huge place even from just remembering the walk and seeing how far the hallways stretched now. It didn’t really have supervillain lair vibes. It kind of edged on hospital vibes, maybe evil scientist lab if the evil scientists were a bit lax. Of course, his cell had looked kind of evil scientisty before the pillows and blankets, the television, the PlayStation, and the blue stains Ghostbur left everywhere. The long plain hallway was pretty creepy, and Tommy had never really liked hospitals after that one time he’d gotten really sick. The unnerving echo of their footsteps did nothing for his growing anxiety.

“Are you alright?” Phil asked him with a frown on his face.

“Yeah,” Tommy said and grimaced when it came out a bit too defensively. “Why?”

“You’re shaking a bit there, Mate,” he said, brow pinched. He was, Tommy realized. They came to a stop, and Phil reached out to touch the side of his face. It was strange. He was terrified of whatever was going on with Phil, but he still couldn’t help but lean into the touch. “Still not feeling well?” he asked. Tommy shrugged. Phil looked him over for a few seconds. “Here,” he said. He bent down and Tommy’s feet were suddenly not on the ground anymore.

Most days he’d be a bit miffed at being carried like a baby, but he didn’t protest today. On the contrary, he turned to hide his face in his chest.

“There,” Phil said. “I’ve got you.”

Tommy clenched a hand in the fabric of his shirt, doing his best to soak in as much of the warmth as possible in case things were about to go cold.

After a few more minutes of walking, Tommy felt Phil’s gait change as they traveled up some stairs, but he kept his face hidden in Phil’s chest.

“Are you doing okay?” Phil asked as Tommy heard a beep and then a door open and close. Phil had to shift all of Tommy’s weight to one arm in order to open the door, but he felt no less secure in his grip.

“Fine,” Tommy answered.

Phil hummed lightly and began to walk again. He stopped to open another door, but this one didn’t beep to indicate it was unlocked with a code. It also didn’t close behind them. Tommy was shifted around again and then set down on something soft. He peaked open his eyes cautiously just to see a bedroom. He’d been set down on a bed in a pretty normal looking bedroom if a bit fancier than what he was used to for himself.

“Uh,” Tommy said after a moment of hesitation. He had no idea what the hell was going on. “What’s this?”

“It’s a bedroom,” Phil said, and Tommy shot him a look. Prick.

“Yeah,” he said, “but why… Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“It is,” Phil confirmed. Well, that was confusing, but also a relief. He moved to sit down next to Tommy on the mattress giving Tommy a good view of the door that opened into a hallway. He couldn’t see much of it, but unlike the plain hallways downstairs, the walls had an… interesting wallpaper pattern with a lot of birds on it. Tommy’s attention was drawn back to Phil when the man tucked one of his legs up under him, so his torso tilted towards Tommy a bit. He smiled, warm and gentle. Phil was good at that, at looking open and calm, but Tommy could read a bit of tension in his seemingly lax posture.

“Why?” Tommy asked.

Phil looked at him for a few seconds. “I have an offer to make you.” Tommy tilted his head at him. “Do me a favor and listen to it?”

“As opposed to jumping through a window and fleeing the premises?” Tommy asked.

“Well,” Phil said with an amused smile, “I wouldn’t necessarily put it past you considering how agile you could be during fights.” He held out a hand between them to Tommy’s confusion. Not sure what else he would want by doing that, Tommy offered up the hand not busy holding a stuffed animal. Phil took his wrist gently and then the power suppression cuff snapped off.

Tommy sucked in a surprised breath. It wasn’t the first time in his life he’d suddenly felt the gateway to his powers swing open. The first time he hadn’t known what the feeling meant, but he did now. He already felt lighter even though he wasn’t actively using them.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“Like I said, I have an offer for you,” Phil said, “and you’re free to refuse it.”

“An… offer?” he asked. He was having trouble processing the fact that Phil had just handed him back his powers without warning or reason.

“You should leave The Superhero Guild,” Phil said bluntly, and Tommy blinked at him, startled. “I’m offering you a place here with us. One for your friend, Tubbo, as well. Ghostbur watched you long enough to know you’re a package deal and I don’t know him well, but he was intriguing when I met him.” Phil tilted his head to look at the rest of the room they were in, and Tommy followed his gaze. “This room doesn’t belong to any of us. Actually, Ghostbur bought pretty much everything in this room specifically for the two of you behind Wilbur’s back. You could stay here. We’d feed you and give you whatever you need. Or if you don’t want to actually live in our house, we could figure out a different place for you two to stay.”

“You want me to come work for you?” Tommy asked.

Phil’s face pinched just a bit. “Not exactly, no,” he replied.

“Then what?”

“It’d be more like…” he hesitated, mulling over his next words carefully. “Like you’d be my ward.”

“Like an apprenticeship?”

Phil sighed a bit. “Not quite. We wouldn’t want you to be working or fighting for us. In fact, I’d insist you didn’t, not for a couple of years, at least.”

Tommy’s face screwed up. “Then what’s the point?” he asked.

“The point is,” Phil said. “The Guild shouldn’t have been letting you work as a hero in the first place. You’re very good, but you shouldn’t be fighting yet. You shouldn’t have been put in that position.”

“I mean,” Tommy said. “I… it’s not bad.”

“It is,” Phil said.

“Yeah, well,” Tommy said, trying to get annoyed, but feeling a bit too off kilter for it. “Well, you’re not exactly the pillar of morality.”

“I was a hero once,” Phil reminded. “Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re right. I learned that a couple of times. You have to make decisions based on if they are good or bad, not who sanctions them. I know it’s hard to see, but you have to know that the situation The Guild put you in is not good.”

That.

That was maybe true if he thought about it. If he thought about his last time he was at The Superhero Guild HQ and being shoved into a cell, it seemed true. If he thought about just how mad Dream would be when he came crawling back to him, it seemed true.

“But I have to go back,” Tommy said.

“Why?” Phil asked him, and that question dug its claws into Tommy’s mind. Why? He could feel the pull to return like a choke collar on a dog being tugged on. It was the same feeling he felt every time things got a bit too hard, or Dream pissed him off a bit too much. Sometimes he’d want to take Tubbo’s hand and bolt like they always had when things had gone south before Dream. His hand squeezed the soft plushie in his lap, and he wondered for the first time in quite a while why he hadn’t ever done that. Why had he gotten tangled up in hero stuff in the first place? He knows he’d never pursued being a hero. He knows Dream was the one to approach him. He knows…

Actually, he couldn’t even remember the reason he’d accepted the offer.

He does know that this offer feels a lot gentler. There’s an open door and no cuff around his wrist. What he’d get out of accepting would be as good if not better than what he had as a hero unless there were some hidden clauses he didn’t know of yet. He and Tubbo would have food and a place to stay. They’d probably have an abundance of medical care considering just how overboard Wilbur went over a single stab wound.

They’d have to make sure there weren’t any cameras in the room like in the Guild housing he and Tubbo had dodged, but really those had been the only reason they hadn’t stayed there. This room was a lot better than those and came with well-cooked food.

He was sure they’d get some sort of training with their powers. Technoblade would probably teach him how to sword fight better if he pestered him enough. They wouldn’t even have to fight for a bit it sounded like. Phil said he shouldn’t fight for a few years, probably to make sure he was trained well enough (something The Guild put to the side a lot).

He’d probably also get to see more of Tubbo. Maybe they’d even train them together.

Tommy’s mind had raced through these thoughts in a moment. Phil was still speaking. “Have they done anything to deserve your loyalty?” he asked.

Not really, Tommy thought, but then again, had the SBI? They had been kind to him when they didn’t have to be, sure, but was that enough for loyalty? This room was nice. The food was better than he’d ever had. Was that enough? They were still supervillains. Did he have a moral obligation to refuse? Phil had said that being a hero didn’t mean being good. Was the opposite true as well? They were trying to break people out of The Pit. The heroes had never even given The Pit a second thought.

Was this offer even real? Or was it all a trick?

“Can I think about it?” he finally asked.

“Of course,” Phil answered. He patted Tommy’s knee briefly and then stood. “Why don’t I let you check out the room on your own for a bit and you can think? I’ll be in the kitchen if you want to talk. You go straight out this door and turn left.”

Tommy nodded and Phil left the room, closing the door behind him.

He waited for a few moments after the man left and then turned to eye the room more intensely. The bedding was not white like the set he’d had in the cell. It was mostly black actually with a pattern made up of bunches of cherries on vines. He peeled back the comforter to find the sheets and pillowcases had the same pattern, but the background was a cream color.

He flipped the comforter back up and stood to look over the rest of the room. There were posters on the walls some of which he recognized the content of and some of which he didn’t. There was a bookshelf with a few books and a dresser with a giant mirror on it. He sighed at his own reflection. There were so many blue handprints all over his face and there was blue in his hair. It wasn’t like he was surprised. He’d assumed he was bluer the second he woke up, but this was a bit excessive.

He turned away after a few moments. The wardrobe in the corner actually looked pretty wicked like it should be in some old mansion somewhere filled with moth eaten clothing from centuries ago, but when he opened it, he just found normal shirts in two different sizes.

He considered the clothing for a long moment, but apparently they’d gotten this stuff for him and Tubbo and he was allegedly not a prisoner anymore… He snagged a red and white t-shirt from the wardrobe and then found a pair of jeans in the dresser. There was also a stack of tennis shoes by the door. Three were in Tommy’s size, though he wondered why on Earth people would need more than one pair of tennis shoes. Fucking, rich people. It hurt to bend over and put them on, but Tommy ignored that. He flopped back onto the bed to take a breather. It felt nice to be in real clothing, even if it wasn’t clothing he was used to.

He’d taken off the sweater he’d liberated from Wilbur. He debated pulling it back on over the new t-shirt, but then decided to fold it instead. He set it near the head of the bed next to the pillows and then reached over and set Henry on top of that. It seemed like a nice place for him to sit.

Then, his eyes drifted to the window. It was huge and he could easily fit through it without even having to squeeze. He could see a forest with giant trees and a half-collapsed garden shed out of it. There were two pots on the sill filled with dirt, waiting for something to grow in them.

Was it real? He wondered. Or was it just an illusion. The suppression cuff was gone and there was a giant window. Phil wasn’t even watching him. He hadn’t even left the door open.

He got to his feet after looking out of the window for a few seconds and approached it. After a few moments of study, he figured out how it opened. It slid open with no problem. Alright then, he thought, let’s test it. He hoisted himself up by the windowsill easily with the help of his powers and landed lightly on the other side.

Then he waited. No alarms went off, and no one came after him. After lingering near the window for a bit, he turned and took a few cautious steps towards the forest. Still, no one came after him and he ended up walking deeper into the forest. There were a few small paths that he was able to follow. He’d never been in a forest before. He’d never seen this many trees before.

He hopped up onto a low branch of one of the trees and sat to wait. Still, there were no alarms and no sounds of people angrily moving through the underbrush. No one came to drag Tommy back to the new bedroom or the cell or some far worse room.

After about half an hour of sitting in that tree, he decided he was cold and bored and jumped off the branch. Walking back to the house warmed him up a bit at least. He looked at the window still open from when he’d climbed out of it.

He had a lot to think about. His eyes traveled up.

It took a bit of a running start, but he was able to run and jump at a nearby tree high enough that he could kick off of it and get his hand on the edge of the house’s roof. He pulled himself up easily and hopped to his feet.

To Tommy’s surprise, there was already someone on the roof. He was on the opposite side and facing away from Tommy. Tommy hadn’t made much noise when he landed, so the man didn’t know anyone was there yet. Tommy dithered between calling to him and hopping back to the ground.

“Uh, hey?” he finally decided on.

Wilbur jumped a bit and Tommy bit back a laugh as he whipped around. He seemed more surprised to see Tommy than Tommy was to see him. “How did you get up here?” he asked.

Tommy hopped once and let himself float down slowly in answer.

Right,” Wilbur said. “Chicken powers.”

Tommy squawked, insulted. “They aren’t chicken powers!”

Wilbur’s eyes lit up. “Are too,” he teased.

Tommy floundered for a moment, unable to deal with this flagrant disrespect. “Yeah, well, my ‘chicken powers’ kicked your ass on multiple occasions!”

He shot Tommy a half smile. “That they did,” he chuckled, but then his smile faded away. “Are you, uh, escaping?”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “If I was running, I wouldn’t have climbed onto your roof. I’d have just run. Could have too by the way. You have shit security.”

“We’re not running security right now,” he said. “You’re not a prisoner anymore.”

“Huh,” said Tommy. “Kind of weird.”

“What are you doing out here, then?” Wilbur asked.

“Well,” Tommy said. “I wanted to check, I guess.”

“Check?”

He shrugged. “Wanted to see if I jumped out of a window if alarms would go off and I’d be dragged back into a cell. Went and sat in a tree for a bit. Then came back and climbed onto the roof to think. I wasn’t really expecting someone else to be up here too.”

“Hmm, well, neither was I.”

They watched each other in silence for a moment.

“You can come sit by me if you’d like,” Wilbur invited, patting the space next to him. Tommy nodded and leapt over to the indicated spot because he could. Wilbur rolled his eyes as he plopped down.

This side of the house faced a small lake or a large pond. (Tommy wasn’t quite sure what the distinction was.) “That’s pog,” he said, pointing his foot at the body of water.

“Yeah. A little useless right now. Too cold to swim, but not frozen over yet.”

“Mmm,” Tommy replied.

“Wait,” Wilbur seemed to realize something. “You’re not wearing a jacket!”

“Oh,” Tommy said. “Yeah, no, I’m not.”

“How long did you say you’ve been outside? Come here.”

“I’m fine, Wilbur,” Tommy laughed, trying halfheartedly to wiggle away when Wilbur grabbed for him. He didn’t manage to escape it though, and he was pulled against Wilbur’s side, the man’s arm and slightly oversized long coat wrapping around his shoulder. The fabric was warm from his body heat. “I’ve been out in worse cold with less on.”

“I know you have,” Wilbur stressed. “Which is even more reason for me to worry.”

“You’re so stupid,” Tommy muttered, but the warmth was, admittedly, nice.

“Do not just go wandering off into the woods without a jacket if you do decide to leave. I will drive you back to the city myself if it comes to that, I swear, but you are not dying of hyperthermia in the woods.”

“No promises,” Tommy said and laughed at the glare he got in return, but then after a moment, he asked. “Would you really?”

He’d turned to watch Wilbur’s face when he asked. A line appeared at the corner of the eye he could see, and it was clear he didn’t like the idea, but for some reason, that just made Tommy believe it more when he said, “yes.”

“You know, you’re all powerful enough that you could have just made me give you whatever it is you want from me? I don’t think I could have gotten away with the cuff, especially since you live in the middle of fucking nowhere it looks like.”

“But that’s the thing Tommy, we really couldn’t have. That’s not how it works.”

And… Tommy’s arm was getting uncomfortable with the way Wilbur had squished it between their bodies. That is why he wiggled it around to freedom and stretched it out between Wilbur’s back and the back of the coat. For balance reasons, he put his opposite arm around Wilbur’s front so his fingertips almost touched. Wilbur squeezed him lightly with the arm around his shoulder and weight descended on the top of Tommy’s head.

“Your chin is boney,” Tommy complained into his shoulder.

“Do you have to ruin every moment?” he sighed.

“We aren’t having a moment. I’m a prisoner.”

“You are not.”

“Am so. You trapped me in your coat.”

“Fine,” Wilbur said. He unwrapped his arm from Tommy’s shoulder. “Go then. Shoo.”

“Can’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“Arms are stuck. Your fault entirely.”

“Uh huh.”

Tommy pressed a smile into Wilbur’s chest and the arm came back around him, tucking him into the coat once again. “What are you doing out here, by the way?” Tommy asked.

“I was sort of kicked out of the house this morning.”

“Why?”

“Techno and Phil were worried I’d scare you off before Phil could talk to you.”

Ironic because Techno had just about scared him off before Phil could talk to him. “Why would they think that?”

“I sort of… ruined your face last night if you didn’t notice.”

“I did,” Tommy replied. “Prick.”

“Yeah, well, once I tried to superglue Techno to a chair to stop him from going on a school trip in Year 5, and they were worried about a repeat performance.”

Tommy laughed. “What?”

“They were taking him a whole 3 hours away!” Wilbur defended. “Anyway, they didn’t want me to pressure you into staying if you don’t want to.”

There was something oddly safe about that, that Wilbur wanted him to stay. He wanted him to stay in a way that compared him to Technoblade, and Tommy wasn’t quite sure what that type of staying was, but it did not feel dangerous. Especially not when he’d also offered to drive him back to the city despite his distaste for the idea. There was a weird sort of safety here leaning against him on the rooftop. It was something he’d never felt before even with Tubbo. He felt like he could relax. He could feel safe enough to sleep here even though life had trained him never to sleep out in the open. It was a bizarre thought.

“Okay,” Tommy said. Wilbur hummed and Tommy thought maybe he needed to clarify. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

“Oh,” Wilbur said softly. He squeezed Tommy even tighter.

“Tubbo’s going to take some convincing,” Tommy mused. “I don’t know if he’ll be as willing to leave the Guild.”

“I, uh,” Wilbur said. “I don’t think you have to worry about that one.”

“What, why?” Tommy asked.

“Tubbo quit The Guild when they wouldn’t immediately try to get you back from us,” Wilbur explained. “He declared war on the city.”

“Tubbo?” Tommy asked, confused.

“He’s been growing plants all over the city.”

Oh, he was just growing plants. That made sense. Illegal, but not too dangerous. “Well, that’ll help, I guess. I think he’ll trust me on it eventually anyway though.”

Wilbur nodded. “He’d follow you off a cliff.”

“That’d be pretty stupid of him. I float.”

Wilbur chuckled and pressed his cheek instead of his boney chin into Tommy’s hair this time. They sat like that for a few more minutes. “Anyway, it’s fucking cold, and I’m hungry. Can we go inside now?”

Wilbur laughed and pulled away. Tommy slid off the roof without a thought, but Wilbur had to climb. He seemed pretty practiced at it. His feet knew exactly where to go to catch footholds in the walls.

They were at the front of the house now. There were nice big windows that faced the lake and a porch with some chairs and a wooden swing. Wilbur led him up onto the porch and to the front door.

Technoblade was sitting on one of those comfy looking chairs in what must have been their living room. It was as big as his and Tubbo’s apartment. He barely restrained himself from bounding over to the couch to see if it was as squishy as it looked.

Technoblade looked up from yet another book as they entered and shot Wilbur a look.

“He found me,” Wilbur defended himself.

“I hopped out of the window and went on a walk. Found this fucker on the roof when I came back.”

“I see,” Techno replied. He seemed a lot more normal than he had this morning to Tommy’s relief.

Unable to resist anymore, Tommy plopped down on the couch. It was even squishier than he’d thought it would be. A blanket was tossed at him.

“Warm up, idiot child that wore a t-shirt outside when it’s almost winter,” Wilbur ordered.

Tommy stuck his tongue out at him but wrapped the blanket around himself. “Find me food, Wilbur?” Tommy pleaded.

“Phil’s stress cooking,” Technoblade offered.

“Great,” Wilbur said, clapping his hands. “I’ll be right back.”

And then it was Tommy and Technoblade alone again. “You scared the fuck out of me this morning,” Tommy accused. “I thought you were going to axe murder me.”

“…Why?”

“Saying ominous shit like ‘I have been instructed not to tell you’ something is terrifying as shit, man. You can’t just say that. I’ll think myself into assuming it’s something bad.”

“I’ll tell you ‘I have been instructed not to tell you about something good’ next time.”

Tommy considered that. “That’ll work honestly.”

“Noted,” Techno said. He eyed Tommy over his book. “So, make a decision?”

“I think so,” Tommy said. “I have one more question for you though.”

“What?”

“Ghostbur said you escaped The Pit?”

He titled his head. “I did, yes.”

Tommy nodded. “And Phil mentioned you want to try to get other people out of there. That that is why you wanted the one ball thing I stopped you from stealing.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m guessing that’s for the mental barrier and not the physical one. Do you have a way through the physical part yet?”

“No,” Technoblade said, “but we know there are some weak spots, just not where. We figured we’d find one after figuring out the rest.”

Tommy nodded. “There’s a tunnel,” he said. “If you go down into the sewers at Heart St. and Roberts Ave. and follow it down keeping left, you can find where an old tunnel collapsed at one point after The Pit was made. It made a little hole in the physical barrier. It’s only, like, 4 feet tall, but if you could account for the mental barrier as well, you could probably get an adult through it. The drunks on the West side used to play a game where they got as close as they could to it before the mental barrier forced them back, but if someone’s not drunk and scared enough, they can get through it.”

“You’ve been in The Pit,” he concluded.

“Tubbo and I are both from there too, yeah. Thought it’d be good for you to know if we’re going to be sticking around.”

Technoblade studied him for a few moments. He seemed to struggle to figure out what to say. Eventually, he seemed to come to a decision. “Horrible fucking place,” he grunted.

Tommy snorted. “Horrible fucking place,” he agreed.

Author Note:

Tommy: What? You think I'm going to just jump out of a window and flee the premises?

Phil: *squints*

Tommy (5 minutes later): Jumps out of a window and flees the premises.

Also:

Wilbur used the ghostly equivalent of 'I licked it, so it's mine now.' It was very effective.

How'd you like the ominous Dream superpower foreshadowing, huh? :)