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coraxaviary · 5 years ago

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Sister-in-Arms | CHAPTER 9: Men Without Women

(Part I, Run the Gauntlet)

Summary: More training. Friday nights bring out the worst in men.

Word Count: 5.9k

AO3 | Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Author’s Note: Heavy chapter ahead. Please heed the warning. More notes at the end.

Warnings: !!!!! Mentions/depictions of attempted sexual assault !!!!!

Taglist: @keoghans @papercinders @junojelli @notmykirk @wolfers-stuff (add yourself!)

It was Friday night again: the week had passed agonizingly slowly and June was looking forward to a weekend of sleep and healing. Her feet still needed to rest, and occasional twinges of pain bothered her whenever she was moving about vigorously. They had bled again – though not badly – on Wednesday, and they needed the rest as much as June’s mind and soul did. The possibility of a ruck march pressed on her in the back of her mind, and there was a fifty percent chance Easy would be forced on one that day. She ignored the thought – she’d deal with it when it happened.

June had something to do that night, uniquely enough. After coming back from dinner, having pushed her food around on her plate anxiously for the third or fourth time that week, she hurried to brush her teeth and get her things in order just in case Sobel decided to bust inside at any time.

June picked up Webster’s copy of The Sun Also Rises. She’d been meaning to return it days ago, but June hadn’t had the energy nor the motivation to get it to him. She was not looking forward to knocking on the door of another billet. Other men would see her, and it would be awkward for both of them.

This early on Friday night, there were probably less people hovering around the billets. June tucked the book under her arm and left her bed, heading towards the door. Some of the men who were draped around the billet gave her curious glances seeing the book she had. She adjusted her grip, stepped down from the billet, and went in search of the third Fox Company billet, a little ways down from the Easy section.

June found the billet much more swiftly than she would have liked to. It hadn’t even been more than two minutes by the time she stood in front of a door that looked like all the rest. She checked the ID on the building for the third time. It was correct. Webster was housed inside this one.

She stood outside, becoming overly conscious of how her lingering could be interpreted. She told herself to get over it, and get the task of returning the book done quickly before more people saw her hovering outside a foreign billet, and she mounted the steps, hesitating before deciding to knock instead of opening the door without warning. She experienced a brief moment of irrational panic, imagining she’d copied down the wrong billet number or that she had misread the ID, before someone came to the door and cracked it open.

The face that appeared was confused for a second, and his expression melted into a suggestive grin that June was beginning to find commonplace.

“Is Webster here?” June asked, her face heating. She already felt like she’d done something wrong – something that would put both her and Webster in the attention of the other men of Toccoa. She didn’t want it to look like anything was happening.

“You bet he is, babe,” said the guy blocking June’s view inside the billet. He closed the door just enough so he could stand in the doorway, barring anyone from entering or exiting. “Whatcha need him for?” he said, still smiling wolfishly in the way June disliked. It made her uneasy, and he was eyeing her up and down like she was a girl up for grabs in town.

June pulled the book out, holding it in front of her. She stared at the man flatly without any expression, trying to communicate her disinterest without making a scene. “This is his. I’m giving it back,” she said curtly, narrowing her eyes. Internally, she felt like screaming out of sheer discomfort. On second consideration, maybe this whole operation wasn’t the best idea. She heard muted crunches in the dirt behind her, and she wondered if people were watching, or if her audial acuity had simply grown better as a result of constant paranoia. Probably a little bit of both.

A hand slid between the door and the blond man, and Webster appeared behind the man, pulling the door open wide.

“Relax, Smithson,” said Webster nonchalantly, looking at the one blocking the door, and the man stepped away with his hands up in mock surrender.

“Have fun, Web,” Smithson said mockingly. He laughed, casting another appraising glance over June through the gap in the door. “Save a piece for me.”

June stared after Smithson with affront, her mouth opening slightly as she registered the implication. Webster looked only slightly perturbed, sparing a brief glance at the man but saying nothing. He returned his gaze to June, and she handed him the book, still reeling from the statement. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, of course, because rude men were a dime a dozen at Toccoa – but this was the first time someone had actively insinuated that she was involved with someone to her face. Webster standing a few feet away made it worse.

“Thanks for the book,” she muttered darkly, not meeting his eyes. She was already turning away to go back to the billet. It was all a bad idea. Maybe she’d be able to sleep away the memory of this entire five-minute exchange.

“Wait,” said Webster suddenly. “Did you want another one? For the weekend?”

June turned around, mildly surprised that he didn’t want her gone immediately.

“I didn’t mean to assume you don’t go off-base,” said Webster haltingly. “I mean, if you want another book you can have one. I have lots…” he trailed off, running out of things to say.

“Whatcha got?” asked June, not smiling but her expression softening slightly. The attraction of books was irresistible.

“Uh, more Hemingway,” he said, rattling off author names. “Fitzgerald,” he said. “Uh, Orwell? His name is George Orwell. His books are kind of weird,” he said, making a face.

“Which Hemingway books?” asked June, intrigued.

“A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls,” he said. “Oh, also, uh, the short stories. It’s called Men Without Women,” he said awkwardly, with a few huffs of self-deprecating laughter – the type of laughter June knew very well. It was self-conscious, she recognized. “I don’t know why it’s named that,” he concluded.

“Are you sure you want to just lend out your books?” said June, looking past him into a billet that looked relatively identical to June’s, except every cot was filled and it was a tad more messy.

“Oh,” he laughed, sounding somewhat forced and abrupt. “It’s fine. I’ve read all of them.” He smiled, albeit maybe halfway.

“I’ll take the short stories, then,” said June, finally yielding to some expression that wasn’t an explicit frown. “Nice to see some people around here actually read literature,” she said. Webster laughed, for real this time, and went down the billet to get a book from his footlocker. He returned and handed it to June wordlessly.

“Thank you,” said June. She put force behind the words. Webster was the first man to be remotely kind to her. “No one in Easy Company seems to want to lend me anything,” she said without thinking, and then she regretted it as Webster’s casual smile wavered. She’d broken the careful balance that was hanging in the air prior, and June could almost feel the shards of normalcy falling at their feet.

“No problem,” he said, with that expression she’d seen before – torn between pity and detachment or something, like he was suddenly reminded that she was a woman in a military camp that he probably should not be talking to.

June knew the look. She didn’t know what she’d expected: someone like Coates to just exist and be nice to her? It was too good to be true, and June wanted to hit herself for having hope in Webster. It wasn’t his responsibility. He didn’t owe her anything at all. She nodded, looking down, not bothering with a proper goodbye if they weren’t going to actually get to know each other. It was probably better that way – not to forge a contrived sense of friendliness without any substantive feeling.

June turned around and left the billet, walking down the rows to the Easy Company area. She was foolish for thinking someone would just lend her books like that. What was he thinking? What was she thinking? Did he want something back from her? Attention? Was he just another one of the guys, trying to get her in his bed but being devious about it? June groaned and kicked at the road. She was being stupid. She’d finish the book, return it, and stop talking to him.

As she approached her assigned billet, she looked down at the book in her hands and knew she wasn’t looking forward to re-entering the building with all eyes always following her and loud talking in the background. June decided to go somewhere else. She checked her watch: it was around 2000, and she had two hours to burn. She quickly deposited the book in her footlocker because it was too dark out to read, not sparing a glance to take stock of who was in the billet, and she darted out just as quickly.

June took an unexpected turn and ended up looking out over the practice field. The track called, but she knew her feet weren’t ready. The camp was already darkened, and lay tucked under a blanket of stars. June walked out with hands in her pockets, eyes on the rising moon. The sky was clear and the air was still warm, and she walked all the way across the empty field, feeling the bluish night-tinted grass under her boots and the shift of breeze that tangled out from inside the forest. June found herself right at the edge of it a few moments later, staring into the dark, tall mass of trees and leaves.

June grew up in an urbanized area. Forests had always interested her, perhaps because of the novelty of never getting to see them. She knew that many of the boys at Toccoa had probably grown up around forests – maybe in them, hunting and shooting and playing Cowboys and Indians. Sometimes June felt rather foolish by being amused by the concept of wildlife growing in one local proximity. She supposed this was the natural state of things, the forest; San Francisco had been host to wild things too before people had mowed it over with cement and civilization. It was the order of the land before Manifest Destiny and the port men arrived hand in hand.

She sat down against a tree, facing the clearing and the camp, spread out before her. Each billet was like a lantern: glowing transparently from within, the thin wooden walls and tarps creating a papery lamplike effect, with the yellow light pushing through the corners. She couldn’t see as far as HQ or the offices from her slightly elevated place against the trees, but she could make out the lay of the land by the placement of the lights all around camp.

It was nice and quiet away from all the men. The sound of cicadas rose and fell in a rhythmic wave around June, and the static background noise wove into the drumbeat of her heart. Rare relaxation leaked into June’s veins, bringing with it the smell of earth and dew and the universe. Time almost seemed to stop in this pocket of the world where June was alone with the lady bugs and mosquitoes. She leaned heavily against the tree and leaned back, and closed her eyes.

♤

June didn’t mean to fall asleep, but she awoke with a start against the tree. She looked out at camp and about half the billets had gone dark. It was almost time for lights-out. If Sobel conducted a bed check, she was doomed. June leapt up, dusted off the backside of her ODs, and took off running across the field, feeling oddly exposed even though no one could have seen her in the dark.

When June came back into the range of the light of a nearby billet, she checked her watch. It was 2207. An icy slide of panic overtook her, and she sprinted towards her billet, fearing the worst and trying to concoct an excuse in her head. There were none, really, and she felt at a loss as she dashed through rows and rows until she reached her company section. Sobel was nowhere to be seen, or at least he wasn’t stalking between billets. June hoped he didn’t happen to be inside hers at that very moment, and she crunched quietly towards her billet.

A few stray men were still returning to their billets. June hoped she looked just like another one of the casual stragglers.

She heard a shift in the dirt.

She froze against the side of one of the farthest Easy Company billets, hoping to stay silent. If it was Sobel, her stint in the military was finished. She would be sent out the next day, or maybe even now.

June told herself she was being ridiculous, and she took a few deep breaths to try and calm the haywire flutter of her pulse.

The steps in the gritty sand were irregular, unlike Sobel’s heavy rhythmic gait. June listened closely. The footsteps staggered, as if the person was listing side to side. There was a fair bit of heavy breathing coming from his hidden position between billets. June sighed. It was most likely a drinking soldier, making his way back to his barracks before an officer could catch him.

June intended to walk past as quickly as possible, and maybe the drunk soldier wouldn’t see her, and she’d pass by without comment. She took a deeper breath, and stepped back out into the open, making as little noise as possible. Her ODs swished, the rougher fabric creating friction. Her boots still crunched in the dirt, and she hastened her pace.

Even though June had a general idea of where the soldier was lingering, he took her by surprise, intercepting her path. He clearly was making a beeline towards June, and she couldn’t outrun him in the time it took for him to step out of the shadows.

“Hey, girl,” said the guy, looking not too light on his feet. June could tell from a few feet away that he was definitely inebriated. He dragged a hand across the wall of a billet, and June cringed at the loudness of the brushing against the tarp. “I was waitin’ for ya.”

June looked around, trying to get past the guy, but something struck her as familiar. Light hit his face and June’s stomach dropped. It was Smithson, the one from Fox. She took another step back, because he was coming for her fast.

June sidestepped as he was almost on her, and she tried to swing far around him and walk to the other side. He was drunk and, from what she could tell, out of his mind. He must have been very, very drunk, June noticed, because he lurched a few times. Just as she was almost past, Smithson’s hand shot out and clasped a vice-like grip around June’s arm.

“Why you runnin’?” he said, leaning closer. June tried to tear her arm out of his hand, the combined shuffling of both of their boots in the sand the only noise in the air. Her heart was beating fast, and she leaned away from Smithson’s face, trying to pry his grip off her sleeve with her other hand. His fingers held on tight, and he started to tighten his grip even more. June let out an involuntary hiss of anxiety.

“Let go of me,” she whispered, starting to breathe faster. She dug her feet into the sand as Smithson tried to tug her somewhere else. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t wanna have some fun?” said Smithson, words bleeding into each other, ignoring June’s protests. “I know you wanna, June.”

For some reason, the way he said her first name was jarringly terrifying. June was pulling at her arm desperately now, trying to get away. Smithson stood like an anchor, resolutely tugging her in the opposite direction of her billet, which was only a few feet away. Smithson was drunk and swaying, but somehow June still could not overpower him. He had more than a few inches on her and probably thirty or so pounds.

“Stop,” she whispered frantically. “Get off me,” she said, her voice rising in a tone of panic. Now, she wasn’t sure if she liked the darkness so much anymore. It obscured Smithson’s face, casting it heavily in shadow, and his eyes shined from beneath a veil of black.

Smithson had a humorless half-smile on his face. “Come on,” he said. “Stop strugglin’.”

June pulled violently at her arm, trying to peel his fingers off her arm. Smithson got wise and smacked her other hand away, and grabbed her other shoulder painfully. June bit back a cry of surprise, and tried to duck out from under his grip. Smithson held on and his fingers pressed into her skin. June felt herself weakening. The week had taken its toll. She was in no state to fight.

She tried to push him off, but it was no use. Smithson held on tight and leaned closer. In a moment of clarity, June hooked a leg behind Smithson and jammed it against the back of his knee. With a huff of surprise, Smithson went down and took June down with him, both hitting the ground hard. June groaned, because she’d landed on her right side with nothing to shield her fall. Smithson had let go of her momentarily in surprise. June rolled over and got on her hands and knees, crawling away from Smithson.

“Come here,” ground out Smithson dangerously, and he clasped a hand around her ankle, pulling her back. June’s hands scrabbled in the dirt, but she felt Smithson rise up behind her. She jerked her ankle away, but Smithson pulled back, and she landed in the dirt again, flat on her back. She was breathing hard, body tensed. She forgot her soreness as her body primed for a fight, fear filling the corners of her imagination.

She would not let the last of her memory at the camp be that of a whisper and a rumor of assault. She would not let Smithson take what he wanted. She would fight with her dying breath if it meant she won.

In the back of her mind, she was aware that they were making noise, thrashing about in the sand. Smithson wasn’t whispering anymore, and June wasn’t either, kicking out at Smithson and somehow landing a hit in the dark as he would not let go of her leg.

“Let go,” June growled loudly. “Get off!”

Smithson grabbed at her other leg. “Be quiet, bitch,” he hissed, and June landed another weak glancing kick, probably to his shoulder. Involuntary tears of panic were gathering in the corners of her eyes, and she made another push to get free of Smithson.

He grabbed farther up on her thigh, and a new wave of panic rushed over June. She rolled over onto her back, giving up on jerking her leg out of Smithson’s grip, and she ignored her aching muscles, sitting up and throwing a blind punch out into the direction of his head. She missed, and Smithson yelled something vicious. Now she was on her back, and Smithson took advantage, pinning her down by the shoulders and hovering over her.

June approached a precipice of fear and terror. There was no telling if she’d get away now. Smithson was grabbing at her ODs, and had his knees over June’s legs. She tried to get them up and slide out from under, but there was nowhere to go, and Smithson leaned close enough that June could smell his hot breath, sour with alcohol. She turned her face to the side.

“Stop moving,” slurred Smithson, pawing at the buttons of her ODs. A moment later, with almost debilitating shock, she felt his hands pulling at the buckle of her belt, uncoordinated and heavy.

Caught between blind panic and alarm, June somehow gathered the strength to wrench her right leg free from Smithson’s weight. Before he could jab his knee back into her thigh, she surged upwards, hitting him between the legs.

“Shit,” Smithson spat, weakening momentarily, and June scrambled out from under him, finally free from his hands. June watched him for another second warily, and Smithson launched himself back at her. June reeled back, took one breath, and caught Smithson in the side of the face with a lucky punch. Her fist exploded into pain, and June watched Smithson rub at his cheek, shocked.

June scuttled away, out of reach of Smithson, but he recovered fast from the punch, and despite his impaired reflexes, he moved fast, landing a solid punch to June’s temple. She saw stars and couldn’t move for a few seconds – pain bloomed across her skull and she felt like something broke in her head. The pressure of Smithson’s hit lingered like a phantom pain weighing on her skull. Smithson seemed satisfied, and he resumed getting at her shirt. June felt fingers tugging at the collar of her PT shirt, and his other slid under the hem, brushing up against the bottom of her ribs, and she was filled with one last burst of desperate, savage adrenaline. She threw everything she had into one last punch to Smithson’s throat, and she felt the flesh around his neck under the weight of her fist. Her own knuckles already started to ache, and she scooted back on one arm as Smithson’s hands went to his throat with a muffled scream.

June watched Smithson with some sort of traumatized immobile shock. His hands wrapped around his throat as he heaved shivery breaths in and out, and June thought for a moment, foolishly, that she might have killed him with a little more power. Then she shook herself, scrabbling backwards with more fear falling deep into her bones, body still running high on fight-or flight.

The fighting was over. It was time to run.

Everyone around had probably heard them scuffling. June hoped no one was going to come out of their billets to investigate. June could now be thrown out of Toccoa for fighting. She looked at Smithson in terror, now crouched almost pathetically in the dirt, facedown and half braced on splayed elbows. He’d complain to his NCO, who would tell the officers, who would report it to someone in HQ – or worse, Sink directly. June would be deemed a nuisance who posed a danger to the other soldiers, and she’d be reprimanded and demanded to leave camp the same night.

Smithson would be able to bend the story to his own interests. Everyone would believe him over her. Besides, she’d wanted it, they’d say: a lone woman joining the Army to go and try and sleep in the same rooms as all the other men was bound to try this kind of thing eventually. There was no way she didn’t enjoy at least a part of the attention.

June knew the shame that came from being harassed, like it was her fault for being tossed around into submission. If June hadn’t stayed out alone after nightfall, or if she hadn’t lingered at Webster’s door for as long as she did, she might not have attracted the attention of Smithson.

She looked back at him warily, anticipating that he’d surge back up and make another grab at her, maybe this time get a hand under her bra or into her pants. Smithson was still kneeling and panting heavily, holding his throat.

June got up and staggered away, not knowing why she’d even stayed to watch her assaulter scratch about on the ground in the first place. Maybe a sick sense of satisfaction, or maybe it was just a dissociative shock. She left Smithson behind, heaving in the dust. She’d done it – she’d gotten him off her, all by herself. It was a horrible kind of fulfillment: the reason why she’d fought him on her own was only because no one was nearby to help.

James would be proud, June realized in a moment of ironic thoughtfulness.

Boots on the ground filtered through the buzz of the static of night, and she turned around, realizing she was standing in the distance between billet rows. She was out of the narrow shadows between the houses and in the open air of the main road that carved down camp, with billet doors lining the path.

June was hyper-aware of the sound. Wind whistled through the camp, fluttering tarps and through leaves.

She thought it was Smithson, at first, and she took a few steps back, going to find her billet again and throw herself inside, hoping that Smithson wouldn’t dare come after her when she was inside with other men. He stepped into the light, and it wasn’t Smithson, but June hated the way she flinched backwards reflexively, her head pounding with blood once more.

The man’s face was cast in shadow. He was taller and slimmer than Smithson. June didn’t move, because she could see that he was an officer from his uniform. The pinprick glow of a lit cigarette shone against his mouth. She was dead this time: truly dead. Whether this man wanted to assault her or throw her in the brig or take her directly to Sink, June had no more energy left to do anything more.

He moved closer, stepping casually down the rows, and June heard Smithson groan. She cringed at the sound, though resigned to whatever fate awaited her in this cursed hour of crisis, and the officer cast a glance into the shadows between her billet and the next one. She knew Smithson was lying in that gap, and the officer had seen him.

“That bitch,” came a muffled mutter from Smithson, who coughed. “She came outta nowhere and jumped me,” he said.

June saw the officer lean into the shadows. She didn’t know what passed between Smithson and the officer, but the man leaned back into the light after a few moments, and started walking towards June.

A gust of wind picked up again, and June realized her shirt was torn open and her PT shirt was on display. She hastily buttoned up the OD jacket with trembling fingers, and she started to redo her belt, the metal clinking loudly as she tried to grab the buckle and force the tail of the webbing back in. It took her a few tries, and by the time she got herself dressed again, the officer was in front of her.

June stood at attention with all the energy she could spend, fear now washing through her: fear at her fate, fear of the officer, and fear of Smithson, who was lying still somewhere in the gravel.

The officer heaved a sigh.

“Let’s get you back to your billet,” said the officer finally around the cigarette, looking down at June and letting smoke curl from the corner of his mouth. She finally saw his eyes, which somehow gathered darkness around them. His face was still unclear, but June was sure she hadn’t seen him before. He was from another company, maybe: from another side of Toccoa.

The statement registered to June. She wasn’t being taken to the brig, and she stumbled along in shock towards her billet while the officer trailed behind, both of them leaving Smithson behind.

June cleared her throat quietly and rubbed at her face, which was starting to throb. Her cheekbone hurt something awful, and when June toughed the area, it was worse. She dropped her hand.

“Permission to speak, sir,” said June, hating the shakiness in her voice.

“Granted,” said the officer almost immediately, taking a relaxed drag.

“Private Smithson, he, uh…” said June, struggling to come up with the words. “He’s injured,” she said lamely, brushing at her arm unconsciously where Smithson had grabbed her first.

“Don’t worry about him,” said the officer simply, and the pair was again in silence until June reached the door of her billet.

“Sir–” started June, stepping away from him in discomfort, somewhat unconsciously. “What…” she trailed off. “What’s gonna–”

“Private,” said the officer, cutting her off. “It was self-defense.”

June stared at him in shock. The officer offered no reaction, standing expressionless.

“No one needs to know, sir,” said June, out on a limb. It was risky to say, almost disrespectful. She was desperate though, and willing to walk the line between indignance and impropriety.

It didn’t matter how nice she said it if she was going to be thrown out the next day.

The officer tilted his head, cigarette glowing as he took it into his hand. “Do they?” he said, and ice ran cold in June’s bones. Panic once again slipped over her like an old, familiar presence. It was what she’d felt, after all, every day of the week on-base.

The officer’s lips curved upwards briefly, and June was struck by the oddity of the situation. She tried to shake the strangely exposed feeling that he was laughing at her, but she took another step back, feeling a wave of caution at his sudden display of unpredictability.

The smile dropped from his face entirely in one terrifying second, and June backed away. But the officer was already walking away from her. He stopped and dropped the finished cigarette onto the ground, and twisted his boot about into the ashes. He turned around for one second, just enough for June to see his mouth move.

“Goodbye, Private,” he said briefly before slipping back into the shadows where he merged with the pressing night. June was left staring into the dark at the spot he once inhabited; the only hint to his presence ever having been real a moment before was the still-flickering glow of the cigarette dying on the ground.

June didn’t feel as if she was at a loss for breath; her head pounded. She rubbed absently at the twinge on her cheek, thinking about him. Forget Smithson, she told herself, opening the billet door as quietly as possible. She was dead on her feet, tired beyond measure. The billet door creaked, but she shut it without energy, barely managing to guide it closed without losing all energy in her arm once she was within the bounds of wood and out of reach of the starlight and reaching fingers.

If June had felt more energetic, perhaps normal, she’d have sat down and cried in that very spot right inside the billet. But she wasn’t feeling that way – instead, she stood silently in front of the door, very much awake and drained and battered. She made her way to her cot and took off her ODs without seeing in the darkness – a small comfort that she could not see the state of her own knuckles, which were probably reddening and swelling already.

After she was in bed, staring up at the blackness of the lightless ceiling, June wondered if the men beside her were asleep. The billet seemed more devoid of snoring than usual, and she sat up suddenly, somehow summoning the energy to wonder if some men weren’t even in their beds. The silence was unusual.

Then, June felt the floorboards creaking and someone walking about the room. She’d had enough surprises for one night, and so she let them approach her, hoping with all her heart it would be nothing more than a scare tactic or a grope that she could hit away with her rifle. Her hand snaked out from under the sheets, touching the cool wood of her M-1 Garand.

The flick of a lighter near her face startled June, and she gasped when the glow of light illuminated two faces: Skip and Penkala, leaning closer than June preferred. She gasped and almost fell out of her bed, kicking up her sheets to jerk back and hitting the back of her head against the billet. She curled away from them, terrified, breathing hard as she pulled her legs up to her chest and stared at the two of them. A third, Malarkey, joined the duo, and he flicked on his lighter, casting it closer to June’s face until she could feel the heat.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice scratchy and quivering. She eyed the flame, swallowing in her half-delirious state of fear.

If they were going to burn her, they should do it quickly and let her sleep.

“Shit, June. You fight?” said Skip, and she realized all three were looking at her cheekbone. She touched it absently and felt a sting at the contact, reminded that Smithson had socked her square in the side of the face. If it was already red, that was unfortunate.

June didn’t do anything except look back at the three of them with bewildered fear.

Malarkey sighed and extinguished his lighter. “Who did that?” he whispered.

June looked down. “You don’t need to know,” she whispered. If they sought Smithson out, he’d just tell them that June had started it.

“Was it an Easy guy?” pressed Penkala. June didn’t see anything of his face except for the corner of his temple and one eye that was looking at her. The flame of the lighter danced in the shine of his iris.

June didn’t answer. She just looked back at them with open anticipation. Her fists were clenched in her lap and her jaw was fixed. She gave a slight shake of the head to the negative.

Finally, Skip leaned back and sighed, and June could make out the vague outline of his hand running through his hair.

“Leave her alone and go to sleep,” hissed a voice from the front corner of the room – Perconte, maybe.

“We’re going, Perco,” hissed Malarkey and Skip together, and all three disappeared into the shadows, the last lighter flicking closed.

June stayed curled up in the corner, for an hour or three, maybe, jumping at any random noise. She eventually fell asleep in the position, bunched against the wall, sheets pulled up to her chest.

There was no march that Friday. Rumor went around that Sobel had forgotten to wake up that midnight.

In the morning, some of the men looked at June for longer than necessary as they got into their uniforms and went out for the weekend. Most of the men stayed in because almost the entire platoon had their passes revoked at one time or another.

When June awoke, she yawned and looked around the billet with something beyond a casual stare. Her gaze was loaded with a deeper need to take in every aspect of her surroundings – every corner, staking stock of every person, every bed – and Lipton didn’t miss it. She turned her head, and there was a large bruise blanketing the left side of her face.

Even Liebgott, usually ready with something snarky to say in the slow wake-up of the morning light, fell silent. The men who left went quickly, but the ones who stayed that Saturday either avoided looking at June or stared. June was uncomfortable, but that was nothing new. She slept through breakfast and laid in her bed until almost noon, unable to summon the energy to face the world again.

I'm back!

However, this is a heavy chapter. I'm sorry if it wasn't what you were looking forward to.

I grappled with the material a lot and went through multiple rounds of edits and beta-reading before publishing. I went back and forth on even publishing this chapter, and I had to take a lot of time to consider the repercussions of trauma. As the series progresses, I have done my best to integrate this experience into June's character. I assure you, this is not a throwaway plot point. I am not one to inflict a huge amount of emotional and physical distress on anyone without weighing the impact as realistically I can. Any failure of mine to be realistic and patient with June's suffering reflects on my own shortcomings as a writer and as a person with empathy. My hope is to convey the spirit of humanity in my writing, even if this is just a little dumb fanfic; it necessitates the portrayal of the highs of life but also the rock-bottom of injustice and pain.

I hope never to reduce the suffering of real-life victims of sexual assault. For anyone who has gone through this unimaginable suffering, I extend my deepest sympathy and regret.

Thank you for being patient with me :)

#band of brothers #band of brothers fic #band of brothers fanfic #hbo war #hbo war fic #fanfic #sister-in-arms #run the gauntlet #writing

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harrysbbby · 6 years ago

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European Adventure Part 4 - Peter Parker x Reader

a/n: thank you for your patience, my music-filled weekend is over and i’m back with a new update! i hope you enjoy :) and once again, thank you all for your support on this story!

The crowd was loud and bustling, conversations blended into one another as people mingled through the square. Your eyes peer over the tops of heads as you searched intently for a mop of brown hair. You continued to shove your way through the wave of people, desperately looking for the boy you had followed.

You reached the centre of the square, where a large metal statue stood glistening reflective colours. Well, it was the festival of lights after all.

You ran a hand across your forehead. The boy was nowhere to be seen, and now you were all alone in an unfamiliar city. Your hand rested above your eyes as you squinted, searching through the crowd when you felt heat rising up your body.

You looked down as the cobblestone beneath your shoes began to crack and splutter embers. You stumbled backwards as you watched statue erupt into flames, a large monster emerging from the smoke.

The crowd became a frenzied panic. Screams of terror and crashing sounds blended as people scurried from the square and the monster threw fiery object at… Spider-Man?

You stopped in your tracks, people bumping into you as you looked up at the figure swinging around the monster. White webs flung from the figure’s wrists but that was about as much as you could really see- his body blended into the background as his suit was entirely black.

So, wait, was it Spider-Man?

Another being zoomed into the square, a trail of green, hazy smoke following him. The man known as “Mysterio” lifted his arms as he blasted at the creature.

Your feet began to pick up pace once again as you sprinted as fast you could. You could hear yourself breathing in your eyes as your feet pounded along the ground-

“Y/N!” you halted once again. You looked around trying to find the source of the voice that was screaming your name. “Y/N!” it called again, “up here!”

You looked up sharply, your eyes training in on Ned and Betty sitting in carriage on a Ferris Wheel.

“Ned, Betty!? What are you guys doing up there?”

“We snuck out of the Opera when you did but,” Ned yelled, gesturing at the cabin swinging around mid-air, “now we’re stuck!”

“Oh um, okay,” you said looking around, desperately looking around for something to help them, “wait right there! I’m going to help you!”

You ran up the metal stairs towards the base of the Ferris Wheel. You stopped as you reached the control panel. You hand hovered over the buttons as you deliberated your next move. You could hear screams and crashes as the monster continued to wreak havoc on the square.

You face twisted with stress as you observed the array of switches. One had “Unlock” written above it. You pressed it and sighed in relief as the wheel began to spin. You stepped back and watched as Ned and Betty’s carriage slowly climbed up and around. A piece of debris came hurling towards the wheel, hitting its bottom left side. It caused the wheel to lurch to a halt. Ned and Betty’s screeches could be heard as the carriage rocked from side to side.

“No, no, no!” you cried, looking at buttons, trying to find a solution, knowing full well that there was nothing you could do. “I don’t know what to do!” Your hands ran through your hair in frustration.

THWIP

Your ears peaked at the sound. Turning on the heels of your feet you saw Spider-Man- who ever he was- swinging a large rock round before releasing it at the monster.

It stumbled backwards as the black-clad figure cheered, “Yes Beck, it’s working- oh no!”

The force of the blow caused the fiery monster to fall into scaffolding, it absorbed and roared as its size doubled.

“Spider-Man!” you began to call before being interrupted by Ned’s voice.

“He’s not Spider-Man!”

“What?” you called up at him, seeing his body leaning out of the carriage, hands cupped around his face for you to be able to hear him.

“He’s, uh Night Monkey!” He said, with slight hesitation.

“Night Monkey?” you yelled back, throwing your arms up in the air incredulously.

“Yes, Night Monkey!” Ned affirmed, “He’s like a European rip off version of him!” You took a deep breath as you turned around once again to scream at the person.

“Night Monkey! Night Monkey help!”

He turned around, mechanical eyes widening as he saw you- “What!”, then opening even further as he followed where your fingers pointed to Ned and Betty- “WHAT!?”

He shilly-shallied on his feet for a moment clearly pondering his next move. With one quick swift movement, a web shot from his wrist and clung to the side of the wheel. He jumped and swung in a direct line towards you. You heard the whoosh sound of the air as his body flung into yours. His arms wrapped around your middle as he hoisted you into the air. You felt yourself dropping, a curdling scream leaving your lips as the ground neared closer and closer. With a large yank, he let go of his web, slung another and grabbed onto it. You felt your stomach lurch as you were hoisted further into the air once more. The air rushed through your hair and around your ears.

Your feet felt solid ground beneath you as you were placed neatly on your feet. You observed your surroundings- you were now on the opposite side of the square, the monster still edging towards the metal wheel.

“Get out of here,” ‘Night Monkey’ (or who ever it was) told you. You nodded, words failing to escape your mouth. “I don’t want you getting hurt, Y/N.” He said as he ran towards the Ferris Wheel.

Your brow furrowed in confusion. Did you tell him your name? You opened your mouth to call after him, but it fell of deaf ears- he was too far away as he lifted his wrist to propel a web at the wheel. Your mind was spinning- he was Spider-Man wasn’t he? Or was he actually Night Monkey? And he knew your name? Images of Peter with a white substance flying out of him twirled in your mind, as did his stunt on the bus… Your thoughts were interrupted as you saw what was happening in front of you- The web he had shot didn’t quite reach the Ferris Wheel, and it was stopped by, seemingly, nothing.

“What the hell- “ you could hear him curse, as he flung his arm backwards, yanking the web. A silver object came hurtling through the air. You ducked as it swooshed passed your head. It skidded to a stop on the cobble stone. You ran towards it, delicately picking it up.

It was an unusual shape, and you had no idea what it was. However, it was covered in sticky white string in the shape of a web...

“Get out of here…” his voice echoed in your head. You turned to see “Night Monkey” crouched on the Ferris Wheel next to Ned and Betty, Mysterio still zooming around the monster.

Confident that your friends would be safe, you made your way back to the hotel, unknown silver object in hand, a faint ache in across your forehead, as your observations swirled uncontrollably in your head.

***

You sat in the armchair of the lobby of the hotel. Your hands were flexed across the wide arms of the chair as you watched your classmates return form the Opera. Soon after, Ned and Betty followed… but no Peter.

Mr Harrington announced that since there had been another attack, it was too dangerous and that you were all to pack your bags to leave to go home.

You were upset that your trip was over, but this was overcome by your sheer confusion. Peter was Spider-Man was the conclusion you had drawn, but your logical side was screaming that it couldn’t be true. He was a kid and you had always imagined he was a man- a fully fledged adult- not the boy who sat two seats over in AP chemistry.

You hazily made your way up your stairs to your room. You weren’t focusing, tripping on every third stair as you pondering your surveillances- there was Venice, and the bus, and the photo magically disappearing from Brad’s phone, there was the whispering with Michelle, the suspicious disappearance, the fact he knew you na-

“You okay?” MJ’s voice startled you, causing you to trip up yet another stair. You caught yourself on the railing, and once balanced, continued to walk with her.

“Yeah, of course,” you said (unconvincingly), “why wouldn’t I be?”

“I mean you left the Opera before it even started.” MJ countered as you reached the top of the stairs, stopping to face each other outside your bedroom door.

“Oh right. I, um, felt sick?” you stumbled over your words. She raised an eyebrow at you.

“So, you’re okay, but you’re sick?” she quizzed, eyes looking harshly at you. MJ always spoke as if she knew everything in the world- and she probably did- and she knew you weren’t telling the truth.

“Yes! No, I mean,” you sighed, “I was sick but I’m better now.” You said, hoping you were convincing.

She narrowed her eyes at you, “hmm, okay.”

You looked at each other for one more moment before Mr Harrington’s voice cut through, making you both turn to face him.

“Oh Peter! Thank God you aren’t dead,” he held him in a awkward half hug before telling him to pack his bags.

“What, why?” he asked Ned. Ned told him that we were all going him because of the attacks. He looked around, noticing you and MJ listening to their conversation, before leaning into him and whispering, words inaudible.

“Night,” MJ said walking away, noticing you calculating Peter’s every move.

“Yeah ‘ight” you mumbled watching the boy. Ned walked away from him, and as Peter turned to walk towards his room, he was met with your face.

He smiled awkwardly as he walked towards you. You rocked back and forwards on your feet, arms crossed around your chest as the thoughts in the back of your mind whispered “he’s Spider-Man, he’s Spider-Man.”

“Crazy night, hey?” he spoke. You blinked once before training your concentration onto him. You nodded.

“Yeah crazy… Shame the trip is over. You didn’t get to use your plan with MJ”- at this his eyebrows pulled tightly together, and he went to open his mouth to speak but was cut off by your words- “Would’ve been fun to hang out more, together, too.” You said. His eyes drooped at your words, clearly disappointed too.

“Yeah would’ve been fun.” He said. His eyes gazed into yours, looking as if they were thinking deeply but also trying to remember every aspect of your face. Meanwhile, your mind was still spinning, memories of the trip clouding your eyes.

“I’m going to go to bed, night.” You said, quickly opening your door and slinking inside quickly, in a bid to get away from the boy so you could think clearly.

“Oh okay,” you heard his voice say as you shut the door. You heard him start a sentence, but the click of the door cut him off.

Peter huffed as his compliment fell short. His shoulders dropped as he continued to stare at your door. On the other side, you rested your head against its frame- maybe you should just ask him if he is Spider-Man. But what if he thinks you’re crazy and ends up hating you? But he asked you to cover him in the bus and he said your name tonight, so maybe he wants you to know...

You opened your door and needed to stumble back immediately to avoid Peter’s fist colliding with your head.

“Woah,” you said as you used to the door handle to steady yourself. Peter laughed awkwardly, before pulling his fist down to his side, wiping his palms across his slacks.

“Did you wanna hang out, like right now?” you asked, fiddling with the door handle.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m not ready for this trip to be over and it would good to do something that isn’t on the itinerary or with Mr Harrington hanging around… with you.” He finished, tugging his backpack further up his shoulder, smiling sweetly at you.

“Okay,” you said gazing at him, despite the nagging in the back of your head.

“Okay,” he said, as stunned as you were. You both stared at each other for a few moments before he cleared his throat, interrupting both of your thoughts.

“Meet me downstairs in 10?” he asked. You continued to play with your door handle.

“Okay,” you said, pulling your lip between your teeth. Peter swayed back and forth on is feet as a smile tugged on his lips.

“Okay,” he smiled. Your heart skipped a beat. You motioned over your shoulder.

“I’m just gonna…” you trailed off

“Oh yep,” he said, but made no movements away from you. You smiled shyly looking to the floor as you shut the door behind you. He let out a sigh, relaxing from your giddiness, but also from the stress of what you were about to ask Peter and not know how he was going to react.

He skipped off to his room, smile beaming across his face. He was excited to hang out with but was blissfully unaware of what revelation you were about to dumbfound him with.

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If your name is here but it didn’t tag you, it’s because it wouldn’t let me, sorry (:

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haikyuu-philia · 6 years ago

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HQ!! Secret Santa 2019 - Sent via Mistletoe Post

A/N: Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone!! This post is dedicated to, made for and inspired by the lovely person that I got to be Secret Santa for - @oinkawater <3 Everything was organised by the awesome @supern-a-vengers, thank you so much!

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Sent via Mistletoe Post | A Personalized Semi x Reader Oneshot

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„I wished you could be here for Christmas.“

Semi gritted his teeth at the mere thought of how sad you would sound, if you had said that directly to his face. The message on the screen made his heart ache in a way which he had never imagined before meeting you. But he knew it was just a matter of time for the pain to go away again.

„Seriously, I miss you so much.“

Fate decided to not have any mercy with him. His fingers hovered above the keyboard to type a reply and nearly chose to let the whole idea blow up. Weeks of planning, including taking way too many shifts at the café, would go to waste with it.

It hurt. It physically hurt him to read your texts.

For a moment he had to put his phone at the table to brush his trembling hands through his hair. One message would be enough to make you smile again, three tiny words.

Though he didn’t plan on actually sending them. In less than 48 hours everything would be fine, you would be fine. So he took a deep breath before replying to you to keep up the facade.

Your present will arrive on Christmas morning. Look forward to it!

Well, this wasn’t an actual lie. Something would be there then, but nothing that you were expecting. At least he was hoping so.

And for now the effect seemed to kick in like he had planned to. Finally you were sending emojis again and you started to randomly write in capital letters of excitement to guess what your present might be. Semi cracked a smile at the screen.

If he hadn’t already prepared something, he would have a dozen of ideas today.

With a small groan he rubbed his eyes that were demanding a break. The printer rattled next to the boy, which instantly reminded him of a thousand reasons why he wasn’t allowed to go to bed yet. Tomorrow might be even worse with all those things that he had to deal with before the mission could start.

After he had reached for the slightly warm piece of paper, he nevertheless informed you about going to bed soon.

Looking at the printed timetable Semi couldn’t help it but sigh for the approximately thirtieth time this day. The price of living this far away from you to attend his dream university sucked sometimes.

At the same time he received your goodnight-text, wishing you nice dreams and a comfortable rest.

„Do it for Thea,“ he whispered while smiling at the picture he had set as his background. „Do it for her.“

When he finally had collected all the necessary papers he retreated into his dorm room. On the bed a halfway filled suitcase was waiting for him to finish packing.

In the morning the last thing he put into it, happened to be a little plushie - A bear holding a bright red heart which had ‚Good luck‘ written on it in golden yarn. This cute guy had been your parting present for him when he had to leave you behind on the other side of the airport security for the first time. He remembered how you had hugged him until the last second.

Attaching the keychain to his backpack didn’t come to his mind as it might fall off, get stained or messed up in some other way. Not an option for Semi.

Before he closed the suitcase he gave the bear a light squeeze. You were with him all the time, no matter how far away you actually lived.

„See you soon, little one.“ Even he himself wasn’t sure, if he had been talking to the plushie or to your spirit inside of it.

To the airport by train, then through security and to his gate, resting during the flight, grabbing his luggage before boarding the bus to the station near your dormitory on the campus of Tokyo University - All of that sounded so easy. Stressful, but easy and manageable.

It was, until Semi was actually sitting at his assigned seat in the plane. In his opinion the boarding had been fast earlier, maybe too fast.

Ever since the announcement that boarding was completed had been made, nothing had changed. Minute by minute passed while Semi recalculated his time buffer over and over again.

„Ladies and Gentleman, this is your captain.“ Instantly he sat up straight, ignoring his heavy eyelids. „Due to a current snow storm in Tokyo we will have to remain at this gate. We will start approximately 45 minutes late.“

The not-so-soft backrest collided with his back as he suppressed a bad word from slipping out of his mouth. Of course there had to be the first snow storm in years when he was about to fly there. Such a typical karma-move.

He fingered his phone out of his pocket to connect it with the power bank he had brought with him. Just in case that you would text him like you usually would on a free day.

The moment it began charging, the screen lighted up to reveal his background picture. In order to not attract weird questions the lock screen was a plain standard one. But once he had unlocked his phone, one of his favourite pictures would pop up.

You smiling into the camera, holding up a sign that said I love you in your handwriting.

A week after you had had to go different ways at the airport last year, the message had arrived to cheer him up. Nevertheless the first days in a completely new area had been stressful for him.

Only a few more hours, then he would be able to finally feel your warmth in his arms. He caught himself grinning at the screen like an idiot in the reflection. That was how far you had managed to push him out of his snail shell - To blush in freaking public because he had been thinking about a hug.

And yet the process of getting together with you had been long. So freaking long.

In the end Tendou had been so heavily annoyed by Semi not making a stupid move to settle the redhead’s OTP that he unceremoniously had locked the two of you in a storage room. A pretty dark and small storage room to specify it.

„Why exactly did he lock us in here?“ You had said while he had tried to put his hands somewhere without accidentally touching you.

Staying calm hadn’t happened to be the easiest task as you were practically standing just a few inches away. At the same time his idea to distract himself had consisted of creating plans to kill Tendou as soon as he would get out of this place.

But it had gotten worse.

Out of nowhere Tendou had screamed from the other side of the door: „How about our dear SemiSemi having a thing for you?“

Silence. Awkward silence. He hadn’t been able to see your eyes properly, though he could feel them staring holes into him. Someone was really provoking to be murdered that day.

Basically that was the story of how he had awkwardly confessed to you in a storage room with shallow light and Tendou being less than an armlength away. What an unique experience.

Semi checked his watch for the seventh time since the captain had announced their delayed departure. Right now you would most likely be at the Christmas party that Reon was hosting in his dorm room. A surprisingly high number of former Shiratorizawa third-years were attending Tokyo University at the moment.

Therefore he had planned to casually walk in to surprise you as a living Christmas present. The last time you had seen each other had been more than a month ago for his birthday. No one knew about his intentions of coming.

Especially not Tendou because this nervous dude would immediately spill everything in his excitement.

Well, at the moment he was still waiting for the plane to move at all.

Around him the fellow passengers had separated themselves into two groups: Those who were ranting about the circumstances and asking the stewardesses for update every five minutes. And those who decided to simply play UNO to kill the time.

Additionally, there was him. The dude scrolling through his phone’s gallery to find pictures that would stop him from illegally leaving this crowded plane right this instant.

Like the one that showed you wearing his Shiratorizawa trainings jacket when you were cheering for him during the final that they sadly lost to Karasuno.

Or the picture of the both of you that Tendou sneaked during your graduation dance’s couples dance.

Last but not least, you teaching him a bit of netball in return for him helping you to improve your volleyball skills. The ball had landed in his face gracefully.

He starred at so many photos for quite a while, sliding his fingers down the screen several times to somehow feel close to touching you. Your lips hadn’t brushed his for way too long, even though Semi felt the heat in his cheeks as soon as he imagined it.

This hadn’t changed at all during the nearly two years of your relationship. Instead of forgetting about situations that had been more than just a little socially awkward, like asking you out or thinking about how to ask you to hold hands with him at the summer festival, he remembered every single one of them in the most stupid moments. For example while sitting in a plane.

In his mind the scene was playing how you had visited him back home for the first time, including meeting his parents. Semi could groan because of the memory.

„It’s so nice to meet you, Thea! We have a lot of questions because our Eita usually never talks about your relationship,“ his mom had greeted you.

Death glare from Semi, not effective. Pleading eyes to stop telling embarrassing childhood stories, ignored. Mouthing to distract her from calling him Ei-chan in front of you, denied. His father had witnessed it all and had decided to not jump in to save his son’s honour. Lovely.

Worst had come to worst when they began to ask you, if you could imagine becoming part of the family. Three months into the relationship, nothing more than hand holding and cuddles had happened, but his parents had seemed to have forgotten about the definition of privacy.

The probably most torturing evening of his whole life had ended with him bringing you to the door, where you had said good-bye with a tiny blush on your cheeks.

Before he could react to it, you had pressed a kiss on his cheek and walked away. Seeing him as a flushed mess, not even able to form a decent thought, his parents had already begun to plan the wedding.

Due to the amount of unnecessary questions, the stewardess needed at least five minutes to walk through the plane. On her way she had to explain that she didn’t possess any new information, if so the captain would inform the passengers as soon as possible.

As Semi was sitting far in the back, he could hear and see it all. How she apologized for not being able to hand out anything else but water and for a delay that she hadn’t caused in the first place.

„Ladys and Gentleman, this is your captain again.“

The formerly noisy crowd got silent within a second. Most of them leaned back, buckled their seatbelt and carried a relieved smile on their faces.

„Due to the weather situation at our destination we are still waiting for the allowance to take off. We will remain here for another 45 minutes.“

A monotone sigh went through the rows when everyone realised that the suffering would go on. Life definitely hated all of them today. Probably no one would travel the day before Christmas ever again.

Just like that his phone vibrated in his hands, indicating that he had received a new message. Two finger movements later he had opened the chat to read your text. His display showed a picture of you, Tendou, Reon and even Ushijima more or less smiling into the camera with the most hideous Christmas sweaters on.

8 pm. Let the party begin!!

While answering he leaned back and ignored the annoyed comments from the other passengers that were demanding things from snacks to a refund. He imagined you to squeal of happiness once he would step through the door. Wearing a Christmas sweater as well.

Underneath his brown coat it was waiting to be revealed with a gigantic reindeer as the motive. What a pain it had been to take off the jacket for security and feel the stares coming from everywhere across the hall.

Ugly wasn’t a strong enough word for that piece of clothing.

Exchanging messages with you made him remember how close and yet so far away he was. His legs were slowly starting to ache, a baby had decided to cry a minute ago and the stewards were busy with making apologies.

Semi could tell that things were going South when even the UNO players lost interest in their calmness. Maybe for the first time in his life, he wished to be back in that storage room from two years ago.

But texting helped to lose track of time. Whenever his phone vibrated, he answered you quickly instead of checking his watch every thirty seconds. It didn’t take away his tiredness though.

Traveling was draining, interaction with most people was draining - Nevertheless he couldn’t stress most enough since being around you always managed to restore his energy somehow. Only one of the many things that made you so special.

„Why aren’t we flying already? I’ve been awake for nearly 15 hours and I have work to do!“ Some middle-aged man in the front finally snapped.

And I have a girlfriend to kiss, shut up. - Semi only rolled his eyes before sinking into his chair even more.

In the end the plane took off with a delay of a solid two hours, only for him to make up some stupid excuse for not being able to answer your texts until he would arrive in Tokyo. At some point he fell asleep, despite his efforts to open his eyelids every time they had closed. The constant shacking of the aircraft put him into a deep slumber.

It needed a stewardess, who accidentally collided with his shoulder while passing the snacks, to wake him up. From this second on he knew that you weren’t so far away anymore, which totally kept him from falling asleep again.

Not much later the bright lights of Japan’s biggest city and capital appeared underneath the plane. Like billions of fireflies lighted up the night.

Long story short, Semi preferred to not talk about the absolutely unnecessary chaos that the airport staff had called baggage claim.

But he didn’t care anymore because his mind was busy with figuring out how to leave the grounds fast to get to the trains. According to his new plan he would be seeing you in about an hour once he would have entered the train. Emphasis on would have because the screens informed everyone about the aftermaths of the snow storm - Nothing left the station. No train, no human, no nothing.

Close to midnight Semi found himself stuck at the airport. The taxis were completely overran, the few buses nearly exploded without being able to let everyone enter. And he felt the urge to scream slowly growing inside of him.

Screw it. Screw everything, including all the plans, even his sanity.

He placed his phone next to his ear while it was already trying to reach the other person. Semi wasn’t surprised to hear his loud shouting.

„Tendou, I know you remember locking Thea and me in the storage room.“ For a second he stopped, hesitating about making the right decision here. „You owe me one.“

Only god knew how Tendou managed to pull around the corner in a car, that definitely wasn’t his from what Semi could recall, less than 90 minutes later. Maybe Christmas wonders still were a thing. Or he had committed a felony, as it was Tendou he was talking about.

The red-head beamed at his former teammate: „SemiSemi! Long time, no see! How was your flight? Get in!“

On the ride to the dorms, he had to remind himself why he was doing all of this. From overworking at the café to boarding a plane on Christmas Eve and then ending up in a car with the Guess Monster as the driver:

There was your smile that had the ability to make him forget any kind of stress.

In addition, he couldn’t wait to feel your soft skin at his fingertips while closing his arms around you to feel your warmth. He had always adored your height difference.

The way you said his name or called him by his pet name - Honey - pushed all his buttons and melted his heart on the spot.

Then the moment of truth had arrived after more than half a year of planning alongside saving everything he had to afford the tickets. Sadly, he didn’t have a real present for you when he stepped out of the car at four in the morning.

„Ushiwaka texted me that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in Reon’s room. You could do anything!“

Semi would never admit it in public, but he had somehow even missed Tendou’s bright grin and his comments filled with so much sass that it was nearly impossible to bear. Oh dear god, the sleep deprivation seemed to get the best of him. The time deserved the adjective unholy.

On his way to room 534 they passed multiple mirrors, for example the big one in the elevator. Not even your pleading eyes would have been able to convince to look into one just to confirm his dead-like look. A vampire might be proud or jealous.

When Tendou had carefully opened the door to Reon’s dorm, Semi didn’t move for multiple seconds.

Seeing you all wrapped up and nuzzled into a big blanket while sleeping on the couch, he suddenly didn’t want to wake you. A lot of things had gone wrong for him, but you shouldn’t be interrupted during your rest. It wouldn’t be fair. Simply egoistic, even though he wanted to hear your voice so bad. Your sweet voice that always sounded so different on the phone.

In the silence, Semi exchanged a nod with Ushijima, thanking him for staying up to look after you. The last member of the Still Awake Squad happened to be the host himself.

Reon gave Semi a pat on the shoulder: „I will sleep in Ushijima’s room. See you later.“

After some protest coming from Tendou, they all left him when the door closed behind him. For the first time in 44 days, he could place his hand on your head, dreamily smiling at your sleeping figure. It wandered to your cheek where it rested for some time. If it wouldn’t be so creepy to stare at you like this, he could do it forever.

„Hey Princess,“ he whispered while caressing your cheek with his thumb.

In response you quietly groaned a bit, probably because of being distracted during your sleeping time.

„Sorry that it took me so long. But I’m here now. I’ll be here for two weeks, even for New Year’s. I can’t wait to spend the time with you.“

Every single one of his words dragged you more into reality, out of dreamland and back into the dorm room. When you opened your eyes, they were so heavy that you immediately wanted to close them again. You didn’t even know what date or time it was.

That was until you turned around to not face the backseat anymore, but therefore you ended up staring into Semi’s eyes. Even in the dark you would recognise this beautiful pair. Nevertheless your mind needed a moment to proceed the information.

Once it did, it hit you hard. Your eyes widened as fast as your mouth opened, placing your hand on his in disbelieve.

„Eita? What happened? Why are you here? How did you-„

He cut you off in the middle of the next question by pulling you into his arms. His chin rested on your forehead, which allowed you to look up to him a little.

„I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold back any longer. A charger was more than needed,“ he mumbled close to your ear. „Tendou called it the Mistletoe Post. Please tell me that Reon doesn’t have any mistletoes in here.“

Obviously his body still felt way more than just simply heavy, his head might explode into a migraine soon and every limp begged him to never do something like this again. Holding you in his arms, the suffering didn’t matter anymore. Not even the pain could kill this warm and fuzzy feeling inside of him.

You chuckled, an oh-so heavenly sound in his opinion, „No mistletoes. Just a big, comfortable couch with an enormous blanket that could easily fit two people.“

Honestly, it hadn’t been a real challenge to notice the bags underneath his eyes, his pale skin or cold hands. From what you could tell, everyone else had left anyways.

Soon you were laying on top of Semi - head placed on his chest, feet intertwined - covered in the fluffy blanket. Your boyfriend played with a streak of your hair while slowly drifting off to sleep. At the same time your brain told you go back to bed as well.

„I love you,“ you spoke into the silence.

Semi didn’t stop his doing while he was warming his other hand by having it placed on your back, „I love you, too. Merry Christmas, Thea.“

You nuzzled into him, trying to find the position that would warm him the most. His calm breath told you that he didn’t care about that anymore because he was knocked out. A minute later you followed suit.

Several hours went by before the boy trio checked on you. They used their chance to sneak a new picture for the SemiSemi being soft for Thea collection: Semi and you being all cuddled up on the couch, he protectively holding you close with his arms, both of you wearing nearly matching Christmas sweaters.

What a night to remember.

-----

I’m off to working on all those amazing requests! See you soon :3

#hqss2019 #haikyuu!!#haikyuu!! writing #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu semi #semi eita #semi x reader #secret santa #I HOPE THAT THIS TURNED OUT GOOD Q.Q

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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 5 years ago

Text

Birthday prompt #5

Read on Ao3 Birthday prompts masterlist

@aini-nufire

[Ok, how about Cris saves Picard from some danger (jumps in front of him/pushes him out of the way) and gets hurt himself and we get some feels from Dadmiral Picard?]

After what the brass had dubbed the “Coppelius stunt,” Jean-Luc Picard owed Starfleet so many favors that he was hardly in a position to refuse Clancy whenever she requested that he and his unorthodox crew go deal with the odd diplomatic mess. Many non-Federation worlds reacted better to him personally than to Starfleet envoys, it seemed, and it was often very useful. Right now, staring at half a dozen arrowheads all pointed at him and Rios, Picard sincerely wished he’d told the Commander in Chief to get lost.

(The bows were originally ceremonial, but the reinforced tritanium arrows looked operative enough. Picard could feel Rios’ glare from where the Captain was standing.)

“I fail to see what you are trying to accomplish here,” Picard tried to reason. “Harming us will not make the Federation listen to whatever demands you might have.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m aware,” the demi-King said with a genuine laugh, his accented Standard quite informal for the leader of a third of the Keetureh planetary system. “And that’s partly the point. To be honest, this really hasn’t much to do with the Federation.” He waved one of his four nigh-translucent hands around, gesturing to his people surrounding them. “You have just no idea of what killing you guys would do for my approval rating.”

Picard’s eyebrows climbed to vertiginous heights. He stared, quite dumbfounded, and a quick glance in Rios’ direction was enough to determine that the younger man was just as confused.

“This is about getting re-elected?” Cris attempted to clarify. Picard could tell that he was offended by the notion.

The demi-King nodded in confirmation, a vaguely contrite smile on his lips.

“Sorry,” he apologized with a half-shrug. “I would bet that you’re both used to being threatened for more personal reasons. The truth is, most of my people are backwater idiots who are dying to see me ‘take action’ against big evil Starfleet and all of you offworlders. I wouldn’t risk killing an actual ambassador, but I figure they won’t know the difference.”

Picard’s perfectly regulated synthetic heart managed to skip a beat as hope ignited within his chest. He stepped forward, ignoring the wary soldiers’ growls of warning, and held up his hands to get the demi-King’s attention.

“Then let my friend go,” he offered before the man could order his troops to shoot him, or knock him out. “His name will mean nothing to them, and my death alone should suffice to impress your electorate.”

It was a rather bold – reckless – move, but the opportunity was too favorable to pass up, and Picard had spoken before considering much beyond the obvious need to secure Rios’ safety. He was taken completely by surprise when the strong negative reaction that he was preparing for didn’t come from the Keeturehan, but from Rios himself.

“Fuck that,” Rios snarled, and before anybody had the time to react he dived for his comm badge, which the demi-King had carelessly left lying on the table. “Raf, beam us out,” he barked in the device as he snatched it up.

The demi-King shouted something in his own language and the gears of the mechanical bows turned, leaving a mere half-second delay between the twang of the strings being released and the woosh of air rushing past Picard’s ears as he was tackled to the ground. Rios’ muffled grunt was lost in the transporter beam.

When they materialized on the transporter pad at the back of the ship, Rios was the first to get to his feet, getting up before Picard could fully register that the younger man had been shielding him with his body. The crew’s surprised exclamations were what got him too look up, dizzy as he was from the experience. He froze.

Rios was wobbling unsteadily, his right hand stretched out as he tried to find the bulkhead for support, his left hand pressing against his lower abdomen and the Keetureh arrow protruding from it.

“What the—” Seven swore as she rushed to steady him.

Raffi crashed to the ground next to Picard, her hands hovering nervously as she tried to ascertain whether or not he was injured as well. He batted her hands away impatiently, getting to his feet with Elnor’s help just as Rios’ refused Seven’s offered support.

“I’m fine,” the man growled, before – to their collective horror – gripping the end of the arrow’s thin shaft and breaking it off. He tossed it to the ground right as the EMH flickered on.

“Captain!” the holo exclaimed as he came online, “Sir, are you alright?”

“I think tritanium messes with your scanners,” Rios deadpanned, pushing the hologram out of his way as he stumbled toward the stairs.

The medbay was down there, but so were his quarters. Agnes seemed to realize this as she jumped in front of him and tried to block his way.

“Cris, wh— what are you doing?” She stammered, voicing their shared incredulity. “You need to sit down!”

Rios’ expression softened minutely, but he brushed past her off the same. It was all Picard could take before the irritation that had been steadily swelling up his chest exploded into anger.

“Rios,” he snapped, “what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

That got the Captain’s attention, and his dark eyes dropped to Picard’s. They were stormy and unreadable, and Picard was not in the mood to indulge Rios’ aggravating tendency to brood.

“What?” Rios asked through gritted teeth. As he was wavering on his feet, the blood stain on his shirt growing larger, Picard assumed that the strained voice was because of the pain.

“Rios, you will sit down and you will let the EMH examine you before we move you to sickbay,” Picard instructed, gesturing at the half-arrow still sticking out. “And for goodness’ sake, do it before you collapse. You have been foolish enough for today.”

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, but Picard didn’t realize it until Rios slumped against the wall and glared at him with all his might. The others hovered awkwardly in the background, aware that their help would not be welcomed.

“Foolish?” Rios repeated hoarsely.

Later, Picard would look back on that moment and rightly beat himself over his appalling lack of sensitivity and common sense. At the time, he pressed on, somehow convinced that a stern commanding voice and clear orders were what a stubborn ex Starfleet Commander needed to start acting rationally.

“Taking such a risk on my behalf was reckless and ill-conceived. Now sit down so you don’t add your death to my conscience,” Picard said firmly.

And just like that Raffi flinched badly, and Seven let out a low “damn.” Before Picard had time to consider why, Rios’ face went from stony to downright furious, absolute rage etched on each line of that face they only knew as cool and collected.

“Yeah, because it was all about you,” he spat. The hand clasped over his wounded side was trembling badly, Rios’ legs shaking, sweat trickling down his neck as he conjured the last dregs of his strength in an a desperate effort not to collapse. (Even propped against a bulkhead and his blood puddling on the ground, he still managed to stand taller than Picard.) “It’s always all about you old Starfleet cabrónes and your grand heroic moves and your fucking egos and your Messiah complexes. Aweonao.”

But after that he deflated, and he looked impossibly tired. When he staggered from the wall and made his way to the stairs with the EMH following worriedly, nobody stopped him.

“He is very sad,” Elnor stated when Rios had disappeared from their field of view. And then he turned to Picard and frowned at him. “And I think it is your fault.”

“What happened down there?” Soji asked, the only one who had not once voiced her opinion or tried to intervene in any way since Picard and Rios had beamed up.

“Seems clear enough to me,” Raffi muttered, shooting a glare at Picard. She suddenly clapped her hands, startling them. “Okay, here’s tonight’s rule, and you’d all better respect it. No following Cris, no talking to Cris, no trying to get Cris to open up. I’ll make sure he’s alright.”

Elnor, Soji and Agnes all looked like they were ready to protest, and Picard felt like it too, as he considered that he deserved some form of explanation for Rios’ outburst, but Raffi shut them up before any of them had time to voice their complaints.

“Guys, no offense to you, but I know him. He won’t want to see any of you,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I know you’re worried, but that’s really not the important thing here.”

And with that, she strode after their Captain and disappeared in the belly of la Sirena, leaving Picard to ponder what he had done so wrong and how he could best apologize once he understood. Seven noticed his troubled look, and she walked to him and snatched his arm, leading him to the bridge before he could protest.

“One of you activate that stupid Hospitality Hologram to clean up all that blood,” she threw over her shoulder to their three younger shipmates. “And you,” she told Picard with a hard look, “you and I need to talk.”

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

When Picard sneaked past Raffi’s quarters late that night and made his way to Rios’ room, he was fully prepared to get thrown out and have to face the wrath of the whole crew. She’d told them all that she and Cris had talked a bit, drunk a bit more, that he was as good as cold be expected, and that he was still off-limits. Picard imagined that Rios had locked himself into his quarters, away from prying eyes and careless words. It thus came as a surprise when the door slid open at his simple request, welcoming him into the very heart of that ship he now called home but had yet to fully know.

Rios was facing away from him, sitting in one of two armchairs with a book in his hands and a new shirt on. He didn’t look up at the whoosh of the door panel, probably out of indifference. Picard rapped his knuckles against the door frame, awkwardly clearing his throat when it was clear that Rios didn’t intend to react in any way.

“May I come in?” He asked softly, because he had done his day’s share of overstepping.

Rios finally deigned looking up and eyed him warily. Then he closed his book and gave a nod – a sharp jerk of the head, really, motioning for Picard to enter. Picard slowly came closer, moving to stand right in front of his host. He didn’t dare examine the room for too long, lest he appear rude, but he still noticed the spotless surfaces, the tidiness, the appearance of perfect life-discipline that might just be a cover for a near-pathological need to clean up and keep things ordered.

As his eyes landed on Rios again, Picard couldn’t help but notice the slight bulge under the shirt then, the red tinge of that slightly wet patch on the fabric, just under the ribs. Still no dermal regenerator, apparently.

“Are you alright?” Picard inquired carefully, because he hated to think that Rios considered mere bandages an adequate substitute to tissue regeneration.

The man probably had no interest in painkillers either.

Rios raised an eyebrow at the question, a bit weary, a bit sardonic, just enough Rios that it helped put Picard’s mind at ease.

“What do you want?” Cris asked flatly.

Was Picard like that to most people? A riddle wrapped in an enigma, keeping all emotions to himself and leaving his friends and acquaintances to fruitlessly try to guess what it was that he was thinking or feeling?

Taking in a deep breath, Picard gave Rios a sheepish smile.

“May I?” He inquired again, pointing at the second armchair.

Something shifted in Rios’ stony demeanor, like another defensive wall going up, but he didn’t say no, and so Picard sat. Rios stared at him for a few moments before smiling wryly, a sight that Picard had dearly been hoping to see.

“If we keep answering questions with more questions, we’re never going to get any talking done,” Rios commented with that smirk of his. He poured himself a glass of alcohol and downed it in one gulp, absently holding his left side. “Go ahead.”

Picard cleared his throat again.

“It has come to my attention— Well, Seven and Raffi ensured that it came to my attention— that I have behaved quite tactlessly upon our return from Keetureh.” Rios snorted but didn’t interrupt him, which encouraged him to continue. “You said something, about being all about me… I don’t think I understand.”

“I don’t think I care,” Rios said back, pouring himself another drink. “You’re kinda making it all about yourself right now.”

Picard sighed.

“Rios, I can hardly apologize for something I don’t know I have done.”

Rios got up without drinking his second glass of brandy and walked to the opposite wall, leaning against it with his forearm and staring at the soft lights above his bed wordlessly.

“This is about Captain Vandermeer, isn’t it?” Picard pressed gently.

He had forgotten earlier that this Captain before him wasn’t the fearless lone spaceman that he often pretended to be.

Rios’ vulnerability had been on display the day after Nepenthe, when he’d brought Soji onboard. That day too, Picard had somehow managed to make a mess of things by failing to see the depth of Rios’ anguish. But that day they’d also talked, the young Captain had opened up, and Picard had caught glimpses of a bright and optimistic Starfleet XO eager for the approval and respect of his superiors.

He now remembered how Rios had once called him “old man” when that nickname apparently belonged to his late commanding officer, how he’d said “jefe” to him. So Picard waited, confident that this connection at least would get Rios to give up a snatch of information, or the merest hint of a confidence.

Rios stared at the lights for a long while before rubbing his eyes tiredly with two fingers. It lasted just too long to be a simple symptom of fatigue, and the hitching breath that followed was just too short to be from the physical pain. Rios breathed in through his nose, though it sounded almost like a sniff, and giving up all pretense, he wiped his eyes.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Yeah, it’s about Captain Vandermeer. It’s always about Captain Vandermeer.” He gave Picard a weary look and let out a slow, pained chuckle. “It’s always about Captain Vandermeer because he couldn’t wait ten minutes before blowing his brains out. He just had to do it there, right in front of me. It’s always about you because you’re the retired Admiral with a brain abnormality that flies away with my ship to commit suitably heroic suicide, and still has the gall to beam down at the last possible minute because your death wouldn’t dramatic enough if you kicked the bucket on my bridge.”

Picard blinked, taken aback. Rios wasn’t done.

“It’s always about him and you because you always have some red stain to wipe off your ledger, some nasty thing to clear off your conscience, some big screw-up you can’t live with and have to atone for. And nothing else in the world matters.”

Picard was beginning to get the picture.

“I supposed that you’re entitled to be angry at my self-sacrificing tendencies,” he gently acknowledged. “It would be hypocritical of me to deny you that after my own outburst.”

Rios’ eyes hardened.

“I’m angry at you assuming that you have the right to make me live through anything like my Captain’s death and your death a third time,” he corrected harshly. But then his voice faltered, and he looked away again. “I’m angry at you thinking that you have the right to choose between saving my life and adding to what you’ve already made me carry.”

I am terrible at this, Picard thought as memories of all his similarly awkward conversations with Elnor, Soji, Raffi or Agnes flashed before his eyes. Of their seven people crew, it really appeared like Seven of Nine was the only one who had no need for his paternal guidance. Trust the universe’s twisted sense of humor to make Jean-Luc Picard the fatherly figure to an entire ship full of badly damaged adults and youngsters. His Starfleet crews had been mostly emotionally balanced – or at least bound to stay professionally distant.

“I’m truly sorry,” he said softly, because words of comfort seemed pale and inadequate here.

Rios nodded slightly before wincing, the sheen of sweat again visible on his pain-creased brow. He crossed the distance to his bed and all but collapsed on the mattress. He didn’t lie down, sitting up as straight as his injured side would allow, but it was clear that he badly needed to rest.

“It’s okay,” he said tiredly. “I’m not— I’m not that angry.”

And here it was, the vulnerability, the easy forgiveness of a young First Officer who held Captains and Admirals in too high regards, weighing his own faults as heavier than all of theirs, endlessly comparing himself to those he looked up to and founding himself lacking. Picard had seen it many times, had seen the same behavior in young ensigns and decorated officers alike.

“I was very worried about you,” Picard confessed, because it felt important.

Rios deserved to know that he cared, as clumsily as he did. To shoulder such a burden of pain and trauma without the assurance that of reciprocated affection would have been intolerable. And it was the core of the problem, wasn’t it? Vandermeer and Picard had both ultimately failed to prove that they cared. They’d made it about them.

“No need,” Rios quipped, his speech now slightly slurred. “Wasn’t even the first time you’ve seen me with tritanium stuck somewhere.”

“I don’t much care for a repeat, frankly,” Picard gently admonished, although he was disappointed that Rios had addressed the physical aspect of the issue and neglected to acknowledge the underlying message. He studied Rios’ waxy complexion and he took in the tremors running through his shoulders. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Don’t really care,” Rios shrugged. He finally lowered himself onto his back and stared at the ceiling without a word, breathing in and out, and Picard hated to leave him like this.

“Thank you,” he finally said. “For getting us out of that mess. And for saving my life.”

“Hmm,” Rios eloquently answered. “You’re welcome.”

Just as Picard was getting up to go, the inexplicable urge to check on Cristóbal one last time forced his steps towards the bed and not the door. The Captain was already asleep, his skin clammy and the red patch on his shirt larger, his pained breaths escaping through slightly parted lips. Picard had never been one for physical displays of affection, but he couldn’t help the hand than strayed to Cristóbal’s forehead, brushing away some of the wayward curls.

“Pops,” Cristóbal breathed out in reaction to the touch – whimpered, almost – causing Picard to withdraw his hand immediately, feeling oddly guilty.

The EMH decided to silently appear right then, the medkit materializing at his feet. His gaze met Picard’s and they exchanged a nod.

“Go,” the EMH – Emil – murmured. “I’ll take care of it.”

Picard left, still a little troubled, still a little humbled. He’d have liked to stay longer, to make sure, perhaps, that Cris was alright.

But that had been today’s lesson, hadn’t it? It really wasn’t about him.

#star trek: picard #star trek picard #cristobal rios #cris rios #jean-luc picard

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imnotinclinedtomaturity · 7 years ago

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Love Yourself (Chapter 14)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 17k story words: 105.3k (so far) chapter: 14/? rating: m warnings: language, alcohol, sex mentions, some bi/homophobia genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn [[ao3]] [[first chapter]] [[previous chapter]]

a/n: can you believe i’m posting a 17k chapter? because i can’t. a massive thank you to @auroraphilealis for reading this mammoth of a chapter MULTIPLE TIMES for me and helping make it better.

also: before you send me an ask about using a read more, i did, they just don’t always work on mobile and there is nothing i can do about it :( take it up with tumblr lol

Dan didn’t entirely trust Isabella to not chase after him. The second Dan was out the door, he was desperate to put as much distance between himself and Isabella as possible. As much as he truly hated exercise, Dan practically sprinted away, paranoidly glancing over his shoulder every couple of feet to make sure that Isabella’s signature clack clack clack wasn’t trailing behind him.

Instead, he waited until he was five blocks away from Isabella’s building before he slowed to a fast paced walk and pulled out his phone. Dan was ready — he was ready to be fucking done with Isabella in his life, and he was ready to move fucking forward with Phil. When he opened his phone, he was determined to do just that.

Jesus, he had six missed calls from Adaline. For a moment, Dan had forgotten about Adaline’s emergency phone call. Just as he swiped away the notification, another call came through. Dan pressed the decline button — he’d call her back in just a minute.

He had something else to do first.

Riding the adrenaline high of finally, finally doing what he wanted to do, Dan opened twitter and — fuck. He’d left the app open on the picture of Isabella. Knowing that she’d fucked that model, that the mark on her neck was from another man, didn’t hurt as much as Dan had thought it would. It fucking sucked, of course.

After all, cheating was the one place where Dan drew a firm line of what was acceptable and what wasn’t. Honestly, he was more upset about the fact that he’d been cheated on, than about the fact that Isabella had been the one doing the cheating. He hated her, he hated her for a lot of reasons. He hated her for the way that she used him, for the way that she manipulated him, for the way that she cheated on him.

But above everything else, he was just glad to be done with her.

Replies were rolling in, most of them tagging both him and Isabella, and, weirdly enough, a few tagging Phil as well. Deciding his mission could wait a moment, Dan clicked on Isabella’s name, his finger hovering over the unfollow button.

If he clicked that, if he actually unfollowed Isabella, people would surely notice. People would undoubtedly piece together the scandalous picture with the fact that he’d unfollowed his bloody girlfriend and know.

Know that they’d broken up.

Dan didn’t give a fuck. He’d meant what he’d said to Isabella. He was done. The fallout of breaking up with Isabella didn’t phase him, fans could think whatever the hell they wanted to — most of it would probably be right, anyway. With a surge of defiance, Dan smashed the unfollow button.

That felt good.

But not good enough.

Fuck Isabella, fuck her being in his life and having even an inkling of control over him.

This time, he didn’t hesitate. He clicked the gear next to her name, pressing Block @IsabellaDeLaRenta before he could change his mind.

That felt really good.

At least now he wouldn’t have to see whatever bullshit she pulled and would be relatively sheltered from the inevitable drama.

But that wasn’t what he’d come on the app to do.

Dan tabbed over to his DMs. Phil’s name was right at the top of the list.

Dan could do this. He was on a roll of doing rash and brazen things tonight, he might as well fully commit. He’d been holding back from this, because it felt like a definite step across a line, a line that he wasn’t willing to cross. But now, the line was gone. He was free to do whatever the fuck he wanted.

He didn’t let himself overthink the message. It didn’t matter how it came out. It could be flirty or blunt or a little bit aggressive, it didn’t matter. So he wasn’t about to spend thirty minutes crafting it.

Daniel Howell: text me about drinks tomorrow 07712345678

Well, it probably could have stood to be a little less abrupt, but whatever. Dan’s point was made. Isabella was gone and there was no longer anything stopping him from texting Phil, from having Phil as an actual contact in his phone.

Okay, next thing.

Deciding it was time to call Adaline back, Dan switched back to the phone app, but quickly got distracted once again. The third person down on his missed calls list was Izzy D.L.R <3.

Fuck that. Dan tapped on her name, pulling up the contact page.

Should he edit the name, or just delete her entirely?

It seemed stupid to keep her number in his phone just for the sake of it potentially, someday being useful. What did Dan care? He couldn’t imagine a single situation that was worth the emotional weight of keeping her number in his phone. So instead of just deleting the heart, Dan scrolled all the way to the bottom and smashed the delete contact button, quickly accepting the annoying are you sure?

Yes. Dan was very, very sure.

Fuck, that felt heavenly. Having that last little bit of Isabella completely gone from his life — knowing that he didn’t have her number anymore, knowing that if he wanted to talk to her at all that he would have to unblock her on twitter… it all felt like this very definitive wall between them.

He liked that wall.

Okay, now Dan could focus on calling Adaline back. Dan tapped back to his call log, happy to see Isabella’s name gone, and clicked on Adaline’s name. The phone didn’t even make it through a full ring before a sharp voice answered.

“Daniel. James. Howell. I’ve been calling you nonstop for forty-five minutes,” Adaline greeted him sternly.

“I know, sorry, I couldn’t answer.”

“Wasn’t the whole point that you needed to answer so you had an escape? I was beginning to think you died.” Adaline sounded annoyed, but Dan could hear the concern laced in her voice as well.

“Chill out, Mum, I’m alive,” Dan joked, high off the fact that he was finished with Isabella. No amount of irritation from Adaline could phase him now — not while he was this happy.

“Fuck off,” Adaline grumbled, never pleased to be compared to their mother (even if she was one of the sweetest women alive). “What the hell was happening?”

“Well, see, I was out to dinner with Isabella originally. And then I ended up back at Isabella’s—” Dan just about gagged on the name, which, judging by Adaline’s giggle, didn’t escape her notice. “I didn’t want to, um, you know.” Dan coughed awkwardly.

“So you thought faking an emergency would be better than just saying no, like an adult?”

“Look, I didn’t want to dig myself into an even deeper a hole. I had these grand plans to take her to breakfast tomorrow and dump her, but I knew if I pissed her off too much tonight, she wouldn’t agree to see me before she went back off to wherever the fuck she’s planning to go tomorrow.”

And thank god that Dan had successfully broken up with her before she jetted off to Vancouver, or Switzerland, or Melbourne — or wherever the fuck she’d said. He wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to end things over the phone — or worse, text — and he couldn’t imagine suffering through that relationship for another second.

Adaline was quiet for a moment.

“What do you mean had plans? Please don’t tell me you changed your mind,” she begged.

“Er, well, sort of,” Dan stumbled, a little charigned.

“Are you fucking serious? Don’t make me get on a bus and come smack sense into you,” Adaline threatened. “God, I thought you’d finally figured out that you were dating a total bitch.”

“No!” Dan interrupted fiercely. “I mean — I did! She’s a bitch! I get it, loud and clear. Everything’s fine.” Dan did his best to console his sister. Everything was fine — it was more than fine at the moment, all things considered.

Dan stopped at a crosswalk, pushing the walk button repeatedly. He could feel his excitement, his energy, his complete exasperation with the entire situation itching beneath his skin. “I broke up with her tonight,” he continued. “That’s why I didn’t answer.”

“Wait, on Valentine’s Day?” Adaline screeched, utterly scandalized. “What the fuck, bro?”

Dan took a breath, ready to defend his actions, but Adaline cut him off.

“Look, I wanted you to break up with her as much as anyone else, obvi, but I thought you were determined to be the good guy or whatever. Which, you know, would mean waiting until it’s not the day of love?!”

“It’s a long story, and I don’t want to get into the details. But if you go on twitter, you’ll get the gist of it.”

“Okayyy, should I go look now or…?” Adaline trailed off. Dan could hear the faint do do do doooo of her computer starting up in the background.

He didn’t particularly want to deal with Adaline’s reaction to everything on twitter at this moment in time though.

“Later’s fine.” Dan rubbed his hand down his face. “I actually have a different favor to ask you.”

“Someone’s needy tonight.”

“Shut up, you act like I do nothing for you.” Dan pulled his coat tighter around his body — jesus it was cold tonight.

“Fair enough, what’s up?” Adaline asked more nonchalantly than Dan had anticipated, given the drama of the evening.

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” Dan asked tentatively as he stalled at another street corner, looking back and forth for cars before he carried onward, carried himself towards home, towards the comfort of his own bed.

“Um, I might have a date tomorrow night, but I don’t know.” Adaline sounded just uncertain enough of her plans for Dan to interject his own life into them.

“How attached are you to going on it?” he asked bluntly.

“Not. Why?”

Thank fuck, Dan thought. “Well, you know Phil, the one from —”

“Twitter and the coffee shop, yeah, I know Phil.”

“Oh. Right.” Dan felt himself blushing and was glad that it was dark and no one was around. Of course Addie knew about Phil, Dan talked about him constantly. “Well, I like him,” Dan blurted out. He held his breath, waiting for Adaline’s reaction. It wasn’t normal for him to have actual feelings for someone new so soon after a breakup. Having grown up in the same house as Dan, Adaline probably knew that better than anyone.

But her response didn’t come.

“I mean, like him like him,” he added when Adaline still didn’t say anything.

“No shit,” Addie shot back. “ Are you going to say anything new or…?”

“You knew?” Dan asked in surprise as he pulled open the door to his building. The warm air of the lobby felt heavenly against his cheeks, and Dan almost felt guilty for the wave of frigid cold he must have let in.

Almost. But right now, he was feeling too high off all of his decisions to feel too bad about anything.

“Dan, I’ve watched you date how many people? I’m not an idiot,” Adaline said, interrupting Dan’s thoughts. Dan jottled a little, trying to think back to what Adaline was talking about, and blushed when he realized.

“Oh,” he muttered dumbly. He gave a short two-fingered wave to the doorman as he power walked to the lift, eager to be in the comfortable safety of his own flat.

Dan was silent the entire lift ride, trying to process what it could mean if Adaline realized that Dan properly liked Phil. If Adaline knew all the way from Wokingham, had Phil caught on, too?

Although, Adaline had watched him cycle through relationship after relationship, fuckbuddy after fuckbuddy. She wasn’t that young while Dan was living at home, and he’d never been particularly subtle about it. Somewhere along the way, Adaline had developed a knack for picking up on when Dan was interested in, well, fucking someone.

Maybe there was hope that Dan’s interest wasn’t quite that obvious to Phil.

“So what about Phil, this boy you like like?” Adaline prompted teasingly when Dan was silent too long for her liking. Even though Dan had brought the subject up, he had no idea where to begin talking when it came to the topic of Phil.

Or, at least, he had no idea how to talk about it without just gushing.

“Hang on,” Dan murmured when the lift doors opened. He sat his phone down on the table so he had both hands free to shrug out of his coat, letting it fall somewhere in the foyer. There were more important things to deal with right now that being tidy.

Dan picked his phone back up, finally having decided what he needed to say first. “Well, objectively,” Dan explained, with just a hint of annoyance at his own conclusion shining through, “I know I need a bit of a break from dating before I just go for it with Phil.”

“I’m sorry, did I hear that right?”

“Before I date Phil, I know I should take a break from dating,” Dan repeated a little bit louder, in case the connection was weak.

“That’s what I thought you said.” Adaline sounded stunned.

“Yeah…”Dan tugged roughly at his tie on his way to the bedroom, trying to get out of this damn suit, this damn night as quickly as possible. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m being weird? You’re the one that’s being weird. I can’t believe that Dan Howell is going to take a break from dating?”

“Fuck off, it’s not that big of a deal,” he grumbled, his free hand trying to undo his belt.

“It’s a huge deal.” Adaline corrected. “I literally can’t remember a time when you weren’t at least sleeping with someone.”

So maybe she was right. Maybe Dan had never gone a full week after a breakup without sleeping with someone new. And maybe Dan had always made an effort to have someone in his life, whether it was a relationship or a… fuckbuddy.

Dan sighed, not able to be really annoyed since Adaline was technically right. “I know, okay. But that’s the thing. I don’t want Phil to be just sex and I’m afraid that if I try to date him right now I’ll fuck it up.” Adaline made a sympathetic sound. “It matters, okay? I want to do this right.”

“Okay, so how is all of this rolling around to needing a favor?” Dan could tell by the amusement in her tone he was already probably going to win.

“I kind of asked him to get drinks tomorrow. And it’s not, like, a date, I’m sure. I asked him before Izzy and I broke up. But now that I’m not with Isabella anymore, I’m not sure I trust drunk, horny me to not drag him back to my place and fuck him.” He put Adaline on speaker and set the phone on his dresser.

“Y-you’re fucking rid-ic-iculous,” Adaline managed to say through loud laughter. Her laughter was contagious, and Dan found himself unable to control his own giggles as he realized just how bloody absurd it was that he was asking his little sister — who he used to babysit all the time — to essentially babysit him.

“You’re not wrong.” Dan agreed, once he’d gotten his own laughter under control. “But — ugh this is so childish. I want a chaperone to make sure I don’t do anything dumb.”

“Get Louise to go with you.”

“I don’t actually trust her to stop me. I think she’s rooting too much for me and Phil that drunk-Louise would probably actually try to whore me out to him.” Dan glanced down at his hands as they unbuttoned his shirt and, for a split second, he imagined they were softer, paler hands.

Fuck. No he really couldn’t be trusted to be drinking around Phil alone.

“So you want me to trek all the way into the city, just to have drinks with you and your crush in order to stop you from doing anything stupid,” Adaline deadpanned, not bothering to hide just how ludicrous she thought Dan was being.

“Not just to have drinks. You can stay over, obviously, and we’ll do something on Saturday.”

“Hmmm, tempting.” Adaline considered it for a moment. “Wait, a second.” She sounded suspicious.

“What?” Dan asked warily.

“Last time I checked, you’d sworn that you weren’t going to introduce us to anyone that wasn’t serious.”

“One, I said I wasn’t bringing anyone who wasn’t serious home and I’m not bringing Phil home, and two, we aren’t dating — yet,” Dan retorted, throwing himself onto his bed with a content sigh. It felt so good to be back home, especially knowing that tomorrow, he’d wake up and not have to pretend to care about Isabella anymore.

“I see how it is, you’re playing the technicality card.” Adaline’s smug teasing was beginning to make Dan worried that she wouldn’t actually agree.

“Look, will you do it or not?” Dan snapped impatiently.

“A chance to watch you drunkenly embarrass yourself in front of someone you like? Obviously I’m coming.”

“I resent that,” Dan muttered, but Adaline kept talking over him.

“But you get to figure out what we’re telling Mum and Dad. And Phil, for that matter, because I assume you don’t want to tell him that you made your little sister travel an hour just to come babysit you.”

“You’re the best Adaline. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll book you a ticket and forward you the confirmation when I hang up.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow you fucking idiot.”

You’re a fucking idiot, Dan thought back at her bitterly, because Adaline had already hung up.

*****************************

It was half past ten, and while Phil didn’t usually sleep until closer to three, he was already getting ready for bed. He figured if he was going to feel somewhat sorry and pathetic for himself, he might as well do it while wrapped up in his green and blue check duvet.

He’d never been the type to really buy into Valentine’s Day — normally he didn’t care if he was single or not on the holiday. But this year, the date had felt a little like a slap in the face.

Dan’s visit to Beans and Grind, had been lovely — for the most part. No matter what day it was, Phil would always savor any time he got with Dan, but he had been particularly grateful to get a few hours of Dan’s undivided attention today.

It was just that, well, it had left him wanting more.

To be fair, Phil knew that there was no amount of time that he could have with Dan that wouldn’t leave Phil wanting more. Looking back, Phil couldn’t identify when he’d gone from simply enjoying spending time with Dan to craving it and dreading its end.

Phil, could, however pick out the exact moment that he’d realized that his feelings for Dan were so much stronger than a normal crush.

It had been a cold day filled with snow flurries and gusts of wind. Phil honestly hadn’t expected Dan to come into the coffee shop — if Phil hadn’t have had to work, he certainly wouldn’t have left his flat. But just an hour into Phil’s shift, when the snow flurries had been at their heaviest, Dan had waltzed in, wearing a fluffy hat and an oversized coat. He’d brought his laptop with him, but he’d never got around to opening it. Instead, he’d ordered a hot chocolate, demanding that Phil drink one with him. It had taken a few sips of the hot beverage before Dan had finally felt warm enough to shed his massive coat, and when he had —

When Dan had taken off his coat, Phil had seen what Dan was wearing.

Phil’s jumper.

Out of all of the that clothes Dan owned, for some unfathomable reason, Dan had chosen to wear Phil’s pugs not drugs jumper — a jumper that was so unbelievably different from Dan’s normal aesthetic that Phil had originally worried Dan wouldn’t even wear it as an alternative to his own soaked shirt.

And yet there Dan was, wearing it for no apparent reason other than because he’d wanted to.

Dan had curled up on his chair, somehow, and gotten lost in conversation with Phil. He’d looked impossibly young and cuddly and comfortable, and Phil had known right then that not only did he want to see this version of Dan again, he wanted to see every version of Dan.

God, Phil was so fucked.

Valentine’s Day just sucked this year. The things that he had done — work, see Dan — hadn’t sucked, sure. But the whole day left a rotten taste in his mouth. Left him bitter about the fact that he’d gone and fallen for someone who wasn’t available.

Trying to minimize the agony of the day, Phil had completely avoided the internet all day, other than his brief DMs with Dan that morning. He just hadn’t been in the mood to deal with the constant love love love that was sure to be everywhere, and figured it was safest to hold off until tomorrow.

But at quarter to midnight, when his laptop had died and Phil was too lazy to go across the room to find the television remote, he gave into the temptation. How bad could it be?

The first thing he noticed when he opened up twitter was that he had a new DM from Dan that he’d somehow missed — he must have cleared the notification on accident. The second thing he noticed was that he had approximately a thousand mentions. Which wasn’t a crazy amount for him — not by a long shot. But usually, any significant amount of mentions was preceded by something from him, and he had been completely silent today.

Maybe some of his followers were just wishing him a Happy Valentine’s Day? In the past, his followers had started hashtags on his birthday or a holiday — maybe they had done that again?

The temptation of knowing what the hell was going on somehow overrided Phil’s perpetual desire to talk to Dan. Hesitantly, Phil clicked on his notifications, and scrolled through his mentions.

@AmazingKendra: @danielhowell i get that @IsabellaDeLaRenta is pretty but have you seen @AmazingPhil

@DanIsTheMan64: @danielhowell tbh your smile looked more genuine in that picture with @AmazingPhil last week

@DieDanellaDie: @danielhowell fuck #danella. i’m fucking disgusted with @IsabellaDeLaRenta and you can do better. i only ship #phan now @AmazingPhil

There had to be some kind of context to these tweets. Phil kept scanning, trying to find someone who included something more helpful in their messages. Finally, he found one that tagged someone other than him, Dan, or Isabella.

@iHowellForDan: @danielhowell did you see the @Tatler picture? Just move on already (preferably to @AmazingPhil)

Phil knew about Tatler. They were a gossip website that he’d been featured on one too many times to have any respect for, but he was desperate to figure out what the hell was going on.

Well, that seemed as good of a place to start as any.

Phil’s stomach was clenched in a tight knot as he clicked on @Tatler. He had no idea what to expect.

Fuck they tweeted a lot. How many people ran this account? It couldn’t possibly be just one. The gossip website was far too massive for its own good. Each tweet felt like a shot in the dark in the hopes that something would land them some hits.

It look a moment of scrolling to find anything that might be relevant and then — shit. That was it. That explained at least some part of what was going on.

There was a very risque picture of Isabella on a beach in some random dude’s arms. According to the magazine, the picture was taken just two days ago.

The nerves in Phil’s stomach turned to guilt. He’d been hoping, praying for Dan and Isabella to break up. But he’d never wanted it to be because of something as serious or cruel as Isabella cheating on Dan, and, well, that’s exactly what this picture looked like.

Wait, shit.

Dan.

Was Dan okay?

Phil couldn’t even begin to imagine how Dan might be feeling right now, if that picture had any truth to it, if Dan had seen it.

Phil abandoned his quest to figure out what the hell was going on in favor of opening the DM from Dan. If Dan was upset and had messaged Phil about everything that was happening — whatever that may be — Phil wanted to be there for him.

The message wasn’t Dan freaking out, though. In fact, it didn’t seem to have any connection to what was happening on twitter at all.

Daniel Howell: text me about drinks tomorrow 020 2436 8532

It was short and simple, but it made Phil’s heart soar. Actual Dan Howell’s phone number was sitting in Phil’s twitter inbox. He hadn’t even had to ask for it.

Part of Phil wanted to continue stalking twitter, to read through all of the available tweets to figure out what the hell was going on. But if Phil had learned anything through being in the public eye, it was that more often than not, whatever the public was assuming to be true on twitter was either wildly off base, or a gross oversimplification of things.

Besides, he’d rather hear about whatever was happening in Dan’s life from Dan himself. And now, Phil had a much more efficient way to get a hold of him.

Maybe it would come across as eager, perhaps even too desperate, since the message had only came in an hour and a half ago, but Phil didn’t care. He copy and pasted the number into a new text message, only to stare blankly at the screen.

What the fuck was he supposed to say?

Did he mention the shitshow that was happening on twitter? Did he ask about how Dan’s Valentine’s Day was? Should he ask if there was any truth to the picture of Isabella?

Phil opted to ignore all of the questions he had — at least for now — and send something more casual, allowing Dan to take charge of the conversation and say… whatever he wanted Phil to know.

Phil: This already seems like a more efficient method of communication than twitter -Phil

Even though Phil knew Dan was a night owl, he didn’t expect Dan to text back instantly. It was, of course, still Valentine’s Day, and just because Dan had a moment free on his phone earlier, didn’t mean he still did. Plus, even if Dan was home, he probably wasn’t attached to his phone like Phil was.

Boy, was Phil wrong.

It took less than a minute for Dan to reply. And reply. And reply.

Dan: hey there stranger

Dan: i agree. it’s too easy to miss messages on twitter

Dan: now i can just shout at you. much easier.

Phil chuckled. And to think that he had been worried about coming across as too eager. Meanwhile, Dan was sitting somewhere triple texting Phil.

Not that Phil was complaining.

No, Phil was sat in bed at midnight, staring down at his phone, smiling like a complete idiot because of a boy. How was it that Dan was able to make Phil this flustered, this happy from halfway across town?

He felt like a lovesick teenager — and was half tempted to call up his best friend to help him draft a text message like he was fifteen again.

That was ridiculous, Phil realized. He was twenty-goddamn-seven years old. He could message back a cute boy on his own for fucks sake.

He wasn’t sure what to say though. He started typing, trying to figure out the best response.

I know, twitter was a pain — delete.

How was tonight? — delete.

So you want to —

Phil’s third attempt to write a message was interrupted by another text from Dan.

Dan: you still up for drinks tomorrow?

That message wasn’t hard to respond to, at least. A smile snuck its way onto Phil’s face. He felt more like a teenager getting asked to a school dance than he cared to admit.

I am if you am

That made it sound like Phil was being dragged out to drinks with Dan — which was definitely not the case.

Delete.

Absolutely

That sounded a bit too eager, right?

Delete.

Phil tried again, and ended up settling on something that probably still counted as too eager in most people’s books, but, well, a lot of Phil’s actions so far could probably be considered as too eager.

Phil: Of course! What time are you free?

Dan: anytime after 7 works for me

Dan: one small thing though

Oh god, Phil’s heart dropped into his stomach.

A million possibilities rushed through Phil’s head. Had Isabella put her foot down about Dan spending time with Phil? Had Dan realized how flirty their relationship was and gotten uncomfortable? Was Dan going to want to bring Isabella along for drinks?

This was it, Dan was going to find some way to force a line between them. He was going to invite Isabella or remind Phil that he was a man in a committed relationship or tell Phil that he was one hundred percent straight.

Phil took a deep breath and forced himself to respond as naturally as he could.

Phil: What’s up?

The three typing dots seemed to flash in time with Phil’s far-too-fast heart. Dot, dot, dot, thump, thump, thump. What the fuck was Dan typing? Why was it taking so long? What did—

Dan: i just found out today that my sister is coming into london tomorrow. do you mind if she tags along?

His sister. It was just his sister.

Phil let out the breath he was holding, relief coursing through his body. Dan wasn’t trying to build some wall between them, Phil wasn’t being pushed away. Dan just wanted to bring his sister to drinks with them.

A sister that it took Isabella almost a year to meet, a self-satisfied piece of Phil’s mind added without his consent.

Phil: Sounds great! Where do you want to meet?

Dan: do you know harolds? it’s like a block over from b&g

Phil: Yeah! Emmalee and I have gone there a few times. Sounds good! Meet there at 7?

Dan: great xx

****************************

The next day went by far, far slower than Phil wanted it to. He was anxious to get through his meetings with the BBC and his manager, Marianne, so that he could finally get to the part of the day where he got to see Dan.

Dan, who a whole mass of people on twitter were speculating might be single now. Dan, who had given Phil his number right after a risque picture of his girlfriend had leaked. Dan, this boy that Phil was more than a little enamoured with and who might, just might, like Phil back.

And Phil wasn’t just getting to see Dan, he was getting to have drinks with Dan.

But the day seemed to absolutely drag on.

The day’s meetings at the BBC had been longer and more frustrating than normal. Overall, Phil was incredibly lucky. He was one of the first internet creators that the BBC had taken a risk on, and the success of his weekly radio show had not only opened the doors for dozens of other internet creators to work with the BBC, but had also allowed him to be granted a frankly ridiculous amount of creative freedom.

However, his shows producers had recently been pushing for Phil to do a special one-time show with a guest co-host — preferably someone with a strong musical background. They’d said it was to broaden the audience that listens to BBC Radio shows and, for some absurd reason, they’d thought Phil’s show would be the best place to start. They were really pleased with the younger demographic Phil’s show had reached, but were hoping to introduce new listeners — who were supposedly more interested in music than the internet — to his show.

Phil understood their point; the radio station was first and foremost about music, and his show (as well as several that had started after the success of Phil’s) focused much more heavily on other things. It made sense that they would want to have a special episode (or maybe even two, as they had hinted at) with someone who knew more about music than Phil did, someone that appealed to a different demographic. It would attract new listeners to the show who were interested in the special host — listeners who would potentially turn into more devoted listeners of BBC Radio.

The producers weren’t particularly picky about who Phil invited onto his show— in fact, they had thrown several big, exciting names at Phil. They seemed fairly confident that they could secure a one-time appearance from anyone performing in the Live Lounge in the upcoming weeks. The producers had also offered to reach out to people from other parts of the music industry, if Phil preferred. As he walked back to his apartment, his mind was still reeling at some of the names they had suggested.

And it was great. Phil knew he should be ecstatic about this kind of opportunity, flattered that the BBC had thought that his measly little radio show was the right place to start gaining a new demographic. But the fact of the matter was, Phil was too fucking awkward to have a co-host he barely knew — especially a famous one. When it came to interacting with people, Phil was a mess. At least when he did collabs, he was able to edit out all of his awkward social interactions. But live? Live, he would be forced to endure his viewers mocking his social ineptitude for weeks.

He just wasn’t very good at interacting with people he didn’t know, and he didn’t need the whole world to see that.

So Phil had tried his best to fight them, to lay out why that might be a horrific idea. At the end of the meeting, though, they had made him promise to think about it, and if he came up with anyone he would collaborate with — anyone at all — to email his producers as soon as possible, and they would try to set it up.

Unlikely, Phil scoffed. He was fairly certain that there was no way he was going to feel comfortable hosting some bigshot that he barely knew on his show.

Because of all of the conflict, Phil’s meetings took longer than he anticipated. By the time he got home, he barely had time to change and have a quick bite to eat before he had to head out the door to meet Dan.

************************

Phil, who always did his best to be on time, showed up to Harold’s at 6:58, knowing that there was absolutely no chance that Dan was there yet. If Phil had learned one thing while getting to know Dan, it was that Dan was basically incapable of being on time.

Surely, it had to annoy a lot of people in his life, but Phil found it to kind of be an endearing quality. The more he got to know Dan, the more he realized that Dan was always late because he had a tendency to get wholeheartedly wrapped up in whatever he was doing, which usually caused him to misjudge how long he needed to get ready, or how much time he needed to allot for travel. That was just how Dan was, Phil had discovered — an unbelievably passionate person.

So when Phil walked into Harold’s two minutes early, only to be greeted with, “Hey, Phil! Over here!” he understandably had a moment of panic. For a moment, Phil was convinced that a fan just happened to be in the same bar where Phil was about to have drinks with Dan Howell.

But then his eyes found the person shouting at him, landing on none other than Dan himself, who was seated with his back to the door. He was peeking out over the edge of a tall booth he was tucked into — a small, four-person booth in the back corner.The bar, with its dim lighting and slightly dodgy atmosphere, already lent itself to anonymity, but the far back booth, with the flickering light and high walls, practically screamed leave us alone.

It was exactly the booth Phil would have picked out, and not just because he was hoping to avoid the scrutiny of his viewers for the evening.

Fuck, Phil shouldn’t be thinking about that. He had no actual evidence that Dan was single — twitter was notorious for getting facts wrong. And even if Dan turned out to be single now, this wasn’t a date. When Dan had originally asked Phil to get drinks, he was literally on his way to a Valentine’s Day date with this girlfriend. Plus, Dan’s sister was getting drinks with them. If that didn’t scream this isn’t a date, Phil wasn’t sure what did.

But still, Phil felt a spark of happiness that he couldn’t quite squash when he thought about the fact that Dan had selected the most intimate booth in the bar.

Phil made his way over to Dan’s side, dodging around all of the empty tables. “You’re here,” he said in lieu of a proper greeting when he got to the booth.

“Yeah, you spoon. Of course I’m here.” Dan had a smirk on his face, but his eyes reflected genuine happiness. Whatever Tatler was insinuating about Isabella must not be true, not if Dan currently looked this happy. Phil tried not to feel too disappointed. Above everything else, Dan had become one of Phil’s best friends, and Phil shouldn’t be rooting for his heart to get broken.

“I just meant, you’re early,” Phil teased.

At the end of the booth, Dan’s coat was hanging on a hook — it was the one that Dan claimed made him look like a wraith, but Phil would argue just made him look kissable.

Phil pulled off his much brighter coat and hung it over top of Dan’s.

Assuming the second drink sat next to Dan belonged to Adaline, Phil started to move around to the other side of the table, prepared to sit across from Dan, but Dan caught him off guard when he grabbed onto Phil’s sleeve and pulled him into the booth next to him. The full, fruity looking drink was pushed towards him.

Dan nodded his head and raised his own drink in a quick cheers motion.

Phil wrapped his hands around the cold drink, pulling it in front of him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.” He tipped his drink towards Dan, mimicking the cheers, but way less smoothly. Unlike Dan, Phil nearly sloshed a bit of the drink out. Smooth.

Dan sent him an unimpressed look, but Phil could see the humor dancing in his eyes. “I’m capable of being early, Philip.”

“Really?” Phil cocked an eyebrow. “Because I’ve never seen it.”

“Shut up,” Dan swatted his arm, twisting around a bit in the booth so he could look at Phil properly. Dan’s leg came up to rest on the booth between them, his ankle tucking under his opposite knee so that his shin was pressing against Phil’s thigh. “You don’t know everything about me.”

“No, but I’d like to.”

Phil’s face flamed up, heat burning his cheeks when he realized what he’d just said. Shit, something about being around Dan made Phil confess all of his desires — even the ones he probably shouldn’t tell Dan about. The only salvation was the fact that Dan’s cheeks turned equally red, and his gaze suddenly dropped to his knee, which nudged Phil’s hip softly.

Phil thought he heard Dan mumble same under his breath, but he wasn’t sure. He was never sure of anything when it came to Dan.

Except for the minor detail that Phil was very, very sure he was head over heels for this boy.

“So,” Phil cleared his throat, trying to restore some sense of normality to their conversation. “I thought you said Adeline was joining us?”

“She is. Um,” Dan’s eyes flitted to his phone, which was resting face up on the table. “Her train was delayed, actually. That’s part of why I’m early. I realized she was going to be late like fifteen minutes ago and I figured you were probably on your way, so I just told her to drop her bag off at my place and come down and meet us.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded waiting if you wanted to pick her up,” Phil insisted.

“No!” Dan almost shouted, before widening his eyes bashfully at Phil. “I — she’s a big girl. She’s capable of getting a cab from the train station to my flat and walking one block. It’s fine.”

Phil took another sip of his drink. “Okay, then. I’m excited to meet her, but I’m not heartbroken to get a little bit of time alone with you.”

Dan’s eyes widened, and for a moment Phil was worried that he’d said the wrong thing, that he’d finally found the imaginary line between them and leaped over it. But his worries were assuaged when Dan let out a tiny whine before collapsing forward, his forehead falling onto Phil’s shoulder. Trying his best not to disturb Dan, to not make him feel like he needed to move, Phil twisted his head a bit so he could look at Dan. From what Phil could see of his face, Dan was smiling bashfully, his dimples and red patch on full display.

This time, Phil was confident that he heard Dan mumble me either — he could feel the vibrations of Dan’s voice against his arm. Phil could get used to having Dan’s head on his shoulder, maybe even tucked in more securely, his breath wafting over Phil’s neck instead of his arm. Dan rested there for a moment, before leaning back up. The red spot on his cheek had subsided some, but the dimples were still prominent. Phil was glad for that, he hadn’t seen those dimples nearly enough lately.

“So, um,” Phil fumbled, still not quite composed after having Dan so close. “How late is Adaline?”

Dan sat up a hair straighter, as if the reminder of his sister had pulled him out of something. The way his leg was pushed against Phil’s, and how close his drink was to Phil’s, still left Dan very much in Phil’s personal space, though.

“She’ll be here within the half hour, she wasn’t delayed that much.” Dan took a long drink out of his glass, and the topic of his sister seemed to melt away. “So,” Dan poked Phil in the ribcage, “Tell me about your day.”

Shrugging, Phil took another sip of the fruity concoction. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he liked it a lot. Dan normally drank bitter things — who the heck drinks a triple espresso with only one sugar? — but Phil prefered his drinks sweet. He was glad that Dan hadn’t ordered him whatever dark liquid was in his own short, round glass.

“It wasn’t particularly exciting, I worked most of it.” Phil couldn’t keep the frustrated edge out of his voice. He wasn’t quite over how much he’d clashed with the show’s producers today — it was rare, so Phil didn’t feel particularly equipped to deal with creative differences.

Dan looked unconvinced, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. “Your work is exciting though,” he pouted. “What did you do?”

“Not Fridays,” Phil grimaced. “I always have loads of meetings,” he explained. “I have my weekly radio show planning meetings with the BBC today, which was…” Phil rolled his eyes and took sip of the drink as he searched for the right word. “Stressful.”

Dan’s glass — and the fingers wrapped tightly around it — pushed against Phil’s arm as Dan’s other arm slid across the table, his head coming to rest in the palm of his hand, his eyes staring widely up at Phil. “Why’s that?”

“Just, you know,” Phil waved vaguely, “Pressure from the bosses about things.”

Dan groaned, straightening up a bit so that he could take a sip of his drink. “I know what you mean. What are they giving you pressure about?” His eyes narrowed, a smile threatening to break out on his mock-angry face. “Do I need to go kick someone’s ass?”

“No, no,” Phil laughed, blushing a bit at Dan’s overprotective attitude, even if he was joking. Phil busied himself with another drink while he figured out what he wanted to say to Dan. “It’s just, you know, publicity type stuff?” His voice ended like it was a question, and Phil lowkey hated himself for that. He had no reason to feel weird talking to Dan about fame-related things, which usually made him feel insufferably pretentious. But if there was anyone in Phil’s life who would truly get it, it was Dan.

Dan stared back at him with raised eyebrows — not disbelieving, just curious — prompting Phil to continue. “I have the radio show, right?”

“Yes, which I finally got the chance to listen to and it’s wonderful,” Dan interjected with a playful smile. “I think your voice was made for radio, it’s hot. Although, the fact that you livestream your face doesn’t hurt either.”

What in the fucking —

Phil took a large gulp of his drink, unsure of what the hell Dan was getting at. Sure, Dan was flirty sometimes, but he seemed far more forward than usual today. Phil glanced at Dan’s drink, which was nearly empty. Was it possible that Dan was tipsy already? Tipsy Dan had been flitier than usual, after all. But Phil didn’t remember Dan being a light-weight. Surely three quarters of a drink wouldn’t push Dan to the point it had taken three drinks to get him to last time, right?

Maybe Dan had drank something else sometime before Phil had arrived?

“I — uh, thanks,” Phil stuttered, very flustered, completely incapable of saying anything more intelligent.

“So what about it?” Dan prompted, knocking the knuckles of his fingers against Phil’s when Phil didn’t carry on with his story.

“We’re having a bit of a… creative difference,” Phil offered in way of explanation. He didn’t want to bore Dan with the details of his story. Dan looked interested now, but Phil wasn’t sure if Dan genuinely wanted to know every intricacy of Phil’s life (like the way Phil wanted to know the intricacies of Dan’s).

Dan shook his head, bringing the amber liquid to his lips for another swallow. “That’s the fucking worst. What happened?”

Apparently, Phil had underestimated Dan’s interest. The question didn’t sound insincere. It sounded like Dan actually wanted to know about Phil’s problem, that Dan actually wanted to support Phil.

“They’re pushing for me to do a special show with a guest host — preferably someone who knows more about music than me — so that they can, quote, draw in a new listener demographic or something.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Dan cocked his head. “So you’re against this idea…?”

“A little,” Phil confirmed with a shrug and another drink. “I don’t want to see disingenuine — and maybe more importantly, I don’t want to make an ass of out myself on live air by being awkward because I barely know my co-host.”

Dan hummed as he drank the last swallow of his drink. “Would you feel differently if it was someone you knew?” he contemplated.

“I guess,” Phil shrugged. “It would at least feel less fake, and I’d probably feel less uncomfortable.”

Dan waved his hand in a gesture that seemed to say so what? “What’s the hold up, then?”

“I’m a vloggy youtuber, it’s not like I really have any work connections I can try to force into collabing on me with this.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Dan looked at Phil blankly, a slightly annoyed tint to his eye.

“What?” Phil asked, confused, after a few beats.

In explanation, Dan circled his hand around his face wildly, looking at Phil like he was an idiot.

“You’re going to have to be more explicit, Daniel.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Gee, if only one of your non-work friends just happened to be in the music industry,” he said, resting his chin primly in the palm of his hand.

It took Phil a second, but he finally caught on. “Oh — oohhh! Would you — like — do you think you’d want to —”

Dan stared back with raised eyebrows and an expecting expression. “Yeah, dumbshit,” he said, finally. “I mean, I highly doubt that radio is my undiscovered talent, but I’d try it for you.”

“You’d — for me —?” Phil stuttered ineloquently.

“Of course, you spoon. I’d love first row tickets to AmazingPhil, even if that means embarrassing myself on live radio.”

“I’d feel bad,” Phil waffled. “It’s a huge professional favor, and I’d want to give something back. I’m absolutely rubbish at all things music, though, so it’s not like I could repay you at all.”

“Trust me, Phil, you do plenty for me. Both personally and professionally. If anything, I owe you a favor.”

Phil blinked blankly at Dan. What the fuck does that mean? Phil wracked his brain, trying to think of a single time where anything he had done had even remotely helped Dan professionally.

Phil was so concentrated on trying to figure out what Dan was implying that he almost forgot to respond.

“Um, if you’re serious,” Phil spun his glass awkwardly in his hands, “I’ll speak to them. They seemed pretty open about who I had on the show.”

With the hand that wasn’t cupped around his short glass, Dan reached up and ruffled Phil’s hair. “Of course I’m serious, anything to help you silly goose. Talk to them, and let me know what they say.”

“Thanks, Dan!” Phil smiled back, suddenly far more excited about the prospect of a guest-host than he had been that morning. “So how was your day?” Phil asked.

“Uneventful,” Dan shrugged. “I slept in, which felt great, and then I was surprisingly social for a bit, before managing to work some this afternoon.

The conversation that Phil had overheard between Dan and Louise had made it sound like Dan had big breakfast plans — plans that were big enough to require some sort of debriefing with Louise. But if Dan slept in before socializing, did that mean breakfast — whatever that was supposed to be — didn’t happen?

“I feel like I’m actually making progress on this album.” Dan continued, obvious to Phil’s confusion. He was smiling, though,, and Phil could see the passion building as he started talking about his music. “When Louise set a deadline of half the album before Germany, I thought she was insane. But at this rate, I think I’ll be okay.”

Phil managed to control his surprise at Dan’s lack of mentioning anything more exciting, but only just. Was work only thing Dan had done today — or was that all that he was willing to share with Phil? Phil wasn’t sure if Dan’s dramatic sounding breakfast plans potentially falling through was a good thing or not.

Phil sighed, trying to shake off his confused thoughts, and turned to his drink again, quickly finishing it. When he’d regained his composure, he turned back to Dan, “So you actually went outside and socialized today?”

“Meh, nothing big,” Dan said indifferently — he certainly didn’t make it sound like whatever social activity he’d done was noteworthy enough to mention. “I knew we were meeting for drinks and Adaline was coming, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to hole up in my house and work.”

There was no way Phil could continue pushing about Dan’s morning — not after Dan had turned the subject to work a second time. At least not without it being painfully obvious that Phil was fishing for details. He took Dan’s lead and switched topics to Dan’s music, genuinely curious about how his work was going.

“Were you writing again today?” Phil asked, trying to show that he was just as interested in Dan’s work as Dan was in his.

“Yeah, the song I was working on the other night, you know, the one from skype? I think it’s coming together. Up until today I just had snippets of lyrics but I’m pretty sure I made it into something coherent, something that flows and actually matches the melody.”

“That’s awesome, Dan!” Phil beamed, proud of Dan’s accomplishment. “How are you feeling about the album so far?”

“Amazing, actually.” Dan’s fingers tapped excitedly against his empty glass. “It’s not what I set out to do, but I’m somehow actually writing a concept album.”

“Wow! What’s the concept?” Phil blurted out before he realized that Dan might not want to — or might not be able to answer that. “Or is that top secret?” he added, giving Dan an easy way out of the question.

“It not top secret, per say,” Dan started before his attention suddenly snapped away from Phil, turning towards his phone. Confused, Phil’s eyebrows shot up, his gaze following Dan’s.

Adaline: did I miss you and loverboy at home bc i’m here and i don’t see you

If Adaline was here, and she knew she was meeting Dan and Phil — which presumably she did — loverboy had to refer to Phil… right? The rational part of Phil’s brain tried, really tried, to keep his hopes in check, to not think too wishfully, but the part of Phil that was completely infatuated with Dan was positively screaming.

With a message like that staring Phil in the face, it was almost impossible not to get his hopes up.

Quickly, Phil averted his gaze. He may not know what that message meant, but he did know that he was definitely not meant to see it. Fortunately for him, Dan was too preoccupied by the text and popping his head over the back of their booth, peeking back towards the door, to realize that Phil had seen it.

Phil ducked around their booth as well, looking towards the entrance and trying to who Dan was looking for. A younger girl was standing near the entrance, her eyes scanning through the crowd.

Dan’s knee nudged insistently against Phil a few times. “Budge over and let me out, will you?” Dan asked.

Phil nodded numbly, not fully processing anything that was happening, his attention still focused on loverboy. Eyes and mind glazed over, Phil slid out of the booth, letting Dan slip out behind him. Phil watched as Dan strode over to the door and enthusiastically enveloped the young brunette in his arms. When Dan leaned out of the embrace, he didn’t pull all the way back, instead wrapping his arm around her shoulders and guiding her over to the table.

“I missed you, you know,” Phil heard Dan say as they came within earshot.

“It’s been like a month, Dan,” the girl responded, elbowing Dan in the ribs.

Dan shrugged, not looking embarrassed at being called out on his feelings. It was cute, seeing Dan so happy to see his sister. It reminded Phil of how he felt when he saw his brother after a long separation. Phil knew that Dan hadn’t been as close with Adaline as Phil had been with Martyn while they were growing up, but he also knew that Dan was determined to build a better relationship with his sister now that she was older. It looked like he was doing a good job.

Dan led her to the other side of the booth before hovering at the table’s end between them.

“Yeah, well,” Dan sighed, rocking back and forth on his feet, “It’s been a long month.”

“So it would seem.” Dan’s sister, Adaline’s, eyes flickered between their empty glasses, and Phil wondered if she was thinking about the fact that they had both already been on the same side of the table when she arrived. Lord knows it was on Phil’s mind.

With a look of intent, Adaline’s attention switched to Phil, her eyes quickly flickering back to Dan with raised eyebrows.

“Oh, right, sorry. I’m being rude,” Dan apologized, nervously arranging the mop of curls on his head. “Phil, meet my sister, Adaline. Addie, this is my — um, Phil.”

The tips of Dan’s ears turned red, a matching spot coloring his cheek. A wide, cheeky smirk took over Adaline’s face. It was a smirk he’d seen before; Dan had flashed him that same expression countless times.

My what? Phil wondered, his cheeks flushing to match Dan’s. Surely Dan wouldn’t have cut himself off from saying friend. So what had he been about to say?

“Good to meet you, Phil,” Adaline was saying. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The red spot on Dan’s cheek deepened, and Phil could feel his own cheeks heating up to match it. “I — yeah. I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

“Awww, are you bragging about me, big brother?” Adaline teased.

“Fuck off, I can’t help talking about people I care about, okay?” Dan took a small step back from the table.

Shit, the both of them really needed to stop saying things that made Phil’s heart skip. At this point, he wasn’t sure if there was blood left anywhere in his body other than his face.

“So,” Dan broke the silence in what he probably hoped was a smooth interruption (it wasn’t). “Who wants what to drink?”

Phil pointed to his glass. “I liked whatever this was.”

“Okay, another Dark ‘n Stormy.” Dan snapped his fingers, making a lame finger gun at Phil. “Sis?”

“Whatever you’re having?” She suggested tentatively, her order coming out more like a question than a request.

“Right—” Another awkward finger gun. “I’ll be back in a moment, lads. Behave.”

Phil felt an internal moment of panic at being left completely alone with Dan’s sister after such a brief introduction. Apparently, his wariness wasn’t unfounded.

“So you’re Phil?” Adaline questioned the moment Dan was out of earshot, an impish look on her face.

“Y-yes?” Phil stuttered back insecurely, spinning his empty glass in his hand for lack of something better to do. Everything Phil knew about Dan was telling him not to trust the mischievous expression Adaline was fixing him with.

“Dan somehow forgot to mention that his lovely new friend Phil from the coffee shop was AmazingPhil.” A wide smirk took over Adaline’s face — a smirk Phil had seen before, on Dan.

Phil wasn’t sure just how worried he should be about the fact that Dan’s sister apparently knew who he was. Phil had told Dan countless things he had no desire for his viewers to know, and he had no idea how much of that information Dan had shared with his sister. Phil wholeheartedly trusted Dan, and recognized that if Adaline came from the same family, she was probably trustworthy too. But the fact remained that he didn’t know her. “I —”

He had no idea what to say.

“It’s fine, I saw through twitter beforehand, so it’s not like it’s a surprise. Don’t worry, I’m not a crazy fan or anything.” Adaline was much more nonchalant than Dan had been when he’d found out about Phil’s channel. Did that mean Adaline didn’t care, or had she just been exposed enough that it just wasn’t shocking anymore?

“Oh… have you, like, watched my videos?” Phil fished, trying to get a read on how potentially dangerous this situation might be.

“A few. I found your channel through PJ’s a few months ago and happened to see a few. Imagine my surprise when I found out you were the guy that was suddenly tweeting at my brother.”

“Er — yeah. Dan about had a heart attack when he found out,” Phil chuckled.

“I know,” Adaline laughed mercilessly at her brother. “He called me up in a fit the next day.”

“What a nerd,” Phil said with a roll of his eyes and a soft chuckle. He was pretty sure that his fondness for Dan was seeping into his voice, but he was well past the point in their friendship where he had any hopes of controlling it.

Luckily, Dan saved Phil from the embarrassment of Adaline potentially calling him out on his soft spot for Dan by Dan coming back, precariously balancing three drinks in his hands. He sat the fruity drink in front of Phil, pushed something clear and bubbly towards Adaline, and slid a half-full cup of amber liquid back towards his original seat.

“Let me in, Philly,” Dan smiled, tapping much more rapidly at Phil’s shoulder than was necessary.

“I’m moving, I’m moving!” Phil insisted. “You impatient little brat,” he added under his breath.

Unfortunately, his jab seemed to be heard by everyone at the table. Dan smacked him playfully upside the head.

“Oh look, he knows you already,” Adaline teased.

“Fuck off, Addie,” Dan said as he slid across the bench, stopping halfway to the wall so that he was still very much in Phil’s space when Phil sat back down. Absolutely nothing Dan and Phil did seemed to escape Adaline’s notice; her gaze was concentrated on the space — or rather, lack thereof — between them. Phil shifted nervously under Adaline’s scrutiny. He wasn’t sure what to make of how closely she was watching them.

“I thought I asked for the same thing as you?” Adaline questioned, letting her attention drift from the minute distance between them to just Dan.

“Yeah, but I’m drinking Jameson neat and I figured one of us needed to keep their head on straight,” Dan answered with a pointed look.

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled back, taking a sip of whatever Dan had passed her.

“Don’t worry, loser,” Dan quipped. “It still has alcohol in it. Plus, I figured you might like that better, seeing as you’re like Phil here and don’t care for bitter drinks.”

“Right, I’m sure giving me a weaker drink was a totally selfless, caring choice.” Adaline looked skeptically at Dan, who anxiously passed his glass back and forth between his hands.

Phil took pity on Dan and decided to change the topic, taking the focus off him for a moment. “So, what are you doing in London?” he turned with a smile to Adaline.

“Err…” Adaline mumbled shiftily, her eyes darting to Dan.

“We’re doing a uni tour tomorrow,” Dan supplied. Really smoothly.

“That’s awesome! Which uni?” Phil knew that Adaline was important to Dan and he wanted to show that he was interested, that he could get along with Dan’s family.

“Imperial,” Dan said at the same time that Adaline answered, “Middlesex.”

“Um…” Phil uncertainly looked between the two of them. Had one of them gotten confused? Did they suck at communicating? What the hell was happening here?

“We’re touring two!” Dan said abruptly, looking a bit like a deer caught in headlights. “Middlesex in the morning and Imperial in the afternoon!”

Adaline nodded along quickly. “Yeah, yeah. I’m, um, trying to decide which I like more!” Something about the way Adaline said it sounded fake, like she’d decided that on the spot. But why?

Regardless, Phil decided it was probably best to drop that conversation, since it seemed to have sparked a weird vibe between the siblings. “I’m going to run to the loo,” Phil said, hoping that the tension would dissipate before he got back, and that maybe, just maybe, he could have a moment to think rationally without Dan touching him and causing Phil’s thoughts to scramble.

Dan tugged on Phil’s sleeve, catching his attention. “Will you get me a water while you’re up, Philly?”

“No problem. Adaline?”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Be right back,” Phil grinned before he turned away.

He only got a few feet from the table before he froze, realizing that he had no idea where the loo was here. He glanced around, searching the walls for a sign.

“Adaline!” Phil hear Dan hiss. “Since when are you interested in bloody Middlesex?”

“I’m not!” she whispered back. “I panicked and said the first school that came to mind!”

Phil spotted the bathroom sign and slinked away, hoping to not draw any attention to how close he still was to the table.

So he’d been right — there had been some weirdness when they were talking about why Adaline was in London.

But if it wasn’t for touring a uni, what was she here for?

**************************

By the fourth drink, Phil could feel the rum loosening his tongue — something he should probably be concerned about, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about. In his tipsy state, he turned to Dan and finally asked a question that had been plaguing him since yesterday.

“So, how was breakfast this morning?” Phil drawled, looking curiously at Dan.

Okay, it wasn’t the exact question he’d wanted to ask, but it would hopefully still get him the answer he was seeking.

It wasn’t until Dan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously that Phil remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know about breakfast. All Dan had said was that he’d “socialized” this morning.

“I didn’t realize I’d told you I had breakfast plans,” Dan said in a tone that made it clear he definitely knew he hadn’t told Phil about his plans.

Well, fuck.

“I — um, so.” Out of the corner of his eye, Phil could see Adaline’s eyes bouncing back and forth, back and forth between him and Dan. Phil scrambled for a moment, trying to find something he could say to cover his arse. But his tipsy mind couldn’t land on a good excuse before his tipsy tongue took over. “Look, cards on the table. I might have overheard you and Louise talking yesterday.”

Phil wasn’t sure what he was expecting from Dan — maybe him to be angry that Phil had been eavesdropping, maybe a chiding remark. He definitely wasn’t expecting Dan’s eyes to widen all the way and a look of panic to cross his face. But that’s what he got.

“The whole conversation?” Dan looked well worried about something.

Oh, you know, just the part where Louise was demanding to meet some guy in your life and you wouldn’t let her into the coffee shop. And the small part where you both were freaking out about whatever the hell your breakfast plans are. But no, no...

“No, why?” Phil said instead. If the look on Dan’s face was anything to go by, Phil should definitely not confess to how much he’d overheard. Which was… interesting, given the content of it.

A wave of tension appeared to wash out of Dan’s body, his shoulders untensing and his fingers unclenching from his glass. “N-no reason.”

Phil didn’t believe that for a moment. He’d let it slide though, for now at least.

“Breakfast didn’t happen though,” Dan said cryptically, not elaborating oh why breakfast didn’t happen or what breakfast was supposed to have been.

Adaline, for her part, was starting at Dan just as studiously as Phil was, which led Phil to believe that not only was breakfast something Adaline knew about, but he was right in his suspicions that it was supposed to have been something.

Phil knew he probably shouldn’t, but he decided to push his luck. “Oh, why not?” He hoped he sounded nonchalant, and not like he had an underlying motive for trying to figure out more information.

Dan breathed out a long sigh and knocked back half of his drink.

For a moment, Phil was worried that Dan wasn’t going to answer — or worse, that Dan was going to tell Phil to fuck off and that Phil shouldn’t be pestering him with questions about something he’d overheard.

Dan pleasantly surprised Phil, though, when he confessed the truth. “Well, the whole point of breakfast was to dump Isabella.” His voice was quiet, his words slightly slurred, and his eyes concentrated on his glass, but the meaning of what Dan had said rang loud and clear.

Breaking up with Isabella. As in, Dan making himself single and available. But —

Shit. Dan hadn’t gone to breakfast. Phil latched onto that fact, trying to make his brain wrap around what that meant — that Dan probably hadn’t gone through with his plans to break up with her.

Why? Why was the world being so cruel to Phil?

“Did you change your mind, then?” Phil asked, aiming to maintain his casual demeanor, but there was a wobble to his voice that was surely betraying his true feelings: panic and disappointment.

“What?” Dan’s head snapped up from his glass, looking at Phil in alarm. “No!” he corrected hastily. “I ended up breaking up with her last night.”

Oh.

Oh my god.

A million emotions rushed through Phil, and he wasn’t sure which one he should be paying the most attention to. He was relieved, so fucking relieved that Dan was single. That Isabella was out of the picture. He was worried, worried that Dan was upset or heartbroken about it — or worse, that there might have been some truth to the picture Phil saw on twitter last night.

But above it all, Phil felt a wave a clarity. If Dan had broken up with Isabella last night, that casted his actions in the last twenty four hours into a whole new light — Dan giving Phil his phone number seemingly out of the blue, Dan being much more forward tonight, Dan’s thigh currently pressing into Phil’s.

Were all of those things connected to the fact that Dan was now single?

Dan’s eyes bored into Phil’s, looking like they were trying to stare into his soul, like they were trying to communicate something.

Looking like they were confirming everything that Phil was thinking.

Against his better judgment, Phil’s heart soared. He should wait until he’d heard verbal confirmation from Dan, he should wait until Dan was single for more than a mere day.

He should wait.

But he couldn’t.

“Mum said to pass on her congratulations, by the way,” Adaline said with a smirk. The tension — the sexual tension, Phil was pretty sure — broke between Dan and Phil as they boy whipped their heads around to face Adaline. From the surprised long on Dan’s face, Phil wagered Dan had forgotten that Adaline was there just as much as Phil had.

Dan shook his head, seemingly pulling himself out of whatever thoughts he was having. “Mum is congratulating me for getting cheated on?” He sounded somehow both bitter and humored.

“So it’s true, then?” Adaline asked softly, the smile draining from her face.

Dan’s gaze fell and he fiddled with his napkin. “Yeah, it’s true.” There was no emotion left, he just sounded defeated.

“I’m sorry, bear. That sucks,” Adaline murmured, rubbing her hand against his forearm.

“It’s fine,” Dan said with a forced smile, fake positivity in his voice. His efforts to seem fine about that aspect of it were painfully transparent. “I was going to end it anyway. That just made it — you know, easier to do.”

“Still,” Phil chimed in, “That sucks. I’m sorry it had to end like that.”

“I mean, yeah, me too.” Dan took another long sip of his drink, almost draining it. “But, hey, the outcome is the same, right? And it made me feel justified in doing it on Valentine’s Day, so at least there’s that.”

“Oh god, how far did you get in your date before things went awry?” Phil asked, horrified.

“Ugh,” Dan groaned. “All the way to the end. I actually DMed you right after I left her apartment.”

“Uh!” Adaline interjected indignantly. “Excuse me, did you really DM him before calling me back, Daniel?”

The ashamed look on Dan’s face was enough of an answer. “Um, maybe. It’s not like it took long!” he defended.

“Excuse you,” Adaline crossed her arms defiantly, but in her tipsy state, she misestimated her movements and ended up smacking herself lightly in the shoulder, which seriously reduced the effectiveness of the action. “I”ll have you know that you’d given me a right scare after demanding I call you with a fake emergency and then ignoring my calls for nearly an hour.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Phil interrupted before Dan could further defend himself. “Did you really make your sister call you with a fake emergency so you could leave? Are you fourteen?”

“See!” Adaline cheered too loudly. “Phil agrees with me, you were being a baby.”

“Look,” Dan tried to explain, his hands waving around a little more wildly than normal. “You guys don’t know Izzy like I do. She doesn’t take very kindly to having her… sexual advances turned down—” Oh god, Phil thought, the alcohol had clearly loosened Dan’s tongue as well. “— and by that point I’d used up every excuse in the book.”

“Oh,” Adaline’s brows furrowed. “Was she just really not taking no for an answer last night?”

“Er, not quite,” Dan mumbled sketchily.

“Dish. What are you getting at?” Adaline demanded, banging her hands noisily on the table in earnest.

Phil was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear this. Whatever details of his sex life that Tispy Dan decided were appropriate to share were probably things that would only make Phil feel like shit. Briefly, Phil considered excusing himself to the bar to buy another round, or maybe even to go to the loo for the third time that night. Anything to avoid having to listen to Dan talk about sex with Isabella.

But Dan answered before Phil could do any of those things.

“More like over the past month. I’ve kind of been avoiding that for a while now.”

“I’m sorry, you wh-what?” Adaline choked a little on the liquid she was trying to swallow.

A month. Dan had been avoiding having sex with Isabella for a month. Out of all the things Dan could have said about his sex life, that had to be the most surprising one. He was dating a model for god’s sake, why hadn’t he to have sex with her for a month?

Nevertheless, Phil was glad. He had no claim to Dan, but knowing that he hadn’t been sleeping with Isabella for a while now… well, it was a relief.

“It’s not that big of a deal, okay.” Dan gave her a sharp look. “It just… hasn’t felt right—” His eyes flickered over to Phil, lingering for a moment, before returning to Adaline. “—for a while now. So I, you know, haven’t.”

Shit. Phil froze, staring at Dan long after Dan had returned his attention to Adaline. The way he looked at Phil, the heat that was in his eyes, made Phil feel like maybe he was the reason Dan didn’t feel right sleeping with Isabella.

“Oh my god,” Adaline gasped. “I —”

“Drop it, Addie,” Dan said tersely. “Enough about the demise of my shitty relationship.” His voiced lightened up some, turning almost teasing. “Now tell us about this date that you may or may not have had tonight that you were so easily persuaded to bail on.”

Well that certainly made it sound like whatever Adaline was in London for was because Dan had asked her to be. That explained why they were so weird about the uni tour thing, at least. It was odd that they felt the need to lie about why Adaline was there to Phil, but his alcohol hazed mind couldn’t come up with any possible explanations for it.

And clearly, Dan was too far gone to keep up pretenses about why Adaline was here.

“I just wasn’t that interested in the bloke, that’s all.”

“You not have a great Valentine’s Day either, then?” Dan asked.

“Huh?” Adaline looked perplexed for a moment before recognition dawned on her face. “Oh, no. Not that. Um, don’t judge me and go all big-brother.”

Dan raised his eyebrows expectantly. Phil had flashes of what Dan might be like in full big-brother mode, and hoped that he might get to see a glimpse of it.

“The bloke from last night was good. We’re going out Sunday. Tonight was going to be a, uh, different guy.”

“Adaline!” Dan admonished. “Are you really dating around? I thought we’d already talked about the dangers of sleeping with more than one person at a time! What if one of them has something? You need to be a bit more careful!”

Evidently Phil was getting to see big-brother Dan after all. He found it funny that they were apparently so open about sex, but yet Dan was still being protective.

“I’m being safe! Chill, bro.” Adaline chugged the rest of her drink. “Oh looky there, I’m all out of beverage. Dan?”

“You’re a piece of work,” he mumbled to Adaline, before swallowing the rest of his own drink. “I get us another round then, eh?” Dan poked Phil again, forcing him to let Dan out. Dan poked lower than he had last time, missing his ribs and hitting the soft, ticklish bit of Phil’s stomach.

On instinct, Phil spun towards Dan, catching Dan’s hand in his own, a giggle tumbling out of his lips. “Dan!”

“Oh dear, is Philly ticklish?” Dan’s other hand came around, poking Phil in the same spot, causing him to squirm. Phil’s free hand flew out, snagging Dan’s other hand. “Oh dear, he is!”

Dan wrestled with Phil a little, trying to wiggle his hands free so that he could poke Phil again. He succeeded in loosening Phil’s grasp enough that he was able to launch forward and poke Phil again, his chest crashing into Phil’s arm. Phil folded in on himself, trying to protect his sides from Dan’s attack, causing Dan’s chest to slip from Phil’s arm to his back.

“I give, I give!” Phil managed to say through his giggles.

“You’re no fun,” Dan said, the laughter in his voice contradicting his words. The hand he’d broken free from Phil’s wrapped around the front of Phil’s waist, pulling him into a hug. Dan rocked him back and forth lightly. “You’re silly, you spoon.”

Phil leaned back into Dan, feeling so warm in Dan’s arms, but was startled by an obnoxiously fake coughing attack from Adaline.

“I’m still here boys. And parched.”

Dan’s face heated up. “Sorry, sis. I’ll be right back.”

Phil started to slide out of the booth to let Dan out, but Dan’s grip on his hips tightened, holding him firmly in place. For a moment, Phil was baffled at what Dan was trying to do, unable to make sense of how the heck Dan was planning to get out of the booth if Phil didn’t move.

But then, it became very, very clear how Dan was planning to get up.

Still pressing Phil into the booth, Dan’s opposite leg swung across Phil, and, suddenly, Dan was straddling him.

Time froze.

Phil’s vision, which had previously been slightly blurred from the alcohol, focused sharply on Dan. Dan, who was properly in Phil’s lap, his head towering above Phil’s, his eyes gazing down at him. Phil stared back up, forgetting that the rest of the world still existed. Instinctively, Phil’s eyes dropped down to Dan’s lips, and he thought about it. He thought about saying fuck it, about closing the distance between them and pressing his lips to Dan’s. When Phil dragged his eyes back up Dan’s, he found that they were looking downward — like Dan was looking at Phil’s lips, like Dan was thinking about the same things.

“Fucking hell, Dan,” Adaline cried, sounding outraged. Her voice broke the trance between them, pulling Dan and Phil out of their own little world and back into the crowded, noisy bar.

“Right, sorry,” Dan murmured, far too quietly for Adaline to hear. His eyes searched Phil’s face one last time before he gave Phil’s hips a quick squeeze and climbed off his lap, abruptly heading for the bar.

Phil shifted in his seat. He had just enough inhibitions left to be embarrassed to face Adaline after that blatant display of flirting.

“So,” Adaline pounced on Phil the moment Dan was out of earshot.

“So…” Phil trailed off, unsure of why Adaline was looking so eager — and hesitant to find out.

Adaline crossed her arms, leaning forward on the table to inspect Phil. “You’re cuter than he normally goes for,” she said with a waggle of her eyebrows and a knowing smirk tugging at her lips.

Phil just about spat the ice cube he was chewing on out of his mouth. I’m what now? He tried to make his brain focus and think through all of the rum that was currently clouding his sense of rationality.

Did she mean that Phil was cuter than the girls Dan had brought home in the past? Because last time Phil checked, he hardly thought he compared to a damn supermodel. But, also, it was weird to compare the attractiveness of guys and girls, right? Did that mean — ?

Did that mean Dan had brought home guys before?

“Sorry?” Phil eventually spat out unintelligently. He was completely lost for more complex thoughts.

Adaline snickered — she knew exactly what she was doing to Phil. She clearly had information about Dan, his dating life, his history with boys that Phil didn’t know. And she was taking full advantage of her position of power.

Goddamn, her and Dan were too much alike.

“When it comes to guys, I mean. They’re normally, well, less cute. Don’t tell him I told you that though.” She winked furtively at him. “I doubt he’d take kindly to me drunkenly spilling his secrets. That’s definitely not why he invited me here.”

Phil’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t completely sure what to make of what Adaline was saying, but his heart was already skipping a beat, and his stomach was turning over. What Adaline had just said — it made it sound like Dan had definitely dated boys before.

“Oops!” Adaline covered her mouth dramatically, her voice dripping with feigned innocence. “Gee, whiz, did you not know that Dan’s bi?”

Phil’s heart had skipped a few beats before, but now it was downright pounding. The shock of what Adaline was implying — basically saying, at this point — was slowly starting to sink in.

So Dan had. Dan had definitely dated boys before — something Adaline had very intentionally just told him. That had to mean something for Phil, right? All of the things Phil had thought might be flirting, the way Dan had skirted around Isabella… That must mean something, then, right?

“I, um, no. Obviously,” Phil said when he was able to muddle through his drunken shock. He tried to organize his thoughts, tried to swallow his utter shock at having it confirmed that Dan was single, that Dan liked boys, to ask if all of that together meant that Dan liked him. “What did Dan invite you here for, then?”

Phil had to resist smacking himself in the forehead. That was an odd question to ask, given everything Phil had just learned, but okay.

To his surprise, Adaline cackled. “Actually, he wanted a babysitter.”

Phil rubbed his hands down his face, trying to get the drunk part of his brain to calm down so he could fucking process whatever the heck this was. What grown adult wanted a babysitter, and why? “Isn’t he, like, twenty three?”

Again, the wrong question to ask. Phil mentally kicked himself in the arse. Why was he completely botching this one moment he had with Drunk Adaline to learn more about Dan’s life?

“And asking to be babysat by an eighteen year old?” Adaline chucked. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” Phil’s brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of that. Adaline seemed to find the situation as funny as Phil did. “Uh, why?”

Well, it lacked sophistication, but at least he was finally asking a worthwhile question.

“Apparently he didn’t want to drunkenly drag you back to his place to fuck.”

What in the —

If Phil was shocked by everything Adaline had said so far, he was completely floored by that.

A hot rush of arousal shot through Phil at the very mention of that, and he forced himself to shake it away as best as he could. Those weren’t thoughts he should let his mind drift to while he was sitting across from Dan’s sister.

Okay, fine, Adaline had said that Dan liked guys — that was great. And she’d implied that Dan liked Phil, which, okay, fantastic. But to explicitly say that Dan wanted to fuck Phil — that was a whole new level that Phil wasn’t prepared to hear.

He did his best to swallow his shock and respond to Adaline. “I — he what?”

Adaline narrowed her eyes, evaluating Phil, the slight upward turn of her lips a pale ghost of the raucous smirk it had been a moment before. She nodded slowly. “Listen up, though.” Her voice was sharp this time.

Phil’s eyes widened at the fast change in her attitude. “What?” So far, Adaline had been nothing but chipper and easy-going, so the quick shift to reprimanding took Phil by surprise.

“That kid,” she nodded to the bar where Dan was waiting in line for the bartender, “I’m not sure who that kid is.”

Phil opened his mouth to defend Dan. Dan was so insistent on getting to know his younger sister better, and hearing her say that she didn’t know Dan made Phil want to launch into a diatribe about how hard Dan was trying. But Adaline cut Phil off before he could start.

“I know Dan, well,” Adaline rushed on to say. “And I like this new version of him,” she clarified, sensing Phil’s desire to stand up for Dan. “But I’ve never seen him like this before.”

Phil cocked his head, trying to make sense of what Adaline was saying. The Dan that was here tonight didn’t seem that different from the Dan that Phil was used to. Sure, this Dan was a bit more forward, a bit more flirty than the Dan that Phil had previously gotten to know, but that could be easily accounted for by the fact that this Dan was single. That didn’t seem to explain why Adaline found the boy at the bar nearly unrecognizable.

“What do you mean this kid?” Phil forced out, hoping to figure out what the heck Adaline meant.

“The guy who doesn’t want to sleep with someone immediately after breaking up with someone else?” Adaline pointed out incredulously. “The guy who’s saying that he doesn’t want to fuck up a relationship by moving too fast and jumping into sex before he’s ready? I’ve never heard him say those things before you.”

Phil was dumbfounded. It didn’t seem possible that Dan was doing all of these things for the first time solely because of Phil. “You mean, he’s acting different… because of me?” Phil asked stupidly.

“Yes, you idiot, because of you.” Adaline rolled her eyes, just like Dan. “Apparently he’s determined to do whatever this—” she waved her hand vaguely towards Phil, “—is right.”

“Oh,” Phil breathed, unable to keep the wide, beaming smile off of his face. Dan had just ended a rather long relationship — it was downright dickish of Phil to be happy at this moment.

And yet, his heart felt like it was racing faster than a plane about to take off, his body was tingling more than if every single limb had gone numb at once, his stomach was turning over like he was strapped into a never ending roller coaster.

“No, don’t smile yet,” Adaline reprimanded. “I’m not done talking to you.”

Phil’s eyes widened in fear, but he couldn’t make the smile completely go away.

“Like I said, this is new. I’ve never known him to not be sleeping with someone.”

Phil’s eyes flickered away briefly, more uncomfortable with the idea of Dan sleeping with someone — anyone — than he’d like to admit.

“But that being said,” Adaline continued without any respect for Phil’s feelings, “He’s Mr. Fucking Monogamy — in case you couldn’t tell by his reaction to me seeing two guys at once.” Adaline shook her head in exasperation. “I know he’s happy to be done with Isabella — as are the rest of us, frankly — but if I know him at all, I’m willing to wager that getting cheating on is probably hurting him more than he’s letting on.”

“Of course!” Phil rushed to assure her. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I got cheated on, even if it was in world’s worst relationship.”

“Exactly.” Adaline stared at him pointedly. “Which is why you need to need to back the fuck up here.”

Phil was startled — whatever he’d been expecting the point of Adaline’s lecture to be, that wasn’t quite it. He worried at his inner lip, drawing it between his teeth and biting harshly. Did that mean Adaline thought Phil wasn’t good enough? Was Adaline saying that any possibility of a relationship with Dan was off the table?

“What do you mean?” Phil asked worriedly, trying to conceal just how deep his anxieties were running.

“I mean that I can’t drop everything and come to London every damn time you two hang out, so I’m going to need you to be respectful of the fact that at least sober Dan wants a little bit of recovery time before—” she waved at Phil again, “—this. Do you think you can do that?”

“I, yeah, of course. I just…” Phil searched for a way to articulate everything he was thinking, “Want him to be happy,” he finished lamely.

“Then wait a bit,” Adaline implored. “Let him come to you — sober, I might add.”

Wait.

Not fuck off entirely.

Just, wait.

Phil could wait. For Dan, Phil would wait until the damn sun burnt out if that’s what it took.

“I can do that,” Phil smiled.

“You smug git,” Adaline teased. “You’re too happy about the fact that he definitely likes you to give a fuck about waiting, aren’t you?”

“Basic—” Phil was cut off by Dan’s return.

“Here we go, lads.” He set the drinks he was carrying down on the table, sliding each one to the right spot. “I forgot how busy this place gets on Friday nights.”

“Mmm,” Phil hummed as he took a sip of his fresh drink, hoping to avoid having to say anything for a moment so that he could process everything Adaline had just told him. And maybe to hide the stupidly big smile currently sat on his face.

Luckily, Dan took control of the conversation, as he was often want to do. And, like always, Dan proposed something that threw Phil for a loop.

“I want to tweet,” Dan bursted out abruptly. “Can I tweet?” He turned first to Phil, then to Adaline.

“Hey,” Adaline raised her hands in surrender, “I’m not here to police your public life.” She sent a wink at Phil that Dan was, in all probability, too drunk to notice.

“What do you want to tweet, Danny?” Phil asked. In general, Phil had no opposition to tweeting — but also, Dan could probably ask for the moon and Phil would start knitting a big enough lasso, so maybe he wasn’t the best judge.

“Ughhh,” he whined. “Please never call me Danny again. She called me that all the time, and if I ever have to hear that nickname again, I’ll fucking die.”

“Sorry,” Phil apologized. “Dear.”

Phil received a swift kick in the shin from Adaline for that, but it was well worth it when he watched Dan blush and mumble, “I like that a lot better.”

A burst of warmth rushed through Phil’s chest at the genuinely content, flattered look Dan had on his face.

Phil cleared his throat. “So, dear—” another kick to the shin — that was definitely going to bruise, not that Phil really cared that much. “What do want to tweet?”

“Us! And our drinks!” Dan exclaimed, looking more like an overjoyed child than he had any right to at this moment in time. Phil picked up Dan’s phone off the table, grabbing Dan’s hand without asking and pressing his thumb to the home button to unlock it. Once it was unlocked, he opened the camera and slid the phone across the table to Adaline.

He turned his attention back to Dan. “What are we doing in this tweet?”

In response, Dan pushed Phil’s Dark ‘N Stormy into his hand, picking up his own drink. “Hold it and look at the camera,” Dan ordered.

Obediently, Phil raised his glass to his mouth, dramatically taking a sip for the camera. Dan held his up at the same level as Phil’s, giving the camera a knowing look. The camera clicked loudly half a dozen times while Adaline took several version of the same picture so that they had some to pick from.

When Dan deemed there to be enough options, he made grabby hands for his phone, taking it back from Adaline.

“Help me decide which to tweet, Philly.” Dan pulled Phil in by his sleeve. Even though Phil could feel Adaline’s drunken watch on him, Phil let himself lean in ever-so-slightly to Dan. Not enough to warrant another kick in the shin from Adaline, but enough so he could smell Dan’s cologne better, enough so he could feel the warm heat radiating off of Dan’s body, enough so that he felt a little bit all consumed by Dan.

“I like that one,” Phil murmured near Dan’s ear when Dan swiped over one that was a good balance of silly and cute.

“Perfect,” Dan smiled, sharing it to a tweet. He gnawed at his lip for a moment before typing your fave lads are at it again, tagging Phil, and hitting tweet without taking any time to look it over.

***********************

Four hours and five (strong) drinks later, both Phil and Dan had surpassed tipsy and were properly drunk. Adaline, who’d showed up late and was a drink behind, had a bit more sense intact — but not by much.

“What do you think, lads, one last round?” Dan proposed.

Phil looked at Dan, his eyes struggling to focus clearly. “Okay,” he found himself agreeing anyway. Phil moved to push himself out of the booth.

“No, no, no, no. I think you’ve both had enough for tonight,” Adaline interrupted, catching the sleeve of Phil’s jumper and pulling him back down.

“But Adddieeeeee,” Dan whined.

“But Daaaannn,” Adaline whined back, teasing.

Dan raised his hand to the side of his head nearest Phil, only sort of successfully blocking Phil’s view of his face.

“Addie,” Dan whispered loudly, doing a piss-poor job of not letting Phil hear what he was saying. “I don’t wanna leave Phil yet, though.”

Phil’s heart melted. He didn’t particularly want to leave Dan either.

“Too bad,” Adaline mocked Dan, whispering back equally loudly and not even attempting to keep Phil from overhearing their conversation. “I didn’t drag my ass to London just for you to go home with him.”

Dan petulantly crossed his arms, huffing out an annoyed sigh, but didn’t fight her any further.

“And on that note,” Adaline giggled, “I think it’s bedtime, eh?”

“Probably for the best,” Phil agreed. As much as he adored getting to see this drunken version of Dan, as much as he definitely wanted Dan to come home with him, there was just enough left of Phil’s rational brain to know that tonight was not the night for that. Not tonight, not tomorrow night, maybe not even any night soon. Phil knew Dan needed time.

Time that Phil was willing to give him.

Adaline stood up, offering a hand to Phil. Phil gratefully accepted the help, letting her pull him to his feet. It had been a while since he’d stood up and — wow. The world rocked for a moment. Not having another round was the right decision.

Phil turned around to face Dan, who was staring helplessly up at him.

“Come on,” Phil said, grabbing Dan’s hand in his and tugging gently as Dan got up. The combined momentum sent Dan crashing into Phil, the two of them swaying precariously. In sync, their hands reached out to steady each other, Phil’s landing on Dan’s hips and Dan’s grasping Phil’s shoulders.

The rocking world faded away. All Phil could see was chocolate curls, and espresso eyes, and strawberry lips.

“Philip!” A voice behind him said sharply. Phil whirled around, knocking one of Dan’s hands from his shoulder. Adaline was stood close by, her hands on her hips and a reprimanding look on her face. “Behave!”

“Oops!” Phil ripped his hands from Dan’s hips, stepping backwards, his embarrassment practically radiating off of him.

“And to think, I’m the teenager,” Adaline mumbled.

“Sorry…” Phil apologized half-heartedly. His eyes drifted away from Dan, from Addie, and to the far corner of their booth, where the three of them had hung up their coats.

“Coats!” Phil exclaimed, smiling brightly at his own helpfulness.

Phil handed Adaline her coat before slipping his own on. He plucked Dan’s off the hook, spinning Dan around by the hips so his back was to Phil. Taking much more time and care than necessary, Phil helped Dan into his coat, slowly sliding each arm into the hole and slipping the jacket up his shoulders. When the jacket was on, Phil twisted Dan back to face him, and took Dan’s zipper between his hands.

The alcohol made Phil’s fingers clumsy and sluggish. It took three tries for Phil to successfully thread the zipper into the pull, his eyes focusing on Dan’s once it latched. Unwilling to let go of Dan just yet, Phil tugged the zipper up as slowly as he could, savoring every second of being close to Dan that he got.

Everytime Phil saw Dan, he could his stomach flipping over, his heart racing, his face threatening to break into a smile for no reason other than Dan’s presence. Tonight had been no exception, and now, holding Dan in place so closely to him, every single one of Phil’s feelings was amplified. He never wanted to move away.

But nonetheless, he had to eventually. Phil closed the zipper the final few centimeters, tugging slightly at Dan’s collar, just for something to do.

When Dan was tucked securely into his coat, Phil turned around to see Adaline watching them in amusement, shaking her head at their antics.

“Let’s get out of here, lads,” she said fondly.

“Phil needs an uber!” Dan exclaimed.

Oh yeah, Phil lived a lot further away than Dan did. Phil moved to fish his phone out of his coat pocket, but Dan already had his own in his hand, calling an uber for Phil.

“Here, Philly, put your address in,” Dan ordered, passing Phil his phone with unsteady fingers. Phil took the phone from Dan, taking four attempts to correctly type his address in the destination box. Two minutes, the app warned when he hit confirm.

“Thanks,” Phil handed back Dan’s phone, turning towards the exit. Dan’s hands came to rest on Phil’s lower back, pushing softly, guiding him towards the door. Adaline trailed behind them, following them outside.

Phil stopped by the curb to wait for his car. To his surprise, Dan stopped next to him — right next to him. Just a few small centimeters away.

“It’s cold,” Dan mumbled, maybe in explanation for why he was hovering so close to Phil.

“I know,” Phil agreed, wrapping his arm around Dan under the guise of providing warmth. And he did feel warmer. Maybe not physically, but there was an internal warmth washing over Phil that he’d never felt before. Phil grinned down at Dan, who’d tucked his head into the crook of Dan’s neck, and pulled him impossibly closer.

They stood like that until Phil’s car came. Phil half expected Adaline to interfere, to tell Phil to take a fucking step back, but when Phil glanced over Dan’s shoulder at her, she was smiling fondly at them.

When Phil’s car pulled up next to them, Dan drew back, but not quite all the way.

“I had a good night, Philly,” he whispered sweetly, eyes searching Phil’s face. Dan’s tongue darted out, licking his lips. Phil’s eyes followed the movement closely.

He should step back, he should give Dan the space that Adaline insisted that he needed.

But before Phil could make himself do it, before Phil could force a bit of space between them, Dan was leaning in slowly, swaying the slightest bit. Phil was rooted in his spot, unable to even move his head.

Dan closed the distance between them, pressing a sloppy, wet kiss to Phil’s cheek. His lips lingered a moment, his hand finding Phil’s and squeezing briefly.

Phil squeezed back. It was the only way he could manage to show his appreciation for the moment. Dan pulled back, finally stepping all the way out of Phil’s embrace.

A hot blush spread over Phil’s face, and, not for the first time that night, Phil felt like a teenager with his first crush.

“Me too, Dan,” Phil smiled softly, climbing into the back of his uber, his hand coming up to touch his cheek as he felt the ghost of Dan’s lips on him.

Me too.

a/n: i can’t WAIT to hear y’alls thoughts xoxo

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

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sachigram · 7 years ago

Text

Redolence ch. 1

((click here to read on ao3))

Dirk remembers a time he loved his apartment. It's spacious for the price, and it isn't run down, which is exactly what Dirk needs in a place. He has various projects strewn all over his space, but he's usually pretty good about navigating through it. Most importantly, it's quiet. Or it used to be.

People are always coming and going through the building, but Dirk has managed to learn who most of his neighbors are. Like him, they keep to themselves, but Dirk receives plenty of friendly nods in the elevator and in the hallways. It wasn't a surprise when his old neighbor across the hall moved out, but Dirk was sad to see her go. She used to bake extra cookies and other treats to give him. He didn't have an interest in meeting the new person who moved in a couple of months ago, but now he wishes he'd introduced himself.

His new neighbor is a pain in the ass.

Dirk groans and pauses his programming as the smoke alarm next door starts blaring again. It's the third time just this week, and Dirk thinks his neighbor has no idea how to cook and is probably a hazard to themselves. Huffing, he slides away from his workbench and walks across the hallway, knocking on the door.

“Yo, has anyone ever told you the smoke alarm isn't a timer? You're supposed to take the food out of the oven before it burns,” Dirk says crossly, folding his arms and wondering if his mysterious neighbor will open the door and greet him.

“Apologies!” The voice is frazzled and Dirk can hear movements inside. “I'm a horrid cook! It'll be off in just a tick, mate! If I could just—ah! There we are!”

The beeping stops. Dirk rolls his eyes and goes back into his apartment, closing the door behind him. It's fairly late and his eyes hurt from staring at a damn screen for hours on end. He decides to make a quick snack and call it a night.

The first thing Dirk notices when he wakes up is muffled shouting, followed by banging and crashing. He sits up in his dark room, running a hand through his destroyed hair. He was sleeping hard, and he's pissed off that something woke him up. He listens for a moment and flinches as the shouting grows louder, and it sounds a bit like someone is being thrown bodily against a wall. He swings his legs off the bed and hurriedly pulls on some sweatpants, opening his door into the hallway in time to see a pissed off behemoth of a man pass him and storm towards the elevator, cursing vehemently at all the heads of concerned tenants peeking out of their apartments, woken by the commotion. Dirk watches him go for a moment and decides to check on his neighbor, whose door is wide open.

He knocks on the open door before walking in, observing a small framed man smoking by the open window, his body battered and bloody. Dirk can't see his face, but he's willing to bet it isn't a pretty sight.

“Shit dude, you okay?” Dirk asks.

“Spiffy,” the man says, flicking some ashes right onto the floor.

“Do you want me to call someone? The police maybe?” Dirk frowns when the guy laughs at him.

“No, I don't think that's necessary. My ex already left. He won't be back.” The guy finally turns to face Dirk, and Dirk feels the world fall out from under his feet. “Sorry for disturbing you again. I'm sure I gave you quite the fright—ah.” He stops talking and squints at Dirk, his green eyes just as beautiful as Dirk remembers.

“Jake?” Dirk asks, his mouth dropping open. Jake gapes at him and finally gives him a shaky grin, some blood dribbling from his split lip when he does.

“Small world, eh?” Jake asks bitterly, tossing the still lit cigarette onto the floor. “I've often wondered when I'd see any of our old gang again, but I was hoping for a much sunnier meeting.”

Dirk whirls around towards the elevator the muscular prick stomped into, his fists curled. He starts to go towards it when a hand grabs his bare shoulder, stopping him.

“There's no need, Dirk. He's gone. This was the only way for this to go,” Jake says softly. Dirk turns to him, his heart breaking when he sees just how horrible Jake truly looks, even beyond his injuries. He's always been smaller, but he looks emaciated now, and like he hasn't had a decent night's sleep in years.

“What... Jake, what the fuck?” Dirk finally manages.

“It's late,” Jake says. “You were sleeping, I'm sure. I'm fine now.”

“Like fuck I'm going back over there right now,” Dirk says, unwilling even to let Jake move away from him. He hasn't seen Jake in years, hasn't even heard his name since the end of high school, the end of all things good in Dirk's life. Jake disappeared days before graduation, never to be seen or heard from again.

“Dirk,” Jake murmurs, shaking his head. “Really, this isn't the time for all of this...”

“Sure, fine, whatever. No time, got it. Come on.” Dirk grabs Jake's hand, pulling him out into the hall, closing Jake's door behind him. He leads Jake inside his own place, dragging him to the bathroom where he wets a rag and hands it to Jake, watching him concernedly.

“You're ridiculous,” Jake mumbles, wincing as he cleans the gashes on his face.

“Makes two of us then, huh?” Dirk narrows his eyes, unable to help it, his brain full of so many questions it wants to burst. “I'd ask how you've been, but I'm guessing it's been shitty based on how you look.”

“You think I look shitty?” Jake frowns and pauses his ministrations, looking up at Dirk. “Well. I suppose things have been better. Not for a long while now, but at one point.” He sighs and stares down at the floor.

“You're staying here tonight,” Dirk says with finality. “If that douche goes back over there to kill you, I'd like to be able to know I at least made an effort to help. You can go later.” Dirk's concern is being replaced with the bitter anger he's had since Jake left without explanation all those years ago.

“It'd have been better if he killed me,” Jake says simply, grinning up at Dirk like it's a joke between them. “I admit I wanted him to. A part of me. That's why I set things up as I did.”

“You're drunk,” Dirk says, smelling the alcohol on Jake's breath. “You used to be such a stickler for health and now you're drinking and smoking and apparently hooking up with real winners who use you like a punching bag. I'm sure Jade would be proud.”

Dirk hates himself for it as soon as it's out of his mouth, but when Jake flinches as if he's been hit again, Dirk feels his anger die entirely, dig its own grave, and release swan songs of apologies. It was a low blow, especially to say to someone who looks like Jake does now.

“Gramma died at the right time then, don't you think?” Jake asks in a small voice, tears in his eyes, and Dirk doesn't think, can't think, only wants to help. He steps forward, pulling Jake to him, listening to the small gasp Jake gives before his arms wrap around Dirk in turn. Jake smells like he always has, like everything Dirk loves in the world and can't have, and Jake's nose is freezing as it presses into Dirk's neck.

“I'm so sorry,” Jake sobs, his voice muffled, and Dirk shushes him, not wanting to go into any of this now. He leads Jake to his bed and helps him get in, covering him up and hovering over him awkwardly, not knowing what to do here. Jake wraps around a pillow and cries into it, and Dirk wants to crawl in behind him, to hold him like he used to, but Jake left. Jake hurt him, hurt Roxy, hurt Jane. Dirk shuts the light out and goes to his couch, flopping onto it, wondering if he'll get any sleep at all.

The next thing Dirk notices is daylight, as well as some light shuffling coming from behind him. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sits up to see Jake wearing one of his shirts, holding a rag and scrubbing at the counter top. He freezes as soon as he notices Dirk's eyes on him, and he smiles sheepishly. In the light of day, he somehow looks even worse.

“I just—well. I thought it'd be awfully rude of me to leave before you woke up and...tidying up a bit seemed like a nice way to thank you for your help.” Jake rubs at his neck, and Dirk wants to tell him to stop smiling because it's stretching out his busted lip, but Dirk doesn't say anything.

Instantly, Jake gets noticeably restless.

“I woke you up, didn't I? I woke you up last night, too. I'm sorry. I don't sleep much these days and... I should've just slipped out without disturbing you.” He looks down at the shirt he's wearing. “Mine was ruined so I threw it in the bin. I'll...give yours back, I promise. Though you'd probably like me to wash it first, heh.”

It dwarfs Jake almost comically, though it's really not funny at all when Dirk remembers Jake wasn't always so tiny. Short and thin, yes, but now he just looks gaunt and fragile, barely fits into the frame Dirk remembers.

“Keep it,” Dirk finds himself saying. He doesn't mean it to sound as short as it does, but Jake's face falls nonetheless. He nods grimly and lets go of the rag he's been holding onto.

“Right then. I'll... I'll do just that.” He goes to the door and hurriedly wrenches it open, and doesn't even turn around as he adds a quick “you know where to find me.”

Dirk finds himself alone, and he sighs, falling back onto the couch cushions before he decides it's for the birds and gets up to shuffle towards his bed instead. He tries to ignore the fact that his sheets smell like Jake, but he fails miserably, and when he sleeps at last he dreams of the way things used to be, when everything was fine and Jake didn't look like he's seen death around every corner he's come across.

It takes Dirk a little while to contact Jane and Roxy about Jake. They'd all been inseparable throughout school, often frequenting each other's houses. They'd been devastated when Jade died and even more so when Jake disappeared, and it was unspoken between them all not to mention anything about the English family, since it was still an open wound.

Dirk is on speakerphone with Roxy, Jane in the background on Roxy's end when he finally says something.

“Jake is my neighbor,” he blurts, tactful as ever. There's a pause on the other end.

“Jakey?” Roxy's voice is a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“The neighbor who always keeps you up?” Jane's voice is closer to the phone now. “That does sound like Jake.”

“He doesn't seem like Jake anymore,” Dirk says. “He got the shit beat out of him by some guy he was—seeing. He's like a ghost now.”

“When was this?” Roxy's back now, her voice shaking.

“Bout a week ago,” Dirk replies.

“A week?! Dirk, god! Is he still there? Have you seen him since?”

“No. I don't know what the fuck to say to him. I'm sure he feels the same way about me.”

Jane and Roxy make plans to come over soon, as they have a few “choice words for Jake English” according to Jane, and Dirk regrets mentioning Jake's presence in the apartment building, but some nights it's all he can think about, the fact that Jake is across the hallway, alone and fragile, probably smoking and barely eating or sleeping.

Dirk is up late working on some coding one night when he hears raised voices across the hallway again, and his blood runs cold. Without thinking he grabs a shitty gimmick samurai sword Dave sent him and crosses the hall to Jake's door, barging in without knocking.

The burly guy is there again, and he glares daggers at Dirk, and Jake is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, looking tired, but otherwise alright. He smiles pleasantly at Dirk.

“Hello there. Sorry for another disruption. Caliborn was just leaving,” he says, gesturing to the muscly dude like he's nothing more than a mosquito.

The guy, Caliborn snarls down at Dirk before heading towards the door.

“Have fun with him. He's a fucking slut,” he spits before slamming the door loudly enough that it echoes around them.

“In his defense,” Jake says softly, “I did cheat on him. It wasn't really for anything other than to get rid of him.”

“Jake,” Dirk says, his eyes closing as his brows furrow in frustration. He just...wants to pick Jake up and shake him. Shake him hard until Jake is who he used to be.

“But in my defense, I'd already tried breaking up with him. He didn't take it well.”

Jake hops off the counter and moves to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. He looks at Dirk and snorts.

“You brought a sword?”

“There...wasn't really time for rationality,” Dirk defends. Jake laughs, and it sounds the same as it used to.

“I appreciate the hustle. I'm fine. He came for his things and he won't be back.”

“Maybe change the locks?” Dirk offers.

“Maybe,” Jake says flippantly.

Dirk has so many questions. He can't think of what to ask first, or how.

“He didn't hurt you?” he asks at last.

“Not this time,” Jake says.

“You—since when do you...”

“Like men?” Jake hazards. “Quite a while, I reckon. Not like my taste accounts for much.” He fishes out another cigarette and starts to move towards his window. Dirk catches sight of an ashtray filled to the brim with cigarette butts, and knows his assumption about Jake chain-smoking was pretty spot-on.

“Jake,” Dirk begins again, trying to choose his words carefully despite his anger. Jake looks like he's a few harsh words from breaking and Dirk's never truly wanted to hurt him, even if Jake has hurt Dirk more than he'll ever know. “What's going on? Where'd you go?”

“It's a rather long story, “ Jake says, not bothering to look away from the window. The bruises on his face have healed to an ugly, yellowish color, but his eyes are still all wrong in a way that has nothing to do with physical injuries.

“Don't you owe me that much?” Dirk asks bitterly before he can stop himself. Jake smiles.

“I suppose I do. I owe you quite a few things. Seems like I'll be a disappointment to you yet again, because I don't feel up to hashing all of this yet.” Jake finally looks over at Dirk again.

“You'll lose your security deposit, smoking in here,” Dirk blurts.

“Oh, fuck the deposit,” Jake huffs. Dirk grins in spite of himself.

They encounter each other more often afterwards, though Dirk isn't hopeful enough to think Jake plans these things. A few times Dirk has come back home to pass Jake in the hallway, and they exchange pleasantries. The smoke alarm blares less often, and Dirk still knows Jake well enough to figure Jake just unhooked the damn thing rather than learn to cook, though it's possible Jake was also setting it off so frequently by smoking inside.

After a week of not seeing so much as a glance of Jake, Dirk starts to grow a little concerned, but before he can plan any accidental meetings, Jane and Roxy are at his doorstep, Tupperware containers of food in hand.

“Which one does he live in?” Jane asks, her jaw set.

“Uh,” Dirk says.

“Just tell us, or we'll start knockin',” Roxy warns, and Dirk just points across the hall. The girls both march over and start bombarding the door with knocks until Jake answers, his eyes wide and a...cooking pot in his hands?

“Oh,” he says softly. “I thought... Erm. I wasn't expecting anything pleasant, based on those knocks. Apologies.”

“You'd better do a lot more than apologize,” Jane says angrily, but then Jake opens the door entirely and gives them all a gander at his small, sickly frame. The circles under his eyes are practically purple and his eyes are duller than last time Dirk saw him, but still Jake smiles and motions inside. Roxy sobs and tackles him, almost knocking him down. Jake just holds her, and Dirk is pretty sure he's crying too.

Jake was always a crybaby.

Jane starts heating up the food in Jake's microwave, which is filthy. It's clear Jake microwaves most of his meals, which he admits range from Hot Pockets to cans of soup, yet he still manages to burn half of what he makes.

Once they're seated for dinner, the girls start bombarding Jake with questions. He's only picking at the food, not looking at any of them.

“I just...” He swallows and then shakes his head. “I wanted to disappear. I never imagined you'd all find me.”

“I thought you were dead,” Jane spits, and Jake winces. “I told myself that was the only way you'd go all these years without so much an email. Yet here you are, alive and—not well. But still, you're alive.”

“I am,” Jake admits in a soft voice, and Dirk's heart clenches, hearing the words Jake doesn't say, which sound a lot like 'despite my best efforts'.

“Gramma died,” Jake says. “We were all graduating and I just... I didn't have a school to go to afterwards. All of you did. I thought, best case scenario, I'd end up living with one of you and being a freeloader. I wasn't about to ruin any of your lives.”

“Jade left you money,” Jane says, her blue eyes like ice. “I know she did.”

“She did,” Jake agrees. “Enough to leave, but not much else. Gramma was a genius, you know. She would've been well off if not for me. She inherited me through my mom's will and had to cut her studies short. She didn't have much money.”

“My brother,” Dirk says, staring Jake down across the table. “He has more money than he knows what to do with. We would've—“

“Yes, I'm aware,” Jake snaps. “I didn't want your bloody charity, especially when I knew you'd never give it to me and leave, Dirk. You would've stayed with me and thrown your future away. Or worse, brought me with you, and I'd just bring you down like I did Gramma.”

“Where is this coming from?” Roxy asks, her eyes still wet. She hasn't said a word since they sat down. “Jade didn't... She didn't think that. None of us did. None of us knew you did!”

“Yes, well, it's safe to say we all didn't know each other as well as we thought,” Jake says acidly, finally looking up. He stands abruptly, rattling the dishes still piled with food he's barely touched. “I need a moment.”

He moves across the room to the balcony door and exits without even putting on a coat. Dirk can see him lighting a cigarette through the window, and he sighs softly.

“What's wrong with him?” Roxy asks, and Dirk knows she doesn't mean it cruelly. Her eyes are wide with concern, and she's looking expectantly at Dirk.

“How am I supposed to know?” he asks defensively.

“Oh, please,” Jane scoffs. “You know Jake better than anyone.”

“Maybe I did before,” Dirk says, “but I don't know him anymore. I don't know what to say or do. I'm just as lost as you guys here.”

“At least go make sure he's okay,” Roxy says, ignoring the baleful look Jane shoots her. “He's more used to you than us and...he shouldn't be alone. At least take him a damn coat.”

Sighing again, Dirk travels to the balcony, grabbing his own coat on the way. Once outside he drapes it over Jake's shoulders, and Jake flinches as it snaps him out of whatever self-deprecating thoughts he was festering in.

“They mean well,” Dirk says, crossing his arms and thanking his past self for putting on his most comfortable and warm sweater today. It's freezing outside, and Dirk's breath is fogging in the air almost as much as Jake's cigarette smoke.

“Don't tell me what they mean,” Jake mumbles. “I know them, too. I'm not just meeting them.”

“Look, okay, whatever this is, they have the right to be mad. They—“

“I never asked for them to show up!” Jake snaps, whirling on Dirk. The fire is back in his eyes, and he looks more beautiful and pissed than Dirk's ever seen him. “I left and I bungled up all our relationships, I get it, but damn it, I never asked for any of you to come here! I never asked for forgiveness! I never crawled up to any of you, on my hands and knees, begging you to dig into your hearts and forgive my faults and remind me of all I ever did wrong!”

Dirk admits Jake was definitely ambushed tonight, and as angry as he is at Jake, it really wasn't fair to do this to him.

“I didn't plan it,” he says. “They just showed up. I...told them you were next door because, well...they thought you were dead, Jake. We all did, for a while. They needed the closure, at least. And even if they're mad, they love you. They're trying to understand. And...that goes double for me.”

The implications hang in the air between them. Jake rolls his eyes, ignoring them.

Like always.

“Did you know Gramma kept a journal?” Jake asks, changing the subject.

“Most scientists do.”

“Not a scientific journal. A personal one. I found it when she died and I was going through her things.” Jake flicks some ashes away. “I was having a hard time of things, you know. Missing her. Wondering what the hell I was going to do next. She wrote about me.”

“She loved you,” Dirk says, unsure of where this is going.

“She thought I was worthless,” Jake says. “She wrote about my rubbish grades, my lack of college acceptance letters, her concerns that I was relying far too much on you to figure out my life for me.”

Dirk doesn't know what to say. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“And I knew all those things,” Jake continues. His lips tremble, not just from the cold. “I knew she had to have those types of concerns. But...then she got sick. And her entries were less and less, few and far between when she wrote about regrets. Regrets her research and work got cut short. Regrets she inherited me and I took up all her time.”

“Jake...”

“And I was doing the same thing to you. You would've let me, Dirk. Wherever you went, you would've carried me with you. Just like she was fucking worried about.”

“So you just left. Without a word.”

“There was nothing to say.”

Dirk glares at him, wanting so badly to scream at Jake until he hears him, listens whether he wants to or not, and also to punch him.

“And still, there's nothing to say,” Jake murmurs, looking down at the city below. “You've all been fine without me.”

“Like fuck, Jake,” Dirk hisses. “We mourned you. We—I—missed you so fuckin' much. And then I finally see you again to find out you've just given up on your life? You let dudes push you around and use you and you look like shit, like you died along with Jade.”

“Maybe I should have.” Jake laughs humorlessly.

Dirk grabs him by the shoulders and takes note of the way Jake flinches again, like he hasn't known a kind touch in years. Dirk thinks of the bodies who have had Jake in the way he never has, who have used Jake and thrown him over things, into things, just to have their way with him before leaving him alone. Dirk thinks of Jade's words in Jake's mind, making him think he never deserved more than that.

Dirk thinks of how even now, he loves Jake more than he's ever loved anything, and how he would rip himself into pieces to make Jake whole again.

“Things can change. You aren't dead. You...must be doing something right, okay? You live in this building, which isn't cheap. So you at least have a job, right?”

Jake snorts. “I work in a gas station. Caliborn made good money, which is why I moved here with him. Funny how he's the one who left, but I think he's hoping I'll get evicted.”

“So...all your money is going to rent.”

“Basically. At least I get discounts on cigarettes, so there's a silver lining.”

Dirk moves his hands from Jake's shoulders and pulls him into a hug instead. Jake doesn't hug back, but he leans bodily against Dirk, which is almost as good.

“Hot pockets aren't a healthy dinner, even if they're cheap. So come eat what Jane cooked before I force feed you,” Dirk mumbles into Jake's wild hair.

“Kinky,” Jake comments, but he follows when Dirk turns to go back inside.

The rest of the meal is more civil, and Jake noticeably relaxes when no one asks him personal questions anymore. Jake used to be pretty self-involved, or at least wanted them all to think he was somewhat of a confident person. None of them are under that assumption anymore, and Dirk has been kicking himself for not noticing sooner how little Jake seems to think of his own life.

Roxy regales them with stories about work. She's an editor, which always sounded boring to Dirk, but nothing involving Roxy is ever boring. After a few of her stories and a few glasses of wine, Jane warms up enough to speak to Jake without glaring at him. She's an accountant, and one day she still plans to open up her own bakery.

“Dad was right about the accounting degree though,” she says breezily. “I can just handle my own books later on.”

“She handles mine when I do business on my own,” Dirk informs Jake. All of them have had a bit too much to drink, but Dirk is closer to being wasted than he remembers being in a long time. He keeps leaning against Jake, speaking into his ear, inhaling his scent when he can.

“I saw your various gadgets strewn around your place. I assumed you made robots, like you always wanted,” Jake says.

“You assumed right, Jake fuckin' English,” Dirk slurs, and Roxy laughs while Jane takes Dirk's wine glass from him. “Lots of machines and lots of computer programs.”

“Like you always wanted.” Jake smiles. “I'm so happy your life is what you dreamed. All of you. You're all so accomplished.”

Dirk wants to say his life isn't what he wanted, because Jake looks so sad and thin and breakable, and the life Dirk wanted involved Jake being there with him for everything, happy and healthy. Jane interrupts before he can voice this.

“I really hate to be a party pooper, but we do have work in the morning, Rox,” she says, nudging Roxy, who is smiling sadly at Dirk across the table.

“Yeah. Yeah, we didn't mean to stay so long. It's just been so good to see you, Jakey,” Roxy says.

They all stand, and they make plans to have dinner soon. Jane is speaking softly with Jake when Roxy makes her way over to Dirk.

“Oh, Di-Stri. Look at you. You're so drunk,” she says fondly.

“I don't usually drink. Damn. How much did I have?”

“Not much at all, you lightweight.” She lets him lean on her, which is nice because then his brain doesn't have to focus on standing up straight.

“He looks better after tonight,” Dirk says, motioning to Jake. “I'm glad we did this. I mean, you guys scared the fuck out of him, but I think this was...good.”

“I'm worried about you,” Roxy says softly, and Dirk looks down at her confusedly because why worry about him when Jake is over there, clearly a walking disaster?

“When Jakey left...you took it hardest. Which was understandable, Dirk but...if he leaves again, I don't want you to be broken like you were then. Promise me you'll keep on your toes. When you're sober, that is,” she amends when he starts to wobble.

“I'm fine, Roxy. I learned my lesson back then.”

“Did you? Because the way you look at him says you still love him.”

Dirk stills because he never mentioned to anyone how he felt about Jake, but he should've known Roxy and Jane knew. They always understood him without him having to say much. Roxy hugs him, standing on her toes to better reach him. She kisses his cheek.

“Take care of yourself,” she says to him before she goes to say goodbye to Jake.

When they leave, Dirk realizes he's alone with Jake in Jake's apartment, and Dirk is drunk off his ass. He should go home. Should go home and sleep and not have any regrets in the morning.

“Jesus, Jane left a hurricane of food in my kitchen,” Jake grumbles, bustling around to put things up. “She has plans to fatten me up, which just sounds devious to me.”

“I don't have the life I want,” Dirk blurts, startling Jake into turning to face him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Before, when you said you were happy for us for living how we want? I don't. I don't live how I want. I don't have what I want,” Dirk says, moving closer to Jake as he speaks. Jake smiles confusedly.

“Well, I've never known you to not just take what you want.” Jake chuckles and starts to clean again. “You'll figure it out. You're a genius after all.”

“I wanted you,” Dirk says, and everything seems to get really quiet afterwards, like the aftermath of a loud explosion. Dirk can hear his own blood rushing in his ears.

“Dirk,” Jake sighs, his eyes closed. “You're drunk.”

“I wanted you. I— Fuck, Jake! I loved you so fuckin' much. And I thought you just...were straight or whatever since you spouted that 'no homo' bullshit like it was never gonna go out of style but now I regret not tellin' you sooner.” Dirk sways on his feet. “You have these jerks who treat you like shit and I...I could show you...”

“Dirk, please,” Jake says. “I can't hear this.”

“You never want to hear it. You can say now that you don't want me, and I'll go. Just give me an answer, Jake, cause this is torture.” Somehow he's ended up in front of Jake, who has to hold him up, lest he faceplant.

“I don't want to torture you...” Jake whispers, his eyes so fucking sad. Dirk dips down and presses his lips to Jake's, just a brush, and Jake's breath sighs out, his hands clenching in Dirk's shirt. It's like a dam breaking between them, and then Dirk's mouth is back on Jake's, heavy and hungry, kissing deep and probing because Jake lets him, opens for him and gives where Dirk pushes. Dirk's hands thread through Jake's hair, and he pushes until Jake's back is against the refrigerator, and then Dirk kisses him harder.

“Dirk...” Jake whines into their kiss. He gasps at Dirk's hands trail down to his ass, where they knead and squeeze roughly. “Dirk...!”

“I love you,” Dirk whispers between them, pulling back to look into Jake's eyes. “I can't stand not sayin' it anymore. I'd give you anything, Jake...”

Jake shakes his head, his eyes full of tears. “No... Dirk you can't fix this, okay? I can't let you try. I won't let you give up anything for me. I'm not worth it! This is exactly what I wanted to avoid.”

“Wait...” Dirk looks down at him. “You knew...? You knew I loved you?”

“Of course I did. I'm not an idiot.” Jake's words are defensive, but he's still crying, and he looks so guilty, Dirk feels his anger rising.

“And you just left? This whole time, you knew? Do you know what you did to me when you left?”

“I wasn't going to stay and watch you find out you're too good for me,” Jake says, and Dirk's arms drop to his sides limply.

“You broke my heart. And I at least thought...you didn't know you were doin' it,” Dirk slurs. “You just didn't care?”

“Of course I cared! You—you're a genius, Dirk! Was I supposed to let you settle for me? Bring you down like I bring down everything? I couldn't do that to you!”

“Right so you ruined your life for me? That makes me feel so much better.”

Jake's lips are still red and wet from Dirk's attentions, and even now, Dirk thinks Jake is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

“You're drunk,” Jake says again. “You don't mean any of this.”

“Would you stop decidin' what I do and don't mean?! Fuck you, okay, you don't seem to know one thing about me if you think this is what I wanted. This is all fucked and you're the one who did it.”

“Dirk...”

“No, whatever, I'm drunk, so I'll go. Leave you alone, like you want.” He stumbles blindly from the apartment, slamming the door behind him in his fury.

Jake doesn't follow him.

#dirkjake #dirk strider #jake english #homestuck fanfiction

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ezrathesplit · 7 years ago

Text

I can see the resemblance.

Uraraka had seen and heard a lot of things along her training and career as a hero. Clothes getting ripped apart in more than one inconvenient spot. Dealing with random hits of crazy quirks that made you speak only the truth, be turned into an animal or become the opposite sex, normal stuff. Also her classmates' more than unique ways of proposing either after dealing with the kidnapping of several people including their boyfriend or after a building almost fell down on them. Yeah this guys seemed to need near death experiences to pull the ring out.

She especially remembered the worst moments in which a comment to out-of-place, mostly by too enthusiastic fans, made her want to float out of the atmosphere.

She was still slightly creeped out by that time a girl had asked Froppy to marry her.

Today hadn't seemed one of those days, the villains had been successfully captured after their leader was sent flying against an abandoned building and promptly knocked out. But that also brought down most of said building so now it was time for damage control. While she juggled with bent metal and ridiculously big slabs of concrete, sidekicks were being checked by paramedics; the police was busy keeping curious onlookers out of the area.

She gave a silent wave to Shouto, sorry Freezer-burn, who waited patiently for his husband to finish his own check up. Uraraka held back a chuckle as the freckled man furiously tapped on his phone as a young doctor looked him over, flashing a quick smile with every answer he gave. She felt bad for the poor pal trying to remain calm in front of "hero Deku", he was totally oblivious of the effect he had on people after all.

Suddenly the latter's face shifted into something between surprise and....a great need to cry? She wasn't sure, all she knew is something on the hero phone had caused him to slam it down to the ground, special phone case of course, and hold his hands against his mouth in a silent scream. The doctor was freaking out too now great.

" What just happened ? " She asked Shouto in utter confusion for her friend was still in shock, he just shrugged as he retrieved the phone from the ground and dusted it off.

" Izuku ?" He said shaking his husband softly which seemed to finally snap him out of the stupor. " Did something happen ? "

" W-What? Oh! No no not at all why would you say that everything is totally fine, I'm fine as well as you so everything is just dandy. " Replied Izuku rubbing his neck nervously and a slight tint of color coming to his cheeks. " Just...something my mom sent me that's all." He mumbled taking the phone and unlocking the screen .Uraraka tilted her head in confusion as she peered over Shouto's side, damned height difference, at the gallery.

..........

...........

...............

Uraraka now understood why Izuku had gone through mental combustion moments ago. There were several pictures of his three-year old twins wearing class 3-A's hero merch. She gave a quite uncharacteristic squeal as the next picture was of Haruki wearing a Uravity onesie holding himself up against the mirror, his messy mint green curls stuck out awkwardly from the hoodie almost blocking his view but still wore a big smile.

"Ilovehimsomuch." she gasped almost making her self float as she clasped her hands together.

Shouto chucked softly as he went through the different pictures, hanging on long enough at one of the children wearing their own hero merch. Sayuri holding tightly a green and black cap too big for her head while Haruki beamed at the camera in symmetrical red and white shirt.

" Oh look Bakugo would love this one." Laughed Izuku pulling out a video and pressing play."Best impresion I have ever seen."

The red and white-haired girl was standing on the sofa with a pillow held high over her head as she hovered over he oblivious brother. Uraraka noticed her hair pulled back by a black and orange hair band that matched her shirt.

" Die!" She cried striking Haruki from behind, who in return tackled her into a pile of clothes on the ground. Before the video got cut off Inko could be heard in the background pleading whoever was behind the camera to stop filming, along with a laugh from a third person.

"Should I be concerned ?" murmured the odd eyed man nevertheless smiling softly. Most people assumed the little girl would resemble Shouto the most, having already the bi-colored hair and mismatched eyes but he would insist she had more of Izuku including being an utter fangirl that could easily cry during the news.

"Nah she's fine." chuckled Uraraka shuffling through the pictures on her own as Shouto chided his husband for believing for a second that leaving the twins with Katsuki Bakugo had been a good idea.

"DEKUISTHISREALLYYOU???" She suddenly cried startling the pair as she shoved the screen under their noses. Shouto just glanced back and forth from the phone to his husband, who was currently groaning and hiding his face behind his gauntlets. There were actually four pictures, the first two focused on a little boy wearing different All Might onesies and the next of the twins wearing the exact same clothes.

"No wonder they're such dorks you were just like that even as baby!" she gushed at her friend, quickly sending herself all the photos, perfect blackmail material. "I need this framed on my wall."

"Make that two frames." teased Shouto leaning against Deku. " I need a new one for my office. "

"Please stop. "whined the freckled hero. "How did they even find those things ??"

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

- Hours before the photos were taken-

There was suddenly a loud crash and a pair of sobs soon that made Inko drop the kettle, thank god it was empty, she had been holding and rush to the room were the sound came from.

On the floor she found her two grandchildren sobbing like it was the end of the world surrounded by boxes and their spilled content.

" I'm sorry" sniffled the little girl, pressing her head against Inko's chest once she had calmed down. Turns out the pair had gone exploring and gone into Izuku's room. There they had found many boxes of different sizes stacked inside a closet, at the very top one labeled "toys". Inko wasn't sure how it even happened but they had managed to reach the top and in the process brought down the whole cardboard pyramid.

Now she had two teary grandkids clinging to All Might actions figures, many notebooks scattered on the ground along with plain white t-shirts and some yearbooks.

" Its alright sweetheart, the good thing is that neither of you got hurt. " She murmured carding her hair through her unruly hair. " Why don't you and your brother go play while I clean this up ?"

" W-We can help you clean up gamma!!" Piped Haruki pulling on her cardigan with one hand, the other secured on a bunch of notebooks and a toy. He hadn't managed to said gramma at the very first try so now she was a letter of the Greek alphabet.

Inko chuckled softly and nodded in reply. " I can tell you two about your dad when he was just your age while we're at it. I bet there are some albums around here."

Both children cheered loudly, they loved hearing about their parents shenanigans.

She hadn't expected to find Izuku's baby clothes to be in that mess or that both children had the urge to try them on.

Lunch was quickly forgotten as Inko was pulled to the nearest store to look for kid sized hero merchandise, having previously called in reinforcements.

#bnha #im a dork #that wrote something #>:"))))#tododeku children shenanigans #deku can't handle having passed on the fanboy syndrome #uraraka is loving it #shouto just stares silently

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verybadhedgehog · 7 years ago

Text

A Pleasure To Work With

A (completely non shippy) fic about Kylo Ren and his TIE Silencer test team. Premise: he gets on perfectly fine with the men and women of Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems. They like and respect him, and he provides them with excellent technical feedback.

(I hope you like tedious descriptions of what I imagine prototype testing / flight testing / race car testing is like, because that’s what this is, punctuated with some faintly amusing examples of General Hux Being A Dick For Absolutely No Reason)

(can also be found on AO3 here)

Supremacy, Officers’ Wardroom Two, 2235h Friday

“Who are those guys?”

Chief Petty Officer Talget Rees put down her glass of Navy Long. “Which guys?”

“Those. On that table over there. With the unfastened jackets.”

“Oh, them. Yeah, you see the patches under their First Order insignia?”

“Hold on…” Petty Officer Dantrey squinted. “Oh yeah. Is that Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems? Light’s not the best in here.”

“Yeah. That’s the development team for the TIE Silencer.”

“No way? The Silencer? Wow. So they work with Kylo Ren?”

Rees grinned. “Yep.”

“Wow. They look rather relaxed, considering. I mean, they must get force-strangled on a fairly regular basis.”

“Yeah, no, funny thing is: apparently not. Apparently he��s totally fine with them.” “Really?”

“Couple of days ago, I was talking to Engineer Suchran — that’s the tall guy there? Brown skin, sort of long face?”

Dantrey nodded.

“And I think her name was Endis — the woman with short hair, leaning over the table?”

“Yeah, I see her.”

“So anyway, they’d had a few drinks and they were chatting about him like it was no big deal.”

“Looks like they’ve had a few drinks now,” Dantrey said, looking at the tech’s table and its detritus of salt snack packets and empty glasses and beer bottles.

“Oh, go on, Talgs, introduce us. I want to hear Kylo Ren stories — and get details on the Silencer.”

Rees thought about it, then looked over to the table of Sienar-Jaemus techs. She made more deliberate eye contact with someone on the table, nodded, smiled, and stood up. “Come on, let’s go and sit with them.” She led and Dantrey followed along. One of the technicians greeted Rees, and they all made more space at their table for the two Navy officers to settle in.

“How you all doing?” Rees asked.

“Great, yeah.”

“Good session today?”

The technicians glanced between each other, and Rees realised she hadn’t introduced the newcomer. “This is Petty Officer Marco Dantrey, by the way. He’s into starfighters.”

“Well, I mean, who isn’t,” Dantrey said.

The team introduced themselves. Suchran. Endis. Judson. Meredith.

“Anyway, yeah, good,” Endis said. “Got a few key things sorted out since last test session.”

Suchran took the lead. “We made great progress, so I gave the team an order, no working late tonight. We’ve all earned some beers and snacks.”

“I bet you earn them, working with him.”

Endis laughed. “He’s really not that bad. Did your friend not tell you?” she said, and Dantrey tried not to make the wrong face. “No, it’s alright.” She took another swig of her beer. “You see him totally differently than what we do.”

Dantrey tried again to avoid making the wrong face at the Sienar-Jaenus woman’s rather loose syntax. He supposed that the First Order valued these people for their expertise, and therefore turned a blind eye to their unrefined speech.

“To you, he’s whatever, the Enforcer, all of that,” Judson said, making a dramatic gesture with one hand to illustrate. “To us, he’s a fighter pilot. And not just any fighter pilot, the best.”

“And he gives great technical feedback,” Endis added. “Pleasure to work with, to be quite honest.”

Another technician, Meredith, cut in. “Like, case in point, today we were — oh no, wait a second —“

“If it’s classified you don’t have to,” Dantrey said. “I wouldn’t want you guys getting in trouble on our account.”

“No, no, you’re alright. If I leave out the fine details, we’ll all be right.”

Suchran gave affirmation. Rees and Dantrey leaned forward.

“So, yeah. We were working on the thrust response, implementing some solutions we’d been working out —“

“Solutions I’d been working out.”

“— Yeah, solutions Endis and her guys in Production had been working out — and it was a good session, really. Kylo was happy, he gave us good feedback, some pointers towards further improvements.”

“And a happy KR means a happy team — so, beers all round,” Suchran said.

“Speaking of which, shall I get a round in?”

There was general agreement, and Judson stood, awkwardly gathered the empty glasses and bottles, and headed for the bar.

Supremacy, Hangar 16, 1400h Monday

Test Technician Meredith fired up the propulsion system. Chief Test Engineer Suchran and Test Engineer Endis checked system readouts together. Suchran asked for an update on initial heat exchange position, and Test Technician Judson delivered.

On time, test pilot Kylo Ren entered the hangar, black cloth flapping behind him. He looked around. “Just us in here?”

“Yep, just our team.”

Kylo unclasped his mask and pulled it off.

“Put it under here if you want,” said Endis, pointing under the consoles. She and Judson made room, and Kylo stowed his helmet.

“So,” he said. “Fired up and ready?”

“All ready. Just a quick look at the schedule,” he said, and offered a datapad for Kylo’s viewing. “We’d like you to run to the first four sets of beacons and back for three laps to get some thruster data, and then we’re going to try with weapons firing on the barrage targets.”

“Okay,” Kylo said. “I’ll stay out unless you need me to come back in.”

“That’s fine — just wait for my word before you start firing on the targets.”

“You think you’ve pinned down the issue with power draw down?”

“Yep. Just need the data and your feedback to be sure.”

Kylo strolled out to the Silencer, climbed on board and lowered the access hatch.

“Ready to depart.”

“Okay, Kylo, keep it on mode zero till you’re clear of the line.”

“I know.”

“And engine mode two after the line,”

“Copy.”

The Silencer lifted from the hangar floor and slipped out of the atmosphere containment field into the space immediately surrounding the Supremacy, at a modest pace with its thrust arrays only dimly glowing. A set of beeps on the test comm channel indicated that the TIE had passed the boundary delineating the test space, into which other craft were forbidden from passing during the test session (a source of consternation to some of the officers of the Supremacy, who needed to adjust docking routes for supply vessels and transporter craft).

“Engine mode two for the first lap, Kylo,” said Endis.

The rear of the TIE Silencer lit up in red and accelerated to a startling pace, rushing past a set of hover beacons.

Suchran, Endis and Meredith stood around a console, peering at the curves of a graph that drew itself with the TIE’s continuing flight.

“That’s looking better,” Endis said. “Let’s see how tight he takes the second beacons.”

“Definitely better under cornering. Still a gap there though.”

Suchran pressed a button on his comm device. “How’s it feeling in there?”

“Better than before. Could still be better coming out of a tight manoeuvre.”

“Okay, Kylo, copy that.”

“It’s maybe a tenth or less, but I need to have it immediately.”

“Yeah, copy that. Telemetry shows the same. Mode three for your second lap, Kylo. And you can throw it around this time.”

“Can do.”

On the third lap, Kylo called through on the comm channel. “Steering feels slightly loose in places.”

“Okay, Kylo, copy.”

Endis looked at the telemetry screen. “Worse response after acceleration/deceleration,” she said. “And where the throttle is already micro-lagging. Looks like part of the same problem.”

“Gets worse when he’s chucking it about. So could be mechanical,” Suchran said.

“Something physically loose in there?”

“Could be. Let’s bring him in.” He pushed the talk to cockpit button. “Kylo? If you could come back to hangar now, back to hangar.”

Kylo turned the ship around, reduced power, and coasted in to the hangar. He lowered the landing gear and the ship settled.

“Systems to minimum, please, Kylo.”

“Yeah, okay.” He climbed out of the hatch and leapt down to the ground.

“What’s the story?”

“We want to check connections to the thruster array. Something might be mechanically loose in there. Could take a while.”

“Physically cutting connection to the thrusters?” Kylo looked thoughtful and nodded. “That’s possible.” He walked with Suchran to the rear of the fighter.

“How was it feeling in there?”

“A loose, uncertain feeling in the steering, mostly in the z axis and a little in the x,” Kylo said, holding his hand flat out in front of him and wiggling it to demonstrate.

“After a corner, was that?”

“Yes. In the second part of a complex, especially.”

Two astromech BB units rolled up, and began undoing maintenance hatches on the belly of the fighter.

“Do you need me to… visualise?” Kylo asked, looking intently at the thrust arrays.

“We’ll take a look first, with the droids.”

“Alright. Let me know,” Kylo said, and he turned and walked to a corner of the hangar, where he sat down with his back against a wall.

Technician Judson tipped his head in Kylo’s direction. “What’s he doing? Nap time already? Or meditating?”

“I’d say eighty percent chance meditation. But you can’t discount nap.”

The BB units busied themselves under the fighter, and Suchran went to give them further direction.

A call came in from the bridge, interrupting him. He waved a hand at Endis to tell her to take over in his stead.

“Engineer Suchran? This is Captain Peavey.”

“Good day, sir.”

“Yes, quite. Ah — is this test session finished?”

“No, sir.”

“I see. It’s merely that we don’t see the Silencer in flight, and we would prefer to have anterior sector four space open…”

Suchran could hear another man’s voice fussing in the background.

“Give me the bloody comm — Engineer Suchran? General Hux.”

Suchran rolled his eyes. This was all they needed.

“Are you and Ren going to be flying that TIE or not?”

“The TIE is undergoing some modifications at the moment, sir, and Kylo Ren isready to get back on board.”

“What’s he doing now, if I might ask.”

“Meditating, I believe, sir.”

Hux scoffed audibly. “Well, I’m sure you’re all terribly patient and understanding with his mystical ways, although of course the rest of the starfighter corps seem not to need to indulge in his brand of relaxation.”

Suchran rolled his eyes again.

“How long do you intend to have that sector of space tied up?”

“Until 1700h, sir. As scheduled.”

Hux sighed. “Fine. What modifications are you doing, if I might ask?”

“Correcting a mechanical issue with cable routing, sir.”

“A mechanical issue? At this stage?”

“Issues can arise at various stages of the process, with a prototype, sir,” Suchran said, gritting his teeth.

He could hear Hux muttering to Peavey, off mic. “What are we paying these sums of money for if they’re still having mechanical problems — this is corner cutting at the front end stage, I could have half this done in-house.”

Suchran made a rude gesture at the comm device, grateful that it wasn’t a holotransmission.

“Alright. Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Hux said, a little sarcastically, and cut off the transmission.

Judson looked up from his work. “Was that the bridge?”

“That was Hux.”

“He does like to, erm, take an interest, doesn’t he?”

“He does. If you can call it that.”

Endis and the BB units emerged from beneath the fighter.

“We found the culprit, I believe. One cable bundle on the starboard side was tugging under its own weight. Two cable ties and some welding, and we should be good as gold.”

“Do we have images?”

“I had BB-9L take before and after images.”

“Good. Something to show to production.”

The BB unit trundled to a console, to upload its images.

It was time to start the flight test again, and Suchran knew the team had little time to waste. “Meredith! You go and get the sleeping prince, cos we’re ready to go, I reckon.”

Meredith sighed. “Oh alright. I’ll stand out of lightsaber’s range,” he laughed.

Kylo opened his eyes at Meredith’s approach, stood, stretched, and walked back with him.

“Issues fixed, Engineer?”

“We believe so,” Suchran said. “Time for a test and if all’s well we’ll go straight into the weapons power draw-down test.”

“Good.”

“One warm up lap and one full power lap and then we’ll start with the heavy lasers.”

Kylo climbed back on board and quickly had the TIE fired up and heading back out of the hangar.

Endis and Judson stood at their monitoring screens.

“How’s the thrust response, Endis?”

“We’ve lost the micro-lag, and laterals are looking good.”

Suchran pushed the talk to cockpit button to check in with Kylo. “How’s it feeling?”

“Better.”

“Under lateral acceleration?”

“Better.”

Suchran turned to his left. “Ready, Judson?”

Judson tapped on his screen. “Power cell readouts running.”

“Okay, good.” Suchran pushed the button again. “Alright, Kylo, we’re ready for the weapons power draw-down test.”

“I’ll come round from ship side.”

“Confirm that. Target one has shields fully up, ready to go.”

Kylo swung the TIE around and set off into the test space again.

“Okay, fire when ready on this lap.”

“Confirm.”

Long bolts of green laser plasma fired from the TIE’s cannons and dispersed on the shields of the target satellite.

“Heavy fire from both sides,” Suchran said.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m doing it. You don’t have to remind me.” He pummelled the barrage target with several more rounds of fire. “Fuck’s sake.”

Suchran cut the comm.

“Power cells discharging — smooth curve as predicted. Down to fifty five percent now,” Judson said, “and cells starting to recharge now.”

“Need to check if that’s from reactor or solars. Holding steady?”

“Steady at sixty percent approx, and he’s giving it plenty.”

“How’s the rector to ion drive throughput?”

“Steady.”

“Good. He’s gonna have a hole in the shields in a minute. I’ll call him off.”

“Kylo? That’s enough on the lasers.”

His fire ceased.

“You’ve got what we need?” he asked.

“Looking good from here, Kylo. Nothing to note on thrust or handling?”

“No. All responses normal.”

Suchran called the TIE back in.

Supremacy, Hangar 16, 1010h Tuesday

“Same runs as yesterday, but after the second lap, stealth field on. Four laps full stealth, then pop it back off and we’ll reestablish comms.”

“Two laps, then four laps full stealth, got it. Thrusters on mode two?”

“Mode two, but you can try mode three or five on one of your stealth laps. We’ll download data at the end but as far as handling goes I’m more interested in your report.”

Kylo raised the landing gear, and the Silencer departed the hangar to start his run-in laps.

Endis and Judson monitored their screens.

A comm from the bridge came through. Suchran hoped it wasn’t General Hux again. He hoped in vain.

“Are you lot flying that Silencer out there in stealth mode?”

“Yes, sir. We are conducting a test of the cloaking field.”

“I take it you have full permission for that.”

“Of course, sir. We have full authorisation. You signed off on the request —“

“Yes, of course I did. I simply find that —“ Hux lowered his voice. “Listen, do you trust him?”

“He’s a fighter pilot, your — our — best, sir. A fighter pilot engaged in necessary testing.”

“Well. So long as he doesn’t simply wander off, we’ll all be fine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see. Good. That’ll be all.”

Hux abruptly cut the comm and Suchran shook his head.

Endis glanced across at him. “Was that Hux again?”

“Yep.”

“What did he want? Or should I not ask?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Suchran said.

They looked at each other and shook their heads. Endis silently mouthed a rude word.

“He is, though,” Suchran said. “Don’t talk like that in front of your new Navy pals, mind you, or they’ll be sending themselves off to reconditioning.”

Meredith was standing close to the hangar exit, staring out into the void.

“I have a visual on the Silencer,” he called.

“You sure? By your eyes?”

“Yeah, just got a glimpse of him rounding one of the beacons. Absolutely nothing on sensors though.”

“Well, that’s good.”

After a few minutes, the Silencer suddenly reappeared on Suchran’s test space monitor, and telemetry graphs began to redraw themselves in front of Endis and Judson. The fighter approached the Supremacy for a good fifteen seconds before Kylo opened comms.

“Coming back in now.”

“Okay, give us your debrief when you’re docked.”

Kylo stood and described how the Silencer had behaved on his test run, hands moving animatedly as he laid out the movements and attitudes of the starfighter in flight.

“That’s meshing with what we expected,” Suchran said. “Give us a write up so we have that to take to Production along with the data download.”

“Of course,” Kylo said. Then he fixed Suchran with a questioning look. “Tell me, did you have any interruptions this time?”

“Yes. Just one.”

“Was it General Hux?”

“It was.”

Kylo grimaced. “He shouldn’t interfere. What did he want?”

“He wanted to know if we were flying in stealth mode.”

“He knows that. And he should go through the proper channels.”

“Technically,” Suchran said, “as I am leading the test team, I am the proper channels.”

“No,” Kylo said. “Fuck that. He’s doing this to get at me, but he can’t call directly to the TIE, yet, so he calls you. It’s pathetic really.”

“We answer questions as and when appropriate. We can’t exactly tell him to go away.”

“You could refer him to me.”

“If you like.”

“Tell him, the next time he tries to interfere, that I’ve given you direct orders to refer all questions to me. You’re under my command as much as his.”

“Yes. Sir.”

“Kriffing fuck. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be supervising progress on his own project.” Kylo looked up in the vague direction of the Supremacy’s bridge, and glowered. “Has he brought his hangers-on? “

“I did speak to Captain Peavey earlier on.”

“Peavey, huh. So who’s commanding the Finalizer? Ship’s cat?”

“No idea.”

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

The technicians made vague non-committal sounds of amusement.

“I’ll turn up on his project, see how he likes it,” Kylo muttered. “In fact, when we’re done here, I’ll go and speak to him.”

“If I could have your report first though. Sir.”

Kylo ran a hand through his hair and made a face. “Yeah. Of course.” He reached for his datapad.

Supremacy, Bridge, 1315h Tuesday

“Ah, Ren. Good to see you.

Under his mask, Kylo rolled his eyes at Hux’s insincerity. “You seem keen to follow me around, General.”

“Not at all.”

“So, what then brings you to the Supremacy?”

“I divide my time between the Finalizer, work on Starkiller, and the Supremacy, as you know.”

“And how much time would you spend on this ship if you were able to stay away from my fighter testing?”

“That’s none of your business, Ren.”

“No, Hux. It’s none of your business.”

“The equipment of First Order military is none of my business? My forces?”

“The First Order’s forces. You are not the Order.”

Hux stared at him, his face sour and pinched. “It is every bit my business.”

“You have hundreds of other lines of command to attend to before you come to a test program operated by external contractor personnel. Does your chief provisioning officer know you’ve gone over her head? Does Sienar-Jaemus’ liaison manager know you’ve gone over his head? Ignoring your other responsibilities to do so?”

“Don’t question how I lead and how I manage,” Hux said, suddenly blistering.

Ren barked a dry, distorted laugh. “All because you can’t leave me alone to pilot a starfighter for half an hour.”

“I’m taking an interest, Ren. I want to know how testing is going. I’d like to get progress reports.”

“You’ll get reports. Ask your chief provisioning officer.” He leant closer. “Yes, I do know what your organisation chart looks like.”

“Well done you,” sniffed Hux.

“So, don’t hassle my team again. I’ve given them orders to refer all your questions to me.”

“Oh, splendid. If I know they’ll refer to you, I shall make it my business to speak to them much more frequently. Thank you very much indeed, Ren.”

Hux turned and departed. Kylo clenched a fist and gritted his teeth. Hux would come to regret this.

#my writing #kylo ren #TIE silencer #Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems #crack-ish #spot the vague allusions to another KR and win my very best wishes

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