#anyway. i love seventeen with my all heart and im grateful we live in the same world

[ikigaisvt]

rewatched in the soop 2 and now i have the its song stuck in my head... also restarting in the soop 1 :D life is fun fun fun

[aintyourultraviolet]

YEN'S DAY < 8

Dearest Mariel,

First of all.. hallooo!! Sinadya ko talaga na-late bumati nang maayos para main character pa rin ako HAHAHHAHA anyways,,,, I don't plan to make you cry but sorry in advance if you will bc I'm gonna be pouring my heart out here. Hehehe. So here goes nothing,,,,,,,

Happiest Birthday, Ate Yen!!! You're literally my second fave ate (kasi first yung mga cousins ko huhu) anyways, I will never get tired of telling you these things: I AM ALWAYS PROUD OF THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE. ALWAYS. IM ALWAYS GONNA BE HERE FOR YOU.

I will forever be grateful for Regine because if it weren't for her hendi siguro kita makikilala. And also that salonpas thing!!!! LIFESAVER!! Crazy how it's almost a year when we first met but it feels like we've known each other for years. Maybe because we have the same wavelength (???) or because we understand each other and we literally have the same brain cells ( which is kinda scary sometimes siyet we need sheezus atp ) or maybe because we have this red string of fate. Maybe we're fated to be friends for life (??) maybe we were destined to meet. Idk but whatever that reason is, I am grateful for the chance you have given me to get to know you more. For unlocking your doors even though you already decided to lock them forever. For opening up your window again. For breaking your walls down.. ( I know this was one of the hardest things to do but still thank you). For letting me meet your life— Franco and Iñigo. Thank you, Ate. Thanks for being so kind. You may not know this but you don't know how lucky we are to have you by our side. REALLY. Idk if you're aware of this but you are indeed lucky. Lucky enough to have a kind and understanding heart that even if someone turns their back against you, you'll get hurt but you'll still understand them. It's a blessing and a curse tbh. But yea.. I hope you won't let anyone take that for granted. AND THEIR LUCKY TOO. SUPER BY SEVENTEEN. Anyways,, I am beyond grateful for all the things you did for me. Especially that one night. One specific night. Thank you for welcoming me with arms wide open that night. I was really scared. REALLY REALLY SCARED. I had to force myself to think that whatever happens I know you'll be there. It helped me little but my fears were stronger that night. But still, I conquered it because of you. You helped me beat my fears and I am forever grateful for that. There are a lot of times that I've conquered my fears with your help. Like literally a lot. Remember that night when I told you about my dad? It was my first time to tell those things I don't share with people. First time to open a fresh wound to someone.. because I know I needed to do that. I needed to release that for me to move forward and I am grateful that you were there that night. I was lost.. I felt the darkness again but thanks to you for passing me the torch of life. I had my hopes again. ): You saved me, Ate Yen. I hope you know that. I hope you know you are saving me everyday.. I hope I am too. (in any way.. )

When you're happy, something in me is healing too. (this is real.. seeing you guys having the time of your lives gives that satisfaction in me that even when I'm not in your lives anymore, even if I'm not included in your plans in the future anymore, I know you are happy. That is the healing part.) When you're sad, my heart aches three times.. my heart aches for you because I know you're kind and you don't deserve that kind of sufferings BUT I also know that without those sufferings, you won't grow out your wings.. Just like what John Green said in Paper Towns— Pain demands to be felt. Without them we won't grow. So let the pain come, my love. Let them come. Embrace them because you have me. Again, I am ready and willing to share half of your struggles so you won't carry them alone. I will walk with you in that path full of thorns until we reach that path of garden full of sunflowers and tulips and roses. And I know I've said this to the wrong person before.. I wanna say it to you.. because you deserve these words ( not patrick).. When someone cut you off out of their life, PLEASE don't hesitate to bring the end of your string to me. Bring the end of your string to me and I'll tie it with mine. I'll make knot that no one can break, not even my demons.

I hope you had a blast today, Ate. I'll make bawi to you when I come back. I know how much you love the sky as much as I love them so here's my gift ( for now huhu). I haven't uploaded them yet except for the plane fifth pic lol. I hope this will bring comfort to you when days are rough and it feels like the world is crumbling beneath your feet. I hope this will make you feel at ease when the voices inside your head gets loud and you need something to distract you. I hope this will give you fresh air so that you can breathe anytime when you feel tired. I hope you find light in these photos everytime the darkness tries to consume you. I hope this will remind you that not all endings are sad. I hope this will bring hope to you just like how it brings hope to me. I hope this will help you heal from the things you don't say to anyone.. I am hoping. REALLY hoping.

Notice how every sunset and sunrise is different from each other but they still give off that radiant color of orange-red-bluish shit color. Different sunset and sunrise but still the same sky. I'd like to say that that's how life works. That's how YEN works. Every struggles and hurdles you have in life is different. They have different levels of pain. But despite of that, you are still you. Yen is still yen. The only difference is, you become wiser the next time you face something very difficult again. You become stronger than you were before— like the radiant color of the sky. The more vibrant they are, the brighter and intense they are. More colorful. More eye-catching.. You give off that vibrant color to everyone. The reason why you are everyone's comfort person. I hope you are your comfort person too.

I have so many things to say, Ate. Like literally so many. But I'll save them for Christmas and New Year hehe. I was planning to give you a written letter but it will take time for you to receive it pa. I prefer to give you a written one rather than this. I'd like to burn and bleed these words to a piece of paper rather than typing them tho lol but either way naman, I know you'll still keep it. (:

I love you so much, Ate Yen. You help me get through everyday (alongside with btsvtxtencteez). One of the few person who pushed me to be the best version of myself. One of those people who believed in me. One of the few person whom I trust with all my life and One of the few person whom I let to see my naked soul. I love you with all my heart. See you soon! Happy Birthday, my love!

Please be happy, always.

—Jeanne.

[willsimpforanyone]

oooh i see your requests are open!! can i ask for tonynat with a sibling dynamic?? maybe older sister!nat making sure her idiot younger brother stays healthy?

im going to spam your inbox with requests, i hope you don't mind

omg omg hi!! you are so welcome to request anything you like as much as you want my love!

we're going back to 2012, with all the avengers living in the compound

slight tw, there is mentions of pills and drugs but it's just paracetamol, and nat and tony joke about implied death bc they're both depressed bastards and i love them

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

The compound was silent. It would be odd otherwise, Nat thought as she wandered the halls. The lights were usually motion activated, but Jarvis turned them off at night to not disturb those who were asleep, so she was free to walk around as much as she liked when the nightmares got to her.

Hang on. Not completely silent. Just down the hall from her, there were noises, like metal being screwed.

Nat frowned. No one else should be up. She padded her way along the hall, listening carefully for where the sounds were coming from. They led her down a flight of stairs with seventeen steps (it helped her anxiety after nightmares to count), past eight different rooms until she reached... Tony's lab.

She rolled her eyes, a fond smile playing at her lips, and she pushed open the door.

The man himself was sitting on one of the tables, a welder in one hand and some kind of small metal contraption in the others. Nat wrapped her cardigan around herself against the slight chill in the room.

"Hey."

Tony's head snapped round, only barely masking his surprise. "Hey Four-Legged Spider, what're you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep." Nat hopped up on the table opposite him. Now that she was closer, she could see that Tony was paler than usual, his skin shiny with sweat and his hands were shaking slightly. "What about you?"

"Me neither." He clocked her slightly worried expression. "You know me, always tinkering." He waved about the metal thing in his hand. "Just a little something for Captain Liberty And Justice."

"Tony, you look awful, go to bed." She aimed a kick at his legs, but she was too far away and it was half-hearted at best.

He merely smiled. "I'm fine, get out of my lab."

"Fuck off," she smiled back, no malice behind her words. "I'm allowed to be anywhere I want. Now get your ass off the table and come with me to the kitchen, I know you haven't eaten all day."

Tony groaned, but allowed himself to be pulled off the table and walked out the lab. Nat looped her arm in his, leading him down the hallway (past six rooms) and into one of the small kitchens, designed specifically for when Tony was an idiot and didn't eat for days on end.

"Sit, idiot," Nat pushed him towards a barstool next to the counter. "I'm making you food."

"You can't cook for shit," Tony laughed, steadying himself on the stool. Nat swatted at him, and started cutting bread.

"It's just toast, even I can manage that, asshole." Nat popped the bread in the toaster, and sat next to Tony. "I wasn't kidding when I said you looked like shit, Tony. When did you last get some proper sleep?"

He shrugged, looking worse in the fluorescent lights. "What counts as proper sleep nowadays anyway?"

Nat rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a 'definitely not recently'." She lightly punched Tony's arm. "We worry about you, y'know."

There was a pause, and the toast popped out the toaster. Nat slipped off the stool, retrieved a plate, knife and the butter from the fridge. Buttering the toast, she continued. "I worry about you. You're going to eat this, then taking some kind of medicine and going the fuck to bed." She slid the toast over to him.

Reluctantly, Tony began eating the toast. "Some kind of medicine?" He said, his mouth full. "That's vague and somewhat untrustworthy."

Nat grinned, winking. "I'm sure I'll find something for you to go to sleep for a long time."

Tony stuck his middle finger up, but grinned back anyway.

There was silence while he finished his toast, only broken when Nat took the plate away, washed it and put it back in the cupboard. She held out her arm for Tony to take, and the two of them made their way upstairs (two flights of stairs, each with seventeen steps and twenty-five rooms) to Tony's bedroom.

Nat dumped Tony on the bed, and padded over to the ensuite to rifle through the medicine cabinet. "Hey, you don't have much but you have paracetamol, want that?"

"Will it put me to sleep for a long, long time?" Tony's strained laugh followed his question, and Nat simply rolled her eyes. She grabbed the pills and filled the glass by the sink with water, carrying it out to Tony who was lying starfished on the bed.

"Get up bitch, take your drugs."

Tony groaned, but sat up, shooting Nat a grateful smile as he swallowed two of the paracetamol and chugged the water.

Nat took the glass and looked pointedly at Tony. "Now go the fuck to sleep before I make you."

"Ooo, I'm tempted by that threat, but unfortunately in order to sleep you need to get out and go to bed yourself so off you go, Cherry Bombshell, you need your beauty sleep." Tony made a shoo-ing motion with his hands, and threw himself back in the bed.

"Oh piss off," Nat grinned. Her smile softened. "Goodnight Tony."

He smiled back, just as softly. "Goodnight, Natasha."

She backed out the room, and closed the door with a tiny click. There were nine rooms between the two of them, and she counted as she walked to her own room. Her nightmare anxiety hadn't gone away, but she was more tired, less filled with adrenaline than she had been half an hour, forty-five minutes ago.

Sleep was worth another go.

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

i very much hope you enjoyed! i love the tonynat dynamic, thank you so much for requesting!

[softhaos]

ONE (1) YEAR OF SOFTHAOS

fellas, as of today – jan 14th 2019 – softhaos has turned one year old!! honestly, i never expected to last this long?? over the past year, i’ve gone through many ups and downs, made close mutuals, received so much emotional support from all kinds of people on this site and overall, i’m so thankful that i pulled my shit together and joined the community on tumblr! 

i still remember clearly when i first started out with this blog and posted the neighbor aus and got SO much support for it?? like?? i never thought it’d come this far where i could touch readers’ hearts with my word vomits?? that’s just insane. and even if you don’t read my works yet still follow me: wow, i’m so grateful that you managed to cope with my bullshit – be it from my undying hatred towards pcy and kmg, me abusing the uwuwuwu or my personal thoughts.

in other words, this is my message directed to everyone: thank you for keeping up with my bullshit uwu

now on to the part where i thank specific people for making my existence on this site more bearable,, i’ve left a message for everyone i tagged (i would’ve tagged literally everyone but i’m a stressed student i am so sorry if i forgot you kjldl and i would feel bad if i didn’t leave a note to everyone i tagged) and the list is in alphabetical order! @ anons i also left notes from you at the very bottom.

@baekberrie 💌 even though we just talked once literally two days ago thanks to my clumsy ass sending you an accidental ask, i’m so glad i actually did. pola (okay i got this from your about page im sorry kljsdl) you’re an amazing, kind and talented soul with whom i could’ve talked hours about soft bbh if it weren’t for my tiredness. i’ve only read your junmyeon oneshot so far but trust me, i’ll get to that cuddling fic with baek real soon once i’ve got more time uwu you’re honestly a talented writer and i hope we get to talk more in the future!

@baekbuns 💌 i’ve known you for how many days already you anon thot and i really can’t believe that i was vv intimidated by you at first (not gonna lie, you still scream bde but that’s another story-) hope, despite you trying to steal pretty much everyone from anyone, it’s still very fun to fight talk with you and you’re also an excellent writer uwuwuwu i am still very attacked by the thought of bartender yixing one day I WILL SUE YOU ALONG WITH PCY

@baekwell--tart 💌 bella!!!! ngl i’m still very pissed at myself for not realizing you from your old url but i’m glad i found you again!! (did i find you again? idk anymore i suffer from short term memory but i hope i got my point across sdjlkj) you’re such a warmhearted person and i’m really grateful that i got to know you. however, you’re also a funny person and that also shows in your writing - istg one day i will probably have “perpetual boredom��� tattooed on my forehead don’t ask why that description of sehun will NEVER fail to make me chuckle!! you deserve all the love and happiness in the world and so much more uwu

@boosoonhao 💌 i know i keep repeating myself when it comes to you aj, but i really have no idea what else to say. i wrote it in the letter, i expressed myself way too often in the tags whenever i reblog your works, yet here i am doing it again (and maybe even more exaggerated than usual, we’ll see): aj, you are one of the most talented writers i’ve ever known and one of the greatest blessings in the community. there, i said it and i mean it! you are one of the very few i know that doesn’t shy away from fantasy-ish aus and executes them brilliantly. the way you have with your words is just fascinating and i find myself sometimes jotting down what you wrote for future references? but writing skills aside, you are a beautiful and kind person and up to this day the key chain you sent me is still intact. aj, thank you for blessing me, blessing everyone with your talent and general existence. 

@byuncaa 💌 bianca you smol soft bean you have my heart right there and though we don’t know each other for so long, i hope we get to talk more in the future uwu you’re such a cute soul gaaah it really makes me wanna send you all the soft memes i possibly own anywaY i hope you just stay as bubbly and bright and adorable as you are uwu

@cafechenle 💌 hani, kaito kid, i don’t know whether you’re still alive on tumblr or not but idc i’m still writing this to you anyway. you’re one of the first people i’ve met on this site and gOD i remember it as clear as day where i was so close to blocking you within the first few minutes of knowing you. yes, i’m talking about the entire mansae chan era discourse. anyway, we don’t talk as much but i hope you’re doing fine my wee lil silver boys supremacist!!

@changbeanbag 💌 landon, we literally just met yesterday but as you can see, i don’t care and i’m writing you a wee lil note anyway. you, my dude, radiate uwu energy and ngl i may have squealed when i saw your tags in the ask i sent you teehee - i hope we get to talk more in the future (that is, if school hasn’t killed me until then-)

@changbiinn 💌 kirra, you beautiful, blue haired visual goddess who has everyone else (including jisung yES I WENT THAT FAR) looking like a mere smurf and found dead in a ditch! i didn’t think i’d get an instant dm from that one inkigayo shitpost but you went ahead and proved me wrong sjljlks timezones fuck me up all the time but nonetheless i hope we get to interact a lil more and gET ENOUGH SLEEP OR ELSE

@cheolsjigyu 💌 MISS VAN NO I DID NOT FORGET YOU HEAR ME OUT. first of all, how could i forget you when you provided me all the great twt aus and the wild chats we had back in?? sometime early last year i guess. it’s been a very long time since we talked and i’m sorry i couldn’t reach out to you any time sooner due to school and the usual stuff (also, uh, i’m not the biggest friend of tumblr dms and barely check any messages there so there’s that too) believe it or not i still wheeze whenever i think of your fic swing baby because goddamnit that jyp song was one repeat for a good week. anyway, i hope you’ve been doing well and are not at the brink of near death like me uwu

@cherryxiu 💌 gran, frank, satan incarnate, whatever else i call you. you may fuck me up with the pcy i’ve never asked for but i hope you know you have a soft spot in my heart (i’ll never say that out loud again tho so see it as a one of a time thing). you’re my fav minseok stan and while i wouldn't necessarily jump off a cliff for you, i’d jump with you uwu anyway, aggressively refrain from sending me more pcy content i’m just trying to live an easy life here. but knowing you, you’ll definitely pretend as if that last part was never written so why do i even bother-

@chillihansol 💌 hanni my child!!! i hope you’re doing fine, aren’t as stressed anymore and have received the love you deserve and more!!! i still remember when i was highkey intimidated by you so i went on anon but then somehow you were startled by my lil threat and then i became your mom anon? funny that has changed over the time skldj hanni, i don’t regret ever going on anon for you and you’re an amazingly talented writer. i already said it once but i’ll say it again: guns n roses was the first svt fic i read on tumblr and just thank you for creating that piece uwu

@choco-seventeen 💌 miss choco, i almost tumbled down the nonexistent stairs in my apartment when i saw you ??? sliding into my dms ??? and then reading my word vomits ??? and then you followed me ??? and everything that followed after ??? i don’t know what in the world i did to have you notice me and up to today it remains a mystery to me ngl. we love a talented, kindhearted, fantastic, stunning, visual writing queen who is ofc the right person to love thanks to the avatar discourse she started!!! choco, keep on enlightening everyone’s life with your mere existence, the tags you put in your reblogs that make me smile and of course, wonderful stories <33

@custardheart 💌 taylor, i don’t think we have ever talked (unless you approached me on anon maybe then maybe yes??) but i just wanted to thank you for blessing my notifications. you’ve been supporting me / on my notifs for quite a long time - may i say you’re like one of the first followers i had when i first started out? THAT’S how long you’ve been here already and i can’t thank you enough <333 (please don’t ask me why i know that but goddamn every time i see that jeonghan profile picture i already know it’s you djklj)

@dinoshaur 💌 sha! lee! i know we barely talk to each other but i just wanted to use this opportunity to thank you for making some of my days with your astounding fics!! one of my favorite works from you will always be “flower crown prince” because you have NO idea how much i struggle with finding seungkwan fics dkkjljlk i’m sorry i didn’t submit anything for the lfw challenge i really tried to make it but you know, life problems happened whoops. i wish you all the happiness and inspiration and love from chan himself you gifted angel uwu

@forevershua 💌 dear fossil mother ryan, i can’t believe i internally pronounced your name wrongly for pretty much half a year knowing you. please forgive me. okay, but all seriousness aside, you’re one of the closest people from this site!! i really love you so so much though i can’t guarantee that i love you as much as you love jeonghan more than shua; i still shed tears whenever i pull out your two postcards - especially the minghao one; i think i suffered from mild heart palpitations when i got it in the mail (and still do). i hope we get to meet this year and possibly clown rat together and just stay the somewhat sane person left in the gc <33 p.s HOW DO YOU FUNCTION WITHOUT A FRIDGE I STILL CANT BELIEVE THAT

@gamerwoo 💌 rocket, you’re always active when it’s the ungodly hour where i live and it has happened more often that i stay awake because of you. not only do i have loads of stuff i can queue from you (teehee) you recently started posting stories again and the ones you hammered out lately just??? do things to me??? for real though do you have sadistic tendencies or somethin because you posted TWO (2) nsfw stories that I indulged at 2 AM IN THE MORNING. aside from that minghao and junmyeon stuff, uuuh, i finally got around to finish your ghoul au which i completely adore!! i’m looking forward to your upcoming works uwu and hope you get all the positivity and good vibes only uwu (p.s i have to confess: my dumb ass seriously thought the “woo” in your url referred to jungwoo and for some good weeks i thought you ult jungwoo rIP ME)

@hearttoshu 💌 jess, i don’t know what in the world i did to have you notice me because i’m gonna be honest here, i was scared of you skaljdlkjslkj please i don’t even know why, you seemed very intimidating but i was proven wrong in an instant!! you are one super soft bean with hq gifs and a love for jun and shua that reaches up to infinity and beyond!! your tags always get the best out of me and i’m really grateful for having you in my life uwuwuwuwu 

 @jejublr 💌 ew rat, you’re finally adulting. jokes aside, you were the first victim to fall under my disastrous typo errors and may i say that i’m just simply ICONIC for forever slapping that legendary nickname on you uwu nat who?? we only know RAT. you’re the one person i can always run to when more serious issues are bugging me since i guess you can relate the most to my personal dilemmas and i just wanted to thank you for being there for me <33 that, and for keeping gran somewhat at bay. i hope we get to meet up this summer where i’ll feed you with lots of chocolate while teasing ryan about her biasing jeonghan LMAO and just like most people from the gc, you’re one of the first close mutuals i’ve made. in a way, you could say you’ve been with me here since day 1 (almost) xx

@jin-hua 💌 mayo / mango / mayo that tastes like mangoes / idk i bet i have misspelled your names approximately 993828 times in 937987 different variations but guess what? i still love u to death uwu i love me a fitness queen, a visual goddess not even god himself could ever and i’m so so glad that you exist in my life <333 i know i promised you a crackhead message but when i think about it there’s not really a lot to say that’s out of place when it comes to you?? you’re an angel uwuwu the light of my life frank could NEVER

@justsomekpopstuff 💌 jj it is i, your #1 supporter!! since you’re also part of the nug club gc from the beginning on, you have an extra special place in my heart <3 jj, i love how supportive you are and i don’t think you realize that i cherish you to the moon and back and that times 903809. i love how you get so fired up about your hockey team and like to gush and suffer from the wrath of Joshua hong and i hope you’ll stay eternally happy uwu that, and dRINK LESS COFFEE ISTG

@lxveille 💌 veille we’ve never interacted a lot but i just wanted to let you know that i admire you a LOT. i haven’t got around to read more of your works lately, but i do have a favorite fic that i still clearly remember. okay, that’s a lie, i have several that left a strong memory. but let’s say, if i had to reduce it to one fic, it’d be the 100wtsily dystopian au with jihoon and 66 & 70! you’re one of the very few writers who hit the dystopian genre spot on and you truly are an inspiration. seriously, thank you a lot veile xx

@middle-of-a-wonshua-sandwich 💌 LOOK, i didn’t even know you changed blogs or something and i’m so eternally sorry that it took me ages to figure that out! (RIP me) you’re one of the first followers i had if i recall correctly (i’m pretty positive of that) and i just wanted to thank you for sticking with me so long uwuwuuwwu i wish you all the happiness bb <3

@multi-yeol 💌 haaaa we’ve only known each other since a day or something but i’m really glad we did!!!! honestly, that Loona song sorter is harder than any of the german exams i had and though we don’t know each other for so long, i hope we’ll talk more in the future bub!!!

@oatmealupdates 💌 lynna, you too are one of the first followers on my blog i’m wheEZING you’ve been here for so long sdlkjlkj thank you for your support and your comments under the fics always make my day i swear!! i’ve also noticed that you haven’t been that active as you used to be (maybe it’s just me idk sometimes my dash is kinda wacky) but all in all i hope you’re doing good!! if you ever need to talk to someone, you can always hmu <33

@queerjunhui 💌 vane, ngl, you really scared me at first. i was really intimidated by your for reasons i can’t even explain and i always thought you were out of my league sdkljlk i think we started talking since the cyzj thing and you’re one of the funniest and nicest people i’ve met so far on tumblr, seriously! your content - be it from your shitposts to mindless thoughts like the entire indirects to j*** * yES I STILL RECALL THEM - you always manage to make my day brighter whenever i see you on my dash. i wish you all the happiness and hope you’re doing good uwu

@seungcheolsbodyharness 💌 katey, sis i still think about that criminal seokmin and the entire au we made up - from FBI agent cheol to incompetent intern vernon and all that jazz. besides the fact that your url is a pure 10/10 as well as your other URLs, you’re such a nice person and i really enjoy your presence - be it in the form of reblogs of any kind of thing to the comments you occasionally leave and don’t get me started on the aSKS; katey, i’m so glad to have met you on this site!!! uwu

@softwonwoo 💌 jian darling!! honestly, i have no idea how you even know of my existence. just like pretty much everyone else i’ve tagged here you kinda had that intimidating aura?? but then the more i talked to you somehow, the more i was proven wrong and you’re such a sweet pea i can’t- also, i’m glad that i found someone who can agree with me when it comes to chungha dsakjlskj pls stay healthy, stay happy jian!!

@swyllh 💌 sara, i don’t think we have ever had a proper conversation, but i just wanted to give you my appreciation. you are one of the most underrated writers within the community yet you always give your best when it comes to your writing and honestly, i really admire you. i haven’t found the time to read your interactive fic yet (i keep pushing that back i am so sorry but i’ll get to that one day) and one of the fics that i absolutely adore is that one end of the world fic with chan, as well as the vernon collab with sha!! i really hope you’ll get the recognition and love you deserve you gifted writer !!

@tonicandjins 💌 faye my snowflake, i haven’t seen you around lately but if you read this, i hope everything’s alright from your side! i’m quite sure i’ve already mentioned this to you but i’ll say it again. i will NEVER shut up about one and two small petals and will NEVER recover from it. another banger is that wonwoo fic with the printer- ugh, you’re such a talented, beautiful person and i truly wish you all the best. remember, don’t stress yourself and relax once in a while uwu

@yeolsmiling 💌 angie hi!! i legit only sent you one (1) ask so i really don’t have much to say so far unless i wanna repeat myself lMAO one day, i aspire to purely emit soft energy for yeol but i doubt that day will ever come. i hope we get to talk more in the future you soft bear <33

honeybunch anon 💌 honeybunch, i hope you’re doing well! i still remember that i called you that when you slipped into my asks and gushed about that one mingyu fic up to this day i’m still flattered and eternally grateful that you’re still here uwu thank you for your support and making my day <33

fromis anon 💌 idk if you’ll ever read this but i miss you uwu i hope you’re doing fine and just a quick update from my side: i still haven’t found a bias yet uGH 

sugarpie / tulip anon 💌 you seem like such a cool person i’m really glad you stopped by in my inbox thank you for hitting me up uwu since i have no clue who you are and since i’m a dumbass, i’m can only rely on you messaging me jslkdj

none of the letters are proofread i am so sorry

[phanlight]

The Boy on the Blue Moon Dreams of Sun

prompt: dan is a theatre kid who hasn't had his first kiss but has to kiss someone for a show. he doesn't want his first kiss to be wasted so he tries to get it done properly beforehand & he meets phil and w/e you can take it from there!!!

““Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what we’ve spent the past ten minutes doing?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

GUESS WHICH BITCH IS BACK AND WRITING AGAIN (spoiler: IT ME)

I thought it was about time I branched out a bit and tried my hand at a theatre au. This was so much fun to write (albeit kinda hard as despite being a literature student my Romeo and Juliet knowledge is a little subpar lmao lets hope I at least sort of did it justice tho) and deffo has more than ur daily dosage of angsty teenage actor!dan so look forward to that. thank u to the lovely anon who prompted me with this! (also yes i’m still relying on ptv lyrics for my song titles after 3 years sh)

Also I’m sorry if the writing in this is a lil inconsistent. I started this fic literally over a year ago and abandoned it for ages before finding and continuing it again. The first half was written in literally like mid 2016 (from which point my writing has obv improved a lot) and since then I’ve been working on it sporadically so if it feels like halfway through my writing style suddenly changes then that’s why OOPS soz

This was not supposed to be this long im so sorry wtf 13k ??? fuks sake

It’s the first time Dan’s ever been pissed off with being cast a lead role in a play.

He usually loves it – he loves the attention, loves having a ripped up script full of highlighted lines and more soliloquies to memorise than he can even keep count of. He shines under the warmth of the spotlight, lapping up the attention like a hungry cat, and when the applause ripples throughout the audience at the end, he can’t get enough of the sound.

It’s just- well, there’s one problem with his part.

It’s nothing he has against Romeo, not necessarily, and the piece itself is okay – Dan’s copy of the popular play in question is already crumpled with annotations; small post-it notes spilling fluorescent colours out of every crease (studying English literature alongside Drama always comes in handy as far as Shakespeare is concerned) and Romeo has a decent amount to say.

The problem is, he’s going to have to kiss someone.

Dan Howell, the one who snaps up almost every single role he auditions for, the one with a clay personality that can be moulded perfectly into whatever role he’s going for next, the one who lives the stage and breathes the lights, who was once described as ‘the heart and soul’ of the local theatre, is going to have to kiss someone.

And believe it or not, Dan Howell, the same seventeen-year-old who breezes through auditions leaving a flutter of girls at his feet, the same guy who was once rumoured to have made out with three people at the Les Miserables afterparty and the same guy who once had to reject two people in one night, has never actually kissed anyone before. Not properly, anyway.

Granted, he’s been extremely close to it a fair few times – having been in and out of auditions and callbacks since the age of about five, he’s come into contact with a considerable number of roles that involve love interests; only last month was his character Eddie supposed to kiss the love of his life, Alexandra, in the back of a car at a drive-in cinema. It was a play that one of the drama students had written; set in the fifties, all red-and-white ice cream parlours and hand jives and high school dances and Marilyn Monroe posters. Dan had enjoyed playing his part, and not just because it was the only opportunity he’d get to sport a black leather jacket (though he did decide leather looked really quite hot on him after that play. It’s almost a shame he’s vegetarian), but because the minor obstacle could, like every single other time, be solved with a stage kiss. Just a few seconds of his back to the audience, being agonisingly close to someone else’s lips, before pulling away and raking though his mind to try and remember the next line. It’s always worked for him, every time.

Except for this. Because the director, a Lucy Howcroft with a loud voice and a bossy personality, has only gone and booked them the Round at the Old Vic theatre. Which would be fine, of course it would; it’s one of the most popular theatres in the city and the theatre group is going to get a huge reputation for this afterwards, but it’s not so handy as far as stage-kissing is concerned. When you’re being stared at from every angle three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around, there’s no way you can get away with only partially leaning in to kiss.

“Are you sure there’s no way around this?” Dan had insisted when he’d stolen a moment after rehearsal to talk to Lucy. She’d been clearing her desk – a papery mountain range, and had looked a bit too busy to talk, but Dan would rather discuss this with her one-on-one instead of having to voice his feelings with twenty other pairs of eyes staring at him.

“For someone who just bagged yet another lead role, I would’ve thought you’d be a little more gracious than this,” Lucy had muttered, snapping a file shut. “I didn’t have to cast you, y’know.”

“It’s not- I am grateful, you know I am, it’s just-“

“Is there a problem with the casting of Juliet?” she’d offered, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Dan had insisted. “She’s fine.”

“The costume, then?” she’d tried. “I’m not a bloody mind reader, Dan. Help me out a bit here.”

Dan had shut his eyes and taken a deep breath, trying to comb the tangle of words in his head into some kind of coherent sentence.

“I mean- I just- the venue,” he gulped. “It’s- there’s a bit of a problem.”

“What about it?” Lucy sighed, irritation tracing the edges of her tone. “I fail to see what’s so problematic about getting a slot at the Old Vic of all places, but if you have any objections, then do enlighten me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just-“ Dan gulped, not really too sure how far he’s going to get with this. The bitterness already in her tone didn’t sound at all promising. “I don’t know. Do we have to perform in the round?”

“Christ, is performing in one of the most popular theatres in London that much of a chore?”

“No, no, I just-“ he gulped, trying to work out how the hell he’d word this without sounding like a twat. “I’ve never really… you know. Performed in an environment like that before.”

“You’ve been acting for twelve years,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure you have enough experience to be able to deal with a round stage instead of a rectangular one.”

“But- like, isn’t the round meant for- like… you know, Greek plays and shit?”

“It used to be,” she’d said, taking care to apply extra emphasis on the past tense. “Since when were you so hung up on the traditions of theatre, anyway?” she’d added after a pause. “Only last week were you totally in favour of the idea of having a rap battle in the middle of Othello.”

Dan had frowned, because that wasn’t really fair – sure, a rap battle isn’t exactly a common feature of Shakespeare’s plays, but no one could deny that Louis, playing Iago, was pretty good at freestyling whenever a mic was thrown in his direction. Despite not adhering to the conventions of traditional English theatre, it certainly made the play more entertaining.

“It’s just gonna be- you know. It’s gonna take some getting used to,” he’d mumbled instead.

“You have three months to get used to it,” she’d pointed out. “I’m sure you and the rest of the cast will have familiarised yourself with it by the time the production comes around.”

“But- the round is traditionally meant for-“

“Look, if you’re going to get so archaic about it, I can always build a time machine, book the open-air Globe for, like, sometime four-hundred years ago, and you can spend the next three days picking rotten tomatoes out of your hair,” she said. “Does that sound better?”

“They only did that to bad actors,” Dan had pointed out. Lucy rolled her eyes.

“And you know what makes a good actor, Dan?” she retorted. “Flexibility. The willingness to branch out of your comfort zone.”

Dan had sighed. He’s not going to get anywhere with this, is he?

“You know what?” he’d finally shaken his head, defeated. “Forget it.”

She watched him turn on his heel with a raised eyebrow. “See you Tuesday, then? First read-through of the script is at eleven in the morning.”

“See you then,” Dan muttered, not even bothering to turn around.

He let the door slam behind him.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t want to kiss anyone – (quite the contrary, really. He loves the idea of it, loves the thought of someone’s lips pressed up against his, the world slowing down around them and his heart feeling like fire. He’s always tried to incorporate that feeling into his acting, letting his passion leak into every character he’s cast, but when the stage lights are off and the curtain is down, his attraction to his colleagues ends there) – it’s just- well, he doesn’t really think he’s found the right person to share the real experience with, yet. His fellow actors and actresses aren’t unattractive by any means, but he doesn’t look at any of them and find himself struck by the desire to taste their lips and whisper incoherence into their ears like Eddie was supposed to do in the back of that car.

Seventeen, and still hasn’t had his first kiss. Still doesn’t want to waste it, at that.

Pathetic.

-

Technicians don’t get paid enough, Phil thinks.

He’s spent the day holed up in the trap room, devouring what was left in the back of the fridge (including a half-opened pack of Doritos that tasted like they expired about five years ago) and puzzling over this fucking broken light board that everyone had very kindly left him to take care of. It had already taken him over half an hour to get one of the chunky old Mac laptops up and running again (seriously, who in this day and age is still using an iBook?) and even then it only really half-functions – a handful of keys are missing, the trackpad only ever seems to work when it feels like it, and there’s a huge hairline crack right across the screen. Phil’s spent so long cursing through gritted teeth and smacking the table in frustration every time the damn thing freezes that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he ended up contributing to those cracks by the end of the day. Maybe that’s how they ended up there in the first place.

“You alright?” the door suddenly opens and a voice – Nick, Phil presumes, breaks the aching silence that the room has been blanketed in for the past four hours. Finally, Phil sighs, feeling a pinch of anger melt away. Human company.

“Been better,” Phil mumbles, popping a couple of grapes into his mouth. Been better, he scoffs to himself. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been worse.

“Chuck me a coke, will you?” he pulls up a chair and puts his feet on it, perching on the edge of the table. Phil heaves out a sigh – that involves getting up – but musters up enough energy to lean over and yank the fridge open. He tosses him a can, and Nick catches it expertly.

“Nice of you to show up,” Phil rolls his eyes. “Only four hours late this time. That’s an hour and a half off your personal best.”

“They said they didn’t need me here ‘till three,” he protests, popping the can open and taking a few gulps. “They said you had it all under control.”

His sentence is punctuated by a burp. Phil grimaces.

“Under control,” Phil snorts. That’ll be the fucking day.

“What did they leave you here to do?” he frowns.

“Only fix this entire fucking thing,” Phil nods over to the stupid light board. God, he’s sick of the sight of it. “Beats me what’s wrong with it. I’ve only just managed to get this dinosaur up and running,” he gestures to the corpse of a laptop in front of him, “let alone look at that.”

“Fuck me, man,” Nick sighs out a heavy breath. “If I knew, I could have come in earlier to help you out a bit. You should have texted me.”

“It’s fine,” Phil sighs even though- well, it’s not, really. There’s only so many hours of broken technology and out-of-date food one can take. “It’s not your fault,” he adds truthfully.

“They’re twats sometimes, aren’t they?” Nick lowers his voice, despite the fact they’re literally underground here, beneath the earshot of everyone.

“I’ll say,” Phil widens his eyes, trying to click something and- nope, it’s fucking frozen again. “For fuck’s sake. They’re all bloody loaded, too. You would have thought with the money they have, they could fork out a little for equipment that at least half-functions, right?”

“Yup,” Nick sighs. “Guess bookings for overpriced fancy-ass theatres are higher up on their agenda, though.”

Phil can’t argue with that. Apparently they’re going to have to wire up something in the Old Vic, of all places, next week. Phil dreads to think how much hiring that place out for even a few hours is going to cost, let alone booking it for three nights.

Probably more than enough to buy a better fucking laptop.

-

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but-“

“No- no,” Lucy holds up her hand. “Come on, Dan. More emotion than that. You’re telling the love of your life that even the moon is envious of her beauty. At least pretend to put some passion into it.”

Dan rolls his eyes – only the fourth time he’s had to repeat this fucking soliloquy in the past fifteen minutes. He’s pretty sure he’s only one “no, no, it’s too (insert adjective here)” away from giving up with this whole thing altogether. He’d rather have played Benvolio anyway.

“Come on,” Lucy continues. “We’ll take it from Be not her maid…”

Dan shuts his eyes, scrapes up the remaining traces of his sanity, and takes another breath.

“Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!

It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?

Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—

I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they retur-“

“No, no-“ she interrupts him again and for fuck’s sake, at this rate, Dan won’t even need to spend any time in his bedroom going over his lines. He’s pretty sure he’s memorised half of the monologues already just from recapping in rehearsals alone.

“Come on, really feel it,” she pleads. “You can’t say something as romantic as that with a face like yours – you’re literally saying that two stars in the sky have gone away and they’re asking Juliet’s eyes to shine in their place until they return.”

Dan balls his fists, ready to snap back that yes, he’s fully fucking aware of what’s going on in the play thank you very much, in case she hadn’t forgotten he did actually study it for three separate exams and subsequent exposure to the text in question has made him rather familiar with the occurrences currently taking place, but they’re all interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Lucy huffs, mildly irritated.

The door knob jitters, then twists.

“Hiya,” a black-haired boy nods tiredly, pushing through the crack in the door. Dan immediately recognises him – one of the tech guys, he thinks, but he isn’t entirely certain. He’s never really spoken to any of the crew before; they tend to keep well out of the limelight (they’d rather control it instead).

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks, before turning to Dan and Alexandra (his Juliet). “You two, take five. Be ready to take it from the top.”

They both relax and take a seat on one of the upturned wooden boxes. It isn’t until Dan takes the weight off of his legs he realises how much they’ve been aching – fuck, he really needs to get back to that gym.

“Any luck?” she says to Mr. Black-Hair. He’s holding a laptop that looks as if it’s seen better years, never mind days, and a long cord of wire that snakes around his fist.

“Nothing at all,” he sighs, flicking a strand of his fringe out of his eyes. His hair looks as if it hasn’t seen a hairbrush for days, but there’s something about the way it sits shaggily on his head that kind-of suits him (Dan wishes he could pull off messy hair – he only attempted ditching the straighteners once and spent the rest of the day wondering if any birds had mistaken his head for a nest).

He doesn’t realise he’s been staring until he catches the tail end of Alexandra’s sentence and realises he hasn’t actually been listening for the past minute or so.

“What was that, sorry?”

“I asked you how you were finding Romeo so far,” she repeats.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah- he’s fine,” Dan says, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Black-Hair. He’s lost the thread of their conversation (he’s no lip reader) but by the looks of it, it seems as if there’s a problem with one of the laptops.

“Are you sure?” Alexandra frowns. Dan looks at her, but his glance is soon pulled back to the technician.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs. “You don’t really- I don’t know, you just don’t seem to be… you know. That into it, y’know?”

“Wait-“ Dan shakes his head, trying to focus on their conversation instead of the one a few metres away from. “Hang on- what? What makes you say that?”

She raises her eyebrows, as if to say ‘really?’. Dan’s expression remains carefully blank.

“Come on, Dan. We wouldn’t have had to repeat this stupid scene like, five times if you were actually into it. I’ve seen you do way better than this.”

“Oh, not you as well,” Dan groans, deflating. He’s pretty sure that exact sentence had fallen from Lucy’s lips not so long ago. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of having to sit and listen to people tell him that he ‘can do way better’ and ask ‘is everything all right, Dan? Nothing bothering you, is there?’ because he’s just ‘not himself’ at the moment.

That’s the most ridiculous one, he thinks, because for Christ’s sake, he’s an actor. He’s never himself.

“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Alexandra says, backtracking. “You know I don’t. I just- I think I overheard Lucy say you had a problem with something or other last week?”

“Did you,” Dan mumbles, unable to keep the bitter sarcasm out of his town. Alexandra remains unfazed.

“What was that about, though?” she remains unfazed. “Nothing to do with the casting, is it?”

“You really think it’s to do with the casting?” Dan stares at her in disbelief, before scoffing. “Yeah, like, I’m gutted to have bagged the lead role alongside you at one of the best theatres in the country. How am I going to cope?”

Not entirely truthful, but not a complete lie either.

“Just making sure,” a grin tugs at her lips, and she flicks a curl of red hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t have much of a problem with it myself, to be honest.”

“That’s reassuring,” Dan smirks sarcastically, but his tone is fairly benign. There’s certainly no denying she’s fucking gorgeous and it’s really no wonder she’s Juliet – she has hair the colour of a sunset falling down her back in ruby curls, emerald eyes framed by a curl of long eyelashes and cherry red lips that stretch into a wide smile whenever Dan cracks a joke, giving way to a small dimple on the side of her cheek. Her skin is pale, the colour of moonlight, almost, and he idly thinks, just for a fleeting second, that the moon probably would be jealous of her. She’s beautiful.

“Certainly don’t have a problem with getting to snog you in front of a thousand people, I must be honest,” she adds, and Dan’s stomach drops and his grin vanishes. Shit.

He wrings out a laugh, internally wincing at how false it sounds. “Yeah, I- um-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone mutters a few footsteps away from them. He snaps his head up, and Lucy plus Mr. Black-Hair are hunched over the desk, clearly getting nowhere with the absolute disaster they call an iBook.

“Wait- what’s the problem?” Dan suddenly gets up. He feels a little bad for leaving Alexandra so abruptly so he throws her a little apologetic ‘be right back’ glance, but he can’t help it – he might actually be able to help, here.

He shoves down the other voice in the back of his mind, the ‘or rather you’re just grabbing at any opportunity to avoid any potential conversation about the kiss you fucking wimp’

“It’s okay, Dan, sit back down. I’ll be with you both in a second,” Lucy calls over her shoulder.

“No, really,” Dan insists. “I know a thing or two about Macs. I have one myself, and-“ he catches Lucy drawing in a breath, ready to protest, and he regrets the spill of words almost as soon as they come out – fuck, why can’t he just keep his mouth shut? – but Mr. Black-Hair turns around, an eyebrow quirked upwards.

“Really?” his stare is the colour of ice, the sky on a December morning, but it’s weirdly warm at the same time.

“I- uh, yeah,” Dan stutters when he remembers how to talk again. “I’ve always had Macs. They’re great when they decide to work, but they can be a bitch when they begin to act up, and-“ he cuts himself off with an awkward shrug, “yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” the technician smirks. “This bastard-” he nods to the chunky white rectangle in his arms, “took me like, half an hour to boot up alone. And now it’s been frozen for like- twice as long as that. I’ve only had chance to type in my password so far.”

Lucy’s still standing in the middle of them and it’s getting a bit difficult to ignore the stony glare burning into Dan’s peripheral vision right now and even harder to avoid eye contact with her, but it doesn’t stop him from offering some help, albeit rather inappropriately timed.

“I- um, have my MacBook with me if that helps?” Dan offers, trying not to feel the heat of his blush when Mr. Black-Hair looks straight at him. “I mean- if you don’t need it that’s fine, but like- it’ll function a bit better than that thing,” he shrugs. “I dunno. It would probably save you a lot of time.”

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow. “Like, with you right now?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I mean – I haven’t got my charger on me, but it’s on, like, eighty percent. Should be fine.”

“I mean-“ he throws a permission-seeking glance, towards Lucy, who Dan is pretty sure would be having steam coming out of her ears would it be humanly possible. She fixes Dan with a hard stare, a real ‘go on; be my guest’ look that’s always comes across as more of a dare than permission, a challenge for his conscience, but he can’t help an apologetic smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s cool with you, right?” his lips say before his mind catches up.

Lucy rolls her eyes in defeat. “If you absolutely must. But only- only because I could do with the extra time to independently go over one of Alexandra’s soliloquy.”

His face breaks out into a grin, and he’s not that sure why. “Thanks, Luce. I owe you one.”

“Don’t you make a habit of this, though. Remember; this is your own rehearsal time you’re sacrificing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan calls over his shoulder, trailing off. Mr. Black-Hair holds the door open behind him, and suddenly they’re out of the rehearsal studio and walking in a weird mutual silence sitting in a strange middle ground between comfortable and uncomfortable, across the car park and over to the actual theatre.

“Are you alright to do this, yeah?” Mr. Black-Hair (Dan seriously needs to come up with more imaginative mental nicknames for people) breaks the silence on their walk down to the trap room.

“It’s no problem at all,” he smirks as another wooden step groans under his foot. “Anything to get out of rehearsal.”

Dan’s never really been here before, never touched the underground territory where the technicians lurked, but there’s something about the atmosphere of this place that grips him.

-

Half an hour passes, and Dan couldn’t really tell you why he’s still sitting down here, still sitting on a revolving chair with a rip in the upholstery, under half-broken beams, tables that look like they’re seconds away from collapsing, and a lot of weird technology that he’d never even attempt to get his head around (seriously – do they even need this many buttons?). He’d given his laptop to Black Hair to receive a very emphatic ‘thank you, like seriously you’re a fucking lifesaver if I spent a second longer with that piece of shit I really don’t know what I would have done’ and the job had been done in seconds. Since then, a casual conversation had been struck up and Dan finds he doesn’t actually want to go back upstairs just yet.

“You two sounded really good in there,” Black Hair comments. They’d been talking about the play. “From what I heard, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, trying to ignore the quiet blush that warms his cheeks. There’s nothing quite like someone complimenting his acting. “Clearly not good enough for Lucy, though.”

“Few things are, Dan,” he sighs, and Dan only finds it half-weird that this guy knows his name, but Dan doesn’t actually know his. It’s unnerving, sure, but nothing he’s a stranger to. “She’s been on at you all morning.”

“Yeah,” Dan pauses, before adding an apologetic “sorry, I- um, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“It’s fine. I’m Phil,” he grins, and Dan thanks his lucky stars there’s finally a name to put to the face.

Dan studies him briefly, and frowns. “You do look familiar, actually.”

“Yeah – I do all the donkey work downstairs,” he grins. “You may have seen me emerge from the cave every now and then.”

Dan chuckles, deciding there and then that he likes Phil.

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Dan asks, studying the square lights looming above them, one of which he notices is stuttering slightly, flickering on and off every now and then.

Phil shrugs, not taking his eyes off of the screen. “Kinda. But I mean – I have my little crew down here, y’know? There’s five of us. We just like- keep each other company. Help each other whenever we need to,” he glances at Dan. “Oh, and sneak up to the theatre and watch you guys every now and then.”

Dan giggles. “Brilliant. Must be a nice little community, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Phil hesitates. “Or perhaps ‘support group’ might be a more appropriate term. For the poor sods who have to put up with shitty laptops and gross food.”

Dan laughs, and helps himself to another Dorito.

-

“Okay, right- Dan, sorry if this sounds a bit weird because- like, we’ve pretty much only just met, but like- um- I was wondering if you wanted to-“

“Phil,” Dan cuts him off. As an actor, there’s something about hearing people stutter and ramble without really saying anything that tends to grate on him. “I’d love to.”

“Really? Well, I-“ Phil stops and frowns. “Hang on a second. How did you know I was gonna ask you to hang out?”

Dan shrugs like he hasn’t spent the last thirteen years mastering the sciences of body language and speech and how they can be applied to the acting world. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

Phil smiles. “I mean- would you? Like, really?”

“Of course,” Dan says.

“Well yeah, like- I don’t have to be home for a while yet, and I have a car so we could just like- drive around for a bit? Go to town if you want?”

Dan smiles, and repeats what he said before he even knew what Phil was going to say.

“Yeah. I’d love to.”

-                                          

It’s a bit of a weird result to come out of lending his laptop to a stranger for a while, but it’s how Dan finds himself spending the evening sat in the passenger seat on the top of a car park roof, blasting some weird indie song from the depth of Phil’s Spotify and watching the sun sink further behind the buildings, painting the sky warmer with every slow minute that passes on the dashboard clock.

They’d had a drive around the city together, sometimes talking, sometimes letting lulls in the conversation give way to thoughtful silences, both of them tapping away to Phil’s music taste, but Dan thinks it’s been about fifteen minutes since either of them last said anything.

“So,” Phil is the first to break the silence. He flicks the last of his cigarette out of the window (Dan had insisted on rolling down the windows before he did that – there’s no way he’s going home stinking of an ashtray). “Tell me about yourself.”

Dan looks up from his phone at that, his heart thudding.

“You what?”

“You know,” Phil’s gaze doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on the view in front of the windscreen. They’d picked a spot at the very top of a multi-storey car park overlooking everything, leaving the city a pool of lights and colours and life far beneath them. “I don’t really know you. So tell me about yourself.”

“I- um-“ Dan gulps. This wasn’t really a question he came prepared for. He shrugs. “I don’t really know what there is to tell, if I’m honest.”

“Oh, now come on,” Phil presses. “Just- anything. Your hobbies. Your life. Your dreams. What you want to be when you’re older.”

“I feel like I’m in a bloody job interview,” Dan chuckles. Phil’s lips quirk upwards in response.

“You are. I’m interviewing you to see if you’re fit for the job of being mates with me.”

“The ‘job’?” Dan frowns. “Like it’s a chore?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Phil grins. “Now, come on. I wanna hear about you.”

Dan gulps, silence falling for the first time in a while.

“I- um, well I think my hobby is probably pretty obvious, for a start,” Dan begins. Phil rolls his eyes. “And what I wanna be when I’m older, too. I’m gonna do a degree in Drama, I reckon.”

“What else are you into, then?”

Dan stops for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Phil presses, flicking his lighter and sparking up another cigarette. “You must have other interests besides acting. You got a girlfriend?”

Dan clams up. “Um- no.”

“Oh. Boyfriend, then?” he quirks his eyebrows, and Dan shakes his head miserably.

“Afraid not.”

“Glad we established that,” Phil smirks, but Dan doesn’t really smile back.

He chews on the inside of his lip, having a staring contest with a pair of headlights sliding across one of the roads beneath them.

“What music are you into, then?”

Dan swallows, trying to think. It’s like someone’s scraped over his mind with an eraser, rubbing out his interests and his life and his personality, all pencilled in with weak lines.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs. “This and that. I like whatever this is,” he nods to the Spotify track on Phil’s phone. “Bit of Indie, it’s good. Oh, and I love- what are they called? Pink Floyd?”

“Floyd’s good,” Phil agrees. “And Nirvana.”

“Yeah,” Dan gulps, feeling another silence probe the conversation.

“You into the Smashing Pumpkins?”

Dan shakes his head.

“Oh, okay. Slaves?”

Dan shakes his head again.

“Genesis?”

“Never even heard of them.”

“Cobalt Night?”

Dan shakes his head again

Phil cackles. “Oh Christ. You do realise I made that last band up?”

“Oh god,” Dan can feel his cheeks burn peony. “I’m not doing myself any favours here, am I?”

“Don’t worry, I’m only messing with you,” Phil says. “I think it would be more embarrassing if you said yes, to be honest.”

“True,” Dan shrugs, feeling Phil’s stare burn into his side profile. He sits back further in his seat, keeping his stare.

“You’re not really into much, are you?

Dan shrugs.

“I’m more into Musical Theatre, really. Ever since we did a production of Hamilton I haven’t really been able to get that rap out of my head,” he chuckles.

“Right,” Phil sits up a little bit and clears his throat. “Well we’ve established your music taste and your hobby. Who are your favourite actors, then?”

It’s like someone’s flicked a switch inside Dan. His eyes light up.

“-and Leonardo DiCaprio, oh my God, don’t even get me started on him. I mean- who wouldn’t fuck young Leo? Have you even seen him in Titanic? And Romeo and Juliet too, Jesus Christ he’s gorgeous. He’s so fucking gorgeous. I’m not gonna do Romeo’s role any justice when he’s my competition, am I?”

Phil just nods and says the odd ‘hm’, listening to Dan’s stream of consciousness.

“-and Helena Bonham-Carter, what a fucking legend, man. She’s just- her character is just so versatile, you know? I mean- there’s a good reason she’s in literally everything, and that’s because she’s fucking amazing- have you seen Fight Club? You must have seen it, it’s incredible. She’s incredible. It’s a bit of a mind fuck if I’m honest, what with the split personality thing and everything, but- oh God, Brad Pitt is so good in it too. And he’s pretty hot, I’m not gonna lie. Well, until he grew out his hair and looked a bit like a farmer. But- where was I? Oh yeah, Helena Bonham Carter-”

“She was good in Sweeney Todd, too,” Phil comments, and he’s off again.

“-like, that was the first time I ever saw Johnny Depp act, and by Christ that film creeped me out. I mean- I was only like, seven when I watched it so of course it was gross, like, what seven year old watches people do- you know, that, to paying customers? I feel sorry for the poor sods who just went in there wanting to give their beards a trim. But- yeah, they were both really good in Sweeney Todd. I had a bit of a crush on Helena- and Johnny too, for that matter, I mean come on, who didn’t? But then I found out Johnny Depp is a bit of a dick in real life so I went off him after that. But Helena’s still cool, obviously.”

“She’s good, yeah,” Phil nibbles at a protruding hangnail on his thumb.

“And- oh god, who’s another good actor? Oh, don’t even get me started on Morgan Freeman. Absolute fucking legend. Like, oh my god. Him and that other one- god, what’s his name? The guy from Donnie Darko?”

Dan’s brain is moving far too quickly for Phil to keep up and he has no idea what the correlation between Morgan Freeman and Donnie Darko is, but he gives it a shot anyway.

“Jake Gyllenhaal?”

“Yes. Yes, oh my god, that’s the one,” Dan’s face breaks out into a grin. “Fuck, Donnie Darko. What a film, man. My friend has a tattoo of it, and-“

It continues like this, Dan chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen and Phil counting the glitters of passion in his eyes, before they’re both interrupted by a buzzing on Dan’s lap.

“Oh shit,” he grabs his phone. “It’s my mum.”

Phil doesn’t know what she’s saying on the other end of the line, but judging by Dan’s apologies it sounds like he’s stayed out here for a little too long.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbles, tugging on his seatbelt. “Lost track of time a bit, there.”

“Clearly,” Phil grins.

“This was good, though,” Dan says. “Like, really good. Thanks for, you know. Suggesting this.”

“Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again soon, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what I’ve spent the past like- hour doing?” he glances at the clock and shit, has it really been that long? It’s pitch black outside, the only light coming from the glitter of the city beneath them (shit, it really is beautiful from up here) and he was supposed to be home forty-five minutes ago.

“Yeah,” Phil says, starting up the engine. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

The next few days pass in a blur of line-learning, enduring Lucy’s lectures about how he just ‘isn’t putting enough ‘oomph’ into it, come on now, we’ll take it from the top one more time’ and Dan has to act like he actually gives more of a shit about what Romeo’s saying right now than what Phil had said in that car a few days ago. He has to act like it isn’t what he’d been reciting over and over in his mind, the words digging grooves into the back of his mind and making themselves at home.

He has to act like there’s more to his fucking life than acting.

-

The next time Dan sees Phil, they’re both cooped up in a control room eating lunch in a companionable silence; Dan going over his lines and Phil puzzling over these two wires that are, according to him, sly bastards that won’t fucking go in these holes Jesus Christ, to which Dan had shut his eyes and prayed to god no-one outside the room had caught that out of context. There’s a huge control panel, rows and rows of buttons and sound mixers and, as Dan had very accurately christened them, “slidey-things” in front of them. He has no idea what any of this stuff is, no idea what a “cross-fader” is or what the hell a “submaster” is supposed to do, but every now and then Phil will casually lean over and flick a switch or press a button and a stage light beneath them will change.

“What’s up?”

Dan looks up from his script. He’s been poring over his lines for so long he’s pretty sure stripes of yellow highlighter are now permanently inked into the back of his mind, now.

“What? Nothing.”

Phil swings his legs off of the bar they’d been resting against. They’re halfway through sharing a KitKat (Dan had taken a trip down to the Co-op at the beginning of the lunch break and returned with a bag so heavy with food it had left a dent in his hand, insisting Phil can’t be living on stale crisps his entire life) and watching a rehearsal, one Dan doesn’t have to be in for once, through a pane of glass.

“You’re going to have to do better if you want to convince me, Mr. Theatre Kid,” Phil reaches over to the bowl in front of them and plucks a grape from the stem. “I thought you were good at acting.”

“What do you want me to do; leap up and perform a jig?” Dan turns a page, the paper rustling a bit too loudly. “I’m fine, Phil. Stop reading into things too much.”

Phil stares at him. “You’re sat there with a face as long as my leg, and I’m reading into things?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Be careful. If you stare at that page any longer it’ll probably burst into flames.”

“Shut up,” Dan mutters, the edge in his voice a little too sharp for it to slip by as a joke.

Phil does.

Dan sighs. “Sorry, I just-“

“Rehearsals getting to you?” he suggests softly. Dan doesn’t plan on letting the real problem slip; Christ, he can only imagine the havoc that would ensue if it got around that as well as obsessing over acting he’s also never actually kissed anyone, so he quickly takes Phil up on that.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I mean- Romeo’s a good character to play, I guess, but he does have an awful lot to say.”

“You’ll be okay,” Phil reassures him. “You still have months of time left to memorise your lines. When’s the play?”

“Seventh of February,” Dan says. Two months from now.

“There we go,” Phil says. “You have plenty of time yet.”

“I guess so,” Dan shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done this millions of times before,” Phil says. “You’ll be fine; I know you will. You’re a natural.”

Dan wishes he knew the half, he really does, but there’s just something about Phil’s smile that makes him almost want to believe him.

-

Dan manages to tell Phil a little bit more about himself next time they’re on the roof together, and in return, he learns a bit about Phil too.

“Well, when I was acti-“

“Nuh-uh,” Phil interrupts him. “No acting talk, remember?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s relevant to what I was gonna say. It’s an important part of the story.”

“Wherever the hell you can fit acting into a story about you and your friends getting drunk and stealing a supermarket trolley because you couldn’t afford a taxi, I’d be very impressed.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dan grins, and that was the only time acting came into conversation that night.

-

Dan learns Phil is eighteen, that he’d failed his driving test three times before passing because he was driving on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, and swears he’s going to give up smoking next year, he promises. He learns that his favourite colour is blue because he likes the way the colour skates across the ocean water in the summer, and that he used to be scared of dogs before his parents got him a puppy for Christmas, a bouncy Labrador called Daisy with a love for the sun and walks down to the beach.

“I fucking love dogs,” Dan beams.

“So do I, now. Took me long enough,” Phil agrees, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Daisy’s so cute, oh my god. You will love her.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, but there’s something about the definite use of ‘you will’ that he likes.

He, in turn, finds that he does have some thoughts and feelings and dreams hidden away in there, beneath the façade of scripts and stage lights and acting. He finds he does have stuff to say, stuff that isn’t always attached to a web stringing back to the theatre. He tells Phil all about his cat, Ozzy (a little shit who takes great pleasure in knocking all his belongings off of his desk and sleeping on his laptop, but he loves him anyway) his annoying next-door neighbours who don’t seem to see any problem with blasting ABBA at three in the morning, and they manage to find common bands they both like. Oasis is playing when the sun sinks, the sky darkens, and the city lights up beneath them.

“God, I love this one,” Phil mumbles, his speech obscured by the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Don’t Look Back In Anger. It’s one of their best.”

“Oh god, yeah,” Dan agrees, tapping along to the chorus. “That and Stand By Me. Oh god, and Champagne Supernova, too.”

Phil grins at that, and leans forward, picking his phone up from the dashboard. Before Dan has a chance to question him, the chorus stops dead in its tracks, and an acoustic softness follows the sudden silence, a series of guitar chords that are just that bit too familiar. He grins.

“I always think the intro sounds a bit like Wonderwall,” Phil comments, putting his phone down and leaning back in the seat.

“Yeah,” Dan sighs, leaning back in his own seat and turning his gaze to the city beneath them, staring at lights and roads and buildings until they pool into a hazy amber blur in his vision.

How many special people change,

How many lives are living strange,

Where were you while we were getting high?

Slowly walking down the hall,

Faster than a cannonball

Where were you while we were getting high?

 Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova in the sky.

Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova;

A champagne supernova in the sky.

They don’t say anything, instead letting Liam Gallagher do the talking, but sly glances are exchanged from under brown fringes and black eyelashes.

-

“Nice up here, isn’t it?”

It’s only until Phil breaks the silence they’ve lapsed into that Dan realises the song has drawn to a close. He slides his gaze from the city and over to Phil, over to his thoughtful stare skating along the skyline, the ruffled sweep of black hair coating his fringe, and the orange glow of a cigarette tip poking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes flicker over to Dan’s.

Dan looks back over to the city.

“Yeah.”

“I always come up here.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes a little look over the city is just what you need to clear your head. It just puts everything in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dan swallows. “It really does.”

There’s a litter of thoughts and worries in his mind, buried deep and multiplying with every day that drags past, every day that pulls him closer and closer to the production, to the hundreds of burning stares in the audience seats, to his colleague’s lips. He’s been longing for a break from it. Just a few hours of silence, a few quiet moments that don’t have to be spent combing over every single thought in his head, thinking and thinking until it inflates into anxiety, spilling into the pit of his stomach and clawing at the edges as it goes.

And the more he counts the city lights, the more he feels the cold night air stroke his cheeks and the engines reverberating around the car park levels beneath them, the more he reckons a more few nights up here. It’s the remedy he needs; just him, Phil and the lights.

Their eyes meet seconds after, and Dan can feel the question he’s vowed to ask Phil before the end of the night already beginning to rest on his lips, on the cusp of speech.

“When can we do this again?”

-

The late nights begin to pass more frequently in a spinning blur of city nights, passenger seats and conversations, all whispers and cold air and stolen glances. Dan can feel himself unravelling like a threadbare blanket, his carefully constructed personas and characters fraying at the edges with every hour spent up on the top of the city with a boy whose lips spill truths like water, and it isn’t long until Dan finds cracks in his paper personalities and begins to feel more and more honesty begin to seep through. He finds that no, he doesn’t have to spin false anecdotes like cotton and lie about his interests and find a way of linking everything back to acting, hooking every little quirk and element to his personality back to the stage. He doesn’t have to impress Phil with his knowledge of Hollywood throughout the years and he doesn’t have to act like he loves things he’s never actually heard of and he doesn’t have to lock his feelings away and throw away the key.

He doesn’t have to pretend.

-

It’s all okay until they fall onto the topic of previous relationships.

It’s been a good night. They’d visited the car park again, but this time without the car (it was warm enough to leave it in the driveway and make their own way up the concrete staircases, glass bottles in plastic bags clinking around their legs). They’d situated themselves in the very same parking space, the one second to the right and next to a beacon, but they’d traded car seats for a picnic blanket, headlights for phone torches and gear sticks for bottle openers.

“Yeah, like- fuck, she wasn’t a good kisser at all, was Mary. I mean- we were in year nine and she tried, bless her, and God knows so did I. But you know, with that as my first impression of kissing, when it was over I was like ‘what the fuck is all the fuss about?’” Phil chuckles, and Dan pretends to grin.

“Yeah, I mean-“ he shrugs, staring down at his lap. “I’ve had my fair share of bad kisses in my time.”

The ease with which the lie rolls off of his tongue almost takes him by surprise. It’s been a while since he’s lied about himself to Phil, and it feels strange.

“I can imagine,” Phil says, before frowning. “But you’re an actor. So you must be an excellent kisser, right? What with all the practice you guys have.”

Dan frowns, looking up from his bottle. “You what?”

“Oh come on. I saw what went on in the back of that car last term. Eddie and Alexandra. That play involved more lip-on-lip action than the fucking Notebook.”

Dan smiles at that, remembering the play adaptation they actually did of that when he was in year ten. He doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry over the sheer amount of starring roles he’s had that are heavily eloped in some kind of romantic storyline.

“Us actors have our techniques,” he says carefully.

Phil’s eyes widen at that. “You do? Like what?”

Dan shrugs, taking another sip of beer. “Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Phil shuffles closer, a flicker of eagerness in his cerulean stare and shit, Dan’s beginning to regret opening his mouth now. “Come on. What techniques do you have? I could use a few tips myself.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, his eyes firmly locked onto the spread of amber lights in front of them.

“I doubt you’d ever want to use these kinds of techniques on anyone,” he says, a hint of humour drying his speech. “I imagine stage-kissing on a real date would be quite a deal-breaker.”

“Stage kissing, huh?” Phil widens his eyes. “How does that differentiate from a real kiss, then?”

“Well,” Dan takes another sip of his drink, his vision beginning to slow down. “First of all, it’s not really a kiss at all.”

“Huh?” Phil frowns.

“I mean- not usually. There are different kinds of stage-kisses, but most of them don’t involve, you know,” he smirks, reusing Phil’s rather vulgar term of “lip-on-lip action”.

“So you guys don’t actually kiss?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Nope.”

“But-… how does that work?”

Alcoholic courage swims through Dan’s veins at that. He glances at Phil.

The words are a whisper, a dare almost, and it isn’t until Phil nods that Dan realises he’s actually said it out loud.

“Want me to show you?”

“Yeah, go on,” Phil’s tone is casual, soft almost, but his eyes are glittering.

“Okay, well- come over here,” he beckons.

Phil does as he’s told, shuffling up on his knees until he’s facing Dan.

“One of the actors needs to have their back to the audience,” Dan says. “So, let’s say the wall over there is the audience,” he nods over Phil’s shoulder to the stretch of concrete watching them.

“Alright. The wall’s the audience. Now what?”

“Now,” Dan gulps, feeling his heart begin to pick up the pace because shit, this is really happening now. “So, what you do is, like, just lean in normally for a kiss, but stop just as your lips are about to touch.”

Phil scoffs. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Look, do you want me to show you or not?”

“Nah, nah, I’m kidding,” Phil says. “C’mon, then. Show me how it’s done in Hollywood.”

“You dick,” Dan mumbles, but he’s leaning in.

Phil gets closer, his face begins to crawl up to Dan’s until their noses are brushing and his fringe is a tickle on Dan’s cheek and his breath mixes with Dan’s own, warm and languid through parted lips and fuck, Dan’s heart is really thudding now. His legs feel like jelly and his lungs feel like fire and there’s something warm and fiery swirling in the pit of his stomach, something alien, something that he’s certainly never felt before with any other colleague he’s come this agonisingly close to kissing.

They stay there for what feels like minutes, lips hovering, warmth tingling and the city still thundering beneath them, and it’s Phil who pulls away first.

“Impressive,” he smiles, eyes glittering with nonchalance. “Frustrating, but impressive. Is that your go-to one, then?”

It takes three swigs of beer to calm Dan down before he can speak again.

“I mean- um, yeah. Though sometimes if you’re, like, sitting really far over to the side in the audience you might be able to tell that they’re not actually kissing, so,” he shrugs. “It just depends on the stage, I guess.”

“Right,” Phil nods, swigging from his own bottle. “You, er- you mentioned a few other types, right?”

The thought of coming that close to Phil’s lips again sends the strange flame of warmth flooding back into Dan’s stomach. He all but chokes on his mouthful of drink.

“Er- yeah,” he stutters. “There are a few others,” he gulps again and shit, what’s up with him?

Dan doesn’t really know what’s happening, doesn’t know why being within a metre radius of this guy is already making him feel far more than he’d ever felt with any colleague, kissing or not, but it doesn’t stop him from beckoning the older boy over and showing him kiss number two, their lips locked together with nothing except Dan’s thumb in between them. He can feel the warmth of Phil’s mouth against his skin, the hot movement of Phil’s breath through his nose and the tickle of his hair against his cheek again. When he parts his mouth, Dan feels the tiniest touch of lip against his. It’s only the very corner and can’t have lasted for longer than a millisecond, but the feeling comes back like a spark to a flame and he’s beginning to find it difficult to balance and oh, shit.

They break apart, eyes searching each other’s, and it’s the first time Dan’s feeling like this post-‘kiss’ without having to throw on a character like an old shirt. He doesn’t have to follow anything up with someone else’s speech, with a fake accent and a stupid costume and a mannerism that doesn’t quite fit.

For once, he doesn’t feel like he has to act.

Phil narrows his eyes after a few silent seconds, fighting back a smirk.

Dan frowns, the post-stage kiss high beginning to melt away.

“What?”

“Is that seriously it?” Phil says.

“Yeah,” Dan moves away, trying to ignore the surge of electricity he had felt upon edging within a few millimetres of the other boy’s lips, the city a roar beneath them.

“I don’t know why I feel so disappointed,” Phil smirks. “From where I sit, looking at you lot doing all your stuff down on the stage, it looks a whole sight more realistic than that.”

Dan looks back out to the city.

“Yeah, well,” he says, feeling his heart slow down. “Acting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

-

“So. You and Alexandra, eh?”

Dan glares at him. Dawn is beginning to throw pastel colours into the blackness of the sky. It’s still dark enough to see the stars, fainter twinkles against the sweep of indigo above them, but it’s light enough for them to see each other, to make out feint outlines of faces in the low pre-sunrise light, eyes half-lidded and shadowed from the sleepless hours. It must be pushing four in the morning, and they’ve been here since eleven o’clock, leaving their parents with promises that they’re spending the night round each other’s houses to make a few preparations for the play.

(If reciting Romeo’s Balcony Scene soliloquy through giggles and slightly drunken slurs counts as preparation, then at least half of that promise is true).

“We’re not an item,” Dan mumbles, taking a drag from his cigarette. It tastes strange, kind-of like dirt and ash and tar and he’s not a smoker and probably never will be, but Phil had offered him one and- well, fuck it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But you guys are performing in the round, aren’t you?” Phil narrows his eyes, and Dan swears he leans an inch or two closer before whispering, “your stage kisses won’t work from that angle, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dan shuts his eyes. So far he’d been doing quite a grand job of pushing that worry to the back of his mind, burying it deep into his consciousness. The whole reason he’s up here altogether is to escape it.

Phil hesitates.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t you want to kiss Alexandra?”

Dan gulps, the taste of alcohol souring on his tongue a little.

“It’s not that,” he says. “I mean- a kiss is a kiss, right? It’s all part of the job, and-“

“But you don’t fancy her,” Phil says.

Dan frowns. “Well- no, of course not. She’s a colleague.”

“I know,” Phil says. “It makes a difference though, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Kissing someone you don’t fancy. It’s weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain this lie. “I- er, yeah. I usually stick to stage-kissing on the job, to be honest,” he shrugs. “It’s just easier than kissing someone you don’t really have feelings for.”

“Have you never, you know, properly kissed anyone before, then?”

Dan takes a deep breath. Lies can flow like water when he wants them to; he’s a master at concealing the truth behind a blanket of fabrication and deception, but there’s something about talking to Phil that makes falsehood sour on his tongue.

He lets it out in a deep sigh, feeling his chest deflate and his heart thud. Fuck it.

“You know what?,” he begins. “No. I haven’t. I don’t know if you can tell, but- yeah. I dunno, I guess that’s why I’m so stressed about this shit with Alexandra. And like- I know that probably makes me a fucking loser for never having kissed anyone at the age I am now, and probably even more of a loser that I want my first one to be with someone special, but- fuck, I don’t know,” he swallows, feeling the knot of anxiety in his chest loosen a little. “No. I haven’t. Okay?”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He bites his lip and averts his eyes down to the neck of his bottle. He fiddles with the loose cap, letting it fall through the spaces between his fingers with a sharp clink.

Dan doesn’t like that, doesn’t like the silence. The knot returns.

“What?”

“I- er- that wasn’t really what I meant,” Phil finally says.

The knot tightens.

“What do you mean it’s not what you meant?”

“I meant have you properly kissed anyone on stage before,” Phil glances up. “Not in general.”

Dan’s stomach drops. Oh fuck.

He open his mouth, but no speech follows. No amount of words can haul himself out of his hole now. Shit.

“I mean-“ he finally speaks again after a silence, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he desperately tries to smooth over. “Oh, shit,” he deflates, feeling the pit of his stomach begin to churn due to the abundance of the night’s alcohol. There’s no point trying to clamber out of the hole he’s just dug himself. He’ll only deepen it.

“Have you really never kissed anyone?” Phil asks in a quieter voice, but he doesn’t sound surprised. Or humoured. Or any other emotion Dan had feared. Just… curious. “Like, at all?”

Dan gulps, the beer a sour swirl in the pit of his stomach. Maybe the sixth bottle was a mistake.

“Well there’s no point denying it now, is there?” Dan finally mumbles, his eyes fixed on a dent in the concrete not far from where they’re sitting. “No. I haven’t.”

The gentle thrum of city engines fills the silence between them, and the three seconds Phil doesn’t say anything for might as well have been days.

“Yep,” Dan breaks the quietness once it borders on unbearable. “There you go. You think I’m a fucking weirdo now, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” Phil replies, and his voice is unusually calm. Dan looks up, his eyes meeting a soft expression, and for some reason he really didn’t expect Phil to react like this.

“So-“ Dan shakes his head. “What? You’re not gonna take the piss? Laugh at me? Say I’m a fucking weirdo that only lied to you to try and look cool?”

The truth scratches his heart, but it needs to be said.

“Why the fuck would I laugh at you?” Phil frowns, and there’s something about the sincerity in his voice that, beneath the turmoil, Dan finds weirdly comforting.

“I mean,” Phil begins. “I’m surprised, don’t get me wrong. Only because you’re an actor and- well, let’s face it, you’re fucking gorgeous too, but-“ he shakes his head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m the first to say I’d much rather make sure my first kiss means something. If anything, I agree with you on that.”

“You’re not pissed off that I lied to you?” Dan gulps down another mouthful of lukewarm alcohol.

“Of course not, you twat,” Phil says. “I mean, I get why you did, but there was no need to. Really.”

“I know,” Dan sighs, picking at the label on his glass bottle until the paper frays at the edges.

“Wanna know something?” Phil says, his eyes not moving from the soft sweep of stars above them, dimmed by the early morning light.

Dan takes his eyes away from the sky. “What?”

“If you’re a liar, then so am I,” Phil tells the stars.

Dan frowns. “You what?”

Phil’s eyes flick back down to earth, meeting Dan’s gaze. “I lied too.”

Dan gulps, his heart thudding. “About what?”

Phil forces a chuckle, but it’s drained of humour. “Do I have to spell it out to you? I haven’t kissed anyone either.”

The words ring in Dan’s ears moments after, Phil’s voice an echo above the roar of the city below.

“Wait-…” is the only word that passes Dan’s lips in the next passing minute or so. “But-…”

“Yeah,” Phil shrugs. “Turns out you’re not the only one, are you?”

“But-…” Dan shakes his head. “Why did you lie about it too?”

Phil just shrugs and says, “same reasons you did.”

Dan tries, he really tries, to comb through the tangle of confusion in his mind right now, but the best response he can come up with after a moment or two of silence isn’t the most articulate.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, and they descend into quietness again.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Phil is the first to break the silence. “That we feel the need to lie about that.”

“It’s society’s fault for making us feel as if being over the age of about fifteen without having shoved a tongue down anyone’s throat is a failure.”

Phil grimaces. “I’ve never understood the attraction of that, you know. Like, I get making out and stuff, but why would you want to literally devour the person next to you? When I saw kissing scenes as a kid I thought they were actually trying to eat each other.”

“I know,” Dan takes a sip of beer, the alcohol slipping down with a little more ease now. “It sounds grim. I don’t know how people do it. At least with acting on stage you don’t have that problem.”

“True,” Phil mirrors his actions, pulling his drink away from his lips and tracing the rim of the bottle with the tip of his thumb, staring down the tube-shaped glass into the remains of the flat beer, swimming lukewarm and flat at the bottom of the bottle. Only when he glances up a few seconds later does Dan realise he’s been staring.

Dan smirks.

“What are you grinning at?”

“Just-…” he shakes his head and shit, he’s definitely had enough to drink tonight. He can feel the alcohol-induced honesty begin leaking through his parted lips and he knows he’ll probably end up saying something he’ll regret tomorrow morning but- oh, fuck it. “The thought of you having never kissed anyone. It just- doesn’t make sense to me like- look at you. How?”

He’s not really sure where the line between a compliment and a very sorry attempt at flirting is drawn but he’s pretty sure he’s fallen somewhere in the middle.

Phil’s gaze lingers a few seconds too long. “I could ask you the same thing. I mean- come on, look at you. A guy like you must have been drowned in opportunities.”

They’re both a bit too drunk, a bit too cold and there’s something about the atmosphere of an empty car park at fuck-knows-o’clock that warps reality just a little. Dan blinks and the city lights don’t unblur and he feels a bit like he’s in a dream.

“Yeah, I-…” he shrugs. “I’ve had my fair share of offers, I won’t lie.”

“I’ll bet,” Phil interjects, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t either,” Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking. “I just-… yeah, I dunno. I didn’t really wanna waste it, but I never really found someone I liked enough.”

“That’s nice, that is,” Phil says, and though Dan scours his tone of voice for a trace of sarcasm or mockery, but Phil’s eyes glitter earnestly. “No, like, really. Most teenagers just, you know, dive straight into it. Slam their face against anything with a pulse that crosses their path. But the fact you care enough to wait,” he glances up, eyeing the boy beside him carefully. “That’s rare. Kinda admirable in a way.”

“Were you the same, then?”

Phil nods without any hesitation. “A hundred percent.”

Dan nods understandingly, taking another sip of beer, and the two of them watch the town sleep for a quiet moment before Phil speaks up again.

“Oh, come here,” he stretches out his arms. “You look like you’re seconds away from hypothermia, for Christ’s sake.”

Dan leans into his chest, closing his eyes and snuggling into the Topman denim of Phil’s jacket. “I don’t really think a car park roof is the most suitable drinking spot,” he mumbles, his speech slightly obscured by his rattling jaw.

“Not at five a.m. in December at least,” Phil says. “It’s a lot nicer in summer, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dan says, and the indirect promise that they’ll come out here and do this again makes Phil smile.

It’s quiet, serene and blue, and Dan loses count of the minutes that drip by until he hears Phil’s voice again, shattering his trance dancing on the fragile edge of drunken consciousness.

“Dan?” it’s only a half-whisper, but it still makes him jump.

The younger boy turns his head, his brown hair tousling against Phil’s denim chest until they’re eye-to-eye.

Phil lowers his gaze, but this time his eyes don’t flicker back up to Dan’s. Dan parts his mouth in response, but before he can say anything, there’s a surge forward and a soft pair of lips on his.

A jolt of adrenaline, shock, and a general ‘holy-fucking-shit-this-can’t-be-happening’ feeling shimmers through his body as he kisses back, and despite his embarrassing inexperience when it comes to anything remotely romantic, his lips move perfectly in time with Phil’s, their mouths melting together in flawless harmony.

Phil’s the one to break away, and Dan misses his lips the second the cold morning air touches his mouth. He frowns, studying Phil’s expression half-hidden by his mop of black hair, but the older boy refuses eye contact.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came ov-“

“Don’t apologise,” Dan cuts him off immediately, his hand hovering over Phil’s arm in quiet protest. “Just-…” he gulps. “Do it again,”

Phil’s head snaps up, his eyes boring into the brown stare in mild confusion.

“Please,” Dan mouths, and Phil doesn’t need to be told twice.

They kiss for longer, deeper, slightly parted lips and slow breathing and the teal glow of 5am light and shit, this was certainly worth a seventeen year wait. Phil’s lips feel like warmth and taste like tobacco and he feels a gentle comb of shy fingertips through his hair and yep, he can definitely see what all the fuss is about now.

When they break apart for the second time, all blushes and broken breaths, they’re both grinning. Phil drops his gaze with a bashful chuckle.

“Well,” Dan breathes. He’s still sitting close, their upper arms touching but neither of them really wanting to move away.

“Well,” Phil says, almost in agreement. They’re bathed in silence once again, but this time it’s comfortable.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Dan begins, looking out over the city. “That was definitely worth the wait.”

Phil tilts his head down, their noses almost touching. “Yeah?”

“For sure,” Dan cranes his neck up a little and pecks Phil’s lips again. The other boy grins, pulling his jacket further over Dan’s shoulders.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime then, won’t we?” Phil’s eyes glitter.

Dan grins, glancing at the view spread in front of them. The sun is beginning to awaken and there are fewer streetlights illuminating the land below and it’s cold and wow, they should really think about heading home soon. Dan hasn’t checked his phone in hours and he’s sure it can’t be running on anything much more than a measly four percent.

“Definitely,” he says, then hesitates. “Although, well.”

“Well what?”

Dan flicks his eyes up at the boy above him, tired brown against weary blue.

“Perhaps next time we should choose somewhere a little warmer than a car park,” he says in a soft voice, before adding, “I can barely feel my arse right now.”

Phil bursts out laughing, and then a pair of lips are on his for the third time.

-

The next couple of weeks rush by in a flurry of rehearsals, meetings, crumpled scripts and weird costumes that itch around the collar. Dan and Phil spend most of their time three storeys apart, meaning secret rendezvous up in the control room or down in the trap room are often necessary. The closer the big day creeps, the hotter the atmosphere becomes with stress, so it’s nice to leave the tension with the stage and the equally tense co-workers and escape for a bit.

“For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart aga- oh for fuck’s sake, you’re not even listening.”

Phil looks up from his phone, a giggling smirk still lingering on his face. “Huh?”

“Come on, Phil. You said you’d go through this with me and you’re sat there playing around with bloody Snapchat filters.”

“Sorry, sorry – I am listening, it’s just-“ his eyes flicker back down to the screen in front of him. “That’s hideous. Who even makes these filters? I look like a toe.”

“Can unflattering photos of you not wait five minutes until I’ve finished this? We’re literally nearly done anyway. We only have, like, one more paragraph to g-” Phil interrupts him by flipping the phone around to face the other boy. A bald, rather unsightly version of Phil with weird eyes stares back. Dan’s eyes widen in horror. “Fuck, that really is hideous.”

“I know,” Phil shudders. “I didn’t even know my face could do that,” he glances back at the screen and pulls a couple of experimental faces. “Would you still be with me if I looked like that?”

“Nope,” Dan replies semi-seriously, rolling his eyes when Phil pouts.

“What about if I looked like this?” Phil turns the phone around. He looks a lot better this time, but a little bit too much like an animal. Dan’s never really understood the national attraction towards ‘dog filters’.

“Probably. The ears might get in the way a bit, though,” he chuckles, before urging, “now come on. We haven’t got long left now.”

Phil agrees, albeit reluctantly. He swings his legs off the table, grabs Dan’s battered highlighted mess of a script sitting in front of him and they pick up from where they left off, something about ‘worms that are thy chamber maids’, ‘everlasting rest’ and ‘inauspicious stars’ (whatever the fuck that adjective means). They last a grand total of fifteen seconds before Dan’s voice is interrupted by a shriek of laughter.

“Oh, fucking hell that’s bad!” Phil cackles. Dan groans, wondering for a fleeting second where the best place to launch Phil’s phone might be.

“That’s it,” he loses it, suddenly leaping across the table and swiping the irritating rectangle of interest straight from Phil’s hand. His smile vanishes in seconds.

“Aw, what?!”

“You have five seconds to put this stupid fucking thing away, or else it’s going out there,” he points to the window behind them. Phil follows his gaze, his eyes widening. They can see the majority of the town from up here. That’s a long drop.

He turns his head back around. They’re nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye.

“Fine,” Phil smiles, the tips of their noses brushing together. “But just so you know, seeing you angry just makes me want to kiss you more.”

Dan rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide his smirk. “Are you still gonna want to kiss me when your phone ends up on the ground?”

“What do you mean ‘when’? I’ve put it away now,” he points to the bulge in his back pocket.

Dan fixes him with a glare.

“Come on,” Phil leans forward as Dan leans back. “Just one?” he pleads, his eyes big and blue.

He shakes his head and pulls away, a grin curling at his lips. His eyes flicker back to Phil, a brown gaze that lingers too long.

“Afterwards,” he says in a voice like velvet.

Phil rolls his eyes, flopping back onto the chair. “Fine. Bloody hell, it’s like being back at school.”

Dan pretends not to hear that last comment. “Come on, we’ll take it from “world-wearied flesh…”

Phil’s phone doesn’t move once from his pocket after that. The promise of Dan’s lips after rehearsal is more tempting than any filter some dumb app has to offer.

-

“How do I look?”

Phil eyes him up and down, a smirk playing at his lips. “Hot.”

The comment receives a soft punch to his upper arm.

“Behave,” Dan turns back to the mirror, twining a lock of perfectly sprayed hair that he was specifically instructed not to touch around his fingers. “Are you sure? I feel like I look like a-“

He’s interrupted by a pair of soft lips for a few seconds.

“That’s really not helping the nerves,” Dan breathes once they break away.

Phil grins. “You look fine. You know you do. Now quit playing with your hair before Alexa sees.”

Dan doesn’t think Alexa, the make-up artist, is capable of seeing anything that isn’t within a thirty-centimetre radius of her own face right now. She’s been hurrying around backstage all evening; powdering this, curling that, flitting from actor-to-actor so quickly it makes Dan out of breath to even watch her. She certainly hasn’t done a bad job though, he thinks, as he inspects his reflection. A slightly dishevelled, 15th-century version of himself stares back, all weird leather and burgundy velvet and wow, perhaps he should sport an Elizabethan tunic more often.

“Suits you,” Phil smiles as if he’d read his mind. Dan adjusts the collar accordingly.

“D’you reckon?”  

“Yeah,” Phil eyes him up and down again. “Most people here kinda look like twats in their costume, but you really actually pull that off.”

“Um- thanks? I think?” Dan smirks, frowning at his reflection. He doesn’t mention it has anything to do with his long-standing ability to morph into literally anyone he likes (he’d often been described by many make-up artists as having a “chameleon face” which he hopes is a reference to his adaptability to blend into multiple characters as opposed to resembling a lizard), and instead accepts the ever-so-slightly backhanded compliment.

“What are you doing down here?” someone with an updo the size of Jupiter asks Phil, sauntering past in something that really rather resembles a cupcake. Phil was right, Dan thinks. They do look a bit ridiculous. “They need you upstairs in five minutes.”

“Oh shit,” Phil glances at his watch. “Okay. Gotta go before Nick kills me.”

“Alright,” Dan smiles, pulling him in for a quick hug.

“Good luck,” he whispers into his shoulder. “You’ll fucking kill it.”

Dan tightens his grip around his arms. “Thank you.”

The word has multiple other meanings, and judging by the glitter in Phil’s eye when he pulls away, he thinks he understands every single one.

-

That night, Dan lavishes in warm spotlights and painted wooden sets resembling palaces and balconies, and he feels alive.

That night, the finest Elizabethan literature spills from his lips, flowing as easily as water, his voice shaping every monologue, soliloquy and duologue perfectly.

That night, there are another pair of lips on his; only this time painted red and totally professional. It feels strange, alien, and not a single trace of the spark in his heart that Phil’s lips ignite can be found, but it’s work. It’s courage.

And that night, someone up in the control booth watches through the pane of glass over all the light boards and buttons and wires, and smiles.

As if it’s been almost a year since my last oneshot??? Wtf this must CHANGE I’m getting back into writing (properly this time I swear) so there’s a lot more where this came from. Feedback is always appreciated whether it be good or bad so pls let me know how you found this! Feels so good to be doing this again u have nooo idea holy shit <3

[dreamss-of-boston]

Rise - ch1

Sonya Romanova of the Underground is brought to the surface on the condition that she join and serve the Survey Corps. As she comes to grips with what the surface world is actually like compared to her dreamy fantasies, she finds herself becoming more and more enamored with the stoic Captain Levi.

---

hello i suck at summaries like everybody else in the world but this is gonna be a pretty slow burn,, i haven't written fic in a while and i really wanna try and explore the world of the underground and the corps throughout this fic. if theres too much exposition i understand and im sorry and i promise things will pick up lmfao. if y'all want smut lmk cuz im down to write it but i gotta know if other ppl are interested in that kind of thing. ok sweet thanks for reading love you bye

-the start-

link on AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/16998978/chapters/39961167

“Your name is Romanova—don’t ever forget that.” Maria stopped, and coughed out the drag she had just taken from her cigarette.

Sonya grated the clothes against the washboard, focusing only on the bubbles sloshing in the water.

“Yes, mother.”

“I don’t know who the hell your father was, but who gives a damn? He never did a thing for you.” Maria took another drag. She coughed. “When did smoking become so tiresome? Sonya, darling, get me something to drink.”

Sonya knew that getting something to drink did not mean water or tea, but any assortment of alcohol stashed within the house behind her. She dropped the clothes into the soapy bucket, dried her hands on her apron, and turned to venture inside the kitchen.

Brothels had kitchens—and bathrooms, and a backyard, and balconies, and of course bedrooms. Today, Sonya was seventeen, and her mother couldn’t hold onto her any longer.

“Don’t look so stressed, sweetie.” One of the girls, Herschel, rubbed a soothing hand on Sonya’s slender back. Herschel was voluptuous to say the least: beautiful black hair cascading in curls down her back, soft, thin lips which held a deep, sensual voice within. Suffice it to say, she was very good at her job. Sonya, on the other hand, was quite small—smaller than normal seventeen-year-old girls. Unfortunately, she was gorgeous. Her eyes a golden green, chestnut brown and curly hair, and lips and cheeks so rosy it was hard to believe she’d never seen sunlight. The girls had already been cooing and teasing about how she was soon to become a number one item on the menu. Yes, Genie’s Palace was the best in the Underground—sometimes people from the surface would even venture down there to get a taste of the deprived and sensual ladies of the brothel.

“We’ll give you one of our regulars first—he’s real gentle.” Herschel was folding napkins: a necessary staple for hygiene in every room. Sonya looked down at her silk night-gown her mother had suggested she wear in order to lure in as many customers as possible. She crossed her arms.

“I’m cold.” She said—Herschel laughed.

“You’ll heat up soon enough. The first time don’t hurt as much as they say, honest!” Herschel gave Sonya’s arm a gentle squeeze. “And they usually finish up quick anyways.”

Sonya didn’t say anything—she just poured her mother a glass of vodka and hurried out of the kitchen.

She dropped the glass off at the small side-table her mother sat next to.

“Mother, I’m going to go for a walk. Is that alright?” Sonya asked quietly.

“Oh, alright. Just don’t take too long—you need to wash up properly before you get your first one.” Maria took a sip, and seemed somewhat relieved from the bitter drink.

Sonya drew her lips into a tight line, and grabbed her black coat from her chair. She pulled it on as she exited onto the lamp-lit street, feeling a little more like herself as she left the brothel behind and had something covering her shoulders.

Banners and tables lined the street; it was a strange sight, to say the least. She furrowed her eyebrows, looking closely at the insignias of the banners: a white and a blue wing, crossed over each other guarding a shield. This was foreign to Sonya—she’d never seen actual Survey Corps members in the Underground. It was almost always MPs, or the occasional Garrison soldier who could dare to afford a girl from Genie’s.

“Ah, Sonya!” A familiar voice caught Sonya’s attention, and she turned with dismay to find one of Herschel’s regulars approaching her with a signature swagger. He was called Kurt, a high-ranking officer of the MPs, and a disillusioned asshole. He actually believed what he paid Herschel to tell him, and as a result, had never been able to sleep with a woman for free. “I thought I recognized you. What are you doing out here? I thought today was the first day you started.” He looked her up and down, very obviously. “I knew you were worth more than just a cocktail waitress.”

“What are all these banners for?” Sonya nodded to the Survey Corps members, standing behind tables with clipboards and interacting with the people of the Underground.

“Oh, the Survey Corps just lost a couple hundred of their own recently on one of their foolish expeditions.” He rolled his eyes. “Now they’re trying to lure these poor suckers in for a chance to live up top.”

“What? Seriously?” Sonya tensed up.

“I know—ridiculous, really, who would ever want to join the Survey Corps?”

“No, I mean—you can live up there if you join?”

“Oh, darling.” Kurt smiled sympathetically. “You wouldn’t want to live up top—it’s just more of the same.”

“But there’s sunlight. And fresh air.” She paused. “I want to know what the rain smells like.”

Sonya had been staring at the booth for a while—there stood behind it a tall, stoic man speaking quietly with a woman with dark hair and glasses, and a shorter man with black hair. The woman with glasses seemed to notice Sonya, and she turned to her with a smile. Sonya, taken off guard by her blatant kindness, smiled shyly back.

Before she knew it, the woman had begun to make her way towards Sonya and Kurt just as he was attempting to whisk her off her feet by suggesting they go somewhere a bit more private so he could wish her a proper happy birthday.

“Pardon the interruption, Kurt!” The woman said brightly. “I know you’re down here a lot, so I’m sure this local won’t mind!”

“Wh-where did you hear that?” Kurt seemed very flustered, and Sonya had to hide a laugh.

“Oh, around!” The woman maintained her smile, and turned to focus on Sonya. “Hello. My name is Captain Hange Zoe—I’m one of the officers part of the Survey Corps.” She extended her hand to shake.

“Oh—hello.” Sonya shook her hand, amused by Captain Zoe’s remark to Kurt. “I’m Sonya Romanova.”

“Good to meet you!” Captain Zoe gestured to the table behind her, rife with clipboards and other soldiers of the Corps. “We’re recruiting people to become soldiers in the Survey Corps. Our mission is to venture into the outside world, beyond the walls, and attempt to understand why we are enclosed within these walls, what the titans are exactly, and how we can break our way free.” She stood with her hands on her hips, proud of herself. “Interested?”

“Well—” Sonya paused. “How far have you gotten?”

“Huh?”

“How many titans have you killed? Are we any closer to finding out the truth?”

Captain Zoe pondered the question, studying Sonya for a moment. “We’ve gotten a little closer—every time, we’ve made some kind of progress.” She nodded. “Asking questions like that, though—that is the true mark of someone who would make an excellent Survey Corps soldier.”

“And I could live up there?” Sonya asked eagerly—Kurt groaned in annoyance.

“Yes, of course!” Captain Zoe grabbed a clipboard off of the table. She practically shoved the pen into Sonya’s hands. She eagerly began to sign her name on one of the numbered slots, when a voice from the other side of the table gave her pause.

“You can only live up there if you make it past training.” It was the short, dark-haired man. He was almost glaring at Sonya—she was taken aback. “We won’t keep you if you’re useless.”

Sonya glanced at Kurt—a potential customer if she stayed where she was. She looked back at the clipboard, and pointedly signed her name. She looked back at the dark-haired man.

“Then I won’t be useless.”

[-]

“I won't be useless.”

That was what Sonya had vowed the day she signed up for the corps five years ago.

And today, standing at salute in front of Commander Erwin, she knew at her core that she had made the right decision. Her heart swelled with pride as she stood among her fellow soldiers, listening to the impassioned speech Erwin was delivering.

“Soldiers.” He called, gazing down on the crowd with pride. The flickering torches surrounding the soldiers and the stage cast a soft, almost theatrical effect that entranced Sonya and vaguely reminded her of the Underground.

The Underground. Her previous hell-- right after she had signed up, Sonya fled from her home without even going back to pack anything. She had asked Hange Zoe-- or maybe begged her-- if she could take refuge with her for the time being, before she was brought up to the surface to join the corps. Hange hesitated at first, but Sonya explained her situation, rife with embarrassment, and then Hange understood. She even let Sonya stay with her in the little hotel provided for soldiers stationed in the Underground. Unfortunately for her, that hotel was rife with MPs who were frequent customers of Genie's Palace. For the three days Sonya was there, they would sneer and jeer at her, offering her money to spend the night with them, and a few even touched her when she would walk past in the dimly lit hallways.

But that was behind her-- she had escaped, clawed her way through training, and somehow she was standing here.

She had just barely made it into the top ten-- if she was a normal recruit, she would be able to join the other nine soldiers in the interior, but even if she wasn't already destined to join the Corps, she would have died before joining the MPs.

Sonya glanced at Captain Levi-- he stood next to Erwin, looking rather bored and pained to be there. Now that Erwin was Commander, he had allowed Levi to form his own squad of handpicked elite soldiers. She wanted desperately to become part of that squad-- if only to prove to herself that she could, but also to prove to Captain Levi. He was the one who had cautioned her not to be useless all those years ago. And now, she had made it into the top ten, and left the Underground far behind.

Sonya had heard that in three days, the Commander would be leading her generation of Cadets on their first expedition. She knew that she should have been terrified of the prospect of meeting Titans face to face, but a part of her was indescribably excited. Sonya had loved every second of being on the surface, of feeling the sunlight and the moonlight, of tasting fresh air and hearing birds outside her window every morning. While her fellow recruits despised waking up early, Sonya was grateful that there was a sun to designate time. In the Underground, there was one clock which everyone simply had to trust-- and even then, nobody really cared what time it was. Only she and two other people from the Underground had made it past training-- the others who had signed up were too malnourished to build any muscle or stamina, and so were sent back to the depths. Sonya Romanova, Peter Wagner, and Anna Weber were the only ones standing among the recruits born on the surface.

As Commander Erwin pontificated, Sonya’s mind wandered, entertaining the thoughts of killing titans with her new friends, staying up late and talking about life with them in the cramped living quarters of HQ… she even thought of when she might-- in her wildest dreams-- be invited to join Squad Levi. She smiled dreamily at him, and when Commander Erwin finished his speech, those who did not wish to join the Survey Corps left, leaving only Sonya and about a hundred more soldiers standing at attention.

“Welcome to the Survey Corps.” Commander Erwin smiled, and Sonya and her compatriots cheered.

[-]

Two days came and went in a flash-- mostly, the new recruits were told to do chores which the veterans were too lazy to do, involving cleaning the stables, changing bed linens, mopping the floors and such. Whenever Captain Levi deigned to speak to the new recruits, he would make bitter remarks about how their cleaning was subpar, and if he was in an especially bad mood, he would sentence them to even harsher cleaning duties.

One such day, Sonya was subject to said punishments.

“Your cleaning is atrocious, Romanova.” Levi scoffed at her as she was cleaning the windows lining one of the expansive hallways of HQ.

“Apologies, sir.” Sonya said dutifully, although in her opinion her cleaning was exceptional.

“Honestly, if a soldier can't clean a window properly…” He muttered, and turned to leave.

Against Sonya's better judgment-- perhaps it was exhaustion making her particularly feisty-- she made a smart-ass remark.

“I must not be using the proper cleaning solution, sir.” She stood at salute. “Want me to spit on it?”

That had landed her a full days work cleaning the stables-- alone. Sonya had to admit, though, it was a little worth it to see the look of absolute disdain he had when she spoke up.

Being above ground, Sonya had found a new sense of confidence. Underground, she was used to being ogled at by slimy men in dimly lit rooms, but above ground, people were generally nicer, and she got compliments quite often, which caused her self esteem to sky-rocket.

Granted, those compliments were usually geared solely towards her appearance rather than her actual performance in training, but she took what she could get.

Over the course of her five years on the surface, she had grown much closer to Peter and Anna. Peter was quite a tall, handsome man with sharp features and spiky red hair. His family owned and operated one of the few taverns in the Underground, so he had come from what Sonya considered the upper middle class. He was the type of person to tell stories of his daily life as if they were comedic performances-- sometimes people were entertained, but the tired soldiers usually got annoyed by Peter’s seemingly constant energy.

Anna, on the other hand, was quite stoic, and shared very few words with anyone who wasn’t Peter or Sonya. Anna had come from the streets-- her parents had died before she really knew them, and by the time she was six years old, her aunt had abandoned her in a drunken haze, and Anna never saw her again. Sonya had thought that Anna would never make it past training, but she persevered and was now standing about in the stables while Sonya raked away at the hay.

“You’re so stupid.” Anna remarked.

“I’m stupid a lot-- be more specific?” Sonya grinned.

“What you said to Captain Levi: ‘should I spit on it?’ Honestly, what did you think was going to happen?”

“I thought maybe he’d get down on one knee and say, ‘Oh, Sonya! You’re so funny and strong! Join my squad!’” Sonya even added the theatrical gesture of getting down on one knee in front of Anna. That earned a shy smile from the black-haired girl.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Peter.” She said. “I think he likes you, by the way.”

Sonya rolled her eyes. “Peter’s probably the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

“He told me he wants to join Levi’s squad, too.”

“What?” Sonya threw her rake down in disgust. “That bastard’s just trying to copy me!”

“Maybe he’s trying to get your attention… or he’s trying to protect you!” Anna clasped her hand over her heart. “How romantic! It makes sense-- Levi’s Squad seem to always be put in the most dangerous positions.”

“Well, given my recent stunt today, I think my chances of getting in are pretty slim.” Sonya admitted. “I don’t think the Captain likes me very much-- I always smile and say good morning to him and all that, but he never even gives me the time of day except to make me do more chores.”

Anna shrugged. “Captain Levi’s just like that.”

“Maybe.” Sonya tossed the last bale of hay onto the compost heap, and sat down on a bench with a sigh. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

Anna nodded. Whenever Anna was nervous, she hardly spoke about what was truly on her mind. Sonya tended to talk too much-- they were a perfect fit.

“Me, too. I’m just hoping…”

“We’ll make it back alive?” Anna said with a wry smile.

Sonya let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah.”

The two girls sat in silence for a moment, allowing the sounds of the world to take over their conversation: the wind rustled the trees around the perimeter of HQ, wooden carts puttering over cobblestoned streets in the city outside-- Sonya leaned her head back with a smile.

“I’m never gonna get tired of life up here.”

Anna smiled back. That was the main thing they could relate to-- how awful their lives were down there. Anna especially spent every minute that she could outdoors-- she had even taken up woodworking, and had whittled a few little figurines as of late in her free time.

“Hey.” Anna said-- Sonya looked over to her. “If things get bad out there… I’ve got your back.”

Sonya nodded solemnly. “I’ve got your back, too.”

[-]

“Beautiful day to kill some titans!”

Peter Wagner adjusted the saddle on his horse, and glanced around with a smile to see if anyone would notice his remark.

“Shut up, Peter.” Sonya mounted her horse, patting his neck gently. Another thing she loved about being on the surface was the abundance of non-rabid animals-- she was assigned a horse at the beginning of her training, and this guy had stuck with her through thick and thin. She had named him Chuck.

“What, don’t tell me you’re scared, Romanova?” Peter grinned, mounting his own horse in turn.

“Of course I’m scared-- anyone who isn’t is stupid.”

Peter scoffed. “Anyone who’s scared probably didn’t train enough.”

“Hey, are you finished bickering over there?” Anna called from her section in the formation-- the Corps were currently arranging themselves in their planned positions they would fall into once the gate opened. Sonya, Anna, and Peter had all been placed in the same section-- near the back, but not too far towards the outer area that dealt with all or most of the titans.

Sonya and Peter trotted over to join Anna, and Sonya flashed Anna a reassuring smile. She was incredibly tense on her horse, gripping the reins like her life depended on it.

“All troops, move out!” Commander Erwin called from the very front of the formation, and the gate was lifted, and off they went.

[blame-canada]

II. Dinosaurs and Race Cars - Kyvid

The concept of David Rodriguez was one that Kyle had a very hard time understanding. It was, after all, hard to think when the very essence of a person was enough to drown out rational thought and basic comprehension. Also he had very, very nice arms.

Hi guys! Here we are with part two to this saga that will be full of the sweet, sweet kyvid content that the world so desperately needs. I, on a deeply personal level, feel I must provide for my rarepair, and so here I am, throwing cliches into the wind and hoping they stick (at least to somebody). Regardless, I hope you enjoy it! Tagging @mcnuggyy and @valzilla as my endless fountains of support and headcanons- y’all the real ones.

Part I

II.

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Kyle, dude,” Stan said, exasperated in every sense of the word, “you’ve been repeating that all fucking day. Are you gonna do it or not?”

“Yes, I’m gonna do it!” Kyle whisper-yelled, and he shrunk into his locker door as Stan’s gaze sized him up. “Just, like. In a minute. Next period.”

“Next period was two weeks ago,” he deadpanned. Then he gripped Kyle by the shoulders and whirled him around, and Kyle sputtered his anger out in incoherent noises of distress until Stan’s hand shot out from behind his shoulder to point straight ahead, to a locker that he knew embarrassingly by heart. “It’s so far past next period it’s stupid. Fucking go, Kyle, Jesus.”

Kyle’s hands met against his chest, his nerves exploding so violently he feared a seizure. He was right there, swinging his locker door open with his backpack slung over only one shoulder, halfway through pulling it off his back. His hair looked freshly cut from here, which did not bode well for Kyle. “God, what am I doing?” he moaned, and Stan gave him a decent push right in the middle of his back to force him out from behind his locker door and properly into the hallway.

“Making a fool of yourself. Go,” he hissed, and Kyle gulped down the nervous lump in his throat, nodding slightly. Next period really may as well have been two weeks ago. With a big breath, as though diving into the ocean, he surged forward in the most confident wide-stepped stride he could muster to try to pump himself up. It didn’t really matter, however, because David managed to catch him so off guard he deflated and nearly stumbled when he swiveled on one heel to face the hall.

Kyle’s heart leapt to his throat, and when David caught his eyes and smiled at him, his stomach grew flowers, the roots of them tickling and infiltrating his organs so violently he felt like he might be sick. At the same time, the glow of his familiar face left him awash with unusual calm, like a sedative with a laundry list of nasty lovestruck side effects that were somehow still worth it. In that moment, as David took one step forward to get close enough to talk over the crashing of locker doors slamming shut, all Kyle could think was,

‘Oh, god, I do love him.’

“My raptor friend,” David began, the smile audible in his tone, and Kyle wanted simultaneously to die and jump for joy at such an embarrassing nickname, “come to finish the hunt?”

Kyle giggled, honest to god giggled, before he cleared his throat and returned to his game face. “I, uh, wanted to make up for that.”

“Why? It was funny,” he said, and he chuckled himself, the sound so melodic and warm it could’ve brought him to his knees. “Plus the faces you make when I call you that are cute.”

Oh, Kyle could die. Die right there, in the middle of South Park High, at the ripe old age of seventeen, in front of a boy who could rule the world with one flash of his charming grin. He called him cute.

David leaned one hip against his locker and crossed his arms, and Kyle was stunned, transfixed by how his body moved with such finesse. “I actually had a question for you, if you had a minute..?” David said, and Kyle stood up straight, knowing full well that he would do fucking anything for him.

“Yeah, anything,” Kyle confirmed, perhaps too eagerly, because David’s smile turned the slightest bit devilish, and Kyle felt so caught in the act he considered ‘raptoring’ out all over again. In defiance of instinct, he glued his feet in place, determined.

David ran a hand through his perfectly newly-clipped hair, and Kyle could've sworn he looked nervous. “I was wondering if you would, ah,” he faltered, averting his gaze to the left and rubbing at the back of his neck, and Kyle had to try very hard not to stare at his arms as his muscles performed the elementary task. It looked anything but elementary, though; god, why was he wearing a short sleeved shirt in this weather? Shouldn’t he have his arms covered like a normal person? Any decent human being would know just how threatening it was to the student body to have his arms just exposed, like some sort of horrible tease that Kyle didn’t know how to talk to.

A deft hand snapped its fingers just beside Kyle’s left eye and it startled him back to Earth, to a grin that had definitely become devilish by now. “Back to the land of the living?” he teased, his sculpted brows quirked, and Kyle felt like dying all over again.

“Yeah, I, uh,” he fumbled, laughing nervously and clearing his throat like a schoolgirl in a goddamn rom-com, “yeah. Sorry, dude.”

David shrugged. “S’fine. Sound good, though?” he asked, but his face was uncharacteristically shy. Uncharacteristic, because David did and got what he wanted, and it was hot as hell.

“Yeah, yeah. Good!” Kyle said, a complete knee-jerk response, because his face heated up at the slow realization that he actually had absolutely no idea what David had said. Curse his beautiful arms, and that ridiculous, tantalizing v-neck—

“Alright, great! See you after school,” he said, and Kyle felt extremely grateful that David chose that moment to smile warmly at him and turn the other direction to go to class, because he was certain his face could light a match. What was after school? Oh god, what was after school?

Before David turned the corner, Craig Tucker, of all people, appeared to give him an unenthused high-five. Kyle knew they were kind of friends, but not high-five-level friends. Then, as though he could sense his thoughts, Craig looked over his shoulder and made direct eye contact with him. His face was just as flat and unyielding as always, and his eyes were so painfully scrutinizing he felt banished to Hell where he stood. What had he done? What had he signed up for?

A hand landed on his back and he jumped, twisting to find Stan looking at him expectantly.

“Stan, what’s after school?” Kyle asked before Stan could speak, a sinking feeling in his gut, and as Stan’s face morphed into one of confusion, he let out an embarrassing whine. “Stan, I don’t know what’s after school.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Stan asked, brow furrowed, and Kyle dropped his face to his hands, mumbling into his palms and pressing his fingertips into his eye sockets, like he could end his own misery by squashing his brain right through them. All he managed was to make stars burst behind his eyelids. “Kyle, I can’t understand you when you talk in your crisis pose.”

“I agreed to something and I don’t know what!” he wailed, throwing his hands to the ceiling in frustration and screeching behind his teeth. “Stan, he said, ‘See you after school,’ and I have no idea what he was talking about. I just agreed!”

“Why didn’t you just ask him to repeat himself?”

“It was a knee-jerk reaction, Stan! By the time I realized what I did, he was already halfway down the hall!” He gripped at his hair and considered tearing it out. “What am I gonna do?”

“Well, you could ask him next period. You usually see him twice.” Stan shrugged, but was also clearly trying not to laugh, and Kyle resented him so much for that. “That sucks though, dude.” He snorted quietly, and Kyle dared him to go further. “Oh man, what are you gonna say? ‘Hey David, so funny story, I don’t actually know what I agreed to, because I was too distracted by how hot you look always.’ Oh shit, Kyle, you’re so fucked dude.” Then he did laugh, the motherfucker, the traitor, and he gripped his belly and wheezed while Kyle clenched and unclenched his fists, seriously considering resorting to violence.

There was suddenly a rough yanking sensation on his shoulder and Kyle yelped, turning to find Kenny hanging on his arm. “Heyyyy, my man! My big grown up manly man. How’d it go?” His teeth were ready to pop out of his beaming smile- at least the ones he still had. He then took a moment to assess the situation, and Kyle guessed he looked pretty dismal, because Kenny started to chill and let go of his arm, sobering up. “Aw man, that bad huh?”

“Kyle got distracted by David’s immaculate body, and regretfully does not know how it went.”

“Holy shit, Stan, stop,” Kyle warned, but Kenny had already resorted to booming laughter and started to hang off Stan’s arm instead, the two of them shrieking like hyenas. “It’s not like that! I just, I had a lapse in memory. It happens!”

“Yeah, when you’re obsessed with somebody, maybe,” Kenny snickered, and they switched to hushed giggling while they tried to calm down. Kyle felt his face go redder, if it was even possible. “Okay, so you need a new game plan. You gotta know where you’re meeting up anyways, right? Just meet up with ‘im here again when you usually do and you’re all set,” Kenny deduced, confidently. Kyle groaned.

“I guess I’m just nervous, again,” he admitted, feeling the embarrassment deep in his soul, crushing it and cracking it and making him generally miserable. His shoulders hung and he sagged into himself. Kenny and Stan shared a look, then Stan reached a hand out to grip his shoulder encouragingly.

“Hey, dude, this stuff is always tough. You can do it, though. We believe in you.”

“Yeah, well,” he grumbled, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

“That’s the spirit!” Kenny clapped his back hard and he straightened out his posture. “You got this, bud. You’ve got your own charm aboutcha. I got faith.” Stan nodded in agreement, and Kyle let out a big breath.

“Yeah, alright.”

He was not alright.

Will we ever find out what David said to Kyle in his moment of weakness? Does the author use italics way too much in Kyle’s POV? Is David the embodiment of perfection himself? The answer to all three is a resounding, ‘Probably!’

[cyllarspace]

twenty oh seventeen

so before this year truly ends, i would make a bit of look back on how 2017 ruined my life lol, to be honest, 2017 was a HUGE set back in my life, it was a mishap to say the least. i failed in everything, name it, yeah i failed in that too. i couldn't think as of the moment of a time where i was genuinely happy because of a success. i was totally lost (i still am) but yeah i learned so many lessons huhu and i am oh so emosh on that. the odds were not in my favor but that's okay, i hope all the bad luck and unfortunate events will get left behind this 2017 year. ahh now that i remember, the ilocos tour was the highlight of my 2017 hahaha tho it was not as good lol it was okay than the rest of the year. yeah it was not good nor better, it was just okay hahah i'd like to name a few things that made my 2017, and hopefully, i could compare this next yr.: 1. first of all , it was ISE HAHAH oh shit, yeah he made the most of my 2017, i guess, my mood was way too dependent on him,and now i'd like to stop here because hahahaha now next! 2. summer class and CSE huhu the memories i cant even, the common thing about these two is that i plunge on these decisions when i am pretty much way too lost. not gonna lie i took these things because of peer pressure but either way, i did not regret these as much, it has this effect on me where some certain perspective in me changed, it mold me in way i guess, somewhere in me/ a part of me has drastically been changed by these two. 3. third. ''Madam'' tita nhene. because of her heaps have changed hahaha oh well im including her in this look back because she was the reason ilocos happened hahahahah a lot of things happened because of her and i'd like to express my gratitude. 4. roommates. after my first roommates, it has been 2 fvcked up years? my 2nd yr and 3rd yr room mates were umm... but it was revived by this year roommates HAHAHA thank you (by their bed number) lucille steph carms haya me jopay cha aj jenna bebe tricia for making my last year in dorm sooo fun, i love each and everyone of you. need i say more? uhuh 5. my college squad. Zhar,Ruth, Elaine and james huhu these people. my heart is full of nothing but love for these people, the best bunch of people ive met. we may had arguments and misunderstandings but oh well, that's what friends are for. 6. nef hahahahaha this litol gurl, who was supposedly still a part of our squad but anyways i couldn't be more grateful to still have her in my life, she has the most perfect timing,and every gala/plan with her happened hahaha here's to more fun activities with heeer. 7. Ruth. a separate one because man, she influenced my whole liiife , honestly i wouldnt mind if she would plan my whole life hahahaha and i will forever and ever be so oh so grateful she came to life. i learned so much because of her, and will always look up to her than anybody else lol idol hahahahah but oh yeah thank you for being my best friend in these college arc huhu i want to keep youu in my life huhu 8. kris. she balanced everything in my life, whenever i need to breathe, i can count on her. (i am pretty much drained right now and i couldnt think anymore but these are what came in my mind right away!) so here is my final goodbye to the 2017 year, now that i will kiss you goodbye, you may not be the best yet the worst year in my existence but i will surely keep all the lessons and memories deep in my heart. i certainly will look back on you but i wouldnt even dream to live again in you hahaha oh my heart, i cant even how did i survived you?! might as well i'd like to thank myself for handling everything so well, maybe not so well but still. thank you for fighting. hopefully 2018 is a recovery year huhu i hope it would heal me.entering this year in crossed fingers , i am practically so lost, i tried to do a list of goals but there was none, but i hope i'd find it along the way. so yeah, i still want to say so many things but *sigh wooooah cheers to another year!! now, what else? xx