#i was so so tired this morning (miiiiight have stayed up very late to watch paul arom videos…..) but this made me fully awake

[httpiastri]

Good morning babe 🥰🥰🥰

(I’ll take no responsibility of how you’ll react to this pic… I’m staring at his neck for days now and decided today is a great day to share it with you 🤭)

(The way I’m obsessed with his neck is insane, you’d thought I’m a vampire in disguise based on how much I want to bite and suck on that thick neck 😭 leaving marks behind, kissing & licking them better 🫠🫠🫠🫠)

(My horny ass can’t be stopped if it’s about him)

(when I say Silvo was my fav weekend, this is one of the reasons 😩 - and his amazing performance ofc.)

(His hair is sooo long here too I want to run my fingers through it, grabbing it gently also to move his head aside to have more access to attack his neck 🫠🫠🫠)

Okay I’m done, I’ve said what I said 🫣 sorry not sorry

ohooooooo noooo… this………………… this has made me feel so many things…….. i feel unwell

[thereisnobearonthisisland-arc]

buoy

this is my first chaptered fic and i miiiiight need a little help staying motivated to keep writing it, but i’m aiming for one chapter a week if i can :)

Summary: Dan is a first-year student at the University of Manchester. Jack is his RA. And Phil is Jack's best friend, another RA, and quite possibly about to be the love of Dan's life. Dan and Phil just have a long road of keeping secrets from Jack before they fall in love.

read on ao3

2.2k words

warnings: anxiety, mild sexual innuendos, swearing

chapter one

Dan was tired.  Tired because he’d been staying up until three o’clock in the morning every night for the past two weeks.  Tired because there’s only so much you can read before your brain liquefies and your eyelids start to feel like they’re made of lead.  Most of all, though, he was just tired of uni in general.  Everything was so…monotonous.  Waking up to go to work for a few hours.  Going to classes all day just for the attendance points, but never actually listening to a word that was said all class.  Coming home with every intention of Doing The Thing™, only to fall asleep within five minutes of stepping through the door.  All of this was wearing him thin, ripping apart his motivation one thread at a time.

He was tired, and regardless of whether or not it was a good idea for his GPA, he was ready for some relaxation.  Jack, his RA, had given him the perfect opportunity, too.  As Dan lay cocooned under his blankets, eyes drifting shut to some old-ass document written by John Locke, his school email pinged with a new notification.  He shifted a bit, sitting straighter and wiggling his shoulders to try to wake himself up.  He slid his cursor over to the tab with his email and opened it.  From Jack Swanson, yada yada yada, watching Planet Earth II in the lounge.  Dan’s eyes shot open.  He could be watching Planet Earth II instead of reading for class?  Sign him the fuck up.

He threw the covers off of himself and sprung out of bed.  Were pyjama pants appropriate for watching Netflix in the communal lounge?  Oh, who was he kidding.  It would be dark.  No one would actually give a fuck what he was wearing.  He slipped on a grey t-shirt and a pair of slippers before heading out of his room, not even bothering to lock the door behind him.  

The lounge was in the center of the whole floor, a focal point, the hub for everyone to get together and socialize.  Not that people did very often.  Dan made his way past the elevators and into the lounge.  The horrendous, thirty-year-old blue couches and chairs had been rearranged into a u-shape in front of the TV.  Jack looked up from where he was fiddling with a cord he’d hooked from his laptop to the TV.  He was the only other person in the lounge.  

Dan’s stomach swooped.  What if he was the only one to show up tonight?  What if he had to carry conversation all by himself?  He liked Jack.  Jack was easy to get along with.  But Dan had no idea how he was meant to hold a steady conversation all night without anyone to interject or change the subject.  He was an awful conversationalist.  

“Dan!”  Jack grinned from where he was kneeling on the floor, trying to project the show onto the widescreen TV embedded in the wall.  “Glad you could make it!”  

Dan let out a long breath.  Netflix.  They were watching Netflix.  Surely, some other people would be joining them.  And even if they didn’t, Dan wouldn’t have to worry about conversation.  He’d be too busy staring at the screen.

He shook his head, remembering that Jack had just said something.  He grinned crookedly, fixing his eyes just to the left of Jack’s face.  “Heh, yeah, I just really love penguins, ya know?”

Jack nodded vigorously.  “Oh yeah, penguins are definitely one of the coolest animals out there.”  He frowned, pulling his phone out of his pocket.  “Sorry, I left my friend Phil in charge of snacks for tonight.  He appears to have gotten lost,” he said after a minute.

Dan grinned.  “Ha, yeah I’m late to almost everything, so I feel for him.”

“Oh, no.  I mean he actually got lost.  The guy doesn’t know his left from his right.  He took one wrong turn and wound up eight blocks opposite from Tesco’s.”

“Oh.”  Dan bit back a grin.

“He’s on his way back now though.  Hopefully we can still start on time.  I was kind of hoping he’d make it back earlier though.  I’m not really sure if I have this hooked up properly.”  Jack gestured to the set-up he’d made with his laptop and the TV.

Dan scratched the back of his neck.  “I mean, I could take a look at it for you if you want?”

“Yeah, sure!  I’m honestly so technologically incompetent.  I always need help.  I think my mom could figure this out in about two minutes, but it just doesn’t click for me.”

Tittering, Dan knelt as Jack stood up from beside his laptop.  “You’re just trying to project your laptop screen onto the TV screen?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, that’s simple enough.”  He checked the HDMI cord and its input and then played with a few buttons on the side of the TV to switch the input from HDMI 2 to 3.  Jack’s computer screen popped up onto the TV.

“Huh.  That was quick.  Well, thanks Dan!”

Dan ducked his head.  “Erm, yeah, no problem.”  He made his way over to the couch facing the door and sat down, pulling his feet up onto the seat and wrapping his arms around his legs.  He stared at the screen, eyes glazing over and zoning out as Jack brought up Planet Earth on Netflix.  

He snapped back to attention when a giant bumbling figure stumbled through the open door, spindly limbs wobbling with the weight of plastic bags full of popcorn and suspiciously vibrant packaging. The guy was tall, probably taller than Dan himself and definitely taller than Jack.  He was hot.  Pools of saliva were beginning to form in Dan’s mouth, and he was almost afraid that he’d wind up hocking a loogie at this Phil guy before they even got the chance to get to know one another.  He needed to get ahold of himself.

Phil—or at least Dan was assuming this was Phil—dropped his bags on the round table in the corner of the room and let out a few wheezing breaths.  Dan smirked to himself.  Relatable.  Jack said something off to his left, but it just sounded like something from inside a fishbowl.

“Dan?”  Dan shook his head, tearing his gaze away from the tall, handsome stranger and blinking rapidly as if that could make the fog billowing up in his head clear any faster.  Jack was looking at him, head cocked to the side and eyebrows scrunched together.

“Hmm?”

“I said that I’m gonna go grab some plates, but you can feel free to sneak anything you’d like before other people start to show up.  I won’t tell.”

“Oh, yeah.  Cool.  Thanks!”  Dan clasped his hands together and stood up awkwardly.  As Jack ducked out of the room, he crept over to the table with the snacks.

The guy was even prettier up close.  His eyes looked like summer, and they made Dan nostalgic for old family hols when his parents were still together.  He forced himself to look away from them and toward the small mountain of food.

“I’m always the weirdo who winds up in the corner with the food,” the guy said, and Dan started, a surprised laugh tumbling out of his lips.

“Honestly?  Same.”

The guy grinned a thousand-watt smile.  “You’re Dan, right?”  He stuck out his hand.  “I’m Phil.  I’m the RA on the second floor.”

Dan grabbed it for a quick shake, ignoring the way his palm tingled when their hands came together.  “Nice to meet you.  Jack was actually just telling me a bit about you.  Said you don’t know your left from your right.”

Phil groaned, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth.  “He’s right!  I got lost on the way to pick up all of these snacks.  I told him it would go much smoother if I had someone else to go with me, but he said he had to be back here.  It’s really all his fault.”

Dan laughed.  “I’d offer to go with you next time, but I actually have no idea where anything is in this city.”

“You don’t know your way around Manchester?  I mean, I guess I can’t talk.  I got lost on the way to Tesco’s.  But you should at least know all the places to go to if your family comes to town or something.”

Dan scratched the back of his neck, unable to shake the broad grin that had planted itself on his face.  He was sure he must look like a maniac.  “I’m sure I’ll get around to learning the city eventually.”

Phil nodded, shifting back and forth between his feet for a minute.  “I mean, I could try to show you around sometime, maybe.  If you want, that is.  I’m not the best at finding my way around.  Obviously.  But at least if you get lost you won’t be alone.”

Dan felt his face grow warm with a flush straight from hell itself.  He opened his mouth to answer, but Jack walked back through the door, and all the words in Dan’s head morphed into a squeak.  Holy fuck.  Dan had just squeaked.  In front of a hot guy.  Shit.

“I’ve got plates!”  Jack wandered over to them, seemingly oblivious to Dan’s growing embarrassment.  He set a stack of plates on the table and then turned around, frowning at the door.  “I thought we might get more people than this.  Maybe I should send one more email.”

He pulled out his phone and ambled over to one of the chairs.  Phil nudged Dan, and Dan tried to will away the blush dusting his cheeks as he looked back at him.  Dan’s eyes were drawn to his lips as he put a single finger up to them.  They were pretty lips, bow-shaped, plump, and pink.  He barely noticed the way Phil gestured secretively to his own phone.  Phil typed something quickly, fingers flying across the screen for a minute before he locked it and slipped it back into his pocket.

Dan’s spine was wracked with the tingle of shivers as Phil leaned in close to whisper to him.  “I just invited my residents to join in if they want.  Don’t tell Jack.”

Dan nodded, holding his breath as he desperately tried to keep his body from shaking too much at the feeling of Phil’s breath fanning out over his ear.  He took one step away from Phil, letting out a slow breath and trying to calm his nerves before he could squeak again.  Phil made Dan nervous.  He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to unpack the reason behind that for that right now, but he could at least acknowledge it.  Still slightly jittery, he gestured wildly to the table.  “So, what would you recommend?”

Phil studied the food for a moment.  “I guess that depends on what you prefer.  Savory or sweet?  I’m partial to sweet things, myself.”

“I guess I like a bit of both?”

“Hmm, then I’m gonna say...try some of this salted popcorn.”  He gestured to one of the plastic bags.  “And maybe some jelly babies?  Or Maltesers?”

Dan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.  “Wait, you have Maltesers?”

Phil chuckled and dug around in a bag until he pulled out familiar shiny red packaging.  “I only bought one pack, so you can have them on one condition.  You have to share a few with me.”

Dan grabbed the pack.  “Deal!  God, one of my favorite pastimes is choking on those balls.”

Phil snorted, turning away from him.  He shifted on his feet again a few times before turning back towards Dan.  

Dan had to be imagining the tinge of pink to his cheeks, right?  His eyes glazed over as he watched Phil run his fingers through his hair, pushing it back into a quiff.  It was a good look.  Dan’s fingers itched to take a picture of him, but that would be weird.  They’d only just met.  In another universe, maybe he could.  But in this one?  In this one, Phil was clearing his throat, and Dan was snapping back to attention.

“Do you, uh, do you choke on those balls often?”

Dan laughed, bringing his hand up to rub at the warm spot blooming on his jaw.  Were they still talking about Maltesers?  “No, uh, only when I take in too much at once.  I nearly died when I was fifteen because I tried to swallow twenty at the same time without even chewing.  My grandma had to give me the Heimlich.”

“That sounds traumatizing.”

“It was.”  Maybe he was biased, but Dan thought that Phil’s eyes were even prettier when he was smiling.  His smile was contagious.  Dan found himself grinning like a fool as he piled a plate with popcorn and Maltesers.  

Phil piled his own plate with a variety of sweets and bumped their shoulders together when he was finished.  “Will you sit by me for this thing?  My residents are lovely, but I’m kind of sick of them at this point.”

Dan’s breath caught in his throat.  He could feel his heartbeat pulsing erratically in his fingertips.  He’d only known this man for a matter of fifteen minutes, but there was already something vaguely familiar about the way he made all the blood rush to Dan’s ears.  He bit his lip.  

“Yeah, alright.”