#kath does weird things late at night

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: A Festive Day in the Life of Dan and Phil!

Date video was published: 12/20/2014 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 254

The 2014 DITL video! The last one had been back in August 2013. This is my absolute favorite DITL and probably one of my top five DNP joint videos of all time. Get ready for me to have way too much to say about it.

0:00 - sleepy morning + quiff Phil! We’ll see a surprising amount of that in this video.

0:05 - “almost a week till Christmas,” so they must have filmed this just a few days before it was posted

0:25 - no waking up Dan in “his” bedroom like in the first two DITL. Hmmm...this scene doesn’t seem staged at all...especially since Phil’s laptop is already open on the arm of the sofa. Unless he just left it like that overnight.

0:37 - love that the other advent calendar on the mantle in the one they made. 😂 There are 18 of the doors opened on it, so they’re probably filming this on the the 18th or 19th of December.

0:47 - they both jump into doing the theme music as soon as Phil says “titan”

0:57 - that is pretty late for them to be putting up the decorations! Phil looks sad about it too.

1:01 - sad tinsel. I think Phil had the silver piece in the background in his last video. And the little WALLE in the background here, from all the way back in PINOF. 🥺

1:17 - this domestic insight, just 😭😭😭

1:26 - full circle back to the first DITL video. I wonder if they watched the previous DITLs before filming this one.

1:41 - so many mugs.

1:48 - Dan did not want that one because it was very hard to actually drink out of as he discovered in DITL London. I really bet they did watch the previous ones shortly before this...so many references back!

1:55 - awww, happy warm Phil

2:13 - such a dramatic sigh but he goes to get it anyway!

2:25 - well that is a terrifying way to burn a tealight...put it on a dish!

2:33 - I love that there is no explanation for this in the video. Phil is superstitious about new shoes on the table, which they had both tweeted about before.

2:40 - Dan fashion show and an encouraging Phil

2:47 - immediate smile when Dan notices Phil there

2:56 - why does Phil looks SO GOOD in this clip. also, as usual a weird/slightly horrifying poem from his brain.

3:02 - love that they both decided to wear holiday jumpers. They also wore these same ones for their December radio show. Also the Dan lean-in 🥺

3:12 - PJ tweeted about this DNP visit!

3:27 - this whole leaving scene is possibly the most domestic part of any video - the candle argument, the coat adjustment, the stop in the bathroom to check their hair, Phil checking to make sure Dan has keys, the spider checking and joking... I mean.

4:13 - more throwback conversation to DITL London

4:35 - so glad he chose not to lick his hand. Even more horrifying in 2021.

4:40 - Dan talked about this and falling up the escalator in What not to do on Public Transport

5:00 - “bit corporate isn’t it?” but caves immediately because Phil wants to. 

5:10 -  Love that Phil orders while Dan finds a table. Love that Phil makes Dan draw something happy not just a sad face. Love Dan’s huge smile after that.

5:33 - Dan really can’t say much he was reading his phone in the clip right before this!

5:58 - Dan’s talking about this weird incident that Phil posted a clip of on LessAmazingPhil

6:18 - they always go to at least one nerdy shop in the first DITLs!

6:36 - the things they choose to zoom in on in this shop...Dan with Spiderman’s crotch a few seconds before this and now Phil on the shirtless guy book cover. subtle, lol.

7:29 - I had actually heard of this board game prior to this video because Wil Wheaton did a TableTop episode. I remember being so surprised to see DNP wanting it!

7:39 - Phil and his weird people encounters. 😂 And Dan just mocking him for it.

7:59 - they did, in fact, go to see Matilda the next summer.

8:10 - oh my god this clock scene. Of course Phil wants to make a game of it. And then Dan with the seemingly slight fudging of what he was pointing at. And this look and then both of them giggling. 👀

8:32 - that start of Dan’s running! This is around the time or shortly after he had started to see a therapist (according to the timeline he gave in Daniel and Depression), so thinking he probably wanted to start for his mental health.

9:11 - Dan talks about the “guy wearing the white sheet in Manchester” in What not to do In Town. Their reminiscing faces are too much.

9:19 - Phil is so excited about this. He had tweeted a couple times in the past about Moomins (1, 2)

9:37 - the excitement about the treats and the festive drinks and decorations and Phil’s teasing 😭

10:04 - they film fairly often in the back of cars and I just feel like must be so awkward, but it doesn’t seem to bother them. And Phil’s hair is quiffed again!

10:28 - and the stairs song! Which they are too prepared for so it must be a regular thing they say/sing. This video has SO MANY moments that I love.

10:51 - Phil just sitting while Dan hauls the tree box out. Maybe Dan lost rock-paper-scissors.

10:59 - reminiscing about THE TREE now, which is the last time they decorated on camera

11:09 - why is this a common theme in DITLs!? lol. Love that they’ve lit the candle again after getting home.

11:22 - “stop doing that” as he can’t control his giggles. sure.

12:03 - okay, Phil had to go get the other decorations! The “Christmas faces” are slightly horrifying

12:22 - that is the most horrifying. also, Dan and Phil themed toys/decor even in the bathroom.

13:02 - Dan’s little messed up piece of hair in the back is so cute. Also love that they have the garlands up and everything at this point too.

13:19 - even more quiff-Phil!

13:31 - their fridge contents are not great

14:04 - unexpected filming but a huge grin anyway from Phil. Also, how do they make just answering the door so awkward, lol. Also: what is that picture in the background in the bathroom(?)

14:32 - they’re so excited about this set up and dinner plan

14:43 - and now glasses Phil! Also, arguing about wrapping neatness. I love it. Although when we see Phil’s wrapping in a minute, I think I might agree with Dan...

15:03 - PJ will end up with one of these face banks

15:10 - Phil came up with some decent gifts for Kath this time, although he didn’t think she had good ideas.

15:18 - I find it so cute that Dan wants to keep the cookbook

15:30 - Dan looks almost embarrassed to share this. He’s also got something “12 Days of Christmas” themed in that blue box on the chair. Although apparently a lot of his family just wanted money.

15:37 - I have no words for Dan filming this closeup and then them choosing to keep it in the video.

16:16 - Phil’s trying to be all serious with his wrapping tutorial and then the tape just immediately falls. 😂

16:40 - “it’s endearing” Dan does look pretty endeared, lol. Dan’s concerned because the face banks are actually gifts from both of them, at least according to PJ

17:04 - wow, Vine mention

17:25 - Dan’s just expecting Phil to come up with a great pun on the spot. Also, the lobster thing is an old reference.

17:39 - I think I mentioned this in the last DITL post, but I like that we do see even in a short video that they spend some time alone. That’s just so normal, especially for introverts even when you’re that comfortable with someone.

17:45 - Phil will keep reading that book over the holidays

17:48 - we did see the inside of the chest. So what is Dan implying here, lol.

17:52 - well then. Dan’s giggly face though.

18:08 - soft piano Dan 😭

18:25 - Ariana Grande had sent them both cat ears after they met her for the radio show

18:37 - a glimpse at the early gaming channel set-up.

18:46 - we don’t actually see that footage in the gaming video

18:51 - it must be pretty late at night by this point considering it was dark when they came home 

19:15 - Phil’s first instinct is to throw it of course

19:18 - this face and the sweater paws. I can’t. 😭

19:25 - and of course a joint ending. 

19:40 - Dan is so sleepy and happy seeming here

20:13 - awwww 🥺 The last video of 2014!

One difference from the first two DITL is they don’t even pretend that they’re going to see other friends/invite someone over. Just the two of them hanging out and they seem quite happy with that. This is probably the most “domestic” of the DITL videos. I love it so much.

Phil went to his parents’ on the 23rd to celebrate Christmas. He had Swedish food, was very excited as usual, got a stocking with a toothbrush and animal socks, and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. Dan went to his family’s on the evening of the 24th after a candle incident (lol, though I love that he was burning the candles even without Phil there. He started the tradition of yearly Christmas pictures of Colin. And also posted this.

On to the 2015 videos, and the start of the TABINOF/TATINOF era!

[violetwolfraven]

Marked For You

((Am I writing a post-strike javid soulmates AU with several background ships? Possibly! No one asked for this but y’all can’t stop me.))

...

Davey liked to think that being among the Newsies, he was bolder than before. He didn’t scare as easily and he wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in or be himself unapologetically.

After all, that was what all the Newsies were; themselves. They didn’t care what each other thought, not that any of them ever seemed to seriously judge the others. Each Newsie was openly himself or herself, plain and simple.

This kind of unjudging openness that Davey knew and loved didn’t mean he wasn’t shocked as hell when he and some of the fellas were talking, like they did practically every day, and the conversation turned to soulmates and soulmarks.

Soulmarks were a stripe of color on the inside of your wrist, said to be the color that represented who your soulmate was on a fundamental level. Their soul-color.

Davey’s soulmark was a bright, clear blue, like the sky on a clear summer day.

To be fair, the person Davey had been before meeting the Newsies probably would have completely freaked out at what the fellas were talking about. Davey managed to only be moderately surprised and kind of confused.

Because Race was talking about how his soulmark was dark red, the same color as Spot’s favorite shirt, and it just represented him so well and—

“Hold up,” Davey interrupted, “Your soulmate is Spot Conlon?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Are... are you sure?”

“Of course. Um... it’s not a new thing. We’s both known for months.”

All the fellas had guarded looks on their faces. Like they didn’t known how Davey was going to react and it scared them.

Davey had, of course, heard of people having same-sex soulmates. Most people seemed to regard it as wrong for some reason, but...

No one chose their soulmates. All scientists seemed to agree on that.

So why should something you had no control over be regarded as wrong, especially when soulmates were the kind of love that made each other happy?

Now that Davey was thinking about it, blue wasn’t a common color documented to represent a girl.

The idea of his soulmate being a boy didn’t freak him out as much as it probably should.

“I didn’t think the King of Brooklyn was the lovin’ type.”

Everyone visibly relaxed.

“You’d be surprised,” Race said with an uncharacteristically soft smile, “He kinda freaked out on me at first, but we talked it over after he got some time to process, we’s been together nearly a year now, and... he’s good to me.”

“He better be,” Romeo said, “Or Manhattan’d go to war.”

Albert snorted, “Half the Newsies of New York would. Racer, ya got a shit ton of friends.”

“Heh. True. There might actually be enough of ya to stand a chance against Brooklyn.”

“Bold of ya to assume half the Brooklyn boys wouldn’t be on your side,” Jojo pointed out.

Davey had to admit, he couldn’t think of a single Newsie who wouldn’t beat up someone stupid enough to break Race’s heart.

Ike shrugged, “Hotshot’d probably side with Spot. Sorry, Race. Oh! Davey, Hotshot’s mine, by the way.”

Ike showed his red soulmark, a brighter scarlet than Race’s. Hell, the thing was so bright, it practically glowed in the late afternoon sun.

Seeing Mike’s, which was electric blue, Davey wondered how he’d ever had trouble telling the twins apart.

Mike noticed him looking and grinned, throwing an arm around Jojo, who blushed a little. His soulmark was an almost-golden shade of yellow that Davey had to admit suited Mike well.

Of course, it did make him curious, how he’d always heard of people with same-sex soulmates as a rarity, an anomaly that barely ever happened.

And here was 6 that he knew personally. Probably more, now that he was thinking about it, looking back on the way certain pairs of his friends acted.

“How common is it?” he asked finally, “I always heard of same-sex soulmates as rare, but—“

Blink snorted, “It ain’t. Not as much as they’d have ya believe, anyhow.”

His fingers brushed over a mint green soulmark gently.

“Yeah, mine’s Finch,” Albert said, displaying a mark the color of sage.

Romeo grinned, showing his, which was an indigo halfway between blue and purple, “Take a guess.”

Looking back on casual touches that weren’t as hidden as they probably should be, for safety reasons, Davey realized that he was an idiot for not having realized it sooner.

“Specs?”

“Bingo! Ya got in in one!”

“And Blink... I’m guessin’... Mush?”

Blink shrugged sheepishly.

Davey really felt like an idiot for not fully registering until right now how defensive, tough Kid Blink was soft and gentle with Mush in a way he wasn’t with anyone—not even the littles.

“What about you?” Romeo asked, “Ya know who yours is, yet?”

Davey shrugged helplessly, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well, show us the mark!” Ike urged, “We can’t guess if we don’t see the color!”

The others voiced their agreement until Davey extended his forearm towards them.

Honestly, his was probably the brightest and most defined of any of them, besides Ike’s.

Everyone went silent, and Davey knew his friends well enough to know that they weren’t quiet simply because they were thinking.

They knew something he didn’t.

“What?” he finally asked after a good 20 seconds.

“Ya really don’t see it?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think he does,” Albert admitted, stealing Race’s cigar.

Race stole the cigar back, “Tragic.”

“What do you all see that I don’t?”

“Ya know, it took me a while to figure out mine,” Jojo admitted, “I was raised to think lovin’ a boy would land ya in hell. But I still knew within a couple weeks, if ya don’t count how long it took me to accept it. Honestly, Davey, you’s known him for months. How haven’t ya realized yet?”

“You mean it’s one of the Newsies?”

Everyone groaned.

“Davey, who’s the one person who pops into your head when you think ‘bout love?” Romeo asked, “Just off the top of your head?”

Davey didn’t want to admit who his first thought was.

“I don’t know,” he lied, “In my defense, I didn’t even consider it bein’ a boy before today.”

“When ya find your soulmate, you know,” Blink said firmly, “It’s undeniable. Ya don’t know how ya know, but ya do. If you’s felt that and seen that color and still don’t know who it is, you’s the biggest dumbass in New York.”

Romeo swatted in Blink’s direction, “Lighten up, Blink. It’s cute in a frustratin’ kind of way.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell him,” Ike said mischeviously, “This is better’n watchin’ Race pine over Spot and yet not tell him that the light blue on his wrist is him.”

Race rolled his eyes, “Like you tellin’ Hotshot right outta the gate worked. He avoided ya for 6 months after findin’ out that stupid purple mark was you.”

“It ain’t that purple, Racer. It’s mostly blue.”

“Still don’t go with Brooklyn’s red shirts all that well.”

Davey ignored the others breaking up the budding argument in favor of trying to think. One face did pop into his mind whenever he thought about love, but there was no way he was that lucky.

“Think, Davey,” Jojo urged as soon as the group got back on track.

“Yeah,” Race agreed, “Who’s the one person with a soul like the sky?”

Davey really didn’t want to admit it, but he knew.

The sky was always there when you looked up to see it as Jack Kelly was always there for his friends when they needed him.

“Jack,” he whispered, and the others grinned.

“So, what are ya waitin’ for?” Mike asked, “Go get the boy!”

“I can’t,” Davey protested, “He might be my soulmate, but there’s no way I’m his! He’s courted Sarah and Katherine!”

“That ain’t how it works, Davey,” Blink said, “Yeah, Jack courted Katherine and Sarah, but do ya really think that periwinkle stripe on Kath’s wrist is for him? Or the pinkish-red on Sarah’s, huh? That’s real Jack-like, is it?”

“Just cause Sarah or Kath ain’t Jack’s soulmate doesn’t mean his is a boy,” Davey pointed out, “Jack doesn’t even like boys!”

Albert rolled his eyes, “Ya really think that?”

“I know he don’t.”

“Davey, let me tell ya somethin’,” Ike said, “Just cause Jack likes girls don’t mean he doesn’t like boys. It ain’t gotta be one or the other.”

“Ya think I only flirt with one?” Romeo asked.

Now that Davey was thinking about it, Romeo and Race pretty much flirted with everyone.

Race laughed, “I don’t think we’s ever told him that Jack and Spot was a thing, did we?”

“They what now?”

“It didn’t last long,” Romeo laughed, “Barely a week, and I thinks it was just angrily makin’ out, but it happened.”

“That was a weird week,” Jojo agreed.

“He had a crush on Specs a few years ago,” Ike added, “That was ‘fore Romeo came along, of course.”

Mike started laughing even harder than he already was, making Jojo smile all sappy at him, “I remember that!”

Davey tried to process this new information.

“Point is,” Blink said, “Jack likes girls and boys. And we’s known him a lot longer than you.”

“The color on his wrist definitely ain’t for Kath or Sarah,” Race summed up.

“What... what is it?”

Race patted his knee, “For that answer, you’ll have to ask Jackie Boy, himself.”

“Ask me what?”

The other boys exchanged delighted glances as Jack walked in, a bit of paint on his cheek from spending some time at Medda’s theatre.

“Look at the time,” Jojo said, ignoring the fact that he did not have a watch, “I think we’d best be gettin’ to bed.”

Mike raised an eyebrow suggestively, making Jojo swat his arm in exasperation, but the two of them left in the same direction, hand in hand.

“Just remembered,” Race said, popping to his feet, “I told Spot I’d spend the night in Brooklyn. Gotta go if I wanna not be walkin’ in the dark.”

“Mind if I come with?” Ike asked.

“The more the merrier! I’m sure Hotshot’ll be happy to see ya.”

“Make good choices,” Jack said pointedly, but he didn’t stop them, indicating that those pairings really had been going on for a while.

God, how many times had Ike or Race or both blatantly said they were going to Brooklyn when they left a card game or hangout? How was Davey just noticing this now?

Blink, Albert, and Romeo quickly made up bullshit excuses to leave.

Davey didn’t miss how Romeo mouthed a quick ‘good luck’ to him as he went out the door.

Unfortunately, neither did Jack.

“So, what’s that about?” he asked, seeming more amused than suspicious or anything.

“We was just talkin’ about something,” Davey said, feeling strangely awkward.

“What kind of somethin’?”

“Um... soulmates. That kind of thing.”

“Oh.”

The air between them was charged suddenly.

“What about ‘em?” Jack asked, sitting down next to Davey.

“Um...” Davey took a deep breath, “About how they think they know who mine is.”

Jack didn’t look him in the eye, and his response was almost too quiet to hear.

“Who?”

For some reason, Davey couldn’t outright just say it.

He turned his wrist so that Jack could see his mark, bright, vibrant blue.

He thought maybe something like recognition flashed through the other boy’s eyes.

“It’s someone who’s always there when the people he loves need him,” Davey said softly, “You know how you can always look up and see the sky if ya need to? He’s like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s one of the things I like most about him.”

“What if he wasn’t?” Jack muttered, “What if there was a day the people he loved needed to see the sky more than ever and it wasn’t there?”

Davey remembered the terror after the first day of the strike. Crutchie was arrested, everyone was hurt, and few of the fellas were still MIA. Davey only had a few bruises, so he and a couple others had had to go find them.

Davey remembered finding Elmer unconscious in an alley. He remembered Buttons’s worry when he managed to wake him up and drag him back to the Lodging House, how panicked he’d obviously been, and now was wondering if those two had something going on.

That day, everyone had needed Jack, and he wasn’t there. That was true. They’d had to rely on Davey and Race and whoever else was unhurt enough to help them, then later, Katherine, when she showed up and nobody asked how she got that much medical supplies.

But every other day since then that Davey had been with the Newsies, Jack had been there, tirelessly comforting his friends after bad dreams, patching up scraped knees, making sure everybody had food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. And he didn’t always have enough time to take care of everyone, but he sure did his damn best.

Davey reached over and intertwined Jack’s fingers with his own.

To his relief, the other boy squeezed back, just a little.

“Maybe he needs to take care of himself, too, once in a while,” he said, “Maybe everyone survived without the sky for a little bit, so there was no harm done. And Jackie... that was months ago. It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been there every day since long before the strike and every day since then.”

Jack was silent for a second before he exhaled sharply and shoved his arm in Davey’s direction.

The strip of color on his wrist was clear blue. It was the sky on ice cold clear winter days. It was the cover of a book with characters you could relate to. It was a shade of paint Davey had seen in Jack’s backdrops many times.

Davey didn’t really know why, but the color was undeniably him.

“Jack...”

Jack looked at him, his eyes as soft as the tone in Davey’s voice.

“I knew since day one.”

“Why didn’t ya say anything?”

“I didn’t wanna scare you.”

Davey laughed, “Jack Kelly, if there is one thing you’ve never been to me, it’s scary.”

It was true. Jack had always felt safe, even when Davey was trying to avoid him out of pride.

Unfortunately, safe was the last thing whatever this thing between them was.

“How does it work?”

“What?”

“How does it work?” Davey repeated, “How do they do it? Race and Spot. Mike and Jojo. Blink and Mush. All the other pairs.”

“They be careful,” Jack answered, “If needed, the rest of us try and help cover for ‘em.”

“Can you be careful?”

A smile formed on Jack’s lips, “I know you can... how do ya think I stayed out of the Refuge so long after escapin’?”

Davey rolled his eyes. Jack still liked to bring up his grand escape.

“Hey, Davey... can I try something?”

Davey’s heart was in his throat. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

Still, he nodded.

Blink had said that when you met your soulmate, you knew.

Davey didn’t think he’d known before now. At least, not consciously.

But he definitely knew now, because it felt right. He knew because Jack’s lips against his own was the most natural thing in the world.

He didn’t think he’d ever want to kiss anyone else.

He didn’t know how he hadn’t always known that Jack was his soulmate.

Because the color on his wrist was Jack, and the color in Jack’s was him. They were quite literally made for each other.

[somedayonbroadway]

If you have time, can you go into detail on the nerve AU?

Yes! I love this one

(Let me know if ya’ll wanna see a Sprace version) (also if you just wanna see all the boys playing Nerve)

Nerve AU

Characters

Katherine Plumber (@Plumbs278) — Vee

Jack Kelly (@jackthecowboy) — Ian

David Jacobs — Tommy

Spot Conlon (@brooklynsown) — Ty

Rafaela (@Rafe_baby) — Sydney

Coffee Bean — Liv

Darcy — Wes

Sarah Jacobs — Hacker Kween

JP — Hot Shot

Katherine Pulitzer is a photographer and reporter for her school newspaper. At the beginning of this story, she finds she’s been accepted into an amazing art school in California which she knows she’ll have to decline because her father (yes, we’re exercising our right to play Pulitzer as a good, loving parent) relies on Katherine emotionally and constantly tells her how excited he is that she’ll be going to a local university and will still be able to live at home. She’s afraid to leave him, especially after her older sister, Lucy, died only two years prior.

The morning everything begins, Katherine is on a video call with one of her two closest friends in the world, Rafaela. Rafaela believes herself to be a daredevil. She and Katherine have been friends since kindergarten. When Katherine answers the phone, she’s stalking her year long crush, Hot Shot. Rafe calls her out on it immediately.

This is when Rafe, yes we’re gonna call her Rafe because we can, introduces Katherine to a game called Nerve. Apparently this game has been around for a few years and Rafe has decided that this year, she was going to participate as a player.

In this game, there are two categories. Watchers and players. Watchers have to pay to watch players for 24 hours while players get paid to do dares ranging from mediocre little tricks to dangerous, life threatening stunts. Katherine warns Rafe that this game looks sketchy and weird, but Rafe still tries to convince Katherine to sign up to watch her play. Katherine almost does, but realizes that she’ll be late for school if she doesn’t start getting ready to go.

Her father is a nurse at a local hospital and often works late into the night but that never stops him from getting up to make Katherine breakfast in the morning. Katherine adores her father. But she knows that she still wants to leave the nest and get out of New York, at least for a little while.

She mentions to him that Rafaela hasn’t gotten accepted into any colleges yet and doesn’t care, to which Pulitzer responds she doesn’t have to care. Rafe has a trust fund but Katherine has ambition. Katherine then tries to tell her father that she wants to move away only to back out the second her father counters her.

At school, Katherine and her other best friend, David, are taking pictures of the football players for the school paper and David is teasing Katherine because her camera seems to be constantly focused on Hot Shot.

Once the players are all on the field, Katherine starts to focus more on the cheerleaders, mostly on Rafe who is the most energetic and eccentric of them all. Rafe rushes out into the crowd to give Coffee Bean and Darcy her phone, two other kids in their friend groups.

David and Katherine don’t truly know what’s going on, but Katherine gets her camera ready anyways, only to capture Rafe mooning an entire crowd of people for five seconds to complete her first dare in nerve, getting her tons of watchers immediately and sending her on her way to the top ten.

After getting suspended, Rafe takes her friends out to celebrate at Jacobi’s, a diner and a common hang out. This is where she explains she will continue playing Nerve, which Kath immediately argues with. Rafe then tells Katherine this is just something she likes to do and she wants to become insta famous, knowingly telling Kath it’s okay that she’s just a watcher.

Though Katherine tries to argue with David with her all the way, Rafaela proves her point by trying and failing to get Katherine to talk to Hot Shot, instead, going to talk to him herself, trying to get him to ask Kath out and finding Hot Shot isn’t interested.

Embarrassed, Katherine flees, running home. David stops Rafaela from going after her.

At home, Katherine finds the Nerve menu still on her computer. In a lapse of judgment, she signs up. As a player.

That’s when things begin to spiral out of control.

Immediately, Katherine is dared to get to a certain restaurant in a specific amount of time. Since she can’t drive, she calls David, who is already waiting outside her house as he’d intended on hanging out with her that night anyway. She quickly explains that she’s now playing nerve and she has to get to a specific place in less than ten minutes.

Even though David is arguing with her, he still takes her there, hoping she’ll bail before she even begins.

(Also, can i just take a minute to say that I love how teenagers are shown as horrible drivers in this movie because that’s entirely accurate).

When they arrive, it’s revealed on Katherine’s phone that her first dare is to kiss a stranger for five seconds.

Nervous, Katherine stalls. David says he’ll give her the hundred dollars her watchers promised her if she doesn’t do the dare, but she persists anyway, eventually settling on a guy reading her favorite book “To The Lighthouse”. She gives David her phone to record her and goes in, trying to make small talk about the book.

She finds the guy to be a bit flirty and incredibly hot but she’s still nervous as the guy asks her if anybody will make it to the lighthouse at the end of the book. She explains that the lighthouse is the thing each character wants most and then forces herself to kiss him, melting into it when the stranger kisses her back.

Sparks fly in their heads and David counts to five, calling out that it was over but the kiss lasts longer than that before Katherine remembers what she’s doing and breaks it, rushing over to David’s booth and hiding with him.

When she looks back, the guy is gone. She finds him again just after her phone goes off, alerting her that a hundred dollars had been wired to her account.

When she looks up, the stranger she made out with is standing on tables and singing the song playing. She quickly finds that the guy is actually singing to her and David points out someone recording the whole thing, noting that it must be a dare.

The guy is a great singer.

Introducing himself as Jack, the boy apologizes, not wanting to have embarrassed Katherine. She apologizes too and Jack says the watchers sent someone to give him that book and told him to wait in that booth. He explains the watchers must’ve planned for this to happen.

David immediately doesn’t like Jack and Jack picks up on that, going to leave before his phone buzzes at the same time as Katherine’s.

They dare Katherine to go to the city with Jack.

David warns her against it and Jack, who calls David Davey, asks if Kath always lets Davey tell her what to do.

Katherine gives in and goes to the city with Jack, finding that he drives a motorcycle.

Once there, Katherine goes to leave while Jack gets started on another dare, only to accept another dare and follow Jack into a pristine, high end store where she is forced to find a specific dress to try on. Once she finds it she changes on camera, barely making it before times up.

When she receives no further instruction, she leaves the dressing room, finding Jack in a very expensive looking suit. Quickly they begin to get more dares to try on clothes, leaving their dressing rooms.

David signs up to watch, finding it's a lot of money to be a watcher but he does it anyway, deciding to follow Katherine to the city as he’s worried for her safety and doesn’t trust Jack.

He sees that someone with the username @brooklynsown has stolen Kath and Jack’s clothes.

Katherine and Jack go back to change after their little adventure getting to know each other and having a good time to find that their clothes are gone. The watchers dare them to leave the store and Jack just says they have to, going to make a run for it but Katherine stops him saying that the dare technically only says they have to leave the store, not shoplift.

So Jack and Katherine run through the store in their underwear, Jack doing his best to stand in front of Katherine the whole time as they sneak around before finally just making a full on run for it.

When they get back to Jack’s bike they find that one of their watchers bought them the clothes they’d tried on.

Meanwhile, Rafaela is with Darcy and Coffee Bean working on her own dares that are more on the mediocre side but she still had tons of watchers voting her into the top ten. Coffee Bean is the one who tells Rafe that Katherine is playing the game and has a lot of followers. Race calls David to ask what’s going on and David tells her he doesn’t know, continuing on the hunt to find Katherine.

He gets another call from Joe who asks if someone might be hacking them as someone keeps depositing money into Katherine’s account. Davey assures him it’s not a hack as that usually means someone is taking money out of the accounts.

Back with Katherine and Jack, Katherine has got another dare, telling her to get a tattoo of Jack’s choosing. She accepts though she tells Jack her father would kill her.

Although Jack jokes about putting random, cliche things on the back of her shoulder he eventually draws something out and gives it to the artist telling her it’ll be a surprise and that she just has to trust him. Eventually she gives in. And when the pain from the needle gets to her, Jack turns on a song that she previously mentioned she liked and sings along to it with her to give her a little distraction. That’s when Katherine tells Jack about Lucy. She explains that Lucy was always the fun one and that she was about to be older than her older sister and that it wasn’t fair that she was still here and Lucy wasn’t before the tattoo artist announces he’s done and Katherine finds a small lighthouse on her back.

Jack tells her that he hopes she finds what she wants most.

David, who is still panicked about not finding Katherine, calls up his older sister Sarah, also known as HQ (Hacker Queen) and asks for a key to the dark web because he wants to find out more about Jack.

Back with Jack and Kath, Jack gets another dare. A dare to get his motorcycle up to 60 mph blindfolded. Katherine tells him he’s on his own but he begs her to help him out just as someone pulls up in a truck and hands Jack a bumper sticker, telling him that he’d see him in the finals. A guy with the username @brooklynsown.

Katherine asks him who that guy was and Jack lies, saying he doesn’t know. Must be just another player.

And he still begs Kath for help.

So she agrees.

This happens just as David is finding out a little bit more about Jack. That Jack has played Nerve before in Santa Fe. The bike he rides is stolen off of a dare. People are shocked he’s even playing again at all after what happened last year.

Jack puts the bumper sticker over his helmet and Katherine climbs on the bike behind him.

As they start their communication isn’t great but Jack tells her to lean and he’d follow her. This gets them part of the way until Katherine starts to lie to Jack about the lights being green because she knows that if Jack stops they won’t make it in under a minute.

Their watchers are waiting for them to pass by, trying to get good photo ops and rooting for them. All of Katherine’s friends are watching, terrified.

Eventually, after several close calls, Jack and Katherine make it, almost crashing into a building but just able to pull to a stop.

Katherine is so excited that she kisses Jack who kisses her back as their watchers film the whole thing.

They then go to get pizza as Jack claims he’s starving and she must be too.

Rafaela is horrified that Katherine is beating her and escapes into a back room at the party she’s at with her other friends, telling her watchers to give her better dares because she deserves to win. That’s when someone else sneaks into the room, introducing himself as Spot or @brooklynsown. He offers to team up with Rafe like Jack teamed up with Kath to win but she declines as Hot Shot intervenes, believing Spot to be dangerous.

Meanwhile, Joe is calling David again, asking what’s going on and David dodges all of his questions.

Jack and Katherine stumble across a carousel where they bond even more as Katherine asks Jack why he’s playing Nerve. He tells her that he’s trying to help out his family that some things happened that he wishes didn’t. And Katherine tells Jack more about her friends after Rafe calls her to try and make up with her and she hangs up, not realizing that her phone was still filming her as well as the watchers around them.

Jack tells Katherine that she’s no one sidekick as Kath seems to believe and that she’s truly amazing in his eyes. And then he suggests they go to the party Rafe is at to show off Kath’s new tattoo.

After a bit of convincing, Katherine agrees.

At that party, Rafaela is finally given a new dare, telling her to walk from one window to the next across a ladder. She attempts, even though she’s magnificently terrified of heights and eventually bails after dropping her phone from ten stories up.

When Jack and Katherine arrive after making out in the elevator, Katherine finds David is there and tries to talk to him before Coffee Bean tells her about what happened to Rafe. Katherine finds Rafe making out with Hot Shot in the back room and gets irritated.

This leads to an even bigger fight between them that Jack has to record as it is revealed by David it was a dare on him to get Katherine to that party to fight with Rafaela.

Katherine gets angry and is dared to finish Rafe’s dare which she does immediately and after that she confronts Jack to find out if it was all true. Jack tries to explain to her that he doesn’t have a choice but she doesn’t want to hear it, instead stating she was going to the cops.

Jack panics, trying to talk her out of it but she won’t listen to him.

After finding a cop on the street, Jack runs and Katherine’s father calls, telling her that all of the money from their accounts have been drained. Katherine is cut off when Spot jumps in front of her and apologizes, telling her that he has to win before knocking her out.

She wakes up in a storage container with the words “snitches get stitches” all over the thing. The computer in front of her tells her that she is now a prisoner of Nerve and that they control her family and her life. The only way out is to win the game. So Katherine breaks out of the container only to be met with a frantic Jack, asking if she’s alright. She tries to run from him but he stops her and she finally listens to him.

Jack explains that there’s a third category of the game. Prisoner. And that he’s one too. He explains that he played in Santa Fe the year before and he and Spot have played together as they were best friends. He tells her about their other friend, Kenny, who played with them and died falling from a construction crane that the watchers dared him to hang on. Jack says he tried to grab him but he wasn’t fast enough.

He then goes on to say that the watchers basically own him and his family because he and Spot had tried to go to the cops after Kenny died. They drained all of his family's bank accounts, they messed with his mother’s job, they raped his brother and leaked photos of him on the internet. They stole their identities. It was the watchers way of showing Jack that he belonged to them now. They were mad at him and Spot for snitching.

He admits that the watchers moved his family out to New York because they wanted to make him do more dangerous stunts the next time he played.

Katherine is horrified by this but Jack says he got by, that he and Spot, while against each other, had promised each other that they’d look out for the others family once one of them won.

But now, Jack makes it his mission to get Katherine to win. She says she can't, but he insists that he’s gonna make his watchers give him a dare to knock Spot out of the finals so that it’ll be them and he’d let her win.

Jack takes Katherine to a parking garage where she’s able to call Davey and Rafaela who rush to get to her immediately, guilty about that fallout that had occurred before. As they’re driving in, they see Jack driving out on his bike. They know something’s up.

Katherine asks for their help. So Rafaela makes a call before David takes Rafe to the cloud to meet his sister.

The Hacker Queen.

Jack is dared to climb up to the top of a building and hang from a construction crane with one hand for five seconds. He manages to do it, thinking about how no one would be able to get Race and Medda out of the mess he’d gotten them in if he died. He pulls himself back up to safety (because the dude’s ripped, honestly) and then goes to the meeting place set out for him.

Davey and Sarah begin to hack into the servers of the game, trying to shut it down only to be interrupted by a panicked Joe who can’t find his daughter. David invites him to meet him at the cloud so he can explain and Joe agrees.

Katherine is told to get on a ferry where she is given a “ticket” into the finals box. It’s a gun.

She’s let into the box where Jack is waiting for her. He goes to rush to her but the watchers stop them both by giving them other directions instead, saying that the first to shoot the other wins.

Joe gets to the cloud just in time to watch and Sarah is losing control of the servers.

Jack tells Katherine to shoot him in the shoulder. That he’d be fine. Katherine tries to argue but time is running out. Jack tells her to just do it and she tries but stops herself at the last second, shooting the ground instead.

Jack tries to talk to her again but someone else starts shooting into the air.

It’s Spot.

He says that he’ll do it.

Jack rushes to protect Kath as Spot makes his way down to the middle of the box. The watchers are excited by this but Katherine screams at them telling them that they are responsible for what happens next and Spot just asks them if they want him to shoot her.

Pulitzer is horrified and Rafaela tries to calm him down as the votes come in.

The watchers vote yes.

Jack tries to jump in front of her but Katherine falls and he screams for her just as Joe does as well as all of her friends watching.

That’s when Sarah and David launch the program they set up, sending every watcher a massage that says “you are an accessory to murder” as their anonymous name turns into their real name.

People immediately start to shut down their accounts until Spot is the only one still recording.

When he steps closer to Katherine and Jack, who’s holding onto her for dear life, begging her to wake up, Jack grabs Katherine’s gun and goes to shoot but Katherine shoots up and stops him, telling him that she’s okay.

Joe let’s out a relieved scream as Jack starts crying.

Spot reveals that Rafe called him and Katherine made the whole plan up. He was shooting blanks and she had fake blood. He tells Jack that Kath’s a badass and he better keep her.

Jack takes Katherine back to the carousel to tell her more about himself, now that was free before taking her back to her father and friends. He tells her that his name is really Francis Sullivan and if one good thing came out of this it was his changed name. Then he proceeds to ask her out on a proper date.

He takes her back to her father and Joe thanks him for protecting her before threatening him like any good father would.

And then Jack goes home to Mama Medda and Race who immediately hug him and cry with him because they’re free again.

Katherine does go to college in California and Jack and her maintain a long distance relationship. Jack goes to see her anytime he can and she eventually meets his family who adores her immediately. Rafaela and her stay good friends and Jack eventually gets closer with Davey. Jack also reconnects with Spot and rekindles their friendship.

And they all live happily ever after.

I love this AU.

Thanks for asking! Let me know if you want to see more of this one!

And for more Mood Boards and AUs, click here!

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (6)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, mystery, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 2.9k (this chapter), 19.7k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Hope my friends and I didn't make things weird for you yesterday. We're heading to the city around noon if you're still up for helping us with the boring part.

noon?? fucking alright i guess i gotta put pants on

lmao yeah, sorry. My parents woke us up at EIGHT like that's a normal time to be awake????

desgostang

What?

ill send u the link later and also no i didnt feel weird yesterday you guys are nice

That's good! And hey I wanted to ask. You were kind of put on the spot with introducing yourself, would you rather we called you Dan or Winnie? I just wanna make sure we aren't making you uncomfortable at all lmao

no its all fine you can call me dan idc and actually its best if you do call me dan when youre in my work lmao

Are you totally sure?

why would i lie abt this. dont be an idiot it isnt a good look on you

haha okay. I’ll see you around noon.

--

“Christopher is a nice boy,” Phil’s mum is telling him as she helps him with their fancy new coffeemaker. There are so many buttons and Phil is so, so tired. “And Sophie is lovely, such a soft-spoken thing. Why haven’t we met them before, dear?”

“Dunno,” Phil says instead of the truth, which is that he’d had no idea how he was supposed to introduce them. “You have now, though.”

His mum laughs and reaches up to pat his cheek. “True enough. I’m so happy that you’ve got good people around you, Philip. I’ve gotten quite worried about you down there by yourself, you know.”

“I’m not by myself,” says Phil. “I live with, like, thirty people.”

“Bunch of strangers, I’ll bet,” she says, because she knows him. “Aside from those three.”

The thing is, she’s not wrong. Phil’s obviously exaggerating about the number of people under the roof of the creaky Brighton house, but the truth is that he can’t keep track half the time. A lot of the rooms get sublet out randomly, or a significant other will start spending so much time around the place that they might as well pay rent, and Phil really isn’t good with new people. He gets along fine with Holly and Dave, but they’ve been there as long as he has and the closest they’ve ever come to a heart-to-heart was comparing anxiety meds over burned pancakes.

Chris and Sophie were there when Phil moved in, and they’d taken one look at him and decided to just keep shoving into his space until he liked having them there, like they were on a mission to adopt PJ’s sad, ghost-obsessed friend from the internet.

“You might be right,” Phil says, feeling a smile tug at his lips for the first time all morning. He’s already had a coffee - and a half, when PJ declared that not even Kath could make coffee taste good and shoved the rest of his Phil’s way - but he still doesn’t feel fully awake. “I’m only really friends with Chris and Soph because of PJ.”

“PJ is a good friend to you, isn’t he?” his mum hums. That slightly pointed tone doesn’t get to Phil the way it usually does, because he knows that she’s just trying to understand him.

It doesn’t escape Phil’s notice that he’s looking into a mirror whenever he sees his parents watching him carefully, waiting for him to tell them something he hasn’t explicitly said, because he’s been doing the exact same thing to his housemates for nearly two years.

Maybe he’ll tell his parents when he’s got someone serious or even, like, semi-serious. Longer than two dates would be a record at this point. But right now he already feels like he’s been one misstep away from disappointing them, and he doesn’t want to take the gamble that his sexuality will be that misstep.

He’s not up for this conversation, though, isn’t sure he’ll ever be, so he just says, “Yeah, he is.”

--

Dan is late. They’re so late, actually, that Phil’s wheel of worst case scenarios has been spinning silently and getting faster and faster the more caffeine he chugs. They roll in with flushed cheeks and a jacket that looks too thin, apologies on their shiny lips that Phil doesn’t even hear for a couple of seconds because he’s too busy staring at them.

“No worries,” Sophie says, interrupting their rambling before they lose another half hour to it. “You want something? I’m getting a refill.”

“No, no, let me,” says Dan. They shrug off their jacket and hang it on one of the empty chairs. Phil and his friends have co-opted the largest table in the place so they can spread out with their laptops and notebooks, and it doesn’t escape Phil’s notice that Dan has decided to sit next to him when they’ve got a couple of options. “I get free drinks if Gabe’s in a good mood. Anyone else need a refill?”

“Me,” Chris says, not looking up from his screen. “Not Phil. He’s cut off.”

“Hey,” Phil protests weakly. His heart rate really has picked up since they sat down, so he knows Chris has a point.

Dan grins, their soft cheeks giving way to the dimples that Phil is very quickly growing obsessed with. He just wants to make Dan smile and laugh constantly, to hear them cackle and see all the lines in their round face deepen with happiness.

Right. Phil watched a horror movie with PJ instead of unpacking this fluttering start of a crush last night, and now he’s just got to deal with it for the rest of the day.

As if it’s a compulsion, Dan clears the empty mugs from their table before heading up to the counter. Phil focuses on the EMF readings so he doesn’t get caught up on Dan holding four mugs by the handles with total ease.

PJ has got headphones on and his eyes closed, so he might not even have noticed that Dan is there. He’s been going through Sophie’s footage and his own audio recordings to try and find some anomalies while Chris looks for the weird visual stuff - they’re a great team at that, and it makes Phil feel like he’s not doing enough. Sure, he could find those things on his own, but not as quickly as they can when it’s a team effort, and they’re on a bit of a tight schedule here. Well, his housemates are. They’ve got actual jobs to get back to once the weekend is over.

Allegedly, Sophie is doing research on sigils, but it looks to Phil like she’s just doodling. Not that he really blames her if she is. He’s barely been paying attention to the chart he’s making of spikes in electromagnetism because he’s been so busy watching the door for Dan.

And Dan looks… good. They’re wearing chunky boots and a shirt that falls to their thighs - a dress, maybe, but it looks like a regular black t-shirt that got extended at the hem - with tight white jeans. The only colour on them is the plaid shirt around their waist and the shiny red product on their lips to match it. Phil watches them lean against the counter and grin at the older barista, and he’s so distracted by looking at their profile that he startles when a foot connects with his under the table.

“Stop staring,” Sophie says, quiet and smiling. “He’s going to notice.”

Phil considers correcting her, but then he remembers that he probably doesn’t have to. Dan had said any pronouns, that they didn’t care how they were referred to, so it would definitely be weirder to act like he knows better than Sophie.

He knows he won’t be able to use masculine terms for Dan. Not because they aren’t true, because he’s pretty sure they’re no less accurate than neutral or feminine would be, but because thinking of Dan as a maculine person is only going to allow Phil’s brain to fall into the familiar traps of gender in ways he doesn’t want to allow.

Gay monkey brain doesn’t need any more leeway in finding Dan attractive, that’s for damn sure.

“So, what are we doing?” Dan asks, interrupting Phil’s thoughts, and, wow, four mugs is a lot more impressive when they’re full of hot liquid. Phil marvels at Dan’s ability not to trip and spill it all as they dole out the coffee and teas.

“I’m doing the boring part,” says Phil. He turns his screen so Dan can see the Excel spreadsheet and laughs at the face they make. “Yeah. It's not glamorous, but it's the easiest way to find patterns in the EMF readings. Honestly, most of my job is just staring at things and finding patterns in them. Like, uh, what's that guy? With the butterfly splotches?"

"Worcestershire," Chris suggests.

"Rorschach," Dan corrects him, lips twitching like they aren't sure if they're allowed to laugh in Chris' face or not.

“That’s exactly what I said,” says Chris.

“You know EMF meters don’t have anything to do with ghosts, right?” Dan asks, ignoring Chris completely and leaning a bit closer to Phil to get a better look at his laptop. “I mean, none of this has anything to do with ghosts, really, but you’re more or less just measuring electricity.”

Phil is aware of that. He wonders if Dan thinks he just stumbles into haunted houses with equipment he hasn’t researched and waits to be spooked. He’s too distracted by how close Dan is and how good they smell to work up to proper offense, though. “Yeah,” he says simply. “But don’t you think it’s weird that the place still has electricity to begin with? Who’s paying for that?”

“A Wilkins, I’d imagine.”

“But why? If they’ve forgotten about the property or abandoned it on purpose, surely they wouldn’t still pay the bills.”

“Maybe they don’t handle their own finances,” Dan suggests. “How rich were these assholes?”

“I honestly don’t know,” says Phil. He taps his fingers in an erratic pattern on the edge of his laptop, trying to spark something in his mind.

It’s almost disappointing when Dan pulls away to dig out their own sleek Macbook out of their messenger bag, but Phil is also glad for it. He can think a lot easier when the warm scent of spice and mint isn’t clogging his brain.

Dan slots into the work as easily as if a space was left for them. They’ve got dozens of tabs open already and they start to go through them, cross-referencing magic things with Sophie in quiet tones and digging deeper into the Wilkins family than Phil ever would have thought to. Every so often they tap Phil on the arm and drag him into whatever rabbithole they’ve fallen down, chatting animatedly.

Phil knows, objectively, that Dan is a fan of his and that Dan is weird about research. It’s another thing entirely to watch it happen in real time, to see Dan pull up local census PDFs from the eighties and explain why chaos magic is bullshit in the same breath.

An hour or so goes by like that, all of them working on their own things with minimal words exchanged by everybody but Dan, and then Chris shouts loud enough to make the barista jump. Nobody else is in the coffee shop right now, which is lucky, because Dan’s got a hand over their chest and Sophie has slopped tea down her front. PJ, with his headphones on, simply cracks an eye open.

“What the fuck was that about?” Phil asks, putting his own palm against his chest to feel his heart race. Dan raises their eyebrows and looks at Phil, seemingly distracted from the startling, wordless exclamation.

They don’t get a chance to say whatever they’re thinking, though, because Chris is turning his laptop to the rest of the table and grinning wide like the Cheshire Cat. “I found something.”

Everybody gathers round, PJ getting up to lean over the back of Phil’s chair and Sophie getting so far into Dan’s personal space that Phil is certain they’re uncomfortable with it, and then Chris presses play upside down. It’s part of Sophie’s footage, Phil standing in the dim foyer and looking frustrated. Even without sound, Phil can tell that this is when he was arguing with Sophie about going upstairs. He squints, but he can’t see whatever it is that’s got Chris being so loud.

“What am I looking at?” PJ asks when the short clip ends, and Dan hums an agreement. Chris makes a frustrated noise like they’re being obtuse on purpose and rewinds to the beginning.

"There," Chris says, excited like he hasn't been since they got to Manchester. He taps his finger against the laptop screen. "D'you see it? D'you see the shadow?"

Now that Chris has pointed it out, Phil does see something. He moves his own laptop and notebook out of the way to pull Chris’ closer with a frown. Chris lets him do that, bouncing in his seat a little bit.

“That’s straight up a person,” Phil says slowly, tracing the outline of the shadow with the mouse. It’s behind him, in the entry to the kitchen, and it looks tall. Quite a bit taller than Phil, anyway, if he’s remembering that doorframe correctly. He decides to measure it next time they go so he isn’t going off memory. “I knew we weren’t alone in there. Like. I’m not crazy, that’s a human being.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Chris. “But press play.”

So Phil presses play. He watches the shadow stay perfectly still in the kitchen doorway until, suddenly, it’s not there anymore. He blinks, rewinds, and watches it disappear again.

Phil’s caffeinated brain is firing on all cylinders now. He grins and shoves his sleeves up to his elbows before he starts fiddling with the clip. The lighting gets played with until the shadow is more obvious and then he slows it down to 0.25 times speed to see if the shadow really just vanishes.

He presses play again. This time, with a very slow-motion Phil talking in the foreground, he sees the shadow move. It runs sideways, further into the house.

“What the fuck?” Dan breathes.

“We are not going back there without some serious protection,” PJ says, even firmer on the topic now.

“What, like sigils?” Dan asks, their pretty eyes wide even as they scoff. “You’d be better off with a fucking, like, baseball bat, mate. That doesn’t look like something that wants to be your friend.”

“I’ve got a crowbar in PJ’s trunk,” Phil says, absent-minded as he plays with the clip some more.

“Excuse me? When did you put that in my car?”

“Couple months ago.”

“Huh. How have I not noticed?”

“You’re not the most observant person I’ve ever met,” says Phil. He looks up at Chris, who’s got the same exhilarated look that Phil is sure he’s mirroring. They don’t get evidence like this very often, something so clearly there that it’s even got a skeptic’s mind racing. Phil exports the edited clip and then the original, putting them both into the Cloud and emailing them to himself. “Was this the only time you saw it?”

Chris nods, accepting his laptop back when Phil is done with it. “I’ll look through everything again, now that I know what I’m looking for and all, but I think that’s it.”

“Okay, cool.” Phil looks around at his friends and Dan, beaming. “Something weird is happening. I love it when something weird is happening.”

“I hate it when something weird is happening,” PJ says, which is a blatant lie.

“Well, we can’t go snooping around until it’s darker out, anyhow,” Sophie reminds them.

“Wait, we’re snooping?” Dan asks, their voice going up an entire octave in disbelief. “Like… you just saw that someone is there and probably not happy about people sneaking around, right? Don’t you have enough for a video already?”

“We’re spending the night,” says Phil. “It’s what we do.”

“It’s what you do,” PJ corrects him.

“Okay, yeah, you guys don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m coming,” says PJ.

As if she can’t hear them bickering, Sophie turns to Dan with a sweet smile, her eyes twinkling with the same excitement in Chris’. They love this, just like Phil does. “What about you, Dan?” she asks. “Are you going to have a ghost sleepover with us?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Dan says, their eyes still glued to the back of Chris’ laptop like they can see the shadow through it.

“Guess you don’t have anything to be afraid of, then,” says Chris.

“Uh, axe murderers, maybe?”

“We know what we’re doing, Dan,” Phil reassures them. He reaches a hand out to pat at their arm, feeling a bit awkward about it. “But you don’t have to come with us if you’re scared.”

That makes Dan’s gaze shift. Suddenly, those brown eyes are staring right into Phil’s soul, defiant and beautiful and impossible to look away from.

“Who said I was fucking scared?”

[allthephils]

Sometimes Always

I never sleep you guys. I should be writing other things but then this happened. I hope you like it!

1666 words Rated T (implied sexual content, established relationship) 

Read on AO3

Summary: Dan is moving forward and Phil is scared but only a little.

Phil’s swim trunks float somewhere on the other side of the pool. They’re probably too old for this or maybe this is exactly the right time. They can afford this place with its pool surrounded by palm trees, overlooking an ocean they won’t risk swimming in. They’re isolated just enough, safe from prying eyes and google searches. Phil’s parents are in another house just up the road but he’d rented this place just for he and Dan. They don’t do this sort of thing anymore, they aren’t rabid for each other the way the fans imagine. It has been nearly a decade after all. It isn’t a hardship to share a house with Phil’s parents, they can stay quiet or just go without.

 Not this time though. This year has been different from any year since they’ve known one another. There’s no joint content, no radio show, no tour, no live shows, no book. Dan is determined to find his purpose, his calling, that thing that makes him feel like his life isn’t a joke. He knows what he means to his fans but it isn’t enough, he needs to know he’s moving forward, growing, and truly creating. Phil just wants to hold things up so Dan can figure it all out. He feels a little guilty at times, a little silly, a little inferior for not wanting more for himself. He likes YouTube. He just wants to make content and be with Dan and maybe get a dog. His brand of ambition is different than Dan’s. He’s satisfied.

 So, when Dan told him he wouldn’t be coming along to Florida this time because he’d been invited to a writer’s retreat, Phil had tried to be supportive.

 “Comedy writing? Is that a thing you want to do?”

 It was a silly question, he doesn’t know what he wants to do. That’s what all this change has been about. Of course, Phil thinks Dan is hilarious. He thinks he’d be a great writer if he could tone down the pretension just a little bit. It's just that Phil’s been wanting to write a book or a screenplay for so long, he might be a little jealous.

 “Ok but Phil, would you even go if you were invited?”

 No. The fact is, it’s not Phil’s thing. It was invitation only, for mature YouTubers, people who have been identified as potential moneymakers, people who could go mainstream. That’s not Phil and he knows it. He doesn’t even want that. Maybe it’s just that he misses Dan. He sees him every day, they do everything together, but yeah, he misses him. They used to be creative together. They used to work together and stay up late arguing over which glances to edit out and which innuendo to leave in. Day to day life is different, not bad just different. And it is Mother’s Day. Only in America of course but Kath deserves a celebration on both sides of the pond. Dan generally scoffs at that sort of thing but he knows better than to argue with Phil when it comes to his mother. He’s a smart man so he’d sweetly apologized and promised to join them after the retreat.

 He got in last night and Phil listened to him go on about all the things he learned. He listened to him complain about YouTubers and how sick to death he is of them. Except Phil, of course. He does that, he pulls back, makes exceptions, makes sure Phil knows he is the original, he’s not the same as the rest of them. The fact remains that he wants out of that world. His foot is on the gas and there’s a piece of Phil that is terrified of being left behind. Couples grow apart all the time. That can’t happen to them.

 So this time, they’ll have a house to themselves. They’ll sleep late and take all their showers together. They’ll talk into the wee hours and fall asleep wherever they end up. They won’t have to explain the weird movies they watch and they will decide together when to spend time with the family. They need to strip to the core of who they are. It isn’t YouTube and projects and plausible deniability. It’s something intangible that anyone who sees them together can see, plain as day. It would be cliche to say people search their whole lives for what they have but it would be true.

 “Did your mum do this? Is she worried about us again?” Dan’s chest is pressed against Phil’s, the cool water a stark contrast to the hot sun beating down on their shoulders.

 “No, I did. I wanted you all to myself.”

 Dan hadn’t bothered to put anything on, just strode out, totally naked, and stepped into the water. Phil followed suit before Dan could swim to where he stood against the blue tiled pool wall. Memories of Jamaica rushed in. They were so young and Dan was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, so golden in the sun. He knew they’d end up here. He knew Dan would be infinitely more gorgeous nearly a decade later, that they’d be together and they’d be ok. Dan didn’t though. He still doesn’t know how they got here or where they're going or if they’ll be ok. That doubt scares Phil and undermines his nearly unshakeable confidence in what they have.

 Phil doesn’t hold back, digging fingers into the soft flesh of Dan’s ass, lifting him easily in the water. Legs wrap around his waist and his mouth moves to press against familiar skin, saltier here than it is at home, hot and slick and predictably sensitive. That taste and the sound of short breaths and stilted moans, those things are Phil’s. This piece of Dan is his and his alone. It isn’t the sex, not just the sex at least. It’s the absence of shame, the honesty, the raw, unabashed connection.

 Phil holds him there, all of him. He’s whole with Phil in a way he isn’t with anyone else but he’s searching for that thing that makes him whole on his own. The realization washes over Phil, a rush of fear up his spine, and he lifts his head to kiss Dan as deeply as he ever has. One hand moves to wrap around Dan’s back, pulling him in, desperation clear in the quick shift.

 “Babe.” Dan says, pulling back only to have his bottom lip bitten and pulled by Phil’s chasing mouth. “Are you ok?”

 “I love you.” Phil wants to get on with it. He needs to be reminded of how they know each other, how he can’t be replaced, but he feels Dan’s legs unfurl. He steps back and there is far too much distance between them for how hard they both are, how they ache for one another. Years ago, they’d have fucked right here. In Jamaica, they’d have touched each other under the water till they nearly came then wrapped themselves in towels and snuck away. That’s not how they got here though. A relationship like theirs isn’t born of clear blue waters. This love emerges new again and again from the murky emotional depths of real life.

 So Phil looks into Dan’s eyes and sees his worry and his waning patience. He heaves a breath and empties the contents of his anxious heart.

 “I’m scared.”

 “Ok.” Dan’s voice is terse, low on tolerance after a week of too much social contact. “Why are you scared?”

 “You’re speeding ahead of me.” Phil puts a hand to Dan’s face. “I’m happy for you but I’m afraid you won’t need me anymore.”

 Dan has made his way to the wall next to Phil and he lifts himself to sit on the edge. Phil could do the same but he fits himself between Dan’s knees instead. Arms wrapped around Dan’s waist, he rests his cheek on his wet belly, aware that he’s thinking, slowing his breath, formulating just the right words.

 “I won’t need you as much Phil. I think that’s true. I already need you less than I used to.” He rakes long fingers through silky black hair. “It will take time but the goal is that I won’t need you at all.”

 Phil looks up at Dan, knowing there’s more. 

 “But I will always want you.”

 There’s a sharp rush of breath from Phil as he lays his head down again. He knows this, he knows all of this, just as he always has.

 “Dan, can you just say that again?”

 “I’ll say it everyday, if that makes you ok.” He shoves Phil back a bit and slides back into the water, pulling pale skin close to revel in the contrast that makes them who they are. Phil’s head on his shoulder now, Dan continues to comb through his hair because he knows it comforts him.

 He speaks soft but clear at Phil’s ear, “I will always want you Phil. I will always love you. We only get better from here, yeah?”

 Phil nods into Dan’s neck and nuzzles in, peppering damp skin in wet kisses. He murmurs I love yous into his collarbone and feels their bodies respond like there had been no pause. It was only a few words, a look or two, and now this, but it’s almost enough. They end up tangled together on the tropical cushions of the poolside chaise. Dan tries to be quiet but Phil pulls the sounds he needs to hear out of him. He makes no mistakes. There is gentle conviction in every touch, alongside respect and love and primal desire that can’t be feigned. Just one last absolute assurance that there is something transcendent about the two of them together. They chose each other when they were young and incomplete and it didn’t seem like a choice at all. And now, with every possibility in front of each of them, they’ll still choose each other every single day.

[bye-hadfun]

under the neon lights

Chapter One: December 1st, 2012

Trigger Warnings: slight homophobia

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: despite everything, they’re still together, and that’s what matters to Dan.

Or, alternatively, two times dnp visit nyc to see the ball drop

Written for the @phandomreversebang , inspired by @catzoomies beautiful art, and beta’d by the lovely and supportive @ty-ly-bby / @literally-just-fandoms

i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing it.

Ao3 link

‘Fuck off.’

‘Excuse me? I’ve been nothing but patient Dan. What more do you want from me-’

‘I said fuck off.’ Dan slammed his door with a sort of finalty, a short breath escaping from his throat. He doesn’t mean to hurt Phil, ever, but these days the sky seems a bit duller than usual, and words are too much for Dan. He’ll apologize later and Phil will accept, and they will eat dinner and pretend that nothing’s wrong with Dan, with their relationship, with their life. That’s just how they work.

He can hear Phil in the lounge, talking on his phone, voice distant yet still decipherable. He know he shouldn’t, yet Dan still puts his ear to the wall, desperate to hear even a sliver of Phil’s normal voice. It’s been ages since they’ve had a calm conversation. Not that they ever talk much at all these days.

‘I just don't know what to do. Everything is so messy, you know? Sometimes I regret even moving in with him.’

There was silence on the other end and Dan assumed it was just Kath speaking. Hopefully.

‘I do love him, but love can only do so much. If this keeps up- what am I even going to do? Break up with him?”

Dan let out an involuntary gasp at that one. Even at the worst points in their relationship, he never assumed either of them would consider breaking up. It was Phil and Dan, Dan and Phil, the inseparable duo. Whatever he said in the videos, it was just a defense mechanism, and Phil knew that, right?

“I know, mum, but what would you do? I doubt you and Dad had these problems- and even if you did, this is the internet. You’ve never known anything like this, Mum. It’s terrifying.” Phil stifled a sob. “They’re everywhere, prying and spreading hate. We just want to live, and they won’t let us. Why does everything have to be about our relationship? Even if they found out, what would they do with the information? Can’t they just enjoy our content and shut up?”

Phil has his own way with words. Whilst Dan had emotional blow ups, Phil had, what could best be described as his word clusterfuck breakdown moments. He spoke less, compared to Dan, but that boy could talk his way out of a murder if he so wished. That, combined with his Eenglish degree, Dan sometimes thoughtthink that he would’ve been a better lawyer than Dan if he wasn’t so damn empathetic.

But that empathy is basically the only thing holding their relationship together at the moment, so he should be thankful.

Should he?

Sometimes, late at night under the covers, when they had had an argument and tears were threatening to spill, Dan wished that he never met Phil. Sure, he’d be miserable at law school and forced to be a lawyer for the rest of his life, but he wouldn’t harbour this immense sense of loss and heartbreak.

He never meant to hurt Phil- god,he hated seeing Phil sad. He would do anything just to put a smile on that boy’s face, and whatever Phil wanted, Dan would provide. Once upon a time, before the dreaded video leak, he was sure that Phil would too. Now? He’s not so sure.

Dan is slowly retreating back into his mind now, bringing back bad memories of The Day, and losing focus of the phone call in the living room. Hazily, he thinks it might be his brain’s shitty way of trying to protect him from what he might overhear, but it was too late. The memories were already returning, flooding his senses and drowning out the world. It was just him, his brain, and- Phil. Being tagged in every one of Dan’s mentions, their twitters, social media, and messages blowing up, and Phil crying on their kitchen floor, because of course the video leaked whilst they were making breakfast. Their most peaceful and normal routine, broken by the irregular and madness of the internet. Every tweet was about the same, and that ought to balance out the stress, but it didn’t. They kept pouring in, tens and thousands of the same message with different varieties, and every one of them just added fuel to Phil’s tears.

They had dealt with this once before. They could do it again.

Dan remembered it clear as day: Him, calmly picking up Phil’s phone and going onto YouTube to private the video again, tweeting out their response ‘It was just a joke we made!’, answering the texts from their family and friends, soothing those who knew and deflecting those who didn’t. Turning and hugging Phil from time to time when his sobs grew louder, when he saw in the corner of his eyes that he was shrinking into himself. He smoothed down his hair and comforted him, reassuring him that it was all ok. Gentle whispers of ‘I love you, it’s going to be ok’ murmured against skin.

Phil, after four hours and one cup of hot chocolate, ceased crying and started to help Dan fix things. He remembered Phil smiling sadly and saying, “Isn’t it sad, Bear, that all this is just a PR nightmare for someone else? Yet it’s hell for us.”

Dan whipped his head over to look at Phil, to try to comfort him somehow, but Phil only shaked his head slightly and started to reply to some of Marianne’s emails. It was for the best. Dan wasn’t even sure what he could say- ‘It’s not like that?’ ‘Don’t you dare talk about our relationship like that?’ Every word he said would just make the situation worse.

So he kept his mouth shut, and they plundered through their phones for the rest of the day, until the emails ceased, their text messages was cleared, and Twitter calmed down. (Or at least some of them had enough sense to stop tagging them). They went to Phil’s room, closed all the blinds, and burrowed under the bedsheets, whispering their sorrows and apologies.

Dan had finally let himself cry, and Phil had held him, his own tears dropping on Dan’s hair, and for the first time, Dan had doubted their relationship. Whether it was a good idea, two teenagers meeting on the Internet and working on a job online, where everything is exposed to the public?

But then Phil kissed him on the forehead and snuggled in closer to Dan’s neck, and Dan is grateful. No matter what happens, YouTube brought them together, and he’ll forever be grateful for that. Even if shit like this happens.

As he drifted off to sleep, he was vaguely aware of Phil’s tears on his neck, faint sniffling coming from his side. Frowning, he reached out for Phil’s face, wanting to wipe the tears tracks off his face, but Phil just gently pushed him away with a wet chuckle, and so he let sleep drag him into consciousness.

He still doesn’t know why Phil cried. He just know that, the next day when he woke up, Phil was back to his normal self again, all traces of sadness gone, a sharp glint of anger to his eyes. That was the same day they sent a harshly-worded letter to YouTube, informing them of their slip-up in the system. They received not a response, but an entire update ensuring ‘more privacy for creators’. Phil had smiled coldly at that.

It scared Dan sometimes, when Phil’s coldness shows. He’s truly different when he’s angry, and Dan would never like to be at the other side of his wrath. Dan had only seen it in action, once, when Dan was called a slur on a train ride. Phil had gone still, so still that Dan’s brain couldn’t register when he saw Phil’s fist connecting with the guy’s face. One moment to the next, and Phil was pummeling the living lights out of the dude. By the time Dan could react, the guy was already backing up, holding his hands up in surrender. Tugging Phil gently away from the scene, hoping not to trigger anything else, they made it back to the apartment. They never talked about it.

Dan was brought out from his reverie by Phil’s gentle knocking on the door.

“Dan? I don’t know if you’re still angry, but i made pasta. I’ll leave a plate for you in the fridge if you don’t come out in thirty.” There was a little pause on the other side of the door, almost like Phil was hesitating, before he continued to speak. “You know i love you, right? I really wish I could help you with your problems, but I can’t always do that when you’re stuck in your head.”

As Phil walked away, immense panic washed over Dan. What if this was it? They’re going to break up, and Dan’s going to get his heart broken, move back in with his parents, and his YouTube dream might as well die. Most importantly, he’ll lose Phil. Phil, who’s so patient with him every time he has a breakdown. Phil, who loves him so much that he’s willing to put up with his ‘scared of the dark’ bullshit, closing the lights after Dan’s been securely tucked up in bed, soft fairy lights illuminating the room whilst waiting for him. Phil, the person who got him through some of his darkest days.

He has to try, for Phil.

Dan’s looking around the room, searching for ideas to make it up to Phil, when it hit him. Phil’s been talking about going to NYC for years now, since they first started Skyping. The man had a weird affinity for touristy places, and Dan could never understand why. But it was Phil, and wherever Phil went, he would go.

Quickly typing in the Google search bar, he found what he wanted and smiled. A genuine one, a rare sight these days. He winced a bit at the price - but it was worth it. Hopefully. Dan scanned their schedule briefly, just to make sure they were completely free. He didn’t want to receive an angry phone call or email from their nice (also hot-tempered, but you didn’t hear that from Dan) manager, Marianne, scolding them because they missed a potentially important meeting. It still amazed Dan that YouTubers actually had meetings to attend, brand deals to accept, deadlines to meet. There wasn’t the pressure of an office job, but it was still jarring, how YouTube was an actual job. It made him feel like a celebrity. But of course, he thought to himself, amused, we’re not actually stars that can attend important events.

Focusing back on the monitor, Dan entered his credit card number, and confirmed the transaction. Sure, it was a noticeable dent in his bank account, but they had the Radio 1 gig later on anyways. It couldn’t hurt that much to have a nice week long holiday with his boyfriend.

Especially if it meant saving their crumbling relationship.

Humming softly under his breath, Dan unlocked his door and practically skipped out to the lounge. He’ll try his best to keep his temper in check. He was in an exceptionally good mood, and suspected that Phil would be too, once he got the news. It was no Japan, but New York City couldn’t be that far off.

“Phil?” Dan yelled down the stairs. This was new to him, having to shout to alert the other. In the Manchester apartment, the space was so small, so cramped, sometimes Dan wondered if Phil could hear him through the wall singing songs whilst he edited. His suspicions were confirmed one day when he broke off in the middle of the Llama song and Phil picked it up. He nearly choked on his drink. The Manchester apartment was filled with fond memories. He hoped that this one would be too.

“Yeah?” Phil was answering in a struggling voice, which meant either a) he was holding something heavy, or b) he was taking out his contacts and was trying not to poke himself in the eye. Dan was secretly pleased he knew Phil well enough to know this.

“Have you had dinner yet? I wanna watch a show with you while we eat, if that’s fine?” Dan said this with some preparation of disappointment. Given that he had just yelled in his face, Dan was sure that Phil would be salty, even if he had cooked dinner.

There was a slight pause, and then Phil replied, “Yeah sure, just let me finish taking off my contacts first!”

Dan did a little fist pump in the air for getting scenario b right, then turned back to the kitchen to get the pasta Phil had promised. Taking care to close all the cupboard doors first so he wouldn’t get a weirdly shaped bruise on his face for the next week and drop their pasta in the process, he managed to safely get the pasta on two plates and make it out to the lounge.

Phil was there already, looking a bit anxious with his glasses on, seated on the sofa changing the channels mindlessly. It was immensely cute. Dan smiled for a bit, stalling in the hallway before walking over to the couch, promptly plopping himself next to Phil. Depositing one of the plates on Phil’s lap, he blurted out what he had been meaning to say for the past half hour.

“I’m sorry.”

Phil, originally planning on devouring the plate of pasta, paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What?” He stared at Dan disbelievingly, almost as if he couldn’t believe- oh.

He never did apologize to Phil, huh. He’d always just assume that the unspoken apology was enough, that Phil understood him. It was a shitty move.

“I’m sorry. For yelling at you this afternoon. It was unprecedented and you didn’t deserve it, and you even made pasta for me.” Staring down at his plate, Dan collected himself before speaking again. “I’m just scared, you know? I don’t want us to fall apart because of some mean comments on the internet. But they’re under my skin constantly, talking about things they have absolutely no business meddling in.”

“Is it really so hard for us to be just- us? Dan and Phil? Sometimes, i swear, it feels like it's the whole world against us. The turmoil, the battles, the accusations, they're overwhelming.”

Phil smiled a bit. “Dan and Phil Versus the world, huh.”

Dan broke into a grin, and replied, “Dan and Phil Versus the world.”

And so for the first time in what seemed like months, Dan fell asleep peacefully, with Phil by his side, all of their problems thrown out the window.

The ticket can wait, Dan decided. He'll wait till it's right.

Until then, he'll just let himself be held by Phil, feeling safe and warm in their own little world.

[quercussp]

Brotherly

Rating: G

Word count: 1.7k

Summary: Martyn has a text conversation with his mother while on tour.

Authors note: This fic is dedicated to @waveydnp, who wanted something soft and fluffy on the bus. I'm sorry that it's not exactly what you asked for, it just sort of happened. I hope you like it. An enormous thank you to my two amazing betas @terpia and @megiaolf, who are both angels.

Warnings: very brief reference to bullying and homophobia.

[read on ao3]

Sunlight is peaking through the blinds on the windows, making the small table Martyn has set up his laptop on look as though it is painted in luminescent stripes. It is still pretty early, but most of the crew is riding in a separate car ahead of them to help set up the show and Dan, Phil and Marianne are still asleep, so the only thing that can be heard is the steady rumbling of the bus engine and the soft sound of the radio that the driver is listening to.

They are driving through what seems to be an endless sequence of fields, sometimes interrupted by a river or a small patch of trees. As someone who grew up in England, Martyn always finds the sheer amount of space in America a bit suffocating. As they drive down endless highways, he can’t help but think that nowhere in Europe can he see so much sky and nothing else. It’s a weird feeling.

Martyn is going through his emails, sending notes to the venues about merch stands and going over the final details of the schedule when he hears his phone vibrate next to him. As he unlocks it, he sees a notification from “mum”. It makes Martyn automatically smile. Because of the time difference he rarely gets to chat with his parents while they are touring, and call him a momma’s boy, but he genuinely misses the opportunity to talk with them every couple of days.

Hello child! - reads the message.

Hi - he answers quickly. As soon as he sends the message, he sees three dots appear. He waits for his mother to finish typing.

How are you, child? Did you sleep well? Are you eating properly?

Martyn starts typing out his reply, smiling. He might be 35 years old, but his mother still worries about him as though he is a rebellious teenager.

***

So how’s my youngest child doing? - Kathryn asks.

Martyn and his mum have been texting for about an hour and he has told her about the weird rash he has on his leg from a questionable sunscreen he used and about the presents he bought Cornelia. Kath has told him all about the recipe she tried out at dinner yesterday and about his aunts recovery from surgery and how his father got a very unfortunate haircut.

As he reads the text asking about Phil, he can clearly picture her face at that moment. Her expression is still happy and warm, but there is a slight wrinkle between her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth go down slightly. This is the “worried mum” face that Martyn is extremely closely acquainted with. He knows that even though she talks to Phil constantly, she worries about him. Especially when they are doing something as big and as difficult as this tour.

Martyn is immediately brought back to all the times when she would direct that question at him years before. He remembers her worried face when she would ask Martyn if he knew why Phil isn’t properly talking to her or his father. He remembers her sending Martyn to talk to Phil and coming in to see his teenage brother curled up into a tiny miserable ball on the bed. He looked so small and vulnerable, that Martyn always just wanted to wrap him up and hide him away from the world. Instead, he would sit on the bed and wait. In the end, Phil always opened up to Martyn. It would take time and delicate prodding, but Phil trusted Martyn with his life, and Martyn has never treated that responsibility lightly.

He remembers Phil telling him about kids at school being mean to him, and Martyn shaking in silent rage. His brother was odd and quirky, but he was also creative and kind and from a very early age exhumed a light that no one could match. He got excited about the weirdest things, he would try to make friends with everyone around him, from police officers to classmates to trash bins and trees. He always was trying to create something new and exciting, and his eyes would always shine with enthusiasm and light. The fact that there were people who wanted to hurt him for being different made Martyn pray with all his might to whatever powers commanded the universe that his brother wouldn’t get mistreated by life. That he would find someone who understands that wonder that he has and who would appreciate him for the adorable weirdo he is. Who would wrap him up in love and let him be himself.

He remembers talking to Phil on a break from his second year of university, them sitting on the couch playing Final Fantasy while their parents were out of the house, when Phil quietly whispered “I think I like boys” amidst the noises from the game. He remembers looking over to Phil in surprise and seeing his face, scared and confused and anxious, and his eyes begging Martyn to understand. He honestly hadn’t known how to react, but looking at his younger brother’s fearful eyes, he had vowed to himself to never make Phil afraid to tell him something again, so he had just smiled and murmured “okay” and continued playing.

They talked more about it over the years, and if anything, that shared secret brought them even closer together.

He remembers when Rob died, getting a phone call from Phil and rushing to see him at his house he shared with his roommates, just to find Phil curled up and crying, alone and absolutely heartbroken. He remembers thinking to himself that even though Phil is no longer a small kid, but instead a tall and big adult, how he wishes he could scoop him up and protect him from this pain. If only that was possible.

He remembers Phil telling him over the phone in a shaky voice that he has a boyfriend. Dan. That he loves him so much and he is really scared of telling his parents.

And he also remembers the tears his mother shed after he did tell them, and his father’s shock and confusion. He knows both Kath and Nigel deeply regret how they reacted then. Even though both of them were just incredibly worried about another thing that made their youngest kid more different and vulnerable, and didn’t know how to deal with wanting the best for your child. they hurt Phil deeply and it’s still something none of them like to bring up.

But their relationship is good right now. Solid. Close. He wonders why she is asking him all of a sudden, and doesn’t just talk to Phil himself. He knows she is worried because Phil has been really stressed lately, tired from the tour and constantly meeting people and making decisions taking a serious a toll on him.

He’s ok.

Why don’t you ask him yourself? - he asks her.

I have been but he isn’t answering! He is always either busy or eating. And you know he can’t type and eat at the same time. She accompanies the message with one of those huge spinning smiling emojis, and Martyn quietly chuckles at the obnoxious thing. I haven’t heard from him in days. Tell him to talk to me.

Let me go get him - Martyn answers. It’s 9 am already and they will be at their next stop in less than an hour, so Martyn doesn’t feel that bad about waking Phil up. And also, not answering your mother’s texts is a punishable offense in the Lester family anyway, so Phil deserves to be woken up. He needs to get out of bed at some point anyway.

He leans down to open up the curtain to Phil’s bunk and is met with a somewhat familiar picture. Phil is curled up in a tight ball, eyes closed and breathing evenly, his face looking young and peaceful and so vulnerable, that Martyn feels the familiar protectiveness rise up in his chest.

What’s different is that instead of being alone, Phil is now wrapped in big broad arms of his partner. Martyn can only guess that Dan has climbed down from his bunk during the night, and is now sleeping crammed into the wall of the bus, holding Phil tightly in his arms, with his leg thrown over Phil’s legs, and his face buried into Phil’s messy black hair. Scooping him up and holding him as close as humanly possible. Covering him almost totally. Hiding him away from the world.

Martyn smiles softly at the scene. His brother is no longer a small chubby child, no longer an awkward teenager. By every definition, he is a grown man. A very big one in fact. Influential, rich, talented. He is also very tall. Taller than Martyn. Who would have guessed that out of all the people on the planet, Phil would find someone even bigger and taller, someone who makes him look small and fragile when they lie in a cramped bunk together.

He probably will never stop worrying about his brother all together, but now he has Dan who worries with him. Who appreciates Phil for exactly who he is, and loves everything that makes him weird. Someone who has Phil’s love and who cherishes it and protects it as the most valuable thing in the world. Who has helped Phil turn from a gangly insecure kid into a confident, happy and successful man. A man who is living his dream and giving so much happiness to people around him.

Martyn will deny this if ever asked, but he feels so proud of his baby brother.

He doesn’t have the heart to wake them. But he does take a picture. He sends it to his mother with the caption

Sorry to tell you, but your youngest child seems to be held captive by an enormous curly haired giant. We might never see him again:)

Tell them both I love them - she texts back. After a pause she sends another message:

Take care of them, ok? Both of them. They look tired.

I’m so glad they have each other. And that the bunks are big enough ;)

Martyn chuckles, but can’t help agree. He thinks to himself that whatever powers he used to pray to have been incredibly kind.

Love you, mum - he texts back and goes back to work. He still has a million things to do before they arrive. He will make Phil feel guilty for sleeping in later. He really does need the sleep.

[trashforhockeyguys]

Back To You (7) // Auston Matthews

The next two weeks went by a lot quicker than you thought. Granted, you were working overtime to make sure the new media personnel they hired could handle a road trip without you. And you were also having to tend to Katherine, who was having more than her fair share of wedding jitters.

You’d had to convince her three times in the last week alone that she was making the right decision. Then of course, there was the bachelorette party, you remained the only sober person at that. The day after was spent by you nursing everyone else’s hangover.

The day after that, you spent nearly two hours trying to help Auston pick out the right suit, because heaven forbid he not be dressed right. But you liked the fact that he was trying. In some way, it showed he cared enough. But this was still just a favor, and you knew that.

“Okay, so Jake said you can hang out with the guys before the ceremony,” You informed Auston the night before the wedding.

“It’s that supposed to just be for the groom’s men?” Auston questioned.

“Jake doesn’t care,” You dismissed,” They’re just going to be smoking cigars and drinking, and probably telling Jake he’s about to lose his balls by getting married.”

“Is that what you think? Getting married means losing one’s balls?” You couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

“No, that’s not at all what I think. I think it actually takes a ton of balls to get married,” You replied over your shoulder,” But, I know Jake’s friends, and the only married guy in the entire lineup is Jake’s older brother.”

He hummed and stretched out across your bed. You smiled to yourself as you packed up your makeup. You had a small overnight bag sitting at the base of your bed, just with a change of clothes for after the wedding. The drive from the venue wouldn’t be too bad, but you certainly weren’t going to make it in your dress and heals.

You had your back turned to Auston, but you could hear him moving around on your bed, trying to get comfortable. It was weird having him in your apartment, just hanging out. But somehow it was weird in a good way. You liked having him here. He somehow managed to make it feel brighter and warmer.

“So, what does your dress look like?” He asked.

When you turned to look at him you couldn’t help but laugh. You tried to cover your mouth with your hand to stop yourself, but it was no use. He way he was curled up, hugging a pillow to his chest, looked so odd to you.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry!” You giggled,” But the way you’re all curled up, you look like a middle school girl at a sleepover.”

He fought back a smile as he lightly threw the pillow at your head. You ducked away from it but lost your balance and ended up falling on the bed right next to him. The both of you were laughing so hard it hurt. It’d been years since you’d laughed this hard with him.

“You’re awful,” Auston laughed, rolling over to face you.

“I’m sorry,” You said honestly.

He groaned and rolled back onto his back. By now it had to be past midnight, you could feel yourself starting to get tired. But you didn’t want to say anything, because honestly you were having too much fun. This was the first night you and Auston actually spent together, just talking and joking around, in a very long time. Even though you knew you’d see him first thing in the morning, you didn’t want him to leave.

“It’s getting late,” He stated,” I should probably head out.”

“Okay,” You yawned, closing your eyes.

He laughed,” Goodnight sleepy head.”

You hummed and nodded. You felt him get off the bed, but soon after he pulled your blankets up over you. Due to the warmth of your blankets, you quickly started to fall asleep. Auston switched the light off and you heard him close your bedroom door. When you heard the front door shut and lock, you rolled over and clutched onto the pillow next to you.

Just as you were finally slipping into a deep sleep you realized something. The pillow smelled like him. In a way, it smelled like home too.

                                                        *

“Have you eaten yet?” Auston asked me as I got into his car the next morning.

“No, I’ve been on the phone with Kath since I got up this morning,” You replied.

“Is she going to go through with this?” He asked.

“Who knows Aus.”

By the time he pulled up to the venue, you were both laughing and jamming out to whatever playlist he’d put on. Auston was fun on road trips. When you were dating, the two of you would often get in the car on an off day and just drive. You both found it oddly therapeutic.

You hadn’t even been able to shut the car door before Katherine was already running towards you. Her hair was up in curlers, and she had a facemask on. You figured she wouldn’t let anyone outside of the bridal party see her like that. But she didn’t so much as bat an eye when she saw Auston.

“Good you’re here. I need you, like right now,” She huffed, then turned to Auston,” Hey Matthews.”

Auston grinned,” Hi Kath.”

“Okay, c’mon,” She grabbed my hand and started pulling me behind her,” The boys are over there!”

You didn’t really have a chance to say anything to Auston. The only thing you could do was awkwardly wave goodbye as Katherine pulled you behind her. You could hear him laughing as you stumbled and almost fell flat on your face.

Once bridal room, you barely had time to breath. You were almost automatically shoved into a chair to get your hair and makeup done. You loved Katherine, and the other cousins that were in the bridal party, but you hated all of the fuss. You understood that this was a huge day for Katherine. One of the most important days of her life. But that didn’t mean that you were thrilled with all of the bobby pins you had shoved into your head.

Thankfully, Katherine had opted to have mimosas while you all got ready. So while one of Katherine’s best friends from high school was close to having a breakdown because her boobs looked nonexistent in her dress, you were sitting in the corner casually sipping your drink.

A Matts: How’re you doing? Need me to rescue you yet?

You laughed and shook your head. Somehow, you imagined Auston might be in a similar situation over with the guys. Except, they were probably bombarding him with questions about the team. Maybe they were all behaving though, but probably not.

I have champagne and Katherine hasn’t tried to run yet. But I swear I have bobby pins actually jammed into my skull.

You glanced up at the girls. The one had finally stopped freaking out, apparently someone convinced her that he ass looked amazing and that was enough. You had to choke back a laugh though. Sure, you liked to be girly from time to time, but you’d never been like this. You figured you had bigger things to worry about.

A Matts: I’m sure you look amazing though.

You laughed and shook your head. Half an hour later, you were in your dress and lined up with the rest of the wedding party. You again had to assure Katherine that she looked amazing, and nothing was going to go wrong.

You couldn’t help but smile as Jake saw Katherine, tears welled up in his eyes. You didn’t think Jake would be one to cry at something like this. Katherine started crying the second they were together. You always thought you’d be in their position by now. You thought you’d be happy and settling down with someone.

Funny how like worked sometimes. Katherine, who was the wildest person you’d ever known, was settling down before you even thought about it. Katherine had been one to say that she wouldn’t get married until she was old, obviously that’s not what happened.

You glanced over at Auston, who was sitting a few rows behind your parents. He smiled and winked at you. The butterflies in your stomach decided to come back full force as you fought off a massive blush.

You could blame it on the mimosas you drank, or the pretty flowers everywhere, or the emotions that were brought on by the wedding, but after that moment you couldn’t stop smiling, no matter how hard you might’ve tried. You tried to ignore Auston staring at you through the rest of the ceremony, but it got harder and harder.

After the ceremony, the whole wedding party was whisked away to take pictures while the guests go to partake in a cocktail party. You normally hated pictures, but you and the rest of the bridal party laughed the entire time. By the time you got into the venue, your stomach was growling.

You and Auston were seated at the biggest table, full of the bridal party, and a good majority of your family. You figured he might tense up, due to how loud your family tended to be and how many questions they liked to ask him. But Auston never missed a beat. He carried on a pretty long conversation with your parents while he ate his dinner.

You were impressed to say the least. It was like he’d picked up right where he left off with your family. No one seemed to bat an eye about his presence. It all felt natural, like it was all meant to be this way.

Your baby cousins, especially the boys, all flocked to Auston. Those who were old enough to remember when you two were dating were thrilled to see him again. Those who were too young thought you were now the coolest person ever, because you knew Auston Matthews. You wanted to commend Auston for how he was handling your thirteen-year-old cousin and his two little brothers, they didn’t look like they wanted to leave him alone anytime soon.

You watched with tears in your eyes as Katherine and Jake shared their first dance. They were whispering to one another and giggling the entire time. Even though you felt a slight ping in your heart, you couldn’t be anything but happy for her. Kath deserved all of this and so much more.

You wondered back to your table, watching as Auston got pulled towards the dance floor by one of the many girls. A few songs in, your youngest cousin, who was also the flower girl, tugged on the leg of Auston’s pants. Even from here you could see how big his smile was as he picked her up. She’d been two the last time he’d seen her.

He swayed back and forth to the music with her in his arms. She giggled and poked his cheek which made Auston make a funny face, making her laugh even harder. Auston glanced over at you and waved the best he could while still supporting the toddler.

“I want to hate that boy, but watching the way he makes you smile, I can’t bring myself to,” Your father said sitting down next to you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about dad,” You shrugged, biting your lip to keep from smiling even more.

He hummed,” He still loves you. You do know that, right?”

“Dad, we’re just friends,” You swore.

“If that’s what you keep telling yourselves,” He shrugged,” But what do I know? I’m just an old man, right?”

“Go dance with mom or something,” You joked, lightly pushing him.

He laughed and stood up, hands raised in defeat. As he walked past Auston, he gave him a pat on the back and told him something. You had no idea what he said, nor did you want to know. Knowing your dad, he was probably telling Auston not to fuck it up again. But the second your dad walked off, Auston put down your cousin and started making his way towards you.

“C’mon, I owe you a dance,” He said holding a hand out.

“Auston,” You whined.

“Nope, you are barefoot so you can’t say your feet hurt,” He objected, “One dance, please?”

You nodded and took his hand. He lead you back towards the tent with the dance floor, which had how quieted down some since a slower song was playing. You rested your hands on Auston’s shoulders as the two of you started to slowly sway back and forth.

You could feel Katherine and Jake looking at you. You even caught sight of them over Auston’s shoulder, giving you a thumbs up like you were at prom slow dancing with your crush for the first time. You would’ve laughed had you not suddenly remembered what your dad had said not ten minutes before.

“You took your hair down,” Auston suddenly noticed, toying with one of your curls.

“Technically I kept part of it up,” You mentioned,” But all of the bobby pins were giving me a headache.”

“I like it like this, actually,” He told you,” It looks more like you.”

You swallowed hard. You could feel your face heating up. You’d never been one to take compliments well, add on the fact that Auston was the one dishing them out and you’d probably be dead by the end of the night.

“I’m glad you came with me,” You told him quietly.

“So am I.”

[akingsfool]

Midnight Mishap

i said that this would be out like

weeks ago

but yet here we are

~

There was a pile of them on the airport floor. Not even sitting in the perfectly good chairs, they were on the floor. Mush was on top of Blink, whose head was on Finch’s stomach. Romeo was on Specs, who was spread out on the floor. Tommy Boy was lying on one of Specs’ arms, and Henry was curled into Tommy Boy’s side. JoJo was leaning against a wall, Tex was laying in his lap, Smalls and Buttons were actually sitting in chairs. Crutchie was sitting in a chair next to Jack, Davey, and Kathrine. Sarah was sitting on the floor in front of Kathrine, Sam and Les on either side of her, watching Sarah play a game on her phone. Albert was leaning against a wall, taking a nap with Elmer. And Race was laying on the floor in front of Spot.

They were a mess. And other people gave them weird looks. But they didn’t care. It wasn’t the weirdest thing they’ve done. I mean, Race, Albert, and JoJo dressed up in women’s clothing from the 1800s just because they thought it was funny. So this was normal for them.

Finally, finally, they boarded the plane. Race almost immediately fell asleep. Spot stayed up a bit, reading and drinking a soda the flight attendants brought. There was nothing to interesting.

“Spot, let’s go,” Race whispered, poking Spot’s cheek. “Wake up, we gotta get off the plane.” Spot groaned and opened his eyes, squinting at the bright light. “Dude, we’re in London. Can you believe it?” Race asked, grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah, I can believe it,” the short boy replied, standing up to stretch. “We gotta go get our bags and stuff.”

“Yeah, no we don't,” Kathrine yawned. “My dad’s sending someone to get them. How does he even make this much money? It doesn’t seem possible.” Spot shrugged and grabbed Race’s carry on, following the crowd of people. Davey did a head count. So did kathrine, and Jack, and Spot.

Sarah was with Kathrine. JoJo was giving Tex a piggyback ride, and Tex was taking a nap. Crutchie, Finch, Blink, Mush, Henry, and Tommy Boy were all joking around. Sam and Les were with Race, probably planning to steal candy or something. Smalls, Buttons, Specs, Romeo, Albert, and Elmer were calmly waiting to leave.

“Ok, so I’m thinking food first,” Henry called out once they left the airport. “I’m starving, and I didn’t eat breakfast.”

“It’s dinner time, Henry,” Smalls shrugged. “You should have eaten. But he’s right, I’m hungry too. Maybe we could get something before we have to deal with Kathrine’s father?” Race shrugged. It seemed like a good idea, right? Get something to eat, wander around, then deal with Kathrine’s egotistical father. Maybe if they were lucky, he would be asleep before they got there.

“Can we just get some burgers and milkshakes? That sounds good right now,” Elmer suggested, giving Kathrine his best puppy eyes. “Pwease, Kath? Pwease?” Race rolled his eyes when Kathrine said they could. No one could resist Elmer’s puppy eyes. No one.

Race had a hold of Spot’s sleeve, following him as they walked to the nearest diner. The inside was cold and it wasn’t that busy. It was quite small. But they did take up almost half of it. Everyone was talking about what they wanted to eat and how the plane ride was. Race was playing with the packets of sugar and throwing them at Elmer. Elmer threw them back. Everytime a waiter or waitress walked by they would stop and act innocent, which made Spot laugh. They only stopped throwing sugar packets when they got their food. Pretty much all noise stopped.

They kept talking, but not as much. Everyone was shoving their mouths full with food.

“Hey!” Race whined when Spot stole some of his food. “That’s mine!”

“Sharing is caring, Racer,” the short boy grinned. Race rolled his eyes and sighed.

“You’re lucky I love you, or you would have lost your hand,” he huffed.

Spot laughed, “I’m sure I would have!”

A few minutes later and they were leaving. They all pitched in to leave a tip for the poor waitress, who had to deal with the twenty two of them. It was getting dark out, but they still had some energy to burn. Spot sighed when Race ran off to a nearby tree with Les, who was dragging Sam along.

“He’s gonna get hurt,” JoJo nodded his head in Race’s direction. Spot sighed and looked over at JoJo. The tall boy had his hands in his pockets and his hat on his head.

“Yeah, I know. Tex let ya keep your hat this time?” he asked. Usually she would take his hat. But no, she didn’t.

“Well kinda,” he shrugged. “I set her down in the booth for dinner and she was so tired she forgot. But I guess she’s awake now, she’s running around with Smalls and Sarah.”

Spot nodded and looked back at Race, Les, and Sam. Sam was sitting calmly on a tree branch, looking up at Race and Les. Race was a bit higher up than Sam was. But Les was higher than Race was.

“Guys let’s go,” Davey sighed, walking up to the tree and looking through the thick tree branches, “we have to get to Pulitzer’s house before it’s to late and he locks us out. Or, until the doors locked. I’m not sure how this is gonna work.” Race and Sam sighed and started to climb down. Les, however, didn’t move. The small boy shifted uncomfortably. “Les, come on,” Davey moved out of the way so Race and Sam could jump down.

“I’m stuck,” Les shrugged. “I got my foot stuck in a branch and now I can’t get down.” Davey sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Try to like,” Smalls walked up besides Davey, sticking her hands in her pockets, “wiggle around. Try to get it unstuck.” And so Les did. The boy started to fall. He ended up hanging upside down, his arms above his head and his foot still stuck in the branch. Davey and Jack had moved to catch him, but he didn’t fall.

Spot looked at Race, “got help him!” Race looked offended.

“Why me?” he asked, putting his hands on his hips.

“Because,” Spot sighed, “you're the one who left him up there. So go get him.” Race huffed and grabbed the nearest branch, pulling himself up onto it. One after another, Race climbed until he was above Les.

“Davey, get ready to catch him!” Race shouted, sitting on the branch. “Ready, Les?” he asked, grabbing Les’s foot. The boy nodded and Race wiggled his foot around. One hard push to the side did the trick. Les flailed his arms and legs, giving Race a panicked look. Jack and Davey caught him, looking worried and asking Les if he was ok.

“That was awesome,” Les grinned, running over to Sarah. “Can I do that again? Please?”

“Absolutely not,” the brunette shook her head, “mom would kill Davey and I if she found out we let you jump out of a tree.” Les sighed and ran off to find Sam and Elmer. Race joined Spot a few minutes later.

It didn’t take very long to find where they were staying. But, the door was locked. They just climbed in through the windows of their respected rooms. All the rooms were already set up. Probably because of Kathrine. Spot was so tired that he flopped down on the air mattress and practically passed out right away.

It was late when he woke up. The moonlight was pouring into the dark room, giving everything an enchanting glow. Spot grumbled and looked out the window. The stars in the sky looked absolutely magical. Looking to his right side, he saw Race. The taller boy was peacefully sleeping.

Spot quietly got up and went to grab a bottle of water he had in his bag. The cool water burned his throat as it went down. A sudden wave of exhaustion overcame the Brooklyn boy. Setting down his water, he walked over to the air mattress and flopped down.

“Holy shit!” Race yelped. The force of Spot flopping onto the mattress sent Race flying into the air. Laughing, Spot watched as the lanky boy came back down, landing on top of Spot. “Dude, it felt like I was flying. But don’t do that again.”

“Sure thing, Racer,” Spot yawned. “Get some sleep.” Race rolled his eyes and pulled the covers up to his chin.

“Night, heathen,” the boy yawned, closing his eyes to get some much needed sleep after that little midnight mishap.

~

@booksbroadwayandbagels

[kewpiemeayo]

Blind!Reader as an Avenger

A/N: I came up with this HC idea while working on a Quicksilver imagine and I ended up collaborating with @a-fallen-little-pine-cone and it became a giant mess of blurbs? Whoops...

You used to be able to see as a child but after a tragic accident when you were twelve, you lost your sight. For a while you hated it, having to adjust to feeling and hearing solely to get by, but you resented nothing more than your probing cane until one day, you almost got run over while crossing an intersection. You technically had the right since the crosswalk was still counting down, the driver was just being an ass.

But that was the day when you realized your world wasn’t safe anymore and people didn’t understand you couldn’t see so you started learning how to use it. It didn’t turn out as terrible as you thought it was going to be but every once in a while the end of your stick would get caught in the sidewalk crack, which threw you off. The only negative parts were the judging glances you felt boring into you as you walked by, or how some students would mutter jokes.

Being blind left you vulnerable and a group of bullies once pushed you over and tried to steal from you but you managed to hit a few of them with your cane when a classmate of yours saw what was happening and came to help. Your parents found out and forced you into taking self-defense class but you ended up falling in love with the feeling of landing your punches and kicks with only your sense of hearing and touch. That’s how you found your passion for hand-to-hand combat and mixed martial arts.

This spiraled into you going out once a week to find thieves and bad guys, trying to put your skills to the test. You found yourself fighting in the dark much too often and decided to call yourself Blackout. Really it was a two-way street, they couldn’t see you since you dressed in all black and you couldn’t see because you were blind.

Then somehow you ended up being a part of the Avengers, recruited by the one and only Natasha Romanov. Everyone was very welcoming and Tony Stark took great interest in you soon after, always finding a way to try and get you to let him add some “cool gadgets” to your probing cane.

“Okay, but does your cane have a light source?” “…” “…” “Why would I need a light, I can’t even see, Tony.”

After months of constant hinting at the fact he really wanted to give you upgrades, you still refused to let him mess with your original probing cane but gave him permission to make one specifically for training only. He worked on it for days with Bruce and eventually came up to you one morning with the new cane tucked in the neatly wrapped box.

You took it to the training room with you to test it out to see what it could do and you fell in love with it. You relied mostly on your hands as weapons but you decided to be open-minded about having an actual weapon now. Although it did take some practice getting used to because you might have accidentally sacked Steve during team training… soz cap. 

However, your first mission with your new cane went really well. Turns out the light feature was good for confusing the bad guys if you spun it around really quickly like some super cool bo staff spinner.

Your relationship with the team was just fine, but you found yourself talking to FRIDAY more than anyone else. If you were bored you would call for her and the two of your discussed random world events on the news or you would just have deep thoughtful conversations about life and people. Natasha was practically your mom considering you were her protégé. She always checked on you and made sure she trained with you for a minimum of half an hour every day, Thor was like the fun uncle that visited once in a full moon, Tony and Steve were the dads while everyone else was like siblings.

“You want to blow up a weird metal box, go ahead.” “No. TONY DO NOT GIVE THEM THAT IDEA! Do not blow up a metal box, (Y/N), that’s a terrible idea.” “So was defrosting a man.” “YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE!” “Oh yes I did.” civil war “I’ll blow up the box with you,” whispers Bucky and the both of you leave.

Clint, however, was your best friend since you both found comfort with each other and would often train together. He would turn off his hearing aids/take them out and you would revert to using your original cane. The two of you came up with touch signals since you couldn’t see and he couldn’t hear. Taps on the wrist meant to prepare, whichever shoulder was bumped meant bad guys were on that side, kicks to the foot meant run, elbow to the ribs meant “Clint, STFU.”, and a smack to the back meant going back to back.

During your free time, Clint would take time out of his day to teach you sign language, and since you can’t see, he would explain it to you, move your hands in the motion and correct your positions. He obviously taught you the bad words first

The two of you often had small conversations in broken dialect (you signing and him talking to respond) to annoy Sam. I smell aftershave. Has he dressed up again? “Yup.” Tell me he doesn’t have the gross green handkerchief in his pocket. "I thought I was the only one who found it unsettling!” "COULD YOU PLEASE STOP DOING THAT! I KNOW YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT ME!” Sam turned on his heels to leave as he mutters under his breath.

When you guys aren’t busy saving lives and just want to go on outings to relax, you would bring your probing cane but everybody would take turns holding your hand to guide you, especially Wanda and Clint who often fought over it behind your back. If it gets really serious, Vision would come in to drag you out of it.

Aside from being great partners, you and Clint were the biggest pranksters out of the Avengers. Clint would stand around a corner you would be turning, unmoving, but you always sensed his breathing from afar which in turn, gave you the upper hand at purposely scaring him by holding your buzzing taser merely inches away from his face when you rounded the corner. “Don’t test me, Clint, you know this taser doesn’t really give you a light zapping.” “Sorry I can’t hear you.” followed by the screams that escape his lips when you poke him in the rib (the taser wasn’t even on).

That following night, you hid a couple alarm clocks in his room, all set at different times throughout the night. By the time the fourth alarm clock went off, Clint had completely shut off his hearing aid but that meant he didn’t hear his real alarm clock the next morning. He was late to training...

One time, you made the mistake of trusting Clint to pick your outfit for one of Tony’s dinner party, the kind where everyone was there, reporters, rich people etc. and it was a disaster. The team were all scattered about doing random things like greeting guests, hiding or helping out behind the scenes so no one told you how your outfit choice wasn’t the greatest, not even the guests that talked to you, until Natasha asked why you were in pajamas, mix-matched high heels, and a bedazzled leather jacket.

After that incident, you skipped the next three dinner parties and galas still completely mortified at your appearance in front of all those people. Eventually, Wanda made you promise you’d start going to them again if she chose your outfit for you because she got bored at those and she’s always wanted someone she could dress up.

And also because now that you were part of the family, you kind of sort of had to attend. Tony was just trying to be the cool dad and letting you off the hook every time you refused to go.

Idk why the hell I found this ending so bland, but I didn’t even change anything since this afternoon. I apologize if it sucks. 

I think I’m down for a bonus part??? Um... Maybe I’ll see if Kath wants to do the bonus. 

>> Masterlist

Tagging: @cupoftim @vermelian @lbug1025 @trashyemonerd

[violetwolfraven]

Crossover Headcanons

((I know I have requests in my inbox but I just had to get this out of my head. Also I probably won’t be posting those requests for a while because my writer’s block is only barely starting to lift, so...))

Anyway this is gonna start off from one perspective and go to more later. Enjoy. 💜

Tw: past death, nightmares

...

So this is a... spin-off? Of the reincarnation au? An alternate timeline? A variant? Whatever it is the newsies are reincarnated and remember their past.

Also somehow most of them are going to the same college here, (I’m not going to say which one because I don’t want to research colleges right now) even if they’ve got a wide range of majors.

There’s only one dorm building even if people are only allowed to share a room with someone of the same gender.

This works out well for Elmer, because he’s pretty happy to be rooming with his boyfriend, Buttons.

But then he gets up to the floor their dorm is on and almost drops the box he’s holding.

Because it’s fuckin her. His national-level math nemesis since 11th grade. They’ve only faced off twice, the first time with her team winning and the second with his winning, but they’re each the only one who can beat the other in a math competition.

Elmer can see the shock in her eyes as she recognizes him and shouts YOU and then she’s stomping over to him aggressively enough that he’s pretty sure she wants to throw down physically.

Jack (who’s also on that floor with Davey) figures that too, and steps in front of him before she gets too close, but that girl acts like she doesn’t even notice him and shouts I WAS HALF A SECOND BEHIND YOU SOLVING THAT PROBLEM!

Elmer is kinda terrified but he defensively shoots back well I still solved it first and moves around Jack because this is his math nemesis and his fight.

The girl scowls at him for a couple more seconds then just sticks out her hand to shake, and Elmer realizes that he doesn’t actually know her name beyond the surname he’s seen on the back of her mathletes jacket. She introduces herself as Cady Heron.

Elmer Kazprzak, he responds, and Cady looks like she’s trying not to laugh, but he figures that’s probably fair, with how ‘Elmer’ was a common name in 1885 but not so much in 2003.

Jack clears his throat so Elmer introduces him but forgets that this isn’t their high school so things like oh this is Jack. He’s basically my dad. are weird.

Cady definitely thinks it’s weird but she doesn’t question it. Instead she just asks where Elmer is living, and it turns out, of course, he and Buttons are right next door to her and her roommate, Karen.

(I say Cady is living with Karen because Gretchen wanted to live with Regina and rules be damned Janis is with Damien.)

Elmer isn’t completely sure he’s not going to get murdered in his sleep but he guesses if he could handle the 1899 Newsboy Strike and World War I he can handle Cady Heron.

Meanwhile Katherine is going to Harvard so Sarah is rooming with someone she’s never met and she’s a little nervous.

And in stomps a girl who declares I’m a lesbian and if you have a problem with that tell me now so I can switch dorms.

And Sarah responds with my girlfriend out at Harvard would be pretty pissed at me if I did have a problem with that.

The girl lets her guard down, explains that she comes from a small town, and says her name is Alyssa Greene.

After that little bump, they get along good. Alyssa explains that her girlfriend, Emma, registered late and couldn’t get a dorm with who she wanted.

And Sarah’s just kinda like wait Emma as in Unruly Hearts Emma? Alyssa’s just like yeah!! I’m so proud of her!!

Sarah brags a bit about how Katherine is studying to be a journalist with a specialty in queer stories and long story short they become besties and eventually Alyssa introduces Emma for real and Sarah introduces Smalls and Sniper.

Emma and Alyssa are a bit thrown by the whole nickname thing but hey whatever now they have a Lesbian Club!

They do meet up with the boys occasionally but the Lesbian Club meets on a video call with Katherine every Saturday.

Anyway Jack meets Janis in art class and initially they kinda think each other is weird because their styles are very different but then they get in an actual conversation and get along amazingly.

Jack is definitely a fan of Janis’s philosophy of when someone hurts your friends you attack and grind your foe into the ground.

Janis tells her new bestie about Cady and Damien (and Regina, Gretchen, and Karen, though she still keeps Cady and Damien closer than the former Plastics) and she’s honestly shocked by the amount of friends Jack tells her about.

She does recognize some names, though. Romeo and Damien are both theatre majors and they’ve become friends.

But anyway Jack and Janis are like. Super good friends. Art buddies. Mlm/wlw solidarity. Protective friend pals.

Janis is pretty surprised when she introduces him to Cady and they’ve already met, and apparently oh fuck your math nemesis is Jack’s Elmer???

Jack’s just going oh fuck Elmer’s math nemesis Cady is Janis’s Cady???

Also Regina met Spot and Sarah at the gym and now they meet up with a few other people every other week to throw down like their own personal fight club.

At first Regina was just angrily trying to fight with no technique, but don’t worry, Spot and Sarah teach her.

There weren’t a ton of out gays at Northshore High, so yeah the Mean Girls crew definitely gets along with the Newsies crew out of solidarity.

Janis and at least one of the Plastics but I can’t choose which one(s) join the Lesbian Club.

Meanwhile Race is super hyped to meet Emma cause like I choreographed a dance to your song wanna see???

Emma is flattered but kinda weirded out and she mentions her friend Angie who’s a dancer too and Race is just *error 404*

Cause of course he saw the news story and knows Emma knows these 4 big Broadway stars but it just. Hasn’t connected until this moment that she like has their numbers.

He tries not to freak out too much cause he knows that’s weird but Emma eventually goes do you wanna meet her? And Race goes do I wanna meet her? She’s only my IDOL!! she’s been dancing like 20 years and she’s still got it!!

Emma calls Angie partially because she likes her new dancer friend and wants to make him happy and partially because she wants to prove to Angie that people do appreciate her zazz and despite how she was just a chorus girl until a few months ago this random boy from New York has been a fan since he was 12.

Angie can’t exactly fly over at the drop of a hat but she watches some videos on YouTube of Race dancing and like holy hell this kid is good. And his friends are too but this kid right here has zazz off the charts.

When she finds out he’s an orphan she’s lowkey can I adopt him??? but then she finds out he already has an adoptive mother and it’s Medda Larkin.

Medda Larkin who did more than a few shows with Angie when they were young but left Broadway to open her own theatre.

They fell out of touch years ago but still follow each other on Instagram and stuff.

But Angie shows Barry and Dee Dee and she’s super excited like remember Medda Larkin??? THIS IS HER ADOPTIVE KID AND HE’S AMAZING

And they watch YouTube clips of Emma’s new friends in high school shows and like wtf these kids are fuckin talented why aren’t they on Broadway???

They almost tell Emma to tell her friends to drop out of college and come straight (haha not that straight) to Broadway but Trent is like wtf no education is important.

Whatever the actors aren’t that relevant.

Sarah has a nightmare about her death one night. And with the others it’s not as big of a deal because they’re all rooming with each other, but Sarah’s roommate isn’t one of them.

She thinks Alyssa is asleep so she calls Katherine crying about how scared she was, how guilty she felt to be leaving her brothers and friends and Kath without a goodbye.

And Alyssa isn’t quite awake, but she’s awake enough that she hears Sarah whisper about how everything is just so stupid complicated. I shouldn’t be afraid of dying when I’ve done it before—when we’ve all died horribly—but I still am, Kitty. I can’t stop being afraid.

Alyssa is out of it enough that she falls back asleep, but when she wakes up she knows what she heard. That her roommate thinks she had a past life and died and implied that all her friends did.

Emma notices she’s acting weird and when she asks what’s wrong she tells her.

They both know it sounds crazy, but...

Emma tentatively points out some weird things about their friends from New York.

She’s study buddies with Race and occasionally he points something out she got wrong on her history homework. Something so small and inconsequential that it would’ve been almost impossible for him to know unless he was there and remembered from experience.

Smalls and Sniper have a habit of jumping apart if they were so much as holding hands and someone walks in on them, even though they come from a mostly accepting city with an accepting friend group.

That whole group straight up skipped history class the whole week they were learning about World War I and refused to make up the work.

They bring the half-baked theory to Janis who immediately remembers all the times she’s seen Jack draw small war-torn towns in France and dirty city streets and an outdated skyline as if seen from a rooftop, all of them too detailed to be anything but directly copied from something Jack has seen before.

But the question is if they’re drawn from a reference photo or a memory.

Cady realizes, upon hearing the theory, that Elmer and Buttons never take her up on offers to come to football games because they don’t like the noise.

More specifically, she remembers the look on her nemesis/frenemy’s face when he said he didn’t like fireworks.

Aaron notices that Davey always solves math problems by hand. He never uses a calculator unless someone reminds him it’s an option. And half the time, he defaults to using his right hand with terrible handwriting even though he’s left handed. Almost like he was raised with the whole ‘left hand devil’ thing, which doesn’t make sense because he went to a public school; not a religious one.

Damien realizes that Romeo has a habit of correcting the costume department, like he knows the period clothing for Hello, Dolly! better than they do. It annoys the hell out of them because upon some research, he is always right.

Regina notes how Spot and Sarah fight like they’re fighting for their lives in a street brawl. She knows that because she started taking karate in an attempt to win fights. She noticed months ago that her friends use technique that’s barely sustainable, like they’re just trying to stay alive until they can run or backup comes.

However all this is just fun and games, a crack theory they’re all mildly creeped out by but don’t really believe, until Gretchen finds it.

An article on the Newsboy Strike of 1899.

There’s a copy of the Newsies Banner, written by Katherine Plumber, which references strike leaders Jack Kelly and David Jacobs.

But they could write that off as just a creepy coincidence if not for the photo.

It’s the one Katherine and Darcy took that first day, which is in black and white and not the greatest quality, but clearly shows a lot of familiar faces.

A later story by this Katherine Plumber documents lives of street kids with interviews from kids with the same odd nicknames as the group they know.

Regina was the most cynical about this theory and even she can’t deny it now. There’s just too much evidence.

Especially when Karen finds Crutchie’s obituary, but Regina stops her from showing it to anyone else because that’s just too creepy.

The Mean Girls crew and Alyssa and Emma are... unsure if they should confront their friends about this, because a) this is freaky and b) the newsie gang is clearly still harboring trauma due to their deaths.

Plus, as Damien points out, being gay was illegal in 1899. Do you think they want a reminder of how they had to hide their feelings for each other back then?

Emma and Alyssa share a knowing look because they know what that’s like.

In the end Karen lets it slip when she asks Davey a question about her history homework involving World War II, mistakenly believing he was there.

Davey naturally questions her about it and she spills the entire story about how Alyssa heard Sarah’s phone call and they figured everything else out from there. She even shows him the article with the 1899 photo and the Newsies Banner.

And... shit, there’s a lot of memories behind that picture. And that’s them, over a hundred years ago, when they were kids and they weren’t all the same age like this time around.

The old Davey looks so big compared to Romeo and Elmer and god was Specs tall for a 15-year-old.

Davey didn’t even meet Smalls and Sniper in this lifetime until they were 16, but in that picture they’re only 13 and they’re so small.

A sidenote on Katherine has a picture of her in a hairstyle he hasn’t seen her in since 1917.

It’s a mixture between ptsd and nostalgia and Davey can’t decide whether to freak out or be happy.

He takes the article to Jack and tells him about how Gretchen found it and their non-reincarnated friends know.

Jack’s silently cursing the fact that he really should have been more careful with what he drew around Janis, but it’s kinda a relief that they know, honestly.

He shoots a quick text to the group chat and then turns his phone on do not disturb mode while he sits Janis down for a little chat.

He doesn’t go into graphic detail, but he does tell her an abridged version of everything. How they were basically a family and all lgbt+ in the early 20th century and how they died before their time and got a second chance.

It’s more than a little freaky for Janis, but it does explain a lot.

Such as how Jack demonstrates on a dare that he can still do some parkour because once upon a time, he used it to run from the cops.

Elmer tells Cady he’s so quick at math because he used to have to calculate change quickly and later had to help Jack and Davey come up with battle plans based on numbers vs tactics and terrain.

Regina definitely trusts Spot’s combat advice a lot more now because he was essentially a gang leader as a teenager and it has literally saved his life.

Race admits to Emma that her song made him cry because... in this lifetime he might not have had to be closeted, but in his last he was constantly worried about getting arrested or worse if people found out not just about him and his boyfriend, but his friends. His family.

Emma may or may not collaborate with him after that to write a song about how much it hurts to be closeted for your own safety and how much better it feels to be free to be who you are. Race dances in the music video and many of the other newsies make appearances but it’s mainly him and Emma. Spot and Alyssa cry when they see it. Damien does, too.

Who am I kidding everyone cries.

They get like 4 million hits on YouTube and it’s amazing.

The title is probably In the Light or something.

Also Cady, Aaron, Kevin, and Elmer form their own college level mathletes team and no one can beat them.

(Kevin’s not as close with the main group literally only because I don’t know that much about him as a character.)

(Also Stacy, Kailey, and whatever their boyfriends’ names are might be there somewhere but I don’t know them either.)

Katherine does get to meet the new kids in person eventually. And also I didn’t mention this earlier but Specs goes to Harvard too and he comes to visit too.

The power when the Lesbian Club finally gets to meet all in person? Unparalleled.

:)

[jestbee]

June 10: Three Sleepless Nights With Dan

[morningpages-louise]

August 07, 2019

Yo I got gulat. Hahaha. Cause Im sleeping in taft rn, because I slept here on Thursday and she left for anti polo but I left my stuff in her place so she told me to just lock up after myself, but I honestly fucking miss living in taft amp so I thought to myself why not just sleep here, I don’t know. So I’ve been a taft girl for two nights. People always ask me if I regret moving to pobla. No I don’t regret it. I just wish I didn’t go so soon. Because I love pobla, and I’m hella grateful to live in close proximity with everything like Rockwell and greenbelt and all the cute cafes and all that. Its just that, ill go where my friends are. And while I do have friends in pobla, aka kris and Kath and kids lol, I have more friends here. Yo archers walls are gonna give me a fucking heart attack. Cause I’m technically not even supposed to be here, but like I wanna chill ill probably spend the whole day here. I literally had 2 hours of sleep. Lets not talk about my late night decisions please. I’ve been quite irresponsible these past few days. But yeah.its 6:43 am. Last night or a few hours earlier, I was quite annoyed. By the new people added in our group. Im such a fucking bitch but I just miss when wed go to poblano and it would literally just be me, Alliyah and Sheena. Like why is there new people in the game like Sarah, Joel, and rj. I don’t know I was just annoyed. Like they’re great company, but I just felt like they were driving people away from talking to us. Lol I’m so fucking stuck up, I admit. This is the worst thing about me, the nastiest attribute, that I have so much pride in myself. I must admit. But atlas I’m aware. Does that make it better bah? Like when Derrick told me that he had been messaging Abigail, but she had been ignoring him, and now she was here, I was like thinking to myself like oh shit, should I not be seen with Derrick? Is he a loser? I don’t know tho I just went with it because I love meeting new people. And I guess I should be a little more open, because as much as Id like to believe I’m open minded, I’m honestly not that open minded. I mean if I think like this, then I’m not as open minded as I really think I am you know. I guess I should just stop caring about what people think about me. Like it all goes down to that. I still care way too much about how other people think of me, which is fucking ridiculous considering I’ll never see these people again, you know. I don’t know. Stupid. Stupid things to waste energy on. Stupid stupid stupid. Here’s to welcoming people of all weirdness and stuff. I felt like such a bitch yesterday talaga/ Like by the time we went to taft, I was just like, I’m outta here. Bye friends. Like cause I was in a pretty bad mood. I guess its me telling others like okay, Im kind of done with y’all. Like today, I think I will spend alone. So I can get work done. Okay, I’m getting pretty sleepy again. Ill probably wake up at 8, take a bath or something and then go back to sleep or something. You know an idea just struck me. Because I’ve been job hunting these past few days and I just realized like Ola hostel, which is just in Pablo ocammpo, that should be where sila sheena and Alliyah apply. I feel like they’d have so much fun cause foreigners and all. Thats also one thing that annoyed me. Like I fucking love sheena, but at times I just dont have the energy to deal with her. Someone else who I don’t have the energy to deal with is rico, like whenever he slides into my dms I just get put off man. That boy needs to puyo ha lol. Yeah sheena annoys me when she’s just constantly talking about how thirsty she is, or boys. I guess I’m just not that boy crazy. Like ofcourse I still get attracted to them and everything, but honestly like rn, its the last thing on my mind. Like my mind is pretty much thesis and careers entered at the moment. I don’t know why it pisses me off, I think maybe I just might be jealous of her, because she’s getting action. She’s being liked by guys. Jealousy, pride. These are my sins. My ugliest traits, Jealousy, lust, stealing. It’s no secret I’ve been getting money from my roomates and friends. Its fucking nasty. im thinking of what to eat for breakfast lol. Its crazy. I dont have much memories in erickas condo, because well its ricks condo, but I’m going to miss it man. She’s leaving next week na ata. See, my friends are all leaving taft one by one. First its Ericka. Then max. Then well idk who else. But yeah, were all just going. I’m getting so sleepy and im just rambling at this point, but I hope I get a job soon. And I hope these nasty habits of mine are confronted. I must find a way not to avoid these feelings, but to confront it. Thanks for coming to my ted talk lol bye.

[robotdinosaurmuseumcave]

Sometimes I sit in my room at night and just whisper "Isildor" to myself because omg it's fun to say in a dramatic whisper.