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omegawolverine · 3 years

Text

Braid Me a Home

summary:

"Braid my fucking hair, Theseus. Braid it.”

It had sounded like a plea falling from Techno’s chapped lips, blood caked under his nails as he sat in front of Tommy on a tree stump, slowly itching at his wrists.

“Wilbur told me to stop you if you ever started doing that-”

“Wilbur isn’t fucking here. Just...braid, Toms. Braid.”

A story about the Sleepy Bois being family, told through braids.

word count: 2.5k

warnings: child neglect, hurt/no comfort, canonical character death, implied/referenced mental health issues (like it’s obvious but there isn’t much detail to it), brief blood mentions (ik this fic sounds kinda angsty as hell but its not? imo its light angst)

a/n: first dream smp fic and im ALREADY projecting? christ. anyways. go easy on me pls this is far from my best work i just havent written a fic in like 5 months (more if you dont count the fucking chat fics) mm also i may have posted this like a week ago on ao3 just to test the waters and its already gotten way more comments and kudos than any fic of mine usually gets this early on so hopefully tumblr enjoys it too :]

—

When Wilbur Soot was born, he came out crying, as most babies do. Covered in vernix and blood, he weighed just barely above the seven-pound mark, gasping out sharp cries that only a parent could truly stand, or worse—love. Though he was the second baby born into the family that day, he was fussed over far more than he would ever be again.

Technoblade, on the other hand, had barely made a sound when he came out, a trail of blood smeared across his forehead, almost as if it was meant to be there. He made small noises that were more akin to confused mumbles, weakly grasping at his father’s hair when he was eventually passed on for the second child to be welcomed into the world.

Only when both boys were held in their father’s grasp did Wilbur quiet down, his soft head leaning into his father’s beard as he stared wide eyed at the boy across from him. Though they looked similar enough, Technoblade’s nose was squished further back into his face, appearing almost snout-like to Philza. Of course Wilbur noted this, wiggling until their father somehow managed to get them pressed right up against each other with minimal damage done. Though Techno never stopped squinting like an annoyed old man at Wilbur, he allowed the other to press a fist against his nose, his eyebrows unfurrowing just the slightest bit at the touch.

From that day on, Philza was the father of two twin boys—a loud boy who cried easily, but always calmed down for his older brother, and a rather monotone one, who’s face seemed to be permanently stuck in a scowl, unless said face was being smushed around by the younger. And things worked like that for a while. Not forever, but...a while.

—

Philza taught Wilbur to braid on a hot Monday afternoon.

It had been a rough day for the boy, though Phil hadn’t a clue why. Maybe he had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Or maybe he hadn’t slept enough between bedtime and the time Tommy had started crying again, the youngest boy’s crib being right beside his head and all. Though it might’ve seemed cruel from an outsider’s perspective, Wilbur had been the one to ask for it. Something about Tommy being his little brother and how he needed to teach the boy the ways of the world in the same way Techno had taught him—because apparently that was all Techno’s doing now, not Phil’s.

Regardless, Wilbur had been a bit too snippy for Phil’s liking that day, complaining about every little thing they did until finally, the day was over.

Well, as over as it could be with Techno leaving mid foam sword fight, an annoyed shout of ‘I quit!’ leaving his mouth before he snatched up Tommy’s carrier and brought him inside for god knows what reason.

It had only been around four P.M. by that time—too early for dinner, yet too late for Phil to really demand the boy stay outside and continue to entertain himself with a brother who was clearly not entertained himself.

Details aside, Phil isn’t really sure how they got to braiding. He just knows at some point they did and by the end of their outside time, just before the clock struck six, Wilbur had made two thick, messy braids in his hair. They stuck out awkwardly, looking all too similar to Pippi Longstocking’s iconic hairdo for his comfort, but he’d be damned if he took out the braids his son had so happily rushed inside to show his older brother before demanding to do his hair as well. After all, Wilbur didn’t have long enough hair for braids, but Technoblade sure as hell did. It was only at his shoulder blades back then, brunette curls wrapping around his narrow shoulders and thin arms like thick vines.

Wilbur had always enjoyed brushing it out with his fingers and putting cute, handmade clips or flowers in it at random, decorating the waves for his brother who was more than happy to let the boy do as he pleased. Though he would never admit it, Technoblade liked how it felt when Will played with his hair. He was always careful not to tug too hard, prioritizing the comfort of his other half more than the beauty of his work, as he so often referred to it.

So when Will had presented him with the mess that was his first two braids, he wasn’t hesitant at all to let the boy practice on him. Instead, he walked to the couch with a small smile, removing his glasses gently and getting comfortable before his brother plopped down into the space behind him. Long legs draped over long legs with no warning, thighs pressed together as if they were meant to be like that all along—and they might as well have been, for how often they did this.

Phil had watched them from the doorway in content silence, Tommy sitting behind him in a wooden high chair looking bored, but not making a fuss for once. And as he left that doorway to begin dinner, he listened to their muffled conversation and soft bursts of laughter with a small smile on his lips, for he knew things wouldn’t always be this way. They would have to grow up eventually, and when they did, things would change. Phil could only hope it was for the better.

—

When Tommy turns nine, Wilbur teaches him to braid under circumstances not too different from the ones he had learned under himself.

Well. Not too too different.

Philza and Technoblade had been...busy as of late. In the house for three days, out for a week, in for a week, out for three more, over and over and over again. Wilbur had become more like a father to Tommy in recent months than he should’ve been, his fourteenth birthday fast approaching as their father took Techno out for yet another job, one that Wilbur couldn’t come on because he was too fucking weak to do anything Techno could do, too fucking stupid to learn all the techniques Techno did, lacking all the strength and agility his older sibling possessed, like the useless prick he was-

Right. This is about Tommy.

When Tommy was nine, his hair rested gently against his collarbones in the exact same cut and color as their father wore. If Wilbur was a lesser man, he would’ve hated the kid for it, but it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t see what a selfish git their father truly was yet. All he knew was that their dad was busy a lot and that, for some reason, Techno needed to go with him. Apparently, that was enough for him to keep holding onto the idea that one day, the man would stay longer and maybe, just maybe, show him some of the same care that his older brother did.

If Wilbur was a better man, he would tell Tommy the truth. He would tell him all about the way Philza had called him useless in a fight, forcing him to instead stay home and care for a child while still being one himself. He would mention how Philza had given him no instructions on how to care for a developing child, how he left out key details to parenting on his own as a goddamn thirteen-year-old, yet remembered to tell him things would be better this way because god forbid he does his fucking job as a father for anyone but Technoblade—

Who he missed. He missed Technoblade, his other half, so fucking bad it hurt sometimes—so bad it left him gasping for breath at two A.M., his head pounding in tandem with his uneven heartbeat, lungs burning as his snot and tears soaked into his brother’s cold, cold sheets. And it made him feel fucking pathetic because the truth of the matter was that...Techno had left him behind too. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to hate the older boy, no matter how hard he tried. Couldn’t hate Philza either, if he were to be honest with himself, but it was a lot easier to pretend he did when his father was the one putting them all in this position to begin with.

So, Tommy was nine when he learned how to braid.

Phil had promised him and Techno would be back Tuesday morning.

It was Wednesday afternoon.

Tommy didn’t fucking understand, and as frustrating as it was that the prick decided to take it out on Wilbur, he couldn’t blame him. Who else was he supposed to take this shit out on? Certainly not the man who had yet to return.

Wilbur had started the braid as a way to distract him. It was simple, really—tell him you know something he doesn’t and that he won’t get to know if he doesn’t sit the fuck down and listen.

When he had started tugging the boy’s hair back from his face, his immediate reaction was to jerk away, swatting at the hands that hovered over his shoulders. This only happened once or twice more before he let it happen naturally, his posture stiff as Wilbur ran his fingers through the boy’s hair with practiced ease.

Though it may not have seemed like it, Tommy was significantly more averse to touch than Techno had ever been. The only reason Techno even seemed averse to it was because of his hesitance to initiate, something he and Wilbur had discussed in depth. Rejection was one of the few fears Technoblade truly had and Wilbur held that fact close to his heart, ready to die with it if need be. Tommy, on the other hand? He was very particular about where and when and why someone was touching him, and it had taken Wilbur a long time to get used to that fact. But, he wasn’t about to make his little brother uncomfortable just so he could be happy and, eventually, he learned the ins and outs of how to touch TommyInnit without causing issue.

Pulling a few of the shorter strands towards the front of Tommy’s face loose, Will separated the blonde’s hair into three sections. They were rather small, what with how thin and short his hair was, it just barely being long enough to even have a proper braid in it, but Wilbur knew he could make it work.

“Now, Toms, you gotta listen to me here, because I can’t show you this bit, yeah? Phil and Tech aren’t here, and my hair is too short, so you’ll just have to feel it out for now, but...this is how you braid hair-” Wilbur had said in a soft voice, brushing the pad of his thumb over the boys neck slowly to ease the tension out of his shoulders. The effect was immediate, the boy slouching forward as if he had just noticed he was holding himself so sternly. Smiling softly, Wilbur instructed him on how to weave the strands together, answering questions and pulling lightly at Tommy’s hair so he could feel exactly where everything went. After he was done, Tommy had reached back to feel the bumps in his hair, all his earlier anger seemingly gone as he gave a small smile. And then he tried it himself.

Of course he got a bit of help at first, Wilbur’s larger hands guiding his own with gentle corrections, but after that Tommy worked on it alone, his older brother watching in silence from a patch of grass beside the porch step.

That night, Tommy and Wilbur slept in Techno’s bed, a soft, blue blanket wrapped tightly around them. And if another body woke them up at some point that night, shoving its way into the mess of limbs, their chest pressed right up against the youngest boy’s back, then that was only for them to know.

—

At eleven years old, Tommy takes a pair of scissors to his hair. With flushed cheeks and salty lips, his hands shaking and his eyes foggy, he cuts, cuts, cuts, until he can no longer braid his hair—until he can no longer look like fucking Phil.

Even though Wilbur had once said he hated Tommy’s long hair—hated how similar he and their dad looked—he felt like crying as he ran his fingers through the uneven strands. He didn’t tell his brother this though, instead grabbing his face and planting a wet kiss on his freckled forehead. In a fierce whisper, Wilbur had said, “I’m so fucking proud of you, Tommy. So fucking proud.”

Tommy never forgets the way he felt that day. He doesn’t forget Wilbur’s words either.

—

When Wilbur loses his last life, Technoblade tells Tommy to braid his hair.

It wasn’t a question either, but a demand forced out between gritted teeth, his face red, his nose stuffy and his lashes wet with unshed tears. Still, his words were clear as day.

“Braid my fucking hair, Theseus. Braid it.”

It had sounded like a plea falling from Techno’s chapped lips, blood caked under his nails as he sat in front of Tommy on a tree stump, slowly itching at his wrists.

“Wilbur told me to stop you if you ever started doing that-”

“Wilbur isn’t fucking here. Just...braid, Toms. Braid.”

Tommy sniffled, but did as he was told.

Maybe it was because he was too tired to argue with the only person he even had left. Maybe it was because he could tell Technoblade was mad at their father for the first time in his life, and he knew how bad his first time had felt. Or, maybe, it was just because he knew Techno fucking cared. Nobody else seemed to, but he knew Techno did and...that was enough for him.

As long as someone else cared—as long as it was fucking Technoblade—that was enough for him.

Just as Tommy had finished the braid, curling his finger around the light pink tail that tied the whole thing off, Techno yanked it forward. Before he could even register that the hair had left his hand, the older boy had taken an axe to the top of it, letting the rest of his hair fall around his face in uneven curls. Though it was a good ten minutes of work wasted, Tommy couldn’t say a damn thing as he watched Techno pocket the braid, muttering a thank you and heading in the direction of Wilbur’s unofficial grave.

In that moment, he felt relief for the first time in a long while.

—

Wilbur Soot was born covered in vernix and blood, weighing just barely above the seven-pound mark, and he came into the world much like he left it. Everyone had heard his cries—even if they weren’t there, even if they didn’t know him well—they had saw the way he spiraled, desperate and afraid and paranoid, searching for help, but never receiving enough.

And though he was the second child born, he left the world first, returning in a yellow sweater with a small braid tucked behind his ear. He didn’t really know why he had one, but he remembered braiding Techno’s hair and he remembered teaching Tommy how to do his own and he remembered, he remembered, he remembered the braids.

#dream smp #/dsmp #dsmp #sleepy bois inc #sbi #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #technoblade #philza #ph1lza #fic #fics #fanfic #fanfiction #the dream smp #shit self #dami writez #/rp #dsmp fic

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mariaiscrafting · 3 years

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You know, what think I like when you are critical of a content creator is that you know how to separate a fact from especulation, unlike a blog out there that took especulation as facts.

Example, that night when we were critical of Karl, or any instance you have discussed about him, a lot of anons were saying that he gave them clout chaser vibes to them, and despite your opinion, you expressed that those were only especulation and not the truth, and to keep that in mind. That's good critical thinking.

But this blog had some similar anons, saying that he only is friends with the Feral Boys gro clout- In fact, they said the Feral Boys were only in it to benefit from clout and money. And they took it as a truth. I know you instance on them is neutral, but come one, they are friends. All of them. Karl isn't friends with them for clout. Like today Karl was playing golf with salad gang plus Sapnap and George at first and then Quackity and Dream joined bc they had spared time and it all devolved into typical chaos (Poor Corpse and Tina and Brook, had to endure those children lol/lh /j). Like, the stream wasn't planned with the 5/5 yet they joined, missing Karl and just having fun.

Idk, I guess that blog's superiority (They were a SBI focused blog) just irritated me. It's as if they were putting both groups at each other as if those streamers aren't friends or close. They were singing prayers of one while shunning the other based from especulation. Criticissism is fine, in fact recommended to be critical of your interests, but taking rumors as facts to base your crit is yikes. It's as if I wanted to crit SBI and base it only of "Philza hanging only with people younger than him is kinda weird ngl.." or "Sbi doesn't care about Tommy cuz he joined late" like that dumb Tumblr post did or some fuckers in Twitter imply.

The main reason I take so much care to separate speculation from evidence-backed theories and confirmed truths is because I feel like that separation is what distinguishes us from mcyttwt the most. One of the main reasons for mcyttwt's toxicity, imo - for its relentless cancelling of everyone, for its bandwagon campaigns - is that people oftentimes criticize and defend based on their personal feelings rather than rationale or evidence.

For example, I complain a lot about Dream stans on here, but you know the reason I didn't stop watching Dream directly after the cheating scandal broke loose, even though I thought he cheated? Because of mcytblr Dream stans. Mcytblr Dream stans engaged with me in discussion, both publicly and in DMs, about the cheating scandal, and even those who eventually came to the conclusion that Dream didn't cheat accepted the facts and statistics they were given and kept a healthy skepticism throughout the process. On Twitter, Dream stans were defending him before he even made a video following up to the mods' initial accusations because they felt that Dream wasn't the kind of guy to lie or cheat. They were replying to screenshots of statistical analyses from subreddits and to articles from mathematicians and staticians with extremely reactionary responses because of that feeling, which they believed in so adamantly, they had accepted it as fact. The thing is, to believe that Dream didn't cheat in the face of all the statistical and rhetorical evidence to the contrary is, in itself, speculative. Usually we think of speculation as a baseless theory that something is a positive truth- that is to say, that something did happen. But speculation also applies to those theories of someone not having done something, when the opposite has been nearly proven to be true.

For this same reason, I chose not to ignore the anti-technotwt threads with screenshots of Techno's old tweets in them. For me to have simply ignored these screenshots and continued supposing that Techno never expressed bigoted beliefs and/or currently doesn't would have been speculative on my part, and to boot, blatantly wrong, given the evidence to the contrary.

People in this fandom, and in all RPF/RPF-adjacent fandoms need to understand that almost everything they believe about the CCs they watch is speculative, at least to some extent, because of the nature of the content they make. Even if someone, in your opinion, displays evidence of some aspect of their personality - whether that be some form of bigoted, sweet, rude, clout-chasing, or anything else - because of the extremely one-sided nature of sharing one's life through a screen, that theory of ours will almost alwyas only ever be speculation, not a solid conclusion that can be drawn. We will never know these people's true intentions behind something shared to us via the Internet.

That vagueness leads to virtually every viewer creating a different theory in our heads about the CCs we watch, and we can't treat those theories as facts, especially not when sharing them with the rest of a fandom. I'm not a very big blog, but I consider even over 50 followers to be way too many people to spread a theory too, without at least clarifying that what I'm posting is speculation. If I have evidence, I like to list it or, if I can, provide sources; but otherwise, I take care to qualify most things with phrases or disclaimers that will clue followers into the speculative nature of whatever it is I'm saying. This is because theories and "feelings" can blaze through a fandom like wildfire, especially somewhere like Twitter, where so many things are word-of-mouth or based on summary due to character limitation.

You know why mcyttwt was cancelling Andi? Only a handful of original Tweeters under the cancel Andi hashtags actually knew what clips or tweets to criticize her for, or tried to elaborate on that criticism. But because every other mcyttwt user was getting bombarded by their mutuals hate-posting about Andi on their TLs, the "negative feeling" towards Andi grew and grew, even if most people didn't even know what they were supposed to feel negative about, exactly. Our judgement works on a quick trigger on the Internet because of the amount of information we're receiving, and so, even a single bad word against someone you don't have too strong of an opinion on can fundamentally alter your perception of them, usually subconsciously. If the first thing you see about Andi, who you've only seen on a couple LOH's or a couple Punz streams before then, is a tweet along the lines of, "disappointed in Andi for her homophobia and joking about suicide," despite you having no context, you will most likely be pushed to the negative side of her. Thus begins the cycle of hatred, building up and up, leading to you searching for more and more criticism about Andi, whether speculative or not, until you solidly and genuinely believe she is a Horrible Person. It all starts with the vaguest fucking feeling, because that's all speculation has to go off of, and it snowballs into a fucking wildfire across an entire fandom. I'm not about to be another person to let feelings snowball and spread like that.

Now, I don't know what exact blog you're referring to, but as an adamant SBI enthusiast, let me flip the argument many SBI stans have for their speculation upon the genuity of Karl's friendship with the Feral Bois, onto SBI. What do we have to go off of for the genuity of SBI's friendship, anyways? Our perceived brother dynamic between Tommy and Wilbur could very well just be Tommy capitalizing on Wilbur's brand and continuing the charade until now because it's been profitable. Maybe Techno only continues to associate with SBI because he knows how much his fanbase likes headcanon'ing about SBI, so he puts up with streams with them so he can continue to feed his fanbase with dynamics he knows they're obsessed with. Maybe Phil would rather play MC with people his age, and actually dislikes that he's friends with a teenager, but sticks around because he profitted so much off of Dream SMP and SBI-related content. And what could any SBI stan have to argue with me on any of these theories? Just because SBI laughs around each other and seems fond of each other doesn't mean they're actually like that behind the cameras. They so seldomly stream or make videos together anymore, anyways, so maybe they've grown tired of keeping up the dynamic.

Everything I said could be interpreted as utter bullshit, and that's because it fucking is. I don't actually know what Techno wants to do with his life, or how Wilbur and Tommy actually feel about each other, or who Phil wants to fucking befriend. The same goes for Feral Boys. There's nothing wrong with stating your theories or speculation, but to treat them as fact or not at least qualify such posts with the fact that this is all based on your bias and opinion, and no substantive evidence, is irresponsible. Just because you feel like one or more of the Feral Boys is "clout-chasing" doesn't mean you have the right to tout that feeling as truth. I feel a lot of things about a lot of CCs, both negative and positive, but no matter how strong my feelings, unless they have substantive evidence backing them up, I have no right to treat them as facts with my followers.

#anyways this kinda went everywhere but oh well #discourse #fandom critical #karl jacobs #feral boys #mcyt #asks #uhhh yeah this isnt neg to any cc just to the way fandom will treat them

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onecanonlife · 3 years

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careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 7,618

Chapter Warnings: swearing, referenced past suic.ide, description of past injury, scars, discussion of c!Wilbur’s overall terrible mental health

Chapter Summary: In which Phil and Wilbur finally sit down and have a talk. They both have things to say that the other needs to hear.

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Eighteen: quiet now

They do come up with a plan. A simple one, as far as plans go, but that means less moving parts, less things to go wrong. Sometimes a simpler plan is better. And considering the effort it takes to get them all there, to get them all on the same page, he’ll accept it. But night has fallen by the time they figure it all out,

(and by that time his throat is hoarse and his hands are shaking so he shoves them into his pockets and Tommy keeps shooting him looks and Phil is doing the same and Techno is kind of hovering a bit but he ignores them because he’s fine and he keeps his shoulders straight his shoulders straight set and straight so that no one looks at him and sees his exhaustion the way he’s crumbling and he tells himself that he’s not and that he’s alright that this is nothing but he’s not sure he believes himself anymore and that in itself is terrifying because if he’s not alright then he has to confront the dark confront what he does not want to confront so he tells himself he’s alright but the walls are cracking they’re cracking)

so they’ll set it all in motion in the morning. For now, they retire to bed. Almost all of them; Eret says she’ll keep watch by the gates. Once, he wouldn’t have trusted her word. He’s not sure that he does, even now. But he doesn’t object, and neither does anyone else, so.

It’s night. He should sleep. He is even aware that he needs to sleep, that he’s been dealing with a pounding headache ever since just after the last time he let Schlatt materialize, that every so often his vision swims for no apparent reason. He needs to sleep, because he’s no use to anyone like this, not if he can’t wield a weapon, whether physical or verbal, and he used all the rest of his energy on getting through the rest of the meetings. The collaboration. The planning. The day, plain and simple.

He knows when he’s running on fumes.

Eret gave him a room. She gave everyone a room. Because she has a bloody enormous castle, with rooms to spare. So he’s lying in an unfamiliar bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the moonlight slowly creep in as the clouds outside finally clear, and he can’t sleep. Exhaustion grips him with a thousand clinging hands, and he can’t sleep. He knows exactly where everyone is, knows that Tommy and Tubbo are sharing the room next to him, that Techno and Phil are on this same hall, and he even made sure to locate Fundy despite—everything.

Everyone is safe, in this moment, at least. But he can’t sleep, can’t give his body the rest it’s demanding of him. His mind is contorting in on itself, itching, buzzing, like a swarm of bees that can’t find the home hive. And his thoughts, as have been their wont lately, slip away before he can examine them properly.

(or perhaps he’s letting them go, has been letting them go all along, because he does not want to look at them, does not want to understand, because he wants to achieve that nebulous concept of being better but if he looks at himself too closely then he will have to acknowledge that being better doesn’t only have the meaning he’s assigned to the phrase, doesn’t just mean being better to others but also to)

He can’t sleep. So he gets up. Steadies himself against the bed’s banister until the world stops spinning. And then goes out into the hall. The stone is lit with flickering torches, and the soft crackling of the fire is the only sound. He slips out quietly, footsteps light on the carpet, and just walks. To the end of the hallway, glancing back just once, and—

Schlatt is at the other end. Staring at him. He stares back.

And then the ghost shakes his head and vanishes. The glimmer of blue is still there, still present as a shimmer if he doesn’t look at the spot directly, but the message is clear. Schlatt doesn’t want to talk.

He doesn’t particularly want to talk, either. Not after the mess that today has been. He regrets laying out all of his cards in front of Schlatt in the way that he did. The fact that Schlatt now knows how to make himself solid only adds to that. He’s not fond of the sensation, of his strength leaving him in a rush, pulled away from him without his consent.

(and his heart constricting in his chest)

The ground tilts a bit. He places his hands against the wall, and the dizziness passes. He keeps going. Keeps stalking through the halls.

He’s done this before. He felt like the castle’s passages were haunted, then, a few days ago. He still feels the same. Especially now, at night, when the whole castle is still. When he might as well be the only person alive.

(if he is that)

Except then, he rounds a corner and nearly runs over Ranboo. Or rather, doesn’t run him over, exactly, because Ranboo is exceedingly tall, and he somehow seems even taller now. But it’s him, his skin divided in black and white, wearing that suit he always seems to have on. Wilbur remembers to avert his eyes before meeting his gaze, but not before catching the fact that Ranboo’s are glowing purple. Which is different from usual. Definitely different from usual.

“Wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up,” he says, backing up a step. He fixes his gaze past Ranboo’s shoulder and tries to observe him surreptitiously.

Ranboo is holding a block of dirt. Grass intact. Interesting.

And then, Ranboo chirps at him. An enderman sort of warble, distorted and yet, somehow, gentle.

“Um,” he says. “Are you—is this the sleepwalking thing again?”

Immediately afterward, he realizes the stupidity of asking a sleepwalking person whether or not they’re sleepwalking. But the eyes are new, for sure; in the Egg’s chamber, when he was sleepwalking before, his eyes were just like they’d been previously, one red and one green, just glazed over.

His eyes now aren’t glazed at all, are bright and alert. But purple.

Ranboo vwoops.

“Alright, you know what, good for you,” he says. “I’m just going to keep walking. Maybe you should get some rest later or something.”

It’s not any of his concern what Ranboo’s doing. As long as he’s staying in the castle, he can sleepwalk and be an enderman to his heart’s content. It’s none of his business, and if he really feels the need, he’ll go get Phil. Since Phil seems to be halfway to adopting him in any case. Let Phil deal with it.

So he moves to walk around Ranboo. Except Ranboo mirrors him, and suddenly, the grass block is being shoved against his chest. Lightly, but enough to stop him in his tracks.

“Um,” he says again. Not up to his usual standards of eloquence, but Ranboo likely won’t remember this later if he actually is sleepwalking, so it’s fine. “You want me to take it? Is that it?”

Ranboo vwoops, still holding the block out at him, so he reaches for it, curling his fingers into the dirt. Ranboo releases the block as soon as he does, and the dirt immediately starts to come loose, to lose its shape, and a good bit of the grass starts to fall off. But Ranboo nods in satisfaction, letting out another warble, so he keeps hold of it as best he can. At least until Ranboo has passed by him, evidently content with whatever he thinks he’s accomplished. Wilbur turns to stare at his retreating back until he’s vanished around the corner.

And then he looks down at his hands. At the block, which barely resembles a block anymore. Mostly just a lump of dirt.

“Right,” he mutters, letting it slide through his fingers. Some of it clings to his skin, and he wrinkles his nose, brushing his hands against his coat.

He’s not sure what that was. But alright.

He finds his way out into the open air, eventually, climbing up and up until he gets to the roof of the castle. The sky above is lit with stars, and if he tilts his head and closes his eyes, he can hear them. Humming, always humming. Or perhaps he’s imagining it, his brain filling in a sound he can’t truly hear but that he knows is present. He’s not sure it makes a difference either way. It’s still a comfort. A small one, but a comfort nonetheless.

He’s considering whether to try to sleep up here instead when he sees that Phil is here too. A little off to the side, a dark silhouette staring out over the SMP, sitting on a stone bench. Why Eret put a bench on the roof, he has no idea; or perhaps Phil made it himself. He wouldn’t be surprised.

He should probably leave him be. And yet, he doesn’t want to go back inside, and—

Phil really ought to be resting too.

So he crosses the rooftop, slowly, almost reluctantly as he picks his way across the stone. He hesitates before sitting next to Phil on the bench, leaving a bit of space between them. This close, he can see the bags under Phil’s eyes better than ever, as well as the way his cloak twitches as the wings underneath move.

“Any particular reason why you’re up?” he asks. Phil doesn’t act surprised at his appearance; he knew he was there, then. Heard his approach, most likely, or perhaps just sensed his presence. Hundreds of years have made Phil a difficult man to catch off guard.

(though you did it once, in a different way, in that room, you caught him off guard and broke him in the catching)

Phil snorts. “Nightmare,” he says, clipped, though Wilbur is somewhat surprised to have gotten even that admission out of him. “I should be asking the same of you. You need to get some fucking sleep, Wilbur.”

“I’m well aware,” he says. “I’ve been trying. Thought a walk might clear my head.” He hesitates, not sure that he should push any further, not sure that he wants to, that Phil would welcome it. But then, he’s never been one to let such a small detail as whether his prying is welcome stop him. “Can I ask what about?” he asks, and is satisfied with that. If Phil wants him to fuck off, then he’ll tell him so.

But Phil is silent for a moment.

“You, usually,” he says.

“Oh,” Wilbur replies.

He didn’t expect that. But he feels like he should have.

Phil shifts, then, his clothing rustling as he turns to half face him.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he says. “It’s not your fault. You get as old as I am and you pick up a few recurring nightmares. Persistent little fucks, but it’s not anything to be worried about.”

But this one is bad enough to cost you sleep on the eve of battle, and I know you know better than to let that happen, so it must be bad, he doesn’t say. But this one is about me, he doesn’t say. But there is still an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, one that doesn’t let up no matter how deeply he breathes. So he doesn’t look at Phil, but he says, “Tell me about it?” and immediately curses the weakness of his voice. He almost sounds scared, which is not what he was aiming for. Inviting, maybe. He wants to know.

(he doesn’t, actually, but he feels like he should, so it’s the same thing in the end)

Phil sighs.

“We’re on a cliff, you and I,” he says, sounding tired. “There’s an ocean below us, far down. Neither of us speak. You throw a sword down at my feet, and I—I do it. Just like I did. And then, you smile at me and fall backward. Off the cliff.” He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers. “I jump after you. And then I remember that I can’t fly.”

Wilbur swallows.

(he has no trouble conflating himself with a nightmare, no trouble at all, but it becomes more difficult when the nightmare is not him but rather losing him and he should have expected as much from Phil because Phil for all his long years has never been good at letting go at giving up on something that cannot be saved but he still doesn’t know what to do with this what to say)

“I thought falling from a cliff was a Theseus thing,” he manages.

Phil chuckles dryly. “Techno does like his myths,” he says, “but life’s not so cut and dry as those are. Not everything has a perfect parallel. We’re not storybook characters.”

It’s not a pointed comment. But his mind still cringes away from the words.

“But stories come from somewhere,” he says softly. It’s not a plea, because he doesn’t have anything to plead, but if that’s so, then he doesn’t know why his voice is lined with desperation, all of a sudden, why his heart is thumping against his ribcage. “Even in real life, we all have roles to play.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing, Wil?” Phil asks. “Playing a role?”

His breath catches, snags in his lungs, like his chest is full of thorns.

(you do not like to be seen do not like to be perceived not like this not in a way that lays out the heart of you your core beliefs those are for you and you alone and you guard them so no one else knows and they receive only what you choose to present and so you do not like this at all do not like to be known beyond what you have explicitly chosen to share)

(you have always been a showman)

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, but it’s stiff, too stiff, and Phil is too perceptive a man to be fooled by it.

“I’ve noticed what you’re doing,” Phil says. “You’re running yourself ragged trying to pull everyone together. To direct them. And I know you’re a leader, Wil, I really do, and you’re damn good at it, too, but you can’t possibly believe that wearing yourself out like this is healthy.”

He shuts his eyes. “It’s not like that,” he says. “I’m just doing what needs to be done.”

“It needs to be done. But not necessarily by you, mate. A lot of the people here are more than capable of taking on some of the responsibility. Your brothers included. Also, you didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t hear you ask one,” he snaps, sudden irritation welling up. “It’s not a matter of health, Phil! It’s a matter of what’s important, and what’s important right now is dealing with all of this bullshit. That has to come first.”

Phil sits up straighter. His hands grip his knees, and his eyebrows draw together.

“You come first,” Phil says. “You always come first. Your health is important, and you—you can’t take care of anyone else before you take care of yourself. Wil, how long have you—”

He cuts off, but Wilbur knows what he was about to ask. How long have you thought like this? Or something like that, anyway. This is another thing that he should have expected from Phil, this persistent concern for him. It’s unnecessary, since he

(decided long ago that his health could fall on his list of priorities so long as he was effective, so long as he was getting things done, and he did get things done, in his country, in his exile, he got things done and that was what mattered because he himself has always been so much less important than the things he could create and the things he could do for others)

has matters well in hand, but he doubts Phil would understand if he tried to explain it.

(easier to tell himself that than to admit that he can’t explain it at all, that no explanation he could give would hold up to a moment’s scrutiny, that Phil will see right through it to the real underlying cause, and Phil has already perceived far too much)

“Right, health is important,” he says, placating. “I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t. Though, honestly, you’re one to talk. Did you think I didn’t see the state your wings are in? When’s the last time you bothered to preen them?”

It’s a low blow, and he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Phil flinches, his face setting in a harder expression. More closed off, and he really should have known better, shouldn’t he? Should’ve known better than to bring it up like that, because Phil’s wings used to be his pride and joy, and now they’re ruined and it’s his fault to boot, and he can admit that he was looking for a sore spot to hit, but that wound is far worse than a sore spot.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.” He looks away, unable to meet Phil’s eyes, and finds himself looking up again. To the stars.

“It’s alright.” Phil laughs humorlessly. “I can’t say that you’re wrong.” He sighs, posture relaxing slightly. “I caught that, by the way. I know when you’re trying to distract me.” He tilts his head upward, staring at the stars just like Wilbur is, his hat sliding further back on his head. “I’m not trying to lecture you. I just want to understand. Why can’t you let yourself rest, Wil?”

That is a far more complicated question than he knows. That is a question that has its roots in months long past, in a drug van and an idea and a revolution and a nation, in his drive to get recognition and his determination that his country would succeed,

(because if it was not a success then it would be a failure and he too would be a failure)

in sleepless nights spent screaming into his pillow and days pasting on a smile and a confident stride. And then, in relinquishing his power when the people called for it, when he lost, conceding gracefully even as his stomach dropped into his boots, and getting an arrow in his back for his troubles, he and his brother chased like dogs from the home they built. And then, in the ravine, every shadow a threat, every person out to get him, every whisper a lie, every moment settling the despair more deeply into his bones.

But perhaps Phil knows that. Or some of it at least. He doesn’t know how much Phil has guessed. But Phil knows enough to know that the him that he encountered in that room was a far cry from the him that he portrayed in his letters, before he stopped sending them at all, before he could no longer bring himself to pick up the pen, before the thought of lying to his father again left him feeling physically ill, and the idea of telling him the truth was worse.

Phil knows enough to know that something went wrong.

Perhaps a bit of honesty wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps trying to get him to understand wouldn’t hurt. At least, not more than it already does, no more than he already has.

“It’s because I know what I’m like, Phil,” he says softly. “I know what I’m like.”

The stars twinkle at him.

“Okay,” Phil says. Patient. “What does that mean?”

He considers it. Considers everything.

“You know the legacy I left on this server, right?” he says. “You know what I left behind when I died.”

Phil turns his head, looks at him. His expression is slightly pained.

“I sort of destroyed the legacy you left,” he says, and it takes him a second to realize what he’s talking about.

“Not that L’Manberg,” he says. “That L’Manberg wasn’t mine. I suppose it was Tubbo’s more than anything, but it’s hard to say, I think. I can’t really speak on it. Ghostbur—saw things differently than how I would have.” He stops for Phil’s reaction to that, but aside from a slight narrowing of his eyes, there is nothing. “I mean the original. L’Manberg. My L’Manberg.”

Phil sucks in a sharp breath at his choice of words.

“No, Wil,” he says. “No, I didn’t really get to see it.”

“That’s the point,” he says. He closes his eyes, searching for the right words. The stars are pinprick lights dancing on his eyelids. “I destroyed it. I destroyed it all, Phil. I waffled back and forth a lot, for weeks, deciding whether I was going to do it or not. And then I did. I pushed that button, Phil. I made the decision. I destroyed it. I destroyed people’s homes. I betrayed all of my friends. And the thing about that is, even if I regret hurting them, now, I still don’t regret the action itself. I don’t regret destroying it, Phil. It needed to go.” I needed to go.

“Why is that, Wil?” Phil asks quietly.

“It wasn’t good anymore,” he answers easily. This, at least, he knows. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t mine anymore, either, but mainly it was that it wasn’t good. It became—it became corrupt. Bad. And it was never going to be good again, so it had to stop. It had to end. It all had to end. But that’s not my point right now. My point is that that was my legacy, right? L’Manberg? And I destroyed that, but what’s most important is the pain I caused. That was my legacy. That pain. That was what I left behind me. And even before that, even before everything, when I started it in the first place, I brought war to the server, Phil. Suffering, conflict. And the war was a game at first. We were all friends at the start. But then I decided that it wasn’t a game. I declared independence, and I meant it. So in the end, all of the problems on this server can be traced back to me. Something I did, or something I said.” He leans his head forward again, gazing out at the horizon rather than the night sky. “It all comes back to me. I’ve never been good for this server.”

He pauses, waiting for Phil’s reply. None comes, and he glances over; Phil is staring at him, face white as a sheet.

“I haven’t answered your question yet,” he says. “But you need to—you need to understand all of that so you understand why I feel—” He breaks off. His tongue feels clumsy, and his mind suddenly blanks. He’s not even sure that any of what he’s just said makes sense, and if it doesn’t make sense, then he can’t continue, because if he’s really going to do this, really going to put this all out there for Phil to hear, then he needs it to make sense, needs to be sure that he actually understands.

“Why you feel what?” Phil asks. Still quiet.

He takes in a breath. Tries to gather his thoughts. The exhaustion isn’t helping. It’s like wading through mud.

“I know what I’m like,” he repeats. It makes a good springboard. “So I know that I sure as hell don’t deserve to be back here, even if it had been what I wanted. But I am, so I need to do something that’s worth that. I need to pull myself together and get us all out of this. For Tommy’s sake, if for no one else, and for Tubbo, and—and Fundy, and everyone who doesn’t deserve to be pulled into this mess. Another mess. If I have the ability to help, then I have a responsibility to do that. I can’t just—push it off to someone else, Phil. That’s not how it works.”

“Why not?” Phil asks.

“Because then I’m not worth it, then, am I?” he erupts. Why isn’t Phil getting this? “Phil, we’re all measured by the things we create. By the things we’re able to do, our accomplishments. If I can’t do anything that’s worth something, then what the fuck am I here for? Because it’s not because I asked, Phil. I got what I deserved in the end, and that was supposed to be all. I wanted it to be all, Phil, I wanted—”

He cuts off, horror mounting in him. This was a mistake. He never should have said anything at all, never should have started in on this. He should have dodged the questions, the probing comments, until Phil finally got tired and left it alone.

He should have gone back inside.

But Phil still hasn’t spoken, so he presses on, trying to wrap it up in a way that’s understandable.

“In the end, it all comes down to the fact that I have experience with this kind of stuff,” he says. “Someone needs to step up, and I can. So I need to. That’s all it is.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I probably should’ve just skipped to that part.”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t,” Phil says, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he can’t place the reason for. “I’m glad you—I’m glad you told me this. But—Wil, okay, first off, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and it doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand it,” he mutters. He really ought to go back inside. But the night air is so fresh and clear, smelling of humidity and petrichor, and the thought of returning to that empty, dark room only to stare at the ceiling until morning makes something in him shrivel up and die inside. If he’s not going to be able to sleep, then he’d rather be awake out here than in there.

“Wil,” Phil says, insistent, and suddenly, Phil’s hands are on his shoulders, turning him toward him with a light but firm touch. He blinks. “Do you not take care of yourself because you think you don’t deserve it?” Something in Phil’s voice folds like wet paper, just as fragile, just as flimsy.

He opens his mouth to respond, and no words come.

(there is is, the crux of the matter, the core of it all, because he is a person built of pretty words and self-loathing, and long before he directed any anger at the world around him, he pointed it inward, lashed at himself until only scars remained, and he called that just, called that right)

He’s not sure how Phil jumped to that conclusion from all of that. But—he’s trying to deny it, trying to refute the point, but the words just won’t form.

“Oh, Wilbur,” Phil says, sounding a bit wrecked, and then, the hands on his shoulders move to his arms, gently pulling him forward and into Phil’s embrace. Phil’s arms circle him lightly, his hands rubbing patterns into his back, and then, his wings rise from under his cloak, swooping forward and closing around him in a motion that is all-too familiar from his childhood, in a motion indicating that even now, Phil is trying to comfort him, trying to protect him with all that he is. It’s a hug that means warmth and safety and love, and Wilbur begins to tremble, because—

He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t. He doesn’t understand what he did to deserve it.

“You don’t need to do anything to be worthy of love,” Phil murmurs. “You don’t need to do anything to deserve to take care of yourself. And—you’re wrong about your legacy. It’s not just pain and suffering. You’ve done so many good things for so many people, and they remember that, even if you can’t. I see it every day. You were missed, Wil. So fucking missed, by so many more people than just me.”

And that can’t be true. That can’t possibly be true, because he remembers his ending certainty, his declaration that everyone would thank Phil for killing him, that everyone wanted him to do it, and he was so sure of himself, then, because he was the traitor, he was the villain, and villains get what they deserve. And perhaps he wasn’t entirely right, not in Tommy’s case, at any rate, because Tommy wanted him back, at least, but everyone else should have wanted him dead.

But no one has. No one has thus far, at least. No one has tried to do anything to him aside from a few pointed comments. No one has tried to lock him up or kill him. No one has tried, even when they should, they definitely should, because he was hated by the end—wasn’t he?

(no. except for by one, and you have never judged yourself fairly)

So, what does that mean, then? What does it mean that he understands far less than he thought he did? What does it mean that he is struggling for control, falling back into old patterns because it’s all he knows, struggling and falling and failing? He thought he knew, thought he understood well how it all ties together, how to measure his own worth by what he can do, but here is Phil saying that that’s not right at all, and what is he supposed to do with that?

He has vowed to be better. Has been trying to be better. Has he been getting that wrong, too?

Or perhaps he isn’t wrong. Perhaps Phil is. He would like to believe that Phil is. It would be so much easier if Phil is. But here, now, held with arms and wings both, the contact chasing all of the day’s chill away, he’s not sure that he can arrive at that conclusion. Not sure he can let himself deny it, deny this.

But if he is wrong about this, he is wrong about so much, and that—that is terrifying.

“I’ve been trying to be better. I’ve been trying so hard,” he gasps out. “Phil—Phil, I don’t think I know what I’m doing. I don’t think I know how.”

“That’s okay,” Phil says. “That’s okay, you don’t have to. You just have to try. That’s all anyone wants. And it’s a process, not a one-and-done thing. It’s okay to not know.” Phil pauses. One hand moves from his back and goes up to card through his hair. Wilbur lets out a sigh. “But part of that is being better toward yourself. You deserve that just by virtue of existing. You don’t have to do anything or make anything. You deserve better things.”

(his own voice: you deserve good things and you can have them. but that was to Tommy, for Tommy, and it surely can’t apply to him, surely, because he is different, is not good like Tommy is, because he may be trying not to be the villain anymore but he was one once and he is not good and even before then he was not good enough so surely he cannot turn that around on himself surely he cannot)

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” he admits.

“That’s alright, too,” Phil says. “We can work on it, okay? We’ll all work on it together. Just, remember that you do deserve better things. No matter what your brain is telling you. Your brain is fucking wrong, okay? In this, it’s so fucking wrong. You deserve to be—to be fucking kind to yourself.” He pauses for a moment, and when he continues, his voice is full of trepidation. “Wil, you are—I mean, you do—you do want to—”

He seems to be struggling to phrase it, but Wilbur knows exactly what he’s asking.

“I don’t know about want,” he says. He’s been honest thus far; may as well continue. “I—I didn’t tell you about the time with the Egg, before you got here. It got in my head good. Really good. And it offered me—rest. I tried to give in to it. If other people weren’t there, I would have.”

Phil’s grip on him tightens.

“But I’ve decided I’m staying,” he continues. “I’ve decided. For the sake of—I mean, some of you people seem to care about me, for some godforsaken reason. And I don’t want to hurt you. So I’m staying here. Alive. I’m going to keep trying.”

“Okay,” Phil whispers. “Okay, that’s a good start.”

If that is a start, then what is the end goal? But he’s too worn out to ask. Exhausted in so many more ways than one.

But his mind is quieter. No longer buzzing. Like a storm has finally passed over, leaving destruction in its wake, but also calm.

He finally brings his arms up and embraces Phil in turn, leaning his weight against his chest. The moment he lets himself, all his muscles go limp, his body finally succumbing to the break he so sorely needs.

“You’re a sappy old man, do you know that?” he mumbles.

“I’m your father,” Phil says. “Comes with the territory.”

He hums, pushing his face against Phil’s robes. He’s clutching at his back, but the cloak has shifted, now that Phil’s moved his wings to wrap around him, so if he inches his hands up a bit, they’ll hit the wings’ base. So he does, slowly, cautiously, and then just lets his hands rest there, against the feathers. Phil stiffens.

“Let me preen them,” he says.

Phil takes a second to answer.

“Didn’t we just have a conversation about not taking on as much responsibility?” he says, and just as Phil can pick out when he’s trying to dodge a topic, he can tell right away that the question is an avoidance.

“This is completely different,” he says. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t. But—” He moves back so he can stare Phil in the face, taking a moment to chew on his next words. “I want to. Please.”

He’s not sure why this is suddenly so important to him. It’s probably something about how the state of these wings is his fault in the first place, about how Phil wrecked them in an effort to protect him, about how he turned around and begged him to kill him a moment later, with no regard for what Phil had just sacrificed. It’s probably something about how Phil is talking self-acceptance at him and yet obviously has not been taking care of himself, not in this aspect, at least, and he hates it, hates to see this disregard for things that he once held so dear, hates to see it and know that the blame lies with him. It’s probably something about how being held like this takes him back to when he was younger, and he always loved running his hands through his father’s feathers when he was still a child, straightening them and cleaning them and taking pride in the fact that he was helping, that he was a part of something, part of a family at last after so long on his own.

It’s probably all of that at once.

Something in Phil seems to deflate. His shoulders slump, which is not exactly the reaction Wilbur was hoping for.

And then—

“Alright,” Phil whispers. He leans back from the hug, stretching out his wings so that Wilbur can get a good look at them. So he does look, and he struggles to keep his face neutral; he’d hoped, somehow, that his glimpse of them in the Egg’s chamber, ragged and bleeding from the thorns, was exaggerated in his memory, that they’re not actually in as terrible a way as he remembers. But as Phil allows him to stare, his heart sinks.

Even in the dim light of the stars, he can see that the wings are a mess. And his stomach rolls as his eyes land on bare, scarred patches of skin, on exposed bone. A few places are still bandaged from the damage the Egg did, though potions have done much in the way of healing those particular wounds.

And only those, it seems.

(the Angel of Death will fly no more)

But there are still plenty of feathers, feathers that Phil obviously hasn’t been looking after, feathers that fall every which way, sticking out at odd angles. There are a few spots that Phil has evidently straightened himself, but not many. Some appear to be overlapping strangely, poking into the skin in a way that cannot be comfortable.

He looks back to Phil’s face. Phil’s expression is odd, some combination of resignation and defiance, as if halfway daring him to comment.

So Wilbur doesn’t. Just scoots forward slightly and runs his hand across some of the offered feathers.

And then gets to work.

Even in his tired state, the motions are familiar, far too familiar to mess up. Straighten the feathers, pick out dirt and other detritus that’s been caught in and beneath them. His hands are more hesitant than they ever have been, struggling with what to do as they near the more obviously injured places, but he does know how to do this. He has done it so many times before.

(and if Phil is allowing him this now, when he obviously has not allowed anyone near his wings in a long time, even Techno, even the son whose side he remained by, then perhaps it is a good sign, and perhaps he can take it as a sign of hope, as a sign that things can be better are getting better no matter the hurts that have yet to heal)

“Do they hurt?” he can’t help but ask, voice low.

Phil hesitates a beat too long. “Not usually,” he says, and Wilbur knows it for a lie.

There’s a lot of feathers loose. A lot of feathers coming out at a mere touch. And Wilbur knows how this works, knows that if the feather is already falling out then it needs to be removed, but it still concerns him, just how many there are, just how many now litter the ground, stirring in the wind.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask if it hurts right now. But another glance at Phil’s face forestalls him. His eyes have drifted shut, the lines around his eyes and on his forehead smoothing out, and the tension has bled from his frame.

(a memory: you have lived in this house scarce weeks and you barely trust these two at all but this boy who will become your brother has sat you down with the man who will become your father and is telling you, determinedly, seriously, resolutely, that if you’re going to stick around then you need to know how to do this, and Philza is laughing at the both of you and you are nervous, because you have never had a home before and you want to keep this one, but Technoblade shows you how to card through the feathers, and Phil chirps at you every now and then, soft and encouraging, and it feels a bit like a home, you think, if you’ll let yourself have it)

For a moment, he lets his hand hover over bone. It’s so very wrong, so very disturbing. Bones should not be extended out of flesh in the way that these are. His stomach flips again.

“This is my fault,” he murmurs. The words slip out.

“It was my choice,” Phil says, opening his eyes. “I’d do it again.” It’s a steady declaration this time, no indication of a lie.

(and he almost wishes that there were, because he has never known what to do with unwavering protection, protection that he does not deserve—but then, Phil has told him that his sense of what he deserves might not be right at all, and he doesn’t know what to do with that either)

(because the protection offered is without a doubt resolute, unquestioning, unconditional, and in that moment, as the explosions went off and Phil shielded him with no hesitation even though he could not have known that a life lost to them would have been his last because he did not tell him did not tell him anything at all)

(you try not to remember that Phil must have waited for you to respawn and try not to imagine the look on his face when your body remained and somebody had to tell him had to tell him that this is a three-life server and the life he took was the last the last the last the finale the ending an ending he surely did not intend to grant and you cannot let yourself imagine the moment he found out you cannot)

He doesn’t have an answer to that. None that Phil would accept, at any rate. So he doesn’t answer at all, just keeps dragging his fingers through his father’s feathers, neatening them, cleaning them where he can, and there’s only so much he’s going to be able to to like this, here and now, but it’s a start. Judging by the way Phil’s eyes are drooping again, he feels more comfortable than before. And really, that was the goal, wasn’t it? To do something? Anything?

(anything to ease the weight to lift the burden and Phil has a point, perhaps, about responsibility and taking on too much but this is not a responsibility is not work this is taking care of family and if Phil is allowing you this then perhaps you ought to consider accepting help in return perhaps letting your loved ones in would not be such a bad idea perhaps you can put a little more of yourself on display and trust them to smooth out the rough edges perhaps perhaps)

Eventually, he runs out of feathers to preen, to fix. There is nothing he can do about the scars, the bones, but he has done what he can, and perhaps that means something, even if not everything.

“We should go back inside,” Phil murmurs. His words slur slightly; he’s listing to the side a bit, obviously just on the edge of sleep. It makes Wilbur glad to know that some things don’t change.

“Probably,” he says. “I’d like to stay out for a few minutes longer. The stars look nice tonight.”

Phil yawns, and halfway through, the noise transforms into a warbling chirp.

“I s’ppose we can do that,” he agrees, and in the next instant, Phil is wrapping his wings around him again, pulling him closer, and he doesn’t fight it. He lets himself lean into Phil’s side, warm and secure. Overhead, the stars spin. And hum. They always hum, even if he can’t quite hear the notes, and for the moment, he feels right with his place in the universe.

He falls asleep like that, finally. His dreams are full of music and feathers and distant birdsong.

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

He wakes up to the clanging of a bell.

“Oh, fuck,” Phil is saying, and the weight of his wings disappears in a split second. Wilbur almost topples over as Phil lurches to his feet, catching himself just in time, bracing himself against the bench and squinting against the morning sun. It is morning; that’s probably the best night’s sleep he’s gotten in the past few days, the beginning insomnia notwithstanding. His weariness is not quite gone, but it’s far less prevalent than it has been.

It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the light. The first thing he sees are the red vines crawling over the sides of the castle, inching toward the roof.

“Shit, fuck,” Phil is still saying, “the enchantments are gone, we need to move—”

The bell clangs twice, then thrice more, and then falls silent. Eret said they had a bell, didn’t they? That they would ring it if something happened, to wake everyone up?

“Fuck,” Phil says, suddenly hushed. “Wil.”

He rises, coming to stand by Phil’s side, peering out toward the gates, the wall, the place where the enchanted boundaries are supposed to be set. The castle itself doesn’t yet seem to be overrun, but the walls are covered in the foliage, and if he watches them carefully, he can see them growing in real time, unfurling toward them like bloody banners.

Dream stands just inside the gates. Behind him, there are others: Bad, Ant, Ponk, Punz, the four they knew to expect for sure, along with a woman he doesn’t recognize, white flowers strewn in her hair and wrapped around her arms. In front of them, Eret stands with their sword held out, and Sapnap staggers to stand beside them, obviously just woken up. Hopefully the others are on the move, too.

But what draws Wilbur’s attention is Ranboo. Standing next to Dream, slouched. Eyes no longer purple, but vacant, staring, dull. Dream has a possessive hand on his shoulder. Ranboo himself isn’t moving.

(betrayed betrayed betrayed even if history does not repeat it rhymes echoes and rhymes and he should’ve known better than to trust should’ve known better than to think that no one would stab him in the back because that’s just what people do)

“I hope you took advantage of the time we gave you to prepare,” Dream says. “We thought it’d be only fair. But it’s checkmate now.”

And the smile on his mask seems to grow.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #philza #ranboo #dreamwastaken #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #i am currently Not At Home so i was worried i wouldn't be able to post #but here i am!! i did it!! :D #we really are in the endgame now

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inkribbon796 · 3 years

Text

Flight of the Bomble Bees Ch. 2: The White Wolves

Summary: Not all white dogs are good omens.

A/N: Warning for Tubbo getting triggered by fireworks. Thought I’d add a heads up. Guy’s an unhinged mad scientist, but he’s still a seventeen year old with a lot of unresolved emotional and physical trauma.

Chapters: 1, 2

Roman was telling the story of Thomas and “Nico”, Virgil interjecting to try and add in some embarrassing detail, as they headed back to the base. Ranboo making himself look less human, his horns growing out and a long tail with a fluffy ends trailing behind him, before he joined up with the group. He looked nervously at Tubbo who smiled at him and began showing his new superhero suit.

During this exchange, Patton let out a gasp, “Puppy!”

Logan looked over to see a dog, a smaller spaniel or at the largest some husky, but it wasn’t. The beast approaching them was a fully grown wolf.

Tommy and Tubbo looked over and froze as the wolf kept walking over. Several people just parting for the massive canine.

“Uhhh,” Tommy warned cautiously.

“Lea?” Ranboo asked in confusion as he walked over to Patton and the wolf. “What are you doing here?”

“I think he likes me,” Patton smiled as he let the wolf sniff his hands and arms.

“She . . .” Ranboo faltered nervously. He’d meant to speak more but the words caught in his throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Patton corrected himself before turning back to the wolf, his hands scratching and petting the wolf. “Who’s a pretty lady? You are! Yes, you are!”

“Is this your wolf?” Logan asked hesitantly as Tubbo picked himself into the sky to look around for someone.

“Yeah,” Ranboo asked before correcting, twisting his tail in his hands, “but no. She’s one of Techno’s wolves. He usually keeps them in southern Scotland on some property that he and Phil own.”

“Yeah, but what’s this one doin’[1] here?” Tommy demanded, the wolf turning from Patton to sniff at Logan for a little bit. Patton looked a bit put out when the wolf’s interest went somewhere other than him.

“She’s kinda[2] mine,” Ranboo explained.

“Yours?” Tommy scoffed, sounding hurt. As they spoke the wolf turned to Virgil who tried to keep his body as far away from sharp teeth and crushing jaws. So then she moved to Roman who gave the wolf a couple uncertain pats. “How the fuck is she yours? Those hounds are Techno’s.”

“Yeah,” Ranboo’s tail fluff suddenly the most interesting thing in the world to him. “You remember how I used to live with them? I used to help Techno take care of the wolves and he let me name one. He even gave it a purple collar to tell her apart.”

“What do you mean he gave you one?” Tommy spat in a jealous huff. “He barely let me touch ‘em[3]!”

Lea finally reached Thomas, who upon seeing Roman and Patton, and the other Sides being able to get close to it, reached out to give the wolf a pet. Before she snarled and sank her jaws into his arm, the only thing keeping it from being crushed was the lightly reinforced suit he was wearing.

Thomas screamed in pain.

Thankfully the wolf let go and began to back up and let out a long, piercing howl.

“Incoming!” Tubbo warned as he caught sight of who he was looking for.

“What do you see?” Logan put himself in between the wolf and Thomas, who was holding his arm. “Princey, get him up and out of the way.”

“Techno! Techno’s coming!” Tubbo warned, a terrified tremor to his voice.

People scrambled to get out of the way as Roman enchanted himself to fly and picked Thomas up to start flying him back to base.

Which took them out of the safety of the group.

There was a hiss in the air as something whistled through the air and hit Roman. The small rocket exploded like a bright firework.

Roman screamed in pain and crashed back to the ground with Thomas.

Tubbo screamed in panic, even though he was a safe distance from the explosion, trying to shield his eyes and face from the explosion. Ranboo caught him when he fell.

“Bee? Bee? It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Ranboo promised as he held Tubbo in his arms. Tubbo was shaking wildly in terror, curled up in his husband’s arms.

Virgil’s magic whipped into the air as the wall of wolf teeth hit them. His barrier holding protectively as Patton fretted over Roman who was quick to pick himself up.

“I’m fine,” Roman stood up and pulled out his sword, putting Thomas and the minors in the center of the group. Logan was already signally for backup. Trying to count the number of wolves. His brain got to thirty before it was hard to keep track of them and he wasn’t sure if there were more or he’d miscounted.”

Eventually they saw Techno himself, the tall and hulking figure with a boar mask over his face. Lea circled back around to him from her place in the pack and Techno gave her a quick scratch on the head.

“Finally,” Techno smiled, axe in hand. “After all this time.”

Logan braced with his stun batons, he knew Virgil’s shield would not protect them indefinitely. He watched Philza hanging back about fifty feet, bow and arrow in hand but not notched and raised at them.

“You’re part of Dream’s gang, aren’t you?” Logan probed, trying to get as much information from their attackers as possible.

“Ehh, Dream and I are just old friends,” Techno dismissed. “We’ve just been a couple rounds in a death pit.”

“I see,” Logan commented, watching Virgil’s magic begin to sputter, the force of maintaining a barrier getting to be too much.

“Techno,” Tommy greeted tensely.

“Tommy, back up, I’m not here to fight you,” Techno warned.

“You almost hit Tubbo,” Ranboo reminded.

“Yeah, didn’t see him,” Techno admitted. “Was more focused on trying to find the legate and his head popped up, so . . .”

Techno made a shooing motion with his hand towards the three kids. “. . . you three should get out of the way before I accidentally hit one of you.”

Logan took a glance at Ranboo who was still holding Tubbo. “When the barrier lowers, I want you to take him away from here.”

“I,” Tubbo seemed to regain his composure, his false eye glowing, a radioactive symbol visible from behind his fringe. “I’m up, let me at him.”

Jackie and Silver were speeding in, sending a message to Logan how Bing and Oliver were on standby.

“Absolutely not,” Logan told him. “This is foolhardy, we’ve already had a minor causality, and I will not allow another under my watch.”

“I got your back Bo,” Tommy promised.

That got Techno angry, “Tommy, stay out of the way, you’re in over your head again. And this time I’m not saving you. I don’t want to fight you guys, I want the legate.”

“Well, that’s gonna be a problem then, innit?” Tommy dared.

“Fine,” Techno spat, pulling out three vials of swirling magical cocotions. “You asked for it!”

Tubbo and Tommy were summoning weapons as the vials shattered on the ground and magic wafted up at Techno. Tubbo quickly pulled out a handful of potions and smashed them around their feet, magic filling the bubble. The Sides and the three minors felt charged with strength as Techno let out a shrill, high pitched whistle and the wolves all attacked at once.

Tubbo took to the sky again. Throwing down potions on top of Techno, spells trying to cancel each other out and Techno dodging. “See how you like some fuckin’[4] sparks, shitshow!”

Ranboo summoned a scythe as Phil notched an arrow and let it fly at Tubbo. The tall teen cutting his sword into the air and making the arrow shoot at the ground in front of them.

“Ehh!” Techno smiled. “Finally growing a spine kid?”

“Boo! Get out of here!” Tubbo ordered his husband.

“Not with out you!” Ranboo told him.

“Heh, gay,” Tubbo smiled.

“Come on, Bomble, work with me here,” Ranboo demanded in exasperation, trying to keep arrows off of Tubbo.

“Helping!” Tubbo dove down to slap a disk on Ranboo’s. Metal clipping and unfolding out with the aid of what Logan suspected was nanites. It made an almost all black suit with a visor that looked like bandages wrapped around his eyes.

Ranboo faltered and in that time an arrow nicked Tubbo’s ankle.

Jackie and Silver were trying to keep the tide of wolves at bay while Tommy tried to continuously rush for Techno, which was much harder because Roman and Logan were trying to keep him away and keep Techno off of Thomas.

Virgil’s spider legs sprouted as he tried to pull Thomas away, hissing and spitting at the warrior trying to hit them with an axe.

“Anxiety! Pass him!” Janus called over the chaos.

Some time in the chaos and din of battle, Janus had wormed his way in and held out a hand.

Hesitating for a bit, Virgil tried to figure out if this was an illusion or a trick before shoving Thomas towards Janus who was sprouting multiple arms and snakes poured out from him. A large one coiled around him, enough to grip but not to strangle, other snakes almost forming a protective cocoon around Thomas who was almost dizzy with everything going around him.

“Go! Go!” Janus ordered and began trying to roll the mass of snakes through the onslaught of wolves. Virgil screamed as a set of canine teeth chomped on one of his spider legs. Virgil ripped his leg away, the limb almost snapping off under the pressure but Janus and Virgil were starting to get away from the fight.

“Move!” Janus ordered Virgil as they tried to put distance between the fight and themselves.

“Where are you going?” Techno pulled out one of the green eye orbs and tossed it. The orb shattered and Techno appeared right behind the group, cutting through several of the snakes with his axe but Janus quickly began building them back up as Thomas was trying to backpedal from the guy trying to hit him with an axe.

Ranboo took the opportunity to grab both Tommy and Tubbo and opened up a small portal right on top of himself to get them back to the heroes’ base. Taking them from the battle and the wolves trying to snap at them. Much to Tubbo and Tommy’s immediate anger.

Janus summoned his staff and redirected the blow that would have hit Thomas right in the chest.

Thomas looked at Janus in surprise as the deceitful Side protectively coiled more snakes around him.

Techno immediately began swinging his axe to cut through the mass of snakes. The instant Thomas was in any danger of getting hit, Virgil used his spider web threads to tug Thomas out of the way long enough for Janus to build his serpentine shield back up.

“Come on! Fight me! This is what you’re good at!” Techno ordered as his axe came dangerously close to Thomas on each swing but Virgil and Janus kept him out of harm’s way each time.

“You want a fight, you’ll get it from us,” Janus hissed.

“He’s a lover, not a fighter!” Patton yelled out as he tried to get back into the fight before Phil shot him in the shoulder with an arrow.

In response, Thomas grabbed his arm right where Patton had been shot and let out a choked gasp.

“What do you mean he doesn’t fight‽” Techno demanded, sounding enraged and insulted in the same breath. “He’s a legate, that’s all they know.”

“I don’t,” Thomas whimpered, hiding behind Virgil and Janus. “I don’t know how.”

“All your arms can fight, how do you not know how to fight?” Techno snapped.

Thomas stayed defensively quiet, but Techno was the one who pulled away. He let out a frustrated scream. “What was the point?”

“Mate, yah[5] okay there?” Phil walked closer.

“I brought my dogs out for nothing, Phil,” Techno complained as Philza just smiled in amusement at him. “For nothing!”

“Least yeh[5] got some exercise, mate,” Phil chuckled. “We can head over to Arizona, there’s supposed to be a pit over there.”

“It’s not the same,” Techno complained. “This was going to be my fight.”

Techno huffed before looking over at Phil, “Fine.”

The combatant finally lowered his sword and stomped away, letting out a shrill whistle and all the wolves began to pull away from their fights to cloud around Techno and some of them began pushing around his hands.

“Yeh[5] freaks done?” Jackie demanded.

“Yeah, if Techno can’t get his fight, then he’s done,” Phil smiled. “He’s done, we just gotta[6] take the dogs back.”

“Those are wolves,” Logan reminded.

“Yeah, bred from hellhounds, mate,” Phil smiled. “Yeh[5] all lucked out that he couldn’t get his fight.”

Phil made his way carefully through the wolves to talk to a very upset Techno, while Thomas looked back at Janus and Virgil who were still braced for a fight, snakes still coiling around Thomas, spider silk everywhere.

“You,” Thomas looked up at them with shock, “you saved me.”

“Yeah well,” Virgil fumbled, kneeling down to Thomas’s level. “Supposed to be a hero, it’s what I do.”

Thomas leaned in and rested his head against Virgil’s arm. Virgil flinched and Thomas had one eye light up purple, and the other with a bright yellow. He leaned into Virgil who let out a gasp as one of his eyes lit up. Janus looked down at them.

“I think perhaps you two should go back to the base, while he’s still distracted,” Janus told Virgil.

The scene was briefly interrupted by Thomas letting out a gasp in pain, his eyes returning to their normal color and the group looked over to Patton, who was already receiving first aid for the arrow sticking out of his arm. The tip was still coursing with magic to ensure it would puncture through armour and shields alike.

“How bad is it?” Logan asked.

“I’m fine,” Patton gritted his teeth.

Thomas, almost robotically, got up and walked over to Patton. Logan was quick to come in-between Thomas and Patton, extending out one of his battens to keep Thomas away from Patton.

“He needs all the energy he can get right now,” Logan warned.

“You guys all give me energy, I should be able to give some to him, right?” Thomas suggested.

Patton shakily lowered Logan’s hand.

“Be careful,” Logan’s tone carried an unspoken threat in it.

Thomas nodded and set his hand on Patton’s injured arm, closing his eyes in concentration.

At first Patton felt the white hot pain grow hotter and chil the areas around him, before the pain started to melt away. Patton hummed in contentment, leaning into Thomas. The wound starting to knit itself back up as a huge bruise was secretly growing underneath the sleeve of Thomas’s arm.

Thomas pulled away, and Patton almost fell against him, blinking in blurry disorientation.

“Mmm, tired,” Patton complained.

“We’ll get you back to the base,” Logan picked Patton, cradling him gently against his chest. “Magic can only do so much.”

“I want marshmallows fer[7] pillows,” Patton mumbled, bringing a small smile to Logan’s face that was hidden by his visor. “I like marshmallows.”

“Go, I’ll make sure you aren’t followed,” Janus told Virgil.

“I get it, I get it,” Virgil grumbled as Logan and Roman led Thomas back to the base and Virgil brought up the rear.

Janus and Techno’s eyes met as the Core Sides retreated with Thomas. Janus followed the group from a distance. Jackie took Patton from Logan to speed the injured Side back to the base. It left Logan to break from the group and make his way back to where Silver was watching Philza and Techno.

“Morality alright?” Silver asked.

“He will be,” Logan said, “I want to keep my eye on things.”

“We’ll be gone soon enough,” Phil told him. “Don’t much like being next ta[8] Ent’s territory. Reeks ‘a[9] sad empath o’er[10] there.”

“You are Tommy’s guardian,” Logan reminded, getting a message that Jackie had helped speed both Patton and then Thomas to safety.

“He causin’[11] trouble?” Phil sighed.

“No, but he is seventeen,” Silver told him.

“He’s a spawnling, age is fuckin’[4] relative, mate,” Phil told them in a rather dismissive tone. “Fundy’s been fourteen fer[7] four years now. Bet Tommy’ll be seventeen fer[7] a while longer.”

“That still makes him a minor,” Logan spoke up.

“Look, mate, if I gotta[6] sign somethin’[12], I will,” Phil sighed as he leaned against the wall. “But I’m tellin’ yeh that it means shit an’ all. Tommy could go out an’ do whate’er he wanted an’ I wouldn’t stop him.”[13]

“For as much as you claim Tommy is an adult, he lacks the experience or the fully developed prefrontal cortex crucial for decision making,” Logan refuted. “We need your signature, how long will you be in town?”

“Long enough,” Phil evaded. “I know where yer[14] base is, I’ll head over there, then I’ll meet back up with you, Techno.”

Techno’s eyes glanced between the heroes, “If you’re sure.”

“Oh yeah, we’ll take a shortcut ta[8] the cabins,” Phil told Techno.

Techno let out a whistle and all the wolves gathered around him. “Yeah, yeah, got you.”

Techno began to walk away with his hounds.

Silver waited until Techno was far enough to wait before he asked, “How much do you spend on feeding all those animals?”

“Oh, we’ve got e’en more at the cabins, an’ we keep animals ta help feed ‘em, but it’s a lot, a lot a lot,”[15] Philza answered.

Philza did wind up heading to the base with the heroes to read through and sign some paperwork. He stayed outside as Tommy uneasily watched from the cameras, occasionally yelling obscenities at his father from a speaker and Philza was just shouting them back at him as Tubbo was laughing and eventually joined in.

The other heroes would have intervened to take the mic away from Tommy but it seemed to put Philza in a better mood and he left after the papers were done and he was given a copy.

Calmer, the winged demon left, Techno had been waiting for him and the two of them disappeared into the night. Leaving the heroes to lick their wounds and brace for the next attack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. doing

2. kind of

3. them

4. fucking

5. you

6. have to

7. for

8. to

9. of

10. over

11. causing

12. something

13. But I’m telling you that it means shit and all. Tommy could go out and do whatever he wanted and I wouldn’t stop him.

14. your

15. Oh, we’ve got even more at the cabins, and we keep animals to help feed them, but it’s a lot, a lot a lot

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musical-in-theory · 4 years

Text

Caught in the Crossfire

Chapter 5: Setting Up Dominoes (just to watch them fall)

Previous chapter

Tommy walked through the trees in the forest surrounding Pogtopia. He made sure to keep an eye out for stray leaves or twigs like Wilbur had taught him. He used to sneak out pretty often to see Tubbo when they still lived with Phil, and Wilbur had given him tips on how to not get caught. Those lighthearted lessons were coming in handy more and more now.

The sun filtered through the trees as he made his way to the designated meeting spot. Tommy hoped he wouldn’t be alone when he arrived. He’d left a note for Tubbo the day before on their bench asking to meet up. He didn’t want to think about what it meant if Tubbo either hadn’t gotten it or ignored it.

It was nearly sunset as Tommy approached his bench again. Luckily it was already occupied by the person he’d been wanting to see the most ever since the disastrous election. Tubbo saw him out of the corner of his eye and smiled at him. Tommy sprinted the rest of the way and gave him a quick but tight hug, ignoring the alarm bells ringing in his head. Tubbo was working for Schlatt. Tubbo was meant to kill him.

Tommy broke the hug off and scoffed, “God you’re so fuckin clingy, big T.” As hard as he tried, he couldn’t completely wipe the grin off his face.

Tubbo laughed and sat back down on the bench, looking at the sunset. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.” He swung his feet back and forth as Tommy took his seat next to him. It felt almost normal, which was a rare feeling these days. They both just wanted to pretend for a little while that they were back to the days before the election, before the L’manburg war, before everything. It was just the two of them together like they always should’ve been.

They wanted to pretend, and so they did. The duo talked about everything and nothing. They ignored the real reason the meeting was called. They didn’t bring up Manburg or Pogtopia or really anything to do with the pressing situation. Tubbo talked about his bees and his house and a funny joke Jack Manifold told him the other day. Tommy listened and laughed and of course made fun of how Tubbo could get excited about pretty much anything.

A few people trickled by, but if any of them saw the pair, they averted their eyes and made note to keep Schlatt and Dream away from the area. They were kids after all. They deserved a bit of time to be just that.

However, all good things must come to an end. Night fell and Tommy sighed. “Hey Tubbo?” Tommy tried to keep a brave face, but his nerves pushed through the facade.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Tubbo sighed as well. His shoulders sagged under the pressure that suddenly pervaded the area. “Your note said you had to talk to me about Wilbur’s plan. Does that mean you guys are gonna sneak me out of here?” There was a hopeful lilt at the end of the question. Tommy was both relieved and hurt to hear it.

It meant that Tubbo didn’t really want to stay or work for Schlatt, but on the other hand that was exactly what he was about to ask him to do. “About that… you’ll be on Pogtopia’s side-”

“Pogtopia?”

“Shut the fuck up, Tubbo.” Tubbo laughed. He really had missed this.

“So you’ll be on Pogtopia’s side, but you’ll kinda have to stay in L’manburg,” Tommy continued. When he’d first heard of Wilbur’s idea, he was excited. If Tubbo agreed to it, they’d get to see each other again, and Tubbo would have a cool job. Tommy could give him a bunch of secret missions to pass the time!

Now, though, after seeing the disappointment on his best friend’s face at the idea that he would have to stay at Schlatt’s side, he realized just what being a spy meant. It meant that he’d be in danger of getting caught by the enemy at all times, even more so than either Wilbur or Tommy. It meant lying to everyone around him, even people he might’ve cared about at one point or another.

The question nearly caught in his throat. “Will you be our spy on the inside?” Tommy infused as much of his usual Innit brand of confidence into his voice as possible. As much as he didn’t like asking, this was Wilbur’s plan, and Wil was almost always right about these sorts of things.

Tubbo looked down at his hands in his lap. Tommy could almost physically see the gears turning in his head as he weighed his options. After a minute or two of deliberation, he squared his shoulders with determination lining his face. He nodded swiftly and smirked. “Schlatt won’t know what hit him.”

It was then that Tommy remembered Tubbo’s greatest strength. He was far too often underestimated. For as chaotic and brash as Tommy was, Tubbo was always there by his side more often than not finding ways to make their schemes more effective. Everyone always assumed that Tubbo was merely a sidekick, and Schlatt was no different. That would be his downfall.

They both got up from their bench and nodded at each other before heading their separate ways. Neither said goodbye. Goodbyes made everything seem final, and they knew that this was only the beginning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Techno lifted his arm up to wipe the sweat from his brow. His mask had long been discarded to the side as he finished the final touches on his potato farm. It was nearly as impressive as the one he’d just left, but with a bit of redstone he found at least this one was self-harvesting. All he had left to do was to just make sure it worked correctly and “report back to Tommy.” Neither Tommy nor Techno really cared about the hierarchy of it, but if it put Wilbur even a little at ease then they’d go along with it.

However, based on the choppy, fast paced whistling echoing through the ravine, Techno couldn’t say for certain that the tension had dropped. Techno dropped his tools and stuck his head through the doorway of the underground farm. Sure enough, Wil was strolling down the stairs. As he got closer, Techno saw how his eyes seemed the slightest bit unfocused and the tell-tale dark spots on his lips from where he’d been biting them. If stress was a person, its name would be Wilbur Soot.

Techno took a breath and walked through the small opening. Even when he’d been little, he hated conversation. Actions always spoke louder than words in his opinion, so he didn’t understand why saying the right things was so important. Luckily he had a twin by his side that could weave his words with ease. Wil did the talking for him, and when they were alone, reassuring pats on the back or the squeeze of their hands were their language of choice.

Now that the twins were reunited, none of that was anywhere to be seen. Trying to talk to Wilbur had become like drowning in an ocean. Wil had the means to pull him to shore, but he only seemed to watch Techno sink further. He was on his own to either sink or swim, and he knew what to choose.

“Wilbur.” The other’s eyes focused on Techno and lost whatever haziness has been there previously. He could only hope this was a good sign. “I, uh. I finished the farm. Made pretty good time on it.” Techno tried not to let the tension in his body show. Conversation was a battle, and the first thing he did was trip.

Wilbur nodded his head to signal him to lead the way. Techno thought that maybe he’d see a bit of pride show on the usually expressive man’s face, but it was blank. That was one of the strangest things he’d noticed. Wilbur exuded a sort of pride and determination that fueled his own brand of charisma. It was the sort of mannerism that they both shared, something to tell others that they were in fact twins. But now that pride was seemingly gone.

They both entered the farm area once again. Techno stood back as Wilbur took the time to scan over and judge the work done. He hummed, “Well done, I suppose.” Wilbur looked back at Techno. “Tommy must’ve helped more than I expected. I didn’t actually think you two would be able to get this much done in such a short amount of time.”

Techno coughed, “Tommy didn’t really do much. He’s been off mining cobble for… well that part’s not important.” He pretended not to notice how Wil’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at that last statement.

Fortunately, it seemed Wilbur was willing to let it go for the moment in favor of a different line of questioning. “Wait, if he hasn’t been helping- how long have you been working on this?” There was a hint of surprise in his voice, like he already knew the answer but didn’t really think it to be true.

“Only about 16 hours, give or take,” Techno said bluntly.

Wilbur blinked at him. “Tech- Technoblade. You got here yesterday.” A small smirk pulled at his lips. “You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?”

Techno couldn’t help the minute smile that found its way onto his face as well. “Me? Of course not. My sleep schedule is in peak condition.”

“Tell that to the bags under your eyes.”

“Only if you tell yours the same.”

The two both fell into muted laughter, but the echoing in the ravine made it sound just as boisterous as it had been years before. Techno wanted to just stay in this moment. It had been far too long since he’d been able to simply enjoy any of his family’s presence, and here Wilbur was, back to acting like the brother he’d grown up with.

Techno wanted to savor the moment, but too soon it turned sour. Wilbur cut off his laughter abruptly, dawning realization slowly filling his eyes. “I can’t do this.” Wil’s voice sounded clipped and like he was trying to convince himself of something.

He tried to leave, but Techno followed him out. “Did I just miss something?” Techno was starting to get an idea of what happened. He only wished that for once, he was wrong.

“Stop. I don’t… just get back to work. The farm looks operational. Go operate it.” Wilbur stated without looking back at him.

“You’re hearing it again, aren’t you?” That got him to turn around. “That’s what suddenly got your attention back there.” It wasn’t a question. Pogtopia was a land of silence. It was a place of water droplets and creaking walkways and the sound of steel against stone, and yet it was quiet with a man trapped inside who couldn’t stand to be mute. It made sense that Wilbur was filling it with sounds only he could hear.

Techno looked from the floor to his twin’s face only to find anger lining it. “I said stop. You have no idea what’s going on. How could you when you haven’t been around for the past 7 years?” Wilbur walked up to him and nearly spat in his face in rage. It was such a turn from the previous mood, Techno almost took a step back in surprise. He held his ground, though. Wilbur had always been able to bounce from one emotion to another so easily.

“You’re wrong anyways. We aren’t brothers. We aren’t family. So we shouldn’t act like it. You forfeited all of that when you walked out of mine and my little brother’s life. I let myself forget for a minute. I can promise it won’t happen again.” Wilbur glared at him.

Techno stared at him for a minute. What once was hearth in Wil’s eyes, welcoming and warming all who came near, was now a blazing wildfire, ready to burn and destroy anything that ventured too close. Techno was too close, but he didn’t dare turn back yet.

“Wil, I left for you. For the both of us! I couldn’t stand seeing you in pain when it got too loud, and I was terrified that one day my voices would make me hurt you! I left to go get answers. I wanted to find a way to get rid of it all. So don’t stand there and pretend like I left for no good reason.” Techno could feel himself start to shout, but he couldn’t stop it. Damnit, he cared. There weren’t too many things he let close enough to care about, but Wilbur, his family, there wasn’t anything they could do to get him to stop caring. And that could be a very dangerous thing.

Shouts ripped from Wilbur’s throat, “Don’t you get it yet? I don’t give a shit about why you left! You left when I needed you most, and of course Phil had to go and follow you! For 7 years I had to take care of Tommy and then Tubbo on my own. I had to live with this fucking curse. On. My. Own. At least it was fucking bearable when you were there with me. Once you were gone, the music got so loud. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. Nothing.” Tears pricked at the corners of Wilbur’s eyes.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “You left me to that misery. And the worst part? I really believed you’d come back for me. I sat by the front door, everyday for a year, looking at the horizon for any sign of you. I genuinely believed that I was worth enough for you to at least visit. But after all this time, you came back just because Tommy asked.” He took a deep breath. “So fine. If you came to us under the premise of supporting the cause, then I will treat you like the soldier you joined as. I’ll only repeat myself once more. Get to work.”

Wilbur turned around and retreated back to his room with the finality of a last nail in a coffin. Techno was left to stare after him. He’d forever deny the tears that ran down his face and landed upon the rough stone beneath his feet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second Wilbur knew he was out of view of Techno he collapsed against the wall of his room. The bastard just had to bring up his curse. He hissed through gritted teeth as he brought his hands up to his ears. Wil knew it wouldn’t- couldn't- shut anything out, though. It was coming from inside his own head.

That was the difference between the twins. Everyone knew about the voices Technoblade possessed. He’d even gone as far as to name it, humanize his curse, almost owning it. He made no attempt to hide it. Wilbur, on the other hand, worked hard to keep his own a secret. People simply assumed he was the “normal” twin of the two.

The truth was… he heard things too. He heard the haunting music constantly, the main source of many of his sleepless nights. Not that he’d ever admit it. Repeating melodies that would go on and on forever, driving him off the deep end if he let them. He’d long since learned how to push it to the back of his mind and take control of his thoughts, much like Techno had. Although they had to learn how on their own. It was a lesson learned only after Techno left on his expedition.

However, with all the stress of recent events it had gotten much harder to keep the distracting tunes at bay. Just the mention of them a minute ago riled them up so much that Wilbur had a hard time keeping up with the words flying out of his own mouth in a cruel rhythm. He meant everything he said. Every single word. It was just that the music had flooded in, cascaded through his mind, and washed away any filter he might have had.

He hated Techno. A three word lyric to weave through the ongoing notes. He hated his twin. At least his voices were helpful sometimes. He could reason with them. Wilbur had no choice but to let the music smother him, to shatter him. If Wil was breaking, it wasn’t fair that Techno refused to crack.

Which brought him to where he was now. Merely a pathetic excuse for a leader falling against a wall and unraveling under the maddening crescendo of an unfinished symphony. The history books might later state how the exiled president went mad in the dark shadows of this ravine, but Wilbur knew better. His insanity started far, far earlier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading!! Sorry it took such a long time, but I had so much classwork to do. Hopefully the longer than normal chapter makes up for it haha. Anyway, I hope y’all enjoyed it. Our boys have a long way to go before anything can start to get better, but there’s a certain beauty in the fall. If you have the time, I’d love to know what you think! Reading your comments absolutely makes my day!

Once again a huge thank you to @the-ruler-of-rabbits for being such an amazing and patient beta reader. They’ve been a big help in the creation of this entire fic and I couldn’t do it without them.

Let me know if you want on or off the tag list!

Taglist: @obsidiancreates @strawberiitea @unlikelypaperwitch @corrine-370 @crazymecjc @ducklingqueen @idkhowbutimgayer @whydoilovesomanyvillians @anne-the-historian-ish @wilburs-soot @belonginthesky @coindoesstuff

#writing in theory #dream smp #dream smp fanfiction #mcyt #mcyt fanfiction #wilbur soot #villain wilbur #tommyinnit #tommy innit #technoblade #tubbo #tubbo_

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neonflare · 3 years

Text

Random and weird kind of a x Philza Minecraft drabble part 1

Walking in nature is quite calming, isn't it? You found yourself walking through trees and lakes to get to your boyfriend's house, Wilbur. You smiled at the thought, Wilbur was quite sweet to you, and you loved him very much.

You found yourself climbing a few mountains and dropping into water from those mountains. Luckily the armor kept your clothing dry. Even if it wasn't dry you brought a very long coat that you could put on that covered enough of your body.

Your hair did get quite wet so you were going to have to deal with that issue which wasn't even hard to deal with in the first place. You were almost there. Why did you have to build your house so far away from everybody else?

You took a bite out of the sweet berries that you had. You had other food but you needed to get rid of the sweet berries you over collected. You already planted some in your farm, so the only thing left is to just use them up.

The amount of nutrition you get from the sweet berries is actually surprising. You could technically only eat sweet berries and you would survive. Every other food was the same too, you were always fascinated by how different and similar foods can be.

That was quite off-topic though, you were finally at the SBI household. You clipped off your armor and put it in your bag. You squeezed the water out of your hair and untied the ponytail you had.

You slightly ruffled up your hair to make it more poofy, and started braiding it so it was near impossible to tell you were in water other than the fact that your hair is slightly darker because of the leftover water.

You didn't normally braid your hair as you weren't that type of girl, but right now you really needed it. You tied the end of the braid and knocked on the door.

"I'll open the door! Wait a moment!" The familiar voice of Philza, Wilbur's father, called out as a response. Shuffling could be heard on the other side and a short click noise before the door opened.

"You're here to see Wilbur, right? You came at the perfect time! I had just finished cooking, and made some extra as always, so you can come in and have a seat."

The man moved aside so you could walk in. You took the offer and stepped into the house that you have been to so many times. Everybody in the household was nice, even Tommy. Tommy may be hot headed and clingy but he still is quite accepting and welcoming.

You were following Philza to the Kitchen that wasn't far from the door. "Take a seat, I'll call the others and set the table up." Phil treaded over to one of the chairs around the table and pulled it out for you to sit on.

You obliged and walked over to the chair and sat in it. "Wilbur! Tommy! Techno! Tubbo! Ranboo! Dinner is ready! We have a guest too!" Surprisingly, Philza could get quite loud. Currently he was at the doorway.

He moved away from it and went over to the cupboards and grabbed a bunch of plates. "Do you need any help?" You offered, you didn't like to just sit and do nothing. "Ah, Could you please grab the cups and set them on the table? The cups are in the open cupboard."

Philza placed all of the plates he had on the counter and started dividing and placing the cooked food onto the plates. You stood up from your chair and headed over to the cupboard to grab some cups.

"What did you make?" Small talk was never bad, right? You were placing cups two at a time on the table. "Steak, vegetables, and some mushrooms." Ah, that explains the pleasant smell of the food. You recognized the smell of the mushrooms and steak.

"I heard you went on many adventures, and we're here for a very long time. Before any of the others were brought into this strange world too." Philza had said in a previous conversation that he was comfortable with talking about his adventures in this world.

It was quite strange, it always felt like something was missing. Everybody had just woken up one day in a forest, and little by little more people came in and more things started getting built. There wasn't the process of 'growing' like in the books we read about.

There were many public discussions about this world. There were multiple books and scraps of paper saying about other people who were brought into this world against their will. We had figured out that we weren't meant to be here, but we were brought here without our memory of anything other than this world.

Many people went exploring different places, we found something we called 'The Nether' and something we called 'The End'. None of those proved an escape path from this isolated but surprisingly large shelter.

"Ah, my adventures. Yes I've been on many. Do you wish to know about some of them?" The food was on the plates. "Yeah, I'm quite curious actually." You smiled, adventures were always fun to hear about, and you haven't gone around to asking about Philza's.

"Could you get some juice from the refrigerator?" He asked as he was placing plates on the table. "Sure thing." You walked over to the fridge and pulled the door open to look inside. There were quite a few juices. Apple Juice, Sweet Berry juice, Glow berry (1.17.0 MC) Chorus fruit, ect.

You already had enough of sweet berries and berries in general, apple juice was too plain. Chorus fruit it is then. You grabbed the small bucket of chorus fruit juice and closed the refrigerator.

Pouring the juice carefully into the glass cups you spotted Philza placing the utensils down. Once you were finished with pouring the liquid you gently set the bucket in the middle of the table and went over to the counter to grab napkins and place them on the table.

"There is this one story that happened in a cave. Remember the rumor that if you had a skeleton shoot a creeper, a disc would fall? That rumor is true." The rumor part piqued your interest. It was hard to get a skeleton to shoot a creeper.

You would have to go behind the creeper as the skeleton is shooting, which is hard as you have to time it well or the skeleton will move away to get a better view and have better accuracy when shooting their bow.

It was easier to do skeleton on skeleton as if they are very close, they could accidentally shoot each other and start a duel, or if they are on opposite ends of you they could shoot each other. You finally finished placing the napkins.

"Tell me all about it, please." You were very excited to hear the story. "Since we've finished setting the table, let's take a seat and l'll tell you about the day I first got a 'Cat' disc."

Cat discs were the most common discs, but discs were hard to find in general. You plopped down on your chair again, and Philza took his seat at the opposite end of you.

"I was mining in a cave, trying to get resources and exploring to see what I will find. Mind you, this around the very beginning. Maybe my...7th time going into a cave? It's been years so now I probably have 500+ times." You chuckled to yourself.

"500? That's a very large number, it has been years though, so I wouldn't be surprised at that." You commented. Philza snickered to himself, "Yeah, it's been quite a long time. I was getting some more iron with an iron pickaxe. Just when I had finished mining and was turning around, I spotted a Creeper.

Before that moment I had killed a few creepers already, and knew that they dropped gunpowder. So I naturally wanted to kill it and hoped to get some gunpowder. As I approached it, hit it, and was moving back, I heard an arrow whizz by me. There had been a skeleton that I hadn't noticed."

You winced at the thought, you had been caught off guard by skeletons many times. You still get caught off-guard sometimes. It's like they just appear behind you and you have no idea where it came from.

"Right now you probably wouldn't have any issues with that kind of situation, but back then you weren't the person you are now." Speaking in a quiet tone you responded. Phil let out a chuckle

"Yeah, I had panicked as I didn't know who to focus on. My fighting skills weren't as good as they are now either. That did not help the situation at hand." You were on the better side with fighting. Definitely not the best, but you could easily hold your ground against an opponent for quite a long time.

You got lucky and managed to kill somebody who had a netherite axe with your fists. You would have been toast if they were wearing armor, but you are still proud of that one moment. They respawned shortly after the duel between the two of you.

"My focus was shifting between the Creeper and Skeleton. I was moving a lot to avoid the arrows. When one of the arrows shot I heard a strange noise, I turned around for a split second and the Creeper was no longer there. I turned around and finished killing the Skeleton.

When I turned to get a better look at where the creeper was, I noticed something on the ground. It did not look gray and didn't look powdery, so I knew that it wasn't gunpowder. I got curious and walked over to the item and there it was, the cat disc." How would a disc be inside a Creeper?

That's the main question you had from the story. Weren't Creepers made of dynamite? You had saw a Creeper x-ray in a book before, it never showed any disc in the x-ray. Which was probably why most people called it a rumor, it was really hard to get a skeleton to shoot a creeper so it wasn't like people could tell if the rumor was true or not.

Of course some people managed to do it, it wasn't impossible, but they decided to stay silent about if the rumor was true or not. "It's really strange, isn't it?" Your thoughts came running out of your mouth. Phil stayed silent, signaling you to continue.

"The disc and the rumor, how would it be inside a Creeper? Don't the x-rays say that there are no discs inside a Creeper?" The words were rolling out of your mouth. You were genuinely wondering about it.

"This theory may be insane, but it just could be true. The x-rays never showed the inside of the TNT inside the Creeper, mh?" Wait, no no. " You aren't saying that it could be inside the TNT, are you?"

"I am, it would explain why it doesn't show up in the x-ray, and it would also explain why it doesn't drop any other time. When any monster is killed, they seemed to just poof out of existence.

So in that case the disc would disappear with the Creeper, and the reason gunpowder drops is because of the Creeper being hurt and leaking out gunpowder through the wounds. When it explodes it probably explodes the disc with it.

Though an arrow hitting a Creeper pierces through the creeper and it could catch onto the disc. Since the arrows stay and the Creeper disappears, the disc stays as it's attached to the arrow. Though it's strange how it doesn't work when we shoot Creepers.

I could be a mad man talking, but who knows, I don't think anybody has really figured out how it happens." It was an insane theory alright, there are a few unexplained parts that explanation gives, but it can't be debunked either.

"You're probably the only one who can come up with that kind of theory" you smirked to yourself. "Nobody knows why the discs drop, and I don't think it matters if we never figure it out. At least we have the discs in the first place." Philza was keeping in a laugh from coming out of his throat.

"Yeah, and the theory I said was kind of dumb, wasn't it?" You wanted to laugh too. "No offense but, yes, yes it was." Philza started laughing, and you joined in.

It was quite nice talking to Philza, you felt as if you could be yourself. You liked that, with the SBI you felt like you could be whoever you wanted to be and you wouldn't be judged.

You got closer to Philza, and that was always a plus, right?

"Eyyo Phil! We're here!" You immediately recognized Tommy's voice. You turned to look and saw everybody else at the entrance to the kitchen. They started to go around the table and take their seats.

"What took you so long?" You asked. "This child kept us from going down here and made us finish something." Monotonic as always, Techno looked at Tommy with an evil smirk on his face. "I did not! Phil! He's lying!" There's the Tommy I know. It felt nice to be here.

#philza #this was not proofread #philza minecraft #xreader #drabble #kind of a oneshot?#MCYT #DSMP #streamers

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paradisobound · 5 years

Text

Behind Hazel Eyes: Part 3 (Finale)

Summary: Dan’s known Lucas since college and he’s never been so convinced that two people are meant to be together. He loves Lucas more than anything. But when news report of a serial killer striking around the town, Dan begins to notice signs in Lucas that leave him nervous. With the help of his newfound friend Phil, Dan pieces together the parts of Lucas that he somehow missed before anyone else loses their lives–and before Dan loses his own.

Warnings: serial killer, blood mentions, horror, disturbing content.Please heed all warnings

Word Count: 4.4k this part

**READ ON AO3** | **READ PART 1**

This chapter deals with a very rough scene of violence so please heed this warning!

“Did you have a rough night?”

Dan shakes his head at Phil’s gentle voice as he stamps the last book in his stack. They’re all books that have to be sent out to colleges or libraries across the state and Mary had left them for him to do this morning from the night before. He’s stamping the last date in the book and shutting the cover when he finally looks up.

“Why do you ask?” He asks, his voice a bit rough and scratchy.

He hadn’t slept at all the night before. After Lucas left him in the living room, he stayed there, unable to find the will to go into bed. Something felt off and unwelcoming in his apartment. Lucas felt cold, not like himself. When he turned to go back to the bedroom, his shirt rose up and Dan noticed bruises on his lower back.

He spent most of the night in tears because it was pretty obvious why Lucas was acting how he was. He was cheating on Dan. He’d found someone else to be with. It would explain the bruising and the scratches on his back. The disheveled clothing and ruffled hair just added to it. Everything was pointing to that and…

“You’re crying, Dan.”

Dan didn’t realize he was crying. He picked up his hand and wiped the tears from under his eyes and sniffled. He shrugged again, not meaning to seem distant to Phil but the truth was that he was afraid to speak his worries out loud. Because once he does, that makes them infinitely more real.

“Is something going on in your personal life?” Phil asks.

Dan sucks in a breath.

“I think Lucas is cheating on me.”

Phil, who was stood on the other side of the counter, suddenly moved fast around the other side to where Dan was. He pulled up the other office chair next to Dan and sat down. “Is this something you want to talk about?”

Dan shrugs. “I don’t know.” He answers because he really doesn’t know.

“Well, Dan…”

As if on cue, the door to the library opened with a strong push and Dan looked up as the bell rang to see Lucas walking inside. The rain was pouring down just outside the door and he looked drowned. His hair was soaked through and his clothing was sopping wet.

“Lucas?” Dan stands up and rushes past Phil outside of the counter. “Why are you all wet? What are you doing?”

“My car broke down!” Lucas rushed over to Dan. “I had to walk here in the pouring rain. I need your car.”

Dan furrowed his brows. “How did your car break down?”

Lucas had a brand new car, just less than a year old. Dan didn’t understand how it could have broken down. It never had any issues before but anything is possible he supposes.

“If I knew that answer, Dan, I would have fixed it!” Lucas snapped. “Give me your car keys.”

“How am I going to get home?” Dan asks. “I don’t have a ride home.”

“Well, I need to get to campus, Dan! You can worry about getting home once I finish my exams and we can still afford our fucking home!”

Dan recoiled at the words, feeling them like a punch in the gut. The noise of something getting knocked over made Dan jump and he turned around to see Phil standing up, the chair pushed behind him, hitting the back shelf of the counter and knocking a pencil holder over. Phil winces and quickly picks them up and exits the lobby of the library.

“Did you call someone to come and get your car?” Dan asks. “Or is it sat on the side of the road somewhere?”

Lucas rolled his eyes and pushed past Dan, walking towards the back of the library. “Where do you keep your keys? I’m not going to be late because of this bullshit. I have a seminar in 15 minutes.”

Dan brushes past Lucas to his backpack on the other side of the counter and he opens the front pocket and pulls out his car keys. He takes off the key fob and hands it to Lucas and keeps the apartment key on the original ring and shoves it into his pocket. Lucas snatches the car key away from him and doesn’t even say anything more as he rolls his eyes and rushes out of the library into the pouring rain.

Dan stands dumbfounded on the other side of the counter, his body shaking and his mind reeling. He had no idea what had really just happened but a part of him was feeling a bit freaked out by it.

Phil came back out from the back meeting room with a cup of coffee in his hand, sipping it gently and slowly. He looked innocent, almost of if he didn’t want Dan to know he’d seen most of what happened. But Dan knew Phil had seen it, it was impossible not.

It was honestly a good thing that no one ever comes into the library because as the tears came faster and harder down his cheeks, he sat down behind the counter and buried his head into his arms and let them all come out.

Phil volunteered to stay an hour past the time of his shift ending to take Dan back to his apartment. It made him feel like a burden. Phil should have been able to go home to his own apartment and not have to take Dan home because Dan didn’t have his car anymore.

Phil drops him off and Dan offers to give him money for gas but Phil waves it off and just tells Dan that it’s “anything a friend would do”. And although Dan hadn’t known Phil for more than a few days, he does feel like a friendship is forming with Phil and that makes him feel a bit better inside from the shit day he’d had. Phil gives him his cell phone number and tells him to text him if he needs a ride to work the next day since they work the same shift again and Dan just smiles and tells him he’ll let him know.

When Dan rounds the front of the apartment building, his eyes catch on a white key parked directly in front of the doorway. That’s Lucas’s car, a white Subaru Impreza. Dan feels stumped. Why was Lucas’s car at the apartment if it broke down earlier?

He walks around the sides of it, not noticing anything starkly different. He looks inside the drivers side and notices that it’s really really clean. Not that Lucas didn’t keep his car clean before but this looked…spotless. Dan was confused. Did the auto body shop clean his car for him?

He shakes his head and ignores all of the red flags popping up as he fishes out his apartment key and walks inside the building down the hall.

Dan opens the door to their apartment and steps inside, throwing his backpack down in the same place he always put his backpack. He walks into the kitchen and takes care of his lunch that he didn’t even eat and then he heads into the living room to relax.

He falls onto the couch and goes to put his feet up on the coffee table when he notices some more newspaper clippings on the pile from the day before. Dan sits up straighter and leans over, looking at the headlines.

They’re all about the killer again.

Dan feels his heart pick up speed and he picks up the paper. This clipping is about the DNA under the nail of the last victim. He sets it back down and picks up the next one, this one is the police sketch and Dan feels sick.

The sketch looks just like Lucas, down to the way his chin was shaped. Dan feels his breathing hyperventilate and he lets go of the clipping as he hugs his knees tighter to his chest and breathes heavily. He reaches for the remote and turns the TV on, hoping that anything would be on to ease his mind.

It’s the news again.

This time the headline is that another victim has been found, this one is a 25-year-old male and he was found thrown off from a hillside. It was different from the previous victims but the same thing has applied to this one to the other ones. The same markings, the same sexual assault. The same everything.

According to the police, they are saying the assault happened in a vehicle and the victim was thrown out of the car at a high speed. Dan feels bile rise further in his throat and he slams his thumb down on the power button as he rushes into the bathroom and vomits stomach acid into the toilet.

He spends the rest of the night sitting curled up in the living room, refusing to believe what his heart is telling him. There is no way. All of this has to be a coincidence but it can’t be, right?

Lucas doesn’t come home that night. Instead, he comes home really early the next morning and all Dan sees of him is his back as he rushes into the shower. His clothing is ripped and torn. While he’s showering and Dan can hear the water running, he opens the bathroom door a little bit and looks inside to see a heap of torn clothing sitting in dark-colored water in the sink.

And Dan feels sick all over again.

***

Phil picks up Dan for work the next day, mostly because Lucas didn’t give Dan his car keys back and Dan didn’t want to look for them. When he walked out that morning, his old car was sitting next to Lucas’s but he didn’t bother to look at it.

At the library, Dan packages up the next round of books and helps a young girl pick out a new fairy tale. It helps keeps his mind off from everything for a little bit, mostly because every time he does think about it, he feels like he’s going to be sick all over again.

Phil notices his change in demeanor when Dan refuses to eat anything during their lunch break. He sits in the office chair behind the counter and opts for chewing on the end of a pen instead, feeling the plastic give and scratch a bit under his teeth.

“How is everything?” Phil asks him between bites of warmed up soup.

“Not good,” Dan answers. “Lucas is…”

“I don’t think Lucas is who you think he is.”

Dan snaps his head up and feels his body tighten, his muscles straining. “You don’t know him.”

“Dan, you saw how he acted when he came in for your car,” Phil says. “That’s not a sign of a good guy.”

“He’s stressed.”

“Something is wrong with him.”

Dan breaks down and nods. “I know.” He cries. “I know something is wrong with him but I don’t know.”

Phil reaches across the table at Dan and sets his hand comfortingly on Dan’s arm. He rubs gently, moving his hand back and forth and Dan feels warmth under the touch. It does make him feel a bit better, like a parent comforting their child that their scraped knee is not as bad as they think it is.

Dan wipes his eyes with his sleeve and sniffles in. Phil pulls his hand away and pushes his lunch to the other side of the table as he lets out a soft sigh.

“I think Lucas is the Western Valley Serial Killer.”

When the words are out of his mouth, he knows that he can’t take them back. Phil’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open. “Are…are you being serious right now?”

Dan nods his head. “He fits the descriptions, he keeps coming home late. Last night, after you dropped me off, I noticed his car was sitting in the parking lot completely wiped clean. His clothing was torn when he got home last night and he was soaking them in the sink. He has bruises and scratches on his back.”

“Holy shit, Dan!” Phil exclaims. “This is serious. You need to contact the police.”

“And what do I tell them?” Dan asks. “I’m not even sure if…”

“Has he done anything else weird lately?” Phil asks.

Dan nods. “He’s been keeping these clippings of the serial killer from the newspaper on our coffee table. I moved them a bit a few days ago to make them more organized and he lost his shit on me. Told me not to ever touch them. Over a week ago, I turned on the TV to the news and he acted really strange when he saw what was being said.”

“You need to tell all of this to the police, Dan.”

“But what if it’s not? And what if this isn’t what I’m thinking it might be? What if it’s my mind playing tricks?”

Phil shook his head. “I don’t think it’s your mind playing tricks, Dan. You obviously know Lucas better than anyone.”

“I’m scared, Phil.”

It’s the first time Dan has said that. It’s the first time Dan has admitted that he’s genuinely scared of Lucas now. He’s scared of who he is and what he’s become. He’s not the same guy he fell in love with anymore.

“How long is Lucas gone today?” Phil asks.

“Until his seminar ends at quarter to four,” Dan says. “But he’ll come right home.”

“You mentioned seeing those clothes in the sink in your apartment right?” Phil asks and Dan nods. “Do you think Lucas would have done something with them?”

“What do you mean?”

“We should go to your apartment and find the clothes Lucas was soaking. They might be blood-stained.”

Dan feels his heart stutter. “You want to help me?”

“I think he’s really dangerous, Dan,” Phil says. He swallows and then opens his mouth to speak again. “I may not have known you for very long but I think Lucas has the ability to hurt you, even kill you. If you think this is who he is, you need to be safe.”

Dan nods and stands up, pushing his chair out behind him. “Let’s go.”

Phil stands up and they rush out, making a sign to hang on the door to the library saying the library would be back open in an hour. They get into Phil’s car and speed their way to Dan’s apartment.

Lucas isn’t there when Dan opens the door. He and Phil rush inside and Dan immediately runs to the bathroom to look in the sink…it’s sparkling clean. It’s never been this clean. Normally soap and toothpaste stains litter the white porcelain.

He pushes open the shower curtain and the shower is spotless too. Dan feels weird, like the fumes of the bleach are getting to his head as the longer he stands inside, the heavier and heavier they get.

Dan walks out of the bathroom and he sees Phil sitting on the couch, hunched over the pile of newspapers that Dan had told him about. “Did you find anything?”

Phil turns his head, his quiff falling down a bit in front of his glasses. He shakes his head. “No, nothing.”

“Me either. But he’s cleaned the bathroom, like spotless.”

“Are the clothes anywhere?”

“I didn’t see them in the bathroom.”

Dan walks back to the bedroom and begins to dig in their wardrobe, trying to find any sign of clothing that was once badly stained. He doesn’t see anything. He’s searching through the hamper of dirty clothes when he hears the front door open and his heart stops in his throat.

“What are you doing here?”

Fuck. That’s Lucas’s voice.

Dan straightens up quickly and rushes out of the bedroom to see Lucas standing at the door, his messenger bag on his shoulder and his hair neatly done.

“I―I.”

“Phil came back with me to pick up my lunch since I forgot it this morning.”

Lucas nods slowly and Dan knows in his heart that Lucas doesn’t believe him.

“Okay.” Lucas draws out. “Well, anyway, I’m just coming back for a minute to drop off something and then I have to head back out. Here are your car keys.”

Lucas hands Dan his key fob and he stuffs it into his pocket with a fake smile. Lucas leans forward and kisses Dan gently on the lips and Dan has to fight off the feeling of repulsion that sits on his tongue.

Lucas brushes past him and drops off a bag into their bedroom and then he walks back out and smiles at them both and walks out the door. Dan feels uneasy and he and Phil exchange glances as they both rush to the bedroom to see what was in the bag.

Dan opens it and inside is a perfectly washed black shirt, brown leather jacket, and blue jeans. It was the same clothes Dan had seen in the sink.

“These are it,” Dan says, his breath catching in his throat. “These are the clothes that were in the sink last night.”

“Are you sure?”

Dan nods, fighting off tears. “Phil, he cleaned everything. Oh my fucking God, they probably were covered in blood.”

“We need to call the police.”

Dan nods but then stops in his tracks. “We don’t have enough proof, Phil.”

Phil lets out a sigh. “Fuck, you’re probably right.”

Dan nods again and lets out a sigh. He exchanges another glance at Phil and then they both walk out of the bedroom and leave the apartment.

Dan remembers he still has his car keys in his pocket when he closes the door to the building. But he can’t be assed to take them back. He’s walking over to Phil’s car when he notices his own is sitting just a few cars down. He motions to it with Phil and Phil nods as they walk over and Dan unlocks the doors.

They open and the doors and fuck, his car is just as spotless as Lucas’s. What the fuck? He feels uneasy. His seats are steamed clean and his floor is spotless of any dirt. Even the outside is wiped and polished.

“Something very wrong.”

Phil looks at him and Dan bites his lip.

It’s raining when their shift ends at the library. Phil drops Dan back off at his apartment and when Dan walks inside, Lucas is gone and so is all of the newspaper clippings that were once on the coffee table. His keys are also gone from the keyring by the door.

He walked into their bedroom and the clothing in the bag was gone too. Everything felt wrong, felt weird.

Dan felt uneasy.

He moved to the living room and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, changing the channel before the news could even load.

He eventually falls asleep, the sleep deprivation of not getting the rest the last few nights finally catching up.

***

When Dan wakes up, it’s to a cold blade pressed against his neck. His eyes snap open and comes face to face with the same dark eyes he used to fall in love with.

The blade is pressed so close to his skin that Dan feels like just breathing will cause the blade to sink into his skin.

“When did you find out?” Lucas growls out.

His eyes are so dark, near black. His lip is curled into a smirk and his hair is tossed around, unkept. He has blood on his neck, splattered down his chest.

“Hhng.”

“Don’t play hard to get, Dan. I know you know about me.”

The blade is suddenly gone and Dan chokes out a sob. “Lucas, please!”

Lucas shook his head. “You were never supposed to find out about me.”

“Lucas…”

“You were never supposed to know who I was and what I’ve done.”

Suddenly hands are wrapped around his throat, the blade from the knife thrown off the side. Dan turns his head to the side just as Lucas begins to squeeze down and Dan’s hands come up to try and pry his hands from his throat.

“It’s a shame you found out,” Lucas says, pressing harder. “I didn’t expect you to know. I thought I would go down in history for being the only serial killer to get away from the police. In fact, that was my plan. After studying so many cases, I’ve realized that most killers fuck up and I was going to see how hard it really was.”

He presses down a bit firmer and Dan feels himself begin to gasp for air.

“The first girl was exhilarating. I wasn’t aware that anything could ever feel that good as being able to take what you from someone else. Seeing the life fade away from another person was addicting. I couldn’t stop.”

Dan fights back, trying to kick and buck his legs but Lucas’s weight is sat down on top of him, holding him down on the couch.

His vision is fading in and out and his head is struggling to hold up. His hand goes lax and he tries to fight but the can’t anymore. Lucas is too strong. Dan turns his head and looks down at the knife just laying there on the floor. If only he could reach it, this entire thing would be over in seconds. His arm flops down and just as his vision blacks out, the door bursts open.

He forces his eyes open and he sees a bloodied hand grabbing the knife and then a warm spray is covering his face and his body and the hands around his neck are gone. As he begins to suck in more air, his eyes open and he sees Lucas, sitting on the floor with a knife sticking out of the side of his neck.

Dan’s body feels like jello and he manages to scream out from his bruised throat just as another person is sitting beside him, rubbing their hand over the side of his face. He opens his eyes and looks to see who is there and its Phil. He’s bloodied, his stomach has a patch of blood in the front. His lip is split and his hair matted with blood.

“I was on my way to tell you that I found more information on Lucas when he attacked me right outside in my car. I passed out and when I woke up, he was already gone. I called the police and they’re here now, they’re coming up. It’s over, Dan.”

Just as Phil spoke up, the police barged in with EMT’s and Dan lost his fight with consciousness.

***

When Dan woke up again, he was in a hospital room, the sounds of the machine beeping next to him. He tried to turn his head towards the noise but his head couldn’t move and his throat was aching.

Next to him was a nurse, feeding the rest of whatever was in her syringe into his IV in his arm. “It’s okay darling, we’re just waking you up now. You’ll feel a bit cloudy but I’ll get you some water, okay?”

Dan opened and closed his eyes a few times as he fought to want to fall back into his sleep. When he opened them a bit more the second time, he saw a police officer sitting beside the bed in a chair and Phil sat in the one next to them. His arm was in a sling and his lip was stitched up but he looked a lot better than the last time Dan had seen him.

“When you’re fully awake, Dan,” The police officer says. “We will need a statement from you of all you can remember from the events of last night, okay?”

Dan doesn’t actually end up giving a statement to the police officer until later that day when the brace holding his neck was gone. He suffered heavy bruising on his throat from Lucas’s hands and they said it would be a while for him to be able to consume solid food. Right now they suggested just liquids.

Phil had gotten some stitches but he was a lot better than Dan had thought he was going to be. He had apparently been released from the hospital the night before but due to the heavy bruising on Dan’s throat, they kept him overnight for observation. But Phil hadn’t left. He had waited for Dan to wake up.

Lucas had miraculously survived despite the fact that Phil had put a knife in his throat. He was being held in the hospital under heavy police observation and then he was being transported to police custody to wait for his charges.

The DNA had come back that Lucas had been the DNA on the victims nails that they had found and when Dan found out that information, he cried until his tears dried out.

Dan never went back to the apartment he shared with Lucas, not even after they had cleaned everything out of it and the police had searched it and found mounds of evidence, all that Dan was scared of being evidence.

Afraid to live alone, Dan moved in with Phil until he got back on his feet but what started as just a couple month ordeal ended up being permanent when Dan realized that Phil was who he felt safe with and took comfort in after the traumatic situation they had both been through.

It took a long time for Dan to ever feel like he could trust another person, even Phil. The toll that Lucas had put on him left Dan feeling vulnerable and unsure of who to take comfort in. But Phil always stuck by his side, and Phil will always stick by his side.

The day Lucas went in front of the jury, Dan was called to testify and he did. And with the help of his testimony, Lucas was charged on 4 counts of first degree murder and 2 counts of attempted murder and was given 6 life sentences. He’ll never see the daylight again.

Lucas sent Dan a letter from prison nearly ten years later but Dan never looked at it. He had Phil rip it up and throw it away. He wanted to live his life free of Lucas now, and the memory of who he was and what he had done. And when Dan wrote and published a book on his experiences, he donated all of his royalties to the families of the victims of Lucas.

Life didn’t get any easier but with time, Dan knows it can.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #smut #fluff #angst #princesslexi763fics #serial killers tw #tw serial killers

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itsmyusualphannie · 5 years

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you had me at hydrangea

Chapter 3/6 - aloe you vera much

“I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands.” ― Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels

a phan flower shop/video editor au

(read on ao3) - start from the beginning!

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~~~

Dan missed Phil, ridiculously. It’d been a total of seven days since Phil had stopped by the flower shop. Logically, Dan knew that he was probably just busy with the project he was working on, but Phil had left the shop early last Thursday, presumably to pack for his trip to see his parents, and he hadn’t even come on Monday. Although Phil came in only on Mondays half of the time, he almost always showed up on Thursdays around two o’clock. It was Thursday again, almost 3 in the afternoon, and Phil was late.

Dan had to force himself not to stare at the door. It was torture.

“You know, you could help!” Louise said from the back room.

Dan did not want to help. In fact, he was disgruntled that Louise was even here today. He had specifically told her soon after Phil had started coming by that she was to leave as soon as her shift ended at noon on Thursdays, but apparently a shipment had arrived late today and she had to be here. Dan was sure that she just wanted to watch him try to talk to Phil.

“Dan!” called Louise, with a firm tone.

Sighing very heavily, Dan heaved himself off the stool and went into the back. Louise was clutching a handful of ribbon spools and a heap of disorganized flowers. She looked relieved upon seeing him.

“Good,” she said, thrusting the flowers at him. “Go sort these into the bins. I accidentally dropped them.”

Dan sighed again, very put upon, but took them. He trudged into the front room, beginning to separate the flowers and drop them into the correct cases. Louise followed him, trying to untangle one of the ribbons.

“So…” she started brightly, “when will Phil be here?”

Dan scowled at the hydrangeas. “He’s usually here by two.”

“Oh,” Louise said, sounding disappointed. “He’s late. Do you think he’s coming?”

“I don’t know.” Dan moved to another bin and Louise trailed behind him. “You need to ask him out,” she encouraged.

Dan rolled his eyes, though he had his back to Louise and she couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to talk about Phil, but Louise was persistent.

“Coffee,” she suggested. Her hands moved rapidly over the tangled ribbon. Dan could see the movements over his shoulder and he was reluctantly impressed by her ability to unknot things. It probably came with having two daughters that loved getting things tangled up.

“He brings coffee,” said Dan. “Every time. Either from his home or the coffee shop down the block.”

“Get his number,” Louise said firmly.

“Ugh,” said Dan in reply. His handful of various flowers was almost halfway sorted and he wanted out of this conversation. The hanging ivy pot above him had been overwatered and it dripped onto his shoes as he fit a pair of tulips into their proper container.

“Invite him to your piano recital next month!” said Louise, suddenly excited.

Dan felt bleak at even the mention of his recital. “God, no,” he said. “I haven’t even gotten my last piece finished yet. And stop reminding me about that.”

Louise patted his shoulder sympathetically. She had to reach up very far to do so, but didn’t seem to mind the effort. “You’ll do great,” she assured him. “You have a few more weeks to finish it and practice.”

Dan crammed the last bunch of daisies into their bin. “Yeah,” he agreed. He wasn’t going to tell her that he hadn’t even started it. “When are you leaving?”

Louise would probably have been insulted if she wasn’t used to Dan’s bluntness by now. She just poked Dan in the side as a reprimand and said, “Probably in a few minutes. I’ve gotten most of it unpacked.”

“If he comes in while you’re here,” Dan told her, “do not speak to him. At all.”

She was smiling. “Okay, Dan.”

“No, really,” he insisted. “Don’t.”

“I said okay.” Louise patted him again, her eyes scrunched with the effort not to laugh loudly at him. She headed to the back again and Dan stared after her in frustration. Sometimes, he wondered why he even worked here. If they hadn’t been friends and she hadn’t needed to spend more time with her daughters, he would never have accepted her job offer. He didn’t fit in here. It was too...bright.

The ivy pot dripped onto his head.

“Fuck off,” Dan told it. He went back to the counter and dropped onto his seat again. Louise hadn’t told him to follow her, after all. He glared at the sheets and sheets of scrawled notes and music across the counter. They were awful. Nothing seemed to come out right, and he wanted to just shred everything and start all over again. He wanted Phil to be here and cast secretive looks at the papers so Dan could maybe, this time, have the courage to tell him what he was writing. He wanted...he wanted a lot.

He wanted Phil to ask him out.

But it had gone so awkwardly that first time he thought Phil was going to ask him out, technically the second time that they had met, that Dan had been too afraid to bring it up. It had been almost three months ago, a few minutes after Dan arrived to take the shift from Louise and the second time Phil had ever come in.

Dan hadn’t realized Phil had been in the shop until he’d held out a handful of tulips for Dan to ring up. Dan had been leaning over his sheet music, angrily scribbling over the last twelve horrible notes he’d written, when the bright yellow tulips were thrust under his nose. He’d almost fallen backwards off the stool and had flailed, grabbing Phil’s outstretched arm to regain his balance.

“Fuck,” Dan had said, hastily correcting his balance and releasing Phil’s arm. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Phil had smiled at him, but it hadn’t been a mean smile, and Dan had liked it instantly. “Are you okay?”

Dan had mumbled assent and clambered to his feet, ringing up the purchase. He’d snuck little glances at Phil, almost in disbelief that such a beautiful man had come back to this little hole-in-the-wall shop. He could barely remember the first time that Phil had come in, about three weeks ago. “It’s been a while,” he’d said, handing the flowers and Phil’s change back to him, then felt sheepish that he had said it.

“You remembered!” Phil had said. He looked thrilled. “Yes, I...I’ve been busy. But I wanted to see you again.”

“You did?” Dan had felt that annoying little patch on his cheek starting to burn.

But Phil had been blushing too. “I...yeah. I, actually, I wanted to ask you if -”

The front door had blasted open, interrupting Phil, and he’d taken a hasty step back from the counter. Louise had swept in, her blonde curls flying. She’d rushed past Dan and into the back, then emerged seconds later.

“Forgot my phone,” she’d said to Dan. She hadn’t noticed Phil, whose bright orange shirt matched the case of garish marigolds behind him, but she reached up to fix the twisted collar of Dan’s t-shirt.

He’d leaned a little toward her, barely sparing her a glance. He hadn’t wanted to look away from Phil, who had gone quiet and unobtrusive. “You’re useless,” Dan had told her, but she’d just laughed and stood on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“See you tonight, darling.” She’d left immediately after that, and Dan was left alone again with Phil. He had been irritated that Louise had reminded him of her friend’s wedding that she’d convinced him to play for tonight. He didn’t want to think about it until it was actually happening. Generally, he never wanted to think about things until they were upon him.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Dan had said to Phil, trying to forget what Louise had mentioned. He’d hoped desperately that Phil would ask him out. Ask him anywhere.

“Oh,” Phil had managed, glancing after the door that was still inching its way shut. “I just...wanted to ask you. Where you got that shirt.”

Dan had glanced down at the plain black t-shirt that he wore. “Um. Primark? I think.”

“Cool!” Phil had shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Okay. I’ll...see you later, then. Bye!” He’d left the shop in a flustered rush and Dan had been left standing awkwardly alone.

Dan had felt ridiculously self-conscious and uneasy after the encounter, but it had faded by the next time Phil came in, exactly a week later. Phil had never asked him out, though, and Dan certainly wasn’t going to mention anything. Then Phil had started coming every week, sometimes twice a week, and every time he stepped through the door with his bright smile and stupid face, Dan’s hopes of being asked out were renewed. Maybe today would be the day...if Phil ever actually got here.

“Daniel!” Louise was bellowing, and Dan’s head snapped around. He didn’t realize that he had been off in his own head, but from the tone of Louise’s voice, she had called for him a few times already.

“What?” he yelled back at her.

“What’s wrong with the speaker?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you about it like ten times already. It hasn’t been working for almost four months, so I put it in the back.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Louise. “I guess I should replace it.”

She’d said that about five times already.

“You should,” Dan agreed. “It’s sad in here with no music playing.”

Louise came out of the back room, typing away on her phone. “I’m adding it to my shopping list,” she announced. “I’m sure the flowers will appreciate it.”

Dan sighed and leaned against the counter, his back to the door. The sheet music slipped under his elbows and he barely managed to retain his balance on the narrow stool. “I don’t think they’ll care. Most of them are clipped and dead anyway.”

Louise pointed a long finger at him, her pink nail accusing. “Don’t say that,” she ordered. “They’ll hear you.”

“You sound like Phil,” Dan said, smiling fondly at the thought without intending to do so.

Louise caught the expression and her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t ask him out,” she said, still pointing, “then I’m going to.”

“He’d be a good dad,” Dan told her.

“I bet he would,” she said, tone laced with sarcasm, “and I’m sure that means a very different thing to you than it does to me, who has actual kids.”

Dan was offended at her insinuation. “I do not have a daddy kink!” he insisted.

That, of course, was when he realized that the door to the shop had been opened. Louise’s eyes widened with glee and Dan cringed so hard he thought his head might retreat into his neck.

Please don’t be Phil, he thought wretchedly. He turned his head ever-so-slowly.

It was Phil.

Louise cackled from behind Dan.

“Hi,” said Phil. He was smiling.

Dan wanted to throw himself into the bin under the counter to join his crumpled attempts at sheet music. “Hhhhh,” was all he could get out.

Louise emerged from Dan’s shadow and out past the counter. “Hello!” she said to Phil. “I’m not allowed to speak to you. Goodbye!”

“I actually fucking hate you,” Dan said, but he hadn’t actually said it. He had thought it very intensely at Louise. She almost certainly received the message, with the ferocity of Dan’s glare, but she only waved cheerfully at them both and then left.

Dan closed his eyes, very briefly. “Can we pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Sure,” Phil agreed amiably. The amusement was clear in his voice.

Dan opened his eyes but couldn’t bring himself to meet Phil’s gaze. He noticed the lack of a computer bag on Phil’s shoulder. “Not staying?” he forced himself to say, instead of wallowing in his mortification.

“Oh, no, unfortunately,” Phil said. He looked disappointed upon saying it. “I have a meeting with my supervisor, actually. It’ll be terrifying. I wanted to stop by and get some flowers for him.”

Dan thought that it was a strange thing to get for one’s boss, but who was he to judge? He had never gotten gifts for Louise or his talent manager. Maybe that’s why he was a terrible employee.

“Okay,” he said. “What did you want to get?”

Phil looked at him, a pleading smile on his lips. “I dunno. What do you think I should get? What bouquet do you think could imply ‘sorry for being slow at my job and I promise I’ll get this one in on time’?”

Dan gave him an unamused stare. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t know anything about flowers and their meanings? And I don’t think there are any that will give quite that...specific…of a message.”

Phil moved closer and it was only then that Dan really paid attention to the thick-rimmed glasses he was wearing, matching the black stripes on his tight button-up shirt. His sleeves were too short, and his jaw was bristly with an afternoon shadow. He looked fucking hot. Dan wanted to punch him, maybe. It should be illegal to go out in public looking like that.

“Fine,” Dan said, instead of just staring at Phil’s bare arms. He yanked out his phone and glowered at the black screen, which unapologetically reflected the deep bags under his own eyes and his uncontrollably messy hair. He felt hideous compared to Phil. “I’ll look up ‘flowers for a boss.’”

“Thanks!” Phil said brightly, as if he didn’t have his own phone and search engine that he could use to look it up.

Dan thought that Phil was probably a sadist. There was no way he didn’t know what he looked like and the effect he would have on anyone nearby that had good eyeballs and a healthy sex drive. Dan pressed his phone screen a little too hard as he typed in ‘how to make someone ask you out,’ then hastily deleted it and asked Google ‘what are good flowers for a boss.’ Google confidently informed him that there were many excellent choices and gave him a list.

“Carnations,” Dan told Phil after briefly perusing the options. “Light red ones. They express admiration or whatever. And they go well with baby’s breath.”

Phil’s glasses made his eyes seem impossibly bluer than they usually were. “That sounds great!” he said.

Dan regretted that the filler flowers and the carnations were all in the racks behind him. If they hadn’t, maybe he could get closer to Phil and get an unobtrusive, closer sniff of the cologne he could smell from here. That wasn’t creepy at all, he tried to convince himself. He turned to pull down a generous handful of baby’s breath and added them to a pre-arranged bouquet of pale red carnations, then wrapped and bagged them. Phil had moved right up against the counter, his long fingers resting against the edge of it.

“Here you are.” Dan offered the flowers and Phil traded them for a credit card. As Dan rung up the purchase, he could see Phil poking at the bobble-head Luigi by the till.

“Is this yours?” Phil asked.

“Do you like Mario Kart?” Dan asked in reply.

“I love it!” said Phil. Luigi wobbled under his prodding finger.

“So do I,” Dan said, incredibly pleased for no reason that he could identify. “But I almost never play it.”

“Neither do I,” Phil admitted. “It’s no fun playing by myself, and my brother doesn’t visit very often.”

Dan didn’t know whether to feel better that Phil also had no friends that played Mario Kart or ridiculous for wanting to admit that he didn’t either. He handed Phil’s card back. “That’s sad,” was all he could think of to say.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. He put the card away and just stood there for a very long moment, clearly musing something over. A finger came up to rub hesitantly at his lower lip and Dan couldn’t tear his gaze away from the movement. “Do you…” Phil began, tentatively, “well, this is probably weird, but...do you want to come over sometime and play with me?”

Dan thought hysterically for a second that ‘play’ meant something very different, and then it struck him. Phil was inviting him over. “Yes!” he said, probably too desperately.

Phil looked exuberant. “Really? I mean...great!”

“Great,” Dan echoed, his stomach twisting in excitement.

“Great!” Phil said again. His eyes behind the glasses were brilliant with delight. “I’ll...maybe Sunday?”

“Yes,” Dan said.

The bag crunched under Phil’s grip. “I’ll text you the address to my flat!” he said. “It’s not very far from here. Do you like pizza?”

That was a ridiculous question. “Of course I do,” said Dan. “Who doesn’t?”

“We’ll have pizza and Mario Kart, then.” Phil’s fingers were tight around the bag of flowers.

Dan couldn’t look away from him. He was aware that he was grinning ridiculously at Phil, but Phil had the same wide smile, so Dan didn’t feel self-conscious about it. “That sounds perfect,” he told Phil. He wondered feebly if it would count as a date. It felt like it might.

“Okay. Good. Great.” Phil took a step backwards toward the door. “I’ll see you then!”

Dan waved, an awkward flap of his hand, but Phil’s delighted expression didn’t waver as he left the shop. “Bye!”

A few seconds passed and Dan had to catch his breath from the suddenness of everything that had just happened. He felt breathless and giddy with disbelief. He needed to tell Louise. Grabbing his phone from where he’d dropped it, he typed out an urgent message to Louise. ‘invited to phls flat snday not a drill’

His phone rang approximately two and a half seconds later. Louise’s tone was shrill on the other end. “What?” she demanded. “What happened? Tell me everything!”

Dan hunched over the counter, his voice high with the excitement of it. “Phil! The Luigi bobblehead! He asked me to play Mario Kart at his flat! With pizza!”

At this point in their friendship, Louise could easily decipher his gibberish sentences. “So it’s a date?” she screeched.

“I mean, sort of,” his words stumbled over each other, “maybe? To be determined, I think.”

“If you get laid, you owe me,” she said, ecstatic.

“Louise!” he said in reproval, but he was too exhilarated to be bothered by her crudeness. Music notes had begun to spin and dance through his mind, spurned by his mood, and he ached to get them down before they left him. “I have to go,” he told her.

“But you haven’t told me what he said!” she complained.

“I have to write,” he said and promptly hung up on her. His phone chimed with message notifications almost instantly, but he’d already abandoned his phone to snatch up the pencil. It flew across the ledger lines as he urgently scrawled the notes that flew through his mind.

“Um, hi again,” said Phil, and Dan almost threw the pencil.

“Sorry,” said Phil, the apologetic laughter clear in his expression as Dan’s head flew up in fright and his gaze found the figure by the door.

“I fucking hate you,” Dan said. He was lucky he hadn’t been sitting on the stool or he definitely would have fallen to the floor with the adrenaline that had coursed through him at the unexpected voice. He hoped Phil hadn’t been standing there long enough to hear him babbling at Louise.

“I said I’d text you,” said Phil, “but I don’t have your number.” He raised the phone in his hand, face contrite. The bagged bouquet was limp in his other hand.

Dan finally was able to breathe and he shoved his phone across the counter, fingers of his other hand still clenched around the pencil with the intensity of his writing. “Send yourself a message with it.” He realized his mistake the instant Phil picked up his phone, and his mouth dropped open in sudden terror, but Phil apparently hadn’t read Louise’s rapidly-appearing messages, as his expression remained consistently neutral while he typed away at the phone. He handed it back a few moments later, his own phone vibrating with the notification. “Thanks. Sorry again for scaring you.”

“You didn’t - I wasn’t.” Dan tried to glower at him, but the effect was ruined by the thrill of his anticipation. “I don’t even like you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Phil grinned, waving his phone with the message that he had received from Dan’s phone. “Okay. Bye for real. I’m going to be late.”

“Bye,” said Dan, watching him go this time.

He very much appreciated the tight jeans Phil wore.

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#phan #phanfiction #phanfic au #flower shop au #pining #fluff #au #third chapter #this is completed #you had me at hydrangea

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jamiebamberdaily · 6 years

Text

Strike Back Trailer Breakdown

The long awaited trailer for the next season of Strike Back finally arrived on Friday 21st December 2018, and it gave us a first look at Jamie's character, and the new Section 20 commanding officer, Colonel Alexander Coltrane.

We don't see much of Alex, but with what we have seen, we found ourselves speculating a lot already about the Colonel.

But how much can two girls try and decipher from a 90 second trailer? Well, as it turns out, a hell of a lot...

Meeting Alex

The first time we meet Alex in the trailer is him addressing the team on their mission, however, later we see him meeting the team of Mac, Wyatt and Novin, on a rooftop and given the severity of their mission, it must be urgent for him to wait for them. So we assume that on the rooftop is the group’s first meeting with their new commanding officer.

Alex in trouble?

We could be jumping the gun on this one, but at one point in the trailer, we see someone in the background of a scene; someone, that to us looks very much like Alex, is being dragged away by two men.

It's hard to say whether it is him, but the clothing looks very similar to an outfit we happen to know he wears at some point during the series.

Guns, guns, guns

At least twice in the trailer, we see Alex with two different types of guns.

One being a pistol, likely a SIG or a Glock, as they tend to be military issue guns, the other being a larger assualt rifle that we see very briefly after he blows something up.

Bomb past?

One thing that stood out for us was him mainly being in charge of the bombs in the trailer and we immediately wondered if he was possibly a bomb expert whilst in the army. We already know he's a veteran with a lot of experience so given the fact he delicately puts a bomb on a petrol can and then detonates a bomb, it could well be a credible theory.

“I've taken us off books.”

We think Alex is a bit of a rebel. To feel he has to take the team off the books at some point in the mission must mean he's taken them down a path that is a little unorthodox; but we're sure it's for the best of the team.

The thing that stuck out to us at this moment was his use of the word “us”. The difference we feel between him and Adeena (the teams last CO) is the fact that to us, it feels already like he's working with the team, and not just ordering them around. With Donovan, she used the team for her own good, getting the team to take out Lowry to protect her personal secret. Alex doesn't seem to have a personal connection to the people behind this case, which means that he doesn't need to protect himself and he can work as the leader, the veteran.

Alex and Chetri

Not only do we get our first glimpse of him, we're also treated to meeting his new Communications Officer – the role previously occupied by Will Jensen (played by Phil Dunster) – Lance Corporal Manisha Chetri as portrayed by actress Varada Sethu.

Already, we feel their relationship is a close one, trust is definitely there but it'll be very interesting to see how they came to work together and how the relationship already is and how it progresses.

As much as Alex is all we've really payed attention to - I mean, we are a Bamber fanpage after all, we felt it was worth picking up on a few other points in the trailer.

Wyatt suspended?

It seems that at some stage between the first clip of the trailer, and the second clip Wyatt finds himself suspended.

We see Wyatt taking charge of some recruits and Mac and Novin arrive in one of the army trucks. Considering Mac and Novin seem to know what's going on when they go to see Wyatt, it feels that he must've taken something a step further and landed himself a temporary suspension (as Mac informs him it has been lifted) from the Section.

International Incident

Chetri mentions that if they're “discovered” then it's an “international incident.” It intrigues us about what they as a team are up to. We get that Section 20 is the kind of group that takes things further than most, but to potentially cause an international incident doesn't sound too good.

Chetri In Danger

A very brief moment of the trailer shows Chetri being grabbed from behind. We hope nothing bad happens to her, though we have faith the team will get to her quickly if she is pulled into things too far.

Katrina Zarkova

Another main character of the series is disavowed Russian agent, Katrina Zarkova played by actress, Yasemin Kay Allen. We hear her speak over a part of the trailer, and two clips of her character in action.

Our Theories

We could be here for hours speculating on a one minute, forty five second trailer and believe us, we have. So there's a lot we feel and can hope for in the upcoming series of Strike Back in regards to Jamie’s character.

Alex’s Background

Broken

If you think about how the current team, Mac and Wyatt (implied) had some kind of trouble with their former units. You don’t become a part of this team without being a little special. Alex is a veteran, we know that so he would want to be able to be a part of team that he can keep in line but judging by the trailer, he is heavily involved in teamwork so wants to still show his worth as someone who wants to fight for his country.

He’ll need the team, and after Donovan, the team will need him. Donovan knew that Idrisi and Lowry were the target so restarted the Section purely so she could get a team of highly trained officers to take her down because of their past. She barely had any fieldwork, only when she believed that she knew where she was, and instead forced the team to do the majority of the dirty work.

We feel Alex will be the opposite, he may be hiding little bits about his past, which will be understandable, but it’ll be nothing like Donovan, it will have no connection to the case; if there is something to hide. She demanded respect, probably because she felt she put the team back together, and gave them a chance to show what they are capable of. We don’t believe Alex to be like that; he won’t demand or want respect, we feel that something likely happened in his past that will mean he feels he doesn’t deserve it and instead has to earn it.

Bomb Past

We said earlier that we still have a little inkling that maybe bombs was a heavy part of his past. He seems to be quite involved in setting and detonating them. Last series, we didn’t see bombs being set quite so much, but Alex seems to know what he’s doing with them. We think it’ll be great to have that sort of part of him.

Outside Bet

We couldn’t help but think of the possibility of PTSD. We could be just wishing for this because we know that Jamie would take such a story line and smash it to pieces with his talent. As a Veteran, he would’ve seen so much, so who knows what he has witnessed in his career.

It’s a long shot, but not one to rule out.

Team Dynamics

One Of The Team

If you look at the promo, he is forefront, and already looks like he has come in, and immediately taken charge. He has fieldwork, as does Chetri, and though he’s a veteran, I don’t think he’s ready to leave that behind just yet.

He sees the team as just that, a team; he doesn’t set himself aside from that, he doesn’t see them as the team, and he as the commander. Alex sees himself as part of one team, a team of equals.

Lance Corporal Manisha Chetri

We already feel that he has brought her along. Perhaps they were in the same unit and he saw her potential. There’s already trust there, a lot of it and you don’t build that sort of trust and belief in each other after a few days or weeks, it could take months, maybe even years.

Alex doesn’t demand or want respect because he feels he doesn’t deserve it, but Chetri will believe in him more than he probably will believe in himself. If things go wrong, she will take just as much, if not more of the blame than he will, because she will defend him and the team to the ends of the earth. Not that he will agree with that.

The team will have lost a lot of trust after Donovan, so Chetri could potentially be the one to keep the team together, telling them that they need to trust him because he needs that trust and belief otherwise he might break.

Basically, we already love Chetri, Alex won’t want no one else alongside him in that Crib doing what she does, and neither do we.

The Section

We believe that out of all the team we met in the last series, Mac will be the most trusting towards a new CO. Wyatt has serious issues with authority as we saw when we first met him in the last series and he will find it difficult to want another CO after last time. After what happened with Jensen, Gracie will have trust issues after what Adeena did to him and we think she’ll be reluctant to want to trust Alex either but she likely will much quicker than Wyatt will.

Mac will likely trust Alex quicker than all of them and will need to be he one to prove to Novin and particularly Wyatt that Alex is the type of CO they need. He’ll identify with Alex (maybe because they’re both British and would know their army well), they could potentially have similar backstories that they’ll end up bonding over.

The Colonel will likely want Mac by his side more than Wyatt, at least at the beginning as we think he’ll be reluctant to take anyone who doesn’t trust him so will take Mac instead. They’ll be in such sync with each other and will instantly know what each of their next moves are.

With Dan (MacPherson) already confirming that Wyatt’s past will be explored further this season, could be the key to their trust, whatever happened. Alex will either know already or something will trigger the need for a conversation.

Novin is a smart cookie and will soon realise that Alex is the right man for the job - maybe she or one of the other team members will have heard his name mentioned before - and though she likely won’t trust him straight away, we think she will grow to trust him just as much as Mac instantly will. After what happened to Jensen, she’ll have this instinct to protect Chetri, because she wouldn’t be able to face it happening again. They’ll get close, like best friends or sisters and she’ll feel this need to protect her more than the others!

Katrina Zarkova

Though she’s barely seen in the trailer, we can speculate a little on what to expect in terms of how she fits in with the team. Judging by the synopsis of the series, she’s not one to be immediately trusted, but giving her Russian connection, Katrina could end up being the only lead the team have.

We think that some tense fireworks will definitely explode between her and Gracie and they will be some fantastic scenes to look out for.

DISCLAIMER: In the unlikely event that Alex ends up being the complete opposite to what we have imagined then it’s worth saying that the writers should prepare for riots. (Joking! OK, maybe half joking...)

#Jamie Bamber #Strike Back

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zrtranscripts · 6 years

Text

Radio Abel, Season Five

Part 2 of 3

This section contains clips that take place after S5M8, “Liar Liar,” M10, “Wrong Song,” and M20, “Stay Alive.” This information is indicated before each set of clips by a note in italics.

(the following clips take place after S5M8)

[static]

ZOE CRICK: It's on.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: We're transmitting?

ZOE CRICK: Yeah.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: You're sure?

ZOE CRICK: We're in a van in a field somewhere I can't say, with equipment cobbled together from Dixons, and the entire government of the country after us, so we can't stay in any one place for more than half an hour. So no, I'm not sure. There's maybe a 23% chance that we are, right now, transmitting.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Okay, good enough. Good morning, ci-ti-zens! You're listening to Radio Free Abel, fearlessly bringing you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! We'll be back to tell you how and why after this song.

ZOE CRICK: So we're still going to play music? Even though we've got half an hour in this location? How much time for the truth will that leave us?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Zoe, no one's going to listen if we don't play some good tunes.

ZOE CRICK: They might. I mean, they might just listen to us.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, it's always possible. Let's just play it safe, eh? We'll be back after this next song!

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And we're back. You're listening to Radio Free Abel, telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

ZOE CRICK: Are you going to say that every time?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: It's important.

ZOE CRICK: But isn't it a bit like saying "no offense" before you say something, when that 100% guarantees the next thing to come out of your mouth is going to be super offensive?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Zoe, do you not actually want our listeners to believe us?

ZOE CRICK: No, I do. Of course I do. I definitely want them to believe me when I say that I love cats in a totally proportional and reasonable way, despite what certain people might have insinuated.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, but that actually is a lie.

ZOE CRICK: Okay! I know we've both accused each other of lying, but that's just like, reverse psychology or something. No, you know what? Why don't you listen to a song, yeah? I think listening to some music might be a very good idea at this point.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And we're back. This is Radio Free Abel, telling you the things your government doesn't want you to hear.

ZOE CRICK: Okay, this is... this is true, and it's important. For anyone who's listening, anyone at all, we want you to know that no one is helping us. No one's harboring us, or giving us food, or any assistance at all. Everything we're doing and saying – that's just on us.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And no one knows where we are. We um, we left some people behind, and some of them are children, and they're safe and happy, and they've got no way to get in touch with us, and we've got no way to get in touch with them.

ZOE CRICK: So blame us if you don't like what we're saying. Punish us. But you'll have to catch us first.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I think that's our cue to move on. We'll be back as soon as we can. In the meantime, here's a little song that always makes me think of those dishonest sods at the Ministry of Recovery.

[static]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Hello, citizens! Radio Free Abel is back on your airwaves!

ZOE CRICK: And today, we're going to play a little game of True or False. I'm going to say something some of you may have heard about Abel, and Phil will tell you if it's true, or false. You know, hence the name True or False.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, I think they probably got that.

ZOE CRICK: Okay. So, to begin. Abel was responsible for the zombie apocalypse: true or false?

[buzzer buzzes]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Nope. They were working just as hard as they could to cure it, but it was the Minister of Recovery herself, Sigrid Hakkinen, who deliberately created and then released the zombie plague. And Abel have evidence to prove it.

ZOE CRICK: Only they can't show anyone the evidence because the Ministry's stolen most of it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [laughs] We sound like conspiracy nuts, don't we? The Minister started the zombie plague, and also the moon landings are faked, and 9/11 was an inside job.

ZOE CRICK: Yeah, well, you know what, listeners? You don't have to believe us about the Minister. But then, you shouldn't believe the Minister about Abel, either. Because that's just another bogus conspiracy theory.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And sticking to our theme, this next song is Zoe's favorite karaoke number. True or false?

ZOE CRICK: Abel radio operator Sam Yao is unhealthily obsessed with rubbish kid's TV of the 1970s that he used to watch on YouTube. True or false?

[bell dings]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, no, that one's totally true, I'm afraid.

ZOE CRICK: I mean, really, really obsessed. Like, can name every episode of Ace of Wands in order, even the deleted ones, and sing the theme tune.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: To be fair, so can you.

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] But uh, I'm doing it ironically.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Mm. Anyway, don't even get him started talking about Jimmy's Jaunts.

ZOE CRICK: Not unless you've got a couple of hours to spare.

ZOE CRICK: Janine De Luca was a power-mad homocidal maniac. True or false?

[buzzer buzzes]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: It's false! It's so false, it's almost coming out the other end being true again!

ZOE CRICK: Except it hasn't. It's a big fat lie, and it's... Janine was a good person! It really gets my goat, the stuff they're saying about her! If I had a goat, which I don't – where did that expression come from, anyway? I mean, what's so bad about getting someone's goat? Maybe you just want to milk it for them, or you know, pet it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I think we're wandering a bit off the point, Zo.

ZOE CRICK: What? Oh, yeah. The point is, Janine De Luca was a hero.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Ask anyone who knew her.

ZOE CRICK: Apart from Amelia Spens, since you know, she knew her and also said all that bollocks about her.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Actually, I just had an idea.

ZOE CRICK: What?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh, never mind. Tell you later. Time we were off. This has been Radio Free Abel, telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

(the following clips take place after S5M10)

JODY MARSH: And then she told me all about how clever she’d been when she tricked three children into giving her their last corn flakes!

ZOE CRICK: Hold on, wait. Wait! I think I just flipped the switch to transmit. [fiddles with switch]

JODY MARSH: Is… that thing that conceals where you’re broadcasting from and, and where I am, is that still working?

ZOE CRICK: It is. Yeah.

JODY MARSH: Then broadcast it. It doesn’t matter if she hears this. I mean, I’m not one to say something behind someone’s back that I wouldn’t say to their face, and I’d tell Amelia to her face that I think she’s completely awful. I have told her that to her face. More than once. Actually, more than a dozen times!

ZOE CRICK: Well, I suppose the point of Radio Free Abel is to let people know about the real Abel. And you don’t get much realer than drunk and disorderly it! Bloody hell, is it really four in the morning? How much have we been drinking? Wait… what was I saying?

JODY MARSH: You were talking about how horrible Amelia Spens is.

ZOE CRICK: I’m pretty sure that was you. Also, isn’t she one of us now? You know, listeners, one of the good guys?

JODY MARSH: Oh… oh yeah. No, I mean, she’s totally loyal to Abel, totally. I mean, maybe fanatically is a better word. It’s just she’s awful in every other way. Except her fanatical loyalty to Abel. That’s her one redeeming feature.

ZOE CRICK: Alright, then. Amelia, this one’s for you.

JODY MARSH: I just wanna, you know, put my hands around her neck and strangle her - !

ZOE CRICK: So, listeners, we’re still talking about Amelia Spens. Apparently. That is still the topic of conversation.

JODY MARSH: Sorry! She just drives me crazy.

ZOE CRICK: It’s okay. I totally get the appeal of a bad girl.

JODY MARSH: Oh, not like that! Bloody hell, Zoe!

ZOE CRICK: I’ve got to be honest, it sounded pretty “like that.”

JODY MARSH: It’s anger, and you know, contempt. Hatred. That feeling you have about someone who tried to frame you for murder and still thinks it’s dead funny. I just want to shove her into the nearest zombie.

ZOE CRICK: Yep. Still sounding “like that.”

JODY MARSH: Aw, shut up!

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] It’s fine. I mean, there’s a reason everyone loves Han Solo, the rogue with a heart of gold.

JODY MARSH: Amelia doesn’t have a heart of gold. If she did, she’d find a way to extract it and sell it to the highest bidder!

ZOE CRICK: Okay, then. This one’s for Han Solo, may he rest in peace.

JODY MARSH: Poor Han Solo! Still makes me well up, which is ridiculous, because you know, zombie apocalypse and that. But him dying left me in bits!

ZOE CRICK: Yep. Rogue with a heart of gold. That’s why Han Solo’s my ideal man.

JODY MARSH: Or woman.

ZOE CRICK: Well, I’m pretty sure Han Solo is a man.

JODY MARSH: You know who I’m talking about.

ZOE CRICK: Not a Scooby.

JODY MARSH: Oh, right!

ZOE CRICK: Seriously.

JODY MARSH: Yeah, no. Obviously, there’s no roguish yet good-hearted lady who you’d like to get closer to? … Okay, okay, time for another song. You got it queued up?

ZOE CRICK: Yes. If it'll stop this conversation, yes.

JODY MARSH: Great. Alright then, listeners, this one’s for a certain Abel runner that Zoe definitely, definitely doesn’t think about every night.

ZOE CRICK: [sighs] I hate you.

ZOE CRICK: I miss it. I really do.

JODY MARSH: What, her?

ZOE CRICK: No, I mean not just her. New Canton. Abel. Everyone.

JODY MARSH: It's not – [sighs] It's not great right now. It's hard. I'm glad you're not here. I'm glad you're doing what you're doing, that someone's telling the truth about us.

ZOE CRICK: Do you think anyone's listening?

JODY MARSH: Yeah. Yeah, I think they are. They've got to be, right? We're not – none of us – we're not doing this for nothing.

ZOE CRICK: All right, then. For everyone who is listening, this is Radio Free Abel. And that was Jody Marsh, a hero of the resistance. [laughs] Keep safe out there, Jody. The country needs you. Phil and I are moving on tomorrow, so we're patching you back into some more radio from around the country. Catch you on the far side, citizens.

[static, distorted audio]

ZOE CRICK: We're not sure if anyone can hear us - [distortion]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: What we know is that the Ministry's jamming our signal wherever they can. They'd rather stop our message from reaching you - [distortion]

ZOE CRICK: What is it Sam says? You can't stop the signal, so -

[distorted audio]

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, yeah. So uh, ask yourselves another thing. If they don't want you to hear us - [distortion]

ZOE CRICK: What are they afraid we'll say?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: You're listening to Radio Free Abel, telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

[static, distorted audio]

ZOE CRICK: Talk about [distortion] about, you know, what you did in the days of Abel. I mean, of course, yeah, I know that [distortion] we are trying really hard to [distortion] the Ministry.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [distortion] - anything they say about Sam Yao, you can discount. He's a good man. [distortion]

ZOE CRICK: He wouldn't hurt anyone.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No, he certainly wouldn't. And plus - [distortion]

ZOE CRICK: And so don't be afraid of them. Just please keep trying to fight the good fight.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Don't give up. Never give up the fight.

[audio somewhat distorted and echoey]

ZOE CRICK: Has it worked? They can hear us?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I don't know.

ZOE CRICK: Then what's the point? Sorry, sorry. I know we have to try. We have to.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I think it's worked. I've bypassed the frequency and modulated the um, um, uh, never mind. I just, I think this should be able to make it through the Ministry's blocking.

ZOE CRICK: Okay, good. Okay. So this is Radio Free Abel.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Back on the air! I think. Back in the business of bringing you the truth that your government's been working very hard to stop you hearing.

ZOE CRICK: Okay, this is...

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah.

ZOE CRICK: It's... I mean...

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah.

ZOE CRICK: Some of you have... [sighs] Some of you have started broadcasts of your own to let us know that you can hear us.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And to tell us that you believe us.

ZOE CRICK: And it's so, so cool. It's amazing. But just, please stop. You're putting yourselves in danger. You're putting anyone you love in danger.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: We're on the road all the time. We never stop anywhere for more than a day. We do everything we can to keep safe.

ZOE CRICK: So it really does mean the world to us that you're listening, but let us take the risks. And if you want to do something, just listen and keep believing.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And if Abel ever ask for your help... well, you've got to make your own minds up, haven't you?

ZOE CRICK: This is Radio Free Abel, bringing every single one of you the truth, and no one's going to stop us.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Good morning, citizens! You're listening to Radio Free Abel, and we've got a real treat in store for you today. All the way from a secret location, we're bringing you the famous -

ZOE CRICK: Infamous might be a better word for it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh, one of the stars of the Ministry's radio broadcasts about Abel, Amelia Spens.

ZOE CRICK: ... Amelia, are you there?

AMELIA SPENS: Oh. Yes, I'm here. I just can't quite believe I'm doing this.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Well, we're very glad – and honored – you are.

AMELIA SPENS: Honored, really?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh, yeah. [laughs] Now, Amelia, you've had some pretty nasty things to say about Abel Township on Ministry broadcasts.

AMELIA SPENS: I suppose they weren't terribly flattering.

ZOE CRICK: Can you tell us now why you said those things? Were you coerced?

AMELIA SPENS: Coerced? Does Ian trying to force Viscount biscuits on me count as coercion? I suppose in some embattled regimes, it might.

ZOE CRICK: But the things you said weren't true, were they?

AMELIA SPENS: Oh, no. They were a dreadful pack of lies.

ZOE CRICK: Right. So why did you say them?

AMELIA SPENS: As I recall, mainly because I thought it was funny. I had a little bet with myself about how many women I could tell him wore eyepatches before he called me on it. Eight. It was eight.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Okay then, listeners, uh, we'll be hearing more from Amelia right after this.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: And we're back. You're listening to Radio Free Abel with our special guest today, Amelia Spens.

AMELIA SPENS: Hello again.

ZOE CRICK: So, Amelia, can you tell people why they should believe you now when you were lying before?

AMELIA SPENS: Well, I'm not sure they should.

ZOE CRICK: Right. But you are telling the truth now?

AMELIA SPENS: Telling the truth about my previous shameless lies? Yes, I am. But now that I think about it, I suppose there was an implicit threat that if I didn't take part in the broadcast for the Ministry, my life might be in danger. So in that sense, yes, I was coerced to say what I did about Janine.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh, thank God.

AMELIA SPENS: Let me just set the record straight. Janine De Luca never wore an eyepatch, and she wasn't prone to dressing in leather. Although to be honest, I do think leather would have suited her.

She wasn't a bad person. Anyone who knew her would know what an absurd claim that was. Janine De Luca was honorable and moral to a fault. And I use that phrase advisedly, because as far as I was concerned, her refusal to bend with the wind was an iredeemable flaw, but there you have it. Satisfied?

ZOE CRICK: Um, yeah. Okay, then. This song goes out to Janine De Luca and everyone else we've lost.

ZOE CRICK: So if Ian made you tell lies about Janine, what can you tell us about Ian?

AMELIA SPENS: Ooh, he's a dreadfully amoral little person. Of course, I think morality's all nonsense, so what would I know?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Y-you're not that bad.

AMELIA SPENS: Really? According to your colleague here, I'm virtually the Antichrist.

ZOE CRICK: To be fair, that was Jody, not me. [laughs] I felt entirely neutral about you until this broadcast.

AMELIA SPENS: Ah, yes? And what do you think about me now?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Why'd you come on this show if you're not going to say -

AMELIA SPENS: What you want me to say?

ZOE CRICK: What do you know is the truth? Why did you come here, if not to do that?

AMELIA SPENS: I had a spare half hour and I thought it might be amusing. And it has been, so thank you.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [groans] All right, citizens, this is a song Amelia picked herself. We'll be back in a moment.

ZOE CRICK: So, Amelia, I believe we were talking about Ian Golightly, current leader of Abel Township.

AMELIA SPENS: I think he's actually calling himself Commander Golightly these days. He really is quite an absurd human being.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: You're not a fan, then.

AMELIA SPENS: Oh, he's ghastly! A ghastly jumped-up little sadist. He's nothing like as clever as he thinks he is. Also, his breath is quite extraordinarily bad.

ZOE CRICK: Thank you, Amelia. That's -

AMELIA SPENS: And he has no fashion sense whatsoever. With the amount of luxuries he requisitions for himself as head of Abel, you'd really think he could afford a decent suit.

[sighs] But his biggest problem is that he's one of those people who is able to believe that they're good only because they've never really had the opportunity to be bad. And even now he's started doing some quite awful things, he still imagines he's the hero.

I've got no time for people like that. There's nothing wrong with doing wrong if it's in your interest, but at least have the decency to be honest about it. Otherwise, how can anyone respect you?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh, yeah. Thanks for that. We're off now, citizens. You've been listening to Radio Free Abel with our special guest, Amelia Spens. Who, um, apparently is an honestly awful person.

ZOE CRICK: Sounds about right to me.

AMELIA SPENS: Toodle-pip, everyone.

(the following clips take place after S5M20)

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Hello again, listeners. This is Radio Free Abel bringing you all the truth, all the time.

ZOE CRICK: Also some moderately decent tunes, and quite a lot of awful jokes. Ooh, talking of -

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No.

ZOE CRICK: What? I literally didn't say anything.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: You were about to. Finally got a few minutes on air, and you're not using them to tell any terrible jokes. Especially if they include the words knock, chicken, or shark-infested custard.

ZOE CRICK: Oh, you've spoiled the punchline now.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Mm, not a punchline if it isn't even slightly funny.

ZOE CRICK: Technically, I think it is.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Anyway listeners, we're not here to tell you what's yellow and dangerous -

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] You just stole my joke!

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [laughs] We're here to talk to you about Abel Township, and some of the amazing people that used to live there. You've been told also some lies about them, so we're going to set the record straight. We're going to give you the real story of Abel's heroes, the... biogra-truth.

ZOE CRICK: Biogra-truth.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah.

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] Biogra-truth?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah. We'll be back right after this.

ZOE CRICK: That song does always sort of remind me of Sam.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, I know what you mean. Zoe's talking about Sam Yao, of course. Abel Township radio operator and hero of the resistance.

ZOE CRICK: You've been told that Sam's evil, ruthless, and homicidal, which I mean, come on. Sam's actually one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet, and I say that as a woman who doesn't generally like other humans.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Sam was a student when the apocalypse struck. Like nearly all of us, he lost of the people closest to him. His parents died, his sister's missing, and he nearly died, too, before he was rescued from zoms by Abel Township runners.

ZOE CRICK: Since then, he's dedicated his life to keeping those runners safe. Well, also to eating a lot of chocolate and playing Demons and Darkness, but [laughs] mainly the safety thing.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Sam's a good person. If you had a problem and you needed a friend who'd absolutely, definitely care about it, Sam's your man.

ZOE CRICK: I mean, we're not saying he'd solve it, necessarily. He isn't Jesus. But he'd properly care. Not just make the face people do when they want to look concerned but they're actually wondering which vegetables to have with supper.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: This next song was always a favorite of Sam's. Hope you enjoy it, mate, wherever you are.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I'll tell something else about Sam, he's as bad at geography as I am.

ZOE CRICK: Is that a good thing?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No, it's just nice to meet someone else who always thought Suffolk was south of London.

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] What, seriously?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Well, Suffolk means south folk, doesn't it? It's in the name.

ZOE CRICK: Yeah, because it's the southern bit of East Anglia.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, I know that now.

ZOE CRICK: [laughs] How did I never know this about you? Bloody hell, all the opportunities for piss-taking I've missed. [laughs] So come on, Phil. Is Liverpool east or west of Manchester?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh look, it's time for another song.

ZOE CRICK: While you listened to that cheerful little number, we've established that Phil thinks the Shetland Islands are off the coast of Cornwall, Alaska is floating in the sea somewhere above Canada – hmm, I suppose at least you got the right continent – and Denmark is famous for being landlocked.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: You said you wouldn't tell anyone.

ZOE CRICK: Yes. But obviously, I was lying. [laughs] I'm not complaining. It's the gift that'll keep on giving. [laughs] But how did you end up so rubbish at geography? You, the man who alphabetizes his novelty mugs.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh, I don't know. I can tell my left from my right, but just... I don't like looking at maps.

ZOE CRICK: Hm. And there was me, thinking you made me navigate all the time so you didn't seem sexist. What is it, map-phobia?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh, it's not a phobia. It's, um... if you look at something on a map, you pin it down. There it is with borders and A roads and bypasses. When it's only in my head, it could be anywhere. It's, uh, it's magical.

ZOE CRICK: That's actually... [laughs] That's actually sort of beautiful. Phil Cheeseman, there's poetry in that soul of yours. Hm. No wonder you and Sam get on so well. He's a dreamer, too.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Um... anyway listeners, um, it's time we were off. But remember, Sam Yao's still out there somewhere, fighting to make the world a better place.

ZOE CRICK: Even though he doesn't know which side of England Wales is attached to.

ELOISE: Hugh, right up ahead is one of your spiritual homelands.

HUGH: What, Heslington?

ELOISE: Eh? What's at Heslington?

HUGH: There was a bloke there did the best black pudding I ever had.

ELOISE: I'm not sure I trust black pudding chefs with all the zoms around as potential raw materials. It's not that, anyway. It's Woodstock.

HUGH: Oh yeah, where the Grateful Dead played one of their notoriously worst performances. Constantly getting electric shocks from their gear, their amps blowing up all over the place, and probably tripping out their boxers. Sadly, not Woodstock. Oxfordshire, or I might have actually been there.

ELOISE: There's a bit of royal intrigue associated with Woodstock. You want to hear it?

HUGH: That sounds just as good as a three-day nonstop Aquarian festival with music, peace, and free love.

ELOISE: Do you want to hear it or not?

HUGH: Yeah, I suppose.

ELOISE: Henry II had a mistress called Fair Rosamund. He installed her at a house at Woodstock, and he didn't want anybody to bother her, so he built a labyrinth around it. Well, either the house was a labyrinth or the garden was a labyrinth. Or maybe both.

HUGH: Not ideal if you need to pop out for a pint of milk.

ELOISE: No. He also married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was no pushover, having already divorced the king of France. Eleanor got wind of Rosamund, and as you can imagine, she did not approve.

HUGH: But she couldn't get in the house because it was a labyrinth.

ELOISE: Right. Until one time – oh, I don't know if I quite believe this - Henry visited, and he was such a duffer that he got a silk thread caught in his boot. So on the way out, the thread unrolled and left the perfect trail for Eleanor to follow.

HUGH: Which, if I know wronged women, she wasted no time in doing.

ELOISE: Well, that's right. And when she confronted Fair Rosamund, it was the age-old choice. The dagger or the cup of poison.

HUGH: If you're ever in that situation, take the dagger. It only hurts for a minute, and then the – what do you call them? - endolphins kick in. You don't want to die slowly on the floor of a really bad hangover.

ELOISE: Third day at Woodstock, that would have been you.

HUGH: Harsh but true, my love. Harsh but true.

HUGH: You'll like this story, dear. It's romantic.

ELOISE: Does it end in violence and heartbreak?

HUGH: You don't want spoilers.

ELOISE: Oh, they all do. Okay, let's hear it.

HUGH: It's about a student in Oxford, the intellectual powerhouse a few miles down that last road.

ELOISE: When does this happen?

HUGH: Oh, I don't know. The 1800s. What difference does that make?

ELOISE: I'm trying to visualize the outfits!

HUGH: They all wear them gowns and motorboats.

ELOISE: Mortarboards. Okay, I've got it.

HUGH: This student, he seduces the daughter of a tradesman. They're not supposed to do that. They're supposed to concentrate on their Latin or whatever. So he decides to murder her.

ELOISE: Intellectual powerhouse, my eye.

HUGH: So he arranges to meet her in a field. He shows up early, but she shows up even earlier and hides up a tree. She's all for jumping down and surprising him, until she sees him digging a grave.

ELOISE: The old smoothy.

HUGH: Unsurprisingly, she don't come down, and he goes home disappointed. Then the next day, she's at the door of her father's house when he comes past and says hello as usual. What do you think she says?

ELOISE: I'm looking forward to it!

HUGH: "One moon shiny night as I sat high, waiting for one to come by, the boughs did bend, my heart did ache, to see what hole the fox did make."

ELOISE: Haha, you tell him, girl! So what does he do?

HUGH: He stabs her.

ELOISE: Oh.

HUGH: Through the heart, though.

ELOISE: I see.

HUGH: I told you it was romantic.

ELOISE: Yes, you did.

HUGH: Can you see it?

ELOISE: Just its feet. We're dragging it along like Indiana Jones.

HUGH: Eh?

ELOISE: When he gets punched out that truck and he hangs on with his whip.

HUGH: Has it got a hat on?

ELOISE: I just said I could only see its feet, didn't I? It's not got a hat on its feet.

HUGH: This is the third time. I wonder what it is about the back of the van that fascinates zoms.

ELOISE: It's the engine, you big [?]. They're attracted to noise, and that thing goes crr crr all day.

HUGH: I think it's more of a vrr vrr.

ELOISE: Oh, never mind. How are we going to get rid of this one? We've had it for five miles. I'm not fast enough these days to go out there and saw through its arms.

HUGH: Maybe if we drive for long enough, the road will gradually grind through it from the front to the back.

ELOISE: Yeah, and maybe it'll call all its friends, and we'll end up on the front of a zombie conga.

HUGH: There's another reason to be thankful for the zombie apocaplypse. No more dancing at weddings.

ELOISE: You like those slow dances. Get rid of this zom, and maybe we'll have time for a slow dance after.

HUGH: I tried the U-turn. I've tried the quick reverse. I even tried a level crossing and it's still hanging on.

ELOISE: I've got it. Turn up there between the fields.

HUGH: Okay.

ELOISE: We're looking for um... there's one! A cattle grid.

HUGH: I see your plan.

ELOISE: Now reverse. [van clatters] Now forward. [van clatters] Now backwards. [van clatters] It's let go! Oh! Oh, that's not pretty.

HUGH: Nice work, dear. By the way, it's your turn to clean the rear bumper.

ELOISE: Trade you it for that slow dance?

HUGH: Yeah, suppose.

[chickens squawk]

ZOE CRICK: Tonight, listeners, Radio Free Abel is coming to you from the heart of the British countryside, by which I really mean a smelly old barn with a lot more chickens than I generally like. Why are we in a barn, Phil?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh... I don't know. Uh... it seemed like a good idea at the time.

ZOE CRICK: Did we decide to do this yesterday?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah, I think.

ZOE CRICK: After we'd gone 58 hours without any sleep?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No, that um... no, that was the night before yesterday. Don't you remember? Both of us passed out from exhaustion for a couple of hours last night.

ZOE CRICK: Did we?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah. And that Ministry truck nearly caught up with us.

ZOE CRICK: Mm, I remember. That's why we're in a barn. We're hiding.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Right. [sighs] Then, um... should we really be broadcasting?

ZOE CRICK: Mm. Too late now. We'll be back after this song, when we've, um, you know. [yawns] Decided what we're going to talk about.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [gasps] Zoe. We're on.

ZOE CRICK: What? Oh um, right. Good morning, citizens.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: So, um... what are we going to talk about?

ZOE CRICK: Mm?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Uh, leopards.

ZOE CRICK: What?

PHIL CHEESEMAN: They're cool. They run really, really fast.

ZOE CRICK: I think that's pandas.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No, pandas aren't even cats. I mean, I suppose they are black and white, and...

ZOE CRICK: So we're talking about cats. [laughs] That's good. I like cats. More cats after this.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Zoe, are you crying?

ZOE CRICK: [sniffs] Sorry. It's just... That song really reminds me of them.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Of the people at Abel.

ZOE CRICK: No, my cats! Poor Pushkin. What if they forget to feed her? She could die!

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Don't be silly. Jack and Eugene'll be spoiling her rotten.

ZOE CRICK: Oh, I don't think we're supposed to say their names.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Oh yeah, no.

ZOE CRICK: Well, I miss them, too.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah.

ZOE CRICK: Panthers.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: What?

ZOE CRICK: That's what I meant. Not pandas, it's panthers that are really fast.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I think we need to go, Zo.

ZOE CRICK: Right. Yeah. Or we could just have a little sleep.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: No. We can't sleep. We've got to drive. [sighs] We've always got to keep driving.

ZOE CRICK: Right. Yeah. Or the Ministry's panthers will get us.

ZOE CRICK: So we're not completely sure if we did a broadcast in the middle of the night. I don't really remember it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: I think I might have dreamed it.

ZOE CRICK: But if we did, please just forget everything we said.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Unless it was really sensible. For example, if I told you something interesting about the American Civil War, you don't need to forget that.

ZOE CRICK: It probably was something about the American Civil War. You always talk about the American Civil War when you're tired, and I definitely always ignore it.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: [scoffs] You told me my analysis of the Battle of Wilson's Creek was really eye-opening.

ZOE CRICK: Hmm. I was being polite.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Don't give me that. You're never polite. Anyway, the point is we're here, and this time, we're not talking complete nonsense!

ZOE CRICK: Hmm. If we ever did.

ZOE CRICK: I love that song. It always makes me happy.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: Yeah. Me, too. Didn't we work out that's the only thing we both had on our Spotify cheer me up songs playlist?

ZOE CRICK: That's right! [laughs] I'd totally forgotten about that. And I had "I Touch Myself" on my one hit wonders playlist, and you had it on your romantic playlist, which you've never satisfactorily explained.

PHIL CHEESEMAN: It's a love song. It's about overwhelming passion. Of course it's romantic.

ZOE CRICK: Right. [laughs] Well, by that standard, this next number must be the most romantic song of all time.

ELOISE: I thought we were goners there for sure.

HUGH: You made some great evasive maneuvers, love. Classic defensive driving.

ELOISE: Apart from those first couple of shamblers.

HUGH: Well, the van needed a wash anyway. You just forced the issue.

ELOISE: I want to park up and get my breath back.

HUGH: Couple more miles first, eh?

ELOISE: Get my mind off it. Tell me something from the book.

HUGH: As a matter of fact, I had been saving up something special. Place over there, Knaphill, famous for death warnings.

ELOISE: Oh no.

HUGH: There was a farmer's son who dreamed he would be accidentally shot by his own gun. And the following Tuesday, what happened? Exactly that.

ELOISE: I can't help but feel that one could have been avoided if he had, you know, just not pointed his own gun at himself.

HUGH: [laughs] It's easy to be wise in retrospect. Here's another one. An uncle was sitting in bed, and he heard someone slowly lift the latch of the door three times.

ELOISE: What happened?

HUGH: Nothing the first night, but it happened again the next night. At exactly the same time, slowly the latch was lifted three times.

ELOISE: And?

HUGH: Nothing again. So when it happened a third night, old uncle had his stick, all ready to clobber the ghostly intruder.

ELOISE: And?

HUGH: That night, a different guy died of unrelated causes.

ELOISE: That one's a little unsatisfying.

HUGH: Okay, last try. A teenager saw a little figure like a doll walking along the top of a hedge, dressed in silk and satin. It reached her mother's house, where it disappeared, and all they heard was the rustling of silk and satin. She told her dad, and he said that is always a warning.

ELOISE: Actually, that is quite creepy. Did the mother die?

HUGH: Mother died.

ELOISE: See that book?

HUGH: Yes, love?

ELOISE: Throw it away.

HUGH: You like a good murder, don't you, Eloise?

ELOISE: I like a good murder story. It's not quite the same thing, lucky for you.

HUGH: They've got one in this village coming up. Colnbrook.

ELOISE: Is it about how property prices got so high this close to the M25 that the only way you could get a house here was to murder the existing occupants?

HUGH: No. In fact, Heathrow Airport's just over there, so it may not have been the idyllic country residence it looks. Remember that thing about the third runway? Practically in their back gardens. They did have an apple fair, though. Colnbrook Apple Fair.

ELOISE: What happens at an apple fair?

HUGH: Well, I'm guessing orchard fruits featured heavily.

ELOISE: Was the murder about apples?

HUGH: No. I think it predates the apple fair. See that old Tudor-looking building ahead on the right? That's the Ostrich Inn. In the 17th century, the landlord and his wife used to kill their customers.

ELOISE: Ah. The days before TripAdvisor.

HUGH: They waited for a rich guest, then they put him in the best room, right above the kitchen. And the bed was nailed to the floor, and the floor was on a hinge fastened with iron pins. So in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep, they pulled out the pins and down he came. They kept a big boiling cauldron right underneath.

ELOISE: And what was in the cauldron?

HUGH: Hopefully not soup. As my mother used to say, boil the soup, spoil the soup.

ELOISE: I trust your mother never put people in her soup.

HUGH: Tasted like it, sometimes.

ELOISE: They must have got caught eventually. You can't boil travelers to death every night without a bit of screaming.

HUGH: Indeed. While Thomas Cole, a clothier from Reading, was taking the big plunge, his horse went off to bother a mare in a nearby field, and there is some unlikely twist about his servant finding the horse and tracing it back to the inn.

ELOISE: Well, that's not unlikely. That's just good old-fashioned police work.

HUGH: Some say the place is named after him. Thomas Cole. Colnbrook.

ELOISE: Satisfying.

HUGH: Mind you, some people also said the horse could talk.

HUGH: We've got an interesting question today. And to set the scene, we are parked outside Batman's house.

ELOISE: I thought he lived in the Batcave.

HUGH: A common misapprehension, Eloise. Batman works in the Batcave. It's like his office. But he actually, in his secret identity as Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, lives in Wayne Manor. Which, during a certain period of the original comic, was drawn in a similar style to the edifice we now contemplate.

ELOISE: You want to read the letter?

HUGH: Nah, that last speech kind of tired me out.

ELOISE: Well done, Hugh. All right. This is from Melinda of Dorking, and she says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, as a young girl, I always dreamed of living in a big house. But with the rising cost of real estate and government suppression of my public sector wages, I was never able to afford anything better than a third floor two bedroom flat. And now in post-zombie society, it's even worse, as I live in a repurposed World War II bomb shelter, where the woman in the top bunk yells out terrifying things in her sleep."

HUGH: Eloise never talks in her sleep.

ELOISE: What do you mean?

HUGH: Nothing. Finish the letter.

ELOISE: Melinda continues, "Lately, I have been thinking, with all the people who are now dead, the house of my dreams must be out there standing empty. I could get on my bike and go look for it. Do you have much experience of uninhabited mansions, and do you think they would let me keep one after society defeats the zombie threat?"

HUGH: I don't think there's anyone living in this one.

ELOISE: Melinda, I think I understand what you're saying. It's like the doll's house you had as a girl. Never really goes away. Well, mine did. Because I wired up an electric lighting system to the mains without a fuse, and the resulting fire reduced it and my doll family into a disturbing pile of melted plastic.

HUGH: Their smiley faces still haunt her to this day.

ELOISE: But consider the practicalities. It's not going to be warm or weather-proof, or near any settlements you can trade with. There's no butler to bring you breakfast in bed or chauffeur to take you on an assignation.

HUGH: And no matter how many times you check the rooms in the other wing, you'll never be quite sure there's not a zombie in the house, trying random doors in search of a midnight snack.

ELOISE: Maybe just learn to appreciate your nice warm bunkbed, all right? Thanks for your question.

ELOISE: We're coming up to Mayfield, where St. Dunstan built a little wooden church.

HUGH: Wonder if it's still there.

ELOISE: A thousand year old wooden church? Probably not. In fact, it says here it didn't properly face east like churches are supposed to, but he gave it one bump with his shoulder and that fixed it.

HUGH: Bit of a bruiser, was our St. Dunstan?

ELOISE: Apparently, he did metalworking to relax.

HUGH: Definitely a bruiser.

ELOISE: So the devil came along. He looked in the window while St. Dunstan was working, and asked him to make something.

HUGH: To make something? What?

ELOISE: Doesn't say. St. Dunstan just kept working, so the devil started to make baudy and blasphemous talk.

HUGH: Ooh. Like what?

ELOISE: Doesn't say. St. Dunstan kept ignoring him and working, so the devil began to change shape. First an old lady, then a baby, then a lustful young girl.

HUGH: Blonde or brunette?

ELOISE: Oh, it doesn't bloody say! But St. Dunstan, irritated by the constant interruptions, turned and siezed the devil by the nose with his red-hot tongs, like this! [HUGH yelps] The devil shrieked, "What is this damn bald-headed fellow doing to me?"

HUGH: Whatever you're doing to me.

ELOISE: St. Dunstan wouldn't let go, so the devil turned into a series of hideous monsters, but St. Dunstan still wouldn't let go. So the devil flew up through the ceiling and high into the air, with St. Dunstan still holding his nose!

HUGH: I get it. Let go.

ELOISE: They landed at St Dunstan's bridge near Tunbridge Wells, where St. D finally let go.

HUGH: Oh.

ELOISE: The devil stuck his hot nose into the cold springs. They still taste of sulfur to this day.

HUGH: I know which one of us in this van is closest to the devil.

ELOISE: You remember that.

ELOISE: Did he tell you?

HUGH: Yeah. You're going to like it.

ELOISE: We're stopped by a church in – where are we? - Brightling, because Hugh, in a rare eagle-eyed moment, noticed a mausoleum in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid. Well, what's the story, then?

HUGH: The name of the dead man is John Fuller, a landowner and MP from the start of the 19th century. But they called him Mad Jack.

ELOISE: Oh, I do like him.

HUGH: He wore a big powdered wig – long after those went out of fashion - and drove around in a coach and four, his footmen armed with swords and pistols. He was very rude, and he bought nine bassoons for a church choir.

ELOISE: Do choirs use bassoons?

HUGH: No. [ELOISE laughs] One time, he boasted he could see some church from his lawn, right? He bet on it, and then he went home and found out he couldn't. But rather than lose the bet, do you know what he did? He paid a bunch of builders to go over to a place in the skyline and build a copy of the church tower, so that when the bet got called in, he could claim that was it. They called it Sugar Loaf.

ELOISE: Does it, um... look like a loaf of sugar?

HUGH: No.

ELOISE: So what's with the pyramid?

HUGH: When he built it, he tried to get someone to live in it for a year without washing, shaving, or cutting his hair, without talking to anybody, and he promised if someone did this, they would be rewarded and become a gentleman for life.

ELOISE: Did somebody take him up on it?

HUGH: No.

ELOISE: But he did get buried there.

HUGH: Supposedly, he installed an iron chair and his mummified body was sat in it, wearing a suit and a top hat. They had to leave bottles wine beside him, and cover the floor in broken glass so that if the devil came to fetch him, he'd cut his cloven hooves on the glass.

ELOISE: I think he does qualify as mad. So you want to break into the pyramid and see if he's still there?

HUGH: No.

HUGH: This is it. Pluckley. The most haunted village in England.

ELOISE: I really would rather we'd come during the day.

HUGH: Yeah. Sorry, love. I thought we'd make it before nightfall, but you know. I made a few wrong turns.

ELOISE: Suspicious wrong turns.

HUGH: I don't know what you mean.

ELOISE: Tell the story so we can move on.

HUGH: [flips switch] Oh. Interior light's gone. Never mind. I've got my torch. Here. Oh yeah. There's a red lady. Her baby died in childbirth, and now she wanders the village, looking in vain for its unmarked grave.

ELOISE: I hope you enjoyed this local legend. Thanks for listening.

HUGH: There's a lot more, dear. There's also a white lady who wanders through the churchyard just over there with a single red rose. Her husband wanted to preserve her beauty, so he buried her in three coffins of lead and one coffin of oak stacked inside one another. People hear hammering sounds and a ghostly wailing as she tries to get out of her terrible prison.

ELOISE: I think I can hear zombies! Should we go?

HUGH: In 1970, a group of researchers spent the night in the chapel. They said to the vicar the next day, "Nothing happened. We're glad your dog came to keep us company." But the vicar said, "I don't have a dog."

ELOISE: That could just have been a stray.

HUGH: There's the schoolmaster who hanged himself. They say he stares with bulging eyes as he recites the times tables. And an old gypsy woman whose pipe set fire to the haystack she was sleeping in. You can still hear her agonizing cries, smell the burning flesh. Then there's the young farmer who -

ELOISE: Shine your torch out there!

HUGH: There's no one out there, Eloise. No one alive, anyway.

ELOISE: Hugh, drive us out of here!

HUGH: Of course, my love. We'll just have to go past Fright Corner, where a highwayman used to lurk in a hollow oak to ambush travelers. Until one day, somebody knew his trick and skewered the tree first. Some say his impaled body still hangs there, waiting passersby, and he likes to jump out and grab -

ELOISE: I'm sorry I pulled your nose. I learned my lesson. Oh, get us out of here!

HUGH: Yes, dear.

#zombies run #zrs5 #s5 radio #s5 radio part 2 #zr transcript

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fionaapplerocks · 6 years

Photo

Paul Thomas Anderson's 6 Music Videos (DVD, 2001 or 2002)

This is one of the rarest items you'll ever find! This is the only "official" DVD that collects all of PTA's famed music videos!History of this DVDPTA compiled this DVD himself and handed out an EXTREMELY LIMITED number of them to very select people. Among them was Greg M******i, the filmaker that ran PTA's official website/fansite. Greg sold this DVD, as well as some other PTA DVD's, to me in 2003.The quality of these videos is incredible! For any of you that have that only been able to view these videos on youtube, this will really be a treat for you!Below, please find a list of the videos included on this amazing DVD, along with a brief overview of each film (taken from cigarettes & redvines)

What videos do you get?

Try - Michael Penn

michael penn walks down a very long hallway filled with strange people and magic tricks.

breakdown 'try' was shot during the editing of boogie nights while the film was being reviewed by the mpaa. delays allowed a window of time to shoot and edit the music video. the longest hallway in north america, which incidentally is in downtown LA, was used as the only shooting location since the video is only one shot. paul has commented that he would like to someday shoot a movie there, but his idea of interlocking stories likely turned into 'magnolia'.

michael penn on his music video: "I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do for a video for this song, and I was talking to Paul about it and he had always expressed a desire to do it, but I really didn't think that he would do it, that he would be able to because he was cutting Boogie Nights at the time. We started talking about the song apparently he knew a location in Los Angeles which is the longest hallway in North America, it's 3/4 of a mile long, and we went there together and kind of looked at the location and we walked it while a walkman was playing the song and it was just about the same length to walk it as the song. That kind of suggested an idea and it worked out great because the video is one continuous shot so there was no editing involved so we were able to do it all in one weekend. And that's what we did. I think it took about 14 takes to accomplish."

'try' contains numerous details that only get stranger upon repeat viewings. the video has a dreamlike quality that extends beyond the asthetics and into the actions of the people inside. crew members in the background look for objects with flashlights and take paintings off the walls while phillip seymour hoffman jogs to catch up with a rolling michael penn, who is handed a guitar which is never played. the camera passes through many extras and removable walls, eventually coming upon stretch of hallway that is an exact replica of the movie 'they shoot horses, don't they?'. pta's hallway adaptation is complete with referees on rollerskates and a gig young lookalike.

Save Me - Aimee Mann

save me was shot during the off-moments in principal photography during magnolia, paul having aimee mann stand into the shot during various key moments in the characters day. it was initially speculated that aimee was digitally put into these shots after the fact, but knowing paul's actors' willingness to do his bidding on a moments notice - this is obviously incorrect and would have been an unnecessarily expensive way of shooting the sequences.

breakdown the video is staged in similar fashion to the 'wise up' sequence in the film -- following each character at a key moment, but this time with aimee mann lurking in the shadows or beside them singing the lyrics.

the characters are reflected technically in the showy stagings of jimmy gator & frank mackey's blocking (gwenovier's preview monitor & table move, jimmy gator's rotating couch and multiple things that come alive behind them before cutting away) to the careful dollies with claudia, linda & donnie smith. the film's caretakers of sorts are the only ones appearing to be productive - phil watches over earl, jim kurring on the job presumably about to pull someone over.

even the day-player's characters are encapsulated with limited screen time - the best example occurring throughout the 'smiling peanut' sequence. the camera dollies behind the bar towards donnie smith, and before each character leaves the frame, they turn and react to bill macy in their own way. (brad smiles brightly, thurston blows smoke bitterly in donnie's face)

Across the Universe - Fiona Apple

fiona apple covers the beatles classic 'across the universe' for the film 'pleasantville.' this was paul's first music video with fiona apple, which is a re-creation of the soda pop vandalism scene from the film. fiona, wearing large old fashioned headphones, sings & travels unfazed by the chaos and destruction surrounding her.

an interesting note: the version of the video that lives on the pleasantville dvd, the camera hangs on fiona's face for several seconds before slowly fading out, whereas the version on the '6 videos by PTA' (a dvd paul made after the couple's break-up) that shot barely exists before a rapid fade out ends the clip.

breakdown the music video was shot on location with a motion control camera. the presence of mirrors and complicated rigs made this a fairly expensive shoot. the idea behind motion control photography is that the camera can perform the same movement twice, which is very useful for compositing two shots where the camera is moving. the video is only made up of five shots made up of many composited shots.

the music video opens with a stained glass section of the shop window being destroyed. the glass and the bench that is thrown through it are computer generated and have been motion tracked into the shot. real glass elements are added as characters jump through the window. the motion control aspect of the video is apparent as the camera moves through the window to see fiona apple in front of a mirror, which the camera is not present in. it is likely that another camera performed a mirrored motion track with that side of the set partially removed.

the false nature of the mirror is visible just after a chair is thrown through the foreground at about 8:29, where the mirror's image seems to fade into itself, likely the bridging of two separate takes. as the camera moves closer to fiona, her reflection is more visible and has some unusual properties to it that seem to defy description. at this point fiona begins to move through the set without walking (she is sitting on the rig at this point).

the shots that follow are a combination of high speed photography of the set being destroyed and footage of fiona shot with the same camera movement only without the action in the background. some of the compositing is visible around her neck/headphones near the end of the first shot. look carefully for small sections on her left side that seem to be wavering or wobbling, these symptoms of compositing are different than blue/greenscreening ones.

the spinning shot is simply a variation of the previous shot, with fiona attached at the waist to a rotating rig. rotating debris was composited into the foreground to further distract the eyes as ILM's tricks hide everywhere in the frame. the third shot is the simplest in the video, and features a lighting change on fiona as the camera moves closer to her.

the beginning of the fourth shot begins extremely close on fiona's face and pulls out partway through, further suggesting that the percussion of the song is responsible for the damage being done to the store. the camera moves around her face 180 degrees to pull out with another lighting change as fiona walks across the counter. keep your eye out for some ridiculous extras through the window in the top right corner of the frame.

as the camera pushes back into fiona's face, wavering softness is visible around the edges of her hair suggesting more tricky compositing.

the final shot of the video is one of the more complicated ones, and begins with fiona sitting cross legged in front of the door. since the lighting changes caused by people running through the door and obstructing the major apparent source of edge lighting (the sun), the light highlights were changed on her body when the video was being composited. this is apparent especially when the shiny part of her hair is changed: we should see the individual strands of her hair, but instead the white glow just turns grey. fiona exits the frame to leave us with more slow motion photography, and ends as the camera pushes in on her again. computer generated letters spelling 'the end' have also been composited in the background.

Fast as You Can - Fiona Apple

paul's most random format experiement. shot in various locations around their shared la home, paul filmed fiona with everything from a lumiere camera to a modern 35mm camera.

breakdown the video was shot after the completion of magnolia, and just looks like paul and fiona apple having fun with tricks. fiona described her song as 'full of gags', and wanted the video to reflect that in an acoustic way (ie avoiding anything computer generated). the shoot was extremely rushed and concepts were made up on the spot. the footage changes aspect ratios and frame rates constantly, likely the result of adjustable motors or hand cranks. the video made a lot of people upset when the frame rate runs out of sync with the music (on purpose). the video also marks one of the first appearance of the iris out at the end of the video, which paul would later use in punch-drunk love. the video was nominated for 'best pop video of the year' at the annual billboard music video awards.

the lens effect. pta uses this effect in this video as well as magnolia ("but it did happen") it involves dropping various lenses of different lengths into the camera during the shot - giving an in-camera circular looking jump cut. this technique is also used in the opening of steven soderbergh's 'schizopolis' to a humorous and mystifying degree.

Limp - Fiona Apple

a video which main gimmick revolves around the replacing of the color blue with red on and around fiona, as well as lights & fireplaces turning on and off. fiona awakes from a scene not dissimilar of that from magnolia (ray and claudia blocking, before jimmy knocks at the door). paul's original idea for the puzzle involved some complex trick of having the pieces rise from the table and form themselves.

Paper Bag - Fiona Apple

paper bag was shot at a restaurant in los angeles' union train station in early 2000. the dancing was choreographed by michael rooney, whose work includes bjork's 'it's oh so quiet', fatboy slim's 'praise you', and most recently 'i heart huckabees'.

breakdown the video carries pta's classic camera whips and high contrast colour palette, and very obviously shows his love for old fashioned musicals (ie 'singin' in the rain). the video features fiona apple spinning around a train station helplessly as children surround her with intricately planned dance moves. the child aspect seems to be derived both from apple's lyrics "i thought he was a man but he was just a little boy" and the 1976 film 'bugsy malone', in which children portray a world of gangsters. the lighting flows from deep blues (near the beginning and end) to high contrast red and whites (in the middle).

#Fiona Apple #parent teachers association #PTA #videos #rarity

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okimargarvez · 6 years

Text

SING IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Original title: Sing it like you mean it.

Prompt: Penelope sings during a series of karaoke nights.

Warning: song-fic, Lisa OOC.

Genre: comedy, romantic, friendship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, BAU team, Lisa Douglas, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez. Penelope x O.C., Luke x Lisa.

Note: multichapter.

Legend: 💏😘🔦🎈👻🎵.

Song mentioned: Wide awake, Kathy Perry; Because of you, Kelly Clarkson; Raise your glass, P!nk; Get outta my way, Kylie Minogue; Things I’ll never said, Avril Lavigne; Love me like you do, Ellie Goulding.

Sing It Like You Mean It- Masterlist

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

SING IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT- Chapter 6

Five weeks and a day after meeting Lisa; a week and a day after Luke came back single

This time there isn’t a stage and an audience of strangers. Both can experience vibrations in the air. If something must happen, it will happen tonight. They can hardly look at each other as they walk up to Luke's car. He thinks of everything, if he would open the door or not, risking to appear too exaggerated. In the end, he does it, because his mother's education gets the better of him. -Oh, thank you.- Penelope says, finding him behind and feeling all his power from the simple fact that makes his shadow. It is not just a joke. She blushes and sits in the passenger seat.

As soon as the key is turned, and the engine starts, a song begins. The radio is also automatically turned on. He lowers the volume a little, because it’s late.

You're the light, you're the night, you're the color of my blood

Penelope looks at him as he drives, admires the way he holds the steering wheel, like a little finger-tapping, going in time. And in the end, she surrenders. She sang until she was without breath, yet she isn’t satisfied.

You're the cure, you're the pain, you're the only thing I wanna touch

How many truths in a single sentence! Luke feels his heart miss a beat as soon as she starts to sing. Interpreting it as a nuisance, Penelope hurries to silence. -Sorry, I don’t think you want to break your eardrums again with this complaint... – they are stop (already) at a traffic light, so the man can turn around, looks at her, shakes his head and even caress her cheek. All without knowing with what courage.

Meanwhile, Ellie Goulding continues to sing alone.

Never knew that it could mean so much, so much

-What you say, Penelope. I love listening to your voice. I could do for my whole life.- he smiles, he raises the volume of a notch and accelerates, because the light is green. She smiles in turn, her cheeks still purple, sighs and starts to accompany the radio, and then overwhelm it.

You're the fear, I don’t care, 'cause I've never been so high

This time Penelope didn’t choose the song, but pure chance. Or destiny. And it seems to be on their side, because it is perfect. The blonde's hand suddenly ends on the steering wheel, above Luke's. He looks at her from the corner of his eye.

Follow me to the dark, let me take you past our satellites

Well, he would follow her everywhere, even to hell. They are all trivial thoughts, but basically love is trivial, or, if you prefer, simple. There are human beings who complicate everything, denying, letting themselves be guided by pride, for stupidity, fear of committing themselves... he doesn’t want to fall into this category anymore.

You can see the world you brought to life, to life

Luke intertwines their fingers, so the grip doesn’t break even as the gear changes, before arriving at the stop. It's strange to hold hands before you've ever kissed, but for them it seems so right. Because they already belong, and basically an exchange of lips is just like an icing on a cake already marvelous in itself.

So, love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

How not to think again a time to the kitten, to the words used to accompany this gesture? And not just to the "declaration" of being ready to make her shoulder to cry... that day he was also interested in knowing how she was, that is: did she cried again? And he had seemed happy to have succeeded in getting into the thin crack of her soft armor. Oh, how much she loved even the words he had used! They were just right for her.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

Luke promises himself that he will do it, he will love her (in the future, but very close) as she has always deserved to be loved. After this evening there are no more excuses or insecurities that hold. It occurs to him the first time that Penelope met Roxy. The splendid smile that had been painted on her face, modifying the traits and showing him for the first time who she really was. Here, that smile must be his main goal. Make sure that she always has it with her, because of him, if possible.

Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do

It's a song set in the present and both of them imagine that she can sing it again on later. They both know what that later refers to. It will completely different, so for now they enjoy the fact of keeping just holding hands. The gray landscape of the city that flows out of the windows. The physical contact for now has been limited to the minimum, among them: if we exclude the passage not really random of some objects (see the theft of the remote control), remain to us the time in Bradenton, when he had helped her to get off the sidewalk and two moments, one sadder than the other, that she had allowed him to hold her by the shoulders. Oh, no, there was also the arm on the hips on Phil, but there she was in seventh heaven because Lou was too cute.

What are you waiting for?

This is the true question, and it certainly doesn’t escape to me that she sings it by looking at him directly. What is he waiting for? Why doesn’t he say something explicit, which definitively clarifies what he feels? She wouldn’t take him by the hand, she wouldn’t be bothered like that when he held the door open for her, if she didn’t feel the same things. And Luke has an answer, fine precise, he has it: he is waiting for the song to end. This is the last time limit that he intends to respect. There will be no other extensions.

Fading in, fading out, on the edge of paradise

Penelope, however, can’t, can’t read his mind, so she just goes on singing and hoping, putting all the love she feels for him. She dreams with open eyes, a thousand fantasies flow in front of her pupils, like a film projected only for her. Past, Present, Future; everything mixes and the only thing he can see on the outside is a stupid smile on her lips.

Every inch of your skin is a Holy Grail I’ve got to find

This is a promise that he hopes she intends to keep. He manages to easily and simply display his hands with Penelope's colored fingernails while caressing his chest, making him a light tickle. How she hugs him from behind, resting her head on his bare back and then kissing his shoulder. A kiss with a bite, yes, he imagines her as a nibbler. In the real world, he feels a shock. Fortunately, his brain manages to remain focused on driving.

Only you can set my heart on fire

Penelope screams with her whole self, regardless of being stoned. Singing in Luke's car, in such a small space, is not the same as doing it in a club like O'Keef. The second one should be more difficult, there being a larger audience, a greater percentage of making faces... instead it’s much more anxiolytic to "perform" for one person. Everything helps to make this moment so intimate. It’s clear that she is singing only for him.

Yeah, I'll let you set the pace, 'cause I'm not thinking straight

A part of him would never end, because at this moment he is too good, he feels that everything is perfect, the universe is in perfect harmony, the planets are aligned... but no, he can’t already deny the promise he made to himself. At the end of this song he will tell her. Even if it will be only a "I love you" that she could misunderstand, understand how to love each other as friends and then he would be clarified to her "I'm in love with you".

My head spinning around, I can’t see clear no more

Her head really spinning around, but not like after a hangover. It’s the euphoria, the excitement, the expectation, the hope, all mixed together in a cocktail that has been drinking in one sip. She looks at Luke and he looks even more beautiful than usual, too beautiful, unattainable and for a moment she leaves the sadness to have the best. A caress made with the thumb on the back of her hand brings her back to the crest of the wave.

What are you waiting for?

That question again. But Penelope ceases to be in the cockpit of Luke's car and ends up in her own fantasies. Always, when she listens to music, she creates a kind of video clips on her head and the more she hears this song, the more it perfects. Even with this it happened. And now she has the main male actor sitting next to the her.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

The song up to here was fairly quiet, yes, there were accelerations, but all contained. Instead from this point on, it explodes. Penelope imagines being in the offices of Quantico, in the area of the desks. She is walking beside Luke, when that music starts, and she finds herself standing over the man's desk, singing and dancing perfectly in time.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

At the second repetition her best friends and colleagues appear behind her. But not only the current ones, most of those that have passed through there, and others, even their federal ones, but that have nothing to do with BAU. On her left are Emily, Elle, Jordan, to her right JJ, Tara, Alex, and in the middle, behind her, Kate and Ashley. All move perfectly synchronized to her.

Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do

From time to time, the videoclip takes an overall view, to better emphasize the perfect movements of the lead singer, from her body while she dances to Luke's close and half-close-ups, to better understand his reactions. The man observes that exhibition with his mouth ajar, completely shocked.

What are you waiting for?

That question doesn’t provide a coherent answer, but Penelope doesn’t give up this time, she continues with all the ballet, but now Emily, JJ and Tara are on the balcony, to get a more panoramic effect. Penelope comes down from the desk and approaches Luke, there are rapid steps between the two faces, thus underlining the differences between them.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

Now the chorus also becomes a choir, repeating the last part of the sentence, emphasizing the power of the song. Luke is now in Penelope's room, on every screen appears the face of the woman, in the nineteen-century videogame style, singing that song a thousand times. The man observes first one and then another close-up, as if he were looking for the real Garcia behind those virtual copies, not even in the hall of mirrors of the amusement park.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (yeah)

We return to the area of the desks. Now there aren’t only the women of the FBI, but each is accompanied by a man: JJ with Spencer, of course, Emily and Rossi, Tara and Matt; for the occasion, Gideon reappeared, whirling Elle (something that could happen only in Penelope's dreams and maybe not even there) and Hotch with Kate. All this contributes to making the song even more explosive.

Touch me like you do, to -to-touch me like you do

Penelope, however, isn’t the most part of that creative confusion, in fact she is near the lifts, alone with Luke, who has his back against the wall, is trapped. He must decide, he can’t remain forever to stare her that way, time is running out, could come someone who doesn’t like so much to beat. She continues to sing while making it difficult, placing her hand next to his body and dangerously approaching their faces.

What are you waiting for?

She whispers it with her lips a few centimeters from his. Detail of Luke's eyes dilating as he tries not to stare at her red mouth, detail of the latter, while the music takes a break, or rather the words. Finally, he can catch his breath. Profile of their two to make it clear how really their bodies are close, then we go back for a moment in the area of the desks, where there are others, they also seem waiting for something, they are still in the last position where they are been seen framed.

I'll let you set the pace, 'cause I'm not thinking straight

Penelope places her hand on his chest, open, feeling the beating of his heart. She appears very concentrated in this simple gesture. She grabs his hand and forces him to do the same thing. Luke seems instead terrified, unable to get out of this gray area.

My head spinning around, I can’t see clear no more

Other details of their faces, eyes, then she shakes her head. She takes his hand off his body abruptly. Detail of the numbers of the elevator that continue to change, is approaching, is about to arrive. Total silence, in the writing area we could read the lip of someone, JJ above all, count up to three.

What are you waiting for?

The scream explodes even more than the previous ones. At the same time the elevator doors open. On board there is Penelope, dressed in another way, Luke seems confused, looks around but "the other Penelope" is gone. Then she appears next to him, because at this point the sentences overlap and the chorus isn’t enough. The two women surround him, put him on the corner.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (like you do)

Both sing with despair and love in the voice. We pass from Penelope in the elevator to another, dressed still differently, dancing with the choir, first with only the girls, all close and perfectly synchronized, then also with the men. Now appears Derek, who dances with her, makes her turn, but she doesn’t miss a note.

Love me like you do, I love it like you do (yeah)

So back to the elevator, but from a different perspective, external, and Luke finds himself in Garcia's room, all those blond women with their eyes that sing the same thing, the man is about to succumb. A hand, with the rest of the body out there, grabs him and pulls him outside the painting, here he is again, sitting at his desk with Penelope at the top singing and dancing, the others behind her, men and women, but all as single entities and no longer in pairs.

Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do

Visions and shots of many sexy, not regular, of the body of Penelope that moves. The legs, seen from below, seem even longer. The prosperous bosom seems about to burst. Hair dances creating a particular dynamism. Many plays on the no-see-ums, without ever going into the vernacular.

What are you waiting for?

The question resonates with a higher volume than any other sentence. We return to Luke against the wall while they wait for the lift and with her nose that almost touches the man's. She appears exhausted and annoyed, she needs him to finally give her a satisfactory answer or better still, to act.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do

For the last refrain all the various scenes flow and alternate rapidly: overall visions of the body, both in pairs and as individuals, only the girls around Penelope, she on the desk, standing or sitting; the computer screens room of Garcia, Luke backing away, frightened; the elevator, the two of them out with her screaming in his face everything, inside with the Penelope that is the main chorus.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me you do (yeah)

Always a continuous alternation, IT bat-cave, all the rooms start to turn around Luke, with everything they contain, including people. Only Penelope (and him) remain fixed, the woman at the center, as it happens in his mind. Aerial view of Penelope singing along with the girls near her, all their faces screaming.

Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do

The last final sprint. The alternation accelerates, until it begins and decelerates from mid-sentence onwards, preparing for the epilogue. Everyone stops, staring at Luke. In the real world, man swallows, because he knows he is about to bet everything.

What are you waiting for?

The video clip in Penelope's mind ends with Luke leaning against the elevator and herself looking at him just before he gave her that antistress kitten, because she was so in the clouds that she hadn’t recognized him and when she finally realized... In reality she turns to the man and asks the question, almost ceasing to sing.

Luke puts the arrow and parks at the side of the road. But they didn’t arrive, this isn’t her street. -Luke, what's up?- he turns off the radio. No more songs or distractions, they have to talk. Above all he. He turns to her.

-Uh, Penelope, I'm bad with the statements, so I'll just tell you that I love you and I really want to get home from O'Keef hearing your voice every night of every day of my life and... this was it, what I was waiting for. That ended the song.- a thousand emotions follow each other on the woman's face. First uncertainty, then euphoric joy, then emotion and finally... a liberating laugh.

-If I had knew it, that it was enough for me to sing, I would have done it before.- he laughs too and then stares at her like that. The usual. But this time his eyes are more intense and she stops herself from blushing and ruining everything. A kiss, it will only be a kiss. As in her imagination, their noses touch each other. But Luke doesn’t seem terrified, indeed. He takes her face in his hands, his cold hands, one on her cheek and one towards her neck. She puts her own on his shoulders. And finally, they meet, making sure that their lips coincide. Like everything before each other, it starts in a simple, sweet, uncertain and gradually loads with intensity and seriousness. Penelope opens her mouth to tell him something, but he takes advantage of it right away to catch her tongue. The beautiful words and phrases studied are erased from the woman's mind as she engages in a fight to the death that ends in parity. And it leaves them sweating and panting, trying to catch their breath. -Uh, Luke, I wanted to tell you that I love you too and a lot of other beautiful things but you, but you... you're incorrigible!- she gives him a light fist on his chest, shaking her head. -Ho back to home, before someone arrests us for public indecency. Emily wouldn’t be happy about it.- Luke laughs but can’t resist the temptation to snatch another kiss from her.

-Penelope, we could...- he starts, without success, while restarting the engine.

-No, don’t talk about it. We do things right. Me at my house, you at your house. And tomorrow morning, you walk by me with Roxy, a nice walk before going to work.- he approves with a nod of his head, smiling strangely, his usual grimace of the side, because he loves so she picks up everything. -And don’t think in the least to make me run. I said walk.- she specifics, but in reality, she could even get used to running (occasionally), to be with him.

-At your service!- he replies in a military tone, making fun of her, even bringing a hand to his forehead. -But how did you know what I meant?- theoretically she shouldn’t be profiler.

Penelope laughs pleased. -Oh, newbie, you're a man, you have this splendor in the car with you... seriously, because of your tone. I guess Lisa and you... no, I don’t want to know. Now you're mine and I'm going to scan every millimeter of your skin for good.- Luke bites his lips and almost a moan escapes him.

-Uh, Penelope, there is a problem.- in the meantime he parks, because they are in front of her house. -Get out fast, or I may disobey more than one of your commands.- she laughs at him once more, knowing which problem he is referring to.

-I think I'll take the risk.- Luke smiles at her, grateful, but still in trouble.

-But I not turning on the radio again.- he makes it clear.

*THE END*

Note: the song is Love me like you do by Ellie Goulding

@thinitta @martinab26 @theshamelessmanatee

#garvez #penelope garcia #luke alvez #luke x penelope #penelope x luke #alvez x garcia #garcia x alvez #criminal minds #cm #bau team #song fic #love me like you do #ellie goulding

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ineverhadmyinternetphase · 7 years

Text

And it’s all gonna be wonderful

AO3 Link

Genre: Oneshot, part of QPR verse, fluff

Summary: Fiction. Dan knows he and Phil are 'together'. There's no doubt in his mind about that. He's just... not quite sure how exactly to situate what they are, and especially not when something as stressful as Valentine's Day was coming up.

Warnings: literally just fluff

Word Count: 3899

A/N: Updating QPR verse finally :D I originally wanted to have this up for Valentine's Day itself, but life got in the way as ever so it's slightly late.

Thank you so much to @mecaka for being such a wonderful beta, as ever! And for interesting perspectives on ace people at Valentine's Day.

And finally, this is for my wonderful QPP @charlottekath, happy birthday my lovely, I know you've already read this but pretend to be surprised ok xD

Title from Tom Rosenthal's 'Going to be Wonderful'

Reminder that I don’t know Dan or Phil at all and I’m not suggesting this in any way reflects reality. This is a work of fiction

…

It was almost February 14th, and Dan was terrified.

The date shouldn’t mean anything, really, he’d had enough of trashy gifts and sappy songs from his teen years, three years with the girl who’d been more like a best friend than anything. His life was different now, had changed completely, and it wasn’t just down to his starting at uni. Much as that was a new thing in his life, the bigger change, Dan thought guiltily, was the presence of Phil.

Phil changed everything. Dan knew this, was worried by it more than anything. Sometimes he still got stuck in twisting thoughts, nights spent alone at halls where doubts about what he and Phil really were crept in.

The other times, the times with Phil, it didn’t matter at all. When they were curled up together, holding hands, or when he managed to squeeze himself between Phil’s legs with his back against Phil’s chest and Phil’s arms around him, Dan felt more safe and comfortable than he’d ever felt in his life. The ever-present worry that he’d have to do something more to deserve this happiness dissipated in the softness of Phil’s touch, in the lightness of his laugh. Sometimes, it was even enough to stop Dan’s thoughts from spiralling down into dark places he’d rather avoid.

But sometimes, real life kicked him in the teeth. Like the upcoming date.

February 14th.

Last year, it hadn’t mattered so much. There hadn’t really been much pressure – he and Phil weren’t living in the same city yet, had only really been ‘official’ (as much as they were) for a few months at best. Dan hadn’t even been in the country. He hadn’t planned anything for it, though the thought had crossed his mind, but Phil – Phil surprised him all over again by sending him the sweetest video, just kept between the two of them.

Dan remembered it with a fond smile on his face. It had cemented for him that whatever he and Phil had was good enough as it was, and he’d managed to stop worrying so much about putting a label on it. They just were, and that was enough.

But this year, something horrible had shifted in Dan’s gut, a twisting knot that had its origins in a casual conversation held earlier in the week.

Dan didn’t like his flatmates much. They were alright people, but after a gap year full of internet friends and international holidays he’d got used to being around people he didn’t have to hide his nerdier side from. Being stuck in uni halls with a bunch of people he’d never met and had little in common with was a shock back to reality that he wasn’t very much enjoying.

“You coming out on Monday?” Craig, one of the guys on his floor, asked in the kitchen one evening.

There was a group of them. Dan was tucked in the corner desperately trying not to set his pasta on fire this time, cooking himself a quick meal for a rare time that he wasn’t at Phil’s.

“Don’t think so,” Jessica answered with a shrug, “It’s Valentine’s Day, think Jason’s taking me out.”

“Ugh.” Craig made a face. “That means all the soppy couples will be busy, ugh.” He glanced around, sighing theatrically. “Alex, you won’t leave me, right?”

“Sorry, mate, got plans with my coursemates.”

“Ugh.” Craig’s eyes landed on Dan and he smirked. “Of course, you’ll be out with Mystery Older Man, won’t you?”

Dan grimaced, slipping when he nearly burned his hand on the hob.

“Oh yeah,” Alex chimed in, “You have to let us meet him eventually. He taking you out somewhere nice, sky bar again?”

“Bet he’s got something real fancy planned,” Craig agreed with a wicked tint to his eyes.

“No,” Dan managed eventually, shrinking in on himself. “Don’t think so, anyway. He’s going to London the day after, he’ll probably be busy packing.”

That was a lie. Phil was a messy, late packer, not quite as bad as Dan was but still not great. Dan had learned this from their many trips across the country the past year, as well as flying out with him to E3. But it was true that he was travelling down to London the day after Valentine’s Day, leaving Dan alone for a few days. Dan wasn’t sure what to make of the timing of the trip. It was a work thing, he knew, Phil was doing several interviews and shows outside of his Youtube channel right now, which was still so much more successful than Dan’s.

Yet another thing for Dan to feel insecure about.

“I doubt it,” Jessica snorted in response to Dan. “Mystery Older Man always seems to make time for you, I swear you live more at his place than here.”

Dan gave a nervous laugh in response. The statement was truer than he’d like to admit.

“If you don’t have any plans, he’s probably going to surprise you,” Craig added wisely, and then grimaced. “Probably with something drastic and super romantic, ugh, I’m going to be so alone.”

The others all chuckled, but Dan felt something sharp twisting in his gut.

He escaped back to his room as fast as he could with a bowl of half-heated pasta and a sad, shop-bought sauce, and folded himself up in his desk chair to start watching the newest video clips Phil had sent him. The fanboy in him had mostly subsided over the past year of actually getting to know Phil, of realising that he was just as human as Dan and had annoying habits too like leaving his socks everywhere and grumbling at Dan for using almost all the body wash every time he was over, but part of Dan still curled up happily whenever Phil sent him clips to look over. It was like a spy into the world of amazingphil, which was something Dan still treasured, as much as he knew he was part of it now.

He ate his pasta and watched the clips and tried to ignore the twisting in his gut. But the worries continued running through his mind.

Craig didn’t know them, Dan knew this. There was a reason he was keeping Phil separate from his uni life at the moment. It was exhausting, being around a group of people and having to pretend to be something he wasn’t, he didn��t want to drag Phil into that too. Never mind that Dan wasn’t sure how he was supposed to act around Phil when there were other people with them. Would they be expected to kiss? Make out?

Dan grimaced at even the thought.

Would Craig and the others still think Phil was going to lavish him for Valentine’s Day if they knew that he and Phil had only kissed once, and then firmly decided never again?

Dan tried to push the thoughts away, too used to them to truly be bothered anymore. He knew what Phil would say – it doesn’t matter what they think, Dan, they don’t know us, and we know what we are. The difficulty was, Dan still felt like he didn’t really know what he was, actually. He had no doubts that he and Phil were together, but—but he still didn’t really know what to call it, and sometimes that bothered him.

Valentine’s Day was just adding to that worry. Dan bit his lip, trying to focus on the clip he was currently watching whilst simultaneously typing up a commentary to email back over to Phil. Would Phil really be planning to surprise him? Dan didn’t think so, but then, they’d never really talked about Valentine’s Day together, and Phil did have a habit of spoiling him with surprises (the sky bar on their first meeting, for one).

In the end, Dan just grabbed his phone and sent Phil a text. He’d learned, or was learning, that when his thoughts got too twisted and overrun, sharing them with Phil made him feel a little lighter.

Dan: hey you doing anything monday?

The reply came back pretty instantly, which made Dan smile, imagining Phil sitting in a pile of blankets in his bed on the other side of the city.

Phil: no are you suggesting something?

Dan: not necessarily

Phil: ?

Dan stared at the innocent-looking question mark for several seconds, biting his lip. Did Phil even know the date on Monday? Did he know it was the 14th, that Dan was freaking out over whether or not he should be doing something for Phil? Or that Phil was secretly planning something for him, and Dan had no idea how to react?

Letting out a long breath, Dan typed out a response.

Dan: nvm im being dumb

He didn’t want to type it out over text. Besides, his thoughts were far too muddled to even begin trying to string them into a sentence.

Dan settled back into the clips with a shake of his head, trying to kick his worry to the back of his mind. It helped when Phil replied quickly again.

Phil: k well can’t wait to see you again :D :D <3

Despite the slightly sour taste of anxiety, Dan still softened at the text. The string of emojis was very Phil, and Dan could almost hear the text in his voice. It was comforting. Dan relaxed a little and turned back to the clips with renewed gentleness.

Valentines’ Day was just a stupid holiday. Dan was being ridiculous worrying about it.

After that, Dan and Phil spent a couple of days at Bryony and Wirrow’s, and Dan still pinched himself to remind himself that yes, he was now friends with actual paperlilies. She was far more brash in real life than he’d expected, but over the summer he’d found he actually liked that about her. Never mind that she and Phil got along like a house on fire.

While there, Valentine’s Day wasn’t even brought up once, and Dan found himself forgetting about it.

But now, it was the day before, and Dan was freaking out all over again.

Even his phone reminder was dinging that it was Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and Phil still hadn’t mentioned anything. The idea that he might be planning something secretly plagued Dan’s mind. Did that mean he should be prepared? Should he be doing something back for Phil? Or was nothing going on at all, and Dan was just freaking out over nothing?

The logical thing to do would be to talk to Phil, but Dan had tried that earlier in the week with no success. Besides, if it was a surprise Phil was planning then he wouldn’t tell him anyway.

Dan worried his lower lip with his teeth, biting down viciously. He didn’t know what to do. He hated this indecision, this hanging on, worrying about something that might not even matter. Would he mind, if Phil had something planned? Would he mind more if Phil didn’t?

Dan considered that last thought, narrowing his eyes as he lay sprawled across his bed in halls. He’d been at Phil’s the day before, and was going back the day after – he’d only returned to his room to attempt some uni work (which Dan would much rather not think about). He thought about Monday morning rolling around and Phil not having anything special planned – Dan showing up at his flat and it just being another, normal day.

That would be alright, wouldn’t it?

Dan’s stomach tightened. A strange wave of regret washed over him – regret that Monday might roll around and nothing would happen. Sure, it was Valentine’s Day, a ridiculous holiday in most ways, and yet…

And yet, Dan still kind of wanted to celebrate it.

Not in the way everyone else did. Not with candles and overpriced presents and kisses, because yuck. But… but he still wanted to spoil Phil. And to have some kind of reassurance, some semblance of normality to their relationship. If they celebrated Valentine’s Day the same as any other couple, that would be a strange kind of validation that Dan was annoyed he still craved.

But what if Phil didn’t feel the same way?

Well, it wasn’t necessarily Phil that had to give the surprise.

Dan could just as easily surprise him, too.

Once he’d made that decision, Dan found himself surprisingly relaxing. Tension washed out of his muscles and he flopped back on his bed, head hanging off the end, blowing out a gusty sigh. He’d show Phil. He’d show Phil (and himself) that their relationship was just as valid as anyone else’s.

Except it was a fucking Sunday and Dan hadn’t got anything yet and the shops wouldn’t be open for much longer. With a yelp, he jumped to his feet, grabbed his bag and shoes and keys, and legged it out of the door.

---

Monday morning, Dan left his halls with his rucksack slung over his shoulder, nerves jumping in his belly and a shout from Craig that almost soured the whole thing.

“Good luck, Dan! Have fun with your boyfriend and try and at least get some sleep tonight in between banging him, yeah?”

This followed by a lecherous cackle as Craig disappeared into the kitchen.

Dan tried to force out a laugh back past the waves of nausea that flowed through him. Craig didn’t know him and Phil, he reminded himself. Dan didn’t have to listen to him.

If only that was easier to internalise.

He hopped on the bus across the city to Phil’s, avoiding eye contact with other people, his rucksack hanging precariously off one shoulder. He held onto the strap though, biting his lip. He really, desperately hoped that this wouldn’t all backfire on him, his stomach tightening at the thought. Phil’s reaction was completely unknown. Dan didn’t like walking into the unknown.

But, he knew, somewhere deep within himself, that he needed this.

The walk up to Phil’s apartment building was grossly familiar by now, so Dan didn’t even have to think as his feet led him straight to the door. His stomach, however, jumped more and more the closer he got.

Dan was being ridiculous. He’d been with Phil over a year. There was no need to fear rejection anymore, he knew that but… but he couldn’t quite make his mind realise that it didn’t need to be in a constant state of worry.

Dan pressed the buzzer with his heart in his mouth.

Phil, of course, buzzed him in straight away, only making some kind of cawing animal noise through the speaker. Dan shook his head, murmuring to himself. “One day you’re going to get overheard, Phil Lester, and someone in a white coat is going to arrive to take you away.”

He took the lift with the buzzing of nerves making his gut twist and actually took a few deep breaths to keep himself calm. There was absolutely no reason for him to be getting as worked up over this as he was, and yet something about this entire thing was setting him on edge. He still didn’t even really know if he was doing the right thing – but the only way to find out was to do it.

Dan had never been the best at being impulsive.

He knocked on Phil’s door, and spent the few seconds it took him to answer swallowing down the butterflies trying to escape his stomach.

The door swung open and Phil beamed at him, arms open, reaching out to drag him over the threshold. He was still in his pyjamas. “Hey! You’re early today, not that I’m complaining, but I haven’t had breakfast yet so you’re gonna have to wait for me to have that before you beat me at Mario Kart again.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s fine.” Dan’s voice was a bit stiff.

Phil noticed, giving him an odd look.

“It’s nothing,” Dan said quickly before he could ask. “Just. Look. Wait.”

“Stop, look, and listen?” Phil teased, but his expression was curious.

Dan twisted, sliding his rucksack off his back. The present within felt way heavier than it should do, laden with everything he was worried of attaching to it, and he almost hesitated.

But he was here now, wasn’t he, and Phil was looking at him with curious eyes.

Dan pursed his lips, drew in a breath, and bit the metaphorical bullet.

“Ok, so.” He stepped back, dropped his bag behind him, present gripped between his fingers. “This might be a totally bad idea. You can say no. Full disclosure, in fact, you probably want to say no so if you’d rather I just put this back away again--”

“Dan,” Phil interrupted him gently, “You’re rambling.”

“Oh.” Dan squeezed his hands behind his back, took in another slow breath. This was a bad idea. All his instincts were currently screaming at him to backpedal as fast as possible, but Phil was still looking at him with a distinctly curious, if slightly confused, look on his face, and Dan had always been powerless to giving Phil what he wanted. Phil did the same back, of course, but… still, Dan was weak.

“It isn’t much,” Dan said finally, and brought his hands around to the front to reveal a little teddy bear with holding a heart. “It isn’t even something you’d want, tbh. But everything in the shops is like this right now, and, well…”

He was interrupted by Phil making cooing noises and reaching out for the bear.

Dan stopped, blinking. Slowly, he held it out, and Phil took it off him with a soft, fond-looking smile.

Dan’s heart picked up a little in his chest.

“It’s adorable, Dan.” Phil’s eyes were still soft and heartwarming. Dan was melting a little. “And so soft! What’s it for, though?”

And all of a sudden Dan felt like a bucket of ice cold water was thrown over him again. He swallowed stiffly. This was a stupid idea, he should have known it.

Phil was clutching the bear to his chest a little possessively, though, so Dan couldn’t have fucked up too badly, right?

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Dan finally managed to say around the lump in his throat.

“Oh.” Phil’s gaze snapped up to look at him, and Dan’s heart sunk to his feet.

“Sorry,” he croaked out to dodge Phil’s gaze. “Look, we didn’t talk about it and I don’t even know if it’s something we should do, like - it’s a stupid commercial holiday anyway, it’s honestly kind of gross, but everyone back at halls was talking about it and Craig kept going on about you--”

“Me?” Phil interrupted him again, and Dan chanced a glance up to find Phil was grinning. “Your cool older boyfriend, full of smooth lines and teller of the best jokes?”

“Fuck off,” Dan shot back, but something inside him loosened, especially when Phil laughed softly. “‘Course not. More like - they just assumed we’d be doing something? Only you hadn’t said anything, and I felt kind of weird about it anyway, but…”

He trailed off, and Phil didn’t fill the silence. Instead, he watched quietly while Dan gathered his thoughts.

Dan loved that about him, really he did.

“I don’t know,” Dan finally said quietly. “Valentine’s is supposed to be about celebrating the person most important to you, right? And you’re the most important to me, so.”

“Aww.” Phil hummed, glancing from Dan to the bear and then back to Dan. “That’s so thoughtful, Dan. Who knew that somewhere in there you could be sweet.”

“Fuck off.” Dan shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground, feeling a little awkward. “I just. I don’t know, I wasn’t sure it would be… like, appropriate?”

“Appropriate?” Phil asked, tilting his head. “How so?”

“Like.” Dan paused for a moment, pursing his lips, and then went to sit on Phil’s (tiny) couch. “It’s Valentine’s. That’s all lovey-dovey mushy stuff, half of which we don’t even do anyway, plus it’s something that I always felt kind of obligated to do as a teenager - which was really just kind of awkward?”

“Well, I hope you didn’t feel obligated for me.” A crease appeared in Phil’s brow.

Dan shook his head, though. “No, not really. Not you. More just, like - everyone is celebrating their significant other and I don’t have one in the same way they do.”

“You calling me not good enough?” Phil joked, but paused when Dan’s face fell. He tilted his head. “Hey, Dan. I’m joking, you know that, right? What we have is just as good as what they all do.”

“It’s better,” Dan disagreed. “This way, I never have to kiss anyone ever again. That is such a relief, you have no idea.”

Phil laughed. The sound loosened up the lasting tension clutching at Dan, eased him up enough to let out a breath. Phil came and sat next to him on the sofa and Dan instantly leaned into him, resting his head against Phil’s shoulder and sighing happily when Phil wound an arm around his waist.

With his other hand, Phil settled the bear on Dan’s lap and made it give him a wave. “For the record, though, I like him. Valentine’s might not fit us perfectly but I’m still glad you thought of me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Makes me a bit bad for not getting you anything, though.”

“Don’t worry.” Dan closed his eyes, leaned into Phil’s chest. “You can take me out for fancy dinner to make up for it.”

“I spoil you.”

“You do,” Dan agreed, “it’s one of the reasons I even bother sticking around.”

Phil pinched his side, huffing, but Dan just swatted him away and leaned into him further. “Later. You can take me out later. Resting now.”

“Alright, you spoiled brat, let me at least grab my laptop.”

---

Later, Phil took him to a restaurant closer towards town. It was filled to the brim with other couples, holding hands and kissing and sharing sweet, soft looks. Dan held back for a moment by the doorway, sure that someone was going to look at him and Phil and call them fakers, call out their relationship out for being a facade when Dan knew it was the absolute opposite of that, the most genuine thing he’d felt in his life, even -

“Dan.” Phil caught his hand, gave it a squeeze. “You sure you want to do this?”

Dan looked at him, at his concerned expression, and then through the glass windows to the fancy restaurant full of all its fawning couples. He and Phil had a place with them, if they wanted it.

And Dan decided that, yes, for this day, he really did want it. Perhaps he shouldn’t need the validation, but sometimes he wanted to join in something that gave them equal status to other, more conventional couples. Because they were a couple. Over a year together had made him more sure of that than anything.

“Yeah,” he answered, interlocking his fingers with Phil’s. “Let’s go in, shall we?”

Phil held the door for him, like the gentleman that he was, and Dan’s smile grew. He was content.

#phanfic #phanfiction #phan #qpr verse #iwritephanthings

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nirah10 · 6 years

Text

From Anon,

So a father took his ex wife to court, blaming her for leaving their 11 year old son in care of her older son, his former step-son and half brother to the 11 year old, who then killed the little boy.

The dad claims his ex knew the teen was unstable and should not have left them alone together while it was her weekend with the 11 year old, as they shared custody.

He also claims she should have known he was missing that night, not the next morning and thinks she helped cover the murder for her other child.

The wife claims that the teen’s actions are the dad’s fault. As while he was good to his own kids, she claims she abused his step-son, made him feel different to the other kids, and that caused his instability.

The father denies ever abusing his step son though, and claims he has written proof from the courts and the pysch that the teens problems date back to the mother tellng her older son when the marriage broke up that he was not his real father, and then taking the older son out of school and seperating him from both the man he called dad and his youngest siblings. Out of spite when the marriage was breaking up as that was the only kid she had power to take away from him.

He claims he never abused his step son, and it was her removing the older kid from his siblings and telling him his dad was in fact his step dad that caused him to snap and murder his brother a couple of years later.

Here are the two clips from Doctor Phil:

One:

https://youtu.be/Ejpp3JDoVwg

Two:

https://youtu.be/ProIl3pxzCg

I think I believe the mum. Mum deserves nights out as well and she probably didnt check on the kid when she got home as she did not want to wake him up. She noticed first thing next morning though.

And men abuse women all the time. He probably did hurt her.

The teen was old enough to be told he wasnt his real father. Telling him would not have caused him to snap and murder the kid, who was the bios dad’s son. Snapping over info he shoulf have been told years ago is a stretch. Don’t beleive the dad.

And she probably left the other kids with their dad and took off with the oldest as she knew he only hurt his step son and not the other kids. She was trying to ptotect him.

I think it is awful that horrible dad trying to blame his ex wife for their son’s murder. When it sounds like it was the dads fault way more than the mums. Cant beleive the dad is trying to get a mum who just lost her son sent to prison.

She seems to miss her son so much. I feel so sad for her.

What do you think from those two videos? The second one has more body language than the first. Do you think the dad is just doing this as a power trip to get at his wife? I feel so bad for the mum here. I’ve only seen these two clips, but i think she seems more sincre. And i do not think a mother would try and help another child cover up a body or ignore warning signs.

From Anon,

Well, this is quite interesting. Please keep in my mind that this is all just my opinion and I am perfectly aware that I could be wrong about everything. This is just the impression I got based on roughly 7 minutes of video about a very complex situation.

It’s difficult to tell much from two short clips and I’d be interested to see the whole thing, but I honestly get the impression that the mother is being less sincere than the father. I find that quite unsettling because I will admit that I’m usually more suspicious of men in general, particularly in child abuse cases, due to my own personal history, but my brain isn’t registering this guy as a child abuser. I can easily believe that he probably lost his temper easily and I can easily imagine him being gruff or raising his voice, but that’s about it. The mother, however, feels less trustworthy to me. For me, I see very little emotion in her. She doesn’t seem hurt or sad. She barely even seems angry. I think she’s fully aware that the way the story has been presented is incredibly biased to show her in favour, and I think she’s relying on the image of a grieving mother and on the fact that everyone watching has been told by the presentation to believe her. She steers the conversation away from herself and keeps trying to point it at her ex-husband instead. She uses a firm voice and talks to him like he’s a bully talking over her (repeatedly saying “don’t interrupt me”) when the conversation seemed to be perfectly civil and I don’t think he was really interrupting. She said something, paused and easily looked like she was finished, and then happened to start speaking again just when he started talking and she immediately goes to “I’m still talking. Don’t interrupt me.” I think she was doing that intentionally to turn the audience towards the idea that he’s a bully and she needs to stand up for herself, but I saw no bullying behaviour. In fact, he rarely spoke over her and actually did stop whenever she told him he was interrupting, nor did he really raise his voice or use insults, and that doesn’t really seem like the kind of behaviour I would expect from an abusive person. I also didn’t see any sting of remorse or guilt in her face or in her voice when she talked about not seeing the signs with her older son. I think most mothers would beat themselves up about that constantly, asking themselves why they didn’t see them and how they could have failed both their children so much. Instead, she seems to only talk about it with the thought of defending herself.

That all being said, I wouldn’t say that either parent is at fault for the murder. The boy who actually committed the murder is at fault for it, and I feel like the father is looking for someone to blame. It sounds like he was close with his stepson (the kid didn’t even know he was his stepson after all, which also tells me the claim that he was treated differently is probably false) and it would be incredibly hard to blame your child for something so horrible. It would be easier to turn your anger towards the other parent and blame them instead (this placement of blame also makes me doubt the child abuse thing more, as abusers usually have no problem with throwing blame at the children they abuse). In the clips, I did not hear the father really say anything negative about his stepson other than to point out that the mother should have known better. At the same time, I don’t think the mother was being negligent. I feel like she was a bit defensive and I feel like the child abuse accusation may have been constructed to help paint herself as a good mother, but that isn’t really unusual given the circumstances. She has a right to go out “and party” (they say that like it’s a bad thing and there’s really nothing wrong with it) as long as no child is left unattended. Her teenage son was more than old enough to be left in charge, so she did absolutely nothing wrong there. However, I don’t believe that she didn’t see any signs that her son might not be trustworthy or that he might be violent. I’m sure she did and I’m sure she wrote it off as her son being a hormonal teenager or kids just being kids and fighting. No mother wants to think of their own child as anything bad or dangerous. That’s why so many kids get away with being bullies for years and years. You can tell someone that their kid is a bully and they’ll find an excuse for them. You can tell them that their kid is a rapist or is abusive to their boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, even their children, and they will defend them. Look at Rapist Brock Turner, whose parents defended him and said absolutely disgusting things for no reason other than that’s their little boy and they don’t want to believe that he could be a monster. Denial is a very natural and common reaction for a parent. I believe the father is doing it now by placing the blame on his ex-wife instead of stating the obvious--that his stepson is responsible for the death of his son. Instead, he shifts the blame from his stepson, blaming his actions on the fact that he has PTSD, and then blames the mother for the fact that he has PTSD to begin with. He doesn’t want to blame his boy for a heinous crime, even though the proof is everywhere. It’s not that different from the mother not wanting to believe that her boy could commit a heinous crime, even if she saw plenty of warning signs.

Now, I really, really don’t know enough to put an opinion in either way as to what actually happened, but I would not be surprised if they learned that she did help cover up the murder. If she came home and found out what happened, it’s really not a stretch for me to think that she would help him. She’s already lost one son at that point and suddenly she’s faced with the idea of losing another in the same night, and I think maternal instinct would kick in to try and protect her older son. After all, I believe that denial was already very present in her mind so it wouldn’t be hard to extend it. It’s her own fault for leaving them alone. It’s her ex-husband’s fault for being however he was. It’s the PTSD’s fault. There are plenty of ways she could have immediately convinced herself that her son was not to blame and that he needed to be protected from the people who would blame him because they would never understand. I find it suspicious that she didn’t notice her son was missing until the morning. I find it suspicious that the older son would take the body so far away (did he even have a car?) and take the time to bury it when his mother could have come home at any minute. I really wouldn’t be surprised if she came home and found the body or evidence of a struggle, or if she came home and found her older son in distress (which would easily trigger that maternal instinct to protect him), learned what happened, and took steps to help him cover it up. She would have had all night to hide the body and clean any evidence from the house and easily excuse that time by saying she simply didn’t notice until morning.

TLDR; I think both parents are responding to their grief by blaming each other when neither one is really to blame. I don’t know if she did, but I would not be even slightly surprised if the mother helped hide the body and attempted to cover up the murder.

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