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kileyrose-2003 · 4 years

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Dan Torrance x Fem! Reader Part 3

A/N: Hi lovelies! Here comes another one of my extremely angsty psychological dive into Rose and Crow’s relationship. Lol. Very, very emotional write for me. Some of you might be wondering after you read this on just how exactly and I will simply say one thing: The relationship between Rose and Crow is very explicitly written and there while as in the film it is implied. In this AU I wanted there to be a reason why Rose and Crow seem more distant, hence why I am taking my own spin to them like this.

Anyways, I love you guys! I know there are a lot of people on Tumblr right now as well as myself dealing with the affects of COVID-19 in our every day lives. If you ever need anyone to talk to, my DM’s are always open. I might not be a therapist but I am willing to help :) I hope you all have a wonderful day and stay safe, lovelies!

Link to intro is here , pt. 1, and Pt. 2

Enjoy!

Warnings: Trigger warning for mentioned/implied child abuse, child death, baseball boy scene, blood, gore

“..Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me and especially don’t fucking touch me.”

“Crow-”

“No, Rosie! This is your fault. Not her fault, it’s yours. You hurt her! You hurt our baby!” In a rare display of emotion, hot tears were streaming down Crow’s face.

Rose chose her words very carefully before speaking. “..She is not our baby. We did not birth her into this world. She never belonged to us in the first place. And, no. I don’t hate her. I am not jealous of her either and I am not entirely to blame for all this. While maybe your way of thinking on this not being her fault may be correct, you are part of the reason to blame.” Her tone was calm and diligent like a mother trying to keep a tantrum prone toddler calm. “I told you from the start, that I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be here. In general, our way of life is not fit for any child.”

“I-”

“Don’t talk! Just listen. You however insisted at keeping her here when I told you it wasn’t fair to her to live like this. Once she seen what we did, I did not want her to live like this. Had we of just-”

“Rose, I wasn’t just going to send her back to where she came from! Because-”

“Because you grew attached to her! When I told you not to get to fond of her too quick because it was supposed to be a trial thing. We don’t give affection to rubes, Crow. It’s a rule of thumb. That’s what we gave to her though. Not just you, but me too and I will admit with that I was wrong but yet you fail to recognize the reason I brought her into this in the first place was to make you happy and whether you think it’s right or wrong to do what I did to make you happy: I don’t care. To knock some sense into her was the only option. That was the only way she was going along with the whole thing though. So I did what I had to do, even if I didn’t like it. None of that would of happened though had you just let her go.”

Crow sat there on the ground, staring at the falling leaves around him while he processed every word that Rose said to him. “Comments?”

He had none. Yet. His head felt like a over boiling tea pot waiting to just spill over and burn the person closest to him. In that case, Rose. It wouldn’t be the first time he killed one of his lovers. His rage was infrequent but when it came out, it was a force to be reckon with like a blazing fire. It was what he related to most. It was the only thing that had passion that burned and grew as quick as he did until he met Rose. Rose burned as bright, if not brighter than he did. Crow wanted to kill Rose right then and there and she felt it. They all felt it.

Rose was quick to step away despite of her certainty he wouldn’t kill her. Yet something gave her the maybe, just maybe, he would one day. She’d make sure to keep that under control though and keep her dragon tamed.

Just like it wouldn’t be the first he killed a love, it wasn’t the first time he was a father either. Though that time was as far from him as the setting sun was near his finger tips, the memories though old and a little wishy washy, were engraved into his mind. The smell of smallpoxs immediately entering his nostrils at the thought of it. Just like he hadn’t forgotten the name and face of his own child, he was sure he wasn’t going to forget yours either. Or the way it made him the feel the last time he got to speak to you.

You felt stuck and he was stuck too. Except unlike the first child he lost, you didn’t feel scared to leave him. You felt almost relieved. Like you could breath now while the other felt like they were drowning in fear and pain. It was in that moment he realized you were scared of him. You were afraid he’d hurt you at one point

‘No, I wouldn’t hurt her,’ He told himself over and over. He would of never intentionally tried to make you scared of him or put you in a position where you felt uncomfortable. You adored him and he loved you just as much, if not more, than you loved him. You were his baby, even if it meant he had to kill to have you.

Finally he had his comment and the words came out full of fury and rage. “..Bullshit. You all fucking lie!”

…

He wouldn’t touch Rose for months let alone look at her until she forced him too and even then, that was a battle. He wasn’t the same after that. He became more cynical, more distant. Almost an empty shell of the person he was.

Any out spoken nature he had and was replaced by soft spoken snarkiness. There was no more The Irish Rose and her Crow. Only the remnants of a broken past and flings that occurred in the event of their primal feedings. Nothing more and nothing less.

While the stars shined down on you and Danny brightly as you were yet again acting out your passions in the privacy of your own home, Crow Daddy stood in the darkness of the abandoned ethanol plant in Bankerton, Iowa as he sharpened the blade of his knife. The only lights shining on him were the glares of The True Knot’s RV’S nearly blinding him.

He felt soft hands rub up and down the bare skin of his upper arm and a head press against his shoulder. Rose. “I’m excited. It’s been months since we’ve done our thing, you know?” She nipped the cartilage on his ear and fought the urge to push her away. “Sure,” He grunted.

Rose furrowed her brows. “Aren’t we testy tonight?” Crow fought the urge to laugh in her face. “When am I not lately?” She bit her lips. “You’re really going to do this. Right now?”

“It’s not like what’s been between us is exactly a secret to anyone in the family, Rosie.” She pulled away from him slightly repulsed and stretched her arms. “I’m ready.” The reply was snappy and quick and Barry was quick to obey.

'The boy is going to be the one to suffer for that reply but who am I care?’ Crow thought to himself as he looked at the bite mark the Baseball Boy left on his hand. 'The little bastard deserves it.’

“No! No! Please don’t! No..” The first couple of times he had to bare witness and participate in the unholy act after you left, he could hardly take. There was a slight lapse of faith and for a while he thought maybe he just didn’t deserve to have children. Now was different though. He felt numb.

After being in constant agony for over 20 years his sympathy began to decrease and soon he felt nothing for anyone. As Rose knelt down to Bradley Trevor’s level he took his position behind her, standing tall. To child on the ground, he was terrifying but the rest thought nothing of him.

Rose gestured for the knife and he handed it over immediately. “A-are you going to hurt me?” The reply was husky and menacing. “Yes.”

There were screams of protest but Crow took no mind to them. “Pain purifies steam. Fear too. So now you understand.” The Baseball Boy let out a scream of protest before Rose stabbed deeply into him.

…

Meanwhile as you laid in bed next to Danny who was in a dead coma, you felt someone poking at your mind. “Danny, stop it.” You elbowed him. He grunted and slapped your ass cheek. “W-wha?”

“You’re poking in my head again. Stop it.” He rolled over onto his side and shoved his face into the pillow. “I’m trying to sleep.” You rolled your eyes and as you went to wrap your arms around him, you felt the poke again. Accept this time it hurt. Like an electric shock.

(Hello?! Hello! Please tell me you can hear me.)

You paused before responding.

(I can hear you.)

(Good! They’re hurting him and they won’t stop.)

(Who is they?)

The response terrified you.

(The woman in the hat.)

All the sudden you felt nauseous and you gripped at bed sheets. You knew what was going to happen and you were terrified. The room began to slant on an angle and you gripped onto the head board tightly.

“Babe! What are you doing?” Dan sat up in bed and his face went flat at seeing the expression on your face. “Honey?”

You tried to respond to him physically but couldn’t so instead you turned to the person in your head.

(You’re mine and my husband’s pen pal, aren’t you?)

(Yeah.)

(Are you comfortable with telling me your name?)

(Yeah, it’s Abra.)

(Well Abra, can I ask you to do me a favor?)

The room began to tilt on an angle and you felt your grip on the head board becoming lose.

(Anything.)

(If I get stuck in here, tell Dan I love him.)

Your fingers lost their hold on the frame and you began to spiral down into a dark hole. 'This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.’ You prayed, silently hoping Abra was wrong but something told you she wasn’t. The dark hole began to reach it’s end and you had enough time to see trees and a sign that read 'NO TRESPASSING: BANKERTON ETHANOL PLANT’ When you felt the spiraling of your body stop.

Your astral body hit the ground hard and you had to spit the dirt out of your mouth. “Ugh, gross.” You attempted to reach forward to try and find something to grip onto that way you could stand up but your hand connected with human skin.

“Oh shit!” You scrambled back at the sight of Barry and you felt your body beginning to levitate upwards. “No! No! Please, please! I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see it!” Your body wouldn’t move though. You had to look. Unless you were going to get stuck here and hesitantly you opened your eyes. “Oh my god! Stop! Stop! Please stop!”

Your body began to lower and suddenly you felt eyes on you. One of them heard you. “No! No! No! No!” A hand ran itself through your long locks and you trembled.

“What is it?” You knew that voice and you didn’t have to open your eyes to know who was infront of you.

(Look at me.)

You shook your head but felt fingers lifting your head up to force you to look at them and slowly you opened them to see Rose. Her hands covered in blood and her eyes full of steamy lust.

(Well, hi there sweetie!)

Panic began to rise inside you and you reached out to Abra.

(Ru-)

Before you could even finish your thought, Rose plunged the knife back into the Baseball Boy and you let out a scream. “Holy shit! Holy shit!” You screeched feeling his pain.

(Funny how things come around isn’t it, Y/n?)

“Stop! Stop! Rose, please stop! Just stop!” Just as Danny was about to lay back down he jumped up in bed and gently shook your shoulders. “Y/n?! Baby? What’s wrong.”

(You got a friend there, Y/n? I want to see him.)

As Dan leaned over to caress your cheek, you pushed him back. “Y/n!” You could feel the rise Rose was getting out of your pain and it made you mad. You wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of getting kicks off your pain. “Get away from me, Danny! Get away!”

Instead of now just seeing Rose in your eyeshot all of them were in eyeshot with those haunting blue eyes staring at you and you slammed your head against the back of the bed. “Make it stop, Danny! Make it stop!”

This time when you tried to push him away, he held your arms down against your chest that way he could try to wake you up. “She’s going to see you Danny!”

(Yes, Danny. I am going to see you. That your little friend you made down in Florida?)

“Shut up!” You screamed. “Who’s going to see me?!”

“No!”

“God damn it, Y/n! Who do you see?”

BAM!

The room shook and Danny landed backwards onto the hardwood floor. Now he was pissed, not at you but whoever it was he couldn’t see. He grabbed your wrist to stop you from pushing him away. “Leave her alone!”

As Dan continued to shake your body and beg for you to wake up, the astral world around you began to slide. This time you were hanging upside down as you fell and as you did, yours and Crow Daddy’s eyes unintentionally interlocked though he would be aware enough to know it.

As you slammed back into your physical body, you rolled off the bed and hit your head on the dresser. “Oww!” You screeched and started sobbing. Dan tried to pull you into a hug but you kicked at him. “No! No!”

“Y/n-” You let out a scream. “Just leave me alone!” Danny backed away and you let out a sob. “What happened?” He asked gently as he scooped you up into his arms like you were a child. Normally you would protest said act but for right now, you didn’t care. You needed the comfort and that’s how he was giving it.

“They killed him..” You sobbed and you felt Danny let out a sigh as he ran his fingers through your hair. “They killed who?”

“That poor little boy!” You let out a screaming cry and buried your head in his shoulder. “Okay..okay.” You choked on your own sobs and nuzzled closely to him. “It’s alright.”

…

Meanwhile thousands of miles away, the lights of RV’s shined brightly in the darkness of the Iowa night on Crow and Rose as they buried the baseball boy.

As Rose finished throwing her scoop of dirt over Bradley Trevor’s glove she paused for a moment and looked at the ground. “We had a looker.” Crow stopped what he was doing and for the first time in years she actually seen a glint of what she would like to think was excitement in his dark eyes. “Tonight?”

“Yeah.” Rose dropped the shovel on the ground and Crow did the same. “East Coast, I think.” He furrowed his brows. “You’re saying someone looked in from I’ve 10,000 miles away?”

“Could of been farther. Could of been up in Canada, but it gets better. She wasn’t alone either.” Rose smirked slightly. “Y/n was with her.”

They say a picture is worth 1000 words but in that moment Crow Daddy’s face had an expression of infinite emotions. He tried tracking you down a few times after you ran but he honestly wondered what good it would do. He didn’t have to be in your mind to you were petrified of Rose and he figured you probably would want nothing to do with him. His mouth went dry and he felt like he wanted to throw up. “What?”

“Oh yeah and she wasn’t happy to see me either. The second she seen me stab into the kid she was out of there so fast and back to her man friend.”

“Man friend?” He looked boggled. “Oh yeah. Danny is his name. She wouldn’t let me get a look at him though..or the looker but I swear Crow Daddy, I haven’t felt power. Raw power like that off the looker than I’ve felt in so long..”

“Then do you think we should look into it? The sooner the better. Before her parents send her to a psychiatrist. Put her on pills. Muffle the steam and make her harder to find.”

“No, giving paxil to this kid is like putting a piece of saran wrap over a search light. And when either of them come back and trust me, I’ll know they’ll be back, I’ll be ready. Oh I’ll be ready..”

Crow dreaded the prospect though. He didn’t want to see you older. A little bit younger than him. It served as a reminder that time went comes and goes fast and there was no buying more of it. For the rubes at least.

“Besides,” Rose straightened her posture as if she was reflecting back on another thought. “What is tied can never be untied.” As Crow raised an eyebrow Rose met the look with a smirk.

…

Your hands shook as Danny handed you a cup of tea. “There we go.” He wrapped you up with a blanket from behind and hummed appreciatively “Thank you.” He nodded and there was an awkward moment of silence as he stared at the REDRUM on the wall in the next room. “So you going to tell me now or never?”

"Danny,“ You begged and he shushed you. "Just listen to me. I think it would help if you told me about it though.”

“There’s a reason why I don’t talk about my childhood, Dan.” He squeezed your hand. “I know.” You kissed the tops of his knuckles. “It’s painful.” Your voice started to crack.

“If you’re afraid of me thinking differently of you, I would never. I love you for you. Whatever they did, it’s not on you. Please baby, I know it’s hurting you. Just let me in.”

You sighed and looked down at your kitchen counter. “You remember when you met me all those years ago in Florida?” He nodded and rubbed the tops of your hands. “I was only there for a brief amount of time. I moved around alot as a kid. For a while I never really understood why.”

“You mentioned your family was pretty nomadic but what does this have to do with anything?” Dan asked softly and continued to caress your skin. “The people who raised me, they were special like us. They shined maybe as much, if not more than we did. There are things out there, dark things, that hurt people like us.” Tears started to well up in your eyes. “Y/n-”

“They make people like us never be seen again and they warned me about the dark things and told me to stay away from them but I didn’t know I really didn’t have to worry about them at the time.”

Dan wiped one of your tears away, trying to ignore the hairs sticking straight up on his arms. “Why?” Your teary eyes interlocked with his. “Because I was living with the dark things that hurt people like us.” His posture stiffened and he slowly let go of your face. “What?” You ignored his question, continuing to ramble on.

“They always looked the same. It was the strangest thing. My grandpa went from having a limp in his leg to walking without a cane over night and sometimes when they were near me, my one uncle always looked at me like he was hungry. I was nine and we were staying long term in Georgia for the winter because I was sick. It made my mom a nervous wreck, so she’d stay with me every night while I slept and the one night I woke up over night and she wasn’t there so I panicked and I just remember hearing these screams. They were awful. Like these husky barks and even though I was supposed to be in bed I got up to look for my mom and when I got up she was on top of this little boy and she was-” You choked up a little bit. “She was gutting into him like he was a fish and they were eating him.”

“Like Hannibal Lecter eating him or-” You shook your head. “His shine. They were drinking his screams and pain too.” Dan looked so upset. “Honey.” Your body wracked itself with sobs. “And I’ll never forget the look on his face! Like he was being violated.”

“W-what did they do when they seen you were there?” You tried to wipe some tears away but they just kept pouring rapidly. “Most of them didn’t care or notice at first. My dad on the other hand looked so mortified. I can’t remember if it was him or my mom that picked me up and kept telling me over and over again it was out of survival and that I wasn’t supposed to see it. That it was all for the better. That way they could live longer and be healthier and that they wouldn’t hurt me. They could never hurt me like that.”

“Please don’t tell me you believed them.” His tone almost sounded judgemental and you became defensive. “Dan! What was I supposed to do? They were my family and it’s not like I had any where to go to. Despite what they did, I still loved him even though part of me was scared of them.”

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m just trying to wrap my head around all this.” He kissed the top of your head and you had to supress the urge to just shove him away. “Could you live like that? Live a lie?”

“I kept my mouth shut, Danny and if you were in my shoes you would of done the same. For about 7 years we went on like that until my dad left for business for about a week and I finally couldn’t take it anymore and then truth came out about everything.”

You let out a screaming sob as Rose threw plates around you. “..They would of never of been able to provide for you the way your father and I did! Those rubes pigs were selfish and given the chance, they would of used you and abused you even more than they already did.”

You shook your head feverishly, trying to block out Rose’s word. “You were so desperate to have someone love you, that I barely even had to wipe your mind. You were so touch starved that we practically did nothing but hold you the first couple of weeks you were here. We loved you when no one else did! Not even your fucking mother.”

You choked on your own sobs and slumped down to the ground, not caring if the broken glass on the ground cut into your fragile skin. Rose knelt down to your level and began to pull some of the shards. “But don’t worry though, honey. Daddy fixed that issue.”

You felt your blood run cold and you tensed. “W-what do you mean?” Part of you knew the answer to that question though and you dreaded hearing it come out of her mouth. Rose reached up into a nearby drawer and pulled out an old Polaroid photograph. “Does that answer your question?”

“OH GOD!” You screamed and broke back into hysterics. “He never did it to hurt you. You wanted her dead. Trust me. It was all out of love, my sweet. Every single piece of it was out of love.”

"T-that’s not love!” You stuttered. “No?” Rose’s tone was cynical. “No!..”

“Y/n-”

“14 years, Danny. 14 fucking years, I let them scare me into thinking all people were bad besides them and I thought they were my family the whole time yet it was all just a lie!” Dan wrapped his arms around your waist and planted a kiss on your cheek, trying to process it all. Your water works started up all over again and Danny sighed. “Y/n..Y/n, it’s not your fault.”

“It is Danny! It fucking is! And then she started hitting because she knew I despised her for the truth and it hurt so bad because we went from being so close to so far apart.”

“Baby-”

“My trust with the rest of them too was so torn because they all knew what she was doing and they hid. Over two years I had to lie my dad because I didn’t want to make him upset because he was the only one of them that I trusted and then I let him kill my mother..”

“You were a child, honey. You couldn’t of known. It’s not your fault and that’s all over now. I’m here.” He rocked you back and forth as you cried into him. “And the worse part is that even after everything they’ve done to me, part of me still loves and misses them sometimes.”

Dan’s mind drifted back to his own father and he tensed, understand what it was like to still love the abuser even though they caused more damage than could be repaired. “I know, baby..I know. It’s a fucked up cycle.” You nuzzled close to him.

“Don’t leave me, Danny!” You begged. “I won’t..it’s okay.” As you wept into him, Danny looked off to the side room that had the ominous REDRUM scrawled on the walls and hugged you tight.

“We need to keep that little girl away from them Dan. They’ll hurt her.” He pulled away from you. “We? No! No there is no we in this. If anything, we should stay out of this.”

“Dan! You’re being selfish. We can’t just abandon this little girl.” He shook his head. “It’s not abandoning her if I tell her to keep her head down.”

“That’s the exact opposite of what we should do!” Dan huffed and you placed a kiss against his cheek, cradling his face in your hands. “Look, just listen with an open mind. Okay?”

He nodded and your eyes interlocked with his baby blue ones. “I know they work, Danny. That’s why they took me. To use my shine to find people. They’ll prey on people who put their heads down because it’s easier for them to seem like the good guys. It’ll make her more of a sitting duck. To make her hide this, all of this, it’ll just kill her self esteem and her herself. You have to encourage her.”

“Why me?”

“Because besides me, you’re probably the only person that hears her Dan. Who understands her. She knows you more than me because she turned to you first. You’re the only one who probably interacts with her the way people like us can.” You held his hands in yours. “Do you remember how lonely you felt being younger? We can’t let that happen to her.”

“And I can’t let you get hurt either. If these people, whatever the hell they’re called can find that little girl-”

“Abra. Her name is Abra,” You corrected but Dan only rolled his eyes. “-They probably can find you and I just-”

Dan visibly shivered. “I don’t want to even picture in my mind what things they’d do to you or what would happen you if they found you.” He cupped your face and took in all your features. “I-i’d never be able to live with myself, knowing I could of prevented it. I can’t- I won’t let them hurt you. They’ve done enough damage.”

“So that’s it? We’re just abandoning her?” Dan rubbed his face. “I wouldn’t call it that just..cutting ties for a while.” You pushed away from him and rolled your eyes. “Y/n, I’m sorry but I don’t want you getting killed!”

“Just don’t talk to me right now, Danny. I want to be alone.” You went back to yours and Danny’s bedroom and locked the door before he could get it. “Y/n..come on baby.”

“I told you I want to be alone.” You sat down with your back against the door and Danny did the same from the other side. “Okay..Honey?”

“Yes, Dan?” He laid his hand against the woods barrier between the both of you. “I love you.” Despite how mad you were, you smiled slightly and did the same. “I love you too..now go. Please.”

Dan did as you asked and as he made his walk to the guest room in the second floor of your house, he stopped at the spare room. Staring at the REDRUM on the wall before picking up a piece of chalk and scrawling a quick message. 'Abra: I hope you’re okay and you have a better day tomorrow. Your friends, Dan and Y/n.’

#doctor sleep #dr sleep #imagine #imagines #fanfiction #crow daddy #abra stone #rose the hat #Danny Torrance #dan torrance #x fem reader #x female reader #stephen king #The Shining #the true knot

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darkblueboxs · 4 years

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howdy i love your aftg writing!! here’s a concept: i feel like once neil’s past is out, he has no reason to hesitate absolutely sucker punching someone. like we know he made neil a pushover because it raises less questions, but now that everyone knows who he is im SURE he’s just bitch slapped someone mid-game. no holding back, like if u say something fucked up he’s just gonna try to kill you!! do you know who this man is?? there’s no doubt in my mind that he knows some quick and lethal punches!

Oh yes, anon. Bruiser!Neil I can DEFO get behind.

Here’s 3k of Neil punching stuff, and Andrew being wildly turned on by it. Read here or on AO3 (Check AO3 notes for content warnings, etc.)

*Edit* : In the original version of this fic, Nicky faces racist abuse in addition to homophobic abuse, and quotes the offensive language and slurs used against him. After concerns were raised regarding how I handled this abuse (specifically, the language used, the context in which the abuse takes place, and my position as a non-latine) I censored and subsequently removed the relevant dialogue. I sincerely apologise and promise to do better in the future. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions and concerns regarding this subject.

[01/06/2020]

All the Guys Love a Bruiser

Neil’s mother taught him how to throw a punch, of course she did. Their lessons took place anywhere spacious enough to swing a fist, in empty parking lots behind greasy gas stations or in dingy motel rooms if she thought the walls were thick enough to cover up the noises they made.

Mary had always been more flight than fight, an instinct she had forced into Neil over years of running. Even she had to admit, however, that sooner or later they would hit a dead end, and while that would spell certain death for both of them, it would be better to go down fighting than it would on their knees.

If their lessons ended with Neil aching black and blue, it was his own fault. He needed to be quicker, smarter, crueller. More like his mother.

Matt’s teaching style is different from Mary’s, as is his fighting style. It bears the hallmarks of professional athleticism, all stances and positioning and strategy. While his mother’s idea of a lesson in self-defence was to hit Neil until he figured out how to dodge her blows or hit back, Matt talks him through how to angle his body, how to make a fist in a way that won’t break his fingers. At the end of their first boxing lesson, the only bruises on Neil’s body are the light purple spreading across his knuckles.

That evening, he and Andrew take over the beanbags, TV muted in the background while they dig into ice-cream. The tub is pleasantly cool in Neil’s hands, and he rubs his knuckles against the sides like an improvised icepack. When the residual cold has melted away, Neil flexes his fingers, enjoying the faint tingle dancing across them. These marks are different from those his mother gave him; they weren’t inflicted on him unwillingly but earned with sweat and exertion. When Matt had let go of the punching bag and told him they were done for the day, Neil had been surprised by his own disappointment. He had never been sorry see the end of his mother’s lessons.

Andrew takes his hand suddenly, startling Neil from his thoughts. It’s a purely analytical touch; he turns Neil’s hand over and runs a finger across the blossoming bruises of his knuckles.

Neil bites back the I’m fine, knowing the look it would earn him. Instead he says, “I had fun. We’re meeting again next week.”

Andrew nods. It’s a few moments more before he relinquishes Neil’s hand, however. The heat of Andrew’s skin mingles with the singing twinge of Neil’s bruises like an after-print.

Next week, Andrew slouches into the gym after Neil. He ignores Matt’s invitation to join them, flopping onto a rowing machine and leaning back against the machinery so he can kick his feet up on the seat rail. They’re lucky that they chose unsociable hours for their workout, or a line of athletes would be forming to glare at him.

Andrew watches them train from across the room with apparent disinterest. He can feign boredom all he likes; Neil knows he wouldn’t have bothered following him to the gym without reason.

Matt, if anything, seems amused by Andrew’s presence. “Dan comes to watch me practice sometimes, too.” He pauses to correct the angles of Neil’s feet before nudging his arms into blocking positions. “She did it even before we started dating. She used to sit on an exercise bike and pretend she was cycling so I wouldn’t know she was there to watch me. It was never very convincing.”

“Why did she want to watch you?” Neil shifts his weight, trying to copy Matt’s position.

Matt’s face crinkles up with laughter. “That’s the most Neil thing you’ve ever said.”

“Everything I say is a Neil thing.”

“She liked it when I took my shirt off. C’mon, man, join the dots.”

“You don’t take your shirt off to box.”

“Yeah,” says Matt. “Don’t tell her that.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “Can I hit you now?”

Matt barks out a laugh, and training resumes.

“Enjoying the show?” Neil asks Andrew an hour later, dropping down on the gym mat next to him. Andrew hands Neil his water bottle with an unimpressed look.

“You’re awful.” Andrew flicks a look over to Matt, who is using their break to chat with the only other gym regular insane enough to be working out at the crack of dawn on a Sunday. “He could knock you on your ass with one right hook.”

“I know I’m awful. That’s what training is for.” Neil pauses to gulp down most of the bottle. A droplet escapes his lips and tracks down his jugular before falling into the dip of his clavicle. Andrew’s eyes track its path. “Matt isn’t going to hurt me. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I’m not here to babysit you.”

“Huh.” Neil drains the last of the water before shaking the residual droplets over his head. The beads glint in the corners of his vision as they catch in his bangs and fleck his cheeks, mercifully cooling against his skin. Andrew is still watching him intently. His eyes flick to Matt once more, checking that he is still absorbed in his conversation.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Neil replies, and he watches as Andrew takes Neil’s hand in his. The skin is flushed from strike after strike, not yet coloured in bruising patches but soon to be. Neil’s hands feel softer for it, sensitive to Andrew’s touch.

“I know my limits.” Neil isn’t sure why the gym suddenly feels three degrees warmer. “Really, it doesn’t hurt.”

“I know. I trust you.” Andrew sends one more look over Neil’s shoulder like he’s checking the coast is clear before pressing Neil’s knuckles to his lips.

The breath Neil was in the process of catching slips from his grasp entirely. “Oh.”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“You like watching me fight.”

“It’s more interesting than watching you run.”

Neil leans in until he can see each individual freckle on Andrew’s cheeks. “Interesting?”

Andrew’s cool look is betrayed by the twitch of his jaw. “Something like that.”

If Matt notices Neil’s new vigour when they return to practice, he doesn’t comment on it. When he catches Neil’s eye, however, he grins knowingly. Perhaps Matt’s conversation had not been as absorbing as he made it out to be. Soon, however, the rhythm of the exercise draws Neil’s attention back to the task at hand.

Neil first learned to throw a punch because his mother believed that one day his life could depend on it. That isn’t the reason that he has resumed his training with Matt; it turns out that a good instructor and fewer death threats make the activity far more pleasant than Neil remembers. It may be a useful skill, but he values the challenge more than he does the practicality. The physicality, too – in fact, he likes boxing for the same reasons that he loves Exy. Quick, brutal, thrilling. He finally understands, too, why Andrew likes to spar with Renee whenever his emotions get on top of him. There’s a certain a sense of control that comes from putting his fist through a break-board. Not that he needs the empowerment as much as he once might have – most of Neil’s tormentors were killed long ago, his fears with them. Given his new life of safety and security, it’s likely that he’ll never really need to know how to throw a good punch.

It takes all of one week for Neil to be proven wildly, wildly wrong.

Opposition strikers – with one glaring, now very dead exception – are not typically Neil’s problem. Generally, if they end up playing on the same side of the court as him, something has gone wrong in the team’s strategies.

He can tell even from a distance, however, that one of the Terrapin strikers is causing difficulties. Not in terms of ability – of which Terrapin’s #13 has little – but in attitude. Thirteen is a vocal player, and Neil can hear snatches of his voice echoing across the court. No fists have been swung, which is an impressive feat for the Fox defenders, but perhaps only because the luck of substitutions has put Thirteen against Nicky more than anyone else, and Nicky is more likely to react to insults with mirth than anger.

Shortly before the end of the first half, Nicky is subbed off at the same time as Thirteen. Nicky passes Neil on the way to the court doors, clacking their racquets together with half a smile. “Give them hell, Neil.”

Thirteen passes them at the same moment, slamming Nicky’s shoulder as he passes. Nicky mutters a word under his breath that would have earned him a month of washing-up duty at Abby’s house before heading for the Foxes’ bench. Neil watches him go, eyebrows creasing together. Nicky isn’t easily upset by the cruelty of strangers; it’s the cruelty that comes from within his own family that is most likely to shake him from his good humour. The barbed insults of nameless players on the court, on the other hand, are usually brushed off with a rude gesture and no more.

Swept up in the rush of the match, Neil forgets about Nicky’s discomfort until half-time. The team pours from the court in high spirits; they have a decent lead over the Terrapins which should carry them through the second half when exhaustion starts to kick in. Nicky, despite having blocked more shots on goal than anyone, reacts to the arrival of the rest of the team with only a pallid grin. His grip on his water bottle is tight, and the cheap plastic crackles and caves in his hands.

Nicky is an easy read, and it doesn’t take long for the other Foxes to notice. After he brushes Renee’s concerned enquiry off, however, the team leaves him be.

When Neil returns to the court for the start of the third quarter, he breathes a sigh of relief to see that Thirteen is nowhere near Nicky. He’s standing closer to goal than Neil is happy with, but Andrew is more or less impervious to verbal abuse and Thirteen has yet to show signs of physical violence. As much as he wants to keep a closer eye on the situation, Kevin’s barked commands draw his attention to the match at hand. The best thing Neil can do for the Foxes’ defence is to spend as much time lobbing the ball at the Terrapin’s goal as possible.

Neil and Nicky are substituted at the same time; they collapse onto the bench and drown their exhaustion in Gatorade. Thirteen crushed Nicky against the wall moments before the substitution, and Nicky is uncharacteristically quiet as Abby examines the cut over his eye.

“You’re not whining about cramping your style,” she says as she presses a plaster in place. “Should I be worried?”

“Nah, this is great for my style. All the guys love a bruiser.” Nicky winks despite the blood crusting in his eyelashes. “Neil knows what I’m talking about, don’tcha, Neil?”

Abby makes a noise that isn’t convinced, but doesn’t press the issue. Neil waits until she’s out of earshot before saying casually, “I still have a few contacts in the mafia.”

“Your sense of humour is dire,” says Nicky, but he’s grinning, so Neil counts it as a win. “Don’t worry about it. I think Andrew’s drawing his fire now. Andrew handles that kind of thing a lot better than me.”

“What kind of thing?”

Nicky winced. “Don’t ask.”

“Tell me.”

“Let's just say he isn't exactly lining up to lead a Pride march.” Nicky snorts humorlessly.

The joke doesn’t land, and not because of Neil’s non-existent sense of humour. He may not be as obvious as Nicky in his preferences nor as dark-skinned, but he has still been on the receiving end of enough of that brand of bullshit to know how it scratches at one’s insides.

“I wasn’t joking about those contacts.”

Nicky sighs. “I was worried you would say that.”

Neil’s attention keeps slipping from the game and over to Andrew, who is standing in goal and ignoring the tirade of insults being thrown his way like a statue facing down a breeze. His non-reaction only seems to stoke Thirteen’s fury, spittle catching in the mesh of his helmet as he watches Andrew knock yet another attempt away from the Foxes’ end.

Andrew spares Thirteen no more than a second of blank indifference in the face of his tirade. Then he drops his stance, shoulders setting into a silent challenge that sends a hot bolt of excitement straight Neil’s to gut. Andrew is locking down the goal.

The Terrapins don’t score again for the rest of the match.

Neil is through the doors before the final buzzer has died, charging into the crush of Foxes at centre-court to join in their celebrations. Andrew, as usual, hovers at the edge of the throng, but he accepts the clack of Neil’s racquet against his. A light sheen of sweat dances across Andrew’s forehead and his lips are parted as he regains his breath after the exertion of locking the Terrapins out.

“Did Thirteen give you trouble?”

Andrew snorts derisively despite his breathlessness. “He tried.”

Neil gets to see Thirteen up close during the handshakes. He barely grazes the tips of each Foxes’ fingers as he passes one by one, but he stops when he gets to Neil. “I remember you. You were all over the news, weren’t you? The runaway Wesninski.” His expression speaks to his delight at the revelation. To no-one’s surprise, Thirteen is a sore loser.

Andrew barely moves, just a slight adjustment to his footing so that he presses a little closer into Neil’s shoulder.

Neil smiles. It is the kind of smile he has not had use for in some time. “Looking for an autograph?”

Thirteen snorts. “Bet you think you’re real bad. Bet you think those scars make you look tough. Too bad you’re still a puny little bitch.”

Neil flexes his hand before clenching it into a fist. “I do think I’m real bad, actually. Want to find out why?”

The striker waits for the hit to come. Neil doesn’t give him the satisfaction; the guy is a piece of shit, but he isn’t worth the trouble he’s clearly looking for. Neil drops his hands, meets his gaze, and waits for him to give up on getting his reaction and leave.

Most of the other players are moving off to their own respective sides, and their stand-off is beginning to attract attention. Kevin squints over at them, and at his side, Aaron pulls off his helmet.

“Oh shit. Twins.” Thirteen’s gaze swings from Aaron to Andrew, flashing with sudden recognition. “I remember you too.” His expression turns sharkish. “Now that was a story. So, which one is the murderer, and which is the brother-fucker?”

Andrew barely twitches. Neil’s reaction is less restrained.

It’s almost a play-by-play of decking Riko at the Winter Banquet. The key difference between that punch and this one is hours of training with a borderline-professional boxer.

Neil squares his stance, draws back his fist, and puts his whole body behind the punch. He’s rewarded with the sickening crack of a nose breaking and a hot spurt of blood splattering his knuckles.

Thirteen staggers back, shock registering for a second before he spits blood at the floor. He’s swaying on his feet, but there’s still fight in his eyes.

Andrew’s hands go to his sheaths, but Neil waves him back. He wipes the hand bloodied by Thirteen’s face across his jaw unthinkingly, feels the wet, red heat clinging to his skin. “Hey. This one’s mine.” The smile he tacks onto the words is toothier than he means it to be. With blood still smeared across his chin, he can only imagine how he looks.

Andrew’s hand judders to a halt at the hems of his armbands. His jaw is clenched tight but roaring over the current of concern is something far darker. It creeps into his eyes, a weight to his gaze normally only visible in the privacy of their bedroom. Andrew’s gaze runs the length of Neil’s body before coming to rest on Neil’s mouth. His bottom lip catches momentarily in his teeth as he nods.

Thirteen’s first swing hits, and a burst of blood dances across Neil’s tongue as his lip is split open. Thirteen’s luck ends there; Neil blocks his second punch with a move Matt taught him the day before. He drives his free hand into Thirteen’s solar plexus, knocking the air from him.

Neil doesn’t get much time to appreciate how the striker falls on his ass as they’re rushed by teammates and officials who break them apart.

Neil stands placidly before Wymack and bears his row with the bare minimum of decorum. The lecture is undercut by Nicky, who’s expression alternates between elation, amusement and mock disapproval from moment to moment. Matt, at least, waits until Wymack is finished before applauding.

“I’ll give you some notes later, but all things considered it was a solid right hook.”

Neil brushes the team’s reactions off as best he can; he certainly didn’t do it for their recognition.

He takes his time showering, watching with a strange, sick pleasure as he rinses the striker’s blood away. It turns pink in the shower basin before swirling at last down the drain. Beneath the blood, Neil’s knuckles have begun to bruise, satisfaction burning them blue.

It’s at these times that Neil worries that he may have inherited too much from his father; the temper, the violence, the bloodlust. Then again, they all served as tools to his survival at one point or another. The key difference between Neil and his father is who they choose to turn their anger on. Neil’s father always set his sights on the underdog. Neil prefers to punch up.

No; if there’s one thing Nathan gave him, it was a distaste for bullies.

There’s a familiar tap at the door to Neil’s stall. The rest of the Foxes cleared out some time ago, still rowdy from the post-match high. Tonight was a home game; most of the team will be halfway back to Fox tower already, thinking only of booze and the weekend stretching ahead of them. There’s only one player who would have any reason to linger.

Andrew steps under the spray, his hair is plastered to his head by the steamy drizzle. He holds his hand out, and Neil offers his without question for Andrew’s inspection.

Andrew’s voice is dispassionate as he inspects the damage. “I don’t need a knight in shining armour. Nor for you to fight my battles for me.”

“The fight was for my own satisfaction. But I’ll stop if you want me to.”

Once again, Andrew presses his lips to Neil’s raw knuckles. The contact stings, sweet and savoury, pleasure and pain. “Would it kill you to make life easy for once?” The words tingle against the tender skin.

“I thought you liked to watch me fight.”

“Just because I find your stupidity entertaining doesn’t mean I encourage it.”

“It’s my stupidity you like, is it?”

“What else do you have?” Andrew’s eyes track the rivulets of water snaking down Neil’s neck.

“I’m sure I can think of a few things.” Neil says. Then, for clarity, “Yes or no?”

“Yes.” Andrew doesn’t let go of Neil’s hand, thumb running across the reddening knuckles once more before leading it to his chest. Neil leaves it resting there, marvelling at the colours bleeding between them under the shower’s onslaught, pink and brown and red and blue. Andrew soon tires of Neil’s staring, and is the first to bridge the gap between them.

Neil once compared Andrew’s kisses to a fight with their lives on the line. Countless kisses later, this fact has not changed in the slightest. Andrew leaves a bruising trail of kisses across Neil’s neck until he can’t remember which marks are from Exy and which are from Andrew. They all sting the same, sweet way.

Each kiss pressed to his mouth carries a metallic tang from Neil’s burst lip. He can tell from the fierce pressure of Andrew’s mouth against his that Andrew can taste it too, is feeding off the adrenaline rush just as Neil is. He catches Neil’s bottom lip between his teeth and with it sucks a groan from deep in Neil’s chest.

Andrew draws back to level him with an unimpressed look. “You’re far too into this.”

“You’re one to talk.” Neil raises his hand to Andrew’s eyeline, wiggling his fingers. Andrew’s eyes catch on the blooming violet patches. “You like this. Admit it.”

Andrew steps forward until his cheek brushes Neil’s fingers. Neil turns his hand automatically, cupping Andrew’s face.

“Yes,” says Andrew. His eyes stay on Neil’s, even as Neil’s hand drops lower.

It’s a small miracle, Neil thinks, that Andrew can trust Neil’s hands on him, after all he knows they are capable of. Maybe that’s part of the appeal, the evidence painted into Neil’s knuckles that Neil’s gentler touches are reserved for Andrew and Andrew alone. It’s strange that Andrew should love Neil’s fighting spirit as much as he does. After all, it was Andrew who taught Neil how to stand and fight in the first place.

It’s a fact that neither will ever let the other forget.

Neil leaves the shower sporting several more bruises than he entered with. Some are from Exy, some are from fighting, and some are from Andrew’s mouth.

He loves them all just the same.

* Thanks for reading, let me know what you think! Still open to prompts etc.

#tfc #aftg #andreil #the foxhole court #all for the game #my fic #asks #anon #WHY IS TUMBLR FUCKING WITH THE POST FORMAT ASKDHSKDFGGGG

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knox-knocks · 5 years

Text

A Song Without Melody

this is for the prompt, “sing something for me” for jerejean sent by @foxsoulcourt i really loved writing this!! i hope you enjoy it :D

read on ao3

When Jean was young, his mother would call him her little songbird. She was the one that taught him to sing, swaying around their little kitchen in France, warm afternoon light spilling across counters to fall on Jean perched on top of them. Like a scoundrel, she would say with a hint of a smile, shooing him off the counters before his father came home.

Her favorite songs to sing were old French songs; Sous le ciel de Paris and La rue de notre amour, André Claveau and Jacqueline François. Pretty boys in Paris and streets of love, Les amoureux dans les coins noirs. Tinny voices drifting through static from the old radio propped up on the table. They were Jean’s favorite memories of his mother, and the memories he clung to most desperately in Evermore until the golden lit afternoons and apple pie cooling by the open windowsill, breeze billowing curtains, and his mother’s lilting voice were just too far to grasp.

Jean gave up singing then, in the Nest, where it was better to stay quiet and keep his head ducked low lest someone took notice of him. A songbird with no song, trapped in a nest of ravens. Jean wondered if his mother thought of him as much as he thought of her, if she missed him like he missed her.

It was months before the thought of singing again ever truly crossed his mind. Being freed from the Nest and being safe from Riko hadn’t really hit Jean yet. Before, he never let himself think that he would ever be allowed to leave Evermore, let alone imagine a future that was more than surviving to the next day, the next practice, the next game. He felt as if walking through a dream, rose-colored skies, Je vois la vie en rose. It took several appointments with the team shrink, and then a couple more with his own therapist, before Jean began to look for his voice again.

The first time it happened it took him by surprise. He was sat at the table, textbooks and papers scattered over the space as he worked, when he began to hum. A low note that started in his throat. Some tuneless melody, a few notes in a flat chord progression. Nothing special if it weren’t for the fact that Jean hadn’t made any sound even remotely close to be considered music for – years. A decade. And here he was, humming as he did his homework.

That’s how it went for weeks after that; Jean humming as he walked to his classes, making up melodies in his head when he should have been focusing on the passage he had to read for his history class. Whenever he was alone, he hummed, not quite brave enough to try out the words of his mother’s songs.

In December, on one chilly morning when Jean woke up feeling settled in his own skin for the first time in what seemed a lifetime, he wandered into the kitchen on socked feet to put on a pot of coffee for him and Jeremy to share when he woke up. Since it was a Sunday, Jean didn’t expect Jeremy to be up for another couple hours.

He poured the coffee beans into the filter and snapped the lid to the machine shut, turning it to slow brew while he hummed a quiet tune. Somehow his thoughts turned to a pop song he heard from on the radio at practice and he began to pick up the melody. He didn’t hear Jeremy’s quiet footsteps on the hardwood floor and cursed himself for it when Jeremy rapped lightly on the doorway.

“Good morning,” he said with his usual cheer. Jean jumped, startled at being snuck up on, and was hardly soothed by Jeremy’s apologetic smile.

“You’re up early,” Jean mumbled. He felt his ears growing red so he turned around with two slow, measured breaths. There was nothing for him to pretend to do as he ignored Jeremy, no spilled coffee beans to clean up, no extra mugs to put away, so Jean accepted defeat and faced him.

Jeremy smiled, his eyes crinkling the way they did when he was happy – which, Jean thought, was all the time. Avoiding looking at him was hard, when all eyes seemed drawn to him, Jean’s especially. He looked as rumpled as the crimson USC hoodie he slept in, the sleeves falling over his knuckles. He hadn’t even done anything with his hair, it stuck up at all angles, as stubborn as Jeremy was chipper. And yet Jean couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“So are you,” Jeremy pointed out, brushing past Jean on the way to the over-sugary cereal he was so fond of.

“I’m always up early,” Jean said, “It is a struggle to wake you up on time for practice on a normal day. Up before noon on Sunday is unheard of.”

“People change,” Jeremy said as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.

Jean didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t keep looking at Jeremy’s smile or his dumb hair or his beautiful brown eyes. So he opted to staring at the floor, not able to convince himself to leave and not willing to respond with more than a shake of his head when Jeremy offered him a bowl of cereal.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” Jeremy quipped, and something about it almost sounded musical. It was dumb, it was nonsensical, but Jean found himself wanting to sing again.

“I didn’t know you sang.”

Jean cursed, hand jolting to his chest as he withdrew in on himself. He’d let himself grow too comfortable in this dorm and around Jeremy for his own good. Complacency like this, losing awareness enough for someone to sneak up on him, would have gotten him hurt in the Nest. There was no room for comfort, no time to let himself relax.

“Sorry,” Jeremy grimaced.

There were also no apologies. When sincere, they were weaknesses waiting to be exploited. Jeremy was not fit for the Nest. Jean wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing.

“I should put a bell on you,” Jean said once his heart had calmed its terrified beat. Jeremy smiled sheepishly. He was always smiling; smiling at practice when he worked with the Freshmen, smiling as he and Alvarez cracked jokes back and forth, smiling at Jean. Jean didn’t understand it.

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to go out with the girls and I tonight,” Jeremy said. The girls Jean knew to be Laila and Alvarez. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“It’s fine.” Jean shrugged, but it really wasn’t. He would work on being more alert next time.

Jeremy was still watching him, a thoughtful look on his face. He rubbed his bottom lip, a tap-tap-tap with his thumb that drew Jean’s eyes to the movement. He averted his gaze.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Jeremy repeated, and Jean wanted nothing more than to disappear.

“I don’t,” he said quietly. It was the first time he sang in years, more than just humming quietly so no one else could hear. His voice was scratchy due to rarely speaking above a mumble, his tone too flat one beat then too sharp the next. He couldn’t even remember all of the words to the song correctly.

Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai…

Plucking feathers. Head, beak, wings. Jean often thought of raven’s feathers, instead of a lark’s. Black feathers between his fingers, dark as oil and just as slick. He imagined plucking them, the delicate plumage destroyed in his grip, the broken shafts spiraling to the ground to rest at his feet. Je te plumerai la tête, et la tête.

“You have a nice voice, Jean,” Jeremy said. And, god, his eyes, shining and earnest and so, so very warm. They were warmer than anything Jean had felt in the Nest, and Jean couldn’t stand it. “Like a songbird.”

And that – that was too much. Jean was not a songbird, not anymore, not ever again. The grief was unexpected, a hot flash in his stomach, sudden as a knife from the dark. Doors slamming shut, dark rooms and tears on his face, his mother’s voice soothing him with a song, quiet so his father wouldn’t hear, Alouette, alouette. Jean trying to keep up with her, his cheek stinging from the slap. A-a-a-a-ah, broken by muffled sobs.

My little songbird, she’d murmur, brushing the tears away with her thumbs. You know you shouldn’t anger him. You have to be better next time.

Jeremy called after him when Jean shoved past and disappeared into the bedroom. Jean didn’t know if he slammed the door or not, but he was sitting with his legs to his chest, head bowed over his knees and back pressed against the wood, breathing too fast to properly get air into his lungs. Jean willed himself to forget ever trying to sing.

A soft knock put a stutter in Jean’s gasps for air. Jeremy’s soft voice came from the other side of the door. “Jean?”

“Go away,” Jean rasped, clutching his face in his hands. He couldn’t breathe, he could barely think. He needed air, he needed space. “Leave me alone.”

He heard nothing after that, so Jean assumed Jeremy had left, leaving Jean to the dark room. That was the thing about Jeremy, he always listened.

It must have been hours before Jeremy returned, creeping into the bedroom and closing the door with a quiet click behind him. Jean had since relocated to his bed, his back turned to the room as he pretended to sleep. He listened to Jeremy’s footsteps pause in the middle of the room before the closet light turned on and Jeremy dressed for bed.

The light flicked off, and Jean squeezed his eyes shut.

Jeremy kept his distance after that. He put food for Jean in the fridge but he left the dorm at night and didn’t return until morning, and only for a couple minutes to grab a clean shirt and shorts before heading to practice. He must have warned Laila and Alvarez, because Jean’s interactions with them never went farther than a simple hello or a pat on the back after a good scrimmage.

It was lonely, Jean realized a week after scarcely seeing Jeremy around. He hadn’t realized how much he had grown used to Jeremy’s presence until it was gone. Jeremy was loud and he somehow filled in the empty spaces of a room all by himself. He was so different than anyone Jean had encountered at Evermore, and Jean had grown to miss him.

Jean didn’t realize he had been waiting for the sound of a key turning in the lock until he heard it. Shaking himself awake, Jean sat up in his chair and rolled the tightness out of his neck. The door opened, Jean looked, and Jeremy stopped in the hallway.

“Sorry,” he said, glancing away. “I’m just getting some clothes.”

Jeremy ducked into the bedroom and Jean followed after him. Jean watched as Jeremy rummaged through the closest. When he turned around with an armful of clothes, he nearly knocked into Jean’s chest.

“Sorry,” he murmured again and tried to go around. Jean blocked him, a move reminiscent of practice that morning when he had stopped Jeremy from scoring on goal.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jean said.

“Do what?” Jeremy tried for a weak smile, but it flickered like a broken flame.

“Avoid me.” Jean pursed his lips, folding his arms across his chest. “You don’t have to stay out of your own dorm room because I’m in here.”

Jeremy sighed. His hair was a tangled mess and running his fingers through it didn’t seem to help. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said. He still wouldn’t meet Jean’s eyes.

“You don’t,” Jean said. He realized it was true as he said it. Jeremy never made him uncomfortable. He gave Jean space when he needed it, he never slapped Jean’s shoulder too hard after practice, he kept his words gentle and patient. But he also knew when Jean was in the wrong headspace and needed to be brought back, he left leftovers in the fridge and always invited Jean to hang out with the rest of the Trojans. He smiled at Jean; he was kind to him. Jeremy was the most considerate person Jean knew and here he was avoiding his own room so he could give Jean the space he asked for.

Jean didn’t want it anymore.

Jeremy raised his eyes to Jean’s. There was caution there, a certain guarded wall, but underneath it all, always, was concern. There were also the telltale signs of sleeplessness.

“Where have you been sleeping?” Jean asked. It just struck him that Jeremy had to be going somewhere when he left the dorm. He looked worse for wear, not enough sleep and too much tossing and turning. Jean knew the look well, recognized it every time he looked in the mirror.

“The girls’ room,” Jeremy conceded after a beat.

“This is your room, too,” Jean said. Jeremy shrugged, looking at his feet.

“I’m really sorry, Jean,” he said. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

Jean sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Jeremy still stood, half across the room with his head bowed. “My mother used to sing to me,” Jean started quietly. Jeremy’s head shot up in surprise. Jean had never talked about his family before, not even when Jeremy had told him about his own parents and siblings.

“I hardly remember anything about her, or either of my parents really.” Jean barely remembered France itself, just that it was better than Evermore. Anything would have been better than Evermore. “But I remember that she would sing. And I would sing with her.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything. He was looking at Jean with wide eyes, mouth slightly parted on an exhale. Maybe he thought if he breathed too loudly, moved too quickly, Jean would clam up and never speak about it again. Maybe he was right.

“They were my fondest memories of France. I do not believe I had very many of those.” Jean stared at his hands clasped loosely in his lap, the pale scars crisscrossing over his knuckles. His fingers were crooked and jutted out at odd angles, never given the chance to heal right after being broken.

Jeremy moved slowly toward the bed; footsteps quiet over the carpeted ground. He still looked startled, but the tension eased from the air as Jeremy lowered himself onto the bed next to Jean and listened to him talk. This Jeremy was different than the cheerful, smiling Jeremy that Jean had come to appreciate. But he was still Jeremy, and Jean was glad he was here nonetheless.

“I stopped singing when I came to America.” He remembered the plane ride, the fear and the sorrow. He remembered thinking, Why would they do this to me? Why would they send me away? For the longest time, Jean had blamed himself. “I never expected to sing again.”

Jeremy’s mouth moved wordlessly. “I – ”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Jean cut him off. “You didn’t know.”

“Still.” Jeremy frowned. “I know that being at Edgar Allan wasn’t easy for you. If you ever need to talk about any of it…” Jeremy paused and looked up at Jean. The earnestness in his expression almost made Jean look away. “I’m here for you.”

Jean nodded, not knowing what to say now that he used up all his words. “Thank you,” he decided on. To change the subject, Jean asked, “Are you sleeping here tonight?”

“I can stay with Laila and Alvarez,” Jeremy replied. “They don’t mind.”

“Stay here,” Jean said, not eager for Jeremy to leave again. Like dawn breaking across the night sky, radiant rays pushing through like cracks in the darkness, a smile bloomed across Jeremy’s face.

Jean attempted a tiny smile back.

At first, Jean didn’t know what woke him. It wasn’t a nightmare; Jean usually woke from those gasping and panicked, disoriented from the dark and not knowing where he was. Sometimes he made so much noise it woke Jeremy, as heavy a sleeper as he was. More than a few nights were spent with the lamp on between them and Jeremy talking in a soft voice until Jean was able to fall back asleep.

No, Jean didn’t wake from a nightmare.

The bedroom door was closed but light seeped in from the hallway under the door, illuminating a tiny sliver of the carpet. The muffled sound of pots clanging from the kitchen caught Jean’s attention. That must have been what woke him up.

Jean groped blindly for his phone and checked the time. Jeremy’s bed was empty, the sheets thrown to the side and the giant purple blanket Jeremy loved slipping carelessly to the floor. Jean couldn’t fathom what Jeremy could be doing up at two in the morning.

Rubbing his eyes, Jean tossed back his covers and put on some socks. The clanking sound stopped and Jean heard the oven door open and close as he made his way out of the bedroom and to the kitchen. There, he found Jeremy with his back turned, furiously mixing something in a bowl. Even with his back turned, Jean could see the tension tying up his shoulders underneath his worn t-shirt.

“Jeremy?” Jean said, squinting in the bright kitchen lights. Jeremy jumped and the bowl dropped from his hands, spilling across the counter. It looked like chocolate batter. Jean had no doubts that it was Jeremy’s favorite brownie recipe he was making.

“Shit,” Jeremy swore. Jean raised an eyebrow.

He turned around and Jean noticed that he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was a tangled mess and Jean could see dark smudges behind the thin wire-rimmed glasses he only wore when he was at the dorm or when he was particularly tired, perched askew on his nose. Jeremy pushed them up with his knuckle and blinked owlishly at Jean.

“Sorry,” Jeremy said, hurriedly smearing the spill even further with a paper towel. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What are you doing?” The kitchen was a disaster. Dishes were piled high in the sink, stacked haphazardly to the point Jean was surprised they didn’t topple over at the slightest pressure. Jeremy himself was also a mess. Flour clung to his hands and clothes, the same pajamas he wore to bed hours ago, and what looked like chocolate was smeared across his cheek. He tried to block Jean’s view, but Jean peered behind him to find more baked goods on a cooling rack. “Are those cookies?”

Jeremy’s shoulders slumped with defeat. “Yeah,” he admitted. “And there’s an apple pie in the oven.”

Jean stared at him. “We have midterms tomorrow,” he said dumbly. “What are you doing baking apple pie at two in the morning?”

“Well you see,” Jeremy began, eyes darting wildly as he struggled for an explanation. “I – ” Jeremy’s lip trembled and, to Jean’s alarm, his face crumbled. His voice was thick as he said, “I’m so freaking stressed, I can’t sleep, and this is what I do when I can’t sleep because I’m stressed!”

Jean crossed the room. His hands found Jeremy’s shoulders. He didn’t realize he was pulling Jeremy to his chest until he tucked Jeremy’s head against his shoulder with a steadying hand on the back of his head. Jeremy clutched Jean’s shirt with tight fists. He was shaking, from barely-withheld tears or from too much caffeine making him jittery, Jean didn’t know.

“Is it just because of the tests?” Jean asked.

Shaking his head, Jeremy said, “It’s…everything. The tests, the team. Our last game before winter break is coming up and we need to do well. I have no idea what the winter season is going to look like, let alone semifinals and championships.” Jeremy made a soft sound, a cross between a sigh and a sob. “I should have never reduced starting line. I’m ruining this team.”

Jean didn’t think Jeremy could ruin a single thing if he tried, but he didn’t say that. Instead he eased Jeremy far enough he could look him in the eyes and said, “I don’t think that. You’re an amazing captain.” Better than Riko, who ruled with fear and violence. Jeremy stood tall on the court with the Trojans behind him, following him willingly. “They trust you because the team has only gotten better under your leadership.”

Jeremy tried to look at his feet but Jean tilted his head up with a finger under his chin. “They’ll hate me,” he said, his mouth twisted downwards.

“No. They won’t. And if they do, they don’t deserve to be on this team,” Jean said with conviction.

The anxiety eased from Jeremy’s eyes, and Jean found the familiar warmth in them. It was one of the first things he noticed about Jeremy when he picked Jean up from the airport after arriving in California. For the first time, unobstructed by an Exy helmet or Jean’s injuries making it difficult to see, Jean couldn’t help but notice it. How warm he was, how his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, how the gold shone through when the California sun hit them just right, reminding Jean a little of honey.

He realized how close they were standing. Jeremy’s chest pressed against Jean’s in a half-hug, his hands still curled in Jean’s shirt. Jeremy tilted his chin up and moved closer until his nose brushed against Jean’s. He had to stand on his tip-toes. A curl of hair tickled Jean’s forehead and Jean’s hands held Jeremy’s shoulders tighter, closer. Jean bumped his forehead against Jeremy’s, a small nudge, not pushing away, but beckoning closer.

“Jean,” Jeremy breathed, his eyes flicking to Jean’s with honey-slow distraction. They flicked down to his mouth. Jean didn’t know if Jeremy had even realized.

Jean’s stomach jumped. “Come on,” he said, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. He pushed Jeremy back a step. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“But the pie,” Jeremy said, and the tension eased from the air. “The kitchen.”

Jean forced his hands to let go off Jeremy’s shoulders. “You go to sleep, I will get the pie out, and then we’ll take care of the mess tomorrow.”

Jeremy washed his face and Jean helped him into his bed, pulling the sheets and his purple blanket over him. He was always complaining about the cold, unused to it in the way Jean was, so Jean tucked the edges in so the blanket wouldn’t slide off.

Jean made to leave, but a hand curled around his wrist, barely touching but enough to grab his attention. “Jean?” he heard Jeremy say. “Will you stay with me? Is that okay?”

It surprised him that Jeremy wanted him to stay. But Jean nodded and settled down to face him as Jeremy nestled down in his blankets. Only a couple inches away on the tiny dorm room bed, Jean was hyper-aware of how close he and Jeremy were.

Jeremy’s eyes grew wide and anxious in the dark again, his breathing just a bit too fast. Jean held his gaze, then fixed the blanket tighter over him. He would have to get up again in half an hour to fetch the pie, but for now he was content to lay there.

“You should try to get some sleep,” he said. “You do not want to be tired for your exams.”

Jeremy nodded but his expression never changed. Sighing, Jean adjusted his position so he was more comfortable and began to hum. He heard a small gasp beside him when he started singing the words to an old lullaby he could no longer remember the name of. He sang quietly, his voice wavering and strained until he found the melody he was looking for.

For first few minutes Jean sang, Jeremy watched him with uncertainty. It had been months since Jeremy caught Jean singing by himself in their dorm, and since then Jean had made sure that no one was around to hear if he ever dared mutter the words to a song. But Jean was confident in this, and he wanted Jeremy to hear him, to listen.

Jean’s mother had never sung him this song, not to sleep, not when he was crying, not even when they were alone in the house, listening to the radio in the kitchen on lonely Sunday afternoons. This was a song Jean had all to himself. It was what he sang to himself when there was no one around to comfort him, when he was completely and utterly alone. They were the words he thought of most in Evermore, when Riko was done with him and he had to clean up his wounds by himself, new and old, invisible or not. He’d never shared it with anybody, never planned to, but now here he was, singing to Jeremy his lullaby.

Jeremy barely lasted until the end of the song before his eyes began to droop. His face slackened and in minutes, Jean could hear the quiet sound of his snoring. Jean should have gotten up and left Jeremy there to sleep, but there was still twenty minutes before he was supposed to go, so he brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over Jeremy’s forehead, tucked it behind his ear, and decided to stay until the oven called him away.

They circled each other for weeks. Every time Jean saw Jeremy, he was reminded of how close they stood that night in their kitchen. When Jeremy stretched and his shirt slid up to reveal a sliver of his tanned, toned stomach, Jean thought about his hands circling Jeremy’s shoulders. When Jeremy shook his head after he took his helmet off, Jean couldn’t think of anything other than Jeremy’s hair brushing against his skin.

It was distracting. Everything, class, practice, the Trojan’s last game before winter break, was impossible to concentrate on. They won and secured their place in winter season, but Jean took a bad fall against the Plexiglas when he was thinking of Jeremy’s triumphant smile the day before at practice instead of watching where he was checking his striker mark.

Winter break was worse, since Jeremy had invited Jean to stay with his family over the break. At least at USC, Jean could always duck into the bathroom or hide away at the library if Jeremy’s presence pricked at Jean’s subconscious too much. At his childhood home, however, he had no such luck.

He knew he should have kept some distance between himself and Jeremy, but Jean didn’t want to stay away from him. Not even a little bit. He could have slept in the room that used to belong to Jeremy’s sister that was turned into a guest room after she moved out, but more often than not, Jean fell asleep on Jeremy’s floor. Jeremy always argued, he said Jeremy didn’t have to sleep on the hard floor, Jeremy could sleep there instead and Jean could take the bed, but eventually they devolved to talking and quiet laughter. They stayed up too late every night, attempting to keep their voices low so not to wake Jeremy’s family. Occasionally Jean would hum or sing while Jeremy watched him with that peculiar smile he seemed to reserve solely for Jean until either one of them passed out.

It was too easy to be around Jeremy. Jean never felt pressured or uncomfortable; Jeremy simply let him exist. And if Jean began to open up to Jeremy about his past, his own family, and his nightmares, then Jeremy listened and held Jean’s hand when he began to tremble. Jeremy was comforting, he was warm, he looked at Jean like he was special. And Jean liked how Jeremy made him feel.

Maybe it should have bothered him, the way Jeremy looked at him, but it didn’t. If anything, it made Jean bristle with energy, anticipation of what might happen next. Would Jean glance over at Jeremy to find his eyes on him? Would Jeremy look away or would he hold his gaze?

Jean started noticing more and more how much he looked at Jeremy, too. Alvarez had called him out on it when she and Laila roped Jean into going out with them and Jean had flushed such a deep shade of red Jeremy thought he had a sunburn and gave him sunscreen, despite it being January. But he couldn’t help it. More than once he caught his eyes drifting to the mole on Jeremy’s neck, nestled behind his jaw. Jean wanted to press his lips to it and kiss it. He wanted to run his hands through Jeremy’s hair and find out if it was really as soft as it looked. He wanted to trace his fingers over Jeremy’s lips and down his chest.

It only got worse once Jeremy made the habit of falling asleep on Jean’s shoulder when they watched TV. Jean never had the heart to wake him, so he let Jeremy sleep until he began to stir on his own. Sometimes it took hours, sometimes Jeremy slept until the sun began to set. Sometimes Jean would turn off the TV and maneuver them so he could lay down with him and they’d spend the night on the couch underneath the blanket they shared.

It wasn’t until late February when it started to change.

Jean had already resigned himself to a life where he could only look, never quite touch without pulling away the very last minute. A life where Jeremy fell asleep on Jean and Jean had to quietly untangle their fingers when they woke instead of holding tighter like he wanted.

Until Jeremy came to the dorm with a small smile on his face.

“Jean Moreau,” he said, smile broadening. “Will you go on a date with me?”

The weather was nice enough for a picnic, so Jeremy packed a basket full of food and Jean grabbed the blankets and then Jeremy drove them to a grassy hill a little less than an hour away from LA.

As they walked to the spot Jeremy picked out, Jean basked in the warmth of the sun. So many years of being locked underground and only being allowed to leave for a couple hours at a time had Jean cherishing the feeling of the sun’s heat on his skin. After months in California, Jean still wasn’t as tanned as Jeremy, but a smattering of freckles had begun to dot his arms, his shoulders, across the bridge of his nose. Freckles like pollen on a flower, constellations in the night sky.

Flowers swayed in the wind winding through the long strands of grass, the air warm despite it being February, and the sky stretched above them with fluffy white clouds dotting the expanse of blue. Jeremy helped Jean lay out the blanket and then they divvied out the food. They ate pre-made sandwiches and strawberries, per Jean’s request, and drank cider from fake campaign glasses that made Jean smile when the bubbles popped in his mouth and made his tongue tingle. It made him feel giddy and light, despite the lack of alcohol in the cider, like he had swallowed a mouthful of stars, an entire galaxy.

When they finished eating, they stretched out on the blanket on their backs and Jean watched Jeremy point out the shapes in the clouds that looked like various animals. Jean didn’t have to feel afraid of Jeremy catching him looking, not when Jeremy caught his eye and grinned, his cheeks flushing a pretty pink. Jean didn’t want to look away, not when Jeremy smiled like that.

“That one,” Jeremy said, pointing. Jean followed the line of his hand, the way his fingers stretched elegantly to the sky and how his knuckles jutted out and accentuated the veins on the back of his hand. “That one looks like mistletoe.”

That startled a laugh out of Jean. His eyes jumped from Jeremy’s hand to the cloud above them. It looked like a regular cloud to him. He turned to Jeremy and quirked an eyebrow, not bothering to keep the smile off of his face. “Smooth,” he said.

Jeremy shrugged, unashamed. “Can I kiss you?” he said instead. His eyes were dancing with light.

Jean’s breath hitched in his chest as he nodded. He had wanted to kiss Jeremy for months, but never entertained the thought of Jeremy kissing him back. Jean cupped Jeremy’s cheek, feeling the softness of his skin, smooth under Jean’s calloused hand, his pinky brushing the tiny mole he so desperately wanted to kiss and Jeremy closed the few inches between them.

Jeremy kissed him, and the world ground to a halt. The only thing going through Jean’s mind were Jeremy’s lips on his, as warm as the rest of him, Jeremy’s fingers playing with his hair, twirling a strand around his thumb as he pressed closer, so gentle and mindful even when they were kissing. Jean turned on his side and rested his hand on Jeremy’s chest, his fingers curling in the collar of Jeremy’s shirt. He could feel Jeremy’s heart beat under his palm, the quickness matching Jean’s own pulse.

When they separated, Jean had to take a moment to catch his breath. Jeremy pressed his forehead against Jean’s, his hands still cupping his face, and let out a breathless laugh. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” he said.

Jean felt a smile creeping across his face. He opened his eyes and ran the pad of his thumb over Jeremy’s lips. “Me too,” he said.

They smiled at each other and Jean wondered about the impossibility of it all. A year ago, he’d never have thought that he would be allowed to leave the Nest. Falling for someone, especially someone like Jeremy, had never even occurred to Jean as something that could happen. His future was short and bleak in the Nest, but with Jeremy, it seemed endless, like the sun’s rays stretching forever on the horizon.

“I want to sing you a song,” Jean murmured. Looking away, Jean pushed himself up and sat cross-legged. He didn’t know why he was suddenly nervous, just that it was easier to stare at his hands as he plucked at the grass and twisted the stalks in his fingers. He felt a hand on his arm and soaked in Jeremy’s reassuring presence by his side.

Taking a deep breath, he began to sing.

He didn’t know what song he was going to sing until he was already singing it. It was in French. Jean hadn’t sung to Jeremy in French since he sang him his lullaby, so many weeks ago. It brought up too many hard memories Jean would prefer to leave buried. Shouting and loneliness, darkness enveloping him like a curtain, Jean didn’t want to think of them. Instead he had sang pop songs he heard on the car radio on the way to the stadium or songs he heard Laila singing on their impromptu karaoke nights. It was easier to avoid the songs that made up Jean’s childhood completely, but this was different.

Jeremy was good. He made Jean feel warm again after spending so long in the cold and darkness of Evermore. Jeremy made Jean want to sing again.

He started off slowly, rounding the words in his mouth until they almost sounded sweet. Jeremy’s eyes never left Jean’s face as he sang the words. “Les parois de ma vie sont lisses, je m’y accroche mais je glisse, lentement vers ma destinée.”

Jeremy didn’t understand French, but he listened intently, watching Jean sing the words with a crinkle between his brows. Jean still didn’t look directly at him, he kept his eyes on the plaid pattern of the blanket as the melody climbed higher and higher until it was snatched and whisked away by the wind.

He sang the song solemnly. When his mother had sang it, she sang it with a sort of frenzy, matching the voice from the staticky radio. She often forgot Jean was listening completely, sat up on the counter with his chin resting on his knees, as she spun around the kitchen. Jean had always thought the words deserved a slower tempo, a quieter one. They left him with a sort of sadness.

Je ne vois pour moi qu’un refuge, toute issue m’étant condamnée.

Jean squeezed his eyes shut. Words like bullets to his chest. Feathers drifting to the floor. “Mourir d’aimer.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the right song to sing as it certainly wasn’t a song that came without any bad memories attached. Jean didn’t think of this song when he thought of Jeremy, he didn’t think of it when he thought of how Jeremy made him feel. Nonetheless, he sang.

Jean had always thought the afternoons spent with his mother had been tainted. By his father and his quick temper, or by his years spent in Evermore with Riko and his blades sharpened specifically to render Jean’s flesh. But that wasn’t true. His memories were tainted, yes, but not because of anyone else, but because of Jean. He’d always painted his early memories better than they really had been. More yellows and golds than there had been, brushing over the blues and angry reds.

The Nest and its darkness, all the pain it held for Jean, made it too easy to forget the way his mother always turned away from him when he reached for her, how her hands wiped his tears and told him to stop crying, she didn’t have time for this. In the face of Riko’s cruelty, Jean had forgotten that his mother had watched him board a plane to never come back without uttering a word. She said nothing to him when he begged her to let him stay, to protect him. Les gens haineux face à eux-mêmes, avec leurs petites idées.

When Jeremy looked at him, Jean knew that he had been loved the wrong way. He knew when Jeremy held his hands when they shook and he knew when Jeremy stayed up for hours talking Jean down from a nightmare, he knew that his parents had never really loved him at all, if they had let him go so easily. His parents had sold him, given him away to rid of a debt that had nothing to do with Jean, yet what he was abandoned to pay by himself. It was a fact he denied so vehemently in the first few years of Evermore. There had to be some other explanation; Tetsuji was lying, Riko just liked seeing the look on Jean’s face when he repeated it.

“Tu es le printemps, moi l’automne, ton couer se prend, le ien se donne, et ma route est déjà tracée.” Jean sang the last few lines of the song, his voice fading away with the lyrics like the light leaving the sky above them. “Mourir d’aimer. Mourir d’aimer. Mourir d’aimer.”

It was quiet for a very long time. Jean felt unsteady, such a difference from when he had kissed Jeremy. He was left with the distinct feeling that he had done something wrong.

But then he felt Jeremy’s hands on his face, tender as they held him. Jean opened his eyes when Jeremy’s thumbs swiped across his cheeks and came away wet, brushing away each tear as it came. Jean hadn’t realized he was crying.

“It’s okay, Jean,” Jeremy said softly. “You can cry now, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Jean exhaled a shaky breath. “I’m sorry for ruining our date,” he said.

“You didn’t.” Jeremy carded his fingers through Jean’s hair. “We’ll always have more dates, if that’s what you want.”

Jean could have a future with Jeremy, and he wanted it so badly he ached. He wanted the way Jeremy made him feel, the way Jeremy’s face glowed with happiness when Jean smiled. He wished to make Jeremy feel the same way Jeremy made Jean feel. And he hoped to keep kissing him, and holding his hand, forever and ever and ever.

Burying his face in Jeremy’s neck, Jean circled his arms around Jeremy’s waist and pulled him closer. Always closer. Jeremy rubbed soothing hands up and down Jean’s back and murmured reassurances in his ear, his cheek pressed against the side of Jean’s head.

They didn’t move until the sun set and Jean could breath normally, until he felt steadied, rather preferring to stay in Jeremy’s arms because that was the only place in the world Jean wanted to be and not because he needed help holding himself up.

Jeremy laced their fingers together and squeezed. “Let’s go home,” he said. “I’ll turn on the radio while we drive. Sing something for me?”

Jean smiled. He couldn’t imagine singing for anyone else the way he sang for Jeremy.

#aftg #tfc #jean moreau #jeremy knox #jerejean #tfcfic #my writing #mine #foxsoulcourt #<3

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itsmyusualphannie · 4 years

Text

robot in the dorms

Title: robot in the dorms (ao3) Beta: kishere (@filiisaceaf) <3 Word Count: 5k Rating: T Warnings: Alcohol (a character is drunk at one point)

Summary: dan goes to university in florida and meets his roommate phil. after a few months, and despite dan's facade of disinterest, he begins to actually like phil and his nerdy ways. the robot that phil designs doesn't help. or: another "oh my god they were roommates" fic but COOLER because robot

Author Notes: this took me so long to write but i had SO much fun. i also wrote the scenes entirely out of order, which was even more fun. the only problem is that i now want a smol robot of my own

Bang! The door of the dorm room crashed shut behind Dan and he winced at the noise. His black suitcase thunked against his heels as he shuffled forward, glancing around the room. It was small but well-lit, with tall windows spanning the length of one wall and allowing a generous view of the campus outside. There were two beds, two dressers, and an ugly orange rug that made Dan’s eyes burn when he looked too long at it. Only one side of the room was bare, left empty for Dan to occupy.

The other occupant of the room had jolted when the door slammed, sitting up on his bed. Dan glanced at the paraphernalia sprawled across his new roommate’s bed and dresser.

“...Hi,” said Dan, after a too-long pause.

The other man had been regarding him with a smile. He hopped off the bed when Dan spoke. “Hello!” he said. His voice was bright, and notably very British. “You must be Dan!”

“Yep.” Dan trudged forward and hauled his suitcase onto the empty bed. “And you’re Phil.”

“I am!” Phil had moved closer when Dan turned around, his arm outstretched. Dan glanced down with bemusement at the hand that was being offered and shook it reluctantly. “Nice to meet you!” Phil continued. “It’s weird that they’d put both of us international students in the same room. You’d think they’d want us to be with someone who actually lives here in Florida so we’d learn more about it.”

Dan shrugged and shoved his released hand into his pocket, glancing over Phil’s shoulder at the posters adorning Phil’s side of the room. “Cool posters,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Phil automatically, then, “Oh, do you like video games?”

Dan tugged the zipper on his suitcase open and flipped the lid, revealing a PS4 with the cords wrapped tightly around it to conserve space. It was nestled between rolls of jeans and folded shirts. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Ooh.” Phil hovered behind him. “Nice, I have an Xbox. What are your favourite games?”

“Name one and I’ve probably played it.” Dan found himself, hesitantly, beginning to like this guy and his overabundance of enthusiasm. He glanced at the CD shoved into one of his suitcase’s many side pockets. “What...music do you like?”

“That’s a loaded question,” Phil said thoughtfully. “I like almost everything. I’d have to say my all-time top band is Muse, though.”

Dan felt a smile tugging at his lips. He turned back toward Phil, attention fully on his roommate. “Oh, yeah? That’s my favourite too.”

“You have good taste,” Phil informed him. “They’re a great band.”

Dan was smiling unhesitantly now. “Yeah. They are.”

“Yep.” Phil was grinning back at him.

This, thought Dan, this might turn out okay.

~~~

This is not okay, thought Dan, just as someone’s shoulder collided with his back and sent him stumbling into his dorm room. The door had been hanging open suspiciously, but he was grateful for it now since he’d avoided face-planting into it.

Someone screamed in the hallway and Dan cringed. The mass of bodies he’d had to push through in order to get to his room was...excessive. He had no idea what was happening out in the hall and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“Oh, hey,” said Phil from his bed.

Dan stared at him dumbly. His roommate looked ridiculously comfortable and Dan was a little envious. He was sprawled across his bed, head dangling off the edge as he peered sideways at Dan, and legs propped up against the wall beside his bed

“...Hey,” said Dan.

“There’s a party going on, I think,” Phil offered. He had a textbook resting face-down on his chest.

“Oh. Cool.” It was not cool. It was only two weeks into the semester. Parties at this time were ridiculous.

Phil sighed deeply and turned back to his textbook, lifting it from his chest to peruse the crinkled pages. His head was lifted at an odd angle since there wasn’t anything to rest it on, and it suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable. Dan watched him for a long moment, unblinking, then crossed the room to his own bed and sat heavily.

Another scream made its way into their room. Dan had not shut the door behind him, so he watched disinterestedly as two bare-chested, bellowing guys sprinted past with a flailing girl hoisted on their shoulders. More people milled around outside, their chatter indecipherable.

“Do you have any homework?” Phil asked. Dan could only see the top of his head now. There were tiny ginger strands invading the deep black of his hair.

“Always,” said Dan, although he found it entirely unfair that he should have so much work when he’d barely even started the semester.

Phil dropped the textbook onto his chest again and let his head fall back until his upside-down gaze met with Dan’s. “Want to join the riot?”

“Sure,” said Dan. Not really, he meant.

Phil tossed the textbook to the side and clambered off the bed, almost falling and braining himself against his dresser. Dan stared at his abandoned textbook as it toppled toward the edge of the bed but didn’t quite fall. It teetered ominously.

“Cool. Uh, do you drink?” asked Phil.

Dan didn’t look away from the precarious textbook. “Isn’t the drinking age different in America?”

“Well, yeah, but.” Phil shrugged, shoving his differently-socked feet into the discarded shoes by the door. “Pretty sure I saw someone lugging an actual barrel of alcohol past earlier, so I’m not sure it matters.”

Reluctantly, Dan stood as Phil waited for him by the door. “I dunno. Maybe.” Crossing the room, he pushed the textbook further onto Phil’s bed. He did not feel like the textbook appreciated his effort as much as it should have.

Phil headed out into the hallway and Dan followed him, navigating around a group of students sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor. He didn’t know where Phil was going, but also wasn’t sure he cared to know. “Do you like parties?” he asked Phil’s back.

“Well, not really,” Phil said. Dan could barely hear him over the conversations going on around them. “But it’s part of the experience, right?”

Dan wasn’t entirely positive, but he shrugged anyway. Phil didn’t see it.

“Are you a party person?” Phil asked, glancing back over his shoulder. He almost collided with a couple making out against the wall.

It was really a ridiculous question. Dan didn’t think he had done anything at all over the past two weeks that would make Phil think he was a party person. A tiny snort escaped him, but when Phil raised a questioning eyebrow back at him, he just shook his head. “Not really,” he echoed Phil.

“I guess we’re both getting out of our comfort zones,” Phil said brightly.

Something squished under Dan’s foot. He squinted down at the floor, barely able to see it in the dim hallway lights, and realized he had stepped on a banana. Sighing heavily, he kicked it away. It slapped wetly against someone’s bare ankle. Dan hurriedly made his way after Phil, who was already a dozen paces down the hall. Someone squealed behind him, probably the person who’d just been assaulted by a banana peel.

“This looks like the life of the party,” said Phil when Dan had caught up to him. He was standing at the entrance to the common area, staring uncertainly at the chaos inside.

Dan blinked slowly at the room. There was a group attempting karaoke, their voices screeching painfully through the entire area; muscular jock types milling around a pool table, laughing uproariously and slapping each others’ backs; multiple people dangling on the couches, tables, and chairs around the room; and a dozen or so giggling in the corner with hands full of suspiciously-sloshing red plastic cups. A barrel was almost exactly in the centre of the room. A guy dressed only in tight boxer briefs and thigh-high socks bellowed “KEG STAND” and crashed into the barrel, but immediately three or four people who had been hovering around the barrel hauled him back to his feet.

“Well,” said Phil. “That looks...exciting.”

Someone vomited onto the pool table.

“I think I’ve had a great college party experience. My experience is...complete.” Dan took a long, slow step backwards.

“Yeeaah,” said Phil, dragging the word out. “Do you...want to go back to the dorm room and play Donkey Kong?”

“Yeah, let’s,” said Dan.

“Let’s.”

They did.

~~~

Two months later, Dan had no idea what made him want to go to college. He was tired literally all of the time. His eyes were so bleary when he stumbled into his dorm room that he didn’t see Phil at first. His mouth opened in a jaw-cracking yawn and he shoved backwards with his foot until it connected and the door swung shut. It was only after he carelessly tossed his backpack toward his bed that he saw Phil. One arm was sprawled across the desk as he slumped over it, fingers twitching as he dreamed. His glasses were crooked on his face and his mouth was open as he drooled a little drop of spittle onto the computer that his face was smashed into.

Dan should not have found it as attractive as he did. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes, and crossed the room to shake his roommate’s shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”

“Whuh,” mumbled Phil. He shuffled away from the touch, burying his face into the unforgiving plastic of his laptop case. The frame of his glasses screeched against it.

Wincing, Dan tried again. “Wake up, dork. You fell asleep working on your...robot thing again.”

“Huh!” With a start, Phil awoke, snorting in alarm. His arm flailed and something toppled off the desk, but he just yawned hugely and squinted around until his gaze fell upon Dan. “Oh. ‘G morning.”

“It’s afternoon,” said Dan. “I just got back from my second class.” He couldn’t look away from the glasses that were hanging lopsidedly from Phil’s nose. One side of the frame was drooping sadly halfway down his cheek.

Dan sighed and reached out to correct the placement, pushing the glasses back into their correct place. Phil just blinked dimly up at him.

“What’s today,” he said, voice hoarse with sleep.

“Wednesday?” said Dan, but it was more of a question. He wasn’t entirely sure, himself. The days all seemed to blur together, especially near the middle of the week when it was just class after assignment after class after test.

“Oh,” said Phil dumbly, and then, “Oh!” He turned frantically to his computer, fingers scrabbling at it for a few long moments before he yanked it open. Dan shamelessly glanced over his shoulder as Phil hurriedly opened his email and refreshed it. Phil ignored the multiple unread emails and opened one from a few weeks ago. He sighed deeply upon skimming over it.

“It’s not due until tomorrow night,” he said, clearly relieved.

“What’s not due? Oh, your project.”

“Yeah, but just the coding part. I can build the actual mechanical part later, and then audio will be due at midterms.” Phil shut the laptop. He scrubbed at his eyes and sighed. “I need coffee. I need to finish this, but I need coffee first. Want to go get some?”

Dan had already had about three coffees this morning, but what would one more hurt? He agreed, Phil shoved his computer into his backpack, Dan ignored his own bag and its loads of homework, and they set off towards the campus’ closest coffee shop.

They were regulars, and were both friendly to anyone who supplied them with caffeine, so the barista greeted them as soon as they walked inside.

“Hey, Bry,” Phil returned her greeting and headed toward their usual table in the corner to haul his computer out and set it up. Dan ordered their usual drinks, two caramel macchiatos, and then after a quick glance at the deep bags beneath Phil’s eyes, had two extra shots added to Phil’s. He examined his own fingers, then. They were trembling. He probably didn’t need the extra shots for himself.

“Thanks,” said Dan once Bryony handed him the drinks. He joined Phil at the table, but took his time walking over. It was disconcerting how good Phil looked, even sleepy and rumpled. “How much do you have left?”

Phil slurped loudly at his coffee before answering. “Too much. Can you get the - ?” He waved halfheartedly at his backpack sprawled beside him on the floor, and Dan obediently leaned over to dig in it and pull out what Phil was most likely referring to - a chunk of twisted metal with wheels and soldered antennae. It thunked solidly when he placed it on the wooden table next to Phil’s laptop.

Phil pet the ugly hunk, almost absentmindedly. Dan scowled down at the long pale fingers stroking the unfeeling lines of metal, wondering exactly how jealous he should feel. He took a sip of his own coffee. Maybe he did need the extra shots.

“It’s this code,” Phil groaned. He let go of the metal disaster and smashed the keyboard on his laptop, somehow managing to type something in the mess. “I’m trying to get it to perform actual functions and all it can do is drive around in circles.”

“That’s a function, isn’t it?”

“I mean. Yeah, but I want it to be unique. This isn’t…” Phil waved a hand at the innocent, hideous metal. “...I can’t even call it a robot.”

Dan didn’t know anything about electrical engineering, but he was fairly sure that it could be considered a robot. He gulped down a mouthful of macchiato instead of saying anything.

“I need...I need,” Phil muttered. He said something else inaudible, then took the lid off his coffee and buried his face in the opening, inhaling the steam.

Dan considered being concerned. “You can do it,” he said, but his tone was too flat to sound encouraging. He poked the robot thing. Its wheels squealed against the table as he pushed it toward Phil. “Robot says you can do it.”

“Robot is a liar,” Phil pulled away from his coffee inhalation just enough to inform Dan.

“Well,” said Dan. “I can’t inspire you. I only got up this morning for class because it was philosophy and I wanted to argue with the dumbass from yesterday who said Freud was a legend. Otherwise, I’d still be in bed and it’s…” He patted his pocket for his phone, and, not finding it, squinted at the screen of Phil’s laptop, “...it’s almost three.”

“What a life,” Phil said dully.

Dan patted the metal chunk. “You should just make it into an alarm clock. But like, one that attacks you if you don’t get up.”

“Huh,” Phil agreed unenthusiastically, and then, thoughtfully, “Huh.”

“I was joking,” Dan pointed out.

Phil set down his coffee. “Hmm,” he said.

“Hmm,” Dan repeated, but it reached tones of infinite suspicion. “Lester, don’t do it.”

Phil was already typing away at his laptop. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “It’s better than what I had. Which was...nothing.”

Sighing deeply, Dan sat back in his chair. Maybe he should just go with it. It couldn’t hurt anything, could it? Phil hadn’t been able to get the thing to do anything other than trundle in circles for almost a month, and his project was due the next day. Surely he would abandon it after he had to show it to his instructor.

Yeah, Dan would just go with it.

~~~

Dan had decidedly changed his mind after just one month.

“Phil!” he called, knowing that his roommate would be able to hear him over the sound of running water from their shared bathroom. He glared down at the tiny chunk of metal that had whirred across the room and attached itself to his foot as soon as he walked in the door. At first, it had been cute - but the “freely roaming the room” part was a problem. Although incredibly simple, the small robot zipped everywhere around the room and, despite Phil’s promises that it wouldn’t actually work as an alarm clock, had even climbed into Dan’s bed once. He had woken up to a chirruping metal blob on his chest, so naturally, he had screamed and thrown his blankets - along with the robot - onto the floor.

The water in the bathroom shut off. “What?” Phil yelled back.

The tiny antennae on the robot’s hulk swivelled. Dan frowned at it. He knew the thing didn’t have any cameras, but he still wasn’t sure how it heard anything or how it navigated. Phil claimed that it ran via solar power and soundwaves, but Dan had once seen it chug its way across the silent room at midnight to bury itself under a pile of socks.

The bathroom door opened, and Dan realized that he hadn’t replied to his roommate. He glanced up just as Phil stepped out, steam sweeping past him to humidify the dorm room. As usual, he was draped in far too many towels. Dan stared for a moment too long at the drops of water beading on Phil’s neck and creeping down his chest, and then he yanked his gaze away and flicked his foot to toss the metal creature across the room.

It squealed as it flew across the room, then landed lightly just beside Phil’s foot. A moment passed, and then it flipped over, whirring and chirping happily as it spun around Phil.

“Your little R2-D2 keeps attacking me,” said Dan, belatedly.

Phil scooped up his creation with careful fingers. Dan carefully ignored that his towels parted to reveal a very nice torso. “Don’t be mean,” Phil reprimanded. “He just likes you.”

“It’s an inanimate object,” Dan pointed out.

“He is very animated. And his name is Susan.”

Crossing the room, Dan hefted his backpack onto his bed. “You’ve decided that just now?”

“Yes,” said Phil emphatically.

The robot chirruped.

~~~

The dorm room was empty when Dan staggered inside. He almost slipped on a sock on the floor as he shut the door, so he cursed soundly at it. The cartoon penguins decorating it looked mournful as he kicked it to Phil’s side of the room. He dumped his backpack, heavy with the weight of textbooks, too many assignments, and stress, next to his dresser and then sat heavily on his bed.

He took a sip from the wine bottle in his right hand. The alcohol burned when it went down, warming his throat and stomach somewhat unpleasantly. Dan wasn’t entirely sure that it was actually wine.

Fucking Phil, he thought, and then repeated it out loud. “Fucking Phil.” He glanced around the room, making sure that Phil wasn’t actually there, then swallowed another mouthful of dubious alcohol. He had gotten it from the two guys down the hall that peddled suspicious goods, but nearly an hour had passed since then. Dan didn’t quite remember what he had done between then and now, and was almost certain that it wasn’t too important.

Lifting the wine bottle, he examined the contents inside. There was nothing floating inside at least, he noted, but there couldn’t be more than another sip or two left.

He took care of the rest of the alcohol in two swift gulps, then thought for a few long moments and heaved himself backwards to shove the empty bottle between his mattress and the wall. It wouldn’t do for an untimely random room check to find evidence of his sporadic lapse of judgement. It was just… “Fucking Phil,” he repeated. The words felt right on his tongue. “Fucking...Phil.” He laughed then, a helpless giggle, and slapped a hand over his mouth. He wished.

Dan let himself topple sideways on his bed, then hauled his feet up to the bedspread. His mind felt bubbly.

“Wooo,” said something from the floor.

Dan definitely did not squeal. He did not flail and kick one foot into the wall. His toe did not hurt.

Another minute passed before he regained his composure and managed to peer over the side of his bed to the floor.

Phil’s robot sat on the ugly orange rug, antennae pointed directly up at him and tiny sensors whirring indistinctly. It chirped at him, undeterred by Dan’s fragrant breath wafting down toward it.

“Oh,” said Dan. “Hi, Susan.”

Susan whistled in reply. Dan was about 96% positive that Phil had illegally downloaded clips of R2-D2’s sounds and used it for his pet project. The noises were extremely similar, in any case. Dan managed to pull his arm from where it had ended up beneath his stomach - though he didn’t quite know how it had gotten there - and reached down to pick up the robot. He brought it very close to his face to examine it, and one of its bristling wires stroked his nose.

He sneezed and put it on his pillow. It chirruped cheerfully.

“You look...cool.” Dan squinted at Susan. “You look...like you’re missing something.”

“Vroo?” said the robot.

Dan nodded confidently. His head drooped and he slowly let it fall until his forehead rested against the blankets, and there he blinked rather slowly at the indistinguishable blurs beneath him. “Yes,” he said, and then shoved himself upright.

It took him more than a few minutes to drag himself off the bed to dig through one of his dresser drawers and find what he was looking for. He managed to successfully sit back on the bed, but couldn’t quite get one leg all the way up, so he just let it dangle off the side. He piled the handful of items he had collected next to the pillow, where Susan was still patiently waiting.

“You are a cool robot,” he informed Susan. “But you are missing a thing. And that is an eyeball.” He procured the plastic googly eyeball with a flourish, although the flourish nearly broke his hand when he thudded it against the wall. “Ow,” he said.

The robot did not argue as Dan, very slowly and carefully, applied a few drops of glue to the back of the plastic eyeball. He may have gotten a bit on his fingers, but he wiped them off on his jeans. It wouldn’t hurt, surely.

“Here,” said Dan, and affixed the eyeball directly above one of Susan’s tiny whirring wheels. The fake pupil wobbled as the robot tipped on the pillow. Dan regarded it with great approval, and then he applied the other eyeball to the opposite side of the robot.

“Weeooo,” said Susan.

Dan sighed and stroked its delicate frame. “You’re such a good boy, Susan.”

Susan purred. It may have just been the motor running, but Dan preferred to believe that it agreed with him.

Dan sighed again, very heavily. “Fucking Phil,” he said ruefully.

The robot made a low, compassionate noise. Dan stared into the fake eyes he had attached. They contained so much emotion.

He felt himself tear up. “Why are you so perfect,” he mourned. “With your...stupid smarts and your stupid perfection. Stupid pretty eyes. Stupid hair.”

“Beoop?” questioned Susan.

Dan groaned and slumped sideways to lean against the wall. It was not as comfortable as his pillow would be, but since Susan was currently residing on it he decided to suffer for the moment. At least then his physical torment would match the emotions he felt. “Fine, not you,” he told Susan. “It’s fucking Phil. He’s. Too much.”

Susan beeped sadly.

“I know, right?” Dan commiserated dolefully. “It’s just...you know?”

Susan’s fake eyes peered up at him, clearly unknowing.

Dan carefully placed a forefinger in front of Susan’s tiny speakers. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone, but...I’m a little drunk. And sad. And…” he sighed, again, “...I like Phil. So, so much.”

“Vrooo,” said the little robot.

“Do you think he would date me if I was a robot,” asked Dan.

Susan, very unhelpfully, did not respond.

Dan heaved a breath and painstakingly squeezed himself next to the robot to lie down. He stared wide-eyed at the delicate chunk of metal only an inch from his face. “You have beautiful eyes,” he told Susan, and then he fell asleep.

~~~

Dan woke up with a start when the door to the dorm room slammed shut. He jolted upright, squinting blearily toward the source of the noise. It took him a few moments, but then he was able to make out the figure standing by the door. It was Phil.

“Ungh,” said Dan, and flopped back down. His head spun, a distant memory of his drunken adventures the night before. He half-heartedly attempted to remember what he had done, but the memories were too vague to recall anything other than stumbling to his bed. He might have...talked to Phil’s robot?

“Um,” said Phil, still standing by the door. “Dan.”

With a searing bolt of clarity, Dan remembered that he had glued fake eyeballs to Phil’s robot last night. Phil’s midterms were today, which meant that part of his project had been due today, which meant that...Dan had probably ruined it. He cast desperately back into his uncertain memories, but he couldn’t remember exactly which part of the project was due.

“Fuck,” Dan said, and then, in a moment of maturity, hauled his blanket over his head to hide from Phil’s gaze. His hand was stuck to part of the fabric where he had attempted to wipe off the glue last night.

“Dan,” said Phil.

Dan was silent for a very long moment, and then he groaned quietly. “I’m so sorry, shit. I didn’t mean to do it, I was drunk.”

“You didn’t mean to do what?” asked Phil, but his tone sounded somewhat uncertain. Dan was almost tempted to pull the blanket off and look at him.

“I ruined your project, didn’t I? The fucking...eyeball things.”

“What?” Phil seemed confused now. “Oh, no, I wasn’t showing the actual robot today, the complete project is due at the end of the term. I think the googly eyes are cute, actually. They make Susan look friendlier.”

“Oh,” said Dan. His voice was muffled by the blankets. He blinked slowly in the darkness he had inflicted upon himself. “Okay. Uh...what’s up, then?” he tried, then cringed at himself.

Phil cleared his throat. “Well, um. The audio part was due today. You were super asleep earlier, so you probably didn’t hear me come in, go to sleep, then get Susan this morning and take him to the computer labs to...uh...compile the audio he’s been recording over the past few weeks for my project.”

“You...what?” Dan frowned up toward the ceiling - at least, he thought it was up toward the ceiling. He couldn’t really see where it was.

“Yeah, I told you before I started the recording. And you said it’d be fine if I recorded everything, as long as I cut out anything embarrassing. But I left it until the last minute so I had to do it all this morning before my mid-finals today. Anyway, I was just going to compile a one-hour block of random bits of audio from everything he’s recorded.” There was a shuffling noise. Phil shifting from foot to foot or moving closer, maybe. He was rambling. “But...well, he was recording last night. And I didn’t mean to invade your privacy or anything! I was just trying to find bits of audio - stuff that didn’t mean anything, just words or sounds out of order.”

“It recorded me...last night,” Dan repeated. “While I was drunk.”

“Um, yeah - ”

“And you listened to it.”

“...Yes, but - !”

“Nope.” Dan rolled over and smashed his face into his pillow. He had a very vague idea of what he had confessed to the robot last night, but he didn’t want confirmation of it. He didn’t want Phil to gently let him down in his Phil way that would make it impossible to be upset at him. At this moment, in fact, Dan didn’t want Phil to speak to him ever again.

Phil sounded cautious when he next spoke. “Do you...remember what you said?”

“Nmhphp,” said Dan into his pillow. His hand was still stuck to the blanket.

The mattress dipped beside Dan as Phil sat down on the bed. “Did you mean what you said?” he asked quietly.

“I was drunk,” Dan said weakly.

A feather-light touch trailed across his back. He shivered under the blanket. Even with the layers of material between him and Phil, he could still feel the heat of Phil’s hand. It burned him, branding him in place with the weight of his spoken confession that he never thought Phil would hear.

“Yeah,” he said.

Susan beeped from somewhere in the room, a cheerful sound that broke the heavy silence after Dan’s single word faded away.

Dan could feel Phil’s fingers tightening on the blanket, and then the comforting material was pulled away from him. The pillow was warm against his face where he was still buried into it.

“Dan,” said Phil, and so Dan rolled over, finally, to look at him.

Phil was smiling.

Dan thought bizarrely that the crinkles at the corner of Phil’s eyes were simply too deep to possibly exist. He wanted to press his fingers into them and make the smile on Phil’s lips grow even wider. He wanted to turn back around and hide from the brilliance of the expression.

“Idiot,” Phil said, unbearably fond. “I like you too.”

Dan just blinked slowly up at him.

“Want to go get coffee?” Phil asked. Still grinning, he brushed a thumb under Dan’s eye. Dan hadn’t realized a tear had escaped.

“Yeah,” he said again, and caught Phil’s hand in his, and a smile crept across his face to match Phil’s.

They stood and they left to get coffee, beaming at each other with enamoured expressions the entire way.

Susan whistled after them, then drove up the side of the bedspread onto Dan’s bed and perched on Dan’s pillow, its googly eyes spinning madly. It chirruped in a way that sounded like laughter.

“You’re such a good boy, Susan,” it said in Dan’s voice.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phanfic au #roommates au #college/university au #oh my god they were roommates #robots au #phandom fic fests bingo 2019 #phandom bingo 2019 #angst #fluff

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et-in-cinerem-reverteris · 4 years

Text

The Sweet Release of Death - 3k

A fic where Dan never quite makes it to therapy and Phil’s liveliness isn’t natural.

Genre: Heavy angst with a happy ending

While ‘Class of 1953′ is the main fanfiction I’m working right now, I’ve also had this one on the backburner for a couple of months. It is very different to Co1953, and also fairly harrowing. Reader discretion is heavily advised.

If you’re interested I strongly recommend that you read on Ao3 as I have included some important messages there, but if not, it’s here below the cut.

CW: Death, depression, drug use, overdosing, blood, stroke, referenced homophobia, suicide, heaven, Christianity/Catholicism.

Every morning starts the same. Dan wakes up at midday, already tired, already exhausted, already feeling pathetically miserable. As crushing gloom seeps into his ribcage, along comes the ooze of worries and regrets that trickle into his brain and muddy his thoughts.

Was it a good idea to drop out of uni?

Should I have done it?

Could I have pushed through the pain and continued with my course?

How stable is my future now?

Can I really make a career out of Youtube?

Am I going to be successful?

Did I make the right choice?

Am I happy?

The weight in his chest deepens after that one.

Then it gets worse.

Is Phil happy?

Am I a burden to Phil?

Am I too much for him to handle?

Lying in this slump for what feels like forever, he drifts in and out of consciousness as he desperately tries to escape from this world and land into a dream where things don’t feel so messy and confusing.

He checks the clock. 10 minutes have passed. He closes his eyes and falls back asleep. He checks the clock again. 20 more minutes have passed. He’s starting to get sick of this.

As he rolls over, the cold bed is empty beside him. For the past couple of months, Phil has been sleeping alone in the other room. The ‘other’ room. ‘Phil’s’ room. The filming room. The excuses had changed week by week, getting more and more distressing as they became more and more honest.

“The last thing I want to do is disturb your sleep and make your insomnia worse, so I think it’d be best if I slept in the other room for now” turned into “I know you need time alone at the start of the day, so I want to give you space to think” which turned into “It breaks my heart to see you look so empty in the morning, I can hardly bear to look at you” which ended last week with “I just can’t cope with it any more, so I think going to become permanent. I’m sorry.”

So that was that. Dan didn’t have the willpower to argue. Phil was right anyway - Dan doesn’t want to be seen when he’s at his worst. He never wants Phil to see him like this. He hates the idea of being a burden and letting his emotions affect others, but judging by the withering light in his partner’s eyes, Dan has a sinking feeling that it might already be too late.

Half an hour in bed later, he scrapes up any shred of motivation he can get to finally pull himself out of the covers and start the dreaded day. As he makes his way to the kitchen he comes across Phil in his room preparing to film a video. The door is ajar, the studio lights are on, and the black haired man is hunched over his chest of drawers carefully fussing over something that appears to be small and fragile. Dan already knows exactly what it is. AmazingPhil never starts filming without it.

“You’re not still doing that are you?” the brunette asks with a mixture of concern, irritation and sorrow in his voice.

Phil turns round and twitches, nearly dropping the credit card that sits between his fingers.

“Dan. I’m trying to cut down on it, I promise. Look, I’m only doing two this time,” he assures, tilting the card downwards towards two small white lines. “It just keeps my energy levels up for the videos. You know that.”

Dan sighs from the doorway and remains silent.

“You’re always welcome to join me,” Phil purrs, with an innocent yet mischievous glint in his eye.

Fuck. How on earth Phil manages to look so perfect when he’s doing something so fucked up will forever be a mystery to Dan. Yes, he’s upset. Yes, he wishes Phil would stop. But hey, we all have our vices, right? Dan doesn’t blame him for needing something extra in order to get him through the day. Must be hard living with a depressed boyfriend who clings to you even if he knows he’s dragging you down along with him.

Phil frowns. He must have guessed what Dan was thinking.

“I love you.”

Dan sighs. “I love you too.”

Phil gives him a sad, comforting smile, turning towards the chest of drawers and bending down. Heart heavy with guilt and regret, Dan withdraws into the kitchen before he accidentally catches a glimpse of his boyfriend in the act.

He hates the whole ordeal. He hates it so, so much. When Dan first found out that Phil’s bubbly temperament came not from his personality but from inside a little piece of twisted plastic, he felt that he’d been lied to. Like he had just found out that his favourite teacher was a paedophile, or that his best friend was a rapist, or that his teenage idol was secretly addicted to cocaine...oh wait. Most of it made sense to Dan, because nobody could naturally be that hyper, and it’s not like he had exactly stayed away from drugs himself. What made him feel sick to his stomach was how it affected them both. How it changed the man he loved. How it gnawed at their finances. How it fucked with Phil’s health. The headaches, the hallucinations, the anxiety, the nosebleeds - the list went on and on, and had only worsened over the three years that they’d been together.

Phil’s bedroom door clicks shut, and a few seconds later the talking begins. Dan looks into the dry cereal that sits in his bowl, sighing. Two boyfriends - one gut-wrenchingly depressed, and the other with a cocaine addiction. Great!

Milk poured and spoon located, he sits down on the sofa, turns the TV on and begins to flick through the channels. Channel after channel after channel. All pure shit. Tossing the remote to the side, he eats another spoon of cereal and chews it and chews it and chews it until it turns into a stodgy lump of grey glue. Stale. Tasteless. The cereal is claggy and he can barely swallow it. He’s not even hungry, but if he caves in to his appetite loss he knows he’ll feel even worse in a few hours. More tired and more exhausted and more pathetically miserable. At this point, it’s barely even worth finishing the fucking bowl. Why bother eating when everything tastes the same? Why bother with anything at all?

He spends the next 15 minutes drowning in his suffering, staring out of the window as the television plays some automatically selected daytime TV.

It’s the loud thud that snaps him out of his wallowing.

“Phil?”

No reply.

“Phil.”

No reply.

...

“PHIL?”

Dan lunges up from the sofa and storms down the corridor, pausing in front of the filming room. He raps his knuckles against the wood, calling the other man’s name.

No reply.

His heart thumps through his ribcage. What if something’s gone wrong? What if Phil’s not okay? Horrifying visions flash before him. Not this. Fuck. Anything but this.

The metal handle is cold as he pushes the door open.

“Phil? Are you okay?”

The six-foot man is lying on the floor, slumped against the bed with his spine at an angle that can’t be comfortable.

“Phil? Phil! Fuck.”

He clambers over to the bed, clawing at Phil’s body. Okay. This sort of thing has happened before. Just once before. The memories of that night are painful, stinging, and Dan winces as images of his unconscious boyfriend come flooding back into his mind.

He finally turns Phil’s body over.

“Oh my God!”

Blood is everywhere. Blood is streaming out of Phil’s nose, down his white skin and seeping into his green t-shirt as spit dribbles down his slack jaw, mixing with the blood into a pool of pinkish red that drips down his face...his face...

The left side of his face sags downwards.

“Oh shit, shit shit shit shit shit please no, Phil please, say something,” Dan pleads, slapping his boyfriend’s cheeks as he desperately tries to bring him back into consciousness. But Phil’s not responding, oh God Phil’s not responding to anything. Drawing in a shaky breath, Dan lifts two fingers to the man’s neck.

Waits.

And waits.

But there’s nothing there.

And so Dan checks Phil’s wrist.

But there’s nothing there.

And so Dan places his ear against Phil’s chest, trying to look for signs of a heartbeat, or breathing, or anything, just anything at this point.

But there’s nothing there.

As he lifts his head, hot tears prick his eyes and pour down his face.

CPR? The Heimlich maneuver? Defibrination? What did he do last time?

Last time?! Last time this happened Phil hadn’t fucking...hadn’t fucking...

Hadn’t fucking died.

“Phil...Phil, no please...Phil…”

He begins to weep. Hopeless, helpless, all he can do is pull himself closer to his boyfriend’s still-warm body. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real. It’s not real. It’s not real. But the empty silence of Phil’s chest and the sad droop of his left arm are telling him otherwise. His breathing quickens.

It’s not real.

Phil’s still alive. Phil doesn’t do cocaine. Dan’s not depressed. Dan doesn’t wake up every day teetering on the brink of suicide, wondering how long he can go on for before something pushes him right over the fucking edge and cause him to finally make use of those knot-tying skills and-

Defeated, he lets out a deep sigh. This might be it. This just might well be it. The love of his life, his first best friend, his first true lover, the man who met him at Manchester Piccadilly station three years ago sat here, dead in his arms. His soulmate. He looks at Phil’s face again. It’s cold, stark, and lifeless. Staring at the emptiness feels like a kick to the stomach, and it’s not too long before Dan breaks out into an agonising, desperate sob.

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

A few hours pass. Dan is still sitting on the floor, still clinging to Phil’s corpse, passed out from the sheer exhaustion of having cried for so long.

*beep beep*

His eyelids flutter open, and he’s immediately confronted with the sight of his dead boyfriend. Fresh tears spring to his eyes, painful, raw, and he buries his head back into Phil’s blood-stained shirt.

*beep beep*

He cocks his head upwards, squinting as he’s confronted by the glaring studio lamps. A light on the tripod is flashing red, and with a wash of nausea Dan realises that the camera was recording all this time.

Fuck.

Videos.

How on earth is he going to return to his career as a Youtuber? How is he going to explain what happened? How is he going to turn on his camera and say “Hello Internet, now, I’ve got some news to share with you. First of all, newsflash, Phil and I had been a couple for the past three years, but since he’s just died of a cocaine overdose, you’ll never see him again and I probably won’t be able to make any videos for a while. So yeah, that’s that. No sexy endscreen dance today, sorry!” to millions and millions of people? How is he going to tell his mum? His dad? His brother? His nan? They don’t even know that he’s gay, let alone that Phil is - was...was his boyfriend. What if he tells them and it all goes horribly wrong? What if they decide to disown him? Then he’d really be alone. Alone in the world with nobody to talk to.

Oh God.

It’s too much.

It’s all too much.

Oh God.

There is, really and truly this time, nothing left to live for.

He dislodges himself from his boyfriend’s dead body and stands up to turn the camera off. The bright lights burn his eyes. He turns them off too.

A heavy silence sits in the apartment like a muggy cloud. Ghostlike, trudging, aching, he wanders into the kitchen to begin shutting everything down.

Fridge off.

Oven off.

Microwave off.

Dan looks at the screen as the light on the touchpad fades away. He remembers how he once tried to convince Phil that the word ‘microwave’ was onomatopoeia. Good times. So innocent and carefree.

How horrible life feels in this moment. He bows his head, and continues with his task.

Lamps off.

TV off.

Curtains closed.

Through the faint glow still illuminating in the room Dan can still see the sofa crease where he spent a pitifully large amount of time scrolling away the void that gnawed at him, mindlessly staring at a screen while Phil was asleep in his own solitary bed. At least there won’t be any more of that now. Perhaps that’s for the best.

He drags himself to his own bedroom, weary eyes flitting over his possessions as he tries and fails to conjure up happy memories. Fails to conjure up one little reason not to do it. Ah well.

Switches off.

Curtains closed.

Door shut.

When the entire apartment has come to a grinding halt, Dan braces himself before re-entering the place where Phil’s body lies. As he adjusts to the darkness of the room, fresh tears burn and sting once more. He flops down next to Phil on the side of the bed, head in his hands. He wishes it was a dream. He wishes that nothing was real. He wishes that none of this had happened, that when he wakes up Phil will be by his side sleeping softly next to him and they’ll be happy and healthy and successful and free of drugs and depression and maybe even be out to their friends and family, living their best lives as just another gay couple on Youtube. But this life is not for him, was never for him. Not for Daniel Howell, it seems.

Depleted and drained, he slumps down next to Phil like a ripped up rag doll, falling asleep with his head resting on the other man’s shoulder.

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

By the time he arises once more, street lamps are shining through the curtains and creating strips of golden yellow on the white walls.

With the heating off, the apartment is cold.

Phil’s body is cold.

Groggy and grumpy, Dan stumbles upwards, trying to think clearly about what’s coming next.

A tie should do it, right?

5 minutes later the floor is a tip. The carpet is covered in Phil’s props, costumes and clothes, but at last a couple of ties have been found. Dan doesn’t need a tutorial for this. He’s practised countless times before. With his shoelaces, at school. With his lanyard, at work. At any other time of day he might jokingly say that he’s a professional. Now, in the sickest, saddest way, this is the one chance he has to show off.

After dragging a chair into the bedroom, he positions it under a lampshade that hangs over the ceiling. Stepping up onto his homemade gallows, he looks at Phil one more time.

Strange.

Dan had never really believed in anything that he was taught at Sunday school. But somehow, in his final moments, his last wish is to meet Phil somewhere up in heaven.

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

Epilogue:

The first thought that enters Dan’s mind is that his head hurts.

And his neck too, for that matter.

Feeling hazy and confused, he lets a crack of light into his eyes. It’s bright. Too bright, in fact. Almost as if he were…

“Dan?”

He opens his eyes fully.

Somehow Phil is here right up close next to him, lying on the ground, lying on his side, lying on what looks to be some grass.

“Phil, you’re...your nose is-”

“It happened again, didn’t it?”

As he looks at the blood that smothers Phil’s jaw, tears well up in his eyes. All he can manage is a faint nod.

Phil sighs. “I thought as much. And did you…?” His looks down towards Dan’s neck.

He nods again. Phil’s eyes wander to the ground as he strokes the side of Dan’s cheek absentmindedly. Wind brushes against his skin, rustling the soft grass that they’re nestled amongst. Branches sway above their heads, and he can hear a stream bubbling away somewhere nearby. It’s a sunny day - neither too hot, nor too cool. It’s a perfect setting, really. Almost too perfect.

“Phil?” He pipes up, voice still choked with tears.

“Hmmm?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Are we in…?”

“I was just wondering the same thing.”

“What do you think?” he asks idly, hand wandering across the grass to search for Phil’s.

“I think we must be.” He finds it, and as their fingers intertwine Dan can’t help but get lost in the eyes of the man lying opposite to him. They’re as blue as ever - stunningly striking with lashes long and pale brown. Beautiful from the start, and beautiful now.

“I’m sorry,” Phil starts, voice heavy with remorse.

“Don’t be, it’s all over now. And anyway, I’m equally sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being such a burden all the time. For being so hopelessly depressed. It can’t have helped with your...y’know…”

“Dan. Just like you said, it’s all over.”

“I know,” he smiles. “I know. I feel better now anyway. Lighter. Like my past life was a dream.”

“Are you sure you’re not dreaming now?” Phil jests.

Dan laughs. “Go on then, pinch me. We’ll see if I-ow! Phil!” He cries as the other man giggles mischievously, tongue peeking through his grin. Dan beams. “C’mere.” Propping himself up with his left elbow, he leans over towards Phil and cups his cheek with his right hand. The man below him looks up with a soft gaze, bright eyes flitting over his face and skimming over his lips. Dan leans in, closes his eyes, and kisses him.

“I love you. So much. I can’t believe I get to spend eternity by your side,” he coos, still holding Phil’s face.

“Even if that means I get to spend eternity having fun annoying you?” he smirks.

Dan laughs. “Yup. Even if it means that.”

#my writing #phan #phanfiction #dan and phil #amazingphil #daniel howell #angst

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noa-halevy · 5 years

Text

THIS WILL END IN TEARS [1 / 4]

All right, so this is the start of a series of self paras that all tie into each other. They’re not being posted in chronological order, so make sure to take note of the dates they happened. The information in this self para will spread through the Organization quickly (and the second part of this half will be coming shortly) so there will be plenty for the Frenchies to react to and chat about. Let’s crank up the drama.

Date: August 6th, 2019. Warnings: None.

“I really wish they’d hit you somewhere other than your face. Can’t you tell them to aim for your personality next time?”

When the walking wounded had slapped her ass in response to the barb, Noa had jumped so much she’d accidentally needle poked him in a good bit of skin. Luckily enough, Dan had been wasting no time when it came to the pain killing. He was already too drunk on the cheap bottle that hung loosely from his grip to notice she could’ve taken his eye out.

“Think it’ll scar?”

“Well, I’m not a surgeon, honey, and I’m down a finger, so probably…”

The man huffed out a laugh at that, but Noa did not return her husband’s casual sentiment. Steady as her hands were, there was only so much she could do for his ego with DIY sutures and some white rum. Judging by the state of him—which had resulted in the absolute bollocking he’d received when he finally stumbled through the door at ridiculous o’clock that morning—it seemed unlikely that he could manage the hospital without answering more questions than was safe.

The French Organization didn’t need any more police scrutiny right now.

Their kitchen had transformed into accident and emergency not long after that debate had ended.

“I wish you wouldn’t go out on your own like this,” Noa scolded. After what felt like hours of struggling, she reached out for a cotton pad in an attempt to clean up the blood that was still, much to her concern, leaking from an eyebrow that would most definitely scar. As much as she laughed it off like she always did when he came home like this, the thoughts of how things could’ve ended far differently were already plaguing an anxious mind. Things were different for them now. “What if they’d knocked you out?”

“I’m fine. Ce n’est pas grave...”

This time she glared. Given that his jaw seemed to be so injured he could hardly spit out the words, she was inclined to think he might be lying about that.

“You shouldn’t go without me.”

“You’re not going anywhere. Besides, I wasn’t alone,” he quickly cut in, sounding so laidback about his predicament that she would have rather enjoyed hitting him in the face again. After a moment, he let out an apologetic sigh that for the most part seemed genuine. His arm wrapped around her waist in an attempt to soothe her concerns, and whilst the new angle made stitching up what was left of the gash on his forehead far more difficult than it needed to be, she wasn’t about to push him away. “I was with Varden.”

Well, he certainly hadn’t mentioned that until now.

“You said Laurent, not Varden.”

Varden Lefebvre: the crazy fucking assassin who had come out of retirement just to set the world on fire. What could go wrong if those two got together, huh?

“That literally makes it worse, Dan.”

“Babe, it’s fine…”

Noa didn’t speak again; concentration wholly focused on tying off the end of the stitching and not biting his head off. Thankfully enough for her—and perhaps Dan too, given how poor a job she had done in her state of exhaustion—the rest of his face, whilst wounded, mostly sported bruises and cuts that would heal of their own accord. She had done all she could. Eventually wriggling out of his grip once more, she started to gather up the bloodied cotton, needles and what remained of the rum they had been using to sterilise everything in silence.

Even though she’d heard him sigh out again, this time in frustration, she hadn’t turned until he spoke.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

It was enough to pique her attention, at least.

They didn’t often discuss the details of their solo ventures. Even though Dan had never said it out loud, she suspected he held back on the finer points of his own hunts because he didn’t want her to know what he was capable of. Before she’d met him—before he’d finally settled into his cushy role as a Commandant—his reputation had been similar enough to Varden’s that they’d teamed up on several occasions. Noa wouldn’t have minded if he’d set their entire island on fire, but she thought it too sweet that he was so concerned. She wouldn’t push. When it came to her, however, details were best left omitted because of his tendency toward being overprotective.

Dan knew that she could look after herself, and had never once questioned her abilities. He just preferred to be there holding them down whilst she was kicking shit out of their skulls…

It was rare that he would offer up the information so freely.

Maybe it had something to do with that shit eating grin he hadn’t been able to shake from the moment he’d walked into their Camden home. What did he know that she didn’t? How had he had his face fucking brutalised, only to look so damn smug about it?

“All right,” she said, starting toward him once more. “I’ll bite. What happened?”

Or maybe, the more important question was: who?

He looked like a teenage girl settling in, getting ready to spill the gossip.

God fucking help her.

“All right. So, like I told you, the original plan was to spend all night at AU. Yusuf even got some new cognac in that I definitely would have brought home for you if it wasn’t for Tzof. Sorry, babe. Anyway, everything was relatively uneventful until we took a break to go and get food, right?” Well, that explained why he’d taken to the shit in the bottle so quickly. Noa was about to shout at him for fighting drunk, again, before he cut her off once more. “So we headed to some weird fucking Halal place and Mo and I ended up fighting about it again because I can’t fucking eat Halal.”

“Wait, you were fighting Mo again?”

“Wait n—”

“You two are literally a fucking stereotype. Mo is crazy. Can you stop—”

“Noa, I wasn’t fighting Mo. We’re good. We’re friends again. We don’t need to steal his gold. The point is he doesn’t shut the fuck up about the best Halal food being in Haringey, right? So he gets us an Uber to Wood Green, and complains the whole way that we’re making him pay for it, even though there’s no chance I’m paying to get to that shit hole or to eat Halal food—”

Noa was beginning to remember why she always made sure they had other company when her husband was drunk.

So she didn’t have to fucking talk to him.

Pressing her fingers into her forehead, she closed her eyes.

“Point noted. No to the Halal,” she breathed. “So who were you fighting?”

“Well if you let me finish?”

“Have you heard the way you tell stories? If I don’t interrupt you, you will literally never finish.”

“Wait, what?” His eyebrows had pulled together in an offended frown. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with the way I tell stories?”

“I swear I’m going to hit you myself. Who were you fighting?”

Much to her despair, a moment later, he had burst into laughter once more.

Had the injury to his head knocked his fucking brain out of his skull?

“So I’m waiting outside the restaurant, and out of the blue, I spot this familiar face across the road from me. I mean, I had to do a double take, Noa…” It looked as though he was about to explode. For some reason, she already felt as though she wasn’t going to seem as pleased as he did by the time his explanation was finished. Dan seemed to be pausing for dramatic effect…until he sensed she really wasn’t joking about the hitting him part. “It was Ivanna.”

Just like that, she was frozen to the spot.

Ivanna?

It might well have been a common name amongst those Russian hooker sluts, but the way he was looking at her meant it could only be one of them.

“What?”

“In the flesh,” he assured. “It was fucking Ivanna. They’re in Haringey.”

The response she gave whenever the Russians were mentioned was absolutely reflexive. All Noa ever wanted was to make as many of them bleed as was physically possible and her bones fucking ached for it now more than ever. The pay was damn good, but the satisfaction of removing another threat to her family from the streets far surpassed any materialistic reward for her loyalty. Honestly, Noa hadn’t even realised she’d gone to pull away from him until her husband’s grip carefully, but firmly, brought her back to the table.

Noa needed to go; to put on her coat, grab the biggest damn knife she owned, and get to Haringey before they lost them again.

“No. Absolutely not,” he protested, his grip on her wrist tightening. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Noa was seeing red. No rational thought had crossed her mind since she’d heard the name.

“Babe, stop.”

Until she felt his other hand at her stomach…

“Yael,” he reminded with a frown, pulling her close enough that she could smell the blood and the alcohol. “No Russian is worth it. Not even Aviv.”

It was the name they had settled on for their daughter immediately after finding out the sex. Noa had expected an argument; that they would need the rest of her pregnancy to ever actually agree on something. Instead, it had hit them both immediately, and now, hearing it was the one thing that could pull her back to centre, even when he brought up the name of a woman that she wouldn’t be shocked to see floating in the Thames tomorrow.

Fucking Ivanna.

All Noa could do was nod.

It was a rarity for him, but he was right. She would never risk their daughter.

“Is she dead?” It was hard to figure out where to begin. “Where is she?”

“Well, when I was finished with her, she was pretty close to it. Laurent let me see her again when he was done asking questions. Apparently she said a lot…”

For the first time since he’d arrived home, his smile faded slightly.

It was personal, and although he wouldn’t mention it, she could see behind his eyes that the reason he was so damn smug wasn’t because they’d made headway with the Russians. It was because he’d finally managed to let out some rage about what’d happened to his wife.

“But Varden was still there when I left.”

Well, it seemed unlikely she’d be alive after that.

Noa let her eyes trace over his wound, reaching out the hand he’d finally released to gently brush away the hair just above. It was harder than she’d been expecting to summarise how she felt. Even though nobody would dare say it aloud, she knew there were still some in the lower ranks that didn’t really believe the Russians were in London; at least not in any significant capacity, anyway. This would put those rumours to rest, and remind the French that she wasn’t fucking insane. It was also a solid step in the right direction in terms of fighting them. To know where they were calling home, where they were planning on setting up business…it gave them something to actively fight against. They could spend their time planning instead of chasing shadows and blood trails.

So why did she feel no relief?

“If they’re really all here, we both need to start being more careful…”

“I know,” he murmured, reaching his hand up to rest on hers. Noa believed him. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, I promise.”

They remained silent for a moment, in mutual understanding.

“Well, I’m assuming she didn’t do this to your face,” she breathed, leaning her head down slightly to press her lips to the corner of her mouth. It was times like these she begrudged letting him go again. “So how many did you get, then? At least three? You’ve got some catching up to do.”

When his hand finally found the back of her head, ready to pull her in for a real kiss in spite of his discomfort, they were both grinning.

“Lo. Chamesh.”

Noa chuckled against his lips. “Pas assez.”

#if u can't translate the french y r u here #lo chamesh: no five #self para #not even a real title #just a prophecy

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ravenvsfox · 6 years

Note

Hey there 😊 would you write the actual fight neil had w breckenridge players in the parking lot from your other prompt? (The 47 one)

(hello my darling please accept this brand new prequel to one of my oldest tfc fics ever MWAH)

He’s mid-shout when Matt grabs him, pins him by the elbows and struggles to walk them both backwards towards the stands. They have only a couple of steady feet between them, and their progress is a strange half-time waltz.

The referee whistles in blistering, repetitive bursts and Neil, overwhelmed, wrestles free from Matt’s grip. He veers downwards as soon as he’s supporting his own weight, barely getting a leg and hasty arm underneath him before he hits the floor.

“Easy Neil, Christ alive.” He claps a hand on the back of Neil’s neck, which irritates him enough to send him ricocheting even farther away, jumpy and unpredictable as a pinball.

He slaps a sweaty palm into the plexiglass to heave himself out of the court, leaving a tacky handprint behind.

“They can’t even play,” Neil pants, tearing off his helmet. “This has gotta be a sick joke, they can’t—play.” He hunkers down, both hands on his knees, breathing deep and violent.

“Yeah, I’m really laughing,” Matt drawls, tucking his own helmet under his arm. He gulps down water and then shakes his head like a dog under a stream of it, setting the soaked spikes of his hair on an angle.

“Here.” He offers Neil the water bottle but Neil waves him off, already scanning the court for the place that he would be if he were on it. Matt wiggles the bottle in front of his field of vision though, and Neil swipes it just to stop him.

When he tips his head back to take a swig from the bottle, his view of the court shivers, orange going brown, and he’s hyper-aware of his knee popping, an overworked injury.

“They’re vicious as fuck,” Matt says, sniffing thickly, maybe through blood. “Their defence thinks we’re punching bags.”

“They’re overcompensating because they don’t know any of the rules,” Neil says. “If I see one more dirty check I’m going to slit either their throats or mine.”

“And here I thought there wouldn’t be any knife play tonight,” Matt jokes, and Neil snaps him a dead-eyed look. “Not that I don’t appreciate Andrew and his menagerie of deadly weapons.”

Neil looks away, but he doesn’t say anything. Andrew’s absence is sitting right on his shoulders where it hurts to stand up straight. Renee in goal is the flavour you choose when your top three aren’t in stock. Andrew’s a loaded pistol and she’s a curled fist.

“I refuse to let fucking Breckenridge get to semis just because our numbers are off,” Neil says narrowly. “They don’t deserve to pick up a racquet, let alone win a game, and Nicky and Aaron aren’t strong enough players for us to be suffering this badly without them.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Matt says, but he’s smiling, a little. “You do know we’re winning, huh Josten?”

“Not by much.”

“And what, you think that point gap would be a point gulf if Andrew were in goal?”

Neil’s mouth quirks. “I know it would.”

“Right,” Matt replies, really smiling now. “And do you ever think maybe that’s all your mushy feelings talking and not your brain?” He jabs Neil in the ribs and Neil steps backwards unevenly.

“I don’t have mushy feelings on the court.”

“Oh please, that’s all you have. You look at centre court like its at the end of a trail of rose petals, it’s super gross.”

Neil shrugs, taking another long pull of water, and Matt laughs. He catches sight of Wymack gesturing angrily at them from the end of the bench, and he tugs his helmet back on, wincing at the humidity and the still tender pulse of his knee when he moves.

“Sub in,” Neil tells Matt, checking the straps on his gloves and shaking his head to try and replace frustration with the fizz of white static. Matt hums acknowledgement, propping his shoe up on the bench to retie the laces.

“Hey Neil,” he says, and Neil peers over the grate of his helmet to catch his eye. “I’m sure they’re fine. Nicky’s got them.”

It’s weird to think of Nicky as the thing that’s going to keep them stable, but Neil’s been thinking it all day. He saw the look on Andrew’s face this morning, like someone spilled water on his usual expression and everything went sideways. Aaron had been so brooding that he was almost indistinguishable from Andrew. It was Nicky who got them in the car and rubbed Neil’s shoulder goodbye and sent him hourly updates on the court proceedings.

Last night he had watched Andrew’s profile across the darkness of their bed and listened to his laboured breathing. He could see his mouth tightening to suppress noise, even in unconsciousness. He’s heard Aaron’s nightmares too, louder and quicker to ease.

Neil keeps thinking of some lawyer clipping evidence up like washing, and some audience deciding whether or not it looks dry, like it hasn’t been kept wet in the well of Andrew’s memory, like it’s not dripping blood.

“Yeah,” Neil says. “Fine.”

Matt frowns, patting his own helmet down. “Poor word choice. You know what I mean.”

Neil bobs his head, eyes streaking out to the court, to the scoreboard and the time that’s left, feeling for the first time that he’d rather not be here at all.

Matt mentioned the court case like it wasn’t taking all of Neil’s willpower to tear his mind away from it. Talking about his fear of the thing lurking outside didn’t kill it, it just opened the door and let it inside with him.

They step heavily back out into the action, and Neil sees it all as if he’s at home watching practice tapes, the predetermined smallness of it all.

He’s never liked how it felt to play without the whole team beside him, like going on family vacation a few siblings short. This is much worse. He scans his teammates’ faces, as keenly familiar through the grill of helmets and sheens of sweat as they are when they’re composed and made up off-court. The determination in them is stretched too thin, and they have this old, hungry look like they’re all fighting with one broken hand.

Kevin keeps tossing his racquet between his hands like he’s trying to find the right fit, Renee is half-slumped in goal, and Neil can see fresh hair dye snaking down her neck in rivulets of sweat. Breckenridge is tumbling through different line-ups, keeping their fresh, un-bloodied fists up, keeping the threat sharp. One grinning striker mimes a heavy limp to her friends, throwing one arm out to gesture towards Neil’s unsteady gait.

“Fuck that,” Matt says, with feeling. “Let’s kill ‘em.” They crack their racquets together, electric, before they spring back into the mob.

_____

They win by three points, half of them crying with rage or vindication when they meet by the goal and grip each other, bare their teeth, hold their victory up to the glow of their heat-wrecked faces.

They clutch their sides and brush blood out of their teeth when they finally find their way to the change rooms, and Kevin tries to lecture them but ends up insulting the other team, hands shaking from rare overexertion.

Wymack pretends he doesn’t notice that they’re passing around a bottle of whiskey, and Neil checks his phone in the corner of the room, waiting for everyone to change out, frowning at the two hour-old message from Andrew that just says “home late”.

The use of the word home is making his heart race, despite everything. Andrew thinking of Neil and Fox tower at the end of the day instead of battered, bruised Columbia is more than he could have hoped for.

He breathes through the full-body ache from the game, relieved to find the kind of feeling that he knows will go away. He clutches the little phone in his fist, knowing that some feelings do not.

“Hitching a ride with us?” Dan asks, brushing into his space as gracefully and invasively as always.

“I can walk,” Neil shrugs.

He feels a jab at the back of his knee and he barely catches himself on the handle of a locker. “Can you?” Allison taunts.

“Don’t be a bitch,” Dan says calmly.

“Oh, be realistic,” Allison snaps. Neil turns to confront her but now she’s crouched at Renee’s side, holding an ice pack to the nape of her neck and pursing her lips with concern. For some reason it makes the hollow of his stomach throb and contort.

“Neil. Ride?” Dan prompts, and Neil nods distractedly. Wymack’s directing Kevin and Allison into helping Renee to the couch, Matt’s bickering with Jack and one of the other new recruits. The room seems small but the feelings seem big, like an under-filled audience for a show-stopping number, like actors are gutting themselves for the benefit of only a handful of nervous eyes.

“Yeah, I just gotta, um, shower… still,” he says lamely, and Dan smiles.

“We’ll be outside drinking that game away, okay?”

“Okay,” Neil confirms. The room is filtering and he doesn’t want to be alone. The thought of nursing his knee without Andrew to manhandle recovery out of him is completely unappealing.

He changes out, steps into the spray of the shower gingerly, eager to get the almost-loss out from where it almost made it under his skin.

He wraps a stray tensor bandage snugly around his knee and steps into sweatpants and runners, tossing on the jersey he’d scooped off the dorm floor and pretended he didn’t know was Andrew’s.

When he finally makes his way out into the humid night air, the fight is already happening.

The door is almost jammed back into his body when he pushes it open, and his awareness trips instantly to high alert. He can hear Dan cursing, and Kevin shouting over the din of dull laughter and violent threats. He kicks the door hard enough to make contact with whatever was in front of it, and the person makes a gutted sound as they topple over.

All eyes swing to him, and he folds his arms over the number three screaming across his chest, taking stupid comfort in the splash of black armbands against Andrew’s number. He imagines the warmth of a knife holstered along his forearm and finds that he doesn’t miss it.

He glances backwards to see the Breckenridge goalie doubled over from contact with the door. That mocking striker from before has Dan by the hair, and the big one, Hawking, is trying hard to wrestle the whiskey from Matt’s hand.

“Playing dirty wasn’t enough, you’ve gotta fight that way too?” Neil asks coolly. “I don’t know what I expected from fucking Breckenridge Jackasses.”

“Jackals,” Leverett corrects. “Your betters.”

“Disgraceful and delusional,” Neil says. “That’s sad.”

Hawking steps towards him and Neil looks dully in his direction. “You’re pretty brave considering your watchdog isn’t here.”

Neil feigns surprise. “I didn’t know you knew how to speak. Or do anything except break things and lose games.” Hawking paces forward furiously.

“You’re not really helping, Neil,” Matt calls cheerfully.

“You shouldn’t have come out here,” someone says darkly. Feet scuff against the pavement, faraway birds titter, and Neil finds himself watching Kevin’s face, drained of colour, shaking almost imperceptibly at him.

“Why, because you’re allergic to an even fight?” Some dynamic shifts again, and Hawking is suddenly much, much closer.

“Who says you can fight? Isn’t that what your itty bitty boyfriend is for?” He mocks, leaning all the way down into Neil’s space. “Oh, wait! Shit! I forgot that he was too busy bending over to fight back.”

His fist is in screaming agony before he’s registered that he’s punched Hawking, clawed him in by the neck, and sideswiped him so hard in the jaw that he collapsed.

“Fuck you,” he spits. He gears up to kick him in the ribs, but it’s sloppy, and Hawking catches his ankle.

His teeth are bloody when he grins and rips his leg out from under him. Neil lands hard on his back, breath ripping out of him. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Defending your girlfriend’s honour.”

“That was dumb,” Matt says.

“I’ll kill you,” Neil promises, rolling in the dust and feeling tiny rocks raking his skin raw.

“Jesus, Neil,” Dan calls. “You can’t win against him, he’s a monster.”

Hearing her call anyone a monster gets into his heart and tears blood out of it, and he feels his chest ruined with rage. Neil whirls and knees his groin, throwing a gritty handful of dirt into his eyes and briefly gaining the upper hand. Hawking spits and blinks and his eyes stream, and Neil punches him in the throat, deadly fast.

“You really think he’s worth it, huh?” he wheezes. “I bet the only thing easier than scoring on that psychopath on court is scoring on him off of it—“

Neil swings his arm back but its too lethargic, it wobbles in the air. He can scarcely believe that it’s his punch that’s going so badly until Hawking grabs his wrist. It’s in that tilting moment that he realizes he was much too tired for this fight from the beginning, and that he’s not going to win it.

Hawking’s hand closes around his throat, holding all of Neil’s weight so he feels strange and light on his knees. The air in his lungs was already cracked and shouted out of him, and his vision goes very spotty very quickly.

He hears the others calling his name, but there’s a sharp ringing in his ears over top of everything else, so loud that it feels like an embodied thing. All that he knows is real is the rush of sound and the terrible pain of suffocation and the other version of himself, the one made of anger. His throat is being so effectively crushed that he feels like his flesh is tearing, like Hawking’s hand is serrated or maybe his throat is paper.

He’s let suddenly go, and he keels over on the pavement, coughing himself from his knees down onto his stomach. He touches his own neck and expects to feel bone. It’s not the first time he’s been choked, but it might be the longest, and he doesn’t think he could speak if he tried.

His vision is blurry, but he can see Kevin’s foot pinning Hawking’s neck, and the rest of them struggling weakly with players who seem more rattled than angry.

Neil dips one foot into unconsciousness, and falls accidentally thigh-deep before yanking himself back up.

“Neil,” someone says. “Fuck fuck fuck. Neil? Fuck.” He nods, not trusting his voice. Matt’s face ebbs into focus.“That motherfucker was beyond out of line.”

Neil nods.

“Never thought I’d wish Andrew was here to shank a guy,” Matt mutters, and Neil cracks a smile.

“He’s okay?” Kevin asks nervously from somewhere beyond Matt’s close, concerned face.

“Yeah, I think,” he responds.

“I’m sure he wishes there was a round two,” Kevin says icily.

“I’m right here,” Neil croaks, grateful to hear his voice coming out more or less intact.

“I know,” Kevin says. “And I’m leaving.”

“Don’t mind him,” Dan says, leaning into view, brow furrowed but mouth upturned. “He just loves you and hates to see your pretty neck get hurt.”

Neil grabs hold of Matt’s offered hands and hoists himself to standing, staggering a little when blood and oxygen swirl to his head again.

“Home, please,” Neil says hoarsely, thinking of Andrew’s text. He breathes through the shredding pain in his throat, part of the tally of miseries from a day against Breckenridge and his own loopy loneliness.

Dan and Matt grip his shoulders and keep him strung up between them, but he’s barely aware of their halting progress, too deep in thoughts of Allison’s hands on Renee’s throat, Kevin’s bruised neck, Andrew choking Allison to the ground, getting choked himself, getting held down, the word psychopath looping and meeting up with the word monster, the last blinking red seconds of the match sparking weird nervy panic in his guts.

He has to roll the window down on the way back to Fox Tower, has to swallow lungfuls of cold air and let the wind whip his tears away. He thinks of Hawkins being pinned to the ground, face welling, eyes raw, and satisfaction holds him together.

_____

He crawls into bed, light on his injured knee, pulling at the collar of Andrew’s jersey until it swallows his neck.

He’d tried to ice it, looking vacantly into the mirror and seeing his terrible neck, the rings of pink then shadow around his eyes. His hands were shaking too badly to keep the ice pack in place. He kept thinking about the heft of Andrew’s bravery, of that metaphorical clothing line, the lies and truth and villains and heroes and the impossible crisscrossing lines between them.

The rumours of the court case had clearly made it far enough to climb inside the taunts of opposing teams, or Hawking had made cruel and specific guesses and waited for something to bowl Neil over, and now he’s only been proven right. Both options are so awful that he has to swallow and swallow and swallow to get rid of the taste of bile.

Neil’s used to people prying his wounds open, but the idea of someone looking at Andrew and seeing monstrosity or weakness is impossible, it doesn’t fit in his head, it travels down his body and stiffens his hands and stirs his heart to the kind of rage that he thought he was forgetting.

He settles onto Andrew’s side of the mattress and fists the sheets, breathing cigarettes and sugar, trying to stabilize something that leapt and stumbled to Columbia and now no longer fits inside him.

He can’t imagine what Andrew will say when he sees him, if the tenderness of his body will register after a day at court, if anything matters except the justice that no one seems to have a full grip on, if his injury is just another cruelty in the current of cruelties that washes ceaselessly through Andrew’s life.

It seems unfair that Andrew should fix one leak and come home to another. It seems unfair that people can say whatever they like about you without ever having seen the gorgeous, murderous defiance in your eyes.

Neil rolls onto his side and holds the covers close to his chest, hands sweating, throat burning.

The door scuffs opens behind him, brushes soft against the carpet, and Andrew’s presence in the room is so enormous that he forgets to feign sleep.

Fists still clenched, throat barely able to support his shallow breath, Neil thinks, no matter what, I will not be another thing that hurts him.

(Original fic is a short little thing right heeeere and it’s very very old)

#wow! im so sorry im late again im a nightmare woman #the foxhole court #tfc fanfic #andreil #aftg #prompt #mine #violence tw #i missed this #Anonymous #ask

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muchdan · 7 years

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top 10 phan moments that make me wanna rip my heart out

yeah, just ten moments among hundreds, let it be part one or something. tell me what i’ve missed because i want more suffering in my life.

10) mind control.

i mean, i appreciate the subtlety. i crave those tiny moments that you only notice when someone points them out to you. but this! you can’t miss this one, this moment is shoved down our throats. this is so “i’m allowed to do that to you, to be in your personal space, and gaze into your eyes for no reason, just because i want to”. and phil’s face in that moment, so much joy and mischief, he claps his hands and gazes back.

9) chest touch.

drama queen howell strikes again, it hurts to rewatch it srsly, why is he so extra? but what is phil doing ladies and gents? he slaps his chest in the weirdest way possible, he brushes it, it’s like he wants to shove him but reassuringly and the movement happens so fast you have to pause for a second to comprehend it. that sweet gentle boy is so fond of dan’s unnecessary commentary and yeah, it completely distracts us from what dan is saying at that moment.

8) feel my heartbeat.

was that necessary, really? like, i don’t ask my friends to feel my heartbeat when i’m scared, that was such a “horror movie at first date” bullshit, that’s not what people do?? and when dan does feel that beautiful hummingbird heart, phil just covers his hand with his own palm because yes, you gotta feel it very close, no air between your hand and my chest. dan immediately looks into the camera to show us that yeah, i know you’re there, nothing strange, and makes a comment about phil dying. wow.

7) phil the delivery man.

i don’t know what to say. it’s so simple but why does phil have to make such an act of bringing dan his charger, why does he talk in that stupid voice?? they have a banter, and then phil FIXES DAN’S CHARGER FOR HIM, like what?? who asked you to do that? where’s my IT guy au (literally, he’s got glasses, look at him). and before he leaves he plays the piano that nerd, what an attention seeker, and then bows!! is he tipsy? did he have a pre-liveshow orgasm or something? dan laughs fondly and it’s all i need in the world.

6) child beer.

what’s happening and does it even matter. phil’s hiding on the floor, but why? to surprise us? eh whatever. so he’s got that magical japanese powdery stuff and he wants dan to taste it. the biggest problem for me here, ahem, i mean the thing that just kills me every time is that phil spends the whole time (eight minutes) on his knees and he looks so cute when he makes that beer, holds it close to the camera, and then lets the foam sit so dan can have the ultimate child beer experience.

it reminds me of that hot chocolate video, where he does something so trivial but he’s so gentle and loving about it. i still don’t understand why they didn’t do a simple taste test like bros, but phil had to make it for dan, he wanted to see his reaction. and then he tries it as well, touches the glass rim with his lips at the same place where dan’s mouth just was (gross).

and i just can’t ignore how that boy sneaks past dan’s room after that, he’s playful, he stops to say that he googled something and dan was wrong, and domesticity, i wanna die.

5) sleeping phil on tour.

i kinda wanna talk about the angle here because i don’t understand how it was filmed (camera is pretty static, dan’s hand reaches from the side, not behind), but i don’t know if it matters here. what matters is how gentle dan is. of course, he starts with classic nose tickling, which is what “messing with a sleeping friend” usually implies, but then he frees one strand of phil’s hair and just lets it fall. wow, fantastic prank, dan.

and let’s separately discuss that pout/kiss phil does after he opens his eyes. i know you want a slow mo replay, so here we go:

that’s what i call “im gonna stay asleep but i love you”. where’s the nearest cliff so i can fling myself into abyss?

4) the look.

context what context. why did they keep it? why did they put it on fullscreen instead of hiding in the corner? two full-length looks dan, really?? you know what he looks like, why do you have to examine him like that in front of us you slut. and it just passes, without acknowledgment, they just turn back at us simultaneously and I’M STILL DEAD at that moment, i don’t care what happens next.

3) snoot. proot. (i just filmed you doing that)

i don’t even care what it was. something about piano sounds or whatever, but this video haunts me. THERE’S SO MUCH TO IT. first, phil is lying on dan’s bed (at least in the official version it’s dan’s, not mutual), just chilling?? and dan’s working i guess. so they are not actually doing something together but it’s a cozy evening, why would they spend it in different rooms? dan says something, idk, and phil replies “yeah” in that deep voice I SWEAR i haven’t heard from him before. dan makes the sounds again, like can you believe he’s an actual dork in real life, it’s not an act, he’s actually the weirdest boy alive, and he so obviously doesn’t know he’s being filmed. because when phil says “i just filmed you doing that you’re so weird”, he’s so delighted, he laughs at himself, he turns around, his hair is pushed back omg they are both so sleepy and i rejoice. i think this video gives us a rare but fantastic insight in their everyday life, phil must be keeping so much silly videos like that on his google drive and we never get to see them BUT SOMEHOW he posts this one, probably because dan is cute and he wants everyone to know it.

2) you loved it. you wanna do it more.

so, yes. you know this one. where do i even begin?? they play this dragon quiz and then 1) phil says “you loved it” in the strangest voice, like the voice we never hear from him, it’s deeper and quieter, he looks at dan even though dan’s not looking back; 2) dan is looking down as if he’s fiddling with an ipad or something, it’s almost a bts moment, something they would usually edit out. AND THEN THREE SECONDS OF SILENCE while dan kinda processes what’s going on and phil still looks at him expectantly. seductive as fuck. and now this quiet “alright”, i’m just… dan looks like he’s gotten the hint, so he’s a little embarrassed and they share the softest laugh.

the thing is, we know how often phil makes sexual innuendos and dan always reacts the same way: he looks into the camera, he throws a witty comment in, he puts it on display to show us that there’s no intimacy in that moment. but not this time. i don’t understand why they didn’t edit it out. i just… don’t.

1) pantless liveshow this is the ultimate. this is the weirdest and the most awesome thing these two gave me and i’m not even sure what can top that. the moment when phil decides to grab the humidifier and show us, he looks at the screen, says “one second” and stands up very awkwardly while dan turns the laptop away from him and makes the weirdest “how you doing” face.

WHAT THE FUCK. did they think we were so used to them weirdos that we wouldn’t even notice that shit? but fuck, they do it again, they want to show us the spray and dan goes “should i go get it? you have to do phil’s corner”. like, i can’t function, i honestly can’t. AND THE WORST PART is when dan returns and we can see him covering his legs with a blanket just too fast like it’s not that cold boy come on.

i have no explanation and i have every explanation. i don’t deserve all this suffering.

#phan #dnp #dan and phil #phan moments #phanedits #dnpedits #muchdan #dnp liveshows #phandom

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sending-the-message · 6 years

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Never Buy Cheap Computers on Craigslist (Update 2) by 2017Interloper

Part 1

Part 2

I apologize for the length of time between updates. I have had a hard time trying to figure out how to coherently explain the rest of what happened, because things have gotten really, really bizarre. I will do my best.

I’ll pick up about a week ago, or has it been two? I can’t seem to recall. It had been about a week since the incident with Alex, and Dan, and Sheila, anyway. Alex hadn’t been to work since. She had been spending most of her days in bed. I hadn’t known what to say to her. I had peeked my head in the door to make sure she was all right on a few different occasions. Each time, she was either sleeping, or staring out the window. What little interaction I had with her was limited to short, clipped, two- or three-word sentences. I had been sleeping on the couch, and Alex didn’t ask about it. I’m not even sure she noticed.

I don’t remember much about those days, other than a lingering feeling that something was wrong – a feeling that had been growing stronger with every passing day. It was markedly worse when I was at home. Work and school provided me with a ready excuse to avoid being there too often, and to avoid having to talk to Alex about anything. I went through the motions each day, perhaps showing up ten (or thirty) minutes earlier than usual, for about a week. In between work and class, I went on campus to work on anything I could find to do in the school library. If nothing else, I will be getting stellar marks at the end of the semester, with all of the extra studying, and the extra time I spent on my assignments. I hadn’t even looked at my laptop since the night of the incident.

The previous day, I ran out of things to work on in the library. It was Saturday, and probably the first time in my entire life I had been that caught up on schoolwork. I had even looked at the syllabus for one of my classes, and started working on an assignment the professor didn’t plan to introduce until the following week, but I hit a wall and gave up. I got in the car, and took the longest, most roundabout route home that I could find. I stopped at the store and picked up some coffee, toilet paper and other things we’d surely need more of at some point. I went to the gas station at the other side of town, where gas was two cents per gallon cheaper than everywhere else, and filled up my car’s gas tank. Finally, having run out of excuses not to, I went back home. I waited until I heard Alex go into the bathroom to go grab a pair of my PJ pants out of the dresser. I changed by the washing machine in the kitchen, found a marathon of “Gold Rush” on TV, and settled in for the night.

On Sunday, without work and school to distract me from my personal life, I could feel the weight of the situation crushing me. I had been using my push-button-in-case-of-emergency coping skills the only way I knew how: I had ignored the problem, and hoped it all went away. It hadn’t. I had willed something awful into existence, and eventually, I needed to man up and face my girlfriend. I decided to look for my laptop. Maybe there would be some answers there. Isn’t that always what we do when life is falling apart? Turn on the computer? I went into the living room and looked under the coffee table. It was not where I had left it. Huh. I went out to my car and looked under the seat. Nothing. The last place I remembered seeing it was the kitchen, so I went there and looked by the table. I was beginning to think that perhaps it was in the bedroom, so it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to put off talking to Alex after all.

Here goes, I thought, finding myself standing in front of the bedroom door a few minutes later, a cup of Alex’s favorite herbal tea in hand. I steeled my resolve and knocked twice before entering the room.

“Ah, hey, Alex. We should, uh, here.” I thrust my arm at her, handing her the mug, as I tripped over my tongue trying to speak. I was surprisingly nervous, and had no idea what to say. Seeing her and addressing her brought back the images of her and Dan like a slap in the face. I was not entirely sure how long it been happening, if it was a result of my wanting her to get a raise, or what. Either way, this was going to suck.

“Thanks,” she said dully, sitting up to accept the tea. She sipped it and lowered it, robotically staring forward and out the window. I don’t think she was blinking.

“Uh, yeah. No problem. We should probably talk,” I said.

She turned to look at me, her blank and emotionless expression unchanged. “Yeah,” she said.

I wasn’t sure what to say next. With each day that we had numbly continued our pattern of not speaking, it grew more awkward. She had cheated, and killed someone, or seen someone killed (it’s your fault you caused it all). At this point, I was considering forgiving her, or just pretending nothing had happened, just to regain some semblance of normalcy in my life.

I did not know what to say to her. For a half a second, I even considered telling her the entirety of the truth, because that’s normally what I would have done. It seemed like the supernatural force in my laptop had really brought out the worst in me from the very beginning, when I lied to Alex about it without missing a beat. Had it done the same to her? I considered saying, ‘Something has been going on,’ or ‘Something has changed between us.’ I also considered approaching it from an angle that was about her, telling her that we could talk about whatever had happened, but she needed to come out of the bedroom, we should go out and get some sun, I didn’t know. What I hadn’t planned on saying were the words that tumbled out of my mouth.

“I know you’ve been fucking Dan.”

I was calm. I didn’t yell, and the incongruousness of the content of my statement and the way I presented it seemed to get Alex’s attention.

“What?” She looked absolutely awestruck. It was the first emotion I had seen her display in a week.

“Dan. Your manager. You… you were fucking him,” I repeated dumbly. What else could I say?

“I honestly have no idea what you are talking about,” she said, slightly frowning, and cocking her head to the right. She was looking at me like I had three heads. “Are you okay?”

Well, shit. Of all of the ways I expected that conversation could go, this was not one of them.

“Are you?” I asked, changing the subject. I knew there was no way in hell I was getting away from my brilliantly articulate statement there, but I had no idea where to go with this now. “I mean, you haven’t been to work since, you know, Sheila. Are you going back?”

“Colin, what the hell are you talking about?” She continued to carefully observe me, like I was dangerous or something.

What the fuck was she playing at?

“Alex,” I said slowly. “I have been sleeping on the couch for a week now. You have barely left the bedroom. Do you want to talk about what is going on with all of that?”

She stared blankly at me. Seriously, this was getting really, really weird. “You have been acting a bit weird lately, Colin,” she said, cocking her head slightly. She sipped her tea, appearing thoughtful for a moment, and then turned to the window again, gazing out. “Thanks for the tea,” she added absently.

“Are you high?” I blurted out. Good, one, genius.

She laughed a little at that, but there was no emotion behind it. “Of course not, silly,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me.

I stepped back a little. Her eyes. They were normally a dark, chestnut brown. Now they had taken on a liquid, coppery gold tone, and they seemed to be glowing.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. She smiled at me, and for some reason, this smile was the most sinister thing I had ever seen. How one can smile and have it look sinister, I don’t really know, but she did, and my God, it was. I was horrified. It felt like she was looking through me with those creepy, liquid copper eyes. Her smile widened, exposing a gaping abyss with thousands of sharp, menacing teeth.

I let out an inarticulate grunt, turned away and closed my eyes for a second, my heart hammering like I’d been running. Every bone in my body told me to run. Something was very, very wrong here. I opened my eyes, and fought every instinct in my body to turn back and look at her.

She had returned to staring out the window.

“Alex?”

“Mmm?” She turned back around and I flinched, expecting to see the copper-eyed monster again, but… no, she looked completely normal. I couldn’t really place my finger on why, but this scared me even more.

“Let me know if you need to talk, okay?” I took my leave, slowly closing the door. In my terror, I was feeling paranoid – like I didn’t want to (wake it up) disturb Alex, or whatever the hell was sitting in the bedroom, staring out the window. As I started to tiptoe away, I heard her call out to me quietly, from halfway down the hall.

“Colin?”

“Yeah?” I replied hesitantly.

“You should go now.” Her voice was warped, like there were three of her speaking simultaneously at discordant pitches, in slow motion. A chill shot from my heels to the base of my neck. I was dizzy, overcome by vertigo. The walls were closing in on me, and I had a two-ton weight on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. That was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard, and I didn’t just hear it, I felt it. I tasted it. I smelled it.

I tried to sound normal. “What?” I choked out.

“Did you just say something?” she asked absently. She sounded normal now. Well, not like before.

Nope. “Ah, no, I was just talking to myself,” I stammered.

I got the hell away from that room. Was I hallucinating? Did her face actually just… change? That voice… I felt like I was going to vomit. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, bent over with my nose two inches from the mirror, and one hand clutching either side of the sink. My pupils were slightly dilated, a bead of sweat was beginning to form at my hairline, and I was pale as a sheet. Otherwise, I looked… normal. Everything looked normal, but nothing felt normal. I felt like I was forty-five minutes into a dose of bad LSD. Everything was strange, foreign, not right. I ran to the kitchen cabinet in hopes of locating that three-year old Xanax. I gave Alex one the other day, but there should still be one left. With shaking hands, I knocked the bottle of Benadryl over, chucked some corny old novelty salt and pepper shakers over my shoulder, and pushed a bag of Alex’s loose herb tea out of the way. There it was. I opened the bottle, praying to any God who was listening that Alex hadn’t taken the other one.

It was there. I took it out of the bottle and chewed it. Big mistake – those things taste awful. It had been a while since I had anxiety bad enough to need Xanax, so I had forgotten how awful the taste was if the pill had stuck to my tongue. Wow. I grimaced, and chugged down some water. It was no help. That pill needed to kick in soon, because I was seriously freaking out. I thought I might actually have a heart attack if I couldn’t slow my heart rate.

I had to do something, so I went looking for the laptop. My thoughts were racing. Maybe there would be some answers in there. Maybe something would snap me out of this nightmare. Maybe I could tell it to make it all go away. I went into the living room where I had last seen the laptop, and it was gone. That pill can kick in any time now, I thought, with a sinking feeling I knew exactly where it was (she took it she took it she has it it’s too late). I looked in the kitchen, but I knew it wouldn’t be in there. I took a deep breath and walked back toward the bedroom. Act normal, I told myself. Everything is fine. Two small quiet knocks.

“Hey, Alex?” I walked in. She was sitting on the bed, typing away on my computer. SHIT. “Uh, I was just looking for my laptop,” I said. “Can you let me know when you’re done?”

“I’m not on your laptop, Colin. I don’t know what you did with it,” she droned, not looking up.

It was definitely my laptop she was on.

I reached out to grab it by the screen. “C’mon,” I began, trying to sound playful. “I just need to –“

Alex grabbed my arm, her hand impossibly strong. Her nails cut into the flesh between my wrist and my elbow, and blood began to trickle out of the places her nails had broken the skin, and it burned. Her eyes had taken on the coppery hue again, and her voice had changed again to the monstrous, discordant tenor. She pulled herself up until her face was just inches from mine, and I had no choice but to look into her eyes, those liquid, blood-gold eyes.

“YOU DO NOT NEED THIS ANYMORE, COLIN,” she snarled at me. “GO NOW, AND LEAVE HER TO ME.”

She let go, shoving me away with a force that caused me to stumble back. Her gaze was fixed on me, and as I stumbled, she tilted her head back and let out a cold, sinister laugh that belonged in the deepest pits of Hell. Her mouth began to distort once again, becoming a gaping maw of razor blades.

“What did you do, Alex?” I whispered, slowly stepping back. My plans to get the hell out of there were violently interrupted when the door slammed shut behind me. The monster that Alex had become got up and walked across the room, putting me face-to face with her once again.

“SHE IS GONE NOW, COLIN,” the Alex-monster growled. “GO NOW. YOU ARE BEGINNING TO ANGER ME.”

Maybe it was the Xanax, which had surely kicked in by now, because I had not yet had a heart attack or pissed myself, but I was getting angry. “Who the fuck are you? Are you the djinn from the computer? Why don’t you leave, and go back to where you came from?” I shouted in her face. “Leave Alex alone! Your business is with me.” Boy, did I sound braver than I felt, but I needed to know. What the hell kind of Pandora’s Box did I open?

More of that horrible, frightening laughter. “I AM NO DJINN. I AM DONE WITH YOU, NOW BE GONE BEFORE I DECIDE TO KILL YOU.”

I felt myself shoved against the wall, and realized that I had been squeezing my eyes shut. Apparently, Xanax turns my balls to brass (or turns off my survival mechanism, one of those), because I got back up and approached Alex. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“YOUR DESIRE FOR REVENGE HAS SET ME FREE.” As she said the last word, Alex swooned. She dropped to the floor. I looked down at her, helpless on the floor, and for a moment, I saw my girlfriend, the woman I loved, the one from before this whole mess. It pained me to see her like that. I picked her up, and carried her to the bed. As I set her down, she began to speak, in her own voice this time. She sounded weak.

“Colin?”

“Yeah?” I answered hesitantly.

As she spoke, her eyes remained closed, as though she were talking in her sleep. Her voice remained calm, and barely audible, but the urgency in her message was loud and clear. “Take the laptop and go. Now. It will be back soon. I will try to fight it, but you need to go…” She spasmed, her back arching in an angle that looked excruciating. “NOW!” She said, her voice straining, and beginning to take on the queer, multi-toned tenor from before. “Take it!” She groaned, and spasmed again.

I didn’t wait around. I snatched the laptop from the foot of the bed and got the hell out of there. I got in my car and drove to Evergreen Park, the very same one where I had met the old lady in the Buick, and paid her three hundred dollars for the computer that was ruining my life. I cut the engine, and sat in the driver’s seat for a while, staring blankly ahead, and letting my thoughts run wild. My Word Genie was not a Genie? What the hell was wrong with Alex, and why did she give me the laptop? What was she fighting? I think I was in shock.

After some time, I flipped the laptop open, and saw that Alex had been typing in Microsoft Word. Before reading what she had written, I noticed that the odd little “TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT TO DO” message was still there, and still blinking red. I suppose I had expected that it would be gone. I thought that whatever magic or evil resided in this computer was possessing Alex now. Maybe if I summoned it here, it would leave her?

I went up to the blinking, red text, and typed, LEAVE ALEX ALONE! And hit enter.

YOU DO NOT WANT THAT, COLIN.

I was pretty sure I did want that. WHY NOT? I hit enter.

BECAUSE I MIGHT BE ABLE TO SAVE HER.

What kind of trickery was this? EXPLAIN, I typed. Enter.

READ THE LETTER FROM ALEX.

Is that what this was? I scrolled up and saw that she had written several pages, and sure enough, at the top of the document, was ‘Dear Colin,’.

I began to read.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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jackson-wren · 7 years

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Death and Loss Don't Exist when Phil Lester is Plowing You Into the Floor

They were watching a movie. That's how it started. Just an innocent marvel movie that Phil had picked out, Civil War to be specific, and Dan had been doing fine: curled against Phil's splayed legs, cheek pressed against his knee. Boxes surrounded them, and in the dark it almost felt as though they'd entered another world. Soft lighting played around the TV in a haze, and Phil started to nod off. What felt like seconds went by, and then Phil is groggily awoken by cold wind winding its way up the bottom of his pant leg. He cracks one eye open, only to be met with a darkened TV monitor and empty space where Dan had been. "Dan?" Phil works himself onto his elbows, trying to peer around the boxes. No response. Maybe he's gone to bed. Tired and slightly annoyed, Phil swings his legs off the sofa and stands, turning side to side to crack his back. The soft pad of his feet barely make any sound as he trudges out of their lounge and into the hall, ready to get downstairs, wash up and go to sleep. He doesn't see the shape on the ground until it's too late. "Shhhhhocolate milk!" Phil trips over whatever it is and hits the edge of their banister. Hard. Now annoyed, tired and throbbing from the probable puncture wound in his hand, he blearily regains his balance, poised to yell. Instead, when the shape lets out a sad sigh, he just shakes his head. "Dan, come on. Now's not the time. The movers get here at five thirty tomorrow." Dan makes no move to get up. In fact, he doesn't move at all. Phil knows how this is going to go, but he's tired for god's sake! And they've gotta be up early. When the nudge to the spine Phil gives him doesn't do anything, he groans under his breath and then bends down to touch his lips to the shell of Dan's ear. "Was it something in the movie?" Dan makes a sound that has a somewhat negative connotation, but Phil wants better than that. "Use your words, baby boy." That gets him a whimper. "No." "Then what is it?" Dan just sniffs. "I can't help unless you tell me, Bear." "I just-" The catch in his voice is muffled slightly by the carpet, but Phil still hears it. "'Just' what?" The words that follow come at flash-flood speed. "It's just that five years have gone by, Phil. Five!! And it's not that we're moving, that I don't mind. It's not even that it's five closer I am to dying. It's- it's five closer you are to death; five closer to the inevitable time when I'm going to- when I'll have to live without-" Phil brings his hand up to Dan's shaking shoulder blades. "Do you want the usual?" "No." It's wet with unshed tears. "Make it hard. Rough. Violent. Ground me." Phil's other hand is on his belt buckle before Dan finishes his sentence. It takes a few seconds longer than normal to undo it in the dark, but something about the way Dan phrased it- Violent. Ground me- something in that has sent Phil's brain into overdrive. The leather pulls out of his jeans with a whap that he can feel. "Throat or hands?" "Throat." Phil happily obliges, and straddles Dan, thighs resting on his ribs. Phil is essentially sitting on Dan's back, but he hasn't made any sounds of protest yet. He takes his time working the belt so that it's smooth and soft around Dan's neck, each touch sending smaller-than-usual tremors through Dan's body. Once it's been looped and tightened, like a dog collar, Phil moves on to the next step. He's gentle when undoing Dan's own fly and belt, gentle in getting them down to Dan's knees. Phil manages to shimmie them off of Dan's legs, and then the fun truly begins. You see, this is normal for them. Once, twice a week, Dan will have one of these fits and Phil will fix it for him. It's happened during gaming videos before, like Chimbot, where he'd had to cut the camera because Dan was so damn out of it. That had been a good one. Fucked him right into the sofa. They'd had to turn the cushions over. Cum stains, specially on suede. "Biting?" "Yeah." Phil starts at his calfs. His teeth graze the skin, and for the first time, he feels a shiver of movement from the man pinned beneath him. Phil smiles. Then he bites in earnest. Dan's little cry that slips from numb lips stems Phil on, so he trails those teeth marks up Dan's legs to his thighs. That's when they change. Phil starts to break skin. Coppery heat melts into Phil's mouth, and he pulls away momentarily to gasp, pressing the heel of one hand down on his quickly hardening dick. "Bruises?" "What do you think?" Dan is breathless now but still not shifting as much as Phil needs him to be. So he takes a leap. In one movement, Phil is back on Dan's thighs, but this time he's pinching. Dan starts to make these sounds, these sounds that remind Phil of a mouse he'd caught in a Haveaheart trap when he was seven. Squeaky. Desperate. Dan's boxers came off with his pants, so Phil takes his other hand and brings it down on Dan's bare ass cheek. That gets a reaction. Dan jerks, then slowly cants his hips into the carpet. Phil can imagine that doing so probably hurts, rug burn on your nuts and all that, but Dan seems to be enjoying it. With every slap that Phil administers, Dan jerks and then grinds. Phil's own erection is now seriously tenting his jeans, so finally, after Dan's pinched thighs have started to go purple and his ass is cherry red, Phil asks: "Lube or nah?" "Nah." Dan's voice has a bit more conviction too it. Progress. Phil doesn't even ask if Dan has prepped. Dan's always prepped. Even at the age he is, he's still as horny as he was at eighteen. Maybe hornier. Phil gets his own zipper undone, but that's as undressed as he's going to get. He takes the base of his dick through his pants, guiding it so that the tip peeks out ever so slightly. "Do you want it?" Dan's head finally raises from the carpet just enough so Phil can see his blown out eyes. "Oh lord, yes." The first push in is euphoric. It's just skin on skin on skin and Dan makes a sound like he's dying. Phil's always been told he's 'above average' and that people are 'apprehensive to bottom' for him, but never Dan. Dan has always groaned like a pornstar and bucked back against him, wanting more. This time is no different. Dan's grinding his crotch against the ground, fibers of polyester sticking to the soaking head of his dick. He cheek is being abraded as well, but God, he could go on like this forever. Death and loss don't exist when Phil Lester is plowing you into the floor like his life depends on it. Phil's balls are slapping against Dan's asscrack, and if Dan keeps squeezing then releasing, this is going to be over for Phil embarrassingly fast. Phil bends forwards, having slowed his thrusts down to pelvic grinding. Dan whines. "I'm going to edge you and you're not going to complain. Understand?" Dan nods. And with that, Phil's right hand wraps itself around the belt that had been resting against Dan's spine and tugs. Dan's back arches, his legs kick, and his fingertips scrabble at the tightening leather coil around his throat. Phil's nose touches the hair at the nape of Dan's neck, and he has to close his eyes from the sheer intoxication of it all. Dan's flexible as hell considering that Phil's still buried in his ass, but because of the angle they're at, Dan's clenching even harder than before. Or maybe that's the lack of oxygen. Phil can see how pretty Dan's cock is, curved up and brushing his black shirt with iridescent precum. Phil groans. His tongue seems to have a mind of its own and decides to lick the outline of puffed skin around the belt. Dan's choking tiny gasps out of his half-crushed esophagus, but when Phil bites down, Dan's breathing stops. He sucks hard, eyes closed, and wraps his left hand around the base of Dan's dick. He pulls one last time on the end of the belt, then releases it. Dan dry heaves, hard, collapsing forwards, but Phil's right hand, previously occupied with leather, catches him. "You're doing so well, Bear. So well for me." Dan can't even form words. Tears run down his face in little rivulets and blood puckers on the surface of his torn lips. Phil circles his hips, then picks up his speed, fucking Dan so hard that his knees scoot across the carpet. Phil lets Dan drops to his forearms, even as he's still trying to remember how to breathe. He allows this for less than four seconds. Then Phil's hand is fisted in Dan's curls, yanking, and he gets a good look at just how wrecked Dan is: bloody, crying, begging. Phil pulls out quickly, aligning his hips so that his dick slides into Dan's crack. "You like that whore? Huh? Me rubbing your crack? Bet you'd like my tongue in there too, right?" Dan moans. "That's what I thought. You're gonna make me cum, slut. Gonna make me-" Phil has just enough presence of mind to squeeze the base of Dan's dick with his free hand before his cum coats the back of Dan's shirt and the bottom of his own. Phil lets the shakes consume him for a bit, enjoying the feeling of letting go. But then something brings him back. Dan. "Daddy, please! Please, daddy let me cum. Please! Oh, daddy I need it. Need it so bad. So fucking bad- just ple- I- I need-" Phil takes his hand away. Dan screams. He falls forwards, grinding like a bitch in heat against the rough fibers of the carpet, ass clenching on nothing but air. "Yes daddy! Oh daddy, oh so good daddy. Yes. Mmmmmm, daddy thank you. Thank you daddy." As his frantic movements begin to slow, Phil places a hand on Dan's heaving side. "Baby, can I roll you over?" Dan gives a jerky nod. When Phil sees the front of him, he feels a proud smile begin to work its way across his face. Dan's throat is purple. His shirt is soaked, up to his nipples, and his dick is bright red, practically steaming. Phil sits back on his haunches. "Did that work?" "Hmm?" Dan takes a deep breath, semi recovered, and manages to get himself onto his elbows. "Did that work. Did I make you forget?" "Oh, Phillip Lester." Dan arches an eyebrow. "What do you think?" Phil grins. "Do you want me to carry you downstairs? We've gotta get you cleaned up." "I can manage." But as soon as Dan begins to stand, to put any weight on his feet, his knees give out. Phil laughs but helps him up anyway, and hobbles him down the steps, and, eventually, into the tub. "Love you, Bear." Dan leans into Phil's hands, scrubbing at his hair. "Love you too, Phil." ************* ****** ************* "Shit." It's raspy at best. Phil had thankfully gone to deal with the movers when they'd arrived. Dan hadn't even woken up. But now, apparently, the movers have packed up their entire apartment. They'd slept in Phil's bed for the night, since they didn't have to take it with them, and as Dan rolls painfully to the side to flip on his phone, he's grateful for it. His body hurts. Like got-into-a-nasty-bar-fight hurts. But thankfully for him, that's a turn on. Not so thankfully, however, is the fact that he's got raging morning wood. Or afternoon wood. It's one o'clock. He swings himself out of bed, barely getting his footing, and grabs his car bag from the end of it. The only clothing item in the backpack is a long sweater of Phil's, but in Dan's muddled state he doesn't really care. Taking the stairs slowly and with a death grip on the handrail, Dan grandpa-walks himself to their bathroom. Quick tooth brush, one last nostalgic look at that patch of carpet, and he's out the door. Only problem? He hadn't actually payed attention to how he looked. From the front door, he can see Phil in the taxi they're taking to the new place. The movers are getting the last of the boxes loaded up, and Dan takes a step towards them. One guy puts a crate down, wipes his brow and makes eye contact with Dan, then has to do a double take. "Oi! Mate!! You okay?" "What? Yeah, fine. Why?" The man huffs a laugh. "You look like you went six rounds with a prize fighter. What's up with the neck?" Dan gently places his fingertips against it and finds it raw and swollen to the touch. He tries to give a winning smile. "Nothing! Got tangled in a-" A cough breaks him off. "A garden hose. Have a n-nice day!" Dan speed walks to the taxi, opens the door and swings himself in. Phil's already laughing before the door is closed. "You think they believed me?" Dan turns to face Phil, who gives him a once over, eyes sticking to the obvious hard line of his cock through the thin sweater, snorts out a laugh, and pulls him in for a kiss. "Not a chance."

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placetobenation · 5 years

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Back in June 2013 the Place to Be Nation invaded the information super-highway with the launch of the website you are visiting just now. Since then a back catalogue has grown to include thousands of podcasts and written pieces, some of which you might have missed and it is my arduous task pleasure to go through the archives and bring you some of the highlights of PTBN through the years.

This weeks audio offering comes to you from back in 2015 with Episode 9 of the excellent Dangerous Alliance podcast with JT Rozzero and Good Ol’ Will from Texas. This episode’s three falls consist of the guys arguing who would win a grudge match between two wrestlers given to them by supercard promoter Dan McGinn, before moving on to live watch of the Brian Pillman/Johnny B. Badd classic from Fall Brawl 1995, and finishing with a countdown of the hosts Top 5 live wrestling experiences. This particular show can be found here, but the I would recommend going back into the PTBN archives to check out the rest of the episodes from this show’s run.

And as always, whilst you settle down to listen to the Dangerous Alliance, why not have a look at this weeks trip into the written archives, and indeed the WWE Network archives as Aaron, Brian, Jacob, Dave and yours truly take you on an Excellent Network Adventure with a look at the Saturday Night’s Main Event from February 1992. We had some very differing opinions of the show, so take a look and make your own judgement on the penultimate episode of the original SNME run.

Saturday Night’s Main Event February 1992

Run Time: 46 Minutes

Why Aaron Why???: Because no one else would pick anything. And I wanted to hear Sid’s apology again.

Best Segment

Seconds before “YES! It’s ME! Yes!”

Aaron George: The entire package chronicling Sid’s descent into madness. The press conference where an expectant Sid crumples his notes before screaming at reporters followed by the most BOGUS act that Jack Tunney has ever pulled off is a pure joy to watch even 26 years after original airing. His sublime “apology” after being declared misunderstood is the perfect topper. No one “SINCERELY” apologizes through gritted teeth. No one until now.

Brian Bayless: Sid’s promo after his match where he talked about not needing friends and was pissed about WWF President Jack Tunney passing him over for the WrestleMania VIII title shot was awesome (Remember, it was announced at a press conference that Hogan would be facing Flair at WrestleMania VIII). Sid’s presence was off the charts.

Jacob Williams: The press conference was just fantastic as both campy fun entertainment and actually advancing an angle. Sid’s reaction to Tunney’s decision is priceless. I paused just to further examine the wonderful fashion choices of everyone in the room.

Calum McDougall: I loved the Hogan vs, Sid recap purely because of Sid. From him standing up at the press conference only not to be announced, to calling the decision “BOGUS!”, to his completely disingenuous promo to close the segment, Sid was awesome. I loved it.

Dave Hall: Randy Savage’s promo before Main Event. Just like the match, this was Randy Savage at his intense best. He laid out the situation and told us all he was going to do what it takes. He was focused, intense and drew me in as a viewer, which is what a promo should do.

Best Match

CONSENSUS!

Aaron George: While we were probably denied a blood soaked cage match between the Macho Man and The Snake to blow off their feud, the hate filled sprint we got here was almost satisfying. There was no one better at getting things over on an emotional level than Randy Savage, and given a world class douchebag in the form of Jake Roberts results were usually magic. This one was… solid… but I’ll take a solid hate filled brawl over Triple H and Randy Orton headlocking their way through a blood feud in 2009. In truth, with Jake’s big match WWF record it may have been for the best.

Brian Bayless: Jake Roberts vs. Randy Savage, despite being short, was the best match on the show. It was intense and had heat even if the finish was anticlimactic. This was not a show that featured strong in-ring action.

Jacob Williams: Not sure if I’m the outlier here, but given how much time they were given, Roberts and Savage delivered. Both guys excel at bringing out the emotion in a feud, and you could really feel the hatred despite such a short match.

Calum McDougall: As much star power as the headline tag match had, my match of the night is Savage vs Roberts. Aaron mentioned that his biggest gripe with the I Quit match in the last Adventure was that it didn’t have enough hate in it, and you couldn’t make the same complaint here. If Savage had access to a machete or revolver you got the impression he might well have used it!

Dave Hall: Randy Savage vs Jake Roberts. This was the only decent match on the card. It had intensity and a good story. It was a good conclusion to their feud, which was very rare on a Saturday night’s Main Event. Savage wanted revenge and got it. I love Savage in this situation, as he breaks all the rules, but the storyline warrants the anger and aggression. Savage finishes the match, but then wants to get more shots in, which is what you would expect. The cut off of the angle at the end is a bit annoying, especially as it built to something new, but it does not take away from this match.

Most Cringeworthy Moment

“Brothers…”

Aaron George: They should be absolutely ashamed with themselves for their deceptive editing of the end of the 92 Rumble. Not only was Sid CHEERED when he threw out Hogan but Gorilla most certainly didn’t go on an indignant rant about how you look a man in the eyes when you throw him out. I get they want Hogan to be the face but you’d have to edit out every single one of these things to hide the fact that Hulk Hogan is the biggest sore loser in the history of wrestling.

Brian Bayless: At a time where Hogan’s stock was at his lowest in the company, having him dedicate his WrestleMania match to Brutus Beefcake was not what people wanted to see, especially since Hogan eliminated Sid in the Rumble after getting eliminated in legal fashion.

Jacob Williams: Brutus mentioning that Hogan slept with him in the hospital bed, “pumping blood” into him was strange. Really any form of Beefcake being associated with the main event scene was really grating.

Calum McDougall: Randy Savage’s pre-match interview, hearing Savage talk about domestic violence and being a bit tightly wound was just too close to the bone for my liking. Couple that with Vince’s line at the end about Savage not liking anyone who gets too close to Elizabeth and you get a great match being the filling in an Uncomfortable Sandwich.

Dave Hall: The replay from the Royal Rumble. I hated that when they showed the footage from the Royal Rumble that it was clearly dubbed so that the crowd can be heard chanting “Hogan, Hogan” and cheering Hogan’s dragging Sid Justice from the ring. The company wanted to push the storyline, and forced a change of reaction upon us to accomplish the goal.

Funniest Line/Moment

USA!

Aaron George: “I SINCERELY apologize.” (clenches fists)

Brian Bayless: Heenan ragging on Hogan was amusing.

Jacob Williams: The absurd sound effect for Mountie’s cattle prod slays me every time.

Calum McDougall: “There will certainly be a face off if Sid hits Beefcake!” – Bobby Heenan’s clever description on the potentially gruesome consequences of Beefcake getting in Sid’s face.

Dave Hall: I was surprised at the lack of good funny lines during this show, especially when Bobby Heenan’s on commentary. I think that there was a little bit of a lack of chemistry between Bobby and Vince McMahon. However, I really like Heenan’s line, when referring to Jim Duggan, “General Schwarzkoff called for Duggan to come to the Gulf War. He wanted him to have one eye on the upcoming tanks and one eye on the air for planes at the same time”

Highlights

Minutes before he closed down his business.

Aaron George: It was truly cool to see Piper out there carrying that title. Equally cool seeing fantastic asshole Mountie get his comeuppance. After Sid’s apology, Sean Mooney ignores him during an interview which prompts him to get up and leave angrily. Sid’s mannerisms during the tag match are all top notch. His disgusted reaction to Beefcake is the EXACT same look I would give a man wearing those “pants.” Sid’s pissed when Hogan cups the ear, and his reach and drop to finally abandon the Immortal one was perfect. Then he threatens a woman… I could go on all night about Sid. Vince’s “Once again… reaching for the tag…” will forever be ingrained in my mind. Sid then proceeds to tell Mooney to ‘SHAAAAADUP” before using the phrase “for furthermore” in a sentence. Sid’s the best. The recap to the Savage/Roberts match was a great reminder of how batshit insane the end of 1991 was. Snake attacks! Elizabeth slappings! Both Savage and Jake cut short, but memorable promos. Jake insisting that some things are best when done twice, referring to the slapping of Elizabeth was pure heel, while Savage’s assertion that he might be insane was certainly intense enough to convince me. Man, Blake Beverly can take a clothesline!

Brian Bayless: I did like how they ended the show with a cliffhanger of Jake standing behind the curtain with a chair saying he would swing at whoever came through first as the camera switched from him to Savage & Elizabeth walking up the aisle.

Jacob Williams: This could have been called Sid’s Main Event because he killed it the entire show. When put in the right spot, he really has an awesome presence and feels like a huge deal. I loved his facials when he turns his back on Hogan and walks out. The heat and emotion of Jake and Savage was great, too. Bobby continued his hot streak from the Rumble with some great lines.

Calum McDougall: Motivated Sid is always a joy to behold, and everything he did in the tag match was a perfect set up for the upcoming Hogan match. This was good show but given that it was a 46 min sprint there won’t be an endless list… Oh wait! The fact it was a 46 minute sprint is a definite highlight in these times of three hour Raws.

Dave Hall: Not a lot on this card. The main event was great, the Hogan/Sid vs Flair/Undertaker match was solid, and pushed the storyline they wanted, but was a bit predictable. Outside of this, not a lot stood out for me. It would have been great if they had played the final angle out to its conclusion on this show, as it would have been the highlight of the night.

Lowlights

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Aaron George: Man that intro music was liquid human shit. I need Obsession! Why on Earth did Hogan STILL have to win the damn match by DQ? He can’t job to the current world champion and a living dead man? It was the best of Pipers, it was the worst of Pipers. Love the match and Mountie getting shocked, HATED seeing “SHOCK PROOF” written on a shirt. The Duggan/Slaughter versus Beverlys match was harmless, but boy is face Slaughter the biggest tool on planet Earth. Why on Earth was Hogan sleeping in Beefcake’s hospital bed???

Brian Bayless: The Beverly Brothers were originally supposed to face the Legion of Doom for a title shot but that did not happen due to a few reasons so they instead faced Jim Duggan & Sgt. Slaughter in a match that never needed to happen. That time could have been given to Savage and Jake.

Jacob Williams: I literally forgot about the Duggan tag match until I started writing my comments, so that’s probably not a good sign. Not sure if this really counts as a specific lowlight, but you could just feel throughout the entire show that this was nearing the end of the SNME era, which is a bummer. Despite all the big names, it just didn’t have quite the same grandeur that I associate with SNME.

Calum McDougall: Where was The Mountie’s music?! I’ll never know if he’s handsome, brave, strong or if he even enforces the law? Everything after the headline tag match with Hogan’s comeback annoyed me. The current and immediately previous WWF Champions dominated him for the best part of 10 minutes and Hogan does a Hogan and still stands tall.

Dave Hall: Besides the main and the big tag the other two matches on the card were unwatchable rubbish. Slaughter and Duggan no-sold The Beverleys and ruined that match, while the Mountie vs Piper match was also really bad. The Hogan interview was a bit below par for me, and the reaction of Sid just told everyone where that match’s story was going.

Wild Card BABY!!!

I APOLOGIZE!

Most Green: The woman clad in the lime green jogging suit cheering for Roddy Piper. She LOVED the man, and even Brain’s dismissive “weight watchers” comment couldn’t bring her down! She danced. She cheered. She greened. – AG

Vince is aware of pop culture??: When Piper says he doesn’t play that, Vince makes an In Living Color reference (NEITHER DOES HOMIE!). – JW

Best Tidbit: Sid Vicious himself claimed that Vince McMahon told him he’d end up being the biggest heel in the wrestling business then added it was another false promise from Vince. – BB

Best Sound Effects: Zzzzzap! Zzzzzap! Obviously the very real sounding shock stick sounds. – CM

Most WWF Moment: Hogan and Beefcake in the ring after the tag match gesturing about Sid being a big man, and leaving Hogan and threatening Beefcake, and they are going to get him. It was overplayed, and came across as an overreaction. Now if Sid had beaten Hogan (and Beefcake) down, that would have been fun to watch. – DH

Shaaaaaadap Award For Needing To Shaaaaaaaaadap! : Sean Money. Don’t ignore Sid you prick. He’s all decked out in red. Seriously, SHAAAAAAAADAAAP! – AG

Best Tidbit #2: The Mountie said that he hated working with Piper and felt Piper made him look like a “jobber.” – BB

Most Head-Scratching: Roddy Piper’s shock proof vest. Not that Piper was wearing it, that’s genius, but how the Mountie didn’t realise something was amiss, namely how Piper seemed to have piled on the pounds and had a suspiciously rubbery chest. He was then shocked to find out Piper was wearing something under his shirt despite wrestling with him for the past five minutes. Don’t get it. – CM

Final Thoughts

NOW SEE HERE!

Aaron George: I LOVED watching this. It flew by and is a perfect snapshot of the time. All the top stars of the era in their top feuds leading to one of my favorite WrestleManias. I think when I get down to it this may be my favorite era. The madness that was 1991 is now starting to blend with the chaos of Ric Flair and the insanity of Randy Savage. And Sid. I think his character work in this run is incredibly underrated. I’m a big fucking mark for the guy. Can’t go full monty with the lack of a great match but as is: RATING: 9/10

Brian Bayless: This show was all about angle advancement. The action was forgettable and while Sid was awesome it did not end up having the same effect as when others turned on Hogan in the past because of how Hulkamania was clearly on the downswing. And Hogan himself was the jerk by screwing over Sid at the Rumble. Plus, Sid turning was not a surprise at all. The cliffhanger ending was cool but the rest of the show was forgettable and the production values were subpar here (The SNME debut on FOX) when compared to NBC. This show led to some changes to the WrestleMania card for better or worse. RATING: 5.5/10

Jacob Williams: Not much to speak of in terms of actual wrestling, but that was never the focus of SNME even at its peak. The angle advancement was done well, and they did a good job of putting the focus on the main event picture. Sid really carries the show with his insane presence. I couldn’t shake that the feeling that SNME was on the way out and wasn’t quite as shiny and pretty as the past. Still, this was a pretty good show and executed some of the hallmarks of the show (building characters and feuds, great pacing) extremely well. RATING: 7/10

Calum McDougall: This was a fun little sprint, and it kept my interest throughout. They packed a lot into the 46 minutes and even thought there’s was a pointless Duggan/Slaughter vs Beverly Brothers match in the middle it wasn’t around long enough to offend. It set up a major angle and blew off another so they used their time excellently. RATING: 8/10

Dave Hall: Apart from the main event, I found this card really hard to watch, slow and plodding. The interviews were poor, the commentary was below average, and everything was entirely too predictable. I would not recommend this card to anyone unless they were wanting to do a background for WrestleMania VIII. RATING: 3/10

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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quinlin-blog1 · 6 years

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Short Story 2: Demons

"If he doesn't have to go back, then neither do I."

"Come on man! Let's go to the other movie!" I sighed. 'Let's not! I like this one." "But the other one has got hot guys and basketball games!" 'But this one has gun fights and adventure!' "Don't get too excited, it gets old after a while, I saw enough of that in Hell." Looks like I wasn't going to see the newest action movie, as I moved out of the line to get tickets, against my own will of course. Some days were easier than others, with an entirely different entity living inside of your head. Though, I couldn't really complain, he'd saved me from many embarrassing situations. I say "He" but it doesn't generally like to be tied down by a specific gender. Its name, the name I'd given it, was Paul, like the alien in the movie. "You'll thank me for this later." 'You said that when we went to that hot wax and I hurt for hours after that." I didn't get a response.

After the movie, I was sat on my couch at home, sipping on a hot chocolate, enjoying the little bit a quiet that filled my apartment. For once. With my roommate always playing loud country music and Paul always babbling in my head, there wasn't much quiet in my life. The television was on in front of me, playing a rerun of an old sit-com. A kaleidoscope of colors reflecting off the screen. It was dark outside, the soft sound of an owl hooting and crickets chirping. It was on nights like this that I liked the go sit on the roof of my building and admire the few stars that were visible. Due to the city lights, the stars weren't very bright, and it was rare that the sky was clear to see them in the first place. "Hey! Have you seen my glasses?" The sudden voice of my loud roommate knocked me out of my thoughts and almost made me drop my mug. "Jeez!" I exclaimed "You scared me! Why do you need your sunglasses anyway? It's night time if you haven't noticed." He shrugged his shoulders "They're cool." I rolled my eyes. "On the counter." I heard footsteps and heard an "Ah ha!" when he found what he was looking for. "You going out?" He nodded "Meeting up with some friends, don't wait up." "I never do." He laughed and left out the door. "I don't like him." 'You don't like most people Paul." "Yeah, but that guy gives me a really bad feeling." I snorted. "Laugh it up, will ya." 'Sorry, I just find it funny that a demon is getting a "bad feeling" from a regular human.' "Whatever Lottie." Lottie. I guess that it would be polite of me to introduce myself to you. Well, dear reader, my name is Charlotte Dans. A pretty boring name. I'm known as Char, or Lottie to mostly everyone that knows me, which is very few people because I don't really leave the apartment very much. Though, you might do the same if you had a demon living inside your head. Yeah, if you hadn't already picked up, Paul is a demon. He left Hell years ago and bounced around from person to person for a while before things got really bad for him. From what Paul has told me, when a demon leaves Hell, they must returned by an allotted time, if they don't, they have other demons sent after them to bring them back downstairs and they live the rest of their days as crossroads demons, which –according to Paul- is the lowest job there is in Hell. Paul had managed to escape the attempts of other demons to bring him back to Hell.

Around five years ago, I was out walking with my family, on a pretty normal day. We had just gotten ice cream and I had laughed at my brother, whose face was covered in the icy treat. The next thing I remember, was being on the ground, little pebbles stuck into my hands. There was yelling, voices that I recognized, some that I didn't. I was going to get up, when a man fell in front of me. He was older, older than my dad at least. His hair was streaked with grey and his face was dirty. It was a split second, but then all I saw was black. When I woke up, I was in a hospital room, my parents and brother around me. I'd apparently been knocked over by some random guys on the street, I'd hit my head hard a blacked out. I told that the men ran off, but I remembered the man in front of me.

I found out from Paul that he had knocked me over. He'd been running from some demons and didn't see me in front of him. He'd knocked me over and then tripped over me. He said he had two options. One being that he let the demons take him back to Hell, or he could possess me. Guess which he chose.

"-and not to mention that he blew up a potato in the microwave!" 'Excuse me, what?" Paul sighed "Have you even been listening to me?" 'You talk a lot Paul, I choose to ignore you have the time.'

"One of these days, you're going to need to remember something that I told you and you won't be able to, because you don't listen."* 'And on that day, I will let you say "I told you so", until then let's just not discuss it.' Paul sighed "Fine. What do you want to do now?" 'Dunno. I kind of want to sleep.' "Boring." 'And what do you suggest we do Paul, go to a church?' ". . . Sleeping sounds good."

BANG BUMP THUMP CRASH I turned over in my bed, used to the noise that often cropped up in the middle of the night. Ted, my roommate, was a messy eater and very fond of midnight snacks. SMACK CRASH BUMP What the hell was he doing? I uncovered my head, which I had placed under my pillow to block out noise, and listened for a few moments. SMACK THUMP BANG CRASH ......... Whimper? I sat up, blinking my eyes so that I could see better and I looked around my room. Two things jumped out at me first thing. One being that my window was open –though I don't generally close it- and two being that my door, was also open. I close my door every night and lock it before going to sleep. Paranoia. Slipping my legs off my bed, I stood up, standing on my tip toes to be quieter. "What's going on?" 'I don't know. I think that Ted might be dying.' "Oh. Let him be then." 'No! What if he's hurt?' "Sounds like his problem." I rolled my eyes, wishing that there was a way I could reach inside my mind and slap the demon. But there wasn't. Not that I'd found anyway, and trust me, I've tried. I walked across my bedroom to my open door, trying to make the least amount of noise possible, which proved to be a task as my feet continuously stepped on the squeaky floorboards. I knew that I should have gotten them fixed. The hallway was dark. There was a light on at the end, where the entrance to the kitchen began. "What the hell are you doing? Have you not seen any horror movies? This is exactly how it someone gets killed! Don't be the character in the first five minutes of Supernatural." I scowled at nothing. "Call the police! Someone could be in your apartment." 'It's just Ted!" "I highly doubt its 'Just Ted.'" 'Well if you're so smart, then why don't you go check? Oh wait, you can't. You rely solely on my body to get you around, so sit down and shut up.' ". . . Rude." I shook my head, ignoring the quiet protests that Paul continued to give me. Oh, how I wished he had an off button. I crept up the hallway, looking around for something I could use as weapon. On the way up, I reached into the supply cupboard and grabbed out the broom, quickly untwisting the head from the handle. It would have to do. I hold onto it tightly, feeling slightly silly. I knew that Paul was right. I was the dumb character in a horror movie. What was I going to do what I reached the kitchen? What if it wasn't Ted? What if it's an actual invader? How is a broom handle going to help me? Either way, my feet carried me forwards and before I knew it, I was standing just behind the kitchen door. The soft yellow light was streaming through, the door itself was only open about a foot and a half, but it was enough for me to poke my head in. I saw a back that was the first thing. A back attached to a head fully of messy brown hair. I knew this to be Ted. Looking a little bit closer, I turned my head a little bit to get a better angle. The second thing I saw, was that Ted had a man against the wall, a tight grip on the other man's throat. And the third thing I noticed, was that the man, wasn't a man. How could he had been, with pale green skin and black eyes? His skin was covered in spikes, tiny ones and longer ones, some were grey while others were brown. "Demon." 'Demon? What do you mean demon? There's a demon in my apartment?' "Well, what else could it be? A gnome?" 'I don't really think that right now is the time for sarcasm.' "There is never not a time for sarcasm." "Please." The demon against the wall wheezed out. "I have just come to bring back the traitor." "Traitor? What's so wrong about wanting to stay out of hell?" "I don't care." Came Ted's reply. But it wasn't Ted. This voice was deeper, gravelly. "Holy crap." 'What?' "But My Lord-!" Ted slammed the demon against the wall again and I heard a sickening crack. Then a loud wail filled the apartment. Black smoke vented out of the dead demons mouth, swirling around the room like a little tornado, before flying out the open window. Ted turned around. His skin was tinted grey, not sickly like, but an actual grey, his eyes were white, the rings where his irises and pupils should have bene remained, but there was no coloration. There seemed to be a flutter when he moved, like the rustling of feathers. There was a broken vase on the floor, shattered into pieces. Painting and framed photographs were littered everywhere and the coffee table in the middle of the living room that adorned the kitchen, was broken in half. Ted turned around further and faced me, his eyes wide as he saw me looking around at the damage. "I can fix it I swear" He said, his voice still different. "What, the hell." He flinched. "Well you see, that's what I'm trying to avoid." "Explanation. Now." "Well, you see. It's a bit more complicated than that. I –uh" "Are you a demon?" "No." "What are you?" Ted rubbed the back of his head. "SPIT IT OUT ALREADY" Ted's eyes went wide. I knew that he had heard Paul, as Paul had spoken his words through my mouth. Another great thing. He doesn't do it often, only when he's really angry.

"I'm the Devil."

#short stories #demons #the devil #Lucifer #roomates

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