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inkrabbit · 3 years

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A Day at the Beach - Dan x Richard

I don't wanna talk about this. It's currently 3:20am and I was talking about this pairing in my little group chat. It's shit, because it wasn't planned at all and I'm tired, but here we are. Y'all aren't getting a summary, either.

Word count: 3,034

Mersea Island, Essex

It had been a long time coming, operatives saying how they wanted to go an actual beach and maybe spend the night. Anything to get away from the chaos in London, saying they all needed a vacation of some sort. Of course there were some operatives who were reluctant to agree to the idea, saying they didn't feel comfortable leaving when there was still so much to do, but they finally came around when harassed enough, agreeing to spending one night before they had to come back home.

So here Richard sat in the back seat of the car Lorcan had “borrowed”, music blaring and the man spouting outrageous tales. He see Dan in the passenger seat, a smile on his face as he shakes his head. He's entertaining his friend's stories, and also glancing down at his phone to make sure they're still on the right track to the beach.

“She fuckin' made boxty and then threw it at me!” The time Richard tunes in, he's completely lost, brows furrowing as he catches the end of the statement. Boxty? He catches Dan laughing, and he can even see Jeremy's lips curl into a smile, the younger man having been seated on the other side of the car.

“Did you still eat it?” Eat it? He wondered what kind of food it was. Maybe it was just an Irish thing?

“Of course I ate it! Not gonna let that go to waste!” He knew this was going to be an adventure in itself. He had seen Lorcan's energy in the safehouse more times than he could count, the man always pestering someone and trying to find a drinking buddy.

He could never really forget the first time the older man had approached him, a friendly smile on his face as he started a conversation. Nothing too big, just asking how he was settling in with the group and if he had any problems. Even if Richard had any sort of bad blood with the other operatives, he wouldn't make it known. But when the Irishman had offered him to go drinking, he nearly choked on his coffee. It had been so long since someone had left him speechless, and his hesitation was enough for Dan to walk over and shoo his friend away. He told Richard to ignore him, that Lorcan's innocent little invitation was more trouble than it was worth considering the man would get lost easily when drunk and wander off like a child. Richard would never admit it, but a small part of him actually liked the idea of spending time with DedSec.

Maybe that's why he was here now, stuck in a car with the group's trio and headed for the beach. Back then, he would've cringed at the thought of being seen with any of the operatives, but now? Well, it wasn't so bad. He supposed they grew on him, their friendly banter and family-like connection. Did he long for that normal lifestyle? Where he had people he felt like he could finally confide in and converse with? Or perhaps he just his old life before Zero-Day and DedSec came into the picture, working his job at SIRS and indulging in the odd party Emma Child threw, though it was normally all business. Emma... He had tried to forget her name and her existence, a pang of guilt always cementing itself in the pit of his stomach. Back then, he believed what he was doing was right, and to this day he still did. But did he have to go that far?

The rest of the drive to the beach is filled with stories from the other men. Lorcan tries asking Richard for some stories of his own, but he declines. What would he tell them, anyway? His mind drew a blank when the request left the man's lips anyway. He tries to listen to the chatter now, wanting something else to focus on while they got closer to their destination. Lorcan spoke of mischief he got into when he was younger, and Dan shares his own story of being picked up by the police trying to hotwire a car. He notices how Jeremy stays quiet, and when one of the men ask him why, he simply tells them. “Didn't have the happiest childhood. I stayed alone.” Fair enough. Richard found himself actually understanding. After his father's passing, he threw any sort of social life out the window and locked himself in his room.

When the car finally stops, the sun is high in the sky and Richard is stretching his limbs, feeling his joints pop. It felt good to stretch, and the cool breeze coming from the ocean was heavenly. It had been so long since he had been here. The last time he had gone to a beach was with coworkers who had suckered him in to tagging along. It was funny how history repeats itself, but could he even call DedSec his coworkers? He supposed so, he did work alongside them ever since they had released him from that makeshift cell. Seeing everyone exit the cars, bringing out coolers and everything else is a pleasant sight. It's almost surreal. After everything that's happened, the group finally looks... normal.

He follows them to down to the sand, everyone picking out a spot and laying down their towels. Franklin had been nice enough to set Richard up with his own little spot, just a bit away from everyone else. He appreciated it. The group had made him a tiny bit nervous, still worried they would eventually snap and lash out at him. He takes a seat on the towel, legs crossed as he watches the others. Some are starting up a game of volleyball, while others are making their way into the water. He notices some of the operatives stay behind. He can see Franklin and Edmund chatting away, occasionally sharing a small kiss or nuzzling the other's cheek. It wasn't often he saw people so affectionate with one another, especially in the group.

A little farther away, however, he can see Dan sitting on a towel, legs crossed and hunched over a book. It's a surprise, to say the least. The once cheerful face is replaced with nothing, the stoic expression seeming so foreign. Glancing back at the ocean, he can see Lorcan picking up Jeremy and tossing him back into the water. He assumed Dan would've joined them, or at the very least, Jeremy would've been the one sitting out.

He spends the day relaxing, finally laying down on the towel and basking in the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze occasionally sending a shiver up his spine. He wonders what the little beach cottages will look like inside. He knew some operatives had grouped together to save money. He wasn't exactly sure who he would be staying with, having stayed out of the conversation and assuming he wouldn't even accompany the group at all. Maybe he would ask when time drew near?

Some operatives had come up to check on him, and Rebecca had even invited him to play volleyball with them. It was sweet that they tried to include him, but he declined. He still felt awkward partaking in activities with them, weary tension thick around the group (or was that all just in his mind?). He still watches them, however, taking this time to get to know their quirks. The way they move, how they each have a unique look while concentrating. It was amazing how they all seemed more open when they weren't cramped in the safehouse.

As the sun slowly starts going down, he agrees to help Dan make a bonfire. He had collected the stones, forming a decently large circle and using the wood brought back. Lorcan had become antsy, pouring some whiskey onto the wood and using his lighter to start the fire. It wasn't something Richard would do in a thousand years, but it had worked and warm air made him feel better. He sits in the sand with his legs propped up, elbows resting on his knees as he takes in the soft chatter of the group. They're all telling stories, ranging from jobs they've done to crazy antics they've gotten up to in the past. Franklin tells them some tales from Albion, while Edmund settles on a fight he had somehow won after taking to tabs of acid. Richard zones out here and there, focused on the fire and crackling wood. He almost doesn't realize how long they've been sitting there until a chill runs up his spine and a few operatives are saying goodnight. He joins in in wishing them farewell, and finally pays attention to the rest of the stories told.

One by one, the group around the bonfire slowly dwindles as people retire for the night. By the time the moon's high in the sky and the air's becoming more chilly, Richard is only left with the Irishmen. He had seen Jeremy's head droop here and there, eyes lidded as he listened to Lorcan's drunken rambling. It's not long until the younger man is finally standing up, stretching his limbs and saying goodnight to the three. Lorcan follows right after, whining about how he didn't want to be locked out for the night. He assumed the two were sharing the same cottage.

His eyes flicker to Dan. He hadn't been as talkative as he was in the car, staring into the fire and only occasionally joining in the conversation. The silence is almost deafening between them. For some reason, it felt odd. Had he gotten used to the chatter of the group?

“What were you reading?” Richard finally asks, catching the man's attention. He looks at him, just for a bit, until he raises the book and shows him the cover. The Ghost Map. Ah, some London history. He smiles at it. “Didn't know you read.”

“Little hobby I picked up,” he responds, setting the book back down. “What about you? You read?”

“Here and there. I've always been busy with work,” he confesses. When was the last time he had actually finished a book? He couldn't remember. “Was that your plan? Just to read?”

“Ah, pretty much. Not feelin' too energetic today.”

“I assumed you would've been swimming the others,” This pulls a reaction from the man. He lowers his gaze, hazel eyes staring at the fire.

“Don't really like the others seein' me scars,” Richard raises his eyebrows at this. He wasn't aware of any scars, never seeing any on the man. Then again, he normally walked around with a jacket on, and he even wore a shirt all day while out. “Don't like seein' 'em meself. Just brings up bad memories.”

“How did you get them?” He regrets it as soon as the question leaves his mouth, but Dan doesn't give him a chance to take it back.

“Prison, mostly,” he confesses, “Some from the army, but only a couple.”

Right, he was still on parole if he remembered correctly. He had skimmed through Dan's file, curious about the headstrong man, but he didn't want to admit it. He swallows thickly, but curiosity gets the better of him.

“Why? I mean, why be sent to prison?” There's a pause, but it doesn't last long.

“Beat the shite out of my lieutenant,” Well he wasn't hiding anything, that was for sure. He wasn't sugarcoating it either. “Nearly killed him. Then while in prison, I ended up killing an inmate for bein' a cunt.”

“And that added on to your sentence?”

“Aye, by a year. Used to read all the time after they moved me. Fought so many people there they had to keep me by meself.”

“Christ, you were that bad?”

“Sometimes it was to defend meself, sometimes I was defending someone else. Hated the fucks who picked on smaller inmates.”

“You... really protected other inmates?”

“'Course. 'S why I protect London. I'm just... happier doin' this.”

Well, he hadn't expected that. He never really considered why Dan had fought so much, but he managed to get some stories out of him. Abusive childhood with a father who didn't accept his youngest son. He supposed Dan had just gotten into the habit of protecting his younger brother from their father. He couldn't say he shared the same experience, but he does finally tell his own stories. A neglectful and overbearing mother, how he had lost his father at a young age and hid away from the world. He even tells him about his own time in the navy, and the man looks surprised when he mentions his own prison sentence.

He's not sure when, but the two of them have finally moved closer together, knees brushing against each other as the fire finally dwindles out. It felt nice to talk, and he was pleasantly surprised at how open Dan was. Any question he asked him, the man would answer with no hesitation. What books he read, what music he listened to, how well he did in school, anything he could think of. In return, Dan would ask him questions as well. What the navy was like, if he truly liked SIRS, what he went to college for. He had hesitated at first, but after a few questions, he finally felt relaxed enough to answer without having to think so hard.

When he finally starts to yawn, the two agree to go to bed. Putting out the fire, they walk across the beach, Dan confessing they would be sharing a cottage together. Apparently the group had agreed both would do well together, seeming to have a mutual want for their own space. The inside is nice and cozy, and Richard decides to let Dan take a shower first. He sits down on the bed, rubbing his eyes and stretching. It wasn't an eventual day, but he would admit it was nice to get out of the safehouse. He had been trapped in there, even after his release, sleeping awkwardly on the couch. He was honestly excited to finally sleep in a normal bed.

Richard's almost surprised when Dan exits the bathroom, his shirt gone and his scars showing. Some were older than others, and he was surprised when he noticed a scar in almost the exact same spot he had one. On the left side of his torso, just missing any organs. Dan doesn't even look in his general direction as he runs the towel through his hair in an attempt to dry it. Standing up, he decides to leave him on his own and take his own shower.

The steam hits him and sends a shiver up his spine. The water in the shower is still warm as his feet make contact with the droplets, hand gripping the silver lever and twisting. The water feels amazing, and he takes just a bit longer than normal as he relishes in it. The silence, the warmth, the feeling of the water hitting his skin. For the first time in a while, he finally feels truly relaxed, his eyes slipping shut. The only thing that makes him move in the exhaustion that finally hits.

Turning off the water, he steps out of the shower, drying himself off. He buries his face in the towel for a bit, his mind buzzing. It was all still so surreal. He felt like any moment he would wake up from a dream, still trapped in his cell with no way out. Looking up, he's almost relieved to still see the bathroom door in front of him. He runs his hand through his hair in an attempt to smooth it out after he's finished getting dressed. Setting the towel on the counter, he flicks off the lights and opens the door. To his surprise, Dan is already laying in bed and fast asleep. He tries to be as quiet as he can as he walks over, admiring the man in the dim light. His arm is hanging out of the blankets, his face in a slight scowl. Slowly reaching out, he runs a hand through the man's damp hair, watching his features relax. It amazed him at how similar they were, at least with their past. Pulling back, he crosses over and sit on the edge of his bed, rubbing his face with his hands.

“You ever touch me without me permission again,” Dan suddenly grumbles out, “and I'll break your fuckin' hand.”

“Oh, stop being a child,” he scoffs, though a small smirk crosses his lips. “I'm sure that's the first time in a while you've gotten any sort of affection anyway.”

There's shuffling and Dan finally sits up, staring at him. There's a look in his eyes, challenging and confident.

“Ya wanna touch me so bad?” he purrs out, “Come and give me a kiss.”

He's stunned, throat running dry as the Irishman holds his gaze. He's grinning, but it's not joy. Oh no, he's grinning because he thinks Richard is going back down. And he might have if he still wasn't upset with the attitude he had to endure during their meetings before Zero-Day was stopped. No way in hell he would let the man have something else to bring up.

Pushing himself off the bed, he crosses over once more. His actions are quick, worried if he took his time, he would change his mind. He grabs the man's face, fingers running through his beard as he bends down, pressing his lips against his. It doesn't last long before both pull away, and Richard laughs at the horrified expression on Dan's face.

“I'm not one to turn down a challenge,” he tells him softly, patting his cheek before returning to his bed. He slips underneath the covers and lays on his side, listening to the soft rustling noises. He's not expecting it when Dan finally gets up, grabbing his shoulder and turning him over.

“Ya wanna fuckin' kiss me, at least do it right, ya idiot.”

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Michael After Midnight: Heavy Metal

Sometimes it’s fun to revisit old movies you watched when you were younger and find out, hey, this is better than you remembered! Sometimes your young mind just wasn’t ready to accept how awesome something was, and you needed time to fully understand what you look for and like about cinema to truly appreciate it. But then, sometimes, you watch something you liked when you were younger, and you realize… wow, this is absolute dog shit!

Such is the case with Heavy Metal. This is a movie I have frequently cited as a low-ranking entry on lists of the finest animated films of all time, and to be entirely fair to the film, it is important in a historical sense, being a cult classic that was passed around through bootlegs because music rights kept it from getting a home video release, and it came out around the dawn of the 80s and kind of destroyed what you would think an animated film was capable of. This film is full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and it entirely, unabashedly unashamed of this, for better or for worse.

Now, while I do think the overall film is a bit lacking, it is an anthology film divided into segments, and there are some pretty good ones I will make note of; this is not a film with absolutely no merit. But before that, let me point out the one thing everyone can agree is amazing about this film: the soundtrack. You’ve got Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Nicks, Devo, Cheap Trick… if nothing else, the kickass soundtrack is worth a listen, though Blue Oyster Cult’s song inclusion irritates me to a great degree. The movie went with “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” for the soundtrack, despite the fact Blue Oyster Cult had a song ready to go that is literally about the final entry in the anthology, called “Vengeance (The Pact).” Why the people compiling the soundtrack made this choice baffles me; it reminds me of how they didn’t use “Jennifer’s Body” in, well, Jennifer’s Body, instead opting for a different Hole song from the same album.

But I digress. Let’s go one by one and touch on the segments:

The framing device is about an entity known as the Loc-Nar, who claims to be the sum of all evil, detailing to a little girl how it has influenced chaos and carnage across time and space. The thing is, though, the Loc-Nar doesn’t come out on top in any of the segments, and its schemes are often thwarted. So the entire movie is basically this supreme evil being detailing to a little girl how much it sucks ass at its one job.

The first segment is Harry Canyon, a story about the eponymous futuristic New York taxi driver. In some regards it reminds me of The Fifth Element, what with a scruffy, slummy, futuristic taxi driver trying to help a smoking hot babe find out the truth and all, but unlike that film, this short is a lot bleaker and gritty. You kinda know what you’re in for when Harry vaporizes a dude who tries to mug him, and if that’s not enough, the female lead of this short literally throws herslef at him, and yes, he gets to take a dive into her Harry Canyon – and you get to see it.

This is a running theme throughout these shorts – almost every female character has huge titties and is sexually promiscuous, throwing themselves at the first penis they see as if it was their job. It’s so incredibly juvenile and tacky as to be laughable, but I guess this comes with the territory considering the magazine this film adapted.

Anyway, the segment is harmless and unremarkable. It’s exactly what you’d expect from this sort of story, without much in the way of twists or turns.

The second segment, Den, is arguably the best segment in the entire film. We have a nerdy kid named Dan who gets transported across space and becomes the musclebound warrior with a huge cock known as Den. Every woman throws herself at him, every villain in his way gets pummeled, and no task is too impossible for this man! And did I mention that he is voiced by John Candy? Really, Candy’s comedic touch is what makes this entire thing feel fun and palatable; it’s a cheesy swords and sorcery romp through and through. Honestly, I don’t have much bad to say about this one, it’s just very silly fun.

Unfortunately we are back to being not great with Captain Sternn. Sternn, played by Eugene Levy (of The Wacky World of Mini Golf fame), is basically an intergalactic war criminal on trial, and when his paid witness Hanover Fiste (played by Rodger “Squidward Tentacles” Bumpass) comes up to the stand, the Loc-Nar influences him to the most evil act possible… betraying this war criminal in front of the judge and jury! GASP! I’m not sure what the Loc-Nar is really trying to do here; you’d think it would maybe want Sternn free to continue spreading wicked influence across the galaxy, but nah, it just makes Squidward hulk out and tries to kill him, only for the tables to be turned and Squidward to be dropped out an airlock, further cementing how utterly useless the Loc-Nar is.

Thankfully, once that’s over, we have yet another very strong segment, another contender for best in show: B-17. This is a genuinely creepy zombie short film, and the zombies are utterly horrifying and grotesque. This is regarded as the most nightmarish part of the film, and for good reason; this shit is certainly worthy of being called “heavy metal.” Honestly, there isn’t much bad to say about this one either, except perhaps that it is over far too soon.

Then we get to what is probably the worst segment: So Beautiful, So Dangerous. The entire segment is sort of meant to be a lighthearted comedic breather between The last segment and the final one, but it just comes off as combining every problem the movie has into one segment: the uselessness of the Loc-Nar, copious and ridiculous sex, drugs, and so on. Really all that’s missing from this is gratuitous violence, but hey, guess you can’t have everything all the time, right? It just comes off as really dull and pointless, and there’s not really anything particularly funny about anything that happens in it, unless of course you’re a thirteen year old who thinks “big boob woman having sex with robot while aliens snort cocaine” is the funniest shit on Earth.

Thankfully, we end on a strong note with Taarna, which is about a proud warrior woman dressed in horrifically impractical armor (and this actually effects the plot, I’m not kidding, somehow there was some self-awareness here) and a cool alien pteradactly flying off to fulfill a vengeful pact after the slaughter of a peaceful race by barbarians mutated by the Loc-Nar, in what may be the Loc-Nar’s sole impressive feat. Taarna is the ultimate hero, giving us the trifecta of qualities a heroine in this movie should have – boobs, butt, and bush... Er, I mean, sword, cool mount, and ass-kicking prowess. This one is not quite as good as “Den” or “B-17,” but I still think it’s a solid finale that has enough action and awesome music to make up for its tackier elements.

The movie ends with Taarna’s defeat of the Loc-Nar echoing through time and killing it which… makes absolutely zero sense, but whatever, the Loc-Nar is an absolutely atrocious villain and perhaps one of the most useless in cinematic history, he gets a 1/10 on Psycho Analysis. Then the girl gets her own kickass space dragon thing and becoming the new Taarna or something and, honestly, it’s the exact sort of batshit ending you should expect from the film.

So, is this really an awful film? In some places, no. It’s a love letter to cheesy, trashy sci-fi fantasy from the 70s, with all that comes with it, and in that regard it does succeed. But still, a lot of the film feels like the utterly juvenile fantasies of same sad high schooler, or perhaps even middle schooler, who has never had and who likely never will have sex. It’s a tashy little time capsule to a bygone era where this sort of storytelling was okay so long as there was enough blood and titties on display, so if that appeals to you, by all means, check this film out. It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world to watch, but animation has come so far and adult animation in particular is capable of so much more than adolescent masturbatory fantasies that this film has little value beyond a few solid segments and a damn good soundtrack.

Hell, just go listen to the soundtrack. I think you’d have a better time doing that.

#Michael After Midnight #Review #Movie review #Heavy Metal #animation #animated movie #sex drugs and rock and roll

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peepingtoad · 4 years

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OKAY SO.

It’s not that often that I talk about what I really think about Jiraiya, and I guess I mean more how I feel about him, since I always try to write my ‘deeper’ headcanons/metas from a more... idk, trying not to get too emotional about it point of view. Basically it’s because I know how controversial he is, and I pretty much ritually avoid a lot of takes because I don’t want to get irritated about something that really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme, because we’re all entitled to our opinions and I largely get my say through the act of writing and developing him how I see fit.

Which is enough for me, mostly, but for the purpose of reinforcing/building upon how I see my muse’s plight, working through some of my Sannin-feels and also to dip my toes into why I find blindly judgemental/single-faceted takes of him, his priorities and the Sannin’s bond so exasperating, I kinda feel like rambling my thoughts (feelings) anyway!

Politely sticks this stream-of-consciousness mess under a cut.

So sometimes I do think about the fact that Jiraiya kinda, lmao, forgot about Everything Else in the world because of Orochimaru and his (frankly) obsession with him/them. And the fact that a ridiculously significant portion of bad shit that happened is down to his actions/inaction. And the fact that he really did go and leave the likes of Naruto (and maybe to a degree Kakashi, although there’s zero actual evidence he didn’t get involved given the strong indications of a great rapport in the canon), just because he was so hellbent on pursuing Orochimaru, who was not even shown to be affectionate towards him at the best of times. When I think about it in terms of Jiraiya being gone and the main reason we’re given for it, things suck for a number of people, and quite largely because of potentially unrequited/horribly communicated/obsessive JiraOro pursuits, in essence :’)

(And for all it’s still quite the rarepair, Jiraiya does express on accounts that he was destroyed when Oro left. I mean... this is the guy who rarely acknowledges his sadness so... It’s not my bias at all I sware)

Of course JiraTsu is very real in my eyes too, albeit a very different kinda tragic, as is OroTsu. And the messy poly ship? Ohohoho, even better, but... yeah. Tsunade does at least go her own way for a long time, as messed up as that is in itself, for reasons including the fact she seems to pointedly not heal or move on from her grief. And given the absolute debacle that was her and Jiraiya reuniting... and both her and Oro even discussing a possibility of sacrificing him... and just, them in general for that whole arc :’))) yeah. They are without a doubt messy and troubled, but even despite how fraught things become I genuinely think all the furtive expressions and the undercurrents of longing and the evasion of their past exhibits a history much deeper and full of lost love compared to many other team dynamics we get (otherwise the Three Way Divorce wouldn’t have been quite so horrible on them, would it? That and they’d probably have split up after Team Hiruzen was no more, if they really hated each other/just tolerated each other out of familiarity like I sometimes see speculated).

But yeah, back to our main man. Jiraiya’s intense (and frankly very Scorpio of him) love for our first series Big Bad kinda did ruin him and what he was setting out to do in some ways, to the degree that the actual story of Naruto wouldn’t be very much without him in terms of drama. I mean, he always loved a good story, right? So art imitates life, and innit just pathetic poetic.

And in so many ways it is incredibly tragic and pitiable that he’s Just Like That. Idealistic and warping everything terrible, no matter how bad, into adventure in his mind! As growth! As pain that makes you TOUGH and makes you a stronger man! As something to be pushed aside while you just keep on truckin’! Whatever anyone you love throws at you, it’s Totally Fine!

After so long narrating through his personal lens, I’ve come to realise he truly is so convinced that everything bad that happens, is sort of just... something he has to deal with and feel big and guilty and feelsy for while spinning it in ways that enable him to keep going. He just loads it on himself and sorta holds it. The fact he’s so sad and filled with sickly pining grief that he has to try and exorcise it with impulsive bouts of decadence? Fine. And it’s not abnormal at all, how he approaches things with such broad scope and just kinda... thoughtlessly wrecking-balls his way through everything he thinks is a great idea at the time. He experiences the fallout of these things and simultaneously feels the entire ravages of it acutely while compartmentalising it ever so neatly away. The crazy thing, too, is that he’s exceptionally convincing at making everything he does and how he handles things seem so grand and noble and romantic and tragic... but in a humorously self-deprecating and still ultimately very hopeful way, to the degree that I as a mun get caught up in his relentless optimism and forget he actually is a sad and heartbroken guy wrapped up in all this grandiosity.

Sometimes I do step back and look and I just think yeah, fuck, he really is a total disaster! He’s a walking disaster and he’s been so damaging to himself and others in so many ways, all because of acting on emotions and impulses without really thinking about the impact! He really did kinda give up on those who needed him and for what? A love that will never love him or prioritise him back?

A wonderfully tragic theme that I do love with him, don’t get me wrong.

But then at the same time, there’s always more nuance to be had than just ‘he is a disaster and made bad choices, as tragic and romantic as it is, he was actually just selfish and kinda sucked in the end, pathetically whipped by his friends and unable to let go of what they had’. There’s more nuance to be had than reducing him to a purely romantically-inclined character, who just snubs everyone else for a doomed love... because in the end, I think a huge part of JiraOro’s demise in particular was that Oro felt immensely snubbed by Jiraiya when he stayed in Ame, when his loyalty to Konoha (as a place and people, not necessarily a system) and of course loyalty to his own ideals was prioritised over Oro.

To an extent, I feel like Tsunade could have been a similar case, were she not preoccupied with already having lost so much, and besides I really do think she and Jiraiya were quite firmly in best friend zone at that point. With Tsunade not being able to get comfortable around Jiraiya or to pursue any underlying affection for him because of the dumbass way he always behaved (understandably of her tbh), probably until she got with Dan, by which point I reckon Jiraiya started to really come through by showing how he valued her for her, where we see by them having each other’s backs so closely in the second war. Not to mention him generally respecting that his feelings for her have no place by the time he gets her back to Konoha.

In terms of that first split in Ame, Jiraiya, I feel, simply didn’t think him leaving was going to be a big deal, because the three were always fiercely headstrong people who had their own shit going on (simultaneously independent while also being, perhaps not to their knowledge, So Very Codependent). Not only that, but his overly affectionate ways and incessant jolliness were probably considered such a joke that he was basically like ‘they’ll be fine without me’. I certainly don’t think he felt needed by them, which I don’t think is their fault or a point of angst and ‘waaah poor blameless Jiraiya’, because quite honestly, the strain on their relationship was something I fully believe even he didn’t realise he needed out of at the time. His one-track mind was just on ‘save kids, teach kids, this is right, must seize opportunity to be the change I was told I’d be, not continue with this godforsaken war’

Selfish? Maybe. Well-intentioned? Certainly. Intended to hurt anyone or imply he stopped caring? No.

In essence, when it comes to why in the end Jiraiya seemed to be so horrendously bad at being around at the worst of times, at being responsible, whatever else (and I’m not even going to go into scenes intended to be comedic because, they are comedic)... I’ve got to look at it from more than just one view. It’s easy to say ‘he’s ridiculous and terrible because he pretty much flaked on what was important based on his whims/a doomed love/his dick’ (which I have seen said lmao) but there are so many other things at play here.

So I’m thinking, while he was shirking duties (godfatherly mainly)... did he actually consider that his most important duty? Was it anyone’s place to tell him it was? Minato didn’t, as I recall, and when he sacrificed himself he specifically left it to the Third because he (presumably) respected what his teacher was about and knew he wasn’t for staying put. Did Jiraiya not consider his primary duty to be to the prophecy, and in a more general sense fixing the big wrongs and trying to foil big dangers to his home? Were these things not pretty much what he existed for (as much as his faith wavered and went off the rails at times)? Was that not the main source of any real purpose he ever had, being a kid who showed practically no ambition before? Did he not pretty much redesign himself as being ‘from Mt. Myōboku’ rather than Konoha after two devastating wars, and thus is it not understandable for him not to focus solely on Konoha—not outright destroying it, still ultimately loyal to his home and not about to let anyone destroy it, but seeing that the world is in fact so much bigger than just his little town? Is that really something that’s so bad and wrong of him, in a story where the main cast’s country has a pretty fucking nasty system and is established to do so very early on? Is he not pretty revolutionary in his own brand of not blindly serving, but not going on a destroy-it-all frenzy either?

Also, was he not the only one who actually bothered to investigate Akatsuki and the forces that would see Naruto dead, in time? For all he did help bring Akatsuki into existence in ways, it was inevitable from before he even met the orphans that they were going to be groomed/moulded into what they became, regardless of whether Jiraiya came onto the scene. Jiraiya leaving them was just a different kind of suffering to what they were inevitably going to suffer anyway, and hell, with his influence at least there was a time where they might’ve stood a chance of going totally against Madara/Obito’s path, especially while Yahiko was still around. Jiraiya didn’t know that the whole thing with the Ame orphans was, by a design out of his control, doomed to end horribly. So while he felt personally responsible not knowing this, and it’s taken as a given that he was... actually, was he, when there was a master manipulator at play? Was it wrong to want to give some kids a chance?

With regards to all those things I see people say he should have stayed and fixed, that he should have been there, he should have done x y z... Is it not the responsibility of everyone not satisfied with their lot to step up to the plate and make where they live better? Jiraiya wasn’t the only adult. Tsunade, and I absolutely love her, does seem overwhelmingly to be absolved of leaving Konoha because... ??? Kicker is that she too is related to Naruto, of course.

So... was she not also needed for the very material ways she could’ve helped at numerous points? Was she not also placing her grief and lost love before everything else? Are some reasons inherently more ok than others to ditch? As Kakashi’s generation grew up, was it not also then up to them to decide whether they’d change the status quo? Were Minato’s own generation, presumably his own peer group, not complicit in Naruto’s ostracisation? We got a slight taste of rebellion with Asuma, Hiruzen’s own son, but the fact is many Konoha-nin were overwhelmingly complacent with how things were. And yet never get demonised at all for it. Because it’s Jiraiya’s fault for... not staying and giving it all up to be a guardian who could well be depressed and unfit to raise a child... or just being a flaky as hell one that’s never there anyway because he has shit to do? (and in doing the former would let too many things go unchecked by a completely tuned-out Hokage, not gathering all that spicy useful intel, y’know... essentially he wouldn’t have ended up largely doing his job along with the personal shit in between).

Basically when I see claims saying that Jiraiya as an individual should have done pretty much everything better, and somehow been there for everyone that needed him at any given time, and that (mostly Naruto’s) suffering was a failing on Just His part because of his selfish whims... I feel like the point of his tragedy is absolutely missed. That tragedy being that barrelling through things alone is definitely a failing and harmful in numerous ways, as we see with Itachi shouldering everything alone too, and we see them both miss out on Naruto and Sasuke as a result... but at the same time, is just settling down and leaving everything else to chance not also a huge failing, when there are so many other circumstances and enemies acting against you, when you do have the power to change tides, and when so many other people refuse to or can’t seize their own agency? Jiraiya does put his faith in a lot of people too, and a lot of people fail. Don’t fail him, but in a general sense many, like Minato, fail to make the change they wanted to. That’s life in this world, it’s tragic, and after losing a lot of loved ones yeah, he retreats and goes at it alone.

But how can he win? How does he do what’s right, other than by chasing what he thinks he can do to actually help the world, which happens to be bigger and not centred on individuals, even those he cares about?

(and remember, nobody knows Naruto is special-reincarnation-prophecy-boi, which is why I tend not to blame-game any characters for him being treated like so many orphans were because... while it’s not morally right or nice at all, it’s tone deaf to how the world is, to the fact all characters having different degrees of knowledge and priorities, and it’s insensitive of the fact most the characters had their own struggles and were just doing their best with a bad lot gdi).

Hell though, Jiraiya even does put Oro, his big obsessive wild goose chase that whisks him away into selfish pining hopelessly devoted land, on the back burner at points. Maybe not in a lasting way, particularly by the last databook where he’s inspired anew by Naruto, but he does prioritise other shit on numerous occasions. And there’s a lot of shit to try and prioritise.

What I’m trying to say is, Jiraiya can’t solely be held responsible for people. Sure, he’s a character whose decisions were pivotal to events, but what of every other character in the story? Why are they not held to the same crazy high standard of doing and protecting and preventing and somehow doing everything ‘right’ that would have also meant him fitting neatly into the Konoha mould? Would other characters really have been that much better in the position of The Big Guide/Martyr/Tragic Hero/Force For Change character? And also is having a tragic Chaotic Good bastard of a hero not a sign of a damn good and interesting character, that at the very least tried where so many others didn’t? Would Naruto not have been a boring as hell story, whose main protag didn’t really have much conflict to make him compelling, without Jiraiya (among others) being a mess with the best intentions? Without so many other characters having failed him, for him to overcome it and still be able to love and inspire change (albeit through sometimes-clumsy talk-no-jutsu)? Was I missing the point of the story?

............. Hmm!

No longer sure where else I’m going with this now, so.... here, I guess, ends my ode to why character hate (especially that reduces them to One Thing) is dumb, why demonising truly well-meaning characters doesn’t feel particularly woke to me in a cast full of flawed characters and horrible circumstance, and why I’ll defend this poor bastard with far too damn much hinging on him to the end I guess :’)

TL;DR HE’S A DUMBASS AND HE TRIED, OKAY?!

#i feel like this is like... about as bold as i'll get with this subject #{ooc}#{memoirs(headcanons)}#not sure about it being a headcanon as such but it does include some of mine so.... for now it can be #{long post}#{meta&analysis}

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ilovejevsjeans · 4 years

Text

At the Forefront

Its a gladitorial sport, it can be seen as macho testosterone fueled. How easy is it to ask for help if youre struggling, having a tough time for whatever reason?

Dan: You use the word macho and I guess I thought of that, it’s probably a bit harder for men to break through that because there’s a perception of “I’m big and strong and the provider” and that old way of thinking but you know the thing which helps me is having close people around me, friends and people that I can trust and if I do get emotional or something they’re not going to call me weak or anything. They’ll put their arm around me and understand where I’m coming from so, I think that’s the biggest thing. I think everyone has the ability to open up and at times wants to open up but it’s that uncertainty of who to open up to. So it’s just finding someone you can really lean on. And even if that person is someone you’re not sure of I’m sure 9 times out of 10 they might surprise you and be open ears and arms.

Could you tell anything to a teammate? Because as you know in F1 they’re the benchmark and any weakness can easily be exploited by a teammate and used against them on the track.

D: Yeah that’s a good question. You probably have to be a bit more selective with what you say to a direct competitor but you know on the flip side I think if you have enough confidence in yourself a lot of the time you can be happy to put everything on the table and deep down you’re like “I’m not longer vulnerable, I’ve put everything out there so at least my plate is clear so I can go out there and give it my all”. It can probably work both ways

You can go from hero to zero very quickly in F1, not least on social media. I’m wondering what your techniques are for handling the stress, the scrutiny, the pressure, the demands.

One thing I’ve always found helps is having other interests. If my life was only F1, I think that would consume me and the pressure of the sport would. Not having a good race would probably eat me in inside for to long. If I have a bad race or a moment where I’m not to happy with my performance or what’s going on in the sport it might consume me for the Sunday evening but by Monday I’m trying to put my thoughts somewhere else and I don’t know go out and do some sports or go see some music. I think to just have an escape. I think that’s important for everyone whatever your job is. To have an interest outside of it that you can go and attend and clear your head a little bit.

Is there a moment that you could share in your career where things looked or felt bleak and what you learned from that episode?

A highlight for me as back in 2013, still relatively early in my career and I was very strict on myself. I was very disciplined and wouldn’t allow myself a beer or to go and party and you know what was I a 23/24 year old kid, it wasn’t really normal. In my head I was doing everything right, and the results for a few weeks weren’t there and I was kinda banging my head against the wall wondering what else could I do. I just got away for a bit. I was like maybe I’m putting to much into and this and maybe I’m going down a rabbit hole of trying to look into to many details and maybe I need to step away for a bit. It was the Montreal race and Montreal is close to New York and I’d never been to New York so I was like “I’m going to go to New York for a few days and I had some friends with me and I was like let’s just go”. Basically just not think or talk about racing and just go to a new city where racing doesnt exist and have a few drinks and go out and just take a break. That was really the best thing that I did. It really eased me in a lot of ways and it also kind of made me appreciate the sport like missing it everyday made me happy to go back to it after that holiday.

That’s really interesting, cause I was gonna ask you about the lifestyle. Cause F1 is seen as a very glamorous profession . You’re on the road, you’re living out of hotels, you’re away from family etc etc. How do you cope with that and you’ve done it from an early age. You came to Europe and that’s a big step. So how have you managed to shape your mind and keep yourself on the straight and narrow when sometimes it’s just a hotel room and you?

That’s one of the hardest things. I think that’s what actually can break a lot of kids. When they move home it’s really having that long term vision. The first years of me living away from home, yeah I missed home, you know at that point I wasn’t earning any money or I wasn’t guaranteed to make it in F1 or anything but I was like “okay yes this isn’t particularly perfect right now but this is what everyone went through”. This is what Schumacher went through , this is what all the good guys did and this is what I have to do if I want to get there. So it was just I saw it as that. It was a sacrifice but ultimately if this means I can race F1, get paid to do the job I love , then this is nothing. So it was really just that and its all perspective and mindset. It’s understanding that sometimes there is a bit of a slow grind but if it’s going to get you a step closer to what you want then I think anythings worth it.

It’s clearly working cause this is your tenth season in F1 so you know what you’re doing. But I wonder how much of that do you put on you as a person and as a driver? You know the ups and downs, you’ve talked about Montreal, also as someone whos prepared to stand up for what he believes in. I mean look at Lewis Hamilton for example, he seems to have grown into this statesman about black lives matter. But in terms of you and your development in what matters to you would you stay quiet and stick to racing or are you someone who would go “No I need to speak up here”

Yeah that comes with age. Through confidence I guess. Even here in F1 in the drivers meetings you know when I first got to F1 I was quite shy and nervous and didn’t feel like I really belonged in the room so I would be less vocal, less opinionated on somethings and now I feel like I’ve paid my dues in the sport and if I feel like more of a right to speak my mind. Whether that’s right or wrong I don’t know it’s just kind of what I went through in my head and you evolve as a person and you find things that work for you and things that dont and you learn from other people as well. From the path they’ve gone on and whether that did or didn’t work for them. You meet some amazing people and become a sponge basicaslly at a young age in an intertnational sport with you know people from all around the world. I think you know, whether it’s mental health or black lives matter, a lot of this stuff is new for so many people and it’s about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and if you really feel strongly about something to speak up and normally I think you can find it goes a long way. And we have that platform in which to do so.

He seems so level headed don’t you think so Mark. He’s able to ride the storms and whirl pools in Formula 1 and also ride the rapids too and when he gets the right car,he has the ability to show his talent. He’s one of the best out there, the best overtaker there is. He’s able to take the slings and arrows very calmly. I was fascinated to hear about that trip to New York early in his formula one career, just when he had to clear his mind. He was thinking, maybe even overthinking, that everything he was doing should be contributing to success in F1 but it wasn’t. He just had to unplug for a while regroup, rethink with friends and suddenly things start to flow

Yeah that was really interesting. We think of Daniel Ricciardo as not just a great racing driver but as something as a joker, having a good laugh and as a very jolly individual. So to hear him talking about some of the darker sides of being an elite sportsperson was really interesting. My big takeaway from listening to Daniel talking to you John is that when we think about some of the criticisms that Lewis Hamilton gets for some of the interests he has outside of F1 is effectively what Dan is saying are really good things for you mental approach to the sport. That by taking time away and actually doing something different that when you get back into the car, suddenly you’re refreshed and you’re able to crack on. Interesting to hear that in their different ways Daniel and Lewis are essentially doing the same thing and benefitting from it. (X)

#daniel ricciardo #dan #lewis hamilton #lewis #podcasts

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punkscowardschampions · 3 years

Text

Rio & Buster

Rio: I just got the last of my stuff from Dan’s… so that’s officially dealt with and done

Rio: You said your parents had a conference THIS weekend, right?

Buster: Yeah? So he’ll still be crying by then, but you don’t have to be, ‘cause I did say that, they’re [deets] all weekend

Rio: You don’t need to concern yourself with how he is or isn’t feeling ever again, sweet as that is, babe

Rio: Great, because I have likewise just finished convincing my mum that Nance needs some quality girl time and she, for some reason, can’t come here as per and I NEED to go to yours

Rio: I can even pull a sickie Monday so Sunday can really count too

Buster: The party I’m gonna throw is a perfect cover for why you’ve gotta be here with Nance, there ain’t a bigger cunt move than inviting everyone from school to swarm all over our house, and it’ll work for how loudly you’re gonna wanna tell me you miss me when you can get a second away from her

Rio: Even if her go-to is locking herself in her room, I’ll convince her it’ll be more fun to join in

Rio: hers is not the room I don’t wanna leave the whole time I’m there, like

Rio: 🤔 I might be able to invite some people to come hang with her

Rio: Your party will have plenty to offer for people that aren’t me, yeah?

Buster: ‘Course, it’s me hosting it, it’ll have everything

Rio: I won’t oversell it quite that hard 😏

Rio: but I know people who’ll be down

Rio: Ava went with them, or is she coming here?

Buster: Get her drunk and you can come see me play on Sunday before she’s even awake to realise you’re gone

Buster: Ava’s going to a friend’s after school on Friday ‘til they get back, probably having her own kid party, like

Rio: I can just wanna drool over the other lads on your team

Rio: she’ll think that’s standard straight girl behaviour and not bother to get out of bed for it

Rio: Cute

Buster: You can wanna before you’ve seen any of ‘em, yeah

Buster: Long as she steers clear of the Brandy in her friend’s parents drinks cabinet, it’ll be fine

Rio: The whole squads busted? Awkward

Rio: Luckily you know my actual motivation to get up at the crack of dawn

Rio: Undoubtedly, she’s smarter than us

Rio: I know all my siblings make me feel like a total idiot in comparison

Buster: Compared to me

Buster: She’s less reckless than me, but less cautious than Nance, as combinations go, I reckon she’ll do alright with that

Buster: I ain’t sorry for living dangerously though and an idiot is the last thing I feel like

Rio: I don’t need to see them to know that

Rio: Good, because if you were going to turn around and tell me not to come already…

Rio: I was scared you’d get back to London and not talk to me again like before

Rio: like, I didn’t think you would with my rational brain but that other 10% or whatever

Buster: I was thinking you’d not be able to get to London without the excuse of someone getting married or born or dying, shouldn’t have underestimated you, or how much my sister didn’t wanna come back

Rio: Mum is pretty chill, it’s more explaining it when your parents are about

Rio: or when you suddenly want to come here again

Buster: Thank Christ they never are

Rio: It does work in our favour

Rio: and if I wanna see the sights, no one is going to be mad at me staying safe and staying with family to do so, right?

Rio: it’s mainly Nance who we need to worry about

Buster: We don’t have to worry about anything, she’s preoccupied with her own shit

Rio: Yeah, can’t argue with that

Rio: or blame her

Buster: That said, we won’t take unnecessary risks

Rio: When you put it like that, I obviously want to

Rio: only the necessary ones then

Rio: because some are

Buster: Right now they all feel like they are

Rio: Tell me about it

Rio: I feel like I’ve barely been here because I wanna be with you so bad

Buster: Alright, I’ll tell you about how I hard I get when I think about seeing you again so I couldn’t come to the airport even armed with the best excuse to ‘cause a glimpse of you would mean I’d have no choice but to stay in the car and then immediately pile all your suitcases on top of me

Rio: Now I’m going to miss you even more on the drive to yours

Rio: How am I not going to just jump on you as soon as I see you

Buster: I’ll make sure you don’t see me until you can

Rio: Is it better to have the party in full-swing when I arrive or is there any chance we can be properly alone before?

Rio: Could ask Nance to get snacks and stuff for my arrival, that’s a believable amount of cheek from me and would get her out of the house for at least long enough to say hello properly if we time it right

Buster: We’ll time it right then, just ‘cause she ain’t throwing a party don’t mean she can get away with being a shit host

Rio: I think that makes sense

Rio: your friends aren’t going to just ignore me straight away, that’s just facts not being cocky

Rio: so it might take a while to get lost during

Buster: Yeah, they don’t all show up wasted, some of ‘em can handle their pre-drinks

Rio: I should hope so, even if they’re all posh boys

Rio: otherwise the friends I’m gathering could be unimpressed enough to trash your place and that isn’t the energy we’re looking for

Buster: Only if we could convince Nance to handle the clean up on her own and the line of how much of a pushover she is has gotta be drawn somewhere

Rio: I somehow can’t see it

Rio: especially as they’re meant to cheer her up, not do the opposite

Rio: At least your place is big

Buster: And I’ve only got the one sibling getting in our way, it’s fucking never-ending at yours

Rio: There is double the amount of us compared to yous

Rio: If I can handle them, this will be easy

Buster: Exactly

Rio: When we go to your match, can we go somewhere after, get some breakfast or something

Buster: My victory ain’t gonna celebrate itself, babe, and I know just the place

Rio: I’m excited 😁😁

Rio: For all of it, not just the promise of breakfast, obviously

Buster: I’d do more if I could, I want to, but it’ll look weird if I take you shopping or whatever before Nance can

Rio: I know

Rio: we can’t take those kind of risks yet

Rio: It’ll be easier when we’re a bit older and me showing up on a whim to shop is more plausible

Rio: I swear this is the worst age to be, no one totally trusts you to be an adult but you don’t get treated like the kids either when they want you to be ‘grown up’ 🙄

Buster: There has to be a way we can go from everyone believing we hate each other to not thinking it’s fucked we wanna spend time together like we used to without having to wait that long

Rio: You’d think but I can’t 🤔

Rio: Unless you want your whole perception with the rest of the fam to change too

Rio: Obviously it’s fine that we’ve got more in common, we’re closest in age

Rio: but if you don’t give the rest the time of day at all, that’ll raise eyebrows

Buster: I taught them all how to fight and play football, didn’t I? It ain’t my fault Grace isn’t into any of that, or that Nance and your brother are the real anti-social ones

Rio: Yeah, but that was a while ago now

Rio: I doubt anyone would say anything but it’ll probably be weird you showing up at fam functions again for a while

Rio: but only in a way that ultimately benefits you, they’ll think you’re growing up and being all mature

Buster: Fuck’s sake, I can hear everyone now, the bullshit they’d have to say

Rio: Yeah, it’ll make you wanna die

Rio: but I’ll make it worth it

Buster: You already have, I’ll do it for you, I’d do anything

Rio: You know I will for you too

Rio: Including ditching your sister as much as is possible without being a total bitch

Buster: She’s still as heavy a sleeper as she always was

Rio: That is a theory we’re going to have to test

Rio: There’s zero chance I can promise to be quiet all weekend

Buster: Me either, but I like our odds after my solo tests

Rio: That was so 🤓 sounding but also 🤤

Rio: Rude

Buster: Call it preparation, that’s who I am here, like

Rio: I know who you are

Buster: Good, don’t forget ‘cause of who I have to be

Rio: Up until very recently you were still treating me like you hated me, remember

Rio: I can handle it

Buster: You’ve never been here, however I’ve treated you at family functions is still toned down, Nance doesn’t hate me for no reason, you know

Rio: I’m not her though

Buster: I don’t want you to have to handle it anymore, that’s all

Rio: You have to do what you have to do

Rio: You live there, I don’t

Rio: Say what you want to your friends

Buster: Okay

Rio: It is okay

Rio: I mean, what’s the alternative?

Rio: I understand why you have to

Buster: Like you said, this age is shit, there won’t be an alternative until we’re older

Rio: Yeah, if you even think about treating me like this when you go to Uni

Rio: I don’t care what your friends think about me

Rio: it’s not like I plan to just take it anyway

Buster: You didn’t have to be so hot about it or get me thinking about how incredible the future is gonna be when the present is torturous enough

Rio: Yeah I did

Rio: can’t have you forgetting how you really feel about me

Rio: Maybe you can just stay at Uni forever

Rio: it’s practically expected you won’t keep in touch or come home enough

Rio: we can be together every day, with no one around to interrupt us

Buster: That’s settled then

Rio: 😄🥰

Buster: What time’s your flight?

Rio: [a time early enough that the party won’t be on and we’re keen

but not so early Nancy will be like umm can you not come then lol]

Buster: You really want me to keep feeling a type of way about you, yeah?

Rio: That should be obvious by now

Rio: You can’t get sick of me ever

Buster: It should be obvious by now that I won’t

Rio: Don’t

Rio: Everything’s changed for good

Rio: I have

Buster: Even if I still wanted to pretend, I can’t, I barely could before, it’s not gonna happen, Rio

Rio: Me either, I’m scared I can barely pretend as much as we need to to stop doing it in private

Rio: never mind fully going fucking back

Buster: You’ll do what you have to as well, I know you and what you can handle even if I don’t like that it’s the way things are

Rio: I’m sick of thinking about what I have to do, what I need is you

Buster: You’ve got me, whether you’re here or not, whatever else is going on in your head or what bullshit is happening around us, I’m with you for it

Rio: I love you

Buster: I love you too

Rio: What kind of thing do Chelsea girls wear to house parties then?

Buster: Nothing you ever would

Buster: It's really bad, like

Rio: 😂

Rio: Okay, I’ll look good and stand out instead of trying to match the energy then

Buster: There really ain't no alternative in this instance, babe

Rio: You won’t be into my cosplay, noted 😏

Buster: Not unless it was the school uniform you were planning on nicking, anything else they wear isn't gonna do fuck all for either of us

Rio: Obviously I have that outfit

Rio: If you can think of any valid reason I’d have that packed, like

Buster: Insisting on costumes before my birthday is a weird flex but I've done worse

Rio: They’d be fuming at the lack of notice

Rio: plus I’d never convince your sister to leave her room if she has to wear a stupid costume

Rio: next time

Buster: I do wanna see what you're gonna wear for me when you're not also dressing for a wedding/Easter egg hunt

Rio: Good thing you aren’t the only one who can rise to the challenge under pressure

Rio: I’m pretty sure I know exactly what you like, as I’ve had to dress to get your attention for years now

Rio: It’s how much attention you want your friends to be paying me too

Buster: However you dress all eyes will be on you anyway, from the moment you walk in, I can and will give you every compliment on what you’re wearing and how you look, obviously, but it ain’t stopping there

Buster: It’s everything else too, from the way you move to what you do and don’t say, it’s exactly what I like ‘cause I’ve got good taste, and if they’ve got any, they’re gonna wanna rise to the challenge of trying to get your attention

Rio: You’re the one who always knows exactly what to say

Rio: I’m so lucky

Rio: so they can try, no one but you registers for me

Buster: It’s not luck, what I say is in direct response to you and how you make me feel, the try hard girls ‘round here who haven’t ever registered for me would be lucky to get a second of eye contact Buster: You know you deserve every word and gesture

Rio: I’d attempt sympathy if I didn’t know how bitchy they were

Buster: Don’t or I’d have be more serious in offering it to the paperboy

Rio: 😏

Rio: I think I feel bad enough for both of us, it’s fine

Buster: No it ain’t, you’ve got fuck all to feel bad about, he wasn’t good enough for you, end of

Rio: I can still feel sorry for him

Rio: Obviously it was the right thing to do

Buster: He’ll feel sorry enough for himself for not keeping hold of you, as he should

Rio: Bless him

Buster: He’s not someone to waste any more of your time thinking about, like I said, it’s his loss

Rio: I’m not

Rio: All I really think about is you

Buster: As long as you’re not feeling sorry for me

Rio: I have a bit more self-esteem than that, babe

Buster: If you don’t now you will when you get here

Rio: You wouldn’t risk it if I wasn’t worth it

Rio: Likewise

Rio: There’s no pretending you aren’t just

Rio: everything I want

Buster: It’s not a risk ‘cause we won’t get caught, but I’d want you even if it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done instead of the only thing that makes sense

Rio: You know what I mean though

Rio: even if we never get caught

Rio: it could still be a total headfuck

Buster: Nothing’s gonna change my mind, however much of a headfuck it is, we’ll handle it, it’s not gonna be worse than what we’ve already had to

Rio: Seeing you before was honestly tortuous

Rio: as much as I’d dread what you would say, how much you’d ignore me and I’d have to ignore you

Rio: I also wanted to savour every second of it and it was never long enough

Buster: Seeing who you’d bring nearly killed me every time, and them, but as much as I wanted them to fuck off, it was the thought that you’d follow ‘em out if they did that I dreaded most, ‘cause yeah, for all the family functions, there was still never enough time even with every second I then spent reliving it later

Rio: I never did though

Rio: I couldn’t miss anything, even if all I missed was more ignoring

Buster: Don’t act like I could ever really ignore you

Rio: Didn’t you sometimes believe it

Rio: Think you were convincing yourself that there was something there that wasn’t

Buster: I sometimes believed you wanted me to

Rio: Exactly, we both must’ve ‘wanted’ that on some level some of the time

Rio: even if we really wanted the opposite, both could be true, you know

Buster: I don’t just do whatever the hell I want, contrary to popular belief, you know

Rio: Of course I do

Rio: This is big

Buster: I knew what I wanted then, now and always

Rio: I just wish things were simpler

Rio: but they aren’t, and I can and will handle how they are

Buster: How I feel is the part that is, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep the rest as simple as possible for you

Rio: This is better than what we were doing, that’s a start

Buster: Yeah, but I can do better

Rio: I don’t know if I can handle better 🥴

Buster: I definitely don’t believe that, babe

Rio: We’ll have fun working out who’s right

Buster: I am, but you won’t mind being proved wrong

Rio: I need it to be the weekend NOW

Buster: I can’t give you that, which is making me angry, so where are you now?

Rio: Home

Rio: Meant to be doing homework

Buster: Anyone else meant to be doing it with you?

Rio: Even if there was, you know they aren’t

Buster: [Obviously call her cos you miss her and are extra]

Rio: I love hearing your voice

Buster: It was starting to feel like forever since I’d heard yours

Rio: Day to day is so normal and boring without you I don’t even know what to do

Buster: I’ll have to keep doing what I can to make sure you’re not bored

Rio: The problem isn’t you it’s everything else

Rio: you’re never boring

Buster: Which is exactly why it’s a problem I can solve by helping you forget about everything else

Rio: I love you

Rio: so, do you actually like any of your friends or what’s the craic

Rio: I’ll be less rude to those ones if you do

Buster: Of course I don’t, what’s to like?

Rio: I don’t know, I’ve never met them

Rio: I know the people Nancy particularly dislikes, if only by name

Rio: but they’re actually your quote unquote friends, some of them might be okay, to you anyway

Buster: Come on, don’t underestimate yourself, you’ve met me and admitted to checking my socials regularly

Buster: You’ll be as good a judge as I am who to avoid at the weekend and who you could take a shot with without risking that boredom again

Rio: I was mainly giving you a chance to talk about it

Rio: I doubt anyone else is asking

Buster: And I’m giving you the chance to make up your own mind, I already said don’t feel sorry for me

Rio: I will regardless

Rio: and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to

Buster: I know I don’t, like you don’t need my permission to treat any of the partygoers however you want to, whether I reckon they’re a cunt or not

Rio: You don’t need to be sarky about it

Buster: You don’t need to be patronising about it either, like, how that shit is is how it’s been for long enough that I know what I’m doing

Rio: I wasn’t being patronising, I was trying to talk to you but I won’t fucking bother then

Buster: That’s an impossibly quick turnaround from me not having to talk about it if I don’t want to, but fine

Rio: We’ve talked about stuff like that before

Rio: I told you how I don’t feel like one of them properly either here; so what, you suddenly don’t want to talk to me about anything important?

Buster: What do you want me to say? I’m not drunk now and I’m not Nance

Rio: Fine

Rio: I have things I should be doing anyway

Buster: Don’t be like that, you know I wanna talk to you about everything, it doesn’t mean it’s that simple

Rio: If you didn’t want to, then just say that

Rio: You don’t need to turn it into a whole thing and act like I’m the idiot for asking

Buster: That’s what I do, or did, before

Rio: Old habits and all that, sure

Buster: I’m sorry, to start a new one

Rio: Okay, we can rewind to before that whole part of this conversation

Buster: No, you’re right, we should talk about it, otherwise what I said about being able to do better, anything I’ve said to big myself up, is bullshit and I might as well get a paper round too

Rio: There’s nothing wrong with a paper round 😏

Rio: I’m not asking you to be ‘perfect’

Rio: whatever that even is

Rio: I just genuinely thought you might want to talk about it, that’s all

Buster: As a kid, but however immature that lot are, I ain’t one any more and I don’t wanna be dragged down to their fucking level, ‘cause I’m above it

Buster: So are you, my definition of perfect at least, I wanna be someone who deserves you, not the kind of cunt who feels so powerless all he can do is bitch and moan about it, but I know lashing out at being backed into a corner ain’t no better this time or what I want either, not when you’re the target

Buster: There’s usually something I can actually do, options I have, that’s who I am, but keeping the two worlds separate isn’t gonna work now that you’re the centre of both

Rio: You already deserve me, no conditions

Rio: but I’m not going to hold you to the standard you have to be with your friends, or judge you for doing it, I’d do the same

Buster: I told you they bring out the worst in me, there are no standards

Rio: How else are you meant to fill your time

Rio: We’re teenagers, not adults just because we’re not kids

Rio: You don’t have to judge yourself that harshly for it

Buster: Why not? Everyone else is, including you not long ago

Rio: It’s not something your parents can really get on board with

Rio: and only because you were being a twat to me, that’s not necessary to the rest of it, surely

Buster: I didn’t mean them, but whatever

Buster: It was all connected, part of what I had to do

Rio: No one’s gonna thank you for being a prick, especially if they can’t see your reasoning and motivations

Rio: Maybe she should be able to but she’s preoccupied with her own feelings towards it all

Rio: If you’re fed up of feeling like the bad guy, you have to find time when you ain’t, or of course you’re gonna feel like that’s who you actually are

Buster: I know

Rio: I don’t think you’re the bad guy

Rio: Ava doesn’t

Buster: She doesn’t yet, there’s loads of time for it though before I’m done with school and everyone there

Rio: Respectfully, I don’t think you’ll have to fail to protect her from bullies

Rio: Not that it is that simple, but you know what I’m saying

Rio: She’ll be, what, 12/13, when you get done with school, it’s not gonna happen

Buster: That’s not the only way to be a prick is all I’m saying

Rio: Go on

Rio: Why else do you reckon Nancy doesn’t like you now

Buster: Old habits die hard, like you said, and I’ve formed plenty she reckons are bad hanging out with them and if you’ve got things you should be doing it’d be quicker to speculate on what she don’t hate about me by this point

Rio: She’s probably jealous, though it would not be worth pointing that out

Rio: even if she thinks they’re the worst, you still have people to do stuff with and she doesn’t

Buster: Everyone who meets me is, difference is, she knows it’s not effortless, I keep my schedule full, with the good as well as the bad and put work in while she’s doing fuck all but feeling sorry for herself and jealous of what I’ve got

Rio: I think she tries, or at least did try

Rio: but it wasn’t exactly working for her so why bother at this point, right

Buster: You can’t just try once and give up, yeah I scored first time but it took ages before I knocked someone out in the ring, ‘course you’re gonna get nowhere if you don’t make what you want happen

Rio: I don’t think she wants it though

Rio: you’re making the best out of a bad situation, yeah

Rio: but she’d rather not, that doesn’t mean she loves being friendless, just it’s slightly preferable to being friends with people she doesn’t like

Buster: Nobody’s saying she has to be friends with them, the whole school ain’t against her, she’s got other options

Rio: I’m not saying she’s fully in the right, no way

Rio: She just can’t see further than what they say right now

Buster: I’ve done what I can to make her see sense

Rio: I know

Rio: I just don’t think that’s gonna happen, I’m sorry

Buster: Don’t worry, I wasn’t holding my breath or anything, I know which battles are worth picking

Rio: You’ll get there, just probably not for a while

Rio: She needs to sort herself out, it’s literally not your battle

Buster: Tell me something I don’t know, like

Rio: You clearly do feel a bit responsible

Rio: even if you could have done some things different, doesn’t mean this wouldn’t have still happened and she wouldn’t still feel like this

Buster: She’s my sister, I do have a responsibility to look out for her, but that don’t mean she’s not responsible for making it worse for herself after I’ve done everything I can to try and sort it out

Rio: I don’t disagree

Buster: Good

Rio: I’ll keep talking to her anyway

Rio: even if it doesn’t achieve much either

Buster: If anyone could get through to her it’d be you, I haven’t forgot about any the shit you managed to talk me out of when we were younger

Rio: I wasn’t that much of a fun sponge though thank you

Rio: I said yes to plenty of things too 😏

Buster: Just the things I should probably thank you for, if it wasn't more fun to focus on what you've said yes to, especially recently

Rio: It is more fun to say yes to you, especially recently

Rio: ‘scuse me whilst I enjoy the flashback 🤤🤤🤤

Buster: It's only gonna get more fun

Buster: I can't believe you're actually coming here but the frequency of those flashbacks will keep it feeling real

Rio: Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate from all the fantasies and daydreams from before though, they felt so real

Rio: [pic] that should help

Buster: It’s definitely proof I didn’t need that you won’t have any problem living up to the years of dreams I’ve had

Rio: That’s all I want right now

Rio: I can prove to you how worth it this is all going to be

Buster: It’s always fun to give you what you want, as long as you know you don’t actually have anything left to prove, I knew how worth it this is and would be before you’d ever even touched me

Rio: I have to keep proving it, I can’t take this or you for granted

Rio: I never thought this would actually happen

Rio: I’m not going to waste a second being second best, trust me

Buster: You won't, trust me, there's nobody you could come second to, this is happening 'cause we're joint first and I've never met anyone else I could say that about with a straight face

Rio: It makes perfect sense, when you think about it

Rio: Who else?

Rio: There’s no one else like you and no one else like me

Rio: We’ve both tried

Buster: Exactly, and now the only regret I have is how long I spent fighting against it

Rio: Even if I could fight it longer

Rio: I don’t want to, it’s exhausting

Buster: We don’t have to, Thank Christ, keeping it a secret will seem loads easier by comparison

Rio: Seriously

Rio: not to mention it has all the potential to be kinda fun and pretty hot

Rio: because we won’t get caught, so we can just enjoy the thrill for what it is

Buster: I object to kinda fun and pretty hot, but when we don’t get caught and you’re enjoying the thrill I’ll get you to be much more enthusiastic, like

Rio: 😅

Rio: I’m not as good with words as you, poor baby

Rio: it’s so unfair

Buster: Nah, I object to that too, you’re incredible with words and actions

Rio: Actions, I’ll agree to

Rio: Words I’ll work on

Rio: not everyone likes that

Buster: There’s nothing you need to work on

Rio: 🤏🥺

Buster: I don’t have a single complaint

Rio: I just wanted to hear you say that 😋

Buster: I’ll tell you how perfect you are as many times as you want

Rio: ‘til you can’t speak

Buster: Losing my voice is the only thing that’ll stop me

Rio: Challenge accepted

Rio: I can make it happen before that point

Buster: I’d still be able to use actions to tell you though, the actual challenge would be anyone or anything stopping me doing that

Rio: I definitely can’t pack handcuffs

Rio: LOVE to see their faces at the airport, like

Buster: We’ll think of something else to use that either you can pack or I already have in my room

Rio: I can’t believe I’ve never been in your room

Rio: still weird to think about

Buster: Yeah, like you said, some of the fantasties felt so real

Rio: I wish I could stay in there with you

Buster: Once Nance is asleep you can

Rio: I know, I just don’t wanna think of you on your own

Buster: You won’t get a chance to think about anything like that, don’t worry

Rio: Okay, so what DO I pack

Buster: Your necklace, obviously

Rio: I haven’t taken it off

Rio: it’s so gorgeous 😍

Rio: never met a boy with taste

Buster: Good ‘cause I haven’t either

Buster: You’ve met me, didn’t you think I had taste before?

Rio: You weren’t buying me jewellery and I wouldn’t want to know if you were anyone else

Buster: ‘Course not, but since when is that solely the benchmark for good taste? You’ve seen what I’ve bought myself

Rio: You can have good taste for yourself and terrible taste in girl’s stuff

Rio: You’ve seen what your friends think is hot in the opposite sex

Buster: Other lads can and they do but don’t underestimate me, babe

Rio: No more

Buster: I just wanted to hear you say it

Rio: What else do you wanna hear me say?

Buster: Right now? Everything you probably shouldn't get into the habit of saying even if Nance is out of the way

Rio: [Audio examples of that]

Rio: Can’t call it a habit yet, we’re safe

Buster: You sure? Sounds like it could be becoming a habit to me

Rio: You aren’t going to keep an eye on me to make sure?

Buster: That’s already a habit, you know that, can’t keep my eyes off you

Rio: I don’t mind some codependence

Buster: That’s a relief ‘cause it’s arguably either too early or too late for you to try and change me

Rio: I don’t wanna change you

Buster: ‘Course not, why would you? We’re perfect for each other as is

Rio: and you’re perfect

Buster: You are, but yeah, I’m keeping up

Rio: You are

Rio: on both counts, thank you

Buster: You ain’t seen nothing yet, babe, but you will, when you get here

Rio: Call me? So it doesn’t seem so far off still 😖😩

Buster: [obviously will even though he did earlier because what is chill]

1 note · View note

antiadvil · 4 years

Text

Electrify My Heart

summary: Dan Howell picks his college major almost at random. Even after a gap year, he doesn’t know what he wants to do, so he supposes he might as well pick whatever will make him the most employable and impress the largest number of his relatives. Within his first semester, he knows he made a mistake and switches out. Except Dan’s major isn’t law. It’s computer science, and Phil is his TA.

rating: PG13

wc: 13k

notes: for all the notes go read the ao3 version but tldr ty @itsmyusualphannie for being beta and ty to lots of other ppl and imposter syndrome real

read on ao3 or under the cut

College was hard, Dan decided, and his classes hadn’t even started yet. All he had wanted was coffee, and god, why did everything have to be so hard? He was waiting in line at a coffee shop on campus with some cutesy name- “The Daily Grind”- and a ridiculously long line. Really, it should not be taking this long to get one iced coffee. He was just beginning to wonder if he should give up and go somewhere else when someone slammed into him from behind. Dan stumbled and fell.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry.”

Thank god Dan hadn’t gotten his coffee yet. “You’re fine,” he said automatically, standing up.

“Seriously, I’m sorry. Are you alright?” A face with shaggy black hair and blue eyes peered intently at him.

“Yup,” Dan said, “Pretty sure.”

“Let me at least buy your coffee for nearly killing you.”

Dan froze. “Uhhhhh…”

The boy laughed. “Calm down, I’m not asking you out. I just mean coffee. Don’t worry.”

“Oh,” Dan said, relieved. “Uh, yeah, that’d be great. Coffee, I mean.”

“Great,” he said. “I’m Phil, by the way.”

“Dan.”

It turned out that Phil was a grad student in computer science, the same subject Dan was majoring in. Dan’s eyes glazed over when Phil started talking about what exactly his specialization was (something about human-computer interaction and other words Dan didn’t understand), but Phil steered the conversation away from that pretty quickly once he noticed Dan’s reaction.

“So you’re a freshman? How’s the college life treating you so far?”

Dan shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. It’s kind of nice not having my parents around, but also, I’m really bad at doing adult things.”

Phil smiled. “It’s okay, I didn’t really know how to cook until I got an apartment my junior year. As long as you know the basics-”

“No,” Dan interrupted. “Like, I’m really bad at doing adult things. I set my ramen on fire because I didn’t know you needed to put water in.”

Phil was clearly struggling to remain composed. “Recently?” he inquired politely.

“Yes,” Dan said.

Phil laughed, and the way he laughed made Dan feel like there was a slowly growing bubble inside of him. “I’m sorry,” Phil said, “But look on the bright side. That’s actually hilarious,” and Dan had to admit it was.

When they parted two hours later, after all the ice in his coffee had melted, Dan had added Phil on every social media platform known to man and had Phil’s number saved in his phone with instructions to text if he had any issues.

Dan wanted to, he really did. He had never wanted to text anyone so badly. He gathered the courage to send a “Hi! It’s Dan!” text, then quickly threw his phone across the room, only to pick it back up immediately when it buzzed with Phil’s response.

It was just a smiley face. Why was Dan so excited about a fucking smiley face? A fucking smiley face that Phil probably only sent because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Dan spent the rest of his weekend in his dorm, leaving only to attend exactly one welcome event and spend a truly disturbing amount of time (and money) at The Daily Grind, hoping he’d run into Phil again. Why Dan didn’t just text him, he couldn’t explain. He hadn’t sent anything since the introduction text and Phil’s smiley face reply.

If the universe wanted him and Phil to be friends, the universe would have to work a bit harder.

***

Classes started the next Monday. After the disaster that was the one welcome event he attended, he had spoken to exactly zero people, unless you counted the barista at The Daily Grind. He was almost relieved when classes started just because he’d be around other people again, and if that didn’t say something about how isolated he was, he didn’t know what did.

His relief quickly vanished when his alarm went off at seven am for his eight am calculus discussion section. He dragged himself across campus to his classroom, where he promptly fell asleep when given a worksheet. No one in his group woke him up, and when the TA came around to collect their worksheets, Dan sheepishly turned in a piece of paper with his name on it and a few scribbled numbers he must have written before he passed out.

Dan looked longingly at the time on his phone. He really didn’t have time to take a nap before his next lecture, but oh, he desperately wanted to. He considered skipping, but he knew he should at least attend the first lecture to get an idea of what the attendance policy was like.

He found somewhere on the main quad to sit for a bit, but he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, a bell was faintly buzzing in a nearby building, his CS 115 lecture was starting right now, and he still wasn’t sure exactly where it was.

He ended up being around ten minutes late, and as he paused outside the wooden double doors to catch his breath, he again considered just not going. He checked the time again and groaned. He really did feel bad walking in so late, but it was either that or not at all. He straightened up, wiped his hands on his shorts, and opened the door as quietly as possible.

His eyes worked over the seats, searching for an empty spot. There was an entire empty row in the front, but there was no way in hell Dan was sitting there. He spotted a seat in the middle of the back row, and briefly debated turning around and leaving so he wouldn’t have to ask the people at the ends of the row to move.

After looking around again, he braced himself and walked up to the end of the row.

“Excuse me?” Dan whispered.

The girl sitting at the end of the row rolled her eyes and tossed her blue hair over her shoulder, closing her laptop and standing up so Dan could pass.

“Thanks,” Dan whispered, moving past her, which required them to be far closer than Dan was entirely comfortable with.

The rest of the row was mostly a blur of groans and snickers, but everyone at least moved their laptops back so Dan could step over their knees.

Finally, Dan sat down in his seat, his ears burning, and pulled out his laptop.

The professor paused. “And if everyone could make an effort to be on time next time,” she said with a mildness that terrified Dan, “That would be appreciated. Thank you.”

Dan shrunk into his seat. An auspicious beginning to his college career. Hopefully, his lab later in the day would be better than his lecture.

It was not. After standing in line for at least twenty minutes and eating a rushed lunch and attending a two-hour-long lecture for his film class, which was interesting but incredibly long, he showed up to his lab.

He was on time, at least. He even managed to find an empty table. But then the empty table started filling up, and his tablemates all wanted to talk to him, and it was almost a relief when the TA walked in to start class. His relief vanished when he and the TA made eye contact.

It was Phil.

Phil’s eyes widened slightly, but he recovered quickly. He pulled out his laptop and adjusted his glasses. “Welcome to your first lab section,” he said. “I’m Phil Lester, your TA. I’m here to help you work through your lab problems, homework problems, and Machine Project, but they’re ultimately graded by the online autograder, which I have no control over, so bring up any issues about grading to Professor Ross. Any questions?”

Someone’s chair squeaked.

“Okay then,” Phil said. “Today’s lab is to download, configure, and familiarize yourself with IntelliJ. I’m sure that sounds easy, but even experienced programmers have issues getting used to IntelliJ, which is why we’ve devoted a lab period to it. Your instructions are online. Let me or the CAs know if you need help with anything.”

The lab passed with mind numbing boredom, but by the end, with the help of his tablemates and a bored-looking Course Assistant, Dan had IntelliJ up and running.

As he stood to leave, his stomach growled. He really should have picked a lab that was earlier in the day, but whatever. Even if Dan was able to figure out how to use his student portal, it was probably too late to transfer lab sections. He glanced at Phil, but he seemed absorbed in helping another student, so Dan just put his laptop in his backpack and trudged away.

He stepped outside the Computer Science Center and took a deep breath, aiming himself towards his dorm and a thirty-minute walk home, but he was interrupted.

“Hey! Hey, Dan,” Phil said, running after him. “How’d I do?”

Dan looked up. “Phil?”

“Yup,” Phil said. “It’s so funny that you ended up in my class. It must be fate.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“Well, you’re no fun,” Phil observed.

“There’s a thing called coincidence.”

“I’m just trying to think of a smooth way to ask you to coffee again, Dan. Work with me here.”

“Is that allowed?” Dan asked.

“Being friends with people in your lab section? It’s not exactly encouraged, but I don’t grade you or anything, so as long as I don’t display blatant favoritism it should be fine.”

So he really did just mean coffee. Again. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You won’t. Besides, if I did get in trouble, which I won’t, it would be my fault, not yours.”

Dan shrugged.

“Anyway, if you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine. But I really liked you and thought it would be nice to spend time together sometime. You know, if that’s cool. I know you probably have a ton of work right now, but if you get a chance.”

Phil was nervous, Dan realized. “I think I’d like that,” he said slowly.

Phil smiled. “Text me,” he said, reaching out to touch Dan’s hand briefly. “Anyway, which way are we headed?”

“My dorm’s kind of far.” It was the farthest dorm from the main quad, actually, since Dan had put off registering for housing until a week before the deadline.

“My apartment’s definitely farther. Want a ride?”

“Where are you parked?”

Phil jerked his head to the left. “Like ten minutes that way?”

Dan hesitated. Yes, he did want a ride from Phil. But Phil’s car was parked on the opposite side of campus from his dorm, and it would probably take just as long to walk to Phil’s car and get a ride to his dorm as it would to just walk there.

“Sure,” he said before he could regret it.

“Cool,” Phil said, starting to walk. “So, how are you liking CS so far?”

“It’s fine,” Dan said cautiously, following him.

“No, really,” Phil said. “I do course development for CS 115. I want to know if I made it better or worse.” He flicked his hair out of his face. “I also want to know how things are going for you, of course,” Phil added hastily.

“The homework’s been kind of hard,” Dan said hesitantly.

Phil nodded. “Did you take APCS in high school?”

Dan shook his head.

“No prior coding experience?” Phil continued.

Dan nodded.

Phil nodded. “Yeah, that would do it. Coding has a really harsh learning curve, and Java, in particular, is really unpleasant to beginners. If it were up to me, the class would be taught in Python or something, but we already have so much infrastructure for Java, and a lot of people in the CS department don’t like Python, so it’s probably not happening.”

“Oh.”

Phil shrugged. “Sorry, you’re probably not that interested in how I think your class should be taught. I kind of do that sometimes, talk about things I think are really interesting but no one else does.”

“It’s fine,” Dan said, and weirdly, it was. When Phil talked about things, he had this way of drawing people in- Dan could listen to him for ages. ��The way you talk about it makes interesting.”

It was hard to tell in the slanted light of the setting sun, but Phil might have blushed. “Thanks,” he said, “But you really don’t want to get me started on my thesis topic. It’s embarrassing how much I talk about it.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Dan reasoned.

“My ex-boyfriend cited it as one of the reasons he decided to break up with me,” Phil said.

Dan winced. “I’m sorry.”

Phil laughed, but it wasn’t the laugh he normally laughed. This laugh was harsh and brittle. “It’s not your fault.”

Dan didn’t have a lot of bad breakup stories, but he thought he’d try. “I dumped my ex-boyfriend because I found him on Tinder under a fake name.”

“How’d you know it was him then?” Phil asked.

“Oh, he used his real photos. Just the name was fake.”

“Yikes.”

“You could say that again,” Dan said. “Anyway, I lived. It wasn’t that great of a relationship anyway.”

They had reached Phil’s car. Phil fished in his pocket for his keys. Dan awkwardly stood by the side of his car, debating whether to sit in the front or the back seat, before deciding he was not a twelve-year-old being given a ride by his friend’s dad, and ducking into the front passenger’s seat.

“Which dorm?” Phil asked, starting the car.

“Walton,” Dan said.

“Nice,” Phil said. “I didn’t go here for my undergrad, but I hear that’s one of the better ones.”

Dan shrugged. “It’s okay. I got a single, which is nice, but it’s kind of far from all my classes.”

Phil nodded.

“Do you know how to get there?” Dan asked.

“Not really,” Phil confessed.

“Me neither,” Dan said.

“Can you navigate?” Phil asked. “If I tried to Google Maps and drive at the same time I would one hundred percent kill us both. I have no coordination.”

“Encouraging,” Dan said, pulling out his phone and typing his address in.

Phil laughed. “It’s okay. I’m not the world’s best driver, but I’m not the worst, either. Probably.”

“If you say so,” Dan said. “Okay, take a left here.”

Phil turned.

“Okay, then go straight for a while-”

“That’s what my mom said when I came out as bisexual.”

Dan sputtered. “What?”

Phil clarified. “Well, she said she hoped that wouldn’t stop me from settling down with a nice girl someday. But later it turned out I was gay, so joke’s on her.”

“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t known Phil was gay, and that knowledge sent a knot to Dan’s stomach that he decided to ignore. He was not attracted to Phil, he reminded himself firmly. “I haven’t told my parents I’m… whatever, yet.”

Phil nodded. “That’s fine. Coming from high school, I assumed that most people were out to their parents, but it turns out that lots of people aren’t out to their parents. I actually feel like most people aren’t. I don’t know, maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, but I just wanted to let you know. Plenty of people have gay lives at college and their parents don’t have any idea.” He paused for a moment. “Sorry. That was probably weird.”

It was, a little bit, but Dan didn’t say so. “Thanks,” he said. “Um, right here. I mean, turn right. Sorry.”

“Got it,” Phil said, turning. He abruptly braked for someone crossing the street. “God, I hate driving on campus.”

The person crossing the street turned around and glared. “I think the feeling is mutual,” said Dan.

Phil started driving again, more carefully this time. “At least it’s not winter. Driving in the winter here ranks as one of the worst experiences of my life.”

“Is it that bad?” Dan asked.

Phil laughed. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Dan blushed. “No.”

“I bet you didn’t even bring a coat.”

“Was I supposed to? Can’t that wait until Thanksgiving?”

Phil glanced at Dan, incredulous. “You didn’t bring a winter coat?”

Dan shrugged. “Is that bad?”

“Dear god. You’re going to die. When it gets cold, remind me to lend you a coat. I have extra.”

Dan’s face was still hot. “You don’t need to-”

“I want to.”

Dan felt like his face was on fire. “That would be nice. If you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it,” Phil said.

Dan shrugged. He was glad that Phil was focusing on the road and couldn’t see his face, which was probably getting redder by the minute.

“Some people do that,” Dan said.

Phil glanced at Dan and smiled. “I don’t. Whenever I offer you something, I mean it, okay?”

“Okay,” Dan said, staring at his feet.

Phil laughed. “You sound like I’m yelling at you. I’m offering you help, Dan. If you don’t need it or you don’t feel comfortable getting it from me, that’s fine, but don’t say no just to avoid being a burden. You’re not.”

“Sorry,” Dan said.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Phil said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sor-” Dan started, then stopped. “Thanks,” he said.

“That’s better,” Phil said.

Dan laughed. “Are you sure you’re not majoring in early childhood education? You sound like my kindergarten teacher.”

“Pretty sure,” Phil said, “But I was actually looking into being a professor for a while.”

“Wait, really?”

Phil laughed dryly. “Yeah. That dream lasted about three months into my Master’s. There is no way I could survive a Ph.D. program.”

“Oh,” said Dan. “Sorry.”

Phil glanced over at Dan. “You’re doing it again.”

“I am sorry, though. That sucks.”

Phil shrugged. “It really isn’t that bad. You can get some pretty sweet jobs with a Master’s degree in computer science. Just not generally jobs being a computer science professor.” Phil pulled up outside Dan’s dorm. “Anyway. This is you, right?”

Dan started. “Yeah. It is. Uh, thanks.”

Phil smiled. “Yeah. No problem. Let me know if you need a ride anywhere again.”

“I will,” said Dan, who had no intention of becoming such a burden.

“Or if you ever need any help with anything CS-related or anything. You’re not bothering me, I swear. I love computer science and I love helping people.”

Dan couldn’t help but doubt that. “Thanks,” he said, still with no intention of becoming such a burden.

“Have a good night!” Phil called as Dan stepped out of the car.

“You too!” Dan said, shutting the door.

***

Dan’s first week of classes flew by in a blur. He had more homework than he’d ever had in his life, and he was handling it badly. Luckily, most of his professors seemed pretty understanding about it- his film professor gave him an extension on a reading quiz he completely forgot about, and none of his CS homework assignments were due until two weeks into class.

Before he knew it, the first Machine Project for CS 115 was released. He mostly ignored the initial release since the deadline wasn’t for two more weeks- he had plenty of other homework to do anyway. A truly astounding number of papers to write for his English and film classes, a crushing number of assignments for his physics and calculus classes, and the daily homework problems for CS 115 on top of all that.

He continued isolating himself. He wasn’t proud of it, but it seemed like everyone around him had condensed into social groups while he wasn’t paying attention, and now even when he tried, they wouldn’t let him in.

He didn’t mind too much. He wouldn’t pretend it was fun, eating meals in the dining hall on his own and sitting by himself in every lecture, but social interaction was too painful to be worth it. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he had time to have friends. It wasn’t like he had an abundance of free time to kill.

Anyway, he had Phil. Dan was still a little bit scared of him- he was a grad student after all, and Dan was just a freshman- but they talked sometimes outside of class. Phil sent Dan memes about computers that he didn’t always understand. Dan replied with memes about video games they both played. They usually talked after Dan’s lab. Phil offered him a ride home again, but after Dan declined once, he didn’t offer again. They met up at the coffee shop once to study together, and even though Dan didn’t get much done that day, just being around Phil made him feel much better.

It was already the deadline day when Dan finally remembered his MP. He hadn’t meant to leave it this late, he really hadn’t, but everything was so overwhelming and there was so much going on and it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

He had woken up early. It was ten am. His deadline was eleven pm. That was plenty of time.

He pulled out his laptop, following the instructions on the course website, and surprisingly managed to download the MP starter code with no problems.

Actually completing it was a different story. He had read the instructions over a couple of times, but he still wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Still, hesitatingly, he started typing. There were some red squiggles underneath some of his lines of code, but he ignored them for now. He searched the crowded upper menu, selected the “Test Checkpoint 0” option from the dropdown menu, and clicked run.

A scarily large number of lines with red symbols next to them appeared. Trying not to panic, Dan did his best to decipher them. Each line started with the word “error,” which was probably very bad. It was mostly a mix of errors that read “; expected” and “illegal start of expression,” with one “reached end of file while parsing” error thrown in at the end.

Dan stared at his screen. What file, he wanted to know, and what the fuck was a parsing? He stared at the errors some more. He hit run again.

He got the same error messages. Again.

After some more staring, he decided to go to office hours. He packed up his laptop and checked his phone to see who was holding office hours right now. His heart started beating a bit faster when he saw that Phil was holding office hours for eight hours starting in fifteen minutes.

Well. It couldn’t hurt to see Phil. It gave him something to think about on the thirty-minute walk to the Computer Science Center, at least.

He really needed to figure out the bus system. This was way too much walking.

Office hours for CS 115 were held in the same room as labs. It was large, spacious, filled with enough tables and chairs that the forty or so students in his lab always had room left over, but today, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find a seat. He stood inside the door, scanning the room for a seat before giving up and aiming for a spot on the floor near a table and an outlet. He plugged his laptop in and raised his hand, waiting for help. Miraculously, a CA came to him within a few minutes. “What’s the issue?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t really know,” Dan said. “My code won’t compile and I’m getting this error?”

The CA bent over to look at Dan’s screen. “You probably have a missing parenthesis or curly brace somewhere,” the CA told him. He flicked shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.

“Where?” Dan asked.

The CA double-clicked on the error message, which brought his cursor to the start of one of Dan’s method names. “Somewhere above here, probably.”

“But where?” Dan asked.

The CA shrugged, already moving away. “I’m really sorry, there are a lot of people I need to help. You’ll have to look for it yourself.”

Dan scowled and stared at his code, looking for the line with the error. His eyes flickered between lines of code, scanning for matching parenthesis and curly braces. His eyes blurred. It looked fine. It really looked fine. Was there really something wrong? He hit the run button again.

The same error message appeared. Dan groaned in frustration. He went back to hunting for his mistake.

Half an hour later, Dan found his mistake. This time when he ran his code, the test suites started running too. Dan let out a breath he had been holding for much too long and let his shoulders sag, relief coursing through him. He didn’t even care that he failed every single test. The fact that his code ran at all was honestly a miracle. He stared at the new error messages, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. He had no idea what he was even looking for, but he stared at it resolutely, fighting back a yawn.

He was just about to give up when Phil materialized in front of him. “How’s it going?” Phil asked.

Dan looked up. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were doing office hours today,” he lied.

Phil smiled. “Surprise, I guess. How goes the coding?”

Dan explained the situation.

“So you’ve moved on from getting a compile error to getting a runtime error!” Phil said. “Now you can start debugging.”

“Lucky me,” Dan said.

Phil laughed. “Debugging isn’t fun, I’ll give you that. But when everything falls together? It’s the best feeling in the world.” He glanced around. “I should get to helping people.”

“What if I need help?” Dan complained.

“Raise your hand,” Phil said, trying and desperately failing to wink before sweeping off to help other students. “See you.”

Dan returned to his laptop, hiding a smile. His smile slowly faded as he worked. His code was not as easy to fix as he had hoped it would be when he first got it to compile.

He worked on it for about an hour, during which a chair opened up at a nearby table and he scrambled for a seat. He raised his hand.

It only took a few minutes for Phil to arrive. “So what’s the issue?” he asked, leaning over Dan’s shoulder.

“I’m not really sure,” he admitted. “There’s, um, a lot going on.”

Phil nodded. “So, where did you start?”

“Kind of everywhere,” Dan confessed.

“Okay, well, don’t do that,” Phil said. “How about you start with the first method?”

Dan scrolled up. “This one?”

“Sure. It doesn’t really matter.”

Dan had some code written there, all spaghetti lines splashed with lines of red like tomato sauce. He resolutely ignored the slight pangs of hunger in his stomach. “It’s failing the tests.”

“Well, you’re not done, are you?”

Dan felt slightly silly. “No,” he mumbled.

“Then how about you get it done?” Phil said. “Read the documentation a few times and ask me if you have any questions, but try to find answers in the documentation first.”

Dan scowled. Phil smiled. Why was his stupid face always so fucking happy?

He read the documentation, like Phil told him to. When he got confused, he read it again. It slowly started to make more sense.

He started typing again, working on a single method this time instead of jumping around. The first two went okay, but he got stuck on the third for an embarrassingly long time.

He looked around and raised his hand, but the TAs and CAs all looked busy, and none of them seemed to notice. He sighed and put it down.

He must have sighed really loudly, because the girl next to him shot him a look.

“Sorry,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine.”

He glared at his screen again, hoping that the error in his logic would suddenly jump into focus. It didn’t. He sighed again.

The girl next to him glared again.

Dan meant to apologize, but he accidentally said something else. “Can you help me?”

For one frightening moment, he thought she might snap him in half. But then she didn’t. “With what?” she asked.

“I don’t know why I’m failing this test case.” He turned his laptop towards her.

She hesitated for a second before looking. Her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, I got that error before.” She reached over to scroll on Dan’s laptop and pointed out a section of his code. “You see here? You’re not checking that the input is valid.”

Dan stared at it. “But-” Something clicked. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.” He reached for his keyboard and added a few lines of code above the section she had pointed out. He ran the autograder and held his breath.

A hundred percent. Thank god. He allowed himself to look up from his laptop for the first time in an hour and realized the room was almost empty except for him, Phil, the girl sitting next to him, and a few other scattered students.

Dan spent a few more moments glancing at Phil, trying to gauge when he would be done so they could leave at the same time, but Phil didn’t look like he was going to leave anytime soon. Dan watched as Phil sat next to another- student? course assistant? TA? Dan couldn’t tell. Phil laughed and threw his arm around the other boy.

He knew Phil had an ex-boyfriend, Dan realized with a jolt, and it sounded recent, but he had no idea if Phil was currently seeing anyone. There was a lot he didn’t know about Phil. Ears burning, he buried his face back in his laptop, trying to look busy, even though he didn’t have anything left to do other than submit his work.

He snuck another glance at Phil. Phil didn’t have his arm around the other boy anymore, but they were hunched together over the same laptop, shoulders pressed together, exchanging glances and the occasional laugh as the other boy explained something, animated. A bolt of jealousy shot through Dan’s stomach. He tried to ignore it.

They were just quiet enough that Dan couldn’t make out the details of their conversation, but just loud enough to be distracting. His eyes were drawn back to them again and again.

Dan had always been a jealous person. He had learned to cope with it over the years, but nothing ever seemed to make it go away completely. It stemmed from a place of insecurity, he knew, because as nice as Phil might be, as nice as anyone might be to Dan, there was no way they would ever really like him. And if they did, they were just seconds away from realizing what a bad deal they got with Dan, how much better they could do.

Dan wrenched his gaze away from Phil again. He could submit his work when he got back to his dorm. He waited until Phil’s back was turned before slipping out the door.

***

The next Monday, when Dan slunk into the back of lecture and sat in the closest seat to the door he could find, he realized he recognized the head in front of him. He tapped her shoulder to say hello.

“What’s your name?” Dan asked. “I just realized I never got it this weekend. Sorry.”

She glanced at him, startled. “Helen.” Her blue hair rustled, and suddenly something clicked.

“Hey, wait. Did we meet on the first day of class?”

She stared at him. “Were you that guy who was late?”

Dan nodded. “Yes.”

Helen laughed. “God, I thought Professor Ross was going to kill you.”

Dan smiled, embarrassed. “I thought so too. I’m Dan, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Dan.” She smiled.

“Really?” Dan asked. “I’m going to be honest, most times we’ve met before I haven’t made a great impression.”

Helen froze. “You totally think I’m a bitch; I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Dan started, but Helen was already talking again.

“I’m so sorry, I was just super stressed that first day of class and when I saw you the other day I hadn’t finished my MP yet and I-”

Dan cut in. “Seriously, you’re fine.” He smiled. “And you helped me anyway, which is what really matters.”

Helen took a deep breath. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Dan said. “So, do you-”

Their professor started speaking, interrupting Dan. “Later,” Helen said, swivelling to focus completely on class.

Dan envied the totality of her focus, the way she was able to switch it on and off like it was nothing. The only thing he had ever been able to focus on with that kind of intensity was video games. He reluctantly turned back to the front of the room and tried to herd his thoughts into something resembling order.

He failed. No matter how much he tried to pay attention to the lecture, his thoughts kept drifting back to Phil. Phil, offering to buy some dumb freshman a coffee. Phil, offering him a ride home. Phil, teasing him when he asked for help and telling him to wait in line. Phil, helping him anyway.

Dan smiled. He couldn’t help it.

Oh god. He had a crush on Phil.

There was no way he could be expected to focus on class now. No way.

He tried anyway. He wrote some notes on a google doc. Something about inheritance and pets and dogs and cats and he wondered if Phil was a cat or a dog person and fuck. He was fucked.

He tried really hard to focus. He really did. But when class ended, he had about five lines of notes that probably wouldn’t even make sense to the professor if he showed them to her.

His mood brightened slightly when he noticed Helen waiting for him at the door of the auditorium.

“Hey!” he said, hurrying to meet her.

“Hey!” she said. “So, how was lecture?”

“It was lecture,” Dan said. “How do you expect me to say it went?”

Helen shrugged. “I took APCS last year, and we’re finally getting into stuff that I haven’t seen before. I actually really like it.”

“This is my first programming class,” Dan said.

“Oh, wow,” Helen said. “I would probably die.”

Dan was dying a little bit. “It’s pretty rough,” he admitted.

“Why are you taking it then? Is it a required class for you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “This is my major. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” she asked.

Dan shrugged.

She let it drop. “It’s required for me too. I’m actually a double major, though; this and film studies.”

Dan stopped. “Wait, are you by any chance in my film class too?”

“FS 105?” she asked.

“Yes!” Dan smiled.

“One o’clock, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Professor Min?”

Dan nodded again. “We should try to sit next to each other.”

“Sure!” she said. “Can I give you my number?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, digging through his bag and handing her his phone. She quickly put her number in and handed it back.

“See you around!” she said.

“See you!” Dan replied. He made the usual walk back towards his dorm, but he felt a bit lighter than normal this time.

***

After seeing Phil with the other boy in office hours, Dan tried to avoid Phil at his next lab. He managed to escape a tiny bit early while Phil was talking to another student. The next week, he wasn’t so lucky. When he tried to duck out, Phil was already waiting for him outside the classroom.

“I haven’t heard from you in a bit,” he said.

Dan shrugged. “I’ve been busy.” It wasn’t a lie. Most of his classes were completely kicking his ass at the moment, and he still hadn’t started the next MP, which was sure to be a completely new level in the history of ass-kickery.

“Classes are catching up to you?”

Dan nodded.

“You seemed stressed at office hours. I hope MP Zero went okay?”

Dan nodded. “I think I just left it a bit late.”

Phil huffed. “That’s a mood if I’ve ever heard one. I’m the world’s worst procrastinator.”

Dan felt that that title should probably belong to him.

“Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay,” Phil said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The first semester of college can be really rough.”

Dan blinked. Was Phil… worried about him?

“Thanks,” Dan said, his voice coming out startlingly watery.

He hadn’t expected Phil to show… genuine concern for him. Maybe he wasn’t just some dumb freshman Phil had picked up out of pity. Phil seemed to… actually care about him.

Phil nodded. “Let me know if you ever want to talk,” he said softly.

Dan nodded, not trusting his voice.

“See you around,” Phil said, patting Dan’s shoulder and moving past him with a quick, almost embarrassed smile.

“Yeah,” Dan echoed to an empty room. “See you.”

***

Dan was determined not to leave the second MP to the last minute. He started it an entire week before it was due.

He downloaded the starter code and read a bit of the documentation, then decided he deserved a break. He picked up his phone and texted Phil.

i’m bored, he said.

Dan barely put his phone down before he got a reply.

Mood, Phil said.

Dan opened the text. He wasn’t even sure how he would reply, but Phil was already typing again.

Where are you?

Dan glanced around his dorm room. dorm, he sent.

Where’s dorm? Phil asked.

Dan settled back into his pillow of blankets. you know where i live, he replied.

I forgot.

Dan laughed. ur the worst friend, he typed.

Just remind me lol don’t mock me like this

Dan wanted to push it further, but he also wanted to know why Phil wanted to know where he was. walton, remember? he sent.

That’s only ten minutes from where I am rn lol, Phil sent back. Wanna meet up?

Dan only hesitated for about ten seconds this time. sure, wya?

Phil sent him the address of the coffee shop where they first met: The Daily Grind.

Dan responded with a thumbs-up emoji. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and left his dorm faster than he would have thought humanly possible.

It was embarrassing, he reflected, how easy it was to get him to go places Phil would be. Maybe he would go to classes more often if he got someone to text him saying Phil would be there ahead of time.

The walk was supposed to be ten minutes. Dan swore the anticipation made it feel like at least twenty, but according to his watch it was actually seven and a half.

He arrived at the coffee shop only slightly out of breath. He saw Phil almost right away, but had to wait ten minutes in line for his coffee before he was able to slide into the seat across from Phil.

“Hey,” he said.

Phil smiled. “Hey. How’s it going?”

“Okay. I got started on the next MP today.”

Phil’s eyes lit up. “Good!” he said. “Not too hard, I hope?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, deciding to quickly change the subject. “What are you working on?”

Phil frowned at his screen. “Thesis things.”

“Writing?”

Phil shook his head. “No, not yet. Just looking at data.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure,” Phil said, turning his laptop around, “But it probably doesn’t mean much to you.”

It didn’t, but Dan nodded anyway. “Nice,” he said.

Phil shrugged. “It’s not really nice at the moment, but thank you.” He paused. “Did you bring anything to work on?”

Dan had his laptop and most of his notes for his classes, so he could work on those, he supposed, but he didn’t want to. “I was hoping we could just hang out. If you’re not too busy, anyway.”

“I could use a break,” Phil admitted, closing his laptop. “What do you want to talk about?”

Dan thought about it for a moment. “Tell me about your thesis topic,” he eventually said.

Phil started. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “Just make sure to explain it to me like I’m three, because in Computer Science years, I am.”

Phil nodded slowly. “So, I’m studying human-computer interaction. Do you know what that is?”

“No idea,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.

“Well, it’s basically- like, we communicate with computers using a keyboard and mouse. Or a touchscreen if you’re on a phone, or a touchpad if you’re on a laptop, or whatever- you get the idea. And mostly that works okay, but what if there were better ways to communicate with your computer?”

“Are there?”

Phil shrugged. “Well, I like to think that what we have now is better than crawling around inside a computer and reconnecting vacuum tubes like they did seventy years ago or whatever.”

Dan nodded.

“But then when you get to weird, complex stuff like AI, it’s like, we could communicate with this the way we communicate with regular computer programs. But we could also do literally everything in the terminal, and we don’t, partly because it’s a pain in the ass and partly because it makes technology super inaccessible to non-tech people.” Phil paused. “Like, could you imagine scrolling through Instagram by running a program in the terminal and putting in a new command to see each photo, and there was a special command to like or comment or share? That’d be a terrible user experience.”

“I don’t even know how to do anything in the terminal,” Dan confessed. “I think the only time I’ve ever opened it is when someone else did it for me.”

“Exactly!” Phil said. “It’s also really unfriendly to beginners. Like, can you even imagine having to program computers in an era where you’d actually have to program in actual machine code? I would die.”

Dan confirmed that, he, too, would probably die under those circumstances. Or just pick a different major.

“So anyway, to make, for example, things like AI more accessible to people without a PhD, or people without any technology background whatsoever, we need to build user interfaces for those. And those user interfaces might not look anything like computers we’re used to. For example, some people are looking into AIs you can communicate with the same way you’d communicate with another person, or computer programs that are controlled by your brain. I mean, they’re a long way away, but I’m actually doing some research with that.”

“That’s… really cool,” said Dan.

“So yeah,” Phil said, messing with his coffee mug. “It’s way more complicated than that, obviously, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Dan said.

Phil shrugged. “Thanks for listening. I know it’s not really interesting unless you’re already interested.”

Dan shrugged. “I’m interested in you. So it’s interesting.” He realized the way that sounded when the words were just halfway out of his mouth, and he felt blood rising in his cheeks.

Phil’s cheeks colored. He cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly.

Dan tried really, really hard not to die. Luckily, Phil changed the subject. “So, how’s everything else going for you? Like, the not-CS stuff.”

Dan decided not to tell Phil that his life was, in fact, falling apart, and he had no friends. “It’s going okay,” he said. “My classes are honestly really intense, though, I haven’t had much time outside of them.”

“You said you got a start on MP One, though, right? That’s good.”

Dan shrugged. “I cloned the repo.”

“That’s still a start,” Phil encouraged.

Dan shrugged again.

“Feel free to ask for help if you need it. Office hours are basically 24/7, and this time I’m not doing Sunday office hours, so I’ll have some free time then if you want me specifically.”

“I think I’ll be okay,” Dan lied. “But thanks.”

“Yeah, any time,” Phil said, looking down. His phone buzzed and he jumped. “Fuck.”

“What?” Dan asked.

“Sorry,” Phil said. “I have class in fifteen minutes.” He glanced down at his phone. “I mean, it’s just a lecture….” He trailed off.

“No, you should go,” Dan said. “I have class soon too.”

“Yeah,” Phil said, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Sorry. Um, see you soon?”

“Yeah, of course!” Dan said.

Phil hesitated for a bit, leaning towards Dan as if he was going to give him a hug before lurching back again and awkwardly waving goodbye. “Text me,” he said, before leaving.

Dan did, eventually, just not under ideal circumstances. The next week, he sat down to start actually coding for MP1.

He didn’t understand the documentation or the starter code, or what an object was and why it was oriented and programming. In general, as the kids would say, he was not vibing.

He considered texting Helen, but then he remembered how stressed she was before the last MP deadline and thought better of it.

He remembered Phil’s offer to help. He hesitated, but reached for his phone anyway.

i need help, he texted Phil.

Don’t we all, Phil replied nearly instantly. With what?

MP1, Dan said.

We can meet up if you want? Unless your question is pretty basic, then you can just ask now

Even though Phil had offered to help him, a wave of relief crashed through Dan when he realized Phil really meant it. He hesitated. meeting up would be good if you’re not too busy

I’m not! I’m just hanging out at the daily grind all day. Let me know if you want to stop by.

Dan didn’t want to look too desperate for help, but at the same time, he was. i’ll be there soon, he replied. He tossed his laptop and charger into his bag and left the library.

***

“That was fast,” Phil commented when Dan slid into the booth across from him.

“I was nearby,” Dan said.

Phil closed his laptop. “So what do you need help with?” he asked, leaning across the table.

“I think something’s wrong with my constructor,” Dan said.

Phil frowned. “That’s like, half the checkpoint. Can you be more specific?”

“Uhhhh,” Dan said. “So, I think the issue might be that I’m having trouble with the concept of a constructor.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “What part?”

Dan felt his face go red. “All of it?”

Phil sighed. “Can I use your computer?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Phil tilted Dan’s laptop towards him, pulled up a browser and quickly navigated to the course home page, and then the slides for last week’s lecture.

“Here you go,” Phil said, clapping Dan’s shoulder. “Let me know if you have any questions about the notes.”

“Thanks,” Dan said sarcastically. He spent about 15 minutes reading through the slides before switching to watching the lecture videos at two times speed, reaching over to tap Phil on the shoulder and ask questions whenever he reached anything that confused him.

Then, when he finally finished reviewing lectures, he started the MP. It made a bit more sense now. A bit.

After he had written out most of the checkpoint, he ran the test suites, but again, his code wouldn’t compile. It listed a few errors this time, luckily not as many as he had gotten last time he had the missing curly brace. He frowned at his screen, unable to decipher what exactly they meant, before flipping his computer to show Phil and tapping his shoulder.

Phil pulled his headphones off to examine the screen.

“Hang on,” he said. “Are you writing out the entire thing before trying to compile and test it?”

Dan looked up at Phil. “I mean, not the entire thing.”

“But most of it?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Don’t do that. Run your code literally as often as possible. It makes it easier to tell when you break it. Didn’t they mention that in lecture?”

Dan shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure what was happening in lecture these days.

“Well, they should have,” Phil said, returning to his coffee. “Anyway, the first two errors are probably telling you you’re missing a semicolon, and it looks like the third doesn’t recognize a variable or method name. Common culprits for that will be typos or forgetting to declare it properly.” He paused to scroll a bit through Dan’s code. “Yeah, just take a look at each error on its own, fix it, try running your code again, and see if it makes it better or worse. And in the future, run your code more often so you’ll generally only have to fix one error at a time.”

Dan groaned.

“Debugging never gets fun, kid.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “I’m nineteen. Don’t call me kid.” He decided not to comment on the other reason he thought it was weird for Phil to call him kid.

“Sure, kid.” Phil reached over to pat his head. Dan swatted his hand away.

“Oy. Don’t mess up my hair.”

Phil laughed.

“I’m serious. I spend like an hour straightening it every morning. If you mess it up I’ll kill you.”

“Okay, okay,” Phil said, leaning back. He raised his hands in the air. “No hair touchy. See?”

“Good,” Dan said, returning to his work. Occasionally, he stopped to ask Phil questions. Phil was annoyingly unhelpful. He refused to answer half of Dan’s questions, instead redirecting him to google or the documentation.

“It’s my sacred obligation as a tutor,” Phil said. “You’re never supposed to just give people an answer. You have to give them the skills to find the answer themselves.”

“Did you memorize that from a handbook somewhere? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Phil shook his head, looking hurt. “I wrote the handbook we use to train Course Assistants.”

Dan laughed. “Of course you did.”

Phil looked insulted. “Someone had to.”

Dan relented. “I’m sure it’s a great manual.”

Phil sat back, still pouting slightly. “We didn’t have any training procedures before I took over the program.”

“Thank you for your service,” Dan said.

“You’re welcome,” Phil said. “Now get back to work, kid.”

They fell into comfortable silence. Phil put his headphones back on, and Dan slipped his earbuds in.

He was actually making decent progress when Phil interrupted him by pushing Dan’s computer screen down slightly.

Dan looked up.

“It’s getting late. I think I’m going to go back to my apartment,” Phil said.

“Oh,” Dan said. “Okay.”

Phil started clearing his books of their table, then hesitated. “Want to come with?”

Dan’s heart started to beat faster. “Yeah, sure,” he said, doing his best to sound normal.

“I hope that’s not weird. Sorry, I just get my best work done there, and it’s getting close to dinner- if you don’t mind staying for dinner, anyway, we could also grab something on the way.”

“I’m cool with whatever,” Dan said, starting to pack his things.

“Instant ramen it is!” Phil said. “I also have mac and cheese if you’d prefer that. The college staples.”

“Sure,” Dan said. “It beats dorm food. They’re having meatloaf tonight.”

Phil winced. “Is that as bad as it was at my undergrad?”

Dan shrugged his backpack over his shoulder. “Probably. Meatloaf is bad everywhere.”

Phil laughed. “Don’t tell my mom I laughed at that.”

“Why do moms everywhere think meatloaf is so great?”

“I wish I knew,” Phil said. “Maybe I’d be able to get them to stop making it.”

“The one thing technology can’t do,” Dan mused.

“I promise you there’s a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to that somewhere.”

“Really?” Dan asked.

Phil rolled his eyes. “There are dumb silicon valley startups for almost everything.” He stood up. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” said Dan, following.

“My car is in the shop,” Phil explained. “I hope you don’t mind walking.”

“That’s fine,” said Dan, who would never dream of saying anything even if he did mind.

“It’s not too far, just twenty minutes. I normally walk it, actually, since parking on campus is hell.”

“I walk that far all the time. I still haven’t figured out the bus system,” Dan admitted.

Phil laughed. “Wait until it gets cold. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“God, don’t remind me,” Dan mumbled. Phil laughed.

They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable conversation. Phil asked Dan about his family, and Dan asked about his in return. Dan told Phil about his younger brother at home in California and his parents who were so insistent that he get his degree. Phil told Dan about his older brother who already ran his own business, was engaged to his girlfriend, and was only a year and a half older than him.

“It’s kind of hard to measure up to that,” Phil said with a slightly bitter laugh. “I mean, I love Martyn, I really do, but I’ll never be like him.”

“Is it your parents pressuring you about it? Or just yourself?” Dan asked.

Phil shrugged. “Mostly me, I guess. It’s nothing they’ve really done, I just… feel like I’m not what they’re supposed to want. Even if they don’t mind.”

“You’re getting your Master’s degree,” Dan said, “In a subject that will actually get you a job after you graduate. That’s better than a lot of people can say.”

Phil was quiet for a moment. “But I’m me,” he said. “I dropped out of my PhD program and my grades in undergrad sucked and I don’t even know why they let me in here. And my parents want me to hurry up and have babies, and I’m, well, gay.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that’s so dumb. I was joking with that thing I said the other day about my mom, they don’t mind. Literally everyone around me is fine, I’m just… not. I don’t know, I can’t imagine someone not being disappointed in me.”

“No,” Dan said. “I get it.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

Phil cleared his throat. “That was sad.”

Dan laughed. “If you want sad, we can talk about my relationship with my dad.”

Phil shook his head. “That’s okay. Unless you want to.”

“There isn’t much to talk about. He’s just, y’know. Vaguely a homophobe.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. Dan could see the pain reflected in Phil’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “But thanks,” he added more softly.

“Sure,” Phil said.

Dan cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject, “You mentioned you knew a lot of dumb silicon valley startups?”

Phil laughed. “Luckily, most of the worst ideas never got that far. Mostly, I’m just annoyed about how pushy those people get. I once had a guy try to talk to me about his password manager startup the week before finals while I was in the library trying to study.”

Dan laughed. “Did you let him?”

“That’s the worst part,” Phil said, letting his voice rise to a whine. “I didn’t want to be rude and tell him to go away so I just sat through his entire ten minute pitch. It was awful.”

“Oh no,” Dan said, giggling.

Phil thumped his shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me,” he whined. “It was traumatizing!”

Dan laughed harder.

“Don’t pretend you’d be any different,” Phil reproached.

“You don’t know me,” Dan defended himself. “Maybe I’m secretly super confrontational.”

Phil wrinkled his nose. “Sure, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Dan reproached.

“Sure, child.”

“That’s worse. I will have you know I am a legal adult.”

“Sure you are,” Phil said.

Dan pouted. He didn’t look that young. “I’m not that baby-faced,” he said.

Phil looked skeptical.

“I’m not,” he insisted.

“Sure,” Phil said, smiling. “Anyway, my apartment’s just over here.” He led Dan to a door just a few feet into an alley. He jiggled his key in the lock, pushed his shoulder against the door, and led Dan into in his apartment.

Dan didn’t really know what to expect from a college student’s apartment, but he supposed Phil’s apartment fit the stereotypes. It was small and dimly lit, but mostly clean, with a common area with a sofa and a TV connected to a kitchen and a hallway that Dan assumed led to the bedrooms.

“We can work in my room, if that’s okay,” Phil said. “I don’t want to bother my roommates.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dan said automatically. Inside, though, he was freaking out. Phil’s room? He was almost 99% certain Phil didn’t mean it like that, but if he did...

Phil must have noticed the look on Dan’s face, because he paused. “Are you sure it’s fine?”

“Yes,” Dan insisted.

“Was it what I said earlier? I was just teasing,” Phil said softly. “You’re not that baby-faced. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

Dan’s face felt warm. “No, it’s okay. Sorry, I just-”

“You don’t need to apologize if I made you uncomfortable,” Phil said.

“You didn’t,” Dan said.

“You’d tell me if I did, right?”

Dan shrugged helplessly.

Phil shook his head. “I swear to god.”

“I’ll try,” Dan said.

“Good. Now, do you want to go to my room or do you want to stay in the living room?”

“Your room is fine.”

“Okay,” Phil said, leading Dan through his living room, down a hall, and into his room. He immediately dumped his backpack onto a pile of (hopefully) clean laundry. “Sorry it’s a mess,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting to have anyone over today.”

To be honest, Phil’s room was pretty messy, but Dan wasn’t in a position to judge. Living in a single dorm room without his mom to yell at him to pick up his dirty laundry meant things could get pretty bad in his room.

Phil gestured to his bed. “You can sit here if you’d like. There’s also my desk.”

Phil’s desk was buried under mountains of papers, and it looked like there were some stacked on his chair too. There were way too many papers for someone whose main assignments were submitted via GitHub. Dan sat down on the bed.

“Cool,” Phil said. “I’ll be back in a minute, just going to make the ramen. Make yourself at home.”

Dan was tempted to snoop, but he opened up the MP again instead, staring at his code. He was only failing one test suite now, but he couldn’t figure out why. He checked the time. He only had an hour before he had to submit his code.

He frowned, as if glaring at his code would make it suddenly make sense. He thought he might be making progress when Phil’s door opened, interrupting his thoughts.

Phil handed Dan a mug and a spoon. “Sorry,” he said. “All the bowls are dirty.”

“That’s fine,” Dan said, setting aside his laptop. He could take a few minutes to eat.

It seemed like Phil had the same thought process, sitting next to Dan on his bed with his own mug and bowl. They ate quickly in companionable silence, but Phil was the first to finish, downing the last of his broth and setting it on his desk. Dan followed his lead.

Before Phil could get too absorbed in his own work, Dan tapped his shoulder.

“Can you help me with this for a sec?” he asked.

“Sure,” Phil said, looking over Dan’s shoulder. He paused for a moment, head cocked to the side, before speaking again. “That for loop- why does it only go until the length of the array minus one?”

“Because otherwise-” Dan stopped. “Oh. I was trying to avoid an index out of bounds exception, but I guess I didn’t need to do that there.” He was acutely aware of Phil’s shoulder pressed into his back.

Phil shrugged. “Let’s see.”

Dan changed the code and ran the test suite again.

Slowly, the symbols next to each test case turned green.

Dan stared at it, unbelieving.

“Don’t forget to commit and push,” Phil said.

Dan nodded, still in shock, his hands moving to submit his work almost automatically. “It worked,” he said breathlessly. “It worked!”

Phil closed his laptop and set it aside. “Really,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I was right?”

“Literally shut the fuck up,” Dan said, putting his laptop on top of Phil’s and flopping down so he was lying right next to Phil. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

“Really,” Phil said, laughing into Dan’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Dan groaned, and then Phil’s eyes were right there, so close, and then they were even closer, and their lips were touching, and it was nothing and everything like Dan had imagined.

Phil was warm and soft and solid in his mouth, under his hands, beneath his skin. His hands ran over Dan’s chest, dipped under his shirt. Dan gasped.

“You okay?” Phil asked, his normally light eyes dark with concern and something else.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Yeah, that felt… really nice.”

“Okay,” Phil said, running his hands down Dan’s arms. “We don’t have to-”

“I want to,” Dan said, gripping Phil back. “Please don’t stop.”

“Okay,” Phil said, and he kissed him again, and this time he didn’t stop.

Afterwards, when the heat and grasping hands were done, Dan sat up, but Phil pulled him back down.

“Don’t go,” he said, wrapping his arms around Dan.

So Dan didn’t.

***

Dan’s alarm was blaring. He shifted, mindlessly, reaching for his phone to turn it off.

He fell out of bed. “Ow,” he mumbled, finally getting his phone to shut up.

Phil’s head poked out from his bedsheets. “Dan?” he asked groggily.

“I have a class,” Dan said, pulling his boxers on.

“It’s so early,” Phil said.

“Yeah,” Dan snapped. “That’s how eight am’s work, Phil.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Phil said, sitting up. “Do you need anything?”

“How long does it take to get to the main quad from here?” Dan asked, yanking his shirt over his head.

“Like half an hour? I can walk you-”

“Fuck,” Dan said, looking at his phone (which was at a disturbingly low percentage). “I’m going to be late.”

“You can skip, Dan, I really want to talk to you-”

“No, I can’t,” Dan said harshly. He was tying his shoes now.

“Okay,” Phil said, “But Dan, we really need to-”

Dan left before Phil could finish his sentence.

***

He wasn’t sure if he should have bothered going to class. All he could think about was Phil anyway. The way his hands felt tangled in his hair. The way his mouth felt on his skin. Certainly not definite integrals.

He had classes back to back until his CS 115 lab. He didn’t even have time to go back to his dorm to change, just to scarf down a quick meal in the dining hall. He hoped no one noticed he was wearing yesterday’s clothes, but who even would? It wasn’t like anyone cared enough about him to pay enough attention.

He considered skipping his lab. He never really got anything out of it, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face Phil possibly ever again.

He checked his grade. Well. No chance of missing lab, then.

He slunk in the back of the classroom and chose the closest seat to the door. He tried not to make eye contact with Phil when he walked in. Phil didn’t even seem to notice Dan. He looked disgustingly put together, Dan thought. He had no right to look like everything was fine.

Phil approached his lab table. Dan looked down.

“Dan?” Phil said. “Can I speak with you after class?”

Dan’s face was hot. He continued staring resolutely at the table. “Fine.”

“You and your boyfriend fighting, Howell?” the guy at the end of his lab table mocked.

“That was inappropriate, Nathan,” Phil said.

Nathan just rolled his eyes. Dan’s face got even hotter.

He didn’t finish his lab. At a certain point, he gave up trying. He was useless at coding, and he was even more useless with Phil standing behind him every time he turned around. He scowled, staring at his screen, willing a solution to appear. He was almost grateful when Phil dismissed the class and he could put his laptop away and give up.

He started to head out the door when he heard Phil’s voice.

“Dan,” Phil said.

Dan turned around, rolling his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Phil blushed. “I hope you didn’t forget about our meeting,” he managed, flustered.

“How could I forget?” Dan asked, sarcasm lacing his voice.

“Dan.” Phil took a deep breath. “I’m trying to give you some leeway right now, given the situation. But that is not an appropriate way to speak to your TA.”

Dan stared at Phil sullenly.

“Okay,” Phil said. “Dan, you’re not doing very well in this class.”

Dan continued staring.

“I’m not here to encourage you to drop the class or anything. Hopefully this is a temporary setback we can work through. There are a lot of resources available to you as a student of this university. We want you to succeed.”

“That’s nice,” Dan said. “Anything else?”

Phil sighed. “Dan, can we talk?”

“About what?”

“I think you know what. You kind of ran off this morning.” Phil took Dan’s silence as encouragement to keep talking. “Dan, I- I shouldn’t have done that. I’m your TA, and you’re my student. That’s bad enough. But Dan, you’re my friend. I wanted to make sure that everything we did last night… that you were okay with it.”

Dan stared at the ground.

“I would never want to hurt you. But you need to tell me if I did.”

“You didn’t,” Dan said.

Phil relaxed slightly. “I’m glad. But I’m still sorry.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “It was that bad, huh?”

“I just meant- Dan, I really like you. But I can’t do this while you’re my student. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Maybe next semester, if we’re both still interested, but right now, I’m just not comfortable with that.”

“Great,” Dan said.

“Really, I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends.”

Dan’s stomach twisted. “Friends.”

“It’s okay if you can’t do that. It’s okay if you never want to see me again. You can switch lab sections. You can-“

“No,” Dan said. “You’re literally my only friend. I’m not losing you over something as stupid as this.”

“That’s really sweet,” Phil said. “But you really need to get more friends.”

“I know,” Dan said. He did, unfortunately, but knowing he needed more friends didn’t mean it was easy to make them.

“Dan. If we’re going to be friends, I just need you to know I really am sorry. It was my job not to cross any boundaries, not yours, and now I’ve gone and made it all weird.”

“Stop acting like this is all your fault!” Dan exploded. “Stop sitting there fucking apologizing like you did something I didn’t want. I’m nineteen, I knew what I was doing, and if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have fucking said I wanted it.”

Phil stared at Dan. “Dan, I- look, I’m just saying-”

“Well, stop.”

Phil raised his hands defensively. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Okay then. I guess we’re done. Unless you have anything else you want to say.”

Dan glared at him. “No.”

“Okay. See you next week, unless you decide to switch lab sections.” Phil reached for his coat.

“Wait,” Dan said. “I have a question.”

“About?”

“Computer Science.”

“Okay,” Phil said, stepping closer to Dan.

“Do you like CS?” Dan asked quietly.

Phil sighed. “It’s, well, it’s a love-hate relationship. And to be completely honest, I hate it more than I love it most days. But when I love it, I really love it. And even when I hate it, I really do believe that software has the power to change the world. And I want to be a part of that change.”

Dan nodded, staring at the floor.

Phil moved even closer. “I know a lot of people go into CS for the wrong reasons,” he continued, even more gently. “It sounds cool or the starting salaries are so high or they want the power to reshape the world in their image. And then they get here and it turns out computer science is hard, and frustrating, and time consuming, and sometimes, it’s just not for them. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make them any less valuable to society or less intelligent.”

Dan stared even more intently at the floor, willing himself not to cry.

“Are you thinking of changing majors?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know,” Dan said, and his voice came out disturbingly watery. “What would I even change it too?”

“You can figure that out. It’s okay if you do. It’s not for everyone.”

“No, it’s not,” Dan said. He blinked and suddenly the tears that he had been trying to hold back rushed out. “It’s not,” he repeated, this time through a sob.

“Dan,” Phil said, reaching for him, then closing his fist on thin air. “I’m really sorry.”

“For the last time, Phil. Stop apologizing.”

“I just want you to be happy, Dan. I hate seeing you like this.”

“That must be really fucking hard for you, Phil. Want to tell me more?” Dan couldn’t help the bitter laugh that spilled from his throat.

Phil watched helplessly. “Computer science is hard, Dan. Especially if this is your first class. Computer science is frustrating and confusing and hard and no one’s code ever works right on the first try and if you’ve never had a breakdown over an assignment you either have incredible time management skills or you’ve only been doing CS for like a month or you’re a liar. And I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t suck, but you come out from it a better version of yourself each time. I’m the programmer I am today because of all of the times I’ve failed.”

Dan couldn’t help the waves of anger that rose up sharp and aching in his lungs. “That’s great, Phil, thanks. Thank you so much for being helpful. Really, it’s all going to be fine, because even though I’m fucking miserable, I’ll be a better person at the end of the day.”

“If you’re really that miserable you should drop,” Phil said.

Dan was silent.

“The drop deadline for CS 115 is in a week,” Phil said. “You have time to think about it.”

Dan nodded and wiped at his face.

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked desperately.

“I don’t think so,” Dan said.

They stood in silence for a few more moments before Dan left. “I don’t think we should talk anymore,” he said shakily, before walking out. Dan didn’t look back, and Phil didn’t follow. He went back to his dorm room, where he was finally able to cry again.

***

The actual moment was rather anticlimactic. The form was less than a page, and all he needed to do for it to be official was get his academic advisor to sign it, which wasn’t difficult, considering his grade in CS 115. Then he uploaded it as a PDF to his student portal and his major change was approved two days later.

Dan expected to feel better afterwards. Somehow, even though this had been sitting like a pit in his stomach for months, he just felt worse.

Without CS 115, his schedule felt weirdly empty. He had gaps in his schedule where he used to go to lecture (sometimes), study, work on the MP, and have mental breakdowns.

He left his dorm more often. He paid more attention in his other classes. He even made a few friends from his film class that he studied with sometimes. They even had time to hang out when they weren’t doing homework. One of the girls in the group probably had a crush on him. Dan supposed she was kind of cute. He didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything lately, including what the fuck his sexuality was and whether or not he wanted to mess with some girl’s feelings in the process of finding out. And that was without even considering whatever the fuck had happened with Phil- if he was ready to move on from that relationship, if it could even be called that.

Dan filled his life with the things college was supposedly supposed to be about. He went to parties. He spent time with friends. He stayed up too late. He experimented with his look, leaving his hair in its natural, curly state instead of straightening it every morning. He wore clothes that weren’t baggy sweatshirts and jeans. He painted his nails. He even started wearing a tiny bit of makeup.

So why did he still feel so empty? It was probably natural after a breakup, or whatever you were supposed to call what had happened between him and Phil.

Dan had no reference for “normal.” He didn’t know what this was supposed to feel like, but he had a hunch that it wasn’t like this.

He stumbled through his days. He made an appointment with his school’s mental health center, but he wouldn’t be able to see a therapist for at least three weeks. Midterms were coming up, the woman on the phone explained, and they always filled up quickly around then. For now, all he could do was wait.

About two weeks later, he got a text from Phil.

You down for coffee today? I know you said you didn’t want to see me which I totally understand but I really miss you and I want to talk some things over.

Dan wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t even sure if he did want to see Phil again.

idk i have a lot of homework

Phil replied almost instantly. You can bring your homework! I have some work to do too

Dan hesitated.

His phone dinged. We can be study buddies lol. It’ll be fun

Again. If you don’t want to come that’s fine. I just wanted to talk

Dan picked up his phone. sure, he typed, sending it before he could regret it.

Alright! 3:00?

sure, Dan sent again.

Perfect! See you then!

And then Dan had nothing to do but wait.

He regretted not asking Phil to meet up with him earlier than three. Now he was just going to spend the next two hours feeling incredibly anxious.

He tried to work on some homework, but he couldn’t focus. He could feel the same feelings he used to have for Phil bubbling up inside of him again, and he did his best to shove them down. Last time they spoke, Phil had said he wanted them to be friends. He had also had sex with him, so Dan felt Phil was sending a few mixed signals, but that wasn’t the point.

Dan wasn’t even sure what he hoped to gain out of a conversation with Phil. Closure, maybe? Some sort of reconciliation?

He certainly wasn’t hoping for a relationship. Was he? He wouldn’t have agreed to meet with Phil if he didn’t at least want to be friends. Probably.

He let himself imagine it. Just for a second.

He shut his laptop, grabbed his keys, and shoved his sneakers on. He needed a walk. He went through the process of leaving his dorm almost automatically, taking the back staircase instead of the elevator so he wouldn’t have to run into anyone else. Once outside, he shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his best to ignore the chill in the air.

He had put on his angstiest short playlist before he left, but when it ended about half an hour into the walk, Dan’s hands were too cold for him to even consider taking them out of his sweatshirt pockets for long enough to select a new playlist, so he just went back to his dorm, collapsing on his bed. He checked his phone. He still had an hour to go. He glanced longingly at his Xbox.

He probably had time for a quick game, he decided, reaching for his controller.

After just under fifty minutes of Skyrim, he felt much better. He rolled out of his bed, and after messing with his hair for a bit in the mirror, he put his thickest sweatshirt back on and left for The Daily Grind.

He spotted Phil almost immediately, staring at his laptop with two coffees sitting in front of him.

Dan approached.

Phil looked up. “I’ve got our drinks,” he said.

“That was fast,” Dan said.

Phil shrugged. “Maybe I got here ten minutes early to make sure you had your coffee when you got here. Who knows?”

“Thanks,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.

“Yeah, of course,” Phil said, and the way he said it made it sound so much like Dan had done him the favor that he almost believed him for a second.

They sat in silence for a while, before Dan spoke. “I submitted my major change form.”

Phil’s face lit up. “Dan, that’s great! What did you decide to change it to?”

“I was thinking something more arts-based. I’m taking a film class this semester and I really like it. I also really like the idea of creative writing. I don’t know.”

“Well, the good thing about most humanities majors is that it’s way easier to pick up a double major or a minor than in engineering. I actually really wanted to minor in English in undergrad, but I just didn’t have the time.”

“Wow,” Dan said. “How didn’t I know that?”

Phil shrugged. “I don’t talk about it a lot. Everyone has dreams that died, I guess. It’s impossible to fit them all into one life.”

“What if I don’t have any dreams?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Phil said with so much confidence that Dan almost believed him.

“I guess,” Dan said.

They were quiet for a few more minutes. “I dropped CS 115 too,” Dan said.

Phil looked up, his smile slowly growing. “I’m that shitty of a TA, huh?”

“I feel bad,” Dan confessed.

“I always felt bad whenever I dropped a class in undergrad,” Phil said. “I can’t imagine dropping out of an entire major.”

Dan focused on his coffee. “You said you liked being a TA because you liked to help students succeed.”

Phil paused. “I did,” he said. “And I do. It’s probably the most rewarding part of my job, and I’m going to miss it a lot after I graduate.”

“Even after watching people like me fail?” Dan asked.

“Dan,” Phil said. “No. You didn’t fail. You realized a subject wasn’t for you. That’s incredibly different.”

Dan shrugged. He didn’t really want to get into an argument with Phil, but he still felt like a failure, and he wasn’t sure anything could change that.

Phil sighed and changed the subject. “So how have things been going for you?”

Dan filled Phil in on the changes in his life, and Phil talked a bit about what had been going on in his. They avoided any difficult topics, choosing to stick with idle chitchat instead, but the pit in Dan’s stomach was growing.

There were some things he needed to ask. He gathered his courage. “Are you doing anything today?”

Phil looked slightly surprised, but he just shrugged. “Depends why you ask.”

“I’d like to hang out some more. If that’s okay.”

Phil blinked. “Hang out… why?”

Dan shrugged. “You’re really cool and I’d like to be friends with you.”

Phil looked disappointed. “That’s all?”

“Well.” Dan took a deep breath and looked at Phil’s eyes, studied their not-quite-familiar composition of blue and yellow and gold. “Maybe more. If you’d like.”

Phil reached across the table to take Dan’s hand. “I think I would.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a few more moments before Dan spoke. “You know, it’s getting cold out.”

Phil smiled. “It is. You still need that jacket?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Want to head to my place then? You can grab it there, and we can… hang out. Do whatever you want.”

Dan smiled. “Sure.”

Dan left Phil’s apartment the next morning. He forgot Phil’s jacket.

Oh well. He’d just have to come back.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #my writing #phan au

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paradisobound · 5 years

Text

Starstruck

Summary: Phil attends all of Dan Howell’s concerts. In fact, he makes it a rule to even record every one he goes to. You could say he was in love with Dan Howell and in fact, that wouldn’t be a lie because he’s actually Dan’s fiancé. Too bad Dan’s fans see him as the creepy guy at Dan’s concerts.

Warnings: A brief mention of sex but not explicit.

Word Count: 3.6k

Genre: Famous singer!Dan and present!phil

A/N: I thought of this fic after finding out Sophie Turner attends a lot of the Jonas Brother’s Concerts because of Joe and I thought it would be cute to write a fic with a slightly different side! Happy reading :)

**Read on Ao3**

“Dan Howell we love you!”

“Dan! Dan! Dan!”

Phil groaned as looked through the screen of his phone at the video recording of his fiancé up on stage. That was one thing Dan did make Phil promise to do if Phil was going to be attending every concert on his tour: record each show.

So, Phil, being the best fiancé he could be, made a bunch of storage onto an old iPhone he found laying around their flat and proceeded to record and attend each show on Dan’s United States Tour. Tonight, they were in some place called Buffalo and Phil couldn’t really make out what was even going on here besides the fact that Canada and Niagara Falls was literally on the other side of the city.

It was night 13 and although Phil knew Dan would never admit it, Dan was tired. Phil could tell on the screen as his body lagged a bit more than it did in rehearsals and his singing was a bit off key. Not like any of the screaming girls and boys could tell the difference but Phil had been to enough rehearsals and shows to tell with Dan was struggling a bit with his energy.

But, it was the last song before the encore. Phil’s phone battery was struggling to hold on and his arm was getting a bit tired holding it as steady as he could for Dan’s big ‘project’ that he wants the footage for.

“Remember that the footage has to be usable, Phil. That means I don’t want your shaky arm trying to focus on me.”

Phil laughed in his head as he replayed Dan’s words to him the night Phil told him he was attending each show and Dan told him about his master plans—which were also a secret…to Phil anyway. Phil hadn’t pushed the matter when Dan had made it clear he didn’t want to tell anyone his plan so Phil had just went along with it. Although he does in a way wish he could know why he’s getting an arm ache every night.

The music to Dan’s final song cuts out and everyone starts cheering. Dan’s smiling, Phil’s smiling back, knowing Dan can’t see him but he can feel it, and everything has gone perfectly once again for another night.

Dan walks off the stage and the band continues to play and Phil sees a few people begin to trickle out from the corner of his eye but he just shrugs it off as people wanting to leave early or wanting to beat the crowd. He tries not to feel a little bit hurt when he sees some people leave the show early even though an irrational part of his brain wants people to stay and see what his fiancé is doing on the stage.

Its radio silent in the stadium. Phil is still shocked that Dan managed to sell out a nearly 40,000 person stadium but he has. Just as people look defeated and ready to leave, Dan comes back out in an entirely new outfit and the whistles and cheers begin again.

Dan’s final two songs are Phil’s favorite. But that’s honestly because they’re about him. If people didn’t know the meaning of Dan’s songs, they would think they were about a childhood love or even a teenage love that blossomed into more. They wouldn’t know that they, quite literally, told the world about his and Phil’s long-term relationship.

As Dan belted out the lyrics about blue eyes and raven hair, Phil felt the hair on his arm prickle up a bit and goosebumps form. He always gets chills. He remembers when Dan first wrote the pieces and read the lyrics to Phil. Phil had cried so hard and just held Dan close as Dan just giggled and kissed his cheek.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because they’re beautiful, Dan.”

“Yeah, well, you’re just as beautiful too.”

It was cheesy. Of course it was. But in the words of another Dan lyric, “it was meant to be cheesy”.

Just as Phil’s phone gives the final battery warning, Dan’s set finally ends and a shower of sparks sprays up as confetti falls all over the floor. Phil reached out and caught a few pieces himself and pocketed them in his jean jacket. He was saving those for his own special surprise.

Dan left the stage and the lights slowly turned on and Phil waited for the mass crowd of girls around him to dissipate before he snuck around to the stage entrance and visited Dan in the dressing room.

Dan’s security guards knew him by face so he didn’t have to say anything when he walked behind the stage and ended up by a door that he opened to a long hallway. When he got the dressing room and saw Dan’s name on the door, he knocked once and pressed it open.

“Hey!”

Phil shut the door behind him as he walked in to Dan sprawled out on the couch, his arms flopped down by his side. “You did amazing tonight.”

Dan turned his head and smiled at him, his face red and a bit sweaty, his make up a bit melted. “You’d say that even if I fucked up every song.”

Phil walked over and sat down on the other end of the couch. Dan immediately sat up and scooted towards Phil before flopping into his chest and relaxing. Phil wrapped his arm around Dan’s upper body and pulled him close, bending down and kissing the top of his head.

Just as Dan’s body relaxed a bit further and Phil felt the rest of his muscles tense, the door opened and Dan’s manager walked in, her phone in head. “We’re going to have to leave within the hour to get on the road towards Pittsburgh.”

Dan just nodded and smiled at her as he pulled away from Phil and stretched. He was still fully in his costume—well, it was an outfit but it was pretty costume-like too in Phil’s opinion but the sparkles and glitter sequins on the black leather covering Dan’s arms.

“You should get dressed,” Phil says turning to Dan. “Tonight is going to be a tour bus night and I don’t feel like having you complain the entire time that your jeans are too constricting.”

Dan scoffed and reached out, slapping his arm. “That was once and you had no problem helping me get the jeans off so I don’t want to hear you complain, you twat.”

Phil just giggled and leaned over, capturing Dan’s lips in a quick kiss. He still gets butterflies in his chest when he kisses Dan and he loves that. He loves that Dan still has the same affect on him as he did when they were teenagers, meeting for the first time in a bar in Manchester. Dan was singing for a cover band and Phil was just a lonely college student looking to have a few drinks.

It was really like fate that they actually took each other to bed that same night but then both simultaneously decided that being together only once wasn’t going to cut it and nearly ten years and one proposal later, here they were. Phil supporting Dan on tour as Phil works from his laptop for the BBC.

“Maybe if you’re good we can celebrate in the hotel room tomorrow night,” Dan whispers before pressing another kiss to Phil’s lips. Phil just smiles into it and kisses back one more time for good measure.

“Hm…maybe.”

Dan shoves Phil back with a laugh as he finally stands up and makes his way over to his suitcase in the corner that was filled with all of his stuff. Phil watched as he took off his outfit and hung it on a hanger for the crew to grab later and then put on a pair of sweatpants and Phil’s baggy York University sweatshirt.

Phil gave that to Dan when they first started dating so when Dan went back home at night, he would still have Phil with him. Now, Phil would love to have that hoodie back but Dan quite literally growls when Phil even makes that suggestion so he lets Dan have it now.

They grab the rest of Dan’s stuff and then make their way out the back to their tour bus and get inside with minimal people around…thankfully. They take a seat on one of the couches on the side and Dan curls up onto Phil just as Phil wraps his arms around him once more.

They’ll go to the bedroom soon where they’ll sleep but for right now, they were just going to sit and relax for the ride.

***

Something surprising happens when Phil wakes up the next morning, a bit disoriented as he realizes he’s on the moving bus. He checks his phone and goes on Twitter and sees that ‘Daniel Howell Live’ is still trending on Twitter. He curiously checks the hashtag because hey, if he can find some good video and good photos for PR, he’ll have Dan’s manager ask the people for permission to use them. So he scrolls a bit and he scrolls a bit more and suddenly there is a photo of him, stood at his seat, recording the show.

Has anyone else noticed this guy is at every show??? What does a middle aged man go to all of Dan’s shows?? That’s creepy.

After that tweet, there was a thread and apparently there was a photo of him taken at every show and he legit didn’t know about it. He, in fact, had zero idea anyone was taking his photo and he genuinely was a bit freaked out by it.

He read a few more tweets.

He’s been at every show I’ve gone to! I’ve noticed him! Maybe he’s a stalker of Dan…how gross. Dan’s not gay.

Phil had to scoff at that, loud enough that Dan turned over in his sleep and settled his weight into Phil’s chest, knocking his phone slightly out of the way so his head could rest there. “What are you laughing at?” Dan asked, his sleepy voice so slurred Phil could hardly understand what he was talking about.

“Just some tweet I read saying you weren’t gay.”

Dan snorted and reached up, making grabby hands for Phil’s phone so Phil handed it over and Dan sat up a bit and looked at the tweets. “These are actually kind of laughable.”

“I know.”

“They think you’re my stalker.” Dan laughed. “Who even pays attention to whether or not someone is at a show every night?”

Phil shrugged because he genuinely didn’t know either.

Phil knew that fans speculated about Dan’s sexuality though. Really, it’s been a source of talk ever since Dan’s first big break a few years back when he opened up for Taylor Swift on her European Tour. But Phil also knows that Dan has made it completely clear that he wants to keep his sexuality and his relationship with Phil only for private. And Phil completely gets that.

They’ve been out since they started dating to close friends and family. Phil’s been out to everyone he’s known since university. But Dan has always had a bit more trouble accepting his sexuality and for that, Phil understands Dan’s hesitation when he says he’s not ready to share that side of his life yet.

But Phil loves Dan more than anything else. He loves his smile, his dimples, his laugh, and the way he insults him when they’re being silly. But he also loves the side of Dan no one sees. The side where sex and love and intimacy is involved. He even let a selfish part of himself think about that while they were in bed together the other night. A part of him that when he fucked into Dan, he thought about how no one else knew this side of Dan: this was the side that only Phil got to see.

“Hm…” Dan says, breaking Phil’s thoughts. “It’s quite amusing to me that so many fans are so adamant to say I’m straight. Like, I think it’s actually quite obvious that I’m gay in the same way that I know it’s obvious I like dick but…”

Phil squeaked and pushed a hand over Dan’s mouth to get him to stop that thought right there and Dan just opened his lips and licked a fat stripe over Phil’s palm that had Phil cringing and pulling his hand away.

“You’re easy to break, ya know.” Dan says, laying his head on Phil’s chest so he can look up him. His big brown doe eyes were like pools that Phil could get lost in.

“It’s because I love you too much.”

Dan kisses Phil’s chest. “Mm…love you too.”

They get off from the bus not long after to check into their hotel and put their suitcases in their room. Afterwards, it was straight to the venue to prepare and do the soundcheck and Phil was going to walk around and explore Pittsburgh a bit more, seeing as he’s never been before.

That night, he ends up in the same floor pit that he was in the night before, like he always is, with his phone fully charged and ready to go. He sends Dan a quick ‘good luck, i love you so much’ message before he puts his phone away and takes out the one to record.

The show goes smoothly and everyone is happy and the night ends the same way with Phil retreating back and visiting Dan just as Dan is getting out of his costume. He leaves with Dan to go to the hotel and when they get back into the room, he goes on Twitter again and happens to see the same thread but with new photos of him.

The man was at Pittsburgh too!! Does @danielhowell know he has a stalker?? Should we contact the police?

Phil rolled his eyes and showed Dan the tweets to which Dan replied with an eye roll and a “for fucks sake!” before he flopped onto the bed and rolled towards Phil to snuggle.

“Gonna have to get security after me apparently,” Phil playfully jokes.

Dan swings his leg over Phil’s hip and sits flush on his hips as he leans down and kisses Phil soundly on the mouth. “Maybe so.” He whispers with a smirk, placing his hand on Phil’s jaw. “Maybe I’ll have to tell security that a hot guy has been chasing after me since my uni days and he follows me to all of my concerts and he also happens to be my fiancé who is fucking great in bed and…yeah, I’d really like to continue the great in bed part right about now.”

So after a quick round of sex that left them both breathless, Phil fell asleep with the thoughts in his mind about what they were supposed to do. Dan had a two day break before his show in Albany so he hopes by then maybe everyone will forget about him.

But somehow, he fears they won’t.

***

Dan flubs up on accident in Albany.

Phil doesn’t realize what he’s done until the young girl sitting next to him on the floor is pointing out the silver band on Dan’s ring finger.

It’s his engagement ring and as soon as Phil sees it, his heart stops a bit in his chest because he knows Dan is gonna have to answer for this. He’s going to have to answer for why he suddenly is wearing a ring on that finger when he never did before…well, in the public eye anyway.

Phil proposed to Dan over three years prior but they both agreed on not planning any of their wedding until Dan’s done with his United States tour. Phil was completely fine with that but Dan wore his ring all of the time when it was just them or he was going out with friends.

He normally keeps it safe on the bus or in the safe in the hotel room but he must have forgotten to take it off.

And fuck other people are pointing now and he hopes to God Dan cannot notice what is happening.

At the end of the show, Phil practically runs to Dan’s dressing room where Dan is crying softly on the couch, his face scrunched up as he struggles to hold in the tears of guilt and frustration that he can read so clearly on Dan’s face. He runs over to him and gathers him tight as Dan lets them go and apologizes to Phil for wearing it.

“I forgot I had it on.” Dan said through strangled tears.

“It’s okay.”

“But it’s not!” Dan cried. “Oh my God I’ve fucked up so bad.”

And while that turned out to not be entirely true, Phil did reassure him as much as possible that everything was going to be okay.

***

The tabloids talk about it first.

Dan Howell Spotted With Mystery Ring on Left Hand in Albany Show.

That seemed to be the headline written everywhere like a slap across the face.

All of the fangirls were crying. What women is he secretly married to? What is that ring? When did this all happen? How could this all happen?

Phil felt like he had whiplash reading all of the comments.

“We’re going to have to address this,” Phil says softly.

“I know.”

They’re sat in a hotel in Boston now, waiting for the show to begin in a few hours. They had snuck away for a private talk and everyone had let them go. They needed to discuss this, no matter how hard it could be.

“I know you don’t want to out us…”

“No,” Dan says, biting his lip. “I…I think I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” Phil says. “You could always say you want to be private and…”

“How long is that privacy really going to last, Phil?” Dan asked, his voice defeated. “Is it going to last for a year or only for an hour? People are already commenting about you and you’ve done nothing…maybe we should just come out.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Dan bites his lip and bit harder and then looks Phil in the eyes as he nods. “It’s what I want.”

“Okay,” Phil says, leaning in for a kiss. “It’s what I want too.”

Phil wanted whatever was best for Dan and if this was best, then he wanted to go along with it.

They made their way back to the stadium and Phil opted for standing off the side of the stage instead of in the audience, just in case. He’d seen some of Dan’s earlier shows this way but never once has he seen him play such a sold out show from the sidelines.

They concert begins as normal and Phil notices that Dan is wearing his ring again, not taking it off and he feels his heart flutter a bit. Dan does his normal songs and routines and then before they know it, the encore is starting.

But right before it does, Dan asks if the audience can get quiet for a moment.

“As many of you all know,” he begins into his microphone. “The next few songs I have written are about someone very special in my life. I’ve been hiding them from you for a very long time now and I really just…don’t want to anymore. They’re such a massive part of who I am today and who I will be in the future and I don’t want to continue hiding them anymore. And it’s not fair to you guys either.

Suddenly Dan turns to where Phil is standing and Phil feels his heart give out a bit. Dan motions for Phil to walk out and Phil looks down at his black Vibes shirt and ripped jeans and feels like he’s not properly addressed for this but he starts walking out anyway and there are suddenly cheers and yells and Phil doesn’t know what’s happening.

“Everyone, meet my fiancé Phil.” Dan says, taking Phil’s hand and standing close to him. “You all have been talking about him quite a bit online so here is my apparent stalker who is actually just my fiancé and partner for the last 1o years.”

Dan leans over and kisses Phil on the cheek and Phil feels a bit flush at all of this. Like he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore but he also doesn’t entirely mind it.

“Okay, now get off the stage you dork. You’re stealing my show.”

Dan turns to Phil and wraps a hug around him and Phil hugs him back, holding him close as he kisses Dan’s neck once and lets him go, lingering their hands touching for a bit too long as he disembarks down the stage with Dan’s security guard and stands in the audience once again, looking up at Dan with all of the love in the world.

Social media went crazy that night, but really Phil didn’t mind. He went to the rest of the shows as promised and recorded all of them too. At the end of the tour, he finally asked Dan what the footage was for and Dan finally told him.

“It’s for our wedding.” He says, not adding anything more.

Phil just holds him tight and kisses his cheek some more.

Life is going to be a bit hectic for a while, but at least he won’t be seen as the stalker fan anymore, and now he’ll be treated as Dan’s fiancé: a title he is more than proud to have.

#phan #phanfiction #phanfic #fluff #smut #angst #princesslexi763fics

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average-jor · 4 years

Text

sorry, blame it on me

at one point in my life, i was in a really terribly abusive relationship. i don’t wanna use real names so i’m going to refer to him as dan. dan was older, a little reserved at first, but nice enough of a guy. a former friends boyfriend was dan’s roommate which is how i ever ended up in this guy’s life at all. they, being the amazing friends they were, decided to bring me there to have sex with him. even though they never told me this, so dan seemed even nicer to me once i learned this. what a low fucking standard, first of all. not that i knew better, having been raised by toxic narcissist abusive family members and then a slew of foster parents.

but dan didn’t pressure me, he gave me aspirin for my headache - which was real and ended up being a point of contention later as i realized he wasn’t as nice as i thought and he had assumed i was lying about the headache the whole time just to get out of porking this asshat - and he even bought me a pack of cigarettes. which is nasty but i smoked at the time so it was a really nice gesture.

i spent 7 years living with this guy. i’m sure in other posts, i’ll eventually get more into what that was like, but suffice to say those 7 years were a prison sentence. all my friends and family were aware of what a douche canoe this guy was. but how do you help someone in that situation? it’s not easy. in any event, my friends heard a lot about this guy. he was my whole life - good or bad - and therefore was ALL i had to talk to anyone about. my friends were tired of it. one of them even broke off our friendship because of the emotional turmoil i was putting them through. we were young, i understand that she wasn’t equipped to deal with it, and that it fed into her anxieties and caused her mental health to suffer. i had also straight up stopped caring about myself/what happened to me. so when i got sick, medically sick, i didn’t really do much to take care of myself, or to get treatment. we’ve since talked about it and are once again friends.

with all that being said, i’ve run into this problem i’m having in my shiny new life. the one where i actually met and married a really nice guy. a really good guy. a decent dude. the kind of guy women are always saying they can’t find. i found him. he’s great. but like any human to ever exist, he’s got some flaws. some major issues that he’s working on. what makes him such a good guy is that he actually will recognize these things and works on them willingly. which, lemme tell ya, is a breath of fresh fucking air.

but he’s still got issues. i get frustrated sometimes by how he deals with his anger. it always escalates any disagreement or even argument we’re having ten fold. it makes it harder for me to keep a level head and remain calm and reasonable during arguments. sometimes i fail, surprise surprise.

at this point though, i feel like i cannot talk to anyone ever about the issues i have in my new relationship. i feel like because my husband is this really good guy, the people in my life who knew dan or knew of dan, cannot empathize with me on issues i experience with my husband. i’ve had literal conversations where i try to explain what i’m feeling as a result of something my husband did or said, and it gets swept under the rug!! “he’s such a good guy, though” “dan was so much worse”. NO SHIT PEOPLE. thanks so much for ur fucking profound comments and observations.

look i am not trying to be a bitch about anything. but shaming me into feeling thankful for all the good stuff instead of allowing me to feel how i feel about the not so good stuff is NOT HEALTHY. just because my husband is a good guy, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be held accountable for the things he does that hurt me! just because he’s not hurting me like dan did, doesn’t mean he’s not hurting me period.

sometimes i just wanna be like “i’m so annoyed with him today” to a friend of mine and not have it immediately be met with the attitude that says “u have some nerve being annoyed at this LITERAL ANGEL FROM HEAVEN when you spent 7 years with the DEVIL”.

i’m not sure why this is on my mind today. i think because i got slightly annoyed at my husband and then realized i had zero people to talk to besides HIM about it. i wonder if anyone else who has found healthy love after a toxic relationship could relate.

#storytime #life story #lifestory #true story #truestory #mylife #excerpt from a book i'll never write #writing #writer #anxiety #abusiverelationships #abuse #triggerwarnings #healthylove #toxic relationship #rant #depression #can anyone relate?

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fart-gate · 4 years

Text

SG1

Season 2 episode 9

🚨trigger warning: mentions of rape in my notes🚨

"SECRETS"

Notes by me

- the chief from abydos! Also daniels father in law :)

- no glasses!Daniel in this scene

- I love how dedicated Daniel is to his space family and their culture😌 like this random Egyptian planet was like I'm gonna keep you! And he said okie dokie

- "I couldnt possibly be safer than in the company of tealc" AKDEOSNDJSJSSKA

- Jack wants to go back too lol

- Daniel back in his robes 💕

- back home for daniel! To abydos!

- Bodyguard!tealc

- apologizing to sha'res dad for not being able to find her yet 😟 its not your fault babe!

- SHA'RE??? YOUVE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME WHAT THE FUCK

- tealc:

- shes pregnant and that is....really bad. If its one of the goaulds that raped her. This got dark real quick

- "husband!" "My daniel" I CANT HANDLE THIS IM ALREADY GOING INSANE

- he doesnt want to bring his hopes up that its actually her 😭

- hes shocked but like.....i would be too

- I was right its apophis kid :\ this so fucked up

- Host Baby??? Big Yikes

- okay I'm gonna say this right fucking now before i watch any more. If Daniel blames her and gets mad at her for being raped and getting pregnant WITHOUT her consent than i will personally come thru this screen and slap the fuck out of him

- meanwhile! Jack and Sam bonding time!

- SAMS DAD

- sha're thinking Daniel wont love her anymore :( she better be wrong or I'm throwing hands

- she said the goauld is Amunet? Is that the dog goddess? Or the crocodile? I'm getting my Egyptian gods mixed up

- Daniel sitting outside to Process™

- "hasnt she gone thru enough?" My brain stopped working I'm so happy hes not not blaming her. Writers for once youre doing something right

- man hes really emotional about this

- tealcs right they need to take her anyway for her own safety.

- do u think he sympathizes with her bc hes been raped too? Its not said but I feel like thats what it is. He knows it wasnt her fault. And that also means they can comfort each other about what happened to them😟bc they understand

- okay why is sams dad being a total dill hole

- "Ive heard nothing about you, sir." Jack youre not off to a great first impression

- Jack making sam smile with sly jokes

- her dad knows she be lyin about her job

- he wants her to go to space HAHA if only he knew. His tiny brain would explode

- Daniel said he loves her no matter what and then gave her a big hug im LOSING MY MIND

- are we keeping the baby??? Am I gonna see Dad!Daniel and mom!sha're ??? 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

- micheal shanks eyes are super blue in this episode for my viewing pleasure only

- protective!Daniel 😍

- I'm just remembering how they met and when she showed him the forbidden drawings in the caves and they spent days together just sharing knowledge. When he found out they were married(in her culture) and just completely accepted it. When he saved her bc he realised he was in love. When he stayed on abydos so that he could live a full life with her and her people because he felt like he belonged. I'm fine

- parents need to ask before they set up things like job interviews. I have personal experience with this and im full of rage

- this reporter literally having a recording of Jack talking about the stargate and Jack flatly denying it. Zero fucks given

- Daniel saying he wont force sha're into anything. Bc up to this point shes been forced into so much!! He knows he needs to let her make her own choices!!! He gets it!!!

- im sorry both Daniel and sha're are so pretty in his episode. My bisexual brain is just having a real good time looking👀

- I REALLY really love it when she calls him "my dan-yel" ❤❤❤

- the SGC has a mole???

- LABOR somebody boil water

- oh its my goauld mans with the sick earrings

- Daniel helping her give birth. Sitting behind her and helping her breathe. I'm love

- "this is where we hid from Ra remember?" Ajdjsisnana thats such a cool detail

- he'll never leave her again there goes my heart

- "It's O'Neill. With two L's. Theres another colonel O'Neil, but he has no sense of humor at all."

- dont you hate when youre about to uncover a huge government secret and then immediately get hit by a car

- shooting the zat gun into the camera was a cool directing choice 🔥

- sam: so I'm getting a medal for my service this week! Cool right?

Jacob Carter: I have cancer

- he could not have been any more blunt

- ok dude cant you just accept the fact that she cant tell you what her job? Dont you know what top secret means? Cant you just be proud of her for what she does already???? Dick

- "I will always love you!!"

- she is scared she will lose Daniel and the baby :(

- its a boy! 💙💙

- the goauld is back in control oh god Daniel run

- shes actually pretty scary as a goauld

- yeah ok shoot the woman who just gave birth tealc YEESH

- that was a good idea to frame Heru'hur tho

- Daniel hesitating to leave her again. My heart is breaking 😢

- they saved the baby at least

- poor sha're didnt even get to see her son 😔

- bringing the baby back to the grandfather was a good idea😊

- this baby is SO SO cute

- is Daniel a stepdad now. Is he gonna come back and play catch with the kid when hes older. Is he gonna fully adopt him. I want him to fully adopt him

- Jack blaming himself for the reporters death. You gotta stop doing this to yourself man

- black shirt Daniel 👀👀👀👀

- HAHA tealc shoving the jaffa into the vortex lmaooo

- "you dare challenge me?"

"I was thinking about it"

- WHEN JACK GRABS HIS KNIFE REAL QUICK AND SPEARS IT INTO APPOPHIS HAND

- she definitely saw them and didnt say anything

- "are you alright?"

"No. No im not.........but I will be."

"She looked directly at us, Daniel jackson. And yet she did not reveal our position." YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS LADS. Theres still hope for my girl. She can fight this I believe in her ✊😤

- I will say it again tho. This storyline for her is very fucked up. No excuses, its just a bit over used in sci fi for the women characters to have surprise pregnancies.

Whump under the cut

Tealc whump: fought with jaffa

Daniel jackson whump: shocked, emotional, crying, forced kneeling, back handed

Sam carter whump: emotional , crying

🎶listening to You Are The Reason by Calum Scott and Leona Lewis 🎶 in honor of Daniel and sha're making me lose my collective mind

No glasses!Daniel for most of the episode

#stargate season 2 #no glasses!daniel #bodyguard!tealc #tw rape #tealc whump season 2 #daniel whump season 2 #sam whump season 2

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nigelgodrichproducer · 4 years

Text

Nigel Interviews Dan Snaith (Caribou, Daphni)

SOURCE: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/caribous-dan-snaith-and-producer-nigel-godrich-unravel-the-mystery-of-making-music

Wonderful interview with Nigel and Dan (Caribou/Daphni) who as you might recall has previously spent some time working in Nigel’s room at Strongroom. Plus, Nigel is a fan, having referenced Caribou and Daphni recently in Ultraista-related promo. I find this to be one of Nigel’s more revealing interviews in that he explicitly outlines his role and what he brings to Thom Yorke and other artists.

Reproduced here for posterity’s sake:

NIGEL GODRICH: Do you have a studio here in your home?

DAN SNAITH: I’ve only ever worked from home. I’ve never worked in a studio apart from in the final stages. It used to be in the bedroom where my wife was sleeping, and I’d be trying to record something in the middle of the night. In rural Ontario, I couldn’t conceive of having the money to pay for time in a studio. Your way in was to work in a studio. If I listened to Pink Floyd, I was like, “I’m never going to make that record,” because that cost a million pounds in 1971. But electronic music at the time was being made in somebody’s bedroom. So as a teenager, I started working in a bedroom.

GODRICH: Totally. And that’s something that I find fascinating from the other side. I definitely went the other route in terms of getting into recording. And I’m a little older than you. That means that by the time you were coming of age, you had more technology, which meant that you could do a lot of things at home that I wasn’t able to do at all.

SNAITH: I came in at that exact moment in music recording history when all of a sudden it was like, “Hey, wait, we can do this.”

GODRICH: There’s a certain kind of approach which requires a lot of equipment. I’ve followed that always. But you have a computer that can do all of these things that emulate things that I would do in the studio. I don’t know how you do it, but I love the end product. I like that I don’t know how it’s made.

SNAITH: I started making music with zero gear, like the microphone that a telemarketer would use to record my vocals.

GODRICH: I meet people who have not worked with professional gear, and they always want to ask, “What mic should I use on the drum kit?” To me, it’s irrelevant. Before you had the good equipment, you were still doing what you do, and it worked. It’s a musical thing. It’s about your brain and how it interfaces with the computer.

SNAITH: I would counter by saying that when I listened to the records that you’ve produced, they have a quality that I’m certainly chasing, and I think I’m a long way off. But I work within those limitations and that’s part of what is stimulating and exciting.

GODRICH: It’s very important to have those unattainable goals as artists. I’m inspired by the thing you’re doing, but I can’t do that either. I think that’s a fairly common trait of anyone that’s creative.

GODRICH: You’re an expat from Canada. How long have you lived in England?

SNAITH: Since 2001.

GODRICH: Do you feel that this is home? Do you feel English?

SNAITH: My parents are English and moved to Canada before I was born. I sound very much like a Canadian. I came back to do a PhD here in 2001. When I was in Canada, I always felt a bit British. I felt like I had a foot on both sides of the Atlantic. And now as long as I’ve been in England, I feel more Canadian, maybe. That’s interesting, because my whole life, my dad was like, “This would be much better in England.” It drove us all crazy. He’d never enjoy the place where he was, and now that he’s moved back to England, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s the grass-is-greener scenario.

GODRICH: Human beings tend to do that. There is something very specific in your aesthetic, which is not actually British. There’s this kind of crossing point, a quality to your programming and some of the sounds that you choose and the aesthetic that you have, it’s from over there, in a good way. Are you aware of that, or is it just what comes out of you?

SNAITH: When I’m recording in general, I’m so bad at conceptualizing or planning what I’m doing. I’d imagine people who approach you want you to have a kind of picture of what you’re doing.

GODRICH: That’s always my first question: What is it that you think I’m going to do? It’s a very good yardstick to get a grip on what they actually understand about what it is that I do. Because if they’re completely off the mark, it’s kind of a waste of time.

SNAITH: Interesting.

GODRICH: They might not have an answer to that, which is fine, too. It’s an interesting question to ask because you’ll get an answer, or a look of confusion. The other thing for me, because you get associated with something so strongly, so it’s the guy guarding the cave saying, “Do you just want me to make you sound like Radiohead? I’m not going to be able to do that. So if that’s what you’re after, you’re wasting your time anyway.” But what I was saying was you have something over other British artists. What do you think about me saying that? Are you surprised that I think that?

SNAITH: I think you’re right. Even though it doesn’t come out consciously, at some deep level, so much of my nostalgia is built up around North American music. When I was growing up, one of the big turning points in my learning to love music was getting into hip-hop, and through that into old records: “What did this Wu Tang record sample? Let me find the original record.” But also, if you start buying records in flea markets, the records that are in the flea markets there are different from the ones here. You’re not finding a Smiths 12-inch, you’re finding The Byrds.

GODRICH: Hip-hop especially, we all have a taste for it here, but we can’t make it.

SNAITH: Or it’s a British version of it.

GODRICH: But a British version of it has the Jamaican influence that makes trip-hop. We slow it down. There’s this other version of hip-hop in the mainstream, which doesn’t work here, I don’t think.

SNAITH: It’s better when it’s a homegrown thing, like grime music, which does a different take on hip-hop.

GODRICH: Exactly. Grime’s roots are in reggae and Jamaican music, a completely different thing. We can do that and Americans can’t do that. They can’t do jungle. But you can do more than we can do because you’ve got the American gene. That’s kind of what I hear.

SNAITH: The one thing that I thought I would never be able to do from day one was hip-hop. It was untouchable. I’ll never produce like DJ Premier or Q-Tip or Madlib. It was like, don’t even try, because when people in my world try—

GODRICH: It’s the worst thing in the world.

SNAITH: The worst thing ever. There’s a song on this album called “Home,” based on a loop from a Gloria Barnes track, an old soul record, and I heard the track and I was like, that needs to be looped. That’s the impulse of somebody who’s listened to a lot of hip-hop. I don’t care whether I’m going to make a track out of this, you’ve just got to take that bit and hear it on a loop because it’s going to be perfect, and then put a kind of hip-hop breakbeat under it. I had that sitting around for a couple of years before I figured out how I could a track out of it.

GODRICH: Do you think in terms of singles?

SNAITH: I have a sense of what tracks are more immediate than others. That was the first single. It made sense when I played that to people and then asked them, “What do you remember from what I played you?” They’d be like, “Oh, that track ‘Home.'” It’s just in there immediately and it’s because it’s an incredible loop. People will want to hear this over and over again. But I really think in terms of albums. I’ve grown up listening to records like the ones you’ve produced. When I came across Radiohead’s music, I was just like, that is like a journey, a narrative arc the whole way through. That’s the classic conception of an album. And I know that people don’t necessarily listen to music that way anymore.

GODRICH: So they tell us, but I don’t even believe it.

SNAITH: At the beginning, I was like, who am I making music for? I’m making music literally for me. But then, if somebody else is going to listen to it, it’s going to be somebody who loves music in the way that I do, not somebody who’s just hearing it on the radio. That’s changed. The more your music expands into the world, the more people have different ways of approaching it. One of the biggest things that ever happened to me, and I had no idea that this was going to be a thing at the time, was a track called “Odessa” that was on FIFA 11 video game. People talk to me about that all the time. When I was asked about it, I was like, “Okay, yeah, sure, whatever. That’s fine, I’ll give permission.” But I kind of love that that happened and people came across this music that would’ve never come across my music. It’s nice to embrace the way that it’ll travel in this weird way through the world.

GODRICH: That’s fantastic. I think we have to do that now as well, because of the world we live in. When you’re a record maker like you or I, it’s changed to the point of music just being so ubiquitous that everybody’s so saturated, so you can’t be blamed for using an avenue like that. Back in the day it was a dirty word to do something mainstream and allow somebody to promote something with your music. But nowadays, the whole experience of culture is just so multifaceted and fractured that I’m personally very pleased that “Odessa” ended up on FIFA, because that means more people heard your music.

SNAITH: I should say that I still have an old school mindset where I don’t want it to be associated with corporate interests and moneymaking in various ways. I still am picky about it.

GODRICH: FIFA is pretty cool, though. The album made me think about the art of creating pop music. It’s an art form. There’s something about being able to create this joy in music. It’s very easy to make sad records. Melancholy is quite easy in my experience. Making things that make you want to get up and jump up and down, that’s harder. Do you see yourself putting out a load of singles? Do you get involved in that process?

SNAITH: I do. There’s another track called “Never Come Back” that’s a more straight-up euphoric dance-pop thing that’s going to be the next single. But none of them represent the record in its totality. “Home” was going to make people think the record would be one thing, but if we’d released something else first it would have meant that it was something else. Do you get called on to make that call very often?

GODRICH: Historically, it’s been the most unpopular part of the process, because essentially what happens is you have somebody telling you, “We took it to radio and they think we should use this song.”

SNAITH: Oh, really?

GODRICH: It’s always a bit like, “Really? We should use this one.” And they kind of turn around and say, “Well you can if you want, but if you do that, and it doesn’t work out, you employ these people to do their job.” We all wanted to put out “Reckoner” as the first single for In Rainbows. And we were told no, which we thought was quite weird. In America, they have different taste from here, so they generally go for the most rock-y, generic thing. Which is quite frustrating. I’ve never really been good at singles.

SNAITH: When you hear an album that really is an album from beginning to end, you kind of assume that the person who made it had a conception of that arc when they were making it. That’s not the way it works for me at all. It’s all jumbled together and it’s all finished and then I put it in an order.

GODRICH: Subconsciously you’re making a thousand decisions every minute, and slowly that stuff is being sieved into things that make sense. I also know the experience of working on a song, and in my head I’ve already decided this is the first song on side two. You’ve started doing it unconsciously. This is how you’re supposed to work as an artist. You’re not supposed to write down a formula. You just have to follow your instincts.

SNAITH: There’s a lot of stuff on this record that’s more personal than ever, about deaths and my wife’s family and health crises with my parents and losing friends. How does anybody ever get that stuff out with a producer in there? I could only imagine doing that when I close the door in my studio and I’m the only person in there, and I can kind of trick myself into thinking that this is just for me right now, and I’m never going to release it.

GODRICH: Well because you’re writing, so you can write something that can press those buttons and make sense to you and make you feel that feeling. And then it exists and you can go and frame it in a different way. And maybe you could work with a producer in terms of framing it, if you didn’t have those skills yourself, but you do. It’s about relationships, really. When you’re in a working relationship, you literally are wearing each other’s underwear. It’s very, very intimate. So you have be comfortable enough to bare your soul.

SNAITH: I’ve got the impression that some of the Radiohead albums are being created and written at the same time that they’re being recorded or demoed.

GODRICH: Radiohead is different. I grew up with those guys. It’s more intimate.

SNAITH: Still, I think that would be hard.

GODRICH: Thom Yorke has a notebook and he’s spewing out lines and I go, “Yes, no, yes, no.” He’s able to put himself in a room and really go into himself. He’s just a person who can do that. He can write 30 verses of “Dawn Chorus,” and it ends up being really long, and then he’ll chew on it. Thom always used to just carry notebooks with him everywhere we went. We’d be eating, and he writes stuff down all the time. For “Everything In Its Right Place” it was just me and him in a room, and he’s like, “Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. Oh, I can’t say that.” And I’m like, “Yes, you can. That’s great.”

SNAITH: That’s the thing I don’t have.

GODRICH: That’s just a creative partnership. That also comes down to the equipment, the fact that you need somebody to interface technologically to this enormous universe, and that’s what I’m good at. I’m strong technically, but I’m not interested in gear. I don’t find equipment sexy. People are always asking me about microphones, especially people making music solely on computers that I think is absolutely mind-boggling, but has nothing to do with my business.

SNAITH: Right.

GODRICH: My skill is knowing how to operate all of this equipment. I can make it do things that if we’re in a collaboration and you’re throwing things in the air and I’m catching them, I can make things happen which you will get excited about and make you do something else. It’s a studio collaboration, which I think you leapfrogged, because your method is a one-person thing.

SNAITH: I’m sure you’re also selling yourself short in that a lot of what you do must be to do with the people and making them feel comfortable.

GODRICH: I hope to think that I’m not a horrific person to hang out with, and I have a lot of empathy with artists and people who make things. We all want to make something beautiful so we’re all here for the same reason. Relationships are very complicated and the psychology of the whole thing is very complicated. But that works better with people that you don’t know very well. Relationships that are very long in the tooth, like 25 years of hanging around with Thom Yorke, we’ve rubbed each other the wrong way enough times to know who we are. Do you go back to the things you did like two albums ago and pick them up?

SNAITH: I know that’s happened with Radiohead, but this is the first time that’s ever, ever happened for me. There’s a track on this album called “Magpie,” which is from the pot from my previous album, Our Love. Its mood didn’t fit that album. It was just a loop, but I thought I should finish it, and I think it does fit the mood of this record. It’s an anomaly that that’s happened, because I always felt that’s kind of cheating. I’m desperate to not repeat myself. Pick your favorite artists in the world. Look at their discographies, and 95 percent of the time you can chop off the last half of it, put it in the garbage, and you haven’t missed anything. Radiohead is kind of the exception to that. I’m so desperate not to become that person. Do you ever think, “I’ve made so much music but I can still make the best piece of music I’ve ever made today?”

GODRICH: It’s that thing you just said where you’re like, “Fuck, I don’t want this to not be as good as the last thing.” It’s that.

SNAITH: I got that from you guys actually on tour. It was just like, this has to be still fucking totally killer.

GODRICH: I’m very fortunate, because since I was young, I was exposed to people like Thom. These are art school people, but I never went to art school. I learnt about it from them. That exact thing that you’re talking about. When we finished Moon Shaped Pool, which I know is a really good record…

SNAITH: Sure is.

GODRICH: But if you start at The Bends and you get to here, that’s 21 years, and every 10 years we do an exceptional one, like OK Computer and In Rainbows. I felt like Moon Shaped Pool was up there in that respect. I think it’s kind of incredible that we’ve managed to do this.

SNAITH: You’re already way past the sell by date for most artists.

GODRICH: My analysis of that is that, I think Thom is very prolific, but we’ve not rushed the records. Your 900 ideas that took you four years to go through, that’s all right. That’s sort of how you do it. You just keep the bar high. There’s two reasons for doing things. One of them is to have fun and enjoy the process, and the other reason is to create something that you think will outlive you.

SNAITH: My process with making these 900 things is always fun. If you leave me alone, I’m going to go down in that room in the basement and I’m going to make something. I turn off my critical faculties and I just make something, and that thrill has never left me. Even if it’s mediocre, it’s still fun. Then it’s agonizing over, how do I assemble it into something bigger

GODRICH: I wanted to ask you about your PhD. It’s not a coincidence that you have a mind that makes music like this.

SNAITH: I genuinely have forgotten everything in my PhD. If I read it now, I would not understand it, which is weird. It’s like a language that I haven’t used for 20 years. Pure mathematics is so esoteric, so in this other world, that it has no relevance.

GODRICH: Can you understand that it gives you this enigmatic quality?

SNAITH: For sure.

GODRICH: It’s like, if you scrape away your skin, there’s some sort of metal…

SNAITH: People expect me to be taking apart a synthesizer and that is not me at all. I’m not a lab guy. I’m terrible with that kind of physical object.

GODRICH: You’re not practical.

SNAITH: Not at all. But a word like “symmetry” appeals to me in both music and math. Symmetry is a key concept in mathematics, that things have a kind of elegance or beauty in the way they’re symmetrical, the way they’re congruent, the way two ideas will fit together perfectly. That’s so satisfying. These abstract things that people have dreamed up, now just fit together in this beautiful way. That’s what a theorem is. I feel like music has that, the “kerchunk” moment, when two things work together in a way that’s beautiful and often not too obvious.

GODRICH: If you think about the action of just throwing a ball, the amount of trigonometry and calculation that we do unconsciously in order to just catch a ball, we have all of this sort of stuff going on in our heads. Music is so intangible, it’s the least understood art form. It’s like magic. But I do think there is mathematics in that magic.

SNAITH: I’d agree with that. But the thing I love about mathematics is when you get past the stage where you’re like, “Answer these questions that you should already know the answer to, like memorize your times tables.”

GODRICH: The boring shit.

SNAITH: Then you’re like, “Okay, here’s a question that nobody’s actually thought through and figured out the answer to yet.” And then it’s a kind of search or play, a kind of exploration. And that relates to me with music, too.

GODRICH: So you are Dr. Dan Snaith.

SNAITH: I am Dr. Dan Snaith.

GODRICH: Then that’s how I’ll always think of you.

#nigel godrich #daphni #caribou

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years

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The Bindings Of Time - Chapter 3. Time Confines Us All, Even Time Itself - PhannieMay - Day 13 Confined and Day 22 Memories

Summary: Danny gains and losses bindings

—return to the present—

“Um, Danny? Sweetie?”, Maddie pulls Danny out of his head, a head that is much more overfilled than it used to be, as he starts paying attention to her again. “Sorry just thinking, adjusting perceptions and what not”, judging by his mom’s expression that didn’t make much sense. He could just look back to see what they were talking about but it would be more natural, to a regular human or ghost, to not. Though Danny is finding it a little odd to not have instant access to the information. Just like with his ice, being in his human form seems to dampen his time powers and make them not so automatic. He actually has to forcibly look through time instead of his mind just doing it on its own as soon as the thought occurs to him. Effectively giving him a break from it, which is probably good for his, still partly human and thus totally not meant to handle this, psyche.

Blinking a bit, as he realises she never asked why he was gone so long. Sure he’d leave for hours at a time but not two full days, which was probably going to happen a lot now. Having time powers makes time feel a bit irrelevant, even if he literally can’t lose track of it, it’s more like he can ignore its passing or lack there of. A lot easier to be grounded in the now as a human though, makes the loss of his mentor feel closer though. “Um, sorry for being gone for so long”, rubbing his neck, “can’t say I like making you cry. Not my intention though, I didn’t know how long I’d be”. She’s looking at him a bit more confused, sighing worriedly, “you know me well, but I still feel like I’m playing catch-up with you”. Shaking her head at him which just makes him feel a bit guilty, as she keeps talking, “I don’t want to push you, since you’re obviously not in the best of spirits; even if I do want to know”. Danny nods, he can’t claim to be surprised. Both his parents have been that way since he was about sixteen. Two years of hiding and lying took its toll, but the past year of honestly had helped. Even if there still was so very much and now a whole lot more. “Well, it wasn’t anything bad or dangerous and I sort of knew what was happening”, pausing to check that talking about this won’t mess with anything, he can’t rely on ClockWork to be hyper-vigilant and pop up if he’s about to fuck up anymore. No, now he’s got to be even more hyper-vigilant, about pretty well everything. Tilting his head as he flips through scenarios, trying to just glaze lightly over so he doesn’t know literally everything anyone’s about to say to avoid coming off like an unnatural ass. ClockWork may have basked in that but he wasn’t about to pull that on his own family. Once he’s content this won’t fuck things up and knowing that yeah, putting off the topic of ClockWork is a bad idea, even if he’s still mourning him. Blinking a bit as he realises he’s going to have to “come out” as the master of time at some point to the entire Ghost Zone, that or he could be a sneaky bastard. He prefers option two at least in the beginning, continuing to speak now, “it’s the new job”, flicking his fingers at the thermos but not actually touching it, “babysitting this jerk isn’t the job, he just comes with the territory”. “So you took someone’s old job? A ghost related job or a job a ghost did? And a super evil ghost in a Fenton thermos came with? Can’t say I like that anymore than before”, deciding he prefers biting the bullet over dragging things out, like always. Danny clears his throat, “more like inherited it, I’ve been apprenticed for it since I as about 15 and he picked me out well before I was even born. And it’s a job done by a ghost, now a halfa”. Rubbing his neck a bit sheepishly, “technically this evil son of a- was my problem and responsibility first, he just became the other guy’s responsibility because he helped, basically cheated for, me”, smirking a little as he finishes, “and now everything’s come full circle, like the hands on a clock”. Danny can tell she’s a bit more shocked and not exactly pleased, “why would you get apprenticed for a ghost job? None the less be an apprentice to a ghost?! The rest I don’t get at all”. Watching his mom for a second, who looks more confused than understanding, before sighing sadly, “he saved my life, in more ways than one. If he hadn’t cheat time itself for me, I would have been destroyed. Likewise, I saved him, in me he found what he’d been waiting for since the beginning, someone to exist with him and free him”. Looking off at a wall aching with slowly fading sadness and loss, which just makes his cores lingering ache more noticeable, “I got continued existence and he got fulfilment and long earned rest. Free from the confines of the job, of eternity and time”. Rubbing his chest as he feels Maddie poke him, “sweetie you’re rambling a bit. I’m glad he saved you but it seems like you’re constantly in a state of near destruction. And I think I need to know what this job actually is, what kind of jobs do ghosts even have?”. “Um mom, we already went over me being indestructible now. Matured core and all that. He didn’t save me from near destruction, he saved me from guaranteed absolute destruction. Me surviving was impossible, that’s why I say he cheated. This thermos and who’s inside wouldn’t even exist if he hadn’t cheated. Saving me meant also saving the most powerful and evil ghost to ever exist”, knowing full well the conclusion his mom’s going to jump to here, “and no, I know he didn’t do it to save the evil ghost instead of me. And as for the job, it’s complicated. Overwhelmingly so, but this job is how he was able to cheat at all”. He can tell she doesn’t really believe him on the whole, ClockWork did it to save him, thing. Knowing that she’ll think he feels that way because he’s so ghost friendly, which it’s a damn good thing he is. Sighing, and tapping on the thermos, “the reason I was going to be destroyed was to destroy the ghost confined in here. Because if I stopped existing before that stupid C.A.T. test, then he would never have existed at all. This ghost destroyed nearly all of humanity and most ghosts. Laid waste to every human city and ghost lair. Eventually, he would have destroyed everything and everyone. He’s perfectly capable of still doing that, hence why he can not be allowed out”. “How-how? That, makes no sense? A ghost? A ghost could be that dangerous? Why is his existence, tied to, yours?”, frowning a little as he watches her eye the thermos clearly a bit freaked. Turning his head away from her, “because, because he’s me. Me as a full ghost after getting my humanity torn out”, grimacing hard as he talks, “you want a ghost devoid of emotions or good, he’s it. His name is Dan, Dan Phantom”. “Bullshit”, Danny jerks from that response and promptly decides he probably should have checked the future a bit better, apparently. Maddie shakes her head harshly, “you don’t have a bad bone in your body. You’re good”. “Well yeah I’m good, hence the whole he's me minus all humanity and horrendously traumatised after you all got killed in a massive explosion right in front of him. Not to mention getting experimented on afterwards by an utter frootloop”, shaking his head because he did feel a bit sorry for Dan, especially after seeing what Vlad actually did to him. “That me had it more than just bad, pretty well every awful thing that could happen to him, did. People don’t survive that and stay good, especially when they literally lack humanity”. Maddie meets his eyes looking a bit haunted as he finishes, “simply put, Dan snapped, becoming completely callous; a psychopath with zero traces of any morals”. Patting her hand, “but that was before my core stabilised. Dan was able to snap like that because his humanity was torn out before his core stabilised, making him already inherently unstable as a full ghost. My humanity can’t even be torn out now. So I can’t become him, not anymore”. “I, good. That’s good. What are you, going to...do.....With him?”, Danny still doesn’t really know, “well, I can’t leave him prolongedly unguarded, that’s why he’s here. Can’t carry him with me like this either, far too dangerous. And my room isn’t exactly closed off from all others without permission”. Frowning at the thermos, “really I need some way were no one but me has any form of access to him or the thermos but is also near me frequently”. “Well um, what’d the other guy do? Why would he retire if you, or him, didn’t have a plan”, Danny winces a bit at her saying “retire”, but ignores it for now, “he lived in a section of the Zone that is literally closed off from all others without permission. Technically it’s my home now too but I’m not going to move to the Zone. Obviously”. Danny raises an eyebrow at Maddie who clearly has an idea, tilting his head to the side knowing damn well he needs to know if this idea is a massive fuck up or not. Sighing as there are about three different kinds of inventions she could be thinking of and that she’s going to blurt out the one that’s a damn bad idea. Talking just as she goes to open her mouth, “no, no building some melting device. I don’t even need to be able to look to know just how many ways that could go horribly. The blue containment shrinking sphere is your better idea”. Tapping his chin as an idea hits him, “could even fashion that into a necklace or bracelet if need be”. Sam was already going to eye him about the pinky ring so a Dan bracelet wouldn’t be too much further weirdness. While Maddie shakes her head and looks slightly frazzled, “did, did you just...read my mind? Danny what?”. Danny rubs his neck sheepishly, “no, it’s part of the job. I could tell you had some idea so I had to make sure that whatever the idea was wouldn’t result in a bad outcome”. He’s going to have to pull this on his parents a lot, the stuff they create can flat-out go against physics sometimes. He really wouldn’t put it past them to mess with time on accident. “So you saw the future? What? What is this job even?”, Danny blinks realising he hadn’t actually told her earlier. But also not really wanting to yet, “I’d uh, rather deal with the Dan problem first. Kind of urgent and I know building stuff takes a while”. Maddie stares at him incredulously but sighs, knowing damn well that pushing Danny won’t actually get you answers; just diversions and lies. Danny can tell she’s a bit annoyed as she waves for him to follow her to the lab, glaring at the thermos before grabbing it and following her.

—two days later—

Jack comes upstairs from the lab cupping what looks like a fragile hallow ice bubble, but Danny already knows it’s by no means fragile, heck he’d have a hard time destroying it. Maintaining a blank expression as he catches it from his dad, “can’t say I entirely get what you need it for son, but! It’s all complete! Another Fenton works creation in the bag!”. Danny can’t help but smile a little bit, he liked seeing his dad happy and it’s pretty obvious to anyone really, that his dad took inspiration from Danny’s ice for this creation. Danny’s slight smile turns into a smirk at the thought of how this was a bit ironic. Dan couldn’t use ice powers because of his unstable core, this was practically a bit mocking. Smiling at his dad as he hands Danny a bowl of cereal, before sitting down. “So Danny-boy, Mads tells me you’ve got some future sight thing now?”, Danny chokes on his cereal faintly, for being able to know everything and see the future he sure is getting caught off guard often. Which is keeping him from coming off as completely weird to his family though, Sam and Tucker will know somethings up pretty quick though. Tucker’s practically got a six sense for when Danny’s become stronger or has some new power. Clearing his throat, “uh, yeah”, raising an eyebrow at his mom as she walks in. Obviously, she didn’t hear Jack though as she just looks confused, until his dad starts talking again anyway, “so...how does it work? Can you just see to any point? Is it random?! You still learning to control it? How’d you get this one? Your other powers are all general ghost powers, ice core powers or you unique one; is this another unique?”. Danny can’t help but chuckle at his excitable father but his mom speaks before he gets a chance to properly respond, “yes I told him, sweetie, we’re family”. Danny smiles at her warmly, he can’t really blame her for making a point that secret keeping isn’t a Fenton thing, “yeah it’s fine”, turning to his dad, and electing to just ask like a normal damn person instead of probing the past, “it’s a bit complicated dad. Did mom tell you I got a ghost job now?”. Jack nods excitedly, “yeah! Said you took over a ghosts job! But I was assuming you wanted both of us to hear about that rather than just explaining it to us separately”. Danny mentally facepalms, realising he could have easily used that excuse on mom and clearly mom didn’t even think about that herself, as she blinks and nods. Danny rubs at his neck but he’s definitely feeling better about everything now so he supposes he’s up for talking about it now. The ghosts giving him a break and both physical and mental reminders of ClockWork make it a lot easier. Being in ghost form even more so, even if he’s utterly omniscient in ghost form now. Plus it’s honestly weird not knowing everything on the drop of a hat as a human now, way too easy to instantly be used to something like that, “that wasn’t the reason for my lack of explaining earlier. I just wasn’t up for talking about it yet”. “And now?”, like always his mom’s more concerned about him than interested in learning something new. Which does really make him happy, “I’m better. Still miss him though”. Rubbing his neck again as he can tell he’s promptly confused both of them, “mom, he didn’t retire. He faded, that’s the word for when a ghost dies”. Jack does look a bit sad, mostly cause it’s clear to him that his son is. While Maddie looks a bit more upset, having been made aware, at least a little bit, how close Danny was to this particular ghost. “Oh sweetie, I’m sorry. You said he was your mentor, so I’m guessing he was kind of like a parent to you?”, Jack blinks before going wide-eyed as Danny nods. Danny fiddles with his fingers a bit, rubbing at the ring as he responds, “you guys are my human family, human parents. ClockWork was my ghost family, ghost parent. Not sure if that makes any sense”. Jack nods curtly, “makes sense you’d have a ghost close to you in that way, need family on both sides I imagine”. Danny nods, his dad’s always been the one more readily accepting of things, while his mom looks a bit more sad, “so in the same way you followed us in our jobs, be it in a different way, you did the same with him”. Danny a blinks a bit and smiles, “kind of yeah. But what ClockWork did, what I do now; is a lot more important. There’s a reason it comes with an oath to put the job before everything and person, including yourself, at any cost. For ClockWork that cost was solitude and immortality until a suitable successor”, Danny can’t help but frown, ClockWork played it off well but it was clear to him how worn and lonely he really was. Sighing, “ghosts aren’t meant to stick around forever so doing so isn’t exactly, good”. Jack chokes on his fudge mildly while Maddie just looks worried, “you seem happy and willing about the job part but he basically cursed you with immortality? That hardly seems good or fair. That cost is extreme too, what if you had to kill someone for this job?”. Jack only nods as he rubs his throat while Danny sits up straight, not about to let his mentor or his, and now Danny’s, job be insulted; even unintentionally. Though also not showing any displeasure, “it’s different with me and he knew that, that’s why he took me on”, locking eyes with his mom, “have you really thought about what it means? When I said my human and ghost halves protect and heal each other in an unending loop?”. Shaking his head a bit, “my human cannot die, my ghost can not fade. I was immortal from the moment my core fully stabilised, I can’t become anymore immortal and there will be no successor after me. So it’s a forever kind of thing”. Rubbing his neck a bit, “as for the killing thing, technically ClockWork was required to destroy me but he cheated. So there are loopholes if need be, but he also knew there would be a positive outcome to his cheating”. Staring right at both of them, “if I was required to destroy someone and there was no possible future where not destroying them was the better option, then yes. Yes, I would. The only way that would even be required, is if not destroying them would result in complete destruction, of the world or of time itself”. “Danny that’s kind of insane. Immortality? If you can handle it then why couldn’t he? Just different personalities or is it because you’re a halfa?”. Danny tilts his head checking timelines again because anything big or biggish secret wise, could have messed up consequences. Giving a smirk and curt nod as everything checks out, which his parents just look confused and worried over. “It’s a halfa thing yes. You see, ClockWork is, was, one of the very first ghosts; an ancient. And yes he was created for this job but he was still a regular ghost. The immortality was because of the job given not caused by his very nature. No full ghost or full human is meant to exist forever so it was confining and taxing”, finishing off his cereal before continuing, “whereas halfas are, by our very nature, immortal. We’re meant for it, so it’s not such a burden”. “Son, this job sounds extreme, like it’s a burden itself? What could possibly be a job that strips someone, even a ghost, of mortality?”, Danny can feel that Jack’s actually a bit impressed by his son obviously doing something important. He can also tell his dad’s worried, smiling softly to make it clear he’s fine, “it is a burden, but I was already burdened, so what’s another on the list. Being the hero and protector is a burden, my power is a burden, just being a halfa alone is a burden”. Snickering a bit to himself, because he always got a kick out of his old masters name, “as for the job, to say it’s extreme is putting it mildly. ClockWork’s name is a pun in a sense, the job is to protect the timestream. Make sure nothing happens to destroy time”. Danny has to restrain himself from laughing at their confusion as they talk at once. “Time can be destroyed?” “How are you even supposed to protect a plane of reality?” It probably says a lot that Danny never even questioned that when he found out about ClockWork, it just seemed rather obvious. Danny shrugs a bit, “time paradoxes, temporal shifts, universal destruction, planetary destruction would destroy time for earth and Zone so that too. I’ve nearly destroyed it myself twice, it’s not that hard”, rubbing his neck and looking around a bit, “well ok, wasn’t that hard for an overly reckless and overpowered teenager”. “As for the how, that’s pretty simple. Watch the future for issues and get rid of or avoid that issue”, shrugging again, “also bound to get job requests from the Observants sometimes, to deal with things that are just destructively bad but not necessarily destructive to time. But they wouldn’t go to ClockWork, or me for that matter, unless they felt they had no other choice. Seeing as how both of us have, or had, a tendency to go against their wishes and pretty well all laws”, snickering into his hand, “not to mention the puns”. Jack shakes his head, “wow Danny-boy. So you must be able to see any point in the future then?”, tapping his chin, “how would a job give you a whole new power though? Does the position just awaken something? Or is there some kind of device? Like an invention!”. If someone built a device like that Danny bets he’d have to destroy that for sure, having two people with time powers was asking for trouble. Sitting upright again, because explaining this was going to be confusing for sure and low key freak them out some, “none of the above. I inherited ClockWork’s time powers. You see, there are these things call core fusion crystals, they can basically fuse a core type into another ghosts preexisting core; only if their core doesn’t reject it though. So my core isn’t just an ice core anymore, it’s ice and time”, fondly patting at his chest, it was a bit like having a little of ClockWork literally part of him. Which in a sense was the case, the fusion crystal would have had to be formed by ClockWork from his cores energy. Seeing as he was the only one with a time core, obviously. He wants a better name for it though, even if what he’s got currently is amusing, “time freeze core because puns. Though cold clock core is also pretty amusing”. Tapping his chin, “not to mention, triple C and pays a bit of homage”, now he wants to go with that instead but mutters as he’s shaking his head, “little off track though”. “Anyway, calling it a new power is kind of misleading. The person holding the job position is called the Master of Time for a reason”, Danny lets Jack interrupt just to avoid overwhelming his parents because time power is grade A an overwhelming thing to think about someone having. Danny’s honestly still a little thrown that it’s not that overwhelming to have, he’s pretty well instantly used to it still. “I’m not sure I follow son. Master just means you watch over it right? Which is pretty wild and a bit awesome already”, Maddie nods with her husband while Danny feels a bit bad for them. Adjusting a little, “I watch over it, yes, but it’s more than that. Master means time is functionally mine. As in, control over it. I can make time stop, reverse, speed up, slow down”, rolling his hand in the air with intentional nonchalance, “teleport myself or others through time, make portals in and out of the Zone”. Maddie blinks rapidly while Jack stutters a bit, “you can, stop...time? Like, all of it?”. Danny nods, trying to make this sound less extreme “as much of it as I want, so all of it sure”. Smirking a little, “the way ClockWork explained it to me when we first met, and I tried to fight him, which wasn’t smart”, air-quoting “You see, for me, time goes backward and forward” end air quoting, shaking his head, “after that he insulted me for being 14 and smashed my face into a bell, repeatedly. All around a pretty great guy”. Now his parents look pretty unimpressed so he holds his hands up a bit, “he had reasons, always does. Or did. He did that to make it pretty well clear fighting him was not exactly possible and to get me to jump through a time portal, bunch of stuff really. Saving your guy’s lives makes up for pretty well everything anyway”. Chuckling a little bit, “besides everyone close to me has attacked or tried to kill me anyways. Basically a right of passage at this point”. Pausing for a bit, it’s a bit amusing that the people he’s closest too are technically the most dangerous to him. “Anyway, sidetracked again”. Maddie raises her eyebrows, “what more could there possibly be to this? This power, you’re practically a god”. Danny winces a bit, he knew a few viewed ClockWork that way which of course meant he’d get the same treatment, “that would depend on what you mean by practically. I’ve been worshiped as a god, or saviour, by an entire clan of ghosts since I was almost 15”. Jack laughs, “wow, that is sure something, but I think Mads means power wise not how you’re viewed”. Maddie nods, though looking a little startled, “confined to immortality, time control; compared to that, the worshiping is more funny than anything sweetie”. Obviously, his parents underestimate personality and others opinion of you when it comes to the whole “god” thing. The Observants are scary powerful and have so much control but no ghost would worship or even consider them close to being gods. They didn’t act the part and no one really liked them. Whereas, ClockWork was a guider and always collected. While Phantom was a protector and helper. And both of them were enigmas that confused other ghosts. But Danny knew he was viewed a lot more on equal footing with other ghosts than ClockWork was. That might just change now though. “Eh, I find it both funny and embarrassing. But there are other aspects to the time thing, yes. I’m sort of excluded from time in a sense. So ageing is kind of optional, I could reverse age if I wanted to. ClockWork near constantly shifted between child, adult and old man. Glad I don’t do that automatically, that might be a little too weird. Could if I wanted to though”, shifting and remembering how his mom saw this as a bit of a curse, “so if anything what ClockWork’s fading gave me, was a gift. Saving me from ageing, as power over time frees me from times effects. Unlike other halfas, I will not grow old, and being eternally old would be far more of a curse than being confined to the burden of keeping time”. Maddie blinks at him so Danny smiles at her reassuringly, she sighs, “you’re not wrong there sweetie. Though I did assume not ageing was inherent to immortality”. “Wish it was”, fiddling with his fingers, “but while the time control is major power it’s, uh, got nothing on the other main aspect”. Tilting his head to again check time-streams and futures, because damnit he will not mess this up, he’d be straight up embarrassed and crushed if he messed up so early. Sure he could likely reverse any fuck ups but still. Plus the Observants would notice, and while he doesn’t care for them, it’s best he makes it clear this job is rightfully his. Jack obviously thinks his son’s stalling though, “well, I don’t think it could be all that much more shocking Danny-boy. You know we’re fine with your powers, just have to adjust is all”. Danny returns Jack’s smile after a beat, turning his head to his mom, “Uh you should throw out that cabbage. It’s gonna eat the rest of the tomato soup otherwise”. She looks confused for a bit, which is understandable since the soup hasn’t even been put in the fridge yet. Jack actually gets it pretty quick though, “right! Future sight! Well, thanks then. Why that though?”. Danny’s not really sure what Jack means, since mind reading is not something he can do. Maddie tosses out the, very clearly starting to become contaminated, cabbage as Danny talks, “the other main bit has to do with the future sight. See, it’s not that I can see the future, but rather that I can see everything. Every single possible future, every single area of the present and all of the past. Omniscient, all-knowing. Technically omnipresent as well, since I can know what’s happening everywhere and teleport to anywhere as I please”. Rubbing his neck a bit and looking around, “nice thing about being in human form though, it doesn’t happen automatically. Also a bit annoying though”. Maybe there was an inherent feeling of attentive watchfulness tired to time powers, or it could just be his heroic need to protect and be a vigilant guard. “You’re, you, that’s universal knowledge you’re talking about”. Danny nods, “yes, when I’m human I have to actually intentionally do it but while ghost, well, I’m constantly aware of everything”. Which does carry a bit of a voyeuristic creepiness to it, knowing everything about everyone was beyond invasive but he needed to know. Besides, it’s not like he’ll do anything too mischievous with his new knowledge. Mr. Lancer is going to be so confused though. “That sounds awful actually, completely overwhelming. How are you even able to handle that?”, Danny can’t blame anyone for feeling that way, that kind of power is so incomprehensible to everyone else that just trying to imagine it would be headache inducing. “Yeah, that’s kind of why I was gone for two days, the sudden onslaught of well, everything, knocked me out cold for a solid day at least. Gave my brain the time it needed to adjust. But it’s kind of impossible to not be used to it, because of the future sight I automatically knew how to use the new powers; feels like I’ve had them for eons really”. Jack is clearly a bit confused, “you’re not even that old though? I guess time powers are just really strange”. Danny nods, really everything about him is strange, “in a sense I’ve been here mentally since the beginning of time. I’ve seen every action anyone’s ever taken. And I can or could see every action anyone’s ever going to. ClockWork was even giving me random bits of advice out loud back in the Bronze Age. So mentally I’m not really an 18-year-old anymore. I’m well, old man time”. Maddie rubs her temples a bit, “that feels almost painful to imagine. But you’re still our son, and younger than us”. Danny smiles a bit, “well, of course. Just weirder, it’s hard to not be rather confusing to people when you exist outside of time but have it in a more literal sense. I exist in a completely different state than all other life and death. And that state isn’t really comprehendible unless you’re in it. You experience life in the present, while I experience it in the past, present, future and none of them all at once. Young, middle-aged, old, ageless”, Danny shrugs and decides to shut up as his parents squint at him with furrowed eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m not sure we can make sense of that sweetie. I think your personality has changed some”, Danny knows she’s got more to say, watching as she taps her chin, “so wait, this ClockWork guy knew you would take his place and view him in the past? All the way back then? What?”. Obviously, she doesn’t find that as funny, or comforting, as Danny does, “he knew from the moment time and him came into existence, but it’s more like he knew I was a possible future. Him and now I, don’t just see one future, but every single possible one. Can tell which is the most likely and could manipulate things to get the most desirable outcome”. Leaning back a bit, “that’s why it’s so important that the Master Of Time is self-sacrificial. Perfectly content to damn themselves to do what’s best or needed. In a way that’s what ClockWork did, if he wanted to stay around all he would have had to do was not offer to take me on as his apprentice. He faded because he was no longer needed as the Master Of Time. But he took me on anyway because that was what was best, he was never meant to be the real Master Of Time. But rather a guardian of the position and guide for when the true one arrive, me”. Chuckling as he knows he damn well sounds like him a bit here. “I’m not sure how to even react to that, so he basically destroyed himself, knowing full what it would destroy him”, Danny nods at his mom but tilts his hand back and forth in the air, “yeah, but it was also for his benefit too. Like I said, he wasn’t meant for the confines of immortality and he was worn down by it. No one else knew him well enough to tell though”. Everyone’s quiet for a while before Jack, a little less excited than he’d normally be, asks, “so... powers! Demonstration?”. Danny can’t help but chuckle, remembering full well how startling time stopping, then suddenly having something around your neck and being able to be aware of the stopped time, was. Nodding at his dad, already knowing this was perfectly fine to do, plus there’s no way he wasn’t going to have some fun, “yeah, I could find millions of different ways to explain how I am now, mentally, and it still wouldn’t really make sense. So sure, little explanation first though. Time powers are a bit funny, obviously. Anything beyond the awareness stuff needs to be channelled through a time staff. So I guess don’t be too startled by the sudden appearance of a giant stick”. At their nods Danny sticks his left arm and hand out, with his staff appearing directly in his hand; and even if he knew they’d be startled he still laughs, amused. Rubbing the staff with his thumb fondly as Jack claps his hands together excitedly and Maddie eyes it impressed, “that is very clearly yours”. “Yeah, ClockWork made it before he faded. It’s very similar to his”, pointing at the DP, “his had a CW instead. So I’m not the only one who paraded around with my own initials”. Sighing and missing the guy a bit, “we really had a lot in common”. “Did he make tons of jokes too?”, Danny knows full well his dad’s trying to relate and encourage happy thoughts, which yeah of course thinking about a good joke is going to do that. Smirking, “he literally had a grandfather clock in his chest, three watches on each arm, and a pocket watch. His name is even a time joke. When he wanted the Observants to leave he’d always tell them to “observe the door”, which I also do but he started it. He is, was, not as bad as I am but pretty darn close”. It’ll probably be a while before he stops flubbing up current tense and past tense, doesn’t help that he can literally see ClockWork whenever and get random ass advice. At least it was way less confusing now, which obviously meant Danny was more confusing to others than before. Which yes, is amusing. Maddie snickers a bit, “no wonder you got along, encouraged each other apparently”, Danny can’t really blame her for looking to change the subject and his very noticeable staff was distracting, “so how do you even stop time? That sounds like it has to be complicated, the staff doesn’t look complicated though”. Danny can’t help but tilt his head back and laugh, “naw, simple as the push of a button and a catchphrase, also courtesy of ClockWork”. Jack mutters into his hand, “sweet ghosties, they even both have silly catchphrases”. Danny smirks, “and all this is why the Observants can’t stand either us, we’re both completely insufferable to them”. Glancing amused at his staff before speaking, making sure to push the button just a bit after his words would hit their ears, purely so they could hear the catchphrase, “time out”. Pulling out two of his time medallions and slipping one over his mom first, knowing his dad would have the more amusing reaction. Maddie looks around confused and jumps sideways, yanking her hands to her chest, “did you teleport or som-”. Danny nods his chin out towards dad which causes Maddie to cut herself off as she sees he’s not moving. Turning her head back to Danny gaping, as Danny chuckles, “times been out for a good five minutes now. Just in the house though”. Maddie turns her head back to Jack, noticing there’s something around her neck this time. Grabbing at it while Danny pipes up, “ah ah ah, if you take my medallion off you won’t be immune to time anymore”. Danny moves around his mom, eyeing her amused as she checks out the medallion. Slipping one over his dad’s neck as she talks, “you’re symbol sure is on everything”. Jack jerks and flails a bit, “what the?!”. Unlike Maddie, he notices the weight of the medallion near instantly, “Oh?!”. Tilting his head at Danny who’s snickering, “what’s with the jewellery? And oh! Times stopped isn’t it!”. Danny nods with a hand over his smirking mouth, “it’s a time medallion dad and they make you immune to meddlings with time”. Tilting his head back to his mom, “ClockWork’s had his CW on them, so the DP is expected”. Danny smiles softly as his dad looks over the medallion with awe and almost childish joy, he kind of feels like the oldest one here. Which he guesses is true, mentally anyway. His mom walks around to face him and he knows the quizzical look is about his eyes, “sweetie, your eyes are purple and glowing purple”. Danny knowingly turns his head to his dad before Jack even has a chance to bound over, “Oh! Like when you use your ice powers! So blue for ice and purple for time?”. Danny nods, having ClockWork’s purple already feels more comforting than saddening. Smiling a little sadly still, “yeah, no surprise really. ClockWork was pretty purple all over”. Tilting his head as his ghost sense goes off, chuckling at the image of the Box Ghost getting chased off by one, apparently, pissed off guy with a fly swatter. Maddie of course notices, “who is it? Trouble? And also, you’ve been tilting your head like that a lot”. Danny blinks a bit and yeah he has done that every time hasn’t he? While human anyways, well, having a tell could be rather useful. Let people know he’s not just ignoring them or stalling, just checking something out. Chuckling again at the Box Ghost’s dismay, “it’s just Boxy, times truce is still standing so he was just here to say high but gave up. Might have a slight grudge against fly swatters for a bit”. He can’t help but smirk at his parents' mild confusion, “and the head tilt is a bit of a tell, I guess. I’m checking time stuff. Futures or just what’s going on elsewhere”. “Well, no wonder you’d stop speaking then! And times truce?”, Maddie nods at her husband but raises her eyebrow at Danny, “why are you doing it so much though?”. “As a Ghost it’s constant. And we’ve been talking about bigger more important things, saying the wrong thing or at the wrong point could mess with things”, to Danny this just makes sense and seems almost obvious. And it did well before being the Master Of Time, likely has something to do with all the time he spent around ClockWork and the apprentice work. Sighing and closing his eyes a bit mournfully, “times truce is the name given to the truce that’s been called in wake of ClockWork’s fading. That’s why there have been no ghosts for around a week, the truce extends to Amity because I’m here. My closeness with him was well known”. “Oh, sorry, again”, Danny nods softly at his mom. He gets that she doesn’t really know what to say, they’re not exactly familiar with how this stuff is handled, “I’ll be fine. There isn’t normally this big of a deal when a ghost fades. Ghost don’t grieve like humans do, ghosts fading is sort of just ignored normally. But ClockWork’s impact was far-reaching and everyone was affected by him. So an afterdeath ceremony was in order, meaning a truce as well”, Danny’s still a bit unimpressed with the Observants. He’d think they’d stick around just to not rub people the wrong way, it’s like they wanted to be viewed with disdain and contempt. His dad has a hint of excitement to him, though clearly not exactly happy, “Oh? New ghost tradition, so what’s that?”. Maddie smiles awkwardly, and tries for a joke, “ghost celebrities, huh?”. Rubbing over his ring again, “more like respected than celebrated, and it’s a funeral, dad. Minus speeches or flowers, but add in offerings; equal to what the ghost felt they gained or took from the faded one”. Danny can tell his dad is torn between excitement of new knowledge and feeling dejected, funerals weren’t exactly something to be excited over. Walking over and swinging his staff in time with his steps, talking as he pats his dad on the shoulder reassuringly, “yeah it’s not a happy thing, of course. It was good to have though”. Both of them nod while Jack eyes the staff a bit, “on a happier note, instantly makes you seem more powerful and mature. Sure will add to the effect Phantom just has on people. Won’t it be a pain to carry in fights though?”. Maddie nods, “doesn’t seem like the most practical thing”. Danny’s not even sure what to think of that, of course the staff has an air of power, his power was in it. Plus it was a weapon in a sense and weapons just make people look powerful and dangerous. Least he hasn’t whipped out a scythe, which really ClockWork only had and used to be dramatic. “Uh, stopping time is very practical; for me anyway. Need the staff for that but I don’t have to carry it around as Phantom. It’s simply here when I want it to be, regardless of form”. This seems rather obvious to him but he does chuckle at the mental image of someone literally being forced to carry what’s effectively a giant fancy stick, constantly. Smiling softly, “but I’m guessing you want to see how this all looks on Phantom. Besides, the staff isn’t the only change, I carry twelve medallions around my waist in little clocks for one”. His mom chuckles but nods, clearly happy for the different subject, “are you actually guessing or do you already know? And there’s a lot of clock imagery with this”. “I don’t know everything constantly while human and I can’t read minds, so guessing is accurate, consider it a. educated guess. And tell me about it, it’s much to my amusement though”, jokes were jokes even if they were a bit on the nose. At least they were used to him transforming now but they’ll be caught off guard this time. Smirking a little as he lets his white rings wash over him with purple ones forming to make his cloak. He does find it a bit funny that his Time Master stuff gets its own unique little transformation rings. Feeling the hood settle in just behind his ears, which did make how pointy and longer they were stand out a bit. Least it kept his white hair easily visible. Jack actually jumps a little and Maddie covers gasps with her hand, at least she didn’t start having a coughing fit like one of the other possibilities though, “yeah, like I said, there have been changes”. Rubbing the gear clasp, “ClockWork made the cloak for me back when I first started apprenticing under him. It’s part of my form now and he had a similar purple one”. Shrugging exaggeratedly, “hood was rarely up as an apprentice though, seems pretty content to stay up now”. Jack walks up and touches the cloak, again filled with childish wonder, “oh! It’s soft!”. Danny laughs and tilts his head back a little, “it’s royal velvet and plush, ClockWork’s way of being extra. Got silver stitching too. His was silk and satin”. Maddie mutters, “well that’s one way of showing off high status. Definitely excessive”. Danny nods amused, “excessive done with complete nonchalance, absurdity becomes mundane when you’ve seen it all and fades to nothing when time’s functionally ineffective on you”. Snickering a little, “kind of like how putty making farting sounds is highly amusing to children but disregardable to adults”. Maddie looks a bit baffled and Danny shrugs as she talks, “yeah your personality has changed”. And how could it not really? He wasn’t exactly the most knowledgeable person before and know he was basically THE most knowledgable person. Being in Phantom form didn’t exactly help in that regard, “I’ve always been a bit of an eccentric mess, now I’m just an eccentric mess with all of time in me and at my whim. Be impossible not to change some”, really changing is something he knows damn well at this point, “I changed when I became Phantom as well. Power and responsibility changes people, this is just more noticeable to you as it seems instantaneous. For me, it's been eons of eternity”. Both of them nod obviously not really able to wrap their heads around that, though Danny fully expected that. And at this point, Danny figures he really shouldn’t just suspend the house in time forever, technically he could but this is bound to be weird enough for his family already. Quietly muttering, “time in”, because he will carry that on, while his mom talks, “seems more noticeable while you’re a ghost and this is going to take some getting u-”, she cuts herself off as she blinks at Jack’s time medallion free chest. Then raising her eyebrow at Danny, who snickers faintly, “time’s going again. And don’t worry about not really noticing, I’m the only one who’s supposed to easily notice time being messed with. Yes I knew you were going to ask about that and yes you guys are just going to have get used to me being more odd than usual as-well as just knowing things”, holding up a finger somewhat playfully as he continues, “but just because I know doesn’t mean I’ll point it out or give you an answer to something. ClockWork was big on riddles and intentional confusion for a lot of reasons, somethings really should be known only by time and it’s master”. Jack is clearly disappointed but hopefully, this will keep him from pushing answers out of Danny. His dad’s a bit more pushy about things, but his mom’s the one to sigh and speak, “can’t say I like more secrets and lying Danny. But I know you have a point”. Running his free right hand through his hair, “I know, but then again, I know everything”. This motion gets Jack to focus on Danny’s hourglasses, grabbing at his hands animatedly and lifting them up and down to watch the sand? move. Danny wheezes a bit as his dad looks rather giddy, “it’s so detailed! Like real sand!”. Now Maddie’s over inspecting it too, “is there even a point to these?”. “Does there really need to be? Purpose is relative anyway. But the flow of sand is affected by the state of time around me. Flows slower if times slowed, faster if it’s sped up, and doesn’t flow at all while times stopped”, Danny smirks, “like a time sense”. Danny leaves out that he can make the sand spill out his fingertips endlessly. Freezing, unfreezing, slowing or speeding time on whatever it’s spilled on. And he’s got a feeling it will work effectively even on things outside of time. Raising an eyebrow as he gets an idea and eyes the crystal-like sphere on the table, “hey dad, I’m going to make a bit of an addition to the little containment device. Cool?”. Danny’s not some ass that doesn’t ask first, even if he already knows the answer. “But of course Danny-boy! Haven’t got the faintest idea what but I’m always interested!”, both them let go of his hands and Maddie goes to make lunch though she does eye him curiously. Danny can’t help but shake his head a little, the passing of time was a bit weird feeling now. Being unaffected by it and able to fully ignore it, or be acutely aware of it; seemed to result in him either being hyper aware or “losing track” of it. Even more so when it simultaneously feels like barely seconds have passed and like it’s been centuries, since he ate breakfasted or since the Observants, begrudgingly, gave their blessings. Sitting down after sending away his staff and changing to his ghostly tail, which like always now, makes him feel less overflowing with power. Rolling the sphere back and forth between his hands and descretly seeping sand inside it as he does. Eventually holding it up and giving it a shake, making the sand swirl and float around in the gravity nullified insides. Maddie raises an eyebrow, “how’d that even get inside there?”. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”, Maddie sighs, slightly humoured though, as she plates everyone’s food.

Danny has to catch his plate as him changing back to Fenton startles her, seconds before Sam and Tucker both barge in, startling her even more. Putting her hand on her chest and gapping at Danny’s friends, “your hands' work don’t they?”. Danny snickers as Tucker makes a show of actually checking that he does indeed have hands while Sam walks up to Danny, “what is the entire Zone sulking or something? Cause we’re getting kinda paranoid over here”. Danny rubs his neck guiltily, he probably should have mentioned the times truce to them but he was a bit distracted at the time and securing Dan was more vital than a hangout session. “More like truce than sulking. But it’s fair to say moods aren’t exactly high. And everyone is a bit confused as to wondering just how close me and ClockWork are, were”, Sam grimaces a bit at his slip up while Tucker leans against the table, “could have used to know about the truce dude. Makes sense though, really should have seen that coming”, shoving Danny on the shoulder, “he’d be glad to still be confusing the heck out of people though”. Danny’s absolutely positive of that, “one thing I certainly didn’t see coming was Walker straight up saluting me, full body military style”. Sam mouths, “damn”. While Maddie tilts her head with a question on her lips, Danny tilts his head back and just answers her; both to decrease his friends' future confusion and cause it a little, “no not yet. No ghosties have a clue either”. His mom’s looks like a mixture of being impressed and judgmental. Danny shrugs exaggeratedly, “to say I’ve been a bit, preoccupied, would be an understatement, yeah?”. Maddie nods before offering his, rather lost, friends some food. Turning back to his friends, “I’ll explain but you got here in time so feel like flipping off Dan’s thermos before I shove it inside of a snow globe?”. Jack snorts loudly at his friends startled jerking and Sam smacking him, “what the hell?! It makes sense but seriously, Danny?”. Tucker just eyeballs the little sphere before stuffing his face. Danny shrugs defensively, “like I said, been busy. Bunch of shits happened this week, some you know some you don’t. But yeah Dan’s my issue to sort out now and can’t just go leaving him unattended in the clock tower”. “Yup! Me and Mads made a super tough shrinking containment! Still kind of hard to believe though”, Jack scratches at his head and Danny’s pretty well sure neither of them are ever really going to believe he’s capable of anything remotely close to what Dan did. The confidence, though misplaced, is nice. Tucker mutters through a mouth full, “and what’s the point of the sand?”. Maddie just points at Danny, who smirks slightly, “just a touch of time is all”. Sam pinches her nose and snorts, “you’re awful. Both of you”. “Birds of a feather, flock together”, Danny’s muttering just earns him a confused glare from Sam. Shaking her head at him, “so how long’s the truce for and could we, or more so you, deal with that thing sooner rather than later”. Danny nods rolling the sphere around a little, “it’ll be overcome tomorrow, but I doubt there’ll be much in the way of issues. Boxy already showed but he wasn’t looking to cause shit”, snickering, “he got shit though”. Tucker shakes his head, obviously amused but Jack slaps his hand on the table making everyone but Danny jump, pointing at the sphere as he talks, “that's right! I don’t think I really need to tell you how it works but, I will anyway. Like absorbing goo! Just push it down on the thermos and voila!”. Danny chuckles into his hand and tilts his head, making sure that now really is the best time for this. Frowning a bit as it’s clear the time dust/sand still needs to settle in a bit. Some of it seeping into the cracks and making a mini explosion isn’t exactly favourable. He could do without the thermos becoming even more damaged. Catching Sam’s raises an eyebrow, poking the sphere as he talks, “time sand is taking its sweet time”. “What’s it even supposed to do, dude?”, Danny watches amused and mildly weirded out as Tucker sniffs at the sphere. Shaking his head, “you’re still the weird one. And time stuff, duh”. Tucker rolls his eyes at him while Sam's eyebrows raise even more and she pulls down the collar of his shirt, even without future sight and universal knowledge Danny wouldn’t be surprised that she’s the first to notice. His parents have been more than distracted and Tucker is a bit of a blind fool, plus you really could only see a bit of one of the notches peaking out of his shirt. Sam looks both impressed and sad while his mom speaks a little judgingly, “a tattoo? Really Danny?”. Danny rolls his eyes, “not really”. Sam snorts so Danny tilts his head to her, “no really, it’s not really”. Now Tucker’s wheezing, “dude, you really are awful”. “Well, if it’s not a tattoo then what is it? If that’s even what you’re saying”, his mom is clearly still unimpressed. In a way it is a tattoo, better called a marking, stamp, symbol, or imprint though. “Times mark? I didn’t go out and get tatted”. Sam seems to be commenting more on Maddie’s and Jack’s slightly shocked but understanding nods, “ok? This is new. Since when are your parents getting something and we aren’t?”. “I’ve been explaining to them all morning, needed to fill them in on ClockWork and things just flowed from there”, Tucker nods, readily accepting this. But Danny’s pretty used to Sam not exactly liking being out of the loop, “you couldn’t text us?”. Danny glares at her humorously, “it’s not some simple thing besides, it wasn’t the time”. Sam groans and looks to Maddie, “has he been making time puns all day?”. Danny’s smiles softly, because he pretty well has been, but the topics made them not really jokes. It’s both nice and a bit sad that time jokes are going to be his thing now; and not just when his mentor was around or the subject. Maddie shrugs, “time and ClockWork have been the subject since everyone got up so maybe?”. Tucker squints at Danny, “ok? How the hell do you talk about one guy for hours? I know you have a weird thing with or for or whatever, him but that seems excessive”. Pretty well everyone glares at Tucker a judgingly. Sam crosses her arms at him, “Tucker, you can be an insensitive arse, you know that?”. Danny’s content to let them give Tucker shit as he takes the chance to check in with time again. Danny can’t help but start snickering as now’s definitely a good time to be a little shit and it’s best to just get on with life, or half-life in his case, at this point. Nearly all of the other ghosts were totally fine by now, they’d sure be in for a shock eventually though. Sam snaps him out of his head, “now what’s that face for and what’s so funny?”. Danny actually starts laughing now, cause he’s got a plan to enact. Smirking after he stops laughing, “oh a lot of things. It’ll make sense in time”. Smirking devilishly as he starts talking in time with his gothic friend. “How are you weirder?”, Sam/Danny. “Danny, what the fuck?”, Sam/Danny. Sam just glares at him now as he’s grinning like an idiot and Tucker starts wheezing. Danny flicks his eyes at Tucker as he starts speaking in time with him as his dad puts his head down and laughs into the table. “So what? Mind reader now dude?”, Tucker/Danny. Tucker squints his eyes at Danny, as both of them quickly say, “tater tots and a football eating rabbit”. This is enough to make Maddie laugh too even if Danny can tell she’s a bit weirded out. Danny waves his hand lazily at them, “ok so obviously weird shit has happened recently”. Sam mouths “what the fuck”, before turning to Danny and actually talking, “how the hell? Pretty sure you shouldn’t still be getting new powers at this point”. Tucker starts laughing a bit hard, “I think, think it’s more likely Time pants put him up to som-“, Tucker cuts himself off and blinks a bit, “oh, OH! Holy shit...dude, what, fuck, how? Should that even be...be possible?”. Danny chuckles into his hand, “what can I say, time works in mysterious ways; and ClockWork works in even more mysterious ways”. “Pretty sure you’re the mysterious one here”, Sam is squinting and Tucker is gaping at him. “Exactly, like I said, time’s mysterious”, Danny knows that’s a bit blunt but he really couldn’t resist, besides time is him in a sense. One with, or whatever bullshit, time actualisation with the self. Though yeah the idea of fully realising time in every facet is pretty out there, true but sort of incomprehensible to regular folks. And even if his friends and family were all straight up strange, they were still regular humans really. Sam stares him down, “I call bullshit”. While his dad mouths, “wow”, before shaking his head and talking, “it took us hours to get where he was going, he actually just plain told us. You two just figured it out by a few odd comments”. Danny nods and smiles a little because really, his friends are so used to his bullshit and they’ve met ClockWork; so it’s really not surprising they’d put together the pieces. Tucker finally closes his mouth but promptly opens it back up, “well Mr. F, we’ve seen some crazy things and already knew about the time apprentice thing. Probably should have figured really”. Danny shrugs loosely, “hey, it took an Observant actually handing me a time medallion to figure that out myself”, grumbling more to himself, “still not impressed not even one of them stuck around to pay their pound. Phantom knows they owed him”. Sam crosses her arms and glares at Danny, “wow those guys are jerks but I still call bullshit. ClockWork’s job literally requires his powers so how the heck would you ge-”, Sam facepalming cuts her off. Dragging her hand down her face and pointing at his chest, “core fusion?”. Danny nods while Tucker cringes, “dude damn, ow. Dude tell me you at least had a choice in this because damn”. Sam glares hard at both the boys, “they damn well better have! I will shred them if they forced this”. Maddie’s eyes go wide as Danny knows she never even considered that he hadn’t had a choice, putting his hands up to pacify everyone, “they may be jerks but that would be a bit much even for them. Besides, they would rather pick pretty much anyone else, they kind of hate my shit and think I’m way overpowered, remember? Heck! They felt the need to point that out, twice”, turning his head back to his mom, “I knew what I was getting into, so don’t worry”. At his mom’s curt nod Danny turns back to his friends, looking to Tucker, “but yeah, ow’s right. But I’m fond as ever”. Both them give him a strong nod, Sam pointing at his chest, “did the look change though”. Tucker nods a little excitedly, “right! New core so?”. Tucker tilts his head a bit, “what even is your core type now?”. Danny chuckles, “it’s got a bit of a glitchy look now but that’s it and I’m still debating between time freeze and cold clock”. Tucker coughs a bit but then points aggressively at Danny, “dude! Cold clock!”. Sam nods, clearly agreeing, “makes more sense. Least that way you’re calling both aspects by the slightly incorrect name. And shirt”. Maddie just looks confused at this point and his parents haven’t actually seen his scarring. But it’s fine now, he knows. As he’s pulling off his shirt he hears his mom ask a bit worriedly, “sweetie? What does Tucker mean by ow?”. Tossing his shirt across a chair and keeping his chest facing his friends. Tucker whistles and Sam raises her eyebrows a bit judgingly, “what? You didn’t even explain that core fusion is extremely painful? That’s like one of the first things to mention”. That gets Maddie to walk around to face him, clearly unimpressed but sidetracked instantly by his chest. Putting her hand over her gaping mouth, “oh my god”. Which gets Jack to come around too, Danny explains before either can jump to their conclusions and worries, “human body plus core equals scarring. I’ve had it since the accident, it’s just different looking now because my cores changed”. Rubbing his chest, “and yeah hurt like hell. Easily the second most painful thing I’ve experienced”. Tucker nods with a frown but pats him on the shoulder, “guessing you’re still achy and shit?”. “What, so you’ve been a bit in pain for days?”, Danny nods at his dad with an apologetic look. Shrugging a little, “there’s nothing to really be done, so there’s no case to make a big deal of”. He knows his parents don’t really like how good with pain he is but it is what it is. And as of now, the discomfort was hardly even noticeable; didn’t even qualify as pain. Turning his head to eyeball the sphere and tilting his head as he checks things, catching his mom mutter, “I hope you don’t do that to spy on people”. Sam and Tucker are obviously confused but Danny smirks, glad the sphere is all settled now. Turning his head back to his friends, “guess I have a bit of a tell. Tilt my head when I’m checking time”, glancing to his mom, “it’s impossible for me not to spy, that’s like half the point. But I’m not doing it just to know what people are up to in a creepy way”. Tucker tilts his head, “wow so you actually have to check in all the time? Damn that must be annoying, why the heck wouldn’t you just get notified or whatever when something’s afoot”. Even Danny has to admit that would be way more convenient but in a sense he would still check in lots, checking up is just right. He needs to and rather wants to, “comes naturally, but yeah slightly annoying and irksome to actually have to intentionally check instead of it just happening on its own constantly. My human form is a bit confining in that sense”. “Dude what? Constantly? So what you just constantly see the future while all Phantom? That sounds like a headache and way more “confining” or whatever. Like your heads trapped in the time stream or whatever”, Tucker shakes his head, “man if that’s what ClockWork dealt with all the time, no wonder he was confusing and a little too weird”. Danny points his finger at Tucker, “hey, I resent that. ClockWork was the perfect amount of weird for me”. Danny can’t help but sigh wistfully as he shrugs, “and Tuck it’s more like everything, not just futures. And it’s more like I’m trapping time than the other way around. Existing behind my eyes and hands, to be toyed with as I please. Sure, being outside of the confines of time begets immortality but I was already in that state. And sure yeah there’s the whole confined to guard over time, the responsibility of it, but...”, Danny mutters quickly into his hand with a smirk, “time’s my bitch”. Danny can’t help but smile fondly reminded of the first time ClockWork said that. He still can’t believe he actually managed to get him drunk, replacing chess pieces with shot glasses was hilarious and who the hell was Danny going to do that with now. Cause for all of ClockWork’s high and mighty demeanour he was damn chill, could easily say he was a little shit. Even if Danny was way more of a little shit, snickering because man was he ever going to drive the Observants nutty. And not even intentionally so, though he’ll do it intentionally as well. Danny smirks a bit with his chin resting in his hand as his friends share a confused and judgemental look, he feels a bit distant from them right now. In a sense he is, everyone around him is confined inside a glass case of time and he’s standing, or floating, outside of it. They can see what’s in their own case but he sees every case if he so chooses. And of course they can see him, if he’s around them and their time’s moving along normally; but he can’t join any of them really. Same as they can’t truly step out of their glass cases and join him. Even if they came to exist outside of time and the time stream, that wouldn’t give them access to time’s core; to time’s true nature, the entirety of it and all that it contains. Time owns everything, life and death, every action or inaction, every choice and consequence. Shaking his head at how that really does make it oh so clear that he functionally owns everything himself then, time confines everything and time is him. Tucker pulls him out of his mental musings, “yeah, you’re weirder. If you start getting all philosophical riddler on us, I will hit you and mock you, aggressively. Dealing with that once was enough”. Maddie raises an eyebrow, “once? Who are we talking about?”. Sam shakes her head at Danny before looking to Maddie, “ClockWork, we’ve really only been around him once, maybe twice. He was a solitary guy”. Danny nods, “had to be, that’s how he made himself an objective viewer. I’m just objective by nature, though inclined to sympathies”. Looking to his mom somewhat sadly, “I’m really the only one who knew him remotely well. Even most ghosts only knowingly met him a few times at best”, snickering a little, “on the other hand, everyone knows me”. Danny picks up the containment sphere and tilts his head backwards to look at the ceiling, before pointing at it and sending his intangibility telekinetically to the ceiling; phasing and floating the thermos down to him. Tucker slaps his leg excitedly, “dude! When’d you master that?”. Danny raises an eyebrow at him, “uh, the same time as I mastered literally everything else? Universal knowledge, absolute self-mastery, actualisation, yadda yadda”. Sam’s more concerned with the thermos than Danny’s powers, which is pretty usual. Tucker’s always been the one more excited over Danny’s abilities and of course both of them are more worried about tolerating his new weirdness than him being weird. Unlike the entire Fenton family, his friends really were quite selfish; though wonderfully loyal and protective to a fault. Sam walks over and pokes at the thermos before shivering a little, Danny doesn��t blame her at all cause it bothered him too. Sure a large part of why is because he can’t see Dan’s future, something being outside of time, of its and thus his confines, was just wrong and definitely induces a bit of paranoia. Which really just gives him an excuse to check the timestream again, Tucker mutters at him in the process, “sudden onset habit much. But yeah, even I’d want to check literally everything before even considering doing something with Dan”. It’s pretty easy for everyone to agree there and Sam pipes up as Danny promptly shoves the containment device over the thermos, “does it seriously take that little time to check every possible future or whatever?”. “Sam, Dan and his thermos exist outside of time. He’s pretty well the one thing I can’t see or check. I’m just inferring possible problems based on relative futures. And I’m not exactly looking very far forwards”, he can clearly see the mild disbelief on her face, “and considering it took just a bit over one day to get the entire timestream downloaded into my head, how long or not something takes sort of doesn’t apply to me. I could spend hours on something and have it seem like seconds to others”. “Uh, shouldn’t you have to do the whole time out, time in, thing for that to happen?”, Tucker’s watching Danny roll around the sphere as he talks rather than looking at Danny’s face. “I could do it that way sure, no one would know after all. But it’s more that time doesn’t affect me like it does everyone else. Hours, minutes, seconds, centuries, all kind of just exist simultaneously and also don’t exist at all. Around and within me”, shrugging and shrinking down the sphere to half the size of a marble, “don’t try to make sense of it, you won’t be able to. One of those, you can’t understand unless you experience and know it, sort of things”. Tucker groans, “talk about confusing”. Danny laughs and gives him a cocky smirk, “would you rather I give diversions and prophetics? Welcome to why ClockWork never really answered people’s questions. The Master Of Time is an inherently confusion inducing title to hold”. Tucker just mutters, “Phantom no”, while Danny pulls out some small purple rope and starts knotting it around the tiny sphere. Sam catches on pretty well instantly, “Uh, is it such a great idea to make him into jewellery? What with all the fighting?”. “Even I’d have a hard time actually destroying this thing. So it’s fine and much better than just leaving him around in my room. Plus the string’s a bit like an extra layer of confinement”, sure it’s probably going overboard at this point but it’s pretty well reasonable and he’s sure wearing a freakishly powerful and dangerous ghost as jewellery would both insult Dan and befuddle to Observants. If they even had mouths they’d be gaping at the absurdity of this. Snickering to himself, “this is the most unassuming weapon of mass destruction ever”. Tucker smirks, “limitless evil”, Tucker and Danny talk at the same time finger-gunning at each other, “itty bitty living space”. Danny chuckles, “or death space really”. Sam shakes her head, “a borderline bomb with the trappings and confines of a freaking bracelet. You’re a joke”. “One that’s perfectly timed and dead on arrival” “You’re awful” “Ghoulishly ghastly”, Danny grins slightly, “devilishly problematic”. Everyone shakes their heads at his antics, though Danny knows they’re all happy since it shows he’s doing ok; or at least, ok enough.

Tucker points at Danny with a rare show of seriousness, while Danny ties the rope around his left wrist, “you better make sure Dan stays trapped in there though, cause man, I’d rather hundreds of rounds of chess over him”. Danny can’t help but snort at that, “I’m weird, not nuts and I could oblige you there. Sure I could never beat ClockWork, obviously. But I’d wager to say I did pretty good”. “Ok, not only do you have an unfair advantage at, well, everything. But still, don’t get why you’d put yourself through that”, Tucker shivers a little bit and yeah Danny’s fondness for ClockWork is really all that made chess actually enjoyable. But it was one of the things they just sort of did together, so he’s quite content to make it a bit of a past time. Maybe he’ll be a really confusing mess and start to speed play against himself. ClockWork gifting him a rotating chess board makes a lot more sense now. Rolling his eyes at Tucker, “I’m not going to know their every move, while human anyway. So it would still be fair”. “I’d be curious to see, me and Mads play checkers and chess fairly often ourselves”, both Sam and Tucker glance at his parents incredulously. Even Danny understands that finding out that the excitable, and sometimes a bit foolish, Fenton parents play chess, is more than a little surprising. Chuckling a little, “well chess can be pretty boring to watch, even speed plays aren’t that great to sit around watching”. Danny’s a bit surprised when both his friends wave him off, Sam straight up clears off the table while Tucker rolls his eyes at Danny, “dude, chess is a ClockWork thing. Which is exactly the kind of thing to do now”. Sam smirks, “yeah make new memories with the old sort of thing”, now she just looks a bit sheepish and guilty, “besides, we never did let you show us that board you were so excited about getting from him”. “Well alright then, I’m quite content to spend what’s left of the day confusing you with the fact that I don’t suck at chess. Didn’t need to clear the table though”, Danny elects to go fetch it like a normal human person, while they all look slightly confused, as he walks with a small smile and hands in his pants pockets, up the stairs. Smiling fondly at the smooth purple oak wood, with black tourmaline and howlite tiles. Stacked on top of, honestly gravity-defying, spinnable and tiltable dark grey, with black, green and blue, Ruin Marble circles and squares. With the last square sitting on top of a piece of black stained RedWood, etched with daffodils. Compacting the neck and base into the table top before carrying it down. Danny smirks as Sam shakes her head, “does everything have to be purple?”. Placing the chess board down on the ground because seeing their shock at this thing folding out was too good to resist. Turning the little silver dial and covering up his snickering mouth while they watch the circles and squares fold out. Eyeing his mom as she pokes at it, “how is this even stable? And again this is extravagant”. Everything with ClockWork was a bit extra, which was all well and good for Danny since Danny was the same way really. “Funny enough Marble symbolises stability and structure. And this is Ruin Marble specifically, symbolising mastery of knowledge, thought and self-control”. Tapping on the base with his foot, “black RedWood for eternal death, daffodils for eternal life and rebirth”. Poking the actual board, “purple for time and oak for strength. The tiles are black tourmaline, for protection and spiritual connection with earth and zone, and howlite, for calming and selflessness”. Chuckling to himself, “howlite’s also a sleep stone which I think is just ClockWork’s way of poking fun at my horrendous sleep schedule”. Tucker groans, “oh and let me guess the chess pieces have some meaning too? Did he ever do anything without some deeper meaning or message”. Danny can’t help but snicker, pulling out the pieces; which outside of the lower half being either purple velvet or black velvet and the tops all being white gold, were pretty normal. Shaking a black one at Tucker, “pretty sure he was incapable of not being deep. White gold for eternity, indestructibility and a sacred bond between two people. Velvet is power and high status”. Danny really thinks ClockWork just likes velvet rather than having some deep reason for going with that, or it’s cause Danny’s cloak is velvet. Maddie sighs as she fiddles with one of the pieces, “I feel kind of bad knowing you were this close to someone I never got to meet or even hear about, until now”. And Danny does feel a little bad about not telling her, but ClockWork is, was, complicated and hard to explain. Smiling softly at her, “he was a solitary guy, humans only meet him if they absolutely have too really. But if it’s anything, he knew you both well, like he knew everyone well, and knew you’d feel this way now. He understood, and would tell you not to dwell or feel bad”. “If he knew then couldn’t he have just shown up once instead of us never meeting him?”, Danny can tell she’s not impressed. Setting up the board as he replies, “because it wasn’t something that absolutely needed to be done. Being The Master Of Time means objectivity, while he had a soft spot for me, he really shouldn’t have been doing things just to make others lives easier. Including my own”. Danny knows that means he really shouldn’t be using future knowledge to improve his or others lives, and he doesn’t intend to. It just so happens that most things that improve his life are either necessary or the better option. Though that would depend on someone’s opinion on “improve”. Danny smiles a little as his mom gets on the opposite side of the board from him but clearly she’s still unimpressed. He knows she would have picked up that if ClockWork shouldn’t have then neither should he. “So what? Even if you know something bad’s going to happen to us or someone else, you have to just let it? Unless it’ll hurt time?”, Danny wishes this didn’t sound as bad as it does but he knows she’d rather unpleasant truths over lies. Sighing a little, “yes, in some situations I might even have to encourage it or make sure it does happen. ClockWork did that to me with the Dan thing. Dan existed because I got the test answers, I got the test answers because ClockWork sent a ghost form the future to fight me”. Sure it was pretty likely Danny was going to get those answers anyway but it would have been in a different way, which probably would have been bad. All four of them look a bit bummed now, Maddie sighs as they start the game, “I can’t say I like that”. Danny only nods, he gets it. Of course she doesn’t, why would she? But responsibility is responsibility and if he starts meddling just to make peoples lives better, including his own, that would be a nasty spiral and could only end badly. It’ll hurt when, eventually, everyone around him finally runs out their clocks but that’s natural, for humans and ghosts, and it’s not like he’ll forget any of them. Danny spends most of the matches pondering on the trappings and confines of his immortality and time that will run out for everyone else. End.

#Danny Phantom #phandom #Phanniemay #phanniemay19 #confined #memories #danny fenton #Maddie Fenton #jack fenton #Dan Phantom #clockwork #phantomphangphucker #have a fic suck my dick #time master danny #sam manson #Tucker Foley

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