listen,, eddie would not win. he has the stamina and the raw fury of a thousand suns but he does not have the skills, or the coordination, also you could just pick him up so he's defenceless. he is like an angry honey badger, but he gets blinded by his rage and need for destruction and doesn't think to plan out his attacks or make smart hits. i love him but hes dumb. thank u for coming to my ted talk.
true….. eddie would throw so many quick sharp punches and would not tire but i feel like bev could throw him over her shoulder and walk away
I just spent the day re-reading When You Wish Upon A Star,, aaaa i how fun the reviews were, and the personal shout-outs and the shakespeare quotes and ;u; ,, i feel so happy and nostalgic rn !! so,, idk,, i guess i wanted to say thanks?? in a way?? ((this is weird aha sorry))
aw thanks! i’m glad that fic can still make people happy :)
couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library
To: @deersinsweaters
From: Your Secret Santa (Donation)
“Dan, you won’t ever beat me!”
“Shut up, Phil. This computer looks as old as you. I’m going to win this round of chess, even if it kills me.”
Across from him, Phil gave him an indulgent smile, one spiced with things like clove, and cinnamon. Festive – that was the word for Phil Lester. Every day with him was like Christmas. Like waking up, and knowing with childish certainty the day would be perfect and wonderful and with presents. “Bring it on, old man.”
Dan laughed. “You’re four years older than me. Feel the age in your bones yet?”
With a smile that could crack the Earth in neat halves, Phil brought a balled-up first to his lips, hacking a cough. Slowly, Dan’s grin died, the cheer to be replaced by worry. But Phil’s never slipped, as he smiled through the aching waves and chest constrictions, and reset the board. “Never.“
~~
Dan sat in his bed. Alone. Outside, the window was dim-lit, and the sky was grey. The room was dark, hung with shadows like cobwebs. On his bed, Dan was shrouded. He reached over, and flicked on the light switch by his bed, hoping it would clear the fuzziness in the edges of his vision. And it did. Somewhat.
An unrushed change of clothes. And Dan left, for a walk out.
The world moved faster. Or was Dan just operating in a different dimension, one where time had no need to race? He looked around him, at the unfocused eyes, and the sloth paces, and decided that that had to be it. Invisible. Like a ghost. He flitted down the path.
He stopped for a coffee. In its paper cup, the brown liquid sloshed. Dan frowned at its unappetizing appearances, and noticed from the corner of his eyes an old woman shake her head at him. Fie, that young man has no gratitude for what he has. Dan might have told her to piss off, as he sipped the coffee and confirmed it to be strained and terrible. But he only turned his heel and strode away, because Phil would be flabbergasted if he learnt Dan had cussed a lady, on the expressway to her grave.
No, Dan! Phil would squeal, and at his conjured voice and words, Dan almost smiled. You can’t curse at the elderly! They’re sweet old people. Crossing a trash can, Dan dumped the coffee. He would bring Phil there, and let him taste their subpar beverage for himself.
However, even then, Phil might insist it tasted fine, through pained grimaces, while wincing reassuring smiles at the machine who served them the drink. Because that was Phil – six-foot-three and made up of pure politeness and niceties – and Dan loved him for it.
Love. Strange word. There were days Dan would utter it to Phil, who would beam as wide as the moon and say, I know. And Dan would wake up, break through the veil that felt so much like sleep hanging over his head, and smile back. Because Phil knew. And Phil reciprocated. And that was all Dan – or anyone else in the world, he reckoned – really wanted. To love, and be loved back.
As a teenager, Dan had known nothing about love. He had had a smattering of girlfriends who begrudgingly accepted him and his pudginess, but they had never amounted to anything. As an adolescent, all he had thought love was about was heat and passion. He had thought relationships were freight trains, speeding through tunnels and screeching on railway tracks, terrifying all who watched and all who sat within. He had thought love was synonymous with velocity – the sensations of terror, of falling, of never slowing down. When it was just the opposite of that.
Dan met Phil, and it turned his world on its ear. Of course, there were heated moments between them. When every touch felt like a bruise, when every breath was a sigh. But more than those, he adored the fleeting moments, the ones that – if stretched out completely, end-to-end – would traverse an entire galaxy littered with stars. In the mornings, when Phil walked out of his room with socked feet, spectacles and a yawn on his face. When he made toast, and only slightly burned the crust. When he sat across from Dan at the table, and Dan could right his crooked glasses for him. When Dan woke up from an impromptu nap on the couch with his neck creaking, to find the room darkened into an artificial night with drawn curtains, and himself tucked in a thoughtful blanket – when Dan felt luckiest.
Much of love, really, was about intimacy. And not just the physical kind. It was staying up late to talk about everything and yet nothing. It was learning each other’s dreams, and finding where they dovetailed, where they separated. It was fighting, and remembering why they loved each other. It was forgiving, and spiraling down a rabbit-hole of delirium and addiction again.
It was about going fast, going slow, and then mellowing into that sweet in-between they could both agree on, and never like more. And for him and Phil, it meant privacy, the right to keep all they were and meant to each other to themselves.
Dan looked around him, suddenly frazzled. And then he realised there was a hand on his arm, connected to an arm, to a shoulder, to a person. A middle-aged woman, in white. Was she a nun? Why had she sought him out?
The sky outside looked dark. “Dan?” the lady asked. Dan frowned at her. Did nuns watch his videos? Never mind, you can debate that with Phil later. It’s late, it’s time to go home already. He’ll probably want Chinese.
Dan mustered a half-smile for her. “I need to go home now, sorry. I’ve got a friend who’s probably waiting for me.”
The nun looked insistent, smiling. Phil wouldn’t distrust a smiling face or a nun, so Dan nodded when she offered, “Let me take you home. Tell me where you live, while we walk.”
“Number 20th on 9 Piccadilly Street,” Dan first said, before he frowned, and shook his head. His feet carried him where the nun led him. “No, sorry. I meant flat number 01-30 on Manchester Avenue.” But that wasn’t it either. Still, the nun nodded, looping arms with Dan and guiding him back the way he came, traffic that looked ancient funneling around them, never once looking their way. A stroke of confidence struck him out of the blue. “No, no, there’s a house on the corner near Trafalgar Square, with these sakura cherry blossoms in the yard. That’s where I live."
“Is this where you came from in the morning?” The nun had stopped and opened a door. In it was the bed Dan had woken up on. He turned, smiled at her.
“Yes.” The room was still dim. Still dank. Sparse, with a neatly-made single bed and some possessions. Pictures and a cupboard with clothes. But something was missing. Where was… “Phil?” Dan was seated on the bed now, brought there by the lady.
The nurse’s smile never faltered, as she nudged his shoulders back until he lay on the bed.
“He’ll be here soon, Daniel,” she said. Her voice was soothing. Her hand patted his. Dan couldn’t lie that there was a sudden weariness in his bones. “You should take a nap for a while, and when you wake up, he’ll be there.”
Eyes closed, head against the pillow, Dan nodded, already drifting off.
And that night, he would dream. Dream of days in Manchester and London spent with Phil. Days long gone. He would dream of YouTube videos and conventions, of smiles and laughs of people too long gone, but Phil’s would echo and haunt his mind the most. He would dream, as he did every night, of playing chess with Phil. But he would never win, because he kept forgetting what each piece was supposed to do. Even if Phil tried his best to lose for him. Even if Phil was routinely racked by coughing fits.
And Dan would awaken. Abruptly. With the reverberations of Phil’s giggles and coughs and him saying Never filling the room thick with memories he couldn’tquite reach, and the taste of words he would say to Phil when he next saw him. There would be a passing moment of lucidity, where he wondered how he had gotten so old, so fast. But it would pass. And he would forget. And he would get out of bed, change his clothes.
And walk alone, remembering all that love meant to him.
