Work Text:
October 12th, 2025
Dan wakes up to the sight of Phil’s bare back. They both went to bed shirtless the night before, something that’s habitual for Dan but only circumstantial for Phil. The circumstances in this case—and in frequent cases—were of an intimate nature, related to some certain activities they’d partaken in directly prior to sleep—but Dan, famously, is not one to kiss and tell.
Not yet, anyway.
He certainly isn’t complaining about Phil's lack of clothing. Dan could stare at his back for any length of time, at the dozens, maybe hundreds of freckles and moles scattered across his skin. Dan has the urge, not for the first time, to reach out and trace them. To connect the dots; to chart a course. He can always find his way on the map of Phil’s body, could do it blind and senseless, could do it even if it was his last moment alive. Dan has memorized every inch of him. For sixteen years, he’s been studying Phil, tracking the changes over time, noting the points of interest.
There’s a part of Dan—and not exactly a small part—that wants never to share him.
But there’s a larger part, too, and one that’s gotten especially larger over the past few years, that needs everyone to know him. To know Phil, and to know the inextricable truth that comes with knowing either of them.
Almost, Dan thinks. The thought is so electrifying that he sits upright in bed.
Phil rolls over to face him. His eyes, blinking sleepily, find Dan’s. “Morn,” Phil says in a husky tone that still makes Dan weak.
“Morn,” Dan returns. “Coffee?”
“Wordle,” Phil answers.
Dan takes his phone from the nightstand in assent. They’ve gotten good at these efficient conversations, the exchanging of one-word questions and answers, particularly helpful in the early morning. They’re equally skilled, of course, at the longwinded talks. Debriefs after a movie. Anecdotes and stories. Discussions of big decisions.
Almost.
Dan types adieu—the game returning a yellow D and a yellow U—and glances sideways at Phil. “It’s tomorrow, you know.” That was what they’d decided, at least. They aren’t necessarily beholden to it, but they’ve pretty much committed to the podcast being released on Mondays, so it makes sense that the video would be, too. Not that that’s something they usually concern themselves with, days of the week and consistency and all that, but this is a time of change, after all. They’re trying to go about this properly. Upload the video tomorrow, then the first podcast episode can come out exactly one week later.
“I’m not awake enough for that,” Phil says, punctuating the sentiment with a yawn. “It doesn’t even feel like today yet.”
Bound. Gray B, green everything else. Dan lets the subject drop for now. There’s still plenty of time to make sure the video is ready before tomorrow.
That’s mostly how they’ve referred to it: The Video. The big, mysterious, enigmatic Something that they’ve been preparing for and working on for months, incessantly chipping away at since the conclusion of their last Something. The tour. Somehow, this feels bigger.
Sound. Nope. Dan’s eyes tear through the remaining letter options. There are too many to try all of them. He opts for wound because he knows he’ll be kicking himself later if he ignores it in favor of a more common word like found, and sure enough, the W comes up green.
“Got it in four.”
“You bitch.”
Dan laughs and presses a kiss to Phil’s hair, then settles down closer to watch him play. “You’ve only done two guesses. You could still beat me.”
Phil makes a noncommittal noise, fingers hovering over his phone keyboard. His second guess, guide, isn’t quite as close as Dan’s was, but then—
“There is no way,” Dan says as wound bounces across Phil’s screen. “There is actually no way that you just—”
“I can’t believe I got that!”
“—happened to guess that. How the fuck?”
Phil turns, lips puckered for a celebratory kiss. Dan shoves his face away and pokes him in the stomach, a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth at the way Phil laughs and folds in on himself. Dan doesn’t deny him long—he never can—but they’ve both got horrendous morning breath, so the kiss he plants on Phil’s lips is quick and conclusive. “Coffee?” Dan asks again, and this time Phil nods, still grinning.
They both find clothes and meander to the kitchen. Phil opts for glasses instead of contacts. Dan feels almost dizzy looking at this version of Phil, his messy blond bedhead in a pseudo quiff, wearing a baggy pajama shirt and Minecraft pants, which they both know he’s sporting nothing beneath. This is the Phil that Dan feels most protective of, the Phil that only he gets to see. His Phil.
He gets the coffee going while Phil pours himself a bowl of Shreddies. It is, in many ways, an ordinary morning. Their practiced routine, weaving around one another in a natural choreography, breakfast and caffeine and easy conversation.
They sit on the living room couch with their matching D and P mugs. Phil puts on the next episode of Buffy—their ongoing rewatch has been neglected a bit in the chaos of podcast set-building and working on the video and all of the normal stuff in between.
Almost.
Dan takes a steadying breath. One more day. There’s work to be done, final touches that need to be made, but he still has one more day. Tomorrow, the world will know. But today, the world is theirs.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Later, they take turns combing through the video. Looking for any rough moments, any instances of speech being cut off too quickly or dragging on for too long. They haven’t added background music yet, save for the intro bit that PJ and Sophie made. That will be Dan’s job, but not until everything else is 100% done.
“And what we had,” Video Dan is saying on the computer screen, “was the most important thing to me, and I wanted to protect it. So when other people tried to grab it and drag it into the light, I felt completely violated.”
Dan knows he’s no stranger to speaking candidly to his audience. If anything, he tends to veer too far in that direction. A little too vulnerable, a little too honest. Even in the times he tried desperately to hide, he could never quite help wearing his heart on his sleeve. Loving loudly.
But this video is different. This isn’t just him. It’s Phil. It’s both of them, together, sharing the very thing that Dan once thought would destroy him if he let anyone else get too close to it. Letting the world in—not fully, not completely, but more than he ever thought he’d dare.
“It’s sad,” Video Phil says, “because those years should have been the happiest times of our life.”
They should’ve been, Dan thinks. A knot tightens in his stomach. A feeling he can’t put a name to.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
They order in for dinner. Not an uncommon occurrence by any means, but Phil frames it as a treat regardless.
“We deserve a little reward,” he says, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder while Dan puts in the Deliveroo order. In a quieter voice, he adds, “Tomorrow is a big deal.”
Dan makes a sound of agreement. “How are you feeling?”
“Alright, I think,” Phil answers. He nudges Dan in the side. “How are you feeling?”
“Alright,” Dan echoes. Then: “I dunno. It’s weird.”
“Super weird,” Phil agrees. The tightness in Dan’s chest releases a bit.
“You’re ready, though?” Dan asks, because if Phil is ready, then he can be ready, too. He has to be.
“I will be tomorrow,” Phil says. He nods at Dan’s phone screen. “Or maybe once I’ve had some curry.”
“Oh, that’s what it will take, is it?” Dan laughs. “Some curry to get your courage up?”
“Curr…age,” Phil attempts. When Dan grimaces at the wordplay, Phil shoves him. “Come on, that was good!”
“It was good,” Dan relents, more to see the pleased smile on Phil’s face than anything else.
They play Mario Kart while waiting for the food to arrive. Dan wins, but it’s a close thing, Phil only a couple of places behind in the overall results. (“You’re still doing the dishes,” Dan says before Phil can get any ideas, and Phil sticks his tongue out at him.)
They eat in the movie room with another episode of Buffy. Season 3, episode 9: “The Wish.” Phil sits criss-cross on the couch, his knee resting on Dan’s thigh, and it’s easy, almost heartbreakingly simple, to exist together like this. Dan would never have imagined when he was a kid that he could one day have this life. He’d do anything to keep it wholly intact.
“Definitely ready now,” Phil says when the end credits roll, curry long gone.
“Same.”
“Yeah?” Phil runs his hand through Dan’s hair, then drops it to Dan’s face, thumb caressing the curve of his jaw. “You sure?”
They hold each other’s gaze. Phil’s eyes are gentle but scrutinizing. Dan smiles. “Ready as I can be.”
Phil hums and nods. “Love you.”
Dan kisses him on the forehead, soft and sweet and just for him. “Love you, too.”
There are no intimate activities before bed tonight. Last night was really good, and enough to satiate them both for a while, Dan thinks. A while can mean a lot of different things when it comes to their sex life, but in this case, it’s at least a few days. Regardless, neither of them are in the mood, so they instead spend the rest of their night in the comfortable silence of mutual phone scrolling. (“Sunday night, am I right, brother?” Dan jokes, and Phil actually snorts in laughter.)
Dan can’t help feeling that today wasn’t much of a day at all. It was so much more relaxed than most of their days have been as of late, which should have been a welcome relief. The main podcast set is pretty much finished. The video’s done. All that’s left to do is post it.
And then everyone will know, Dan thinks, starting to doze off in the depths of Instagram reels. More than they already do, anyway. Everyone will know that Phil is his, and that he has been since the beginning. The whole time. And they’ll get to keep being together, every day until the end, and it won’t be a secret. He can love loudly in his natural Dan way without needing to worry about reigning it in, and Phil, always so guarded, largely for Dan’s benefit, can finally breathe. It will be what it always should have been.
Almost, Dan thinks, stomach twisting, heart flipping. Almost.
October 12th, 2025
Dan awakens, once again, to Phil’s back. He smiles to himself in the dim morning light that barely filters through the drawn black-out curtains, a soft spotlight on their otherwise private moment. Dan thinks—perhaps much too romantically for this hour of the day—that he’ll be okay, no matter the changes, so long as he can have some constants like this one. Waking up next to Phil, sleepily counting the moles and freckles on his bare skin.
Why is he shirtless? Dan wonders suddenly. He’d not gone to bed that way, not last night. He must’ve gotten hot in his sleep or something. That’s perfectly fine with Dan. He stares at Phil’s back a while longer, half-awake and fully reverent.
Then Phil rolls over, meeting Dan’s eyes. “Morn.”
“Morn,” Dan replies. “Coffee?”
“Wordle.”
Dan nods, thankful for the routine. It’s a normal day. No matter that they’re dropping probably the biggest video of their entire joint career today. Nevermind that Dan’s love for Phil will no longer be a private truth, concealed behind jokes and half-truths and plausible deniability, but a known fact. Sure. Totally normal day.
Dan starts with adieu as usual. Yellow D, yellow U. He tries doubt. Yellow D, green O, green U. His brow furrows. Another -ound word maybe? It’d be an unusual choice, but he wouldn’t really be that surprised if this was the Times’ way of fucking with people.
sound. Gray S, green everything else. “Alright then,” Dan says under his breath, not wanting to give Phil any hints. Once again, though, there are too many options to try them all. He tries found, then round. Nothing.
Has to be pound, Dan thinks. Or mound. Those are the only two words he can come up with his remaining letters, but he only has one guess left.
“Got it in three,” Phil says beside him.
“You bitch,” Dan replies.
Phil snuggles up next to him to watch. “Cutting it close, Danny.”
“Too many fucking words,” Dan mutters. It’s a coin flip; there’s nothing to do but choose one. He’s tempted to linger here, in his indecision, refusing to let the day progress. “Shit,” he realizes, “it could also be hound.” But Phil makes a noise that Dan interprets as nope, so Dan decides not to worry about that one. He sighs and types pound, then presses enter.
The P comes up gray. “Fuck! Don’t laugh. Fuck you.”
Phil laughs anyway, stopping only to give Dan a kiss on the cheek. But Dan’s exaggerated irritation evaporates into confusion when the correct word flashes on his screen.
“They didn’t reset the board?” Dan asks, bewildered. He didn’t think Wordle was something that could just stop.
“Sure,” Phil says, “blame the game.”
“That’s not blaming the game! That’s the game fundamentally not working!” When Phil gives him a quizzical look, Dan adds, “It’s the same word as yesterday.”
“No it isn’t,” Phil says with a short laugh.
“Yes it is!”
“No it isn’t!”
“What was yesterday’s word, then?” Dan asks, somewhat amused but mostly at a loss.
“I don’t remember,” Phil admits.
“Oh, for God’s sake. I’m Googling it.”
He searches wordle 12th october answer and is both vindicated and relieved when Google returns that the word was, in fact, wound. Dan shoves his phone in Phil’s face. “See?”
Phil looks at the phone, then back at Dan, a funny expression on his face. “Today is the 12th of October, babe.”
Dan laughs sharply. “Fuck off. No it isn’t.”
“Dan.”
“Phil.”
“Dan.” Before Dan can retort, Phil opens his own phone to the calendar app and turns it around to face him. “Look. 12th of October. Today.”
Dan’s mouth falls open. Dan checks his own phone calendar for good measure, and sure enough, it reads Sunday, the 12th. “You’re fucking with me,” He says. But it’s a weak accusation; Phil himself looks like he can’t decide if Dan is making a joke or not.
“I’m not fucking with you,” Phil promises, giving a small nervous laugh. He grabs Dan’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “C’mon, let’s go get you some coffee, yeah?”
Reluctantly, he follows Phil from the bed, tossing a shirt on without really looking at it. This doesn’t make sense. It’s not just the Wordle that he’s hung up on, but the whole day. Any other week, and Dan might not have even noticed. But today is supposed to be the day. Monday. The day to release the video. Hell, Dan talked about it with Phil yesterday, didn’t he?
He starts on the coffee, trying to calm his racing thoughts. Phil pours himself a bowl of Shreddies. Dan’s bones itch unpleasantly with the familiarity of it, beyond that of their typical routine. Was it just a dream? A super vivid, hyper-specific dream? But then how did he know what the Wordle was? No matter which way Dan spins it, none of it makes any goddamn sense.
“Are you feeling stressed?” Phil asks, his tone light but laced with a careful, measured quality. Dan, wincing, recognizes this as Phil’s I’m-Worried-About-You voice. “About the video tomorrow?”
“It’s supposed to be today,” Dan insists. “Yesterday—the 12th—that already happened.” He’s so sure that it did. But now Phil is looking at him with wide eyes through his glasses, his lips pressed in a thin line, and Dan realizes he sounds crazy. I feel crazy, he thinks. “Maybe I dreamt it,” he adds, not really believing it.
Phil relaxes a bit at that. “My psychic-ness must be rubbing off on you,” he says, taking a bite of his cereal. “Or you’ve just got some crazy deja vu.”
Right. Deja vu. That’s a thing. Except this feels a lot more intense than any deja vu Dan has ever experienced. He sets a mug of coffee down for Phil but remains standing to drink his own, too restless to sit.
“You didn’t really answer my question.”
Dan blinks, forcing his vision to refocus. “What?”
Phil is looking at him with obvious concern now. “Are you worried about the video?”
“No.” Dan lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I mean, no, not— not really. Like, yes, obviously, but not… That’s not what this is,” he finishes stupidly, face burning for no reason at all.
“I think it might be,” Phil says. When Dan starts to object, Phil cuts him off. “I mean, like, subconsciously, you know? Maybe you’ve been so anxious about it that your brain tricked you into thinking it was today.”
Dan stops to consider this. He didn’t think he was that anxious about the video. Just, like, the normal amount of anxiety for a video that’s probably going to define him and his career until the end of time. But Phil’s explanation is more sensible than anything else that Dan can think of. “That actually maybe makes sense.”
“Well, don’t sound so surprised,” Phil says. He reaches out to Dan, making a grabby motion with his hand, and Dan manages a smile and joins him at the table. Phil interlocks their fingers. “I’ve got you.”
Dan’s heart gives a little flutter, a warm flush of gratitude in his chest. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
The sensation of intense deja vu, for lack of a better term, doesn’t leave Dan for the rest of the day. He tries not to dwell on it. Not when he and Phil take turns doing their final sweeps through the video, making sure it’s ready to go for tomorrow. Not when Phil insists on ordering curry. Not when they watch Buffy while they eat breakfast and dinner, two episodes that are incredibly fresh in Dan’s head. Dan doesn’t dwell on it because there’s no point. It isn’t possible, what he feels he’s experiencing. It must just be what Phil said: an extremely vivid, anxiety-induced dream.
So he doesn’t dwell. But when they lay down to sleep that night, he confirms with Phil. “We’re uploading the video tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Phil says, looking up from his phone, “if you still want to.”
“I do. Of course I do.”
“Okay, alright. Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” Dan echoes. “The 13th.”
“The 13th.”
“Monday.”
In the glow from Phil’s phone screen, Dan sees Phil smile. “Tomorrow, Monday the 13th of October, we’ll tell everyone that we’re in big, happy, gay love. Alright?”
Dan takes Phil’s hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Perfect.”
October 12th, 2025
Dan wakes up to Phil’s bare back facing him and sits bolt upright in bed. Relax. He could’ve taken his shirt off during the night. It doesn’t mean anything, just relax. But Dan knows, somehow, before he even checks the date on his phone, that it’s the same morning. He knows. Even though it makes absolutely no sense, even though it shouldn’t be possible, he knows. He’s woken up next to Phil thousands of times, thousands of different mornings—in London and Manchester and Rawtenstall, in the same bed and over Skype—enough of them to know that this exact morning has already happened.
The date on his phone lock screen confirms it. Dan chokes down a scream, but a strained whimper still bubbles out of his throat.
“Morn.”
He flinches and looks sideways at Phil, who’s rolled over in bed to squint at him, bleary-eyed. “You alright?”
“You’re fucking with me.” The words tumble out of Dan in a panicked rush. “You— Someone has to be fucking with me. I can’t— How is it the same day again? It already— I just— And let me guess, the fucking Wordle is gonna be the same again too, right? This doesn’t— I mean, how—”
“Dan.” Phil is sitting up now, too, and he shuffles closer to Dan, cupping his face in one hand. “Baby. Hey. It’s alright. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Dan snaps. “It’s not okay. This shouldn’t be possible, how is this—”
“Dan,” Phil says again, almost irritatingly gentle. He moves his hand from Dan’s face to his back and rubs slow circles on his skin. “Breathe.”
“I—”
“Breathe,” Phil interrupts. “You’re shaking, Dan.”
Dan hadn’t realized how much he’s trembling. His breath comes in short, rapid gasps, his hands clenching involuntarily into fists. Shit.
“You’re okay,” Phil says, soft but sure. “You’re alright, I’ve got you. Deep breaths.”
He lets Phil talk him through it. Forces himself to inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight, over and over until the oxygen hits his brain.
“D’you want me to get you some water?” Phil asks once he’s leveled out a bit.
Dan nods. Phil gives his shoulder a squeeze on his way out. As soon as he’s gone, Dan opens his phone to the Wordle and types wound. He lets out a helpless sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as every letter lights up green.
It’s not possible. Nothing about it should be at all possible. So how and why is it happening to him?
Phil returns with a glass of water. Dan sips from it absently, throat tight.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Phil asks. He rests a hand on Dan’s knee, and there’s something steadying about it, even if only slight. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Dan shakes his head. “No.”
“Is that, no, you don’t want to talk about it, or no, you didn’t have a bad dream?”
“I don’t know,” Dan says, voice small.
Phil, bless him, takes his utterly unhelpful answer in stride. “What can I do?”
Dan bites back another response of I don’t know. He sets the barely emptied glass of water on the nightstand and wraps his arms around Phil’s waist, burying his face in his chest. Phil rakes a hand through Dan’s curls and holds him close and neither of them says anything at all.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Some time later, Dan awakens to Phil’s stomach rumbling beneath him. He doesn’t remember dozing off, but now he sits up abruptly, startling Phil out of scrolling on his phone. “Did my stomach wake you?”
“What day is it?” Dan asks, then coughs, voice hoarse. He reaches for the water on the nightstand and catches sight of the date on his phone before Phil can answer.
“The 12th, I think,” Phil says. “Sunday. Why?”
“Just checking,” Dan mumbles. He’d hoped that maybe… but no. He takes a large gulp of water and tries to ignore the hammering of his heart against his ribcage.
He feels Phil’s eyes on him and hesitantly meets his gaze. “Shall we get breakfast?” Phil asks. “Or lunch, I guess.”
Dan glances back at his phone. Christ, it’s past noon. It was nine in the morning when he checked the date earlier. “Sorry,” he says, in spite of— well, everything. “You could’ve woken me.”
“S’alright,” Phil says. “You seemed comfy.” He’s quick to hop out of bed, though, and Dan follows him and throws on a shirt.
Phil shows no sign of lingering concern until they get to the kitchen. “I can make coffee,” he offers, and that’s how Dan knows he must’ve really freaked him out with his panicking this morning.
“I’ve got it,” Dan replies. There’s a flicker of relief on Phil’s face.
“Are you feeling better?” He asks, tentative, and so sweet that Dan feels his heart might burst.
“I’m okay.” It’s not really true—Jesus fuck, he’s apparently in some kind of a time loop, for Christ’s sake—but now that he’s more or less confirmed what’s happening, there is a part of Dan that is kind of just… fine. Does it make sense? God, no. Should it even be possible? Absolutely not. But if this is what’s happening—and there is truly no other explanation for what is happening—then, well, there are worse things, right? At least he’s here, at home, with Phil. Nothing horrible has occurred on any iteration of the day thus far. He’s safe. Phil is here. If Dan doesn’t think about it too hard, he can keep himself from losing his shit.
“Can we talk about it?” Phil asks. “I mean, do you want to talk about it?”
Dan grabs the D and P mugs from the shelf, pointedly not looking at Phil when he replies. “It’s fine, Phil. It was just a dream.”
There’s silence for a moment. Dan focuses all of his attention on the coffee maker. Tamping down the coffee grounds, twisting the portafilter into the slot. Then, quietly, Phil asks, “Was it something we did last night?”
Dan frowns. “Last night?” For him, last night consisted of making Phil assure him of the linear passage of time. But of course, for Phil, last night was—
“The sex, Daniel.”
Dan turns around to face him, one eyebrow raised in amusement, but Phil is perfectly serious. “Was it all okay?” Phil asks. “I mean, was there anything we did that was… too much? Or that you didn’t—”
“No!” Dan blurts, because God, now that he’s remembering it, the sex was perfect. Why couldn’t that be the time loop, he thinks, annoyed and a bit astounded that his life has come to this, if there had to be a time loop involved?
“You’re sure?” Phil’s eyebrows are knit together. “It got a little intense. I know you usually like that, but…” He trails off, and God, Dan loves him.
“No,” Dan says again, more softly. “That— Last night was great. You were amazing.” He reaches for Phil’s hand over the table and rubs his thumb across Phil’s knuckles. “And you are so sweet for asking.”
Phil smiles like he believes him, which is a relief because what else could Dan possibly say? Actually, Phil, the reason I woke up in a total panic is because I’m stuck in a time loop. Yes, like in that one mediocre episode of Buffy.
“Is it the video, then?” Phil presses. “Are you worried about it?”
Dan is about to say yes, of course he’s worried about the video. His list of worries at the moment looks something like, 1) Time loop. 2) The video. But the words die on his tongue as a thought strikes him, suddenly, that maybe the two issues aren’t unrelated. “The video,” he says, more to himself than to Phil. “That must be it.” Something must have put him in this loop—Dan has to believe that there’s some logic to this completely illogical situation—and the video is the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only drastic change or event that could have possibly caused him to be literally frozen in time.
But why? Is it the video that’s the problem, or is it—
“Oh, Dan.” Phil stands up and comes around the table to hug him. Instinctively, Dan tucks his face into the crook of Phil’s neck. “I’m scared, too,” Phil says into Dan’s hair. “It’s a big deal. But it’ll be alright. I think we’re ready.”
Dan swallows. Something twists in his stomach. “I think so, too,” he says. But he’s not sure now if he believes it.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Dan watches the video, from start to finish, no less than four times. That’s not even mentioning the amount of time he’s already spent combing through it over the past two days—or, rather, the past two 12ths of October. (12th of Octobers? How does he pluralize that?) Now, though, he’s looking for a lot more than just editing mistakes.
There has to be something wrong with it. Something beyond overall flow and pacing. Something so wrong that the universe has decided to say, No, Daniel, you cannot release this video in its current state. Nevermind that Dan isn’t usually one to believe in such a higher power or force. So what if being caught in a time loop has got him rethinking things? Sue him.
Of course, he’s not entirely convinced that he hasn’t just lost his mind. That possibility is still very much on the table.
After four watches, nothing particularly obvious has revealed itself to him as a fault. There has to be something. The problem has to be with the video itself, because the alternative—that the problem is with Dan—is such an upsetting prospect that it makes him feel physically ill.
“My therapist said, ‘Dan, you love being in the closet,’” Video Dan says.
“Why do you love it?” Video Phil asks.
“I spent so long not being authentic and being trapped in a situation that I am comfortable being miserable in an environment where I don’t do the thing that would suddenly make me feel better.”
Present Dan, sitting at the desk in the office/gaming room, leans forward and rests his forehead on the table.
The thing is—the really, truly, deeply aggravating thing is—that if someone had asked Dan a few days ago, before this loop started, if he was ready to upload this video, his answer would have been an immediate, unequivocal yes. He feels ready. He wants to be ready. What else could possibly matter, beyond that?
Phil pokes his head into the room. “Still editing?”
Dan pauses the video and shrugs. Phil comes around behind him and rests his chin on Dan’s head. “You’ve been at it a while. I think it’s probably ready.”
“It is,” Dan says. It is ready. And not just that, but it’s probably the best thing that he and Phil have ever made. Honest and funny and something that only they could’ve put together. And the more he thinks about it, the more it occurs to Dan that, if the issue was with the video, wouldn’t Phil be in this loop, too? It concerns both of them, after all.
But Phil isn’t here with him.
Which means that Dan is the problem.
Phil kisses the top of his head. “You’re being hard on yourself today.”
“I am,” Dan agrees.
“Well, stop it,” Phil scolds him. “I quite like you, you know.” He pauses. “And if the video is really stressing you out, we don’t have to—”
“We do,” Dan interrupts. “I mean, I want to.” And he does, he does. He wants to so badly.
“Me too.” Phil admits. He kisses Dan’s hair again, almost aggressively fond. “Love you.”
Dan leans back in his chair to look up at Phil, upside down above him. I need to make this happen, he thinks, lightheaded with the severity of his affection. For him. “Love you, too.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Phil insists on Mario Kart while they wait for dinner to arrive—Indian again, which Dan, thankfully, isn’t sick of yet but probably will be soon; all the more reason to break the loop, really. Dan wins every race and feels bad about making Phil do the dishes for the third night in a row before he remembers that it’s only been one day for Phil. So the loop is okay, in some ways.
It’s almost too easy to pretend. He and Phil have so many traditions and rituals, routines they’ve spent the past sixteen years developing and perfecting, a natural consistency to the time they spend together. If not for this life changing video they’re supposed to be posting tomorrow, Dan wouldn’t have many complaints about the situation.
But it’s not fair to Phil, his being stuck here. How do time loops work for other people, anyway? Are they just going about their day, memory wiped each night so that they awaken unaware and unbothered? Or is the real Phil stuck in some kind of purgatory, in-between space, while Dan only has access to a backup version of him? That’s the only thing about this loop that could truly break Dan at this point; if Phil is suffering because of it. Because of him.
“I’m ready,” Dan says when they lay down to sleep that night. It’s partially for Phil’s benefit, as he’s been regarding Dan with a level of sensitivity all day since his outburst in the morning. But it’s more for whoever else might be listening. Whoever might have any ounce of control over what’s happening to him, who can hear Dan say that he’s ready and believe him. “For tomorrow.”
“Yeah?” Phil rolls over to face him in bed.
“Yeah.” Dan takes Phil’s hand in his own, and he means it when he says, “I am.”
October 12th, 2025
But it’s not enough. Or it’s a lie, or no one was listening to hear him say it, or there’s something else that Dan is doing wrong. Either way, he wakes up to Phil’s bare back again, and this time he isn’t even all that surprised.
I need to fix it, Dan reminds himself. There isn’t another option. If it only affected him, that would be different. He could live with that, or at least it wouldn’t be as desperate of a situation. But Phil deserves better. God knows that Phil has waited long enough, more than long enough, that Phil always seems to be waiting for something that Dan isn’t ready for. It’s a cruelty to make him wait even a second more.
Maybe he doesn’t have to.
Dan sits up straight suddenly. He should have thought of this yesterday. Dan is ready to post the video, and he can prove it. “Phil?”
Phil rolls over, blinking sleep from his eyes. “Morn.”
“Yeah, hi, morn. What if we post it today?”
“Uh.” Phil yawns and rubs his face. “What?”
“The video,” Dan says. “Let’s just post it today.”
Phil stares at him. “I’m not awake enough for that. It doesn’t even feel like today yet.”
“Alright. Coffee, then.” Dan starts to climb out of bed but Phil makes a noise of protest.
“Wordle first,” he says, pouting like he’s offended that Dan could even think to skip something so important.
“I… got it spoiled for me,” Dan says, figuring it’s close enough to the truth. “You play. I’ll start on coffee.”
Phil watches him suspiciously as Dan throws a shirt on but doesn’t press the subject. Dan ruffles his hair on his way out of the room and heads up to the kitchen. Pours and tamps the coffee grounds, clicks the portafilter into place, steams a pitcher of milk. When he hears Phil’s footsteps padding up the stairs, Dan pours him a bowl of Shreddies.
“How’d you know?” Phil asks, eying him. “Maybe I was feeling buttered toast.”
“Just had a feeling,” Dan says. “Was I wrong?”
“No, but—”
Dan sets his coffee down on the table and pours the steamed milk, easing up when just the foam is left and carefully adding it on top in the shape of a heart. His latte art skills are generally hit or miss, but thankfully this attempt works in his favor.
“You’re in a good mood,” Phil says. “Was the sex really that good?”
“It really was,” Dan replies. He sits down across from Phil and grabs both of his hands. “Let’s post it today.”
Phil smiles but his brow pinches together. “We said we’d post it tomorrow.”
“But what’s stopping us from posting it today?”
“A couple of things,” Phil says. “Mondays are better for analytics, for one.”
“Since when do we care—”
“For this video, it matters. It’s important—”
“We’re telling the world that we’re dating,” Dan interrupts. “I don’t think analytics will matter all that much for the ‘Phan is real’ video.”
“What about the podcast?” Phil asks. “We agreed on Mondays, remember? And it makes sense if the video comes out a week before.”
“But it doesn’t have to,” Dan argues. This conversation has gotten away from him much too quickly. “Look, I just… I want people to know. And I think we’re ready, don’t you?”
Phil bites his lip. “I want people to know, too,” he says slowly. “That’s why we’re doing this. But…” He squeezes Dan’s hands, then lets go. “But not like this, okay?”
Dan swallows his disappointment. Maybe it would be enough that he tried, even though Phil didn’t want to go through with it. Maybe whoever’s running this time loop show has now seen that Dan is ready after all.
Except when Dan nods and says, “You’re right. Sorry for pushing it,” his disappointment is secondary to the relief that floods through him.
October 12th, 2025
“Morn.”
“Morn,” Dan returns. Then, “Would you believe me if I said I was stuck in a time loop?”
Phil glances sideways at him in bed. “That’s a very Phil question.”
“Had a weird dream,” Dan explains briskly. “So, would you?”
“Hm.” Phil is great at taking a serious approach to even the silliest of hypotheticals, which is why Dan decided to pose the question in the first place. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Yeah? You wouldn’t need, like, proof or anything?”
“Well, proof would be helpful,” Phil says. “But I think if you were adamant enough about it I’d probably believe you. It’d be a weird thing for you to lie about.”
It really, really would. “Would you help me break it?” Dan asks.
Phil pouts. “You don’t think we’d be stuck in a time loop together?”
I really wish we were, Dan thinks, then chases the thought from his brain. It’s selfish to want Phil here, no matter how much it would improve the circumstances. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he somehow willed it into being true. “In this scenario,” he says, “you’re not here. It’s just me.”
“But I’m so fun,” Phil complains, and Dan laughs. “Okay, alright. You’re stuck in a time loop by yourself. But I can help you?”
“I don’t know,” Dan admits. “Would you try?”
“Maybe, yeah.”
“Maybe?!”
“Well, I don’t know! I might call the army or something.”
Dan laughs again. It really is so good that Phil is here. Maybe not in the loop with him, but still here. It’s already crossed Dan’s brain more than once how horrible this loop would be if it were to happen with Phil away visiting his family, or while Dan was away for WAD. Everything is easier with Phil around.
“This isn’t your way of telling me that you’re stuck in a time loop, right?”
“‘Course not, idiot.”
Dan does consider telling Phil for real, though, even if his inclination to “call the army” isn’t the most reassuring. It would just be nice to talk it through. And as grateful as Dan is that Phil is physically here with him, there is something uncanny about it. How the loop only affects one of them, forcing a distance between them. Inherently isolating.
Another day, maybe, Dan thinks, watching Phil start on the Wordle. It doesn’t strike him until Phil has guessed the word—following the same route of SPARK → GUIDE → WOUND that Dan watched him take a few days prior—how dismally defeatist it is to put something off to another day in Dan’s circumstances. Christ. I’ll find ways to procrastinate even in a time loop.
Still. It would feel strange to broach the subject now that he’s just assured Phil he is not, in fact, in a time loop. Tomorrow, Dan tells himself more firmly, and marvels at how quickly tomorrow has become synonymous with today. Wonders how almost used to be within his grasp before he let it slip away.
October 12th, 2025
Dan’s eyes have barely snapped open when he pokes Phil right in the spine. Phil’s whole body spasms before he rolls over to face Dan, and Dan can’t help but laugh a little at Phil’s affronted expression. “What the hell?” Phil asks groggily.
“That’s a new one,” Dan notes. He grabs his phone from the nightstand—still the 12th—and opens it to Wordle. “Look.” He types wound, presses enter, and shoves the screen in front of Phil as the letters light up green.
Phil shrieks and covers his face. “Dan! Spoilers!”
In truth, Dan does feel a little bad about potentially ruining Phil’s Wordle streak. Not that his own hasn’t already been ruined by this fiasco. With any luck, though, he won’t break the loop today and Phil will be able to play as normal tomorrow. More than anything, today is an experiment.
“You wanna know how I did that?” Dan asks.
Phil whacks him with a pillow. “What, someone spoiled it on Twitter and you took me down with you?” He whacks him again. “You slag.”
“Nope. No spoilers. I knew what it was going to—”
The pillow hits him in the face again. Dan yanks it out of Phil’s hands and tosses it to the ground, then tackles Phil to the bed. Phil lets out a squeak that’s maybe supposed to come across as scared but mostly just sounds pleased. Dan tries and fails to bite back a smile as he pins Phil gently by the wrists, and Phil looks up at him with big, eager eyes.
“Was last night not enough?” Phil asks. His Adam’s apple bobs in a stupidly distracting way, dangling in front of Dan like a carrot on a stick.
“Always the sex with you,” Dan mutters. He should really be keeping track of how many times Time Loop Phil has brought up “last night’s” endeavors.
Phil’s eyes get impossibly wider. “Are you telling me I’m not supposed to be getting a vibe from this?”
“I just needed you to stop hitting me with the pillow.”
“I think you could’ve done that without pinning me to the bed, Howell.”
“This seemed most effective.”
“I—”
Dan lowers himself to press his lips against Phil’s. Phil shivers beneath him, leaning forward and pushing up into him, but Dan keeps the kiss slow and sweet and wanting. It’s tempting to change gears and turn today into a different kind of experiment, but Dan forces himself to pull away, pressing his nose to Phil’s. Quietly, with eyes squeezed shut, he says, “I’m stuck in a time loop.”
There’s a pause. Then Phil laughs, his nose bumping against Dan’s. “What?”
“I’m serious.”
“Dan, I’m not awake enough for this. It doesn’t even feel—”
“Like today yet?” Dan finishes. He opens his eyes to find Phil staring at him blankly. “I’m serious,” he insists.
“About what?” Phil asks.
Dan sighs. He lets go of Phil’s wrists and rolls off of him, laying on his back and keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling. “I’m stuck in a time loop,” he says again.
Another pause. “I heard you,” Phil says from beside him, slow and uncertain. “But I don’t know what that means.”
“It means what it sounds like.”
“But not, like, literally.”
Dan turns his head. Phil is sitting up now, hands clutching the bedsheets, brows pinched together. This was a mistake, Dan thinks, a twinge of guilt in his chest. It isn’t Phil’s fault that he’s here. Why make him worry about something he probably won’t even be able to help with? But then, Phil won’t remember any of this tomorrow. Unless they break the loop, in which case it won’t be a problem anyway. Dan presses on. “Yes,” he answers. “Literally.”
“Dan, I don’t know what that—”
“Every day,” Dan interrupts, “for the past… six days now, I think? Every day, I’ve woken up to it being the 12th of October. That’s how I knew the Wordle. That’s how I know that you’re craving Shreddies for breakfast, and that you’re going to want curry for dinner later tonight.”
Phil looks at him expectantly, then frowns. “And?”
“And…” Dan racks his brain for literally anything else he could say to prove that he’s already lived this day, but, well… he and Phil really don’t get out much, do they? Dan never imagined that being an introverted homebody might one day ruin his chance of breaking a time loop, but case in point, apparently. “That’s all I’ve got,” he admits.
“That isn’t very compelling evidence, Dan.”
“I know. But yesterday, you said you wouldn’t need evidence to believe me.”
“When did I say that?”
“Today,” Dan amends. “Not yesterday. Or, like, the today that happened yesterday? You won’t remember it. But it happened, Phil.” He takes one of Phil’s hands. “I swear.”
Phil absently rubs his thumb over Dan’s knuckles and, for a while, doesn’t say anything. A few times, he opens his mouth, seems to consider something, then closes it again. Dan’s heart beats wildly the whole time. Finally, Phil asks, “Like in Buffy?”
God, I love him, Dan thinks, and then says, “I love you,” and some of the tension leaves Phil’s shoulders.
“Season six, episode five, I think,” Phil continues proudly, “‘Life Serial.’ A bit of a rubbish episode, to be honest, and we know how I feel about season six.”
“I know, babe.”
“But Jonathan puts Buffy into a loop until she’s able to sell the mummy hand.” And then—is that excitement in his voice?—“That kind of time loop?” Yes, he definitely sounds excited that Dan gets to experience a Buffy plotline in real life, albeit a mediocre one, nevermind the existential horror of it all.
Dan sighs and smiles in spite of himself. “Let’s make coffee.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
“So,” Phil says over his bowl of Shreddies, “you think your equivalent of Buffy’s mummy hand is the video?”
“Not sure what else it could be,” Dan replies. He sips his coffee. He’s just finished explaining, in as much detail as he could stand, each day of the loop so far to Phil. The sheer insanity of the situation hits Dan all over again, and he has to set his mug of coffee down to keep it from spilling from how much his hands start to shake.
“And this is the first time you’ve told me about any of this?” Phil asks.
Dan nods. “I wasn’t sure what was happening at first. And then I— I mean, I was worried you’d think I’m crazy.” He hesitates. “You don’t think I’m crazy, right?”
“Not any more than I already did,” Phil answers easily. His brows are still pinched, but to his credit, Phil has taken this whole thing in stride. Of course, it probably doesn’t feel as real to him as it does to Dan, who’s been actually living it for six days, but Dan appreciates his steadiness nonetheless.
“Remind me how Buffy did it,” Dan says, knowing full well that asking Phil anything about Buffy is a dangerous game.
Thankfully, this time, Phil has the sense to be concise. “She orders a new mummy hand instead of fighting the one in the basement,” he answers. “I don’t know if that helps us. Should we, like, remake the video?”
“No,” Dan says immediately. “No, no, I like our video. I want to post our video.”
Phil looks relieved. “What else could it be, then?”
Dan takes another contemplative sip of his coffee. There’s one thing he hasn’t really explained to Phil: the worry that he’s not ready. That all of this is just the result of Dan being Dan. Loving the closet.
It seems like the most obvious explanation. Dan would rather not connect those dots for Phil if he doesn’t have to. And besides, he knows what Phil would say. There’s no rush, Dan. We don’t have to do this if you aren’t ready. I— We can wait. Phil being Phil.
But Phil has waited enough.
“That I’m scared,” Dan says. “I mean, it’s my fault, probably.”
“Dan—”
“No, really. If it had anything to do with you, don’t you think you’d be stuck in this, too?”
“That doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”
“It’s my problem,” Dan amends impatiently. More softly, he adds, “And I— I don’t know how. To fix it.”
Phil looks at him in this inexplicably heartbroken kind of way that Dan has to avert his eyes from. “Dan,” Phil says gently. “You don’t need to fix anything. No, listen,” he continues when Dan tries to interject. “I think you’re overthinking this. Just try to put it out of your mind for today and we can save all of the big feelings for tomorrow, yeah?”
Dan groans in frustration. “I can’t get to tomorrow. That’s the whole problem, Phil.”
Phil takes a sip of his coffee, then cocks his head to the side. “Maybe it isn’t,” he says, suddenly thoughtful. “Or, like, maybe it’s backwards? It’s not that you aren’t ready. It’s that you’re worried that you aren’t ready—that’s why you can’t get to tomorrow.”
Dan replays the words in his head, trying to make sense of them, then frowns when he’s unsuccessful. “What difference would that make?”
“All of it,” Phil says, with a laugh that’s almost condescending in how easily it comes from him. “It means that you are ready, if you can let yourself be.” He pauses. “You’re looking at me like I’m not making sense—”
“You’re not.”
“—but I think I’m making a lot of sense.”
“You don’t ever make sense,” Dan remarks, not meaning to say it so fondly but, well, he does, obviously.
Phil grins. “C’mon, really.” He reaches with both hands across the table to Dan, who rolls his eyes but accepts the offer of physical touch nonetheless. “Let’s not worry about the video today, alright? We’ll save the last sweep of edits for tomorrow. There’ll be—”
“That is going to make things so much more stressful than they need to be.”
“Shut up, there’ll be plenty of time. Besides,” Phil argues, “it’ll take some stress off of your plate today.” He squeezes Dan’s hands. “Let’s just relax. Have a mindfulness moment. Watch some Buffy.”
Dan involuntarily grimaces; he’s watched the same two episodes of Buffy pretty much every day since the loop started and probably has them damn near memorized, which isn’t all that impressive compared to Phil’s encyclopaedic knowledge, but still. “Maybe some Housewives?” Dan suggests. “Salt Lake City?”
“Alright,” Phil says breezily. Much more breezily than he normally would be if Dan declined to watch Buffy. Dan appreciates the effort.
Really, Dan appreciates… everything that Phil is saying. It’s a bit nuts, the idea of just ignoring the loop and the video and everything that’s supposed to come after. But maybe he’s right. Phil tends to be right about these kinds of things. Dan being too in his own head, making something out of nothing. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
Dan frees one hand from Phil’s grip, raises his mug to his lips, and, in the time it takes to gulp down the rest of his coffee, attempts to become a new Dan. A Dan that, for today, will not think of tomorrow.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
They have sex again. It isn’t entirely out of the ordinary for them to fuck two days in a row—certainly it was commonplace in the first year or two or five of their relationship—but as they’ve gotten busier with their careers and become more mature and patient sexual partners, a back-to-back two days of sex isn’t generally the norm. Especially when the first day was so mutually fulfilling.
(This is all excluding, of course, the occasions when one of them is satisfied one night and the other satisfied the next. But that’s a given.)
But Dan has been trying to enjoy himself and, at Phil’s recommendation, put tomorrow out of his mind, and Phil was giving him all kinds of signals barely short of grabbing Dan by the jaw and saying Let me fuck you, so: They fuck.
It is maybe the first time all day that Dan is actually successful at not thinking of tomorrow.
No, that’s not true. He was able to turn his brain off during Housewives, falling into easy banter with Phil while Britani and Whitney went at it on the screen. Phil’s dinner order of curry, though, brought all of the racing thoughts back. In any case, Dan really did try.
When they have sex that night, Dan doesn’t have to try at all. Phil coaxes him into his lap, kisses up and down his chest, tugs at Dan’s hair, and Dan’s mind empties. He sees nothing but Phil in front of him, pushing Dan down onto the bed and pulling at his clothes with a desperation that makes Dan mad, that Phil, even now, especially now, could be this desperate for him. He hears nothing but Phil’s voice, saying things like Let me take care of you and You’re doing so well and Fuck, Dan, God, all gravelly and quiet and meant only for Dan. He feels nothing but perspiration building on his skin and Phil’s body against his, Phil sliding inside of him, thrusting into him. He tastes nothing but blood on his perpetually chapped lips from where Phil has bit.
When they’re done—and God, is Dan done by the end of it—Phil gets a glass of water for each of them from the kitchen. “Alright?”
Dan nods, sitting up to drink. “Somehow even better than— well, yesterday, I guess.” And just like that, it’s back on his mind. The loop. The reminder that yesterday was so long ago, and that tomorrow is less inevitable than it once was.
Phil hums and climbs back into bed. “You were really good,” he murmurs, and a pathetic little whine crawls from Dan’s throat, and Phil huffs a laugh and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him.
Dan falls asleep soon after that, held delicately in Phil’s arms and naked save for a pair of boxers that Phil helpfully fished from a drawer. His breathing slows, eyes fluttering shut. But he’s awake just long enough to hear Phil whisper, “Tell me again. If today happens again tomorrow.”
October 12th, 2025
And it does.
This time, Dan isn’t sure based on Phil’s lack of clothing alone; last night’s events could explain that well enough. But the boxers on his own body are an old, worn-out pair that he vaguely remembers scrounging up for himself on the long-ago night of October 11th, rather than the newer, softer pair which Phil aptly selected for him last night, knowing they were the pair Dan would like best. “Last night” means little here, in this ouroboros of time. “Last night,” however real it was to Dan—however spectacular and ruining and earth-shattering—is now nothing to Phil. Not even a memory.
Phil rolls over to face him. “Morn.”
“Morn,” Dan replies, barely above a whisper. “Wordle?”
He’s decided not to tell Phil about the time loop today. It feels cruel, even though Phil technically asked him to do it, involving him in a problem that’s entirely Dan’s. And it is a problem, no matter what Phil says. A problem that needs to be fixed. Phil can remain blissfully unaware while Dan—and Dan alone—fixes it.
How he’s going to do that, of course, Dan has no idea. But something about what Phil had him try yesterday, putting the worries out of his mind and just taking the day for what it is, had worked in some capacity. If nothing else, it’s made him feel lighter. Maybe Phil was onto something. Maybe it was just refreshing to try something different. Dan doesn’t know for sure, but it’s a thread that he wants to follow.
“Got it in three,” Phil says after a few quiet moments of Wordle-ing.
“Damn,” Dan manages half-heartedly. He shows Phil his own screen, a fabricated assortment of guesses starting with ADIEU and ending with WOUND. “Got it in four.”
Phil hums, pleased. “Get in the game, Howell.” He kisses Dan on the cheek. “You have to make the coffee now.”
Dan can’t help but laugh. “There was never any world where you made the coffee today.”
“Not true!”
“Yes, true,” Dan retorts. Before Phil can continue the argument (because truly, this could take up their whole morning), Dan interjects, “Actually, d’you wanna go somewhere? For coffee, I mean.”
Phil scrunches up his face, more in surprise than disagreement. “You must really not want to do it if you’re asking to leave the house before—” He checks his phone. “—ten in the morning on a Sunday.”
“I’m just feeling a bit stir crazy,” Dan says truthfully. In his week in the time loop, he’s not left the house once, which is impressive even for Dan. He can’t even remember the last time he went outside before the loop started. In any case, it’s something he hasn’t tried yet; he figures it can’t hurt.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
It takes a little more coaxing to get Phil to oblige. (“Why can’t we make coffee here and go out later? C’mon, we could get lunch or something. Da-an, it’s so early.”) At Dan’s continued insistence, though, he finally agrees, albeit begrudgingly. Dan throws on his black-and-white plaid button-up over a white shirt and a pair of chunky black pants—an outfit that’s certifiably Dan, and one he wouldn’t mind being spotted by a fan while wearing. Phil seems to follow the same line of thinking, as he opts for his practically patented BRIGHT FUTURE AmazingPhil attire and—a fond smile tugs at Dan’s lips—his We’re All Doomed hat.
By the time they arrive at the café—one of their favorite local spots known for its more unique hand-crafted flavors—Phil’s mood has improved considerably. “D’you think the white chocolate raspberry latte is any good? Or is that a bit too sweet?”
“I don’t think anything is too sweet for you,” Dan muses, and seriously wonders for a moment why everything he says sounds so goddamn gay all of the goddamn time.
Phil decides to give the potentially too-sweet coffee a try while Dan goes for a more seasonally-appropriate pumpkin spice. (Ordering a basic seasonal coffee is one of those things that Dan would usually get a weird superiority complex about, but he’s in a time loop, damn it, no one will even know about it tomorrow. And if this is the thing that breaks the loop, then, well, he can live with that, probably.)
They sit in a far corner of the cafe, which is decently filled with people. “Do this many people really get coffee this early?” Dan marvels. “On a Sunday?”
Phil kicks him under the tiny circular table. “This was your idea.”
“No, I know, but Jesus.” Dan takes a sip of his coffee, then makes a pleasured sound that is, admittedly, a bit too close to a moan for them being in a public space, causing Phil to kick him again, harder.
“Daniel!”
“Sorry, it’s just—” Dan takes another sip and makes a show of raising his head to God with eyes closed in enjoyment. “That is fucking divine. Try.”
They swap. Phil’s white chocolate raspberry whatever-the-fuck is, indeed, tooth-rotting, yet undeniably delicious. Phil helps himself to not one but three sips of Dan’s pumpkin spice, and Dan curses him out (“You greedy bitch!”) and lightly slaps him on the arm several times before Phil finally relinquishes the drink, giggling the whole time like this was exactly the reaction he wanted, and— God.
God. It’s so easy. It is, really, so, so easy to love him. It’s Dan’s thesis statement, the epitaph that will be on his tombstone, the summation of his Wikipedia page, written between the lines, in the stars, in the history books. Dan Howell: Loved Phil Lester, inevitably.
Even this. Loving so publicly, so unabashed, so close to the freedom that tomorrow is supposed to bring. This, too, has always been easy, in a way. Too easy. The kind of love that Dan, with his heart sewn on his sleeve, could never keep quiet. A blade—at his throat, his wrists, twisting in his gut—always sharp; refusing to dull, despite his best efforts; his worst fears. A love that pulses in his chest, that lurks behind his eyes, his smile, that curves his spine, that pushes and pulls the air from his lungs. A love that demands to be known.
Almost. If only Dan could make it there. He swallows, suddenly sick with wanting, terrified at the prospect of never getting to have that life, the one that’s supposed to have started already, that maybe should have started a long time ago. Loving loudly, like he’s always been prone to do, but without the notion of secrecy or consequence. Loving Phil, the way Phil has always deserved.
Just take his hand. The thought appears, unbidden, in Dan’s head. He could do it. Phil is talking about something that Dan is only sort of processing, but his eyes go tunnel-vision around Phil’s left hand on the table. He could do it. Take Phil’s hand in his own, right here in the café, where everybody could see. Maybe no one would see. Maybe no one would care. It wouldn’t matter, if everyone did or if no one did. Maybe it never has.
Dan extends his right hand across the table before he can think about it too long, and then—
And then jerks his hand back at the last second. Because the love is there, has been there since the beginning, stronger than anything—but the fear is there, too. Has been there even longer than he’s known Phil, and will continue to be there until… until when? Forever?
Phil’s eyebrows shoot up in concern, apparently having noticed what must have looked like Dan having an arm spasm. Dan just shakes his head.
No, he decides. Not forever. But it won’t go away overnight. Maybe one day it will grow quiet enough that they can hold hands in this café or any other. But Dan thinks of tomorrow, of this almost that they’re supposed to have, if he can even figure out how to get there, and realizes: He isn’t ready. He’s maybe—maybe—ready for the world to know about the love between them, but not for what comes next. Loving loudly, on purpose. That’s something Dan has never learned how to do. It’s something that, for the longest time, he actively tried to avoid doing, and it’s not a switch that he can just flip on a whim.
“Dan?” Phil kicks him gently under the table, a question. Are you okay?
Dan nods. “Just thinking.”
Phil offers a small, knowing smile. “Tomorrow, yeah?”
Almost.
If I can get there.
I have to. I have to get us there.
Phil deserves to get there. Even if I’m not—
Phil’s ready. He’s been ready. Why can’t I be?
I am. I will be. I have to be.
He needs me to be.
Almost.
Phil is looking at him, brows knitting together, and Dan forces a smile onto his face. “Tomorrow,” he agrees. “Can’t wait.”
October 12th, 2025
But tomorrow doesn’t come.
“Morn,” Phil says. And Dan doesn’t know how to fix it. How to fix him, Dan, the problem. It’s so agonizing, knowing what the problem is but not the faintest idea of how to find the solution, but there has to be one, there has to be, otherwise—
October 12th, 2025
“Morn,” Dan replies. He’ll just have to try everything. Which is terrifying in its own way, of course, because who knows which thing he tries will be the right thing? How far will he have to go in order to—
October 12th, 2025
No, that doesn’t matter. He has to do whatever it takes. Even if he’s paralyzed by the idea of his consequences following him into real life. Especially then. That has to be the answer, right? Whatever scares him most? That is the issue, after all. Dan not being ready. And Phil—
“Wordle?” Phil asks.
October 12th, 2025
Phil needs him to be ready.
Dan types wound as his first guess, not caring enough today to fabricate his gameplay. He stares at the letters as they come up green and thinks properly, for the first time, about that word. Wound. He’s been reading it, perhaps unintuitively, as the past tense of wind, like to have wound a clock. But it dawns on Dan now that it could also be an injury. A wound, like one from a knife.
October 12th, 2025
“Coffee?” Dan suggests.
Phil kisses him on the cheek. “You’ll make it?”
“Always.”
October 12th, 2025
Phil pours himself a bowl of Shreddies. Dan just leans back against the counter and watches him. His Phil. So familiar, time loop or not. So wonderful. Better than Dan deserves—a bias which every therapist he’s had has challenged, yet one that Dan can’t help believing wholeheartedly.
He deserves this. He’s been so good to you. Can’t you just do this one thing for him? Why can’t you just—
October 12th, 2025
Dan sits at the computer, scrubbing through the video for what feels like the five millionth time, looking for anything at all. Something to illuminate why he’s so stuck. How to move forward. How to stop being the problem.
“Thank you for being patient for so many years—”
“That’s okay,” Video Phil interjects.
“—‘cause… that affected you,” Video Dan finishes.
“Yeah,” Video Phil replies, “I felt like I’d gone back in a mini closet in a way, which was weird.”
I know, Present Dan thinks, achingly, despairingly. I’m sorry.
October 12th, 2025
“Can we jump ahead?” Dan asks.
Phil looks at him in alarm. “You want to skip episodes?”
So badly, Dan thinks, feeling much more familiar with Buffy season three, episodes eight and nine than he ever needed to be. “There’s an episode in season six I wanna watch. ‘Life Serial,’ I think? The, um, time loop one.” He knows he’s made a mistake before the words have even left his mouth, because Phil is looking at him like he’s grown three heads.
“Season six?” Phil echoes in disbelief. “‘Life Serial?’ That one’s rubbish, Dan.”
“Right, but—”
“I mean, it has a few good moments, but you know how I feel about—”
“Season six,” Dan interrupts, wincing, “I know. I just—”
“And as far as time loops go, it’s not a very good one,” Phil continues. “Like, it’s a bit funny, but mostly it’s just kind of stupid.”
“Okay,” Dan relents. “Alright. Just a thought.”
Phil stares at him, incredulous, then shakes his head and presses play on ‘Lovers Walk.’
October 12th, 2025
Dan never thought he’d say it, but he’s officially sick of Indian food.
“You’re sure you want curry?” He asks, as if Phil has shown interest in anything other than curry since the loop started. “Not, like, Domino’s? Or Chinese?” He amends at Phil’s raised eyebrows.
“We just had Domino’s yesterday!”
“Right,” Dan mutters, “of course. How could I forget?”
“Chinese might be good,” Phil concedes, “but… I dunno, I’m craving curry. But if you really don’t want—”
“It’s fine.” Because Dan can’t deny Phil when he wants something. Because there’s something else that Phil wants, something he’s wanted for a long time, and it’s the one thing that Dan can’t figure out how to give him. He at least owes him this.
October 12th, 2025
Dan stares up at the ceiling, not really seeing anything in the pitch darkness of the room. The only light comes from Phil’s phone beside him, while Phil scrolls through the TikTok shop, a frequent nightly habit of his.
It is him. Phil. Every bit of him is just as real as Dan. But every day that Dan spends in this loop, he’s changing, and Phil isn’t. He wonders how long it would take for this Phil to not feel like his Phil anymore.
I’m not going to wait long enough to find out, Dan thinks. Because there are a lot of things that he’s willing to lose if it comes down to it. Phil isn’t one of them.
October 12th, 2025
Phil wakes up to Dan stirring beside him. It’s almost always a better morning when Dan is up first; when Phil is the first one up, all he can think about are ways to discreetly wake Dan. Phil blinks sleep from his eyes before rolling over in bed to greet him. “Morn.”
Dan, already on his phone, doesn’t look up. “Morning.”
Not really the energy I was looking for, Phil thinks. He scoots closer to Dan and rests his head on Dan’s shoulder, squinting at Dan’s phone screen. He doesn’t have his glasses or contacts in, but— “Are you doing Wordle without me?”
Abruptly admonished, Dan drops his phone to his stomach. “Sorry.”
“You’re in a right mood today, aren’t you?” Phil asks. He tries to keep his tone light, but he’d been afraid that Dan’s emotional state might lean darker today. It could be a toss-up, with big life changes and events, if he’d spend the preceding days in near euphoria, or existential dread. Maybe it’s a little too soon to call it, but Phil has a feeling that this time might be the latter.
“Just tired,” Dan says. “Didn’t sleep well. You want coffee?”
“Well, I would say we should do Wordle first, but seeing as you’ve started without me—”
Dan practically leaps from the bed, not even stopping to put on clothes before walking out of the room. Phil frowns. Today, it seems, will call for patience. That’s alright. When Dan gets like this, frigid and removed, it never lasts very long. He’ll warm up again in time, or Phil will find some way to break the ice. They’ll be okay. Really, given what they have planned for tomorrow, it’s not surprising that Dan wants some space.
Phil would argue that playing Wordle without him was a step too far on Dan’s part, but he’ll let it slide just this once. He plays today’s board, unable to ignore the absence beside him, and then—after guessing the word in three tries—follows Dan to the kitchen.
Dan stands at the coffee maker, eyes still glued to his phone. Phil smiles at the box of Shreddies out on the counter next to an empty bowl. “How’d you know?” He asks. Dan smiles back but doesn’t answer.
Such a sweetheart, Phil thinks. Even on what’s evidently not a great day for Dan.
Phil eats in silence. Dan sets a steaming mug of coffee down in front of him, then walks out with his own mug. Phil hears a door shut somewhere downstairs—the guest room, he thinks—and takes a long sip from his coffee. It’s perfect.
He scrolls TikTok for a bit while he drinks, then Twitter, then Instagram, then back to TikTok. He opens Tumblr for a brief moment, but the dashboard immediately populates with a suggestive piece of fanart of him and Dan that makes Phil blush, so he closes the app. He doesn’t dislike it by any means, but it doesn’t feel like it’s meant for his eyes.
By the time he’s exhausted everything of interest on his phone, his coffee is mostly gone. Phil gulps down the last few sips, rinses the mug in the sink, and heads downstairs.
Dan does appear to have shut himself in the guest room. Phil knocks gently and, without waiting for a response, says through the door, “I’ll be in the office if you need me.” And then leaves him be.
Might as well make some progress on the video. It’s mostly done, of course, but they agreed they’d both do one more sweep through it to make sure there are no issues. Not just technical problems, but a last chance to take anything back that they no longer wish to share.
Phil sits at the computer and presses play at the beginning. He grins through the entire cinematic intro that PJ and Sophie made, the creative geniuses that they are. Catches a few moments throughout the video where the jumpcut could be smoother; makes the necessary adjustments. Fixes some audio levels. Giggles, like he does every time he watches it, at Video Dan saying “wong way wound” and at Video Phil laughing so hard that he can’t get any words out.
And then, about halfway through:
“Thank you for being patient for so many years—”
“That’s okay.”
“—‘cause… that affected you.”
“Yeah,” Video Phil says, “I felt like I’d gone back in a mini closet in a way, which was weird.”
Present Phil rewinds and watches it again, his eyes locked on Dan on the screen.
Thank you for being patient for so many years—‘cause… that affected you.
And again.
Thank you for being patient for so many years—‘cause… that affected you.
And again.
‘Cause… that affected you.
Phil pauses the video on that line. His hand flies to the screen and, like a wife caressing an old photo of their husband while he’s at war, runs one finger along the curve of Dan’s jaw. He’s seen this part of the video—hell, he’s seen every part of this video—dozens and dozens of times since they filmed it. Watching it now, though, for whatever reason— maybe with the knowledge that Dan is somewhere else in the house, feeling melancholy—it stirs something in Phil’s chest, a despair that he can’t shake. There’s something about the moment before Dan speaks, where Phil can now see the words being formed in his head, his mouth slightly ajar in concentration, eyes staring ahead. Thank you for being patient for so many years. Something about the way he doesn’t falter when Phil interrupts—That’s okay—and carries on expressing his gratitude like there’s no way that Phil could ever truly accept it. Something about the way he pauses—‘Cause…—searching for how to possibly sum it up concisely, and then, finally, looking at Phil—that affected you.
“I love you,” Phil murmurs to the screen, and he’s being crazy and he knows it, but it is crazy, the love that rushes through him like a wave crashing against stone. There’s so much of it inside him, water levels rising dangerously and threatening to spill over the dam, a flood sixteen years in the making. Tomorrow, the dam will break.
But today, Phil’s love remains a private thing. Words spoken in an empty room, said to a computer screen. A quiet truth. It will all be easier, he thinks, after tomorrow, when the love is no longer secret. But he knows, too, that just because it’s quiet now doesn’t make it any less true.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
They reconvene, finally, for dinner. “I’m thinking Indian,” Phil says. He keeps his tone nonchalant even though this is the first time they’ve really spoken since this morning, and it’s starting to drive him a bit nuts.
“Okay,” Dan says flatly.
“Were you thinking something else?”
Dan hesitates, then shakes his head. “No. Indian is fine.”
Phil purses his lips but doesn’t push the subject. They sit in the movie room watching Buffy while waiting for the food to arrive. Dan doesn’t react or laugh or say a word the entire time, and Phil—well, he’s actually worried now. This is extreme even for Dan, the darkness that seems to have come over him overnight. Yesterday had been such a good day.
Phil glances over at him as the credits roll. Dan isn’t even looking at the screen, but instead staring at his hands in his lap. I have to say something, Phil thinks. But before he can—
“I miss you.”
He almost doesn’t hear when Dan speaks, so quiet under the end credit music, and Phil has to play the words back in his mind to understand them. “I’m here,” he says softly.
Dan looks at him, and—oh. “Dan,” Phil whispers, not meaning to whisper it, but oh. Dan’s eyes are red-rimmed and glistening, bottom lip tucked under his teeth. “Dan. Sweetheart. C’mere.”
And then Dan is in his arms, face buried in Phil’s neck, body shaking with silent sobs. Phil holds him close and tight, rubbing circles on his back, listening to his heart hammering. “I’ve got you,” Phil says. He presses a kiss to Dan’s curls. “It’s alright. I’m here. You’re alright.” He doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong or what to say, so he just says everything. Anything at all that Dan needs to know, anything that might help.
After a long while, Dan’s shaking subsides. His heartbeat slows; his breathing evens out. He doesn’t move, though, so Phil holds him impossibly tighter.
“I love you,” Phil says quietly. “So much.”
Dan just nods against him, his hair tickling Phil’s chin.
Phil hesitates, not wanting to set him off again but anxious to know what set him off in the first place. “Do you… Can you talk to me, Dan? Please?” He adds, wincing. When Dan doesn’t reply, he prompts, “Is it about the video?”
He jumps a little when Dan laughs, cold and sharp and without an ounce of humor to it. “Yeah,” Dan says thickly, “it is.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” Phil asks. “Because… Because if you’re not ready, Dan, we don’t have to—”
“Yes,” Dan interrupts. “We do.”
“We don’t,” Phil says patiently. “Really, I know it must seem like we have to at this point, with the podcast ready and the video filmed and— Look, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard, but if you really don’t want to, we can figure something out.”
“I do want to,” Dan replies. His face is still nestled in the crook of Phil’s neck, and the words vibrate against his throat. “I really, really do.”
“Okay,” Phil says, not entirely successful at hiding his relief. “But… you’re afraid?”
Dan shrugs.
“That’s okay.” Phil gives him a squeeze. “I think it’d be weirder if you weren’t afraid. I think being afraid is part of it, you know? I know I’m scared.”
Dan, finally, looks up at him. “Yeah?” He looks so tired and small. A familiar sadness washes over Phil. The devastation of not being able to protect Dan from the past hurt he’s endured.
He swallows the feeling and wipes a stray tear from Dan’s cheek. “Yeah,” Phil says. He manages a small laugh. “Jesus, Dan, of course. I’m terrified.”
“But you still feel ready?”
Phil looks at Dan, his perfect, perfect Dan, and the flood level rises inside of him, the first drips trickling down over the edge of the dam. “Definitely ready,” he answers. He pokes Dan lightly in the shoulder. “But only if you are, too. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? That we’re doing this on our terms?”
Dan nods. “Right.” Then, quietly: “Do you think I’m ready?”
Phil runs over the question in his mind a few times to be sure, but his answer comes to him immediately. “You want the truth?” He asks, and Dan nods again, vigorously. “Okay. Dan… I think you’ve been ready for a long time.”
Dan’s eyes widen slightly. Then he sighs. “Then why…?” He trails off, leaving Phil to guess at the question.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Phil reminds him gently. “If you don’t feel ready—”
“I do,” Dan interrupts. He holds Phil’s gaze, earnest and certain. “I really do.”
Phil believes him. “So what’s the problem?”
Dan laughs again, but less cold and less sharp and—maybe—with the tiniest bit of humor to it. “Nothing,” he says. “I guess there isn’t one.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
They lay pressed closely against one another in bed that night. Not really talking, neither of them scrolling. Just laying there in the dark and in comfortable silence.
I love him, Phil thinks, as he is wont to do. Quietly, tonight; loudly, tomorrow.
“I love you,” Dan says, unprompted, and Phil smiles, finds Dan’s hand in the dark and squeezes it.
“I love you, too.”
October 12th, 2025
Dan wakes up to Phil’s bare back for, what he’s decided, is the last time.
Well, not ever. Obviously he hopes to wake up to Phil and his back, bare or not, plenty more times. Every morning, if he can. But this will be the last October 12th, 2025.
He’s decided it, and that’s enough. Not that Dan knows for sure how this works—how anything works, really, at this point—but he’s choosing to believe it. That wanting it is enough. That being ready—and if Phil thinks he’s ready, then he must be—is enough.
“Morn,” Phil says, rolling over, and Dan ambushes him with a rush of kisses all over his face, sending Phil into a sleepy fit of giggles. “You’re in a good mood.”
Dan grimaces, remembering Phil’s comment yesterday—You’re in a right mood today, aren’t you?—but Phil won’t remember that now, so there’s no point dwelling on it. He puts on a smile and kisses Phil once on the lips. “I’m excited,” Dan says. “About tomorrow.”
Phil positively beams. “Me too. God, is that really tomorrow? Holy shit.”
Dan laughs. “Wordle?”
“Hm? Oh! Yes.”
They lapse into focused silence—Phil playing the game normally, and Dan trying to remember exactly what his sequence of guesses looked like all of those October 12th’s ago. Starting with adieu, obviously. Then he got really close with bound. But then there was one more. Found? Hound?
Sound, Dan remembers, typing it in eagerly, followed by the correct word. Wound.
“Got it in four,” he says.
“You bitch.”
He scoots over to watch Phil play. “You’ve only guessed twice,” he says. “You could still win.” He feels a bit like he’s reciting lines from a play, but at this rate, he’s just happy to have been cast.
Phil scrunches up his face in concentration, then types the winning word. Spark → Guide → Wound.
“You bitch,” Dan says through a smile he can’t hide. Phil laughs and puckers his lips for a celebratory kiss, which Dan—unable to deny him, but also, perhaps more importantly, happy to give to him—provides.
“Coffee?” He asks.
Phil nods and steals one more kiss.
They drink coffee with breakfast and Buffy, like they did on that first morning, curled up close together on the couch. Dan forces himself to be just as engaged in “Lover’s Walk” and “The Wish” as he was then. When the end credits roll, Phil asks, “D’you still wanna sweep through the video one more time?” And it feels final, hearing him say it like that. One more time. Maybe, hopefully—Definitely, Dan thinks—for real this time. Almost.
“Sure,” Dan says. “I can go first, if you want?”
Phil shrugs as if to say, Either way’s fine with me, so Dan heads to the gaming room and pulls up the video on the computer. He tries to really, properly watch it. Not even looking for things to edit, not yet. Just watching, with his full, undivided attention, not letting his mind wander into the dangerous territory of What if?
Eventually, Video Phil says, “The irony is, I wouldn’t have minded talking about this a lot earlier.”
I know, Present Dan thinks, in spite of himself, a bit despairingly. I’m sorry.
“Do you forgive me,” Video Dan says, “for years of dealing with my bullshit?”
“I don’t think I need to forgive you. It’s not something I’m forgiving.”
Dan pauses the video, a thought striking him. If today is really his last October 12th—if today is really, truly his last full day of secrecy and closets—if tomorrow, he can finally put these days behind him—then maybe there is one more thing he can do.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
When Dan leaves the office a while later, he finds Phil sitting on his laptop in the living room. “All done?” He asks. “I’ll do my last sweep in just a second. I wanna finish—”
“Hey,” Dan says, but the word comes out strained and he clears his throat. “Hey, um. Phil? Can I… Can I talk to you about something?”
Phil looks up at him, puzzled but abruptly serious. He shuts his laptop and pats the spot next to him. “C’mere. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Dan promises, sitting down beside him. He takes a breath. Despite everything, he feels more calm than he has since… well, since October 11th. “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry.” Phil raises his eyebrows, but before he can say anything, Dan goes on, “Just— Let me talk, okay?”
Phil still looks suspicious, but he gestures for Dan to keep speaking, so he does. “I’m sorry,” Dan says again. “That you’ve had to wait so long. For this. For… For me.”
“Dan,” Phil interrupts, like he just can’t help himself, “you don’t have to—”
“I know.” Dan sucks in another breath, this one shakier than the last. “I know, you forgive me, or you accept it, or whatever, but I— I still need to say it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you’ve had to wait this long, and that… that you’re still waiting. Because of me.”
The whole time Dan’s speaking, Phil just keeps shaking his head. “Da-an,” he says again, dragging it out into two syllables. “God. You’re so—” He makes a sound that Dan could only possibly describe as Gwah.
Dan laughs. “I’m so what?”
“You’re so—” Phil grabs Dan’s face with both hands, thumbs caressing Dan’s cheeks. “Sweet,” he finishes, softly. “You are so, so, so sweet, and I love you. But I— No, shush.” He moves a finger to Dan’s lips, silencing him. “Don’t say it back. Just let me— Don’t put my finger in your mouth, you slut!”
Dan laughs again as Phil pulls his finger from Dan’s mouth and wipes the spit on Dan’s face. “Listen!” Phil practically shouts, smiling wide. “Shut up! Look, I just—” He takes a breath, abruptly sober. “You’re so sweet. To even think that that’s something you need to apologize for. But it also makes me so— so sad, Dan.” He shakes his head slightly. The smile falls from Dan’s lips. “You know I would wait forever for you. That I would never, ever want to tell people about us if you weren’t ready. I’d much rather wait. If you told me right now that you aren’t ready, I’d wait.” He runs a hand through Dan’s hair, pulling lightly at his curls. “And you don’t have to be sorry for that,” he says gently. “Not for any of it. Not one bit.”
Inside Dan, something finally settles. It’s a conversation they’ve had several times before, over several years, in several different contexts. Variations on a theme. Part of Dan knew that this is exactly what Phil was going to say when he decided to apologize, but he’d wanted to hear it anyway. One more time. Because this time—for the first time—he believes it. He’s choosing to believe it.
“I love you, too,” Dan says. And then, randomly, but somehow having only just thought of it: “Can we watch another episode?”
Phil laughs, surprised. “What, of Buffy? Do you even have to ask?”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Desperation claws at Dan’s chest when they lay down for bed later that night. He’s spent all day choosing to believe that tomorrow, the loop will finally be over, and he’s come to really, truly believe it. So much so that he’s not sure what he’ll do if he wakes up to another October 12th.
But he chooses, too, not to think about that. Because sometimes, as he’s learned, belief is something that you choose. Sometimes, moving forward is a conscious decision that you make. And sometimes, yes, fear is inevitable—but not any more inevitable than the love that conquers it.
He looks sideways at Phil, the room too dark to really see him. But Dan sees him anyway. The outline of his body. The slow heaving of his chest. He’s already asleep, Dan thinks, or at least on his way to it. Dan closes his eyes and follows Phil to tomorrow.
October 13th, 2025