Archive of Our Own

Everyone in Phil’s office would easily say that he’s the one with the most chill out of everyone. He’s never excited about much, not to say he’s the moodiest person around, but nothing exactly fazes him.

If only they could see him now. Screaming in delight, on his knees, clutching the newest, most beautifully created RPG out, Wonderland . Newest title on the Virtual Reality System, VRS for short, and goddamn is Phil excited to go out slaying monsters and admiring views in his own perspective. It’s a bit of a holiday, really, one that he’s never going to have because there’s a game out every week and Phil has to slap reviews together about it.

He’s setting up his VRS and pushing the game’s USB in, sitting on his couch with his feet on the coffee table. Phil’s breathing has gone absolutely rogue, he can’t tame it, not when the game he’s been hearing about but never seeing is finally out and he’s about to go become a hero.

One breath in, and then his vision is pitch black. Moments pass… and then light. Beautiful, sparkling sunlight and its pushing across the pale stretch of his body. Then he’s breathing again. The air is filled with the scent of wildflowers, as they are, wafting around his ankles, brushing his shins and the grass is between his toes.

He’s enchanted himself in his own pocket of delight, before there’s gunshots ringing in his ears and projectiles thrown around him as if he’s not even there. He’s a little frightened, to be set in such a beautiful environment only to be thrown in battle. Phil’s probably the best person to know that in virtual reality the gunshots don’t exactly hurt, nor does any injury, but he still couldn’t help but feel a bit gutted when he first looked down and saw blood trickling down his torso the first time it had happened.

Phil goes to run, but there’s suddenly hands holding his shoulders, he’s letting out a yelp and turning around to see a woman, smile charming and blonde hair curling, holding a shotgun in an empty hand.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your hills are alive moment, but you’ve ruined a perfectly good time.’ She says, eyes sparkling.

There’s a rock metres away from him, absolutely flying, and he manages to say, ‘I’m sorry, I promise I didn’t mean to ruin anything, I just-’

‘You ever handled a gun before?’

Phil grins, ‘Oh, most definitely. You’d be surprised.’

‘I’d hope so, champ.’ The woman’s bouncing on her feet, before her hand is over his own and they’re running for cover behind the trees, ‘because you’ve got your own special target practice just ahead!’

Looking out to the horizon, Phil clearly sees what seems to be a low level troll, mouth glaringly disgusting and moss growing across its back, but there’s no weak points, and he gives the woman a searching look.

‘Just shoot it! What are you waiting for?’ She gives him a slap on the back, before Phil’s firing bullets, and the troll is giving its best job to chuck rocks back at him, but they do nothing as Phil easily settles behind the tree. He ends up forcing out a critical hit by some chance, and the troll’s falling backwards onto perfectly nice flowers, wounds seeping a disgusting green ooze across petals.

The woman grins and laughs, ‘Absolutely amazing. The name’s Penelope.’

He shakes her now outstretched hand, shotgun on the ground, ‘Phil.’

Phil is comfortably a couple dozen hours in, discovering the main plot point of the game with Penelope and her bandit crew, mainly just stealing the Queen’s jewels, but Phil, being the clumsiest person currently alive, decides to get a bit of practice in. He’s visiting the quaint town of Dove, going through the citizen’s houses and hoarding all of their baked goods, hoping to get a profit from the bakery down the road.

Leaving the last house, shimmying past the villager wondering where all their wheat has gone, and shuffling into Howell’s Bakery to see a tall man in casual clothing giving him a soft smile.

‘Good morning, what’s brought you here?’ His voice is honey-sweet, and Phil feels guilty selling him stolen items without him knowing. ‘Buying, selling?’

‘Uh, selling, please.’ Phil digging through his satchel, and pulling out about half a dozen bread loaves, five apple pies and three dough sweets, ‘Just, you know, all of this.’

An eyebrow quirks, ‘you’ve got a cow in there you’d like to sell too?’

‘Not today.’ Phil replies, cheeky, but vaguely sheepish at the large array of goods spread across the counter.

‘Well, when you’re selling an entire farm of animals feel free to pop in, just chuck the chickens on the counter.’ He’s grinning wonderfully large, the flicker of an oil lamp sends shadows to the dimples in his cheeks and Phil can’t help but feel warm. He stays silent, admiring the facial features of somebody who is built of pixels, as the man counts his gold, and it is a few moments before there’s a bag of coins being plonked on the table, ‘180 gold, judging by the price it would be to sell them.’

Phil gives a shy smile, ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ He says, ‘By the way, my name is Dan. Do come back again sometime. It gets awfully boring all by myself.’

‘Dan.’ Phil tries the name on his tongue, and it tastes like warm coffee on a cold morning, perfectly warm and sweet, as all things should be, ‘I love that name. My name’s Phil.’

Dan grins, all rosy cheeks, ‘I’ve never met a Phil. You’re my first Phil.’

‘I’ll be the best Phil you’ve ever met, though.’ Phil says, ‘I’ll put a bet on it.’

‘Oh, don’t get a big head. You may not fit through the door.’

Phil walks into the office with not a big head but with a big cup of coffee, and sitting at his desk wishing he were elsewhere. Somewhere nice, at the very least, but he’s more than fine with taking a trip back to Wonderland.

‘Wonderland’s so good, isn’t it?’ PJ’s rolling towards him on an office chair, grin wide.

‘Oh my god, absolutely. Best thing ever. I’m giving it a perfect score, for sure!’

‘I’m extremely jealous you’re writing the article. May I give you some choice words?’ PJ continues, not waiting for Phil to respond, ‘So, it’s an orgasm-inducing, cum-in-your-pants exclusive, and perfect for all without friends and for those who want to lose them. Give it to your grandmother, your local ghost hunter and your dog. Just do it, man.’

Phil laughs, ‘Well, Shia, I definitely agree with you.’

In a temporary moment of giggling, Phil gets an arm around his neck, and another goes around PJ’s before Chris’s northern lilt is in his ear, ‘So, isn’t Penelope delightfully attractive? And, ahem, of course everyone else.’

Chris steals an office chair and rolls it to them, ‘Can you get married to orcs in Wonderland?’

‘I’d think so. It’d be pretty progressive to marry whatever you want.’ PJ muses.

‘I’d like to get married to a dog or something.’

‘That is bestiality, Phil,’ Chris taps him on the shoulder, ‘and I always knew you were a furry. May I set you up on a date with a lovely girl called Liliana? Her fursona’s a dog too, called PussyDestroyer69. It’s a bit funny, really.’

‘I’m not a furry!’

Phil pauses.

‘PussyDestroyer? That is funny.’

Phil returns to Wonderland the moment he gets home from the office. He loads the game to find himself where he left off, surrounded by wolfwasps, large, poisonous wasp creatures that glow red and fire pellets of ink. They’re extremely annoying.

Settling down for a moment to search through the corpses for ink sacs, his backpack by his side, packed to the brim with realistic physics, Phil begins to hear the sounds of terror. Absolute horror, screams and yelling, down by the small civilisation by the lake. It’s moments before adrenaline through the pinholes of his veins send him sprinting down the hill the forest surrounded him on and pulling into Dove with a his weapons prepared.

Running into the main street he finds a mighty large boar, three times the size Phil assumes a boar to be. It’s a charcoal-rubbed red creature with bulging black eyes and a whip of a tail, large protruding teeth from the top jaw rub against the knees of the creature and Phil’s panicking a little. He assumes to stab at it aimlessly until it dies, so he does just that.

After a frankly lacking minute, the monster drops down and Phil’s gaining the experience that the corpse left, and he wonders whether he should peel the hide away with an entire population of people staring at him as if he’s God.

Some villagers begin to thank him, whilst others carry on with their day. Phil thinks this might be one of those quests that happen to make an entire town like you. He’s not complaining, really, but he manages to shrug it all off to continue with his journey.

Before leaving the town gates, he hears a familiar voice.

‘Phil!’

Phil turns around and there, in all of his peppermint and pixel-perfect glory, stands a pride-induced Dan.

‘You were incredible back there! Why are you leaving?’ Dan says, beginning a bit shy, but he’s too flushed in the face to be terribly soft.

‘I’ve got places to go.’ Phil says, propositioning to the forest around him, and gives a hard look to Dan. Phil, for the moment of confused staring, means to say goodbye, but the strangeness of Dan’s gaze combined with Phil’s irregular rhythms of adrenaline and excitement, just manages to blurt out, ‘Would you like to come?’

Dan’s got a deer in the headlights look, his entire face turns blank, and Phil’s world becomes eerily quiet, and reminds him strikingly of how everything around him is a simulation and perhaps this just breaks it.

‘Yes.’ Dan says it slowly, ‘I’d love to.’

Phil grins. ‘Grab some stuff then.’

‘Wonderland is so, so good and that makes me so, so sad.’ Cat says, her American drawl excited and peaked, something so different to Phil’s morning droop.

PJ makes a funny expression, ‘Oh, but isn’t? Oh, and I already have a companion, you guys know that Lilith Joseph?’

Cat quirks an eyebrow, ‘The assassin?’

‘Yeah. You just send her off and she’ll just backstab all the enemies like crazy.’ PJ smirks.

‘That’s not much fun, Peej. Aaron Vindici, though, that is a great companion. And he speaks, unlike Lilith, who whenever I come near just hisses weirdly.’ She laughs a bit, and takes a sip of her strange energy drink Phil’s never seen before. Probably stolen from someone else in the office. God knows how many times Phil’s egg salad has been taken before he’s even had his lunch break roll around.

‘Well. She does hiss, I can’t discredit that.’ PJ makes a mock hissing noise. ‘Maybe she’s a snake under all of her leather armour.’

Cat makes a face as if PJ has discovered the cure to world hunger, and looks delightful, ‘This is why you’re in the creative department, PJ, ideas like those are going to get you places.’

Phil stays silent as he drinks his coffee as Cat leaves him and PJ alone to get along with ‘business duties’ such as using the internet to browse for League of Legends tips.

‘Who do you have for a companion, Phil, or do you not have one or something?’ PJ says, and fiddles with his jumper.

‘Dan… Howell, I think, he’s the baker in Dove.’ Phil takes a sip, eyes lidded, ‘A bit crappy, but I enjoy his company nonetheless.’

‘Dan?’ PJ looks confused, ‘I don’t remember there being any companion symbol for him? You know the white face next to their name?’

‘Oh. I modified my HUD to only show enemies for the slow-pans.’ Phil smirks, but schools it soon after to say, ‘What, you didn’t get the boar in Dove? He comes after you after you kill it.’

‘I killed it, but he never came after me.’ PJ pouts thoughtfully, ‘This is so weird. How do you get something extra that I didn’t?’

‘I don’t know, Peej, maybe I was just nicer to him then you were.’ Phil grabs his bag and leaves, thoughts overflowing. It’s definitely something a bit strange, but with a game with an unlimited amount of choices, it’s almost something the developers would hope for. Phil sits at his desk and makes a face, staring at his desktop for an unnerving amount of time, mulling over his choices, couldn’t he just search it up on Google and figure it out for himself?

Phil sighs, pulls his keyboard out and types out the article on the next generation of RPGs.

Wonderland is perfect.

Made much more perfect with the instant continue button, and he’s plopped straight back into the world he’s already fallen in love with, grinning wide and squinting a bit at the bright morning sunlight piercing through the holes of his lacking tent.

Last night, Dan and Phil had both decided to camp out for the night by a lake. Luckily, Phil doesn’t have to experience the wolfwasps and snapper gophers that go searching for unsuspecting adventurers during the night. Just an instant sleep til morning routine. That’s hopefully what most simulators will continue to do.

Phil crawls out of his tent and finds Dan already sitting in front of a fire, something that was not there last night, and holding out a fish on a stick.

‘Good morning.’ Dan says, ‘You had a good night or did the gophers get you?’

‘No, it was fine.’ Phil giggles, and pulls himself to sit next to Dan, ‘You’ve already got breakfast sorted? Fish seems a little bit gross, doesn’t it?’

‘I thought that was what most adventurers ate.’ Dan muses, clueless, and tilting his head, ‘I have bread, I mean, I am a baker.’

Phil grins, ‘That will be fine. Thank you, Dan.’

Dan’s disappointed face morphs into a dimply grinning one, and he chucks the fish away to pull out a satchel of fresh pastries. He shares them both equally and stomps out the fire with a cautious boot. The comfortable silence between the two of them allows Phil to gather his thoughts.

He glances at Dan, wondering if anyone else has seen this sight of him, if what he assumed, then only people who treated Dan like a living, breathing person get him as a companion. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is, especially when Dan looks so real and alive . Every tiny freckle and colourful speckle in his amber eyes. It’s a bit ridiculous that Phil’s fallen so fast and hard for a pile of pixels. It’s pitiful. His friends would never let him hear the end of it. Phil lets his eyes trail down Dan’s body, before finding it within himself to tear his mind away from self-destruction.

‘We should find you some better armour.’ He says, picking at the thin layers of leather that apparently equal armour in Dan’s opinion.

Dan gives him a glare, ‘This used to be my dad’s, you know. He’d go into the forest to some farm to get wheat. It’d protect him from the wolves fine.’

‘We’re going to face more than wolves and I’d prefer not to carry your body in pieces back to Dove.’ Phil gestures to the smoke steadily making its way up from the chimneys in Dove. ‘It’d be a real shame if you were dead.’

‘Fine.’ Dan looks disgruntled to be proven wrong, ‘But I can’t help but imagine where you’d find better armour.’

‘I, too, am thinking that.’ Phil sighs and pauses the game for a minute. Dan’s face is frozen with the rushing river behind him. Turning the HUD on for a moment, Phil resumes the game and checks his blacksmithing stats.

‘I can probably make you some iron armour.’ Phil shrugs, ‘It’ll be heavy. And I’ll have to buy the ingot, but… It’s better than you dying horrifically.’

‘Yeah, most things are, I think.’ Dan lies down on his back, grinning up at Phil with something that’d wipe the pants off any girl (and Phil).

‘You think?’

‘Definitely, I’m a very good person.’

Phil smiles to himself, pausing the game, and wishing so much to take a photo of the moment. Phil turns the HUD off again and resumes the game, lying down with Dan, their elbows just touching.

‘Let’s just lay here for a bit, yeah? Don’t think there will be anything bad coming, not here at least. We’ll get you prepared later.’ Phil says, because he is not going anywhere anytime soon and for all Dan knows, they have all the time in the world.

Phil doesn’t really know what time it is in the real world. He doesn’t care, to be honest, but he’s been grinding through creatures to harvest their items to sell to shopkeepers so he can afford the iron ingots to create Dan’s armour. It’s not all bad, Dan’s been a more than lively companion and all of the low-level enemies are perfect training for him. He’s becoming more than capable in Phil’s opinion, even with his horrible armour.

‘If I see one more miniature boar in my lifetime, it will be too soon,’ Dan complains, ‘Adventuring is so hard, Phil, how do you ever do it?’

‘Hey, hey, you’re the one who ran up to me wide-eyed and eager. We’ve barely gotten into the good stuff.’ Phil leads Dan into a blacksmith store and finds the shopkeeper, a burly woman with shaved sides and a black smock. She gives them both weary glances.

‘You’re awfully skinny-looking to be coming in here.’ She greets them, as all persuasive tenders do, ‘Never mind the appearance, what can I be getting you?’

Phil’s smile is one-sided, awkwardly so, and Dan drifts to the corner meekly, cheeks deep red in yellow lantern light, ‘I- Uh, how much would it be if you were to make iron armour, like I’d pay you extra and stuff-‘

‘1300 gold.’ She replies, smirking, ‘1800 for a helmet as well.’

‘Oh. That’s fine. No helmet.’ Phil digs through his backpack and finds gold automatically bundled to the amount needed and hands it over. Phil personally finds it neat.

She gives a toothy grin, ‘Won’t be but a tick. Stay here with your awkward friend there and I’ll have it ready in a snap.’

The blacksmith leaves through a narrow door out the back, evening sun flittering through the cracks of the door as it swings closed.

‘So, what happened to making it yourself?’ Dan teases as Phil puts his face in his hands.

‘I don’t know… I’m tired! She seemed fine to do it herself.’

‘Yeah, well, Dahlia’s the sort of girl to do everything herself. She visits Dove sometimes, I don’t know why; I think she teases me for not doing anything social.’ Dan pauses and makes a blank face, ‘And I’m tired too. Fighting is hard.’ He exaggerates a yawn and stretches out.

‘Well, you’re social right now.’

‘You’re different because you’ve got a nice voice.’ Dan gives a wink, but shuts up right after as if the entire conversation was a mistake. Phil smiles at him, thankful, before Dahlia comes in with the armour. She wraps it up in rags and makes a teasing face when Phil arms strain a bit carrying it away.

They return to their camp with little encounters, and Phil takes the reflection of the moon in the river’s shallow waves as a sign to possibly stop playing, despite the fact Dan’s giving a very charming grin when he’s admiring his new armour.

Before pausing, Dan had turned to Phil and said, ‘I think you’re possibly the nicest person in the entire world.’

It made Phil lock up a bit, and he was wavering between continuing playing, his hands still, and his brain was not compiling with his need to pause. Dan looked concerned, before the sight before him had the haze of a pause screen and Phil had to exit immediately.

Phil thinks the only way Wonderland could be more perfect would be if he didn’t need to leave.

Last night made Phil extremely tired, so much so he had his head cradled on his hands whilst Chris and PJ were playing some sort of sport on their office chairs. Earlier they were playing soccer with scrunched up paper, but Phil had now assumed they were playing Ultimate Frisbee with the sign saying explicitly not to mess around with the office chairs.

‘You’re really horrible at throwing, Peej!’ Chris yelled, which was absurd, because PJ’s groans of dissatisfaction lead Phil to believe Chris was the inferior player.

‘Maybe you just need to learn how to catch a sign better then!’ PJ yelled back.

Giving a weary look at his computer, Phil find the desktop littered with little messages to himself, stuff mainly to do with his work. Sometimes Louise came to his desk to write all about the strange fanart she’d gotten for the fan mail column in the magazine and how Phil really needed to see the one with Cloud fucking Mario with a mushroom dildo.

‘It’s quite a spectacle, Phil! Who knew mushrooms were so phallic?’ with another message below saying, ‘Do you want one, Phil?’

He most definitely did not, and he doesn’t ever remember googling ‘mushroom dildo’ either. But, Louise probably was the least irritating of his co-workers. At least she didn’t cover his desk in condom balloons for his 28th birthday.

Phil sighs, and clicks into Google Chrome. PJ’s loud vocals and his tiredness all just remind him of Dan Howell. Moreover, how spectacular he is. He’s never really felt emotionally connected to something that didn’t exist. Unlike Buffy, Phil knows there’s no actor behind Dan Howell for him to be swept off his feet by. It’s too disappointing, and stuff like this will land him into a video game addiction. That wouldn’t be too much fun.

Searching Dan Howell wonderland on Google comes up with many results, but he instantly just went on the Wonderland wiki knowing that’s probably where all of the information will be.

Name: Daniel Howell

Gender: Male

Role: Merchant

Appearance

Dan has brown hair, brown eyes and pale skin. He is usually known for wearing a white button down, leather vest and brown leggings.

Personality

Dan is considered a fan-favourite for his “adorkable” personality, he is generally charming, however is alluded to not being liked much around Dove for his general seclusion. He’ll speak to the player charmingly for a bit, before slowly becoming a bit irritable by their presence if they talk too much to him.

If you act nicely towards him, Dan will find you favourable and sometimes give you discounts in his store. Dan will never outwardly say you are his friend unlike other characters.

If you act neutral towards him, Dan will only speak business with you and get angry with you if you stick around for too long. He will speak to you only as a customer.

If you act rudely towards him, Dan will not allow you in his store at all, even at points getting aggressive and generally threatening you, despite the fact he will do nothing to harm you in any way. He will consider you only as a “twat”.

Trivia

• Voted #7 in Wonderland’s first favourite character poll.
• Mentioned in the mission, ‘Weapons for the Guards’ from Dahlia Swenke, who says, “If you’re going to Dove, don’t bother going to the bakery, the tender will just ignore you outright and call you a dickhead or something.”
• It has been confirmed that Dan cannot be taken as a companion, as he is incapable in battle and will never like the player enough to join them on any missions.
• An Easter egg with Dan’s character is that if you hang around in his shop with a neutral relationship, he will tell you to ‘get out of his swamp’ in reference to the animated film, Shrek (2002).

Phil’s hands are a little clammy, and he’s breathing a little too hard, because PJ’s asking what’s wrong with him and even Chris is a little worried.

Abruptly, Phil stands up and points at his computer monitor, ‘I’ve found a bug and I don’t know how it happened! PJ, holy shit, this is changing everything about Wonderland!’

‘What on Earth are you talking about?’ PJ laughs, ‘You’ve gone completely mad, this must be Wonderland because you’re literally Alice right now!’

Chris comes and stands next to Phil, squinting at the computer screen, looking at what the fuss is, ‘Yeah, you’re being weird right now.’

‘No, no, but you don’t understand! PJ, I told you about how I had Dan as a companion right? And you said that you never got the opportunity to and I said that maybe you weren’t nice enough to him? But look, like really, really look!’ Phil points at the sentence with a jabbing finger and reads it out to them, giddy, ‘ It has been confirmed that Dan cannot be taken as a companion, as he is incapable in battle and will never like the player enough to join them on any missions. You can’t even have him as a companion, but I do and I’ve been training him for battle and he’s even expressed how much he likes me and oh my god, how does this even happen?’

PJ’s eyes widen, ‘Phil, you broke the game. Well done, man.’

‘Why would he like you but not me?’ Chris makes a face, ‘I’m a lot better than you.’

‘This is so absurd. How absurd is it? I can’t believe this! There’s code to back this up, you’re not being overwhelmed by this at all?’ Phil stares at the two of them incredulously, and dear god must he look like such a fool right now, flailing and yelling madly about something that only he’s experiencing. Calm, little Phil, being such an over-reactor. It’s almost poetic.

Chris and PJ just shake their heads.

‘Look, think about it. It’s a simulation that’s been tampered with and given conclusive data so no matter what you do, there will be people out there experiencing the same thing and everything here is pointing to Dan being a reclusive, clueless merchant who can’t like the player! My Dan is so different, I cannot stress this enough! It’s so strange, guys! An AI developing their own life!’

‘You’re getting too excited about this, I mean, it’s like one more step closer to robots taking over the world and I don’t want to be a slave just yet.’ Chris says with a frown, and PJ nods his head.

‘I guess it’s cool, Phil, but I mean, he’s still distant in our games. It’s good that you’re finding a character you really like, but it isn’t the most universal thing in the world. Chris and I can’t feel excited with you right now.’ PJ is speaking like he would speak to a child who’s grandparents just died, but Phil stays stubborn and pouty as they both walk away to play their own horrible version of baseball.

Phil sits down at his desk again; feeling drained by their natural indifference, and cradles his head again and thinks about stupid he is.

Phil enters Wonderland feeling hesitant. He feels like he's learnt their dirty secret, and now the game is going to become cruel and unforgiving, but he continues the game to find himself in a world that is peaceful, quaint and telling. Everything is spectacularly normal, but he's still uneasy.

His eyes are heavy with sleep he's never had, and his body feels weary, Phil crawls out of his tent and finds Dan, crouching over the stream next to their camp. His body is still, a contrast to the life around him and Phil can say this is the man who finds warmth within him, but with nobody else in the world. Does that mean Phil's special? Is he more of the hero in this story than any other Wonderland player?

'You sleep a lot.' Dan interrupts his thoughts with a pleasant tone, 'My dad always use to tell me I was an incredibly heavy sleeper, but he's never met you.'

Phil lets his mind wander away from him, so the emptiness can be filled with the sunshine of Dan's smile and the rust flickering amongst russet shades in Dan's eyes and he speaks with a happy grin on his face, coming to settle next to Dan, 'I'm not a very good adventurer, am I? I'm surprised we haven't gotten ambushed already.'

'Ah, I'll fight them off. I was practicing earlier before.' Dan says, and sighs, 'I'd like to be better at using a bow and arrow, since it's pretty much professional, but swords are the only deal for me.'

'I'm too clumsy for a bow as well.' Phil says, and his eyes trails Dan's body, noting how his toes dip in to the stream and his hair is wafting with the wind.

They fall into silence, surprisingly not awkward but instead there only to enjoy each other's company a little more. It would give Phil time to stress about how this world is anything but; however, he ignores the nagging, and tries to envelop himself in Wonderland completely. He begins to think about Penelope, and realizes he had to go and clear out a cave full of wolves for some stashed information.

He takes a worried look at Dan before he speaks, 'I, uh... Do you think you're ready? To like do stuff?'

'Do stuff? What, murder wolfmoths and pests?' Dan laughs, 'I've been doing that for the past few days, Phil, I'm fine.'

'I guess.' Phil looks at his boots, 'I'm just worried, is all. If you get injured, or even killed, then I'll be really upset.'

Dan gives him a fond smile, and puts his hand on Phil's shoulder, a caress so dangerously bordering on romantic, it gives Phil the slightest rush, 'Don't worry. If you worry, I'll worry too, and then probably back out, and I really don't want to. I like being here.'

'I like you being here too.' Phil says, something spontaneous, before Dan's grin is to his cheeks and he's pulling his hand back away with the slightest brush of pink on his cheeks.

Dan had been telling stories about the paths they had walked on and places they had walked past, and it led Phil to have a permanent smile on his face for most of the journey. It was moments before they find the cave needed. It was small, in the smallest pocket of outer-suburbia Phil's ever experienced, just to the right of a bridge outside a particularly large village.

They sit just outside the entrance of the cave, finding only a disturbing wall of shadow being cast, both not being able to see inside for more than a few feet, and Phil settles into his backpack and pulls out an oil lantern to light.

Dan looks slightly scared, 'You're going in first.'

'At least have my back!' Phil makes little to no qualms about it, merely crushing the burnt out match beneath his foot and holding the lantern in one hand and a sword in his other. 'Prepare your swinging arms.'

It’s an awkward statement, Phil realizes, but Dan smiles at the ground and stretches. Both creep in, hesitantly; the care they take greets nothing as they come to a hallway made of rock and squeeze through before it suddenly becomes brighter again. It’s a brief puzzlement as a torch that's been lit is exposed to them.

Phil makes not a peep, giving a confused glance to Dan, who looks just as perplexed.

'There's only one way a torch would have been lit in a cave full of wolves, Phil.' Dan whispers.

Phil nods, face whitening, before continuing, and reaching a clearing covered in a ridiculous amount of blood, presumably human, and moss. He looks around, before catching the eye of a single wolf, and in the background, he can notice Dan is suddenly tensing up.

'Let them come to you.' Phil says simply, and with those words, the two wolves come charging full force at them both, and takes a few simple slices of their swords to clean them up.

Dan's grin is wide, 'That wasn't so hard.'

'You'll be sure to jinx us with that talk, Dan.' Phil jokes. Dan shrugs, and walks around to look at the cave their inside, his lips pursed with concentration and looks so perfectly kissable right now that if Phil weren't so against kissing pixels, he'd probably go for it.

Phil frowns but says, 'Are you coming? We still need to get this scroll.'

Dan startles from stroking the patterns of the cave walls, 'Oh, yeah. I'm coming.'

It's strange to watch Dan jogging in iron armour. Though Phil supposes he wouldn't be any better, he's just as weak in real life. Nevertheless, this life will never be as real as any other life, it's a simulation, but it's so convincing and filled to the brim with stuff that Phil's not good enough to look at. With wildflowers a plenty, the clearest and bluest seas he's ever seen, better than anything he will ever see, and with all that to see, who would bother staring at some baker? Why would Phil bother to accomplish a life worth living if all he was to do is to stare at some pretty baker in a simulation?

Dan does an appreciative little jump; as if to show off how manly he is in his armour, and Phil thinks, why bother seeing scenery when I have the prettiest thing in all the worlds right in front of me?

'You ready, Phil?' Dan asks, tapping his shoulder, efficiently waking him from a daydream, and Phil just smiles.

'Yeah, I'm always ready and there's a door over there, somewhere.' Phil points haphazardly to his assumption of where the door is. In the corner, mossy and termite-bitten complete with a rusty doorknob and splinters aplenty.  

It’s silent, rightfully so, their creeping towards the door is fruitful. A success, Phil pushes open the door and they both walk in, noticing the scroll laid neatly on a stone podium. Putting down his weapon, Phil lets out a thankful sigh, going to walk and grab the scroll before he’s now being ambushed from the side. All he can hear is the beating of his heart, a hollow drum in his ears, being pinned under an iron sword’s hilt and there’s a man with too much facial hair and breath worse than anything he’s ever smelt. He’s spitting profanities, and it seems like he’s been stuck under him for hours when he eventually tumbles to the side.

Phil prepares his thanks, relieved, but once he gets up on his feet, Dan’s meek. He’s staring at his sword, gore splatted across the blade like absolutely nothing, Phil’s used to this sight, but Dan… is just a baker.

‘Oh my god.’ Dan’s voice is wavering, he drops his blade and puts his hands over his mouth, ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’

‘Dan?’ Phil questions, going to grab Dan’s shoulder, but he pulls away and stares at Phil with a shocked look.

‘Phil… He’s dead. He’s just lying there, oh my god, Phil!’ Dan circles the man in question, slumped over a now-bloodied patch of cobble and moss, ‘I killed him. He was breathing before… and now he’s just… not. I killed a person.’

‘Dan… It’s a kill or be killed world.’ Phil grabs his shoulders straightening Dan for him to look him in the eye, and it’s hard to look at. Brown eyes glassy and tears habituating the corners with his lip quivering and a bursting soul spun with the gold of Fate’s own string. Dan’s no murderer, he’s just a boy wanting to go on an big adventure and live his life. He doesn’t deserve this. Phil made him a murderer.

Dan looks at Phil, exasperated, ‘What, the whole if we didn’t kill him, he would have? Is that what you’re going to say? Are you really? Save that lecture! We could have talked it out!’

Phil tries his best not to look like he’s a condescending mother, but it fails completely at Dan’s glare, so he just turns away, grabs the scroll, and puts it in his satchel. ‘We should get some rest at the tavern, Dan; we’ll sort this out tomorrow.’

‘Fine.’

The only room not booked was one with a double bed, and they gladly took it with little to no qualms from both of them. Whether or not Dan actually cared, or if he was still reeling from the cave experience, Phil probably won’t ask, but once they’re in the room Dan just sits down on the bed and puts his head in his hands.

Phil puts their stuff away, the room draped in a heavy silence, and he feels awkward. Perhaps a bit tired. He stares at Dan from the foot of the bed for a few seconds before hesitantly sitting next to him and putting a hand on his back, rubbing carefully.

‘I- Just. I’m a murderer, Phil. I took that guy’s life away, instantly, I just did. How am I any different from the criminals that roam our streets? The psychopaths that murder families? I bet even they have hesitations… but…’

‘Dan, please, you did it protecting me. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. Don’t think that you killed that man without thought, because you didn’t, at all.’ Phil soothes, using the hand he rubbed Dan’s back with to hold his wrist, ‘You saved me.’

He’s getting too close. Phil’s developing this very real, very emotionally invested relationship with a video game character. Of all things, it’s got to be a coded bunch of pixels and some virtual reality trash where he can run his hands up the sides of Dan’s body and map the freckles hiding beneath that nice, perfectly ravaged clothing. Dan sits up, eyes glassy and cheeks red, line of sight directly pointed on Phil, an intimate, quiet and disastrous gesture. He’s realizing their positions, their breaths mingling and the warmth of Dan’s brown eyes seeps across the length of his body.

Dan’s voice faults, ‘I have the power to kill you too.’

‘Don’t say that.’ The atmosphere is palpable and thick, making Phil feel claustrophobic and trapped in a simulation he wants no absolute part in being involved. Not any more, not with Dan looking perfectly poignant and quaint, framed against a dingy tavern exterior. The gold of the lamp cascading light off the soft curve of his cheeks, dipping into the dimple and running laps around his neck.

‘I did.’ Dan’s watery smile stares back at Phil, bright, warm, tempting, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Phil, I’ve become something I don’t want to be.’

‘Dan, I would have been dead!’ Phil shout-whispers, feeling the wetness of tears singe the corners of his eyes, he’s gripping Dan’s shoulders tightly and all he hears is the rational Phil screaming in frustration.

Their eyes are the same swords slaying wolves in the depths of forests, the same one that sliced up a man’s torso, which gushes blood onto the Earth and stains the soft pastels of wildflowers and picturesque fields. The same blades that have been coated in blood of the guilty seem to soften and it’s nothing more than a sweet, satisfying marshmallow roasting over a fire.

Dan leans in, eyes closed, arms reaching to sit around Phil’s neck and just kisses him. Phil is ramrod straight, perfectly startled among other things and tries to enjoy it for what its worth, a peck from somebody he’s been admiring a lot more than he should. Dan isn’t even real. He’s just code, that’s all he is, a texture and some code stacked upon one another. However, Phil traces his sides with hesitant fingertips and leans in to reply to the kiss. He’s too warm, the weight of Dan’s arms on his shoulders is too much for Phil, knowing his arms that can never wrap around his waist during his morning coffee, or greet him as he comes home. They are arms that create a distinct warmth, a fluttering feeling in his stomach and the generation of a single touch that is pure electricity.

He’s Dan, a video game character that makes him feel more alive than anybody he has ever met. He’s Dan, a breathtaking baker with an adventurous spirit. He’s one Dan Howell, love of one Phil Lester’s life.

Daniel Howell, merchant, adorkable, known to be distant, voted #7 in Wonderland’s first favourite character poll and quotes Shrek. He’s lines of code in some game engine. He’s a bug in a perfect release. He’s not real, and neither is the freckles that dot his face, the deep brown of his eyes and the perfection of his being.

Phil cannot fall in love with a video game character. He’s not going to be his magazine’s next article, the weird journalist who fell head over heels for some character.

Dan’s arms loosen slightly, and Phil pulls away.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dan asks.

Phil breathes, shakes his head and pauses. He doesn’t bother saving, he just yanks off his VRS and sets it on his coffee table with shaky hands.

Wonderland wasn’t even that good in the first place.

Phil’s continues his life with not the slightest hiccup. PJ gave him strange looks when he asked him to write the article instead, saying something about not finding the best words to describe the art that is Wonderland. He didn’t question it, but realized something was a bit off with Phil when he came back from break with puffy eyes and wet sleeves. Not wanting to ask, the majority of the office just ignored the mild sadness radiating from Phil for a while after the article transferral.

It’s been a year; Phil’s not going to find anyone new, nobody that will compare to the greatness of Dan Howell and his gorgeous grin. He’s at a loss for words when people ask him when he’ll find somebody, so he just shrugs it off.

Not that he minds in the matter of things because for the first time in forever Phil had been sent to E3 to do an article. He’s never been before, always been busy or didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket to America.

This year, people are saying it’s the Year of the RPGs. It could be every year, in Phil’s opinion, but apparently, there’s a couple of titles that people are particularly excited about. One would be Wonderland’s new expansion. It doesn’t cause Phil much hassle to just walk in and watch the routine that the developers have prepared (albeit horribly). Apparently, there are pirates now, which sounds interesting. He’s truly indifferent to it at this point.

Flowing over his notes, hoping they’re enough to write a paragraph or two about, not looking where he’s going, Phil manages to bump into somebody. Just his luck.

‘God, I am so sorry, I’m really clumsy-‘ It’s an impossible coincidence dressed up nicely in a formal tuxedo and a top hat. He can’t possibly believe his eyes, he must dreaming, it’s a horrible nightmare coming to fuel his day’s coffee drive because he definitely won’t be sleeping for the rest of tonight. Daniel Howell. Merchant. Adorkable. Standing directly in front of him, complete with the dimples.

‘No, that’s okay.’ He says, grinning, and looks down at Phil’s notepad, ‘Good show?’

‘Uh- yeah. Really good.’ Phil’s stammering, he’s awkward and he may or may not be aware of his hands shaking. Does this ever happen in dreams? He can’t particularly remember. ‘The pirates are a- They’re a good choice.’

‘Meh.’ Dan shrugs, smirking, ‘One of the developers is my brother. He’s a pirate fan.’

Phil takes a deep breath and tries to sound casual, ‘You look familiar.’

‘Really?’ Dan grins, ‘My brother made me an extra character in Wonderland. I’m Dan.’

Daniel Howell, the love of his life, more than just lines of code and texture, a completely alive human being even more lovely and attractive than what he expected. He could possibly faint right now; he’s trying to seem level-headed, trying being the key word. He hopes its working.

‘The- The baker, right?’ Phil tries a soft smile, ‘I got the- I got the, erm, positive route with you.’

Dan looks impressed, ‘Cool, apparently only like 15% of people got the positive route. Do I just naturally have a face that says be a dickhead to me or what?’

‘Uh. No. It’s quite nice actually-um.’ Phil gives a sheepish grin.

Dan lights up, practically like a Christmas tree, ‘Do you want to get coffee sometime?’

‘Oh, please.’

Wonderland wasn’t even that good, especially when reality’s so much better.