#winlip

okay lets do this!

1. “I really need you,” sounds like it should be something that will end up with a good time for Brad. What it actually ends up being is Nate Fick standing in the kitchen holding up four different back splash samples having a mild freak out. “Is subway tile too pertenious?”

“I’m divorcing you.” Brad insists.

“We aren’t married and you would never leave me, now tell me which one of these is the least likely to make your mother give me the stink eye at Seder this year,” Nate huffs and holds up the samples again.

“The red brick is terrible.” Brad offers after a second. 

“Okay, god, I’m glad you hate it too. Ray picked it out.”

2. “Just stay with me.” 

“I’m not trying to get caught on the edge of the map,” Speirs growled over his mic.

“We only complete the escort mission if we are both with in the zone at the same time.” Lip explains again as he watches Speirs’ beserker wander off the path and get caught on another root or tree in the map.

“I’m aware of this.” Speirs answers sounding more and more frustrated with the video game. 

“Alright, after this mission we can just have sex. Does that sound better?”

“Yes, god please.” Speirs practically moans. 

3.”You’re a terrible cook.”

“Drink some milk you big baby.” Gene pushes a glass towards Speirs completely unrepentant that he has just burned all of Ron’s tongue off. 

“This is inedible and you know it.” Ron argues. He keeps eating. He isn’t actually insane.

4. “Are you fucking insane?!”

“No...?” Winters answered looking around in confusion at Lip who was frothing at the mouth.

“Then get out of the water, already!” Lip shouts. He then mutters “It’s not the polar bear challenge. Damn ginger eskimo gonna die in the frozen lake like an idiot and then where will we be?”

5. “I need you, though.”

“Go on.”

“And I should not have tried to make a choice like this without you because I tend to get upset and then we end up kicked out of Home Depot again.” Nate continued.

“Now we have to go to Lowes.” Wynn reminded Nate. 

“I said I was sorry!” Nate was in fact not sorry.

Phillip shook his head.

“Well, blood brilliant is not the phrase I’d use. Maybe decent, at best. I hope some people like it.” 

It was still a bit odd for him — he’d come to Pride U as a ruse, playing into the poetry major thing so that he could be as far removed from the perfect Order gentleman as possible. But now that side of him was gone, and he was left with the mask of Phillip Knightley that he’d constructed for this role. He wasn’t sure if it fit, but he didn’t know what he was beneath it.

“The central theme of my thesis, though, is fire.” 

It wasn’t something he had told John or Tom, who both looked at him with mild confusion whenever he waxed on about poetry. And he knew they would side-eye him on his choice of theme. But Winston didn’t know. Winston was asking a simple question. And Phillip could give him an answer. He’d struggled to find something he wanted to devote pages and pages towards. He kept coming back to fire. 

It had been seeing his family’s estate go up in flames that really sealed it.

“I’m intrigued in exploring it — fire can be so thematically different depending on the way its used in writing. Is it warmth? Familiarity? Passion? Destruction? Rebirth? I want to touch on everything, but well… that’s ambitious, I think.”

Not to mention incredibly personal. 

“Hmm, I think I’ll take the zinfandel,” Phillip said to the waiter who had come around. 

Phillip’s succulent was dying.

Now, wasn’t that just another cherry atop the shit show sundae that was his life? 

He should’ve just chucked the thing in the rubbish bin, but as he held it over the garbage, Phillip felt overwhelmed by a deep wave of guilt. Aurora had given this to him and he would feel shitty about throwing it away. He was supposed to take care of it! Provide for it! But he’d just been caught up in his own problems that he let the poor thing slowly die.

With a sigh, he looked it over and then decided to pop on to the florist to see if they could help him out. He didn’t want to admit defeat and go to Aurora just yet, though he certainly thought over that option.

He stepped into the Garden Grove, looking around for a clerk, and was absolutely surprised to see Winston.

“Oh, hello,” said Phillip. “Are you… buying a bouquet for someone or something?” 

As far as he knew, Winston was not… interested in ladies, though perhaps gay men liked to receive bouquets as gifts as well. What did Phillip know? Flowers were always his mum’s thing, and as much as he loved the red roses in his family’s estate, he never admitted that to his brothers or father. The red rose tattoo on his forearm was solely in honor of his sister, who’d loved hem just as much. 

Phillip was —

Okay, to be totally honest, Phillip was not actually doing well. The semester had started and he’d thrown himself back into school work (which for the first time since coming to Swynlake, was actually his real priority) and he’d gotten a job at [name redacted], and he’d been busy enough.

But after the hullabaloo of a new school year had eased off, Phillip realized the ramifications of just what he and Tom and John had done.

And then he immediately decided to un-realize the ramifications of his drastic life choices and head over to the Deer. Just for a few drinks, of course, because it was a weeknight.

… and a few hours later, Phillip found himself slumped in the corner of a booth at the Deer, nursing his … well, he hadn’t been keeping count. Nursing a drink! Normally, he was a very friendly drunk, who liked to make conversation with people who passed (and also tried to get laid, let’s be real), but he was feeling contemplative today, and in the sort of mood where the answers to life might be found at the bottom of his stein (he knew it would never be).

As he set an empty glass on the table, he was about to flag over the bartender again, when he noticed a man walk past his table.

“Oi! I know you!”

“Alright!” said Phil, with a wave. He sat on the edge of the stage, one leg hooked over the other, the script balanced on his knee. “There’s my Harry — I figured we’d just start with the intro scene, yeah?” He ducked his head down. “I gotta admit, I haven’t seen the stage production, only the movie, so that’s where I’m really drawing my inspiration from.”

Yes, Phillip had decided to have some one-on-one time with Winston Deavor, who would be playing Harry opposite his Bill. Phil was actually quite excited about this role — he’d just been in the ensemble last year, but it’d been great fun (not to mention, he’d hooked up with a few of the ensemble girls). And now, snagging a main role? And Tommy too? (Tommy opposite Arista, which made Phillip chuckle). Well, it was going to be grand.

Phillip was trying to forget everything else in his life right now.

“Are you familiar with the stage play at all? I just know that Pierce Bronson can’t sing in the movie.”