Dear Phil,

14

"So, um, Jace..." Phil stammered as they climbed up the tree, "How long does it take for Dan to wake up?"

Jace looked up at him and glared. "I don't know. Tesa always kicks me out before he does." His voice was filled with disdain.

Oh... That's why Jace is angry. I'll bet Tesa never lets him stay and see if Dan is okay.

"Oh..."

They reached Tesa's room (it was one above Dan's) and scrambled up to it. Well, Phil scrambled. Jace pulled himself up with ease.

When they entered the room, Phil had a sensory overload. It was covered in posters, books, colors, smells, sounds - everything!

"Whoa... " Phil breathed, staring in amazement.

Jace turned and looked at him. "What?" He noticed Phil's gaze darting around the room. "Oh. Yeah, her room is pretty.... loud. You get used to it after a while."
A longing look filled his face.

Phil paid him no attention. The posters were mainly bands like Muse, MCR, FOB, Florence and the Machine, Oh Wonder, PTX... literally everything.

"She likes music?" Phil wondered out loud.

"Hm? Yep, Tess'll listen to anything as long as it's good." He paused before walking over to her dresser. It was covered in horse stickers. "And before you ask, yes, she does like horses."

Phil chuckled. "Could've foaled me,"

A/N: Thanks kgibbs2020 for that pun!

Jace threw him a laugh before grabbing a sack of some sort of food off the dresser. "C'mon. We'd better go and feed Ivory." Jace slung the sack over his shoulder before hopping out the door. Phil saw him glance sadly at the room before he left.

Phil nodded, taking one last look at the room before he closed the door. It sure was interesting. He somehow made it down the ladder and on to the ground without falling out of the tree. Jace, of course, had climbed down the tree without any effort. He didn't even use the ladder.

"Phil! Let's go already!" Jace called. He was already over by the edge of the fronds.

"R-Right!" Phil panted back.

He managed a sort of half run to Jace. When he got there, Jace smirked at him and said, "Ladies first," holding open the curtain for Phil.

Phil just rolled his eyes and walked through. All in all, Jace isn't half bad, Phil thought. Sure, he's a little loud, but... I don't know. He just seems okay.

Jace followed him. They walked to the lake, which was only a couple hundred feet away.

"So where's Ivory?" Phil asked, scanning the lake.

"Don't ask me. He's Tesa's pet. Though maybe we could try and call him?" Jace waited. He glanced at Phil, and realizing that he wasn't going to say anything, yelled: "Ivory! Food! Swan!"

Phil winced. But sure enough, a white blur hurled out of the sky and landed neatly at their feet.

Ivory looked at them, his head cocked. He seemed to be asking: I'm here. No need to yell.

Jace scanned Ivory before taking some food out of the sack and sprinkling it at the swan's feet. The effect was instant. Ivory beat his wings and jumped on Jace, nearly pushing him to the ground.

"Hey! What the f*ck?!" Jace somehow kept his balance and started backtracking towards the tree. Ivory dive bombed him again, and Jace dove through the curtain of leaves.

Phil watched, dumbfounded, as Ivory went through the leaves after Jace. Then Phil realized he probably shouldn't let Jace get beat up by a swan and ran after him.

When he managed to get to where Jace was, there was little Phil could do. So he did the logical thing, which was try and pull Ivory off.

"Ow! Sh*t!" Jace tried to whack Ivory in the head, but the swan dodged and bit him. "This damn swan! Get off!" With a massive tug from Phil and a rather well aimed kick from Jace, Ivory reluctantly flapped off.

"I swear, that thing has is out for me! I try and do one nice thing, just one..." Jace's voice faded into the background.

Phil wasn't paying him any attention. Instead, he warily watched Ivory, who'd landed on a branch some distance away. Phil started when he saw Jace waving his hands in front of his face.

"Phil? You there?" Jace looked sort of... concerned.

Considering what just happened with Dan, I'm not surprised, Phil thought.

"Yeah, I'm here. Just making sure that Ivory doesn't attempt another attack is all," Phil smiled, attempting to reassure Jace.

"Okay." The concern didn't exactly go away, though it faded some.

They had a moment of awkward silence.

It was broken by Tesa shouting: "Why are you such a loser? I've told you before that Ivory likes to be fed in the water, nerds!" She was racing towards them, holding a very shaken Dan's hand.

Phil threw a worried look at Dan, and then Jace, because he didn't want Jace to start another fight. But when he looked, he saw... a sort of mellow look. Was Jace... Was Jace looking at Dan?

Phil shook his head.

No... he likes Madeline. Right?

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Oh yeah. Update! I'm on a roll, peeps.

Also, I'm sick right now so there may or may not be another update tomorrow.

No promises!

Okay, then.

Have a spectacular week!

ily!

♥