Chapter Text
Blink and you’ll miss him.
It only lasts for a second. A single smudge or blur across the older films. A single face of a nondescript passerby in the newer ones. So you have to watch very, very carefully.
Tommy knows he has.
Prime, he has. He’s been so careful. Because some of the older movies you have to rewind to just the right second, and that’s only to catch a glimpse. One second forward or one second behind and you’ll miss him entirely.
Then sometimes, you freeze the screen perfectly. And there he stands in all of his glory. Blonde hair with a green and white striped bucket hat, blue eyes, and and a face that never ages.
One second is all the man on the screen has.
It’s never in the spotlight. In all of the movies he’s played in, not one was written for him to be the star. His time is fated in lackluster action. Doomed to a moment others are meant to forget.
Just one second.
Sometimes it’s spent with him walking through a crowd. Sometimes it’s in a cafe eating a delicious meal. Sometimes it’s a forlorn look at a passerby. Sometimes it's him staring into the camera with a twinkle in his eye, a tip of hat and a mischievous smile.
Like you're on the precipice of an inside joke.
One Tommy desperately wants to be a part of.
There’s a devotion to his viewing. Searching, looking, scanning all for one man. It becomes the air he breathes. A silent prayer. A mission on a path for failure.
The entirety of his spring break from school is spent in front of an old, dusty projector and computer screen combing through film after film.
Briefly he wonders if he’s gone insane.
He ignores the small voice in his head that already tells him he’s long past that.
. . .
Tommy signed up for the history of cinema class for two reasons. One, the teacher, Mr. Sam, is notorious for giving A’s. And two, you get to watch movies in class. So really the decision was a bit of no-brainer.
Add the fact his two best friends Tubbo and Ranboo are in there with him, and it was looking to be his favorite class for the semester.
Originally, it started off great. He watched movie after movie with passing boredom. Slipped notes to his friends. And didn’t really pay that much attention to what was on screen.
Then he noticed him.
The same extra was in two back-to-back movies from he early 1900’s. Not too odd. Maybe he was an actor with a rising career? But then Tommy noticed him in a family friendly movie from 2011.
He hadn’t aged a day.
At first Tommy tried to rationalize it. It was probably the man’s son. He probably just looked like the same person.
But then he saw the man’s bucket hat, and Tommy just knew.
That is the same man.
Nobody could inherit that bad of a fashion sense.
. . .
When Tommy reaches out to a handful of old-time film companies, he doesn’t expect results. Most of the directors are in their eighties. It would make sense for them to be relaxing on a beach somewhere or in a retirement home.
There’s no way they actually have time to help a teenager.
Except apparently they do.
Weeks later, Tommy opens his mailbox to bundles of letters- he’s thoroughly surprised. It turns out a bunch of retired old men do in fact have the time to help him find an extra. Most of them are even enthusiastic.
Apparently they love that ‘ a young teen is taking interest in the classics.’
Tommy could honestly care less about the movies themselves, but they could think whatever they wanted. As long as it got him answers.
As expected, most of them don’t have any clue who he’s talking about. A majority of the letters are ramblings about their studios and their glory days. Bragging about their accomplishments.
Halfway through the stack he received, Tommy is almost certain that he isn’t going to get anything from them.
Then finally came the letter that changed everything:
“Really stand-up fella. Played in multiple movies of mine. His name was Philza Minecraft. Wonder what he’s doing n- ”
Tommy’s heart stops.
After months of research. He finally has a name! It might not be the man’s real name, but it’s a name nonetheless.
He scrambles to his feet, dashing over to his computer and opening a search engine. Now that he has a name, the search is on. After all, there couldn’t be that many Philzas in the world-
All he has to do is find him.
. . .
Searching for an seemingly-immortal movie extra isn’t as easy as Tommy thought it would be. (Who would have thought?) But if Tommy never aged, he’s guessing he wouldn’t want to be found either. Every government in the world would be gunning for him, not to mention every cryptid and conspiracy theorist.
So, Tommy can understand why the man’s hard to find.
That doesn’t mean he has to like it.
Days are spent flipping through webpage after webpage. And just as quickly as the semester starts, it ends just as fast. Summer rolls around. The days filling up with trips to the library, hanging out with Ranboo and Tubbo, and searching for an immortal.
You know, the typical summer.
However, one night after hours of scouring the internet, the teen finally reaches a conclusion.
He’s been going about this the wrong way.
There’s not a shot in hell he’s going to get information on Philza fucking Minecraft. So he’s going to have to get Philza Minecraft to find out about him.
It’s convoluted at best and just stupid at its worst. But Tommy has no other ideas. If it fails- which it probably will- at least he tried.
Then he can just lay this entire journey to bed and forget it ever happened.
(“We’re worried about you,” Tubbo confessed on one sleepover. “You’re so invested into something and you know we support you, but you’re just…not yourself anymore.”)
Taking a step back, Tommy can admit, he’s probably got a little too obsessed over the venture. Every hour he spent looking for a grown man could have gone into something more productive like schoolwork or his friends.
Well, it didn’t matter now. The whole thing will be over soon enough. Tommy’s decided to lay it all on the line.
Philza has spent a lifetime dedicated to cinema. That’s not a hobby someone just stops. Movies come out every other weekend now. The immortal has to be a part of some projec t in Hollywood.
Tommy can’t fly to Los Angeles. He’s a foster kid with zero prospects and no way to get there. He’s lucky he landed in a house with foster parents who didn’t care if he ran around doing weird shit all day. It’s infinitely better than his last home. He isn’t going to push his luck.
So, Tommy decides on a letter.
One letter.
To encapsulate all the ventures and thoughts he had these past few months. To simply tell the man ‘ hey I had fun searching for you-thanks, I guess.’
(Also to address the elephant in the room, how the fuck are you still around? But at this point Tommy is unphased at the apparent gall of Philza’s immortality.)
When the letter’s finished- it’s a mess of thoughts and feelings. His hands trembled the entire time typing it. Finally putting it down on paper made him jittery. A sense of it’s finally happening.
Once he’s done with that, he prints off multiple copies from the local library’s printer.
Hoping his fosters won’t mind him putting their return address on a bunch of random letters. He sends off the copies to multiple studios in Hollywood, all addressed to one single Philza MInecraft.
As the mailman picks up the letters for deliveries, he salutes the van as it rides away.
As soon as the vehicle is out of sight, a huge weight lifts off of his shoulders. He’s done it. After all this time. It’s over. There will be no more searching. No more long days at the library. No more watching films
Tommy has dedicated so much time and effort into this endeavor, he’s almost in shock that it’s finished. An empty hole sits in his chest accompanied with a silent, what now?
Looking back at the house, he thinks to himself, going inside and playing videos games seems like a good start.
. . .
Weeks later, sitting in a shaded tent with twenty other people, a blonde man relaxes in a lawn chair. Sipping on a bottle of water, he closes his eyes. He’s thankful they’re finally taking a break. They’ve been shooting an adventure film all day, and a respite from the heat feels amazing.
Sadly one of the newer actors keeps messing up his stunts though, so they’ve had to reshoot multiple times. On one hand, he’s rooting for the kid. Finally doing stunts on your own takes a lot of dedication. On the other, eh, Phil’s ready to go home.
The other extras feel the same too, sitting around sluggish and languid. A dull chatter rising up every few minutes only to die down. It’s one of those hot days where even talking gets exhausting.
“Phil!”
The blonde man head turns to the side, where one of the interns is walking towards him. Oh no. Never a good sign when they send an intern your way. He puts a hand up in greeting. “What’s up mate?”
Except it isn’t bad news. It’s something that completely catches him off guard.
“You have a letter.” The young woman says dutifully handing him a long white envelope. “The highers ups wanted me to remind you not to put your name on the studio address.”
“I didn’t?” Phil asks puzzled.
The intern merely shrugs. Somebody calls for her from the side, and she’s up and off again. Poor interns. They never get a break.
Phil turns the letter over in his hands. The address is hand-written in a poor scrawl. It’s a miracle the post office was even able to read it, it’s so illegible. The blonde smiles, the sight of it making him slightly reminiscent of his younger days in school. Back then in the orphanage, the headmistresses would smack their hands with a wooden sticks for having such bad form.
But that was a long, long time ago.
Phil doubts any school these days instills corporal punishment like that.
Well, Phil isn’t doing anything at the current moment anyways. So he might as well read it. Thumbing the edge of the envelope, he opens the letter that will change his life forever.
And it starts something like this:
“ Dear Mr. Minecraft.
My name is Tommy Innit-”