Chapter Text
Going out isn’t a common occurrence in the Howell-Lester household. Too loud. Too many people. Too much of a hassle. But when Dan and Phil decide to go out, they go out. Dan enjoys it from time to time, more than Phil. Dancing and socializing is something Dan, even as an introvert, craves occasionally.
Tonight is one of those nights. Phil also tagged along, the supportive partner that he is. Dan couldn’t probably enjoy himself to the extent he does had Phil stayed home.
After hard launching their relationship, all the shackles are removed from Dan and Phil. They can fully enjoy their time together, with no paranoia of getting outed.
They invited a few other friends to party with. For the first time, maybe ever, Dan feels free. He is slow dancing with Phil for the first time in a public place. There are no inquiring eyes trying to see him and Phil in close contact. There’s just the dance floor and the cheesy music playing in the background.
Phil adjusts his hands behind Dan’s neck and leans his head against Dan’s cheek.
This might be heaven, Dan thinks quietly. He has reached the maximum amount of happiness for a mortal.
But Dan is a greedy man. He wants more. More Phil, more love, more memories.
The song ends, breaking the delicate spell. Phil leans back and looks around out of habit. Dan hums quietly. Old habits are hard to break. Even though the reason they had stayed in the closet and kept their relationship from the public was more on Dan, Phil had made it his life’s mission to respect his wishes and guard their secret fiercely.
“It’s okay, Phil,” Dan says and raises his hand from Phil’s waist to his cheek.
Phil looks at Dan and smiles slightly. “I guess it’s still hard to get used to.”
“Hey guys, should we drink some more?” says Johnny, one of their friends who had patiently waited for the song to end.
“Sure. Dan, would you go to the bar and get us some drinks? I have to piss,” Phil says, looking at Dan.
Dan chuckles. Typical Phil, always having to pee.
“I’ll do that. You just don’t want to queue at the bar, I know your tricks,” Dan says playfully. Phil pouts but doesn’t refute the accusations.
Dan keeps his hands on Phil’s shoulders as they push through the crowd. The weekend at the gay club is busy and requires a lot of mental focus from Dan not to lose his sight on Phil.
At the point where Phil’s path diverges from Dan’s path to the bar, Phil turns around. He looks at Dan shyly. After sixteen years, that’s an accomplishment.
Dan knows exactly what Phil wants to do based on how he glances carefully around them. He decides to make it easier for him and leans in slightly. A permission.
Phil’s face brightens and he gives him the slightest peck on the lips. “I’ll be back soon. I love you.”
Dan rolls his eyes dramatically, “Oh— you love me, do you now? Where are you going? To the war? I think we’ll be able to handle the separation for five minutes, silly boy.”
Phil nudges him on the shoulder playfully. “Sorry for being loving to my situationship of sixteen years, I should have known I was getting too attached.”
Dan chuckles and shakes his head. “Okay, get going. I’ll get you the sweetest drink they serve here.”
Phil grabs his hand and squeezes it slightly. “It had better be fruity too.”
Dan watches as Phil makes his way to the bathrooms and starts making his way to the bar. Thankfully the bartender seems to be a good one and she immediately starts preparing their drinks like she knows what she is doing.
Dan leans against the bar and soaks in the atmosphere, the music, the smell of alcohol. Finally he is free. Maybe that’s why the atmosphere feels especially good tonight.
The bartender gives him the drinks and Dan tips her generously. He is in a great mood.
Johnny waves his hand from a booth, inviting Dan to join the rest of the group. There are empty seats for him and Phil.
“How’s the night going?” Johnny asks.
Dan places the drinks on the table and chuckles. “As well as it could, I suppose. It’s crazy after all these years to just— be.”
“I saw you guys dancing earlier, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. You used to be strict as fuck,” Marie says. She is wrapped around her girlfriend, Lisa in the booth.
Dan rolls his eyes and sits in the booth. “What can I say, time changes things.”
“Where’s Phil?” Lisa asks.
“He went to the bathroom. Now that you mention it, he has been gone for quite a while.” Dan stretches his neck to look in the direction of the toilets. Phil isn’t anywhere to be seen.
The conversation shifts to mundane topics, but Dan can’t help but check the time every few minutes and look in the direction where Phil had disappeared to. After Phil had been gone for twenty minutes, Dan has had enough.
“I’m sorry, I’ll go and check on Phil. He probably dropped his contact lenses or something, that guy.”
Johnny shoos him away playfully, immersed in his storytelling. Dan rolls his eyes and slides out of the booth.
The area near the toilets is unusually quiet. There are no people, like it’s expected in the crowded club. The air feels chilly and still in an unexplainable way.
“Phil—” Dan says carefully. It feels like his voice isn’t traveling very far at all. Like he is in another dimension. Every cell in Dan’s body is screaming for him to turn around and never look back. But an even bigger voice in his very core is telling him to approach the bathroom door.
The very fabric of his soul knows that Phil is on the other side of the door. Dan’s heart starts beating faster as he approaches the door with a shaky hand extended forward.
There’s a bright light emanating from every crack of the door, almost blinding Dan. He slaps a hand over his eyes, trying to shield his eyes.
A sense of panic is brewing in his chest. Where is Phil and what is happening here? If he didn’t know better, Dan would think that the events are supernatural in nature. There’s an overwhelming need to get to Phil in his chest— without thinking, Dan grabs the door handle, it feels cold to the touch, and opens the door.
And in that moment— everything is still.
Dan pants slightly and looks around, confused. What is he doing in the bathrooms? He doesn’t need to piss. He lowers his eyes to the door handle and his hand squeezed around it. For some reason Dan decides to open the door all the way. He must have been there for a reason, right?
The bathroom is dim and empty. It smells like puke and piss. Men are gross.
Dan takes a few steps into the bathroom and looks around. He doesn’t need to use the toilet, but something is pulling him inside.
“What the fuck—” he mutters to himself.
Something catches Dan’s eye when he walks further into the bathroom: on the floor, in front of one of the booths, is a phone. It’s laying on a piece of tissue paper, screen side up.
Dan furrows his brow and reaches down to grab it. It’s a standard iphone.
Dan’s heart drops to his stomach when he flips it over. The phone is purple and there’s a clear phone case over it. In the phone case there’s a picture of Dan in an orange jumper, looking diagonally up, and a long fish sticker floating freely in the space between the case and the back of the phone.
“What the actual fuck—” Dan says to himself as he inspects the item. Does he have a stalker that keeps his photo in their phone case?
Dan turns to look around, to make sure he is actually alone in the bathroom.
He is.
There’s a pit in Dan’s stomach. Something doesn’t feel right, but he can’t put his finger on what exactly.
Slowly, he turns around and exits the bathroom. There are a lot of people outside, three people are trying to get into the bathroom when Dan opens the door.
Dan side steps out of the way and looks around the club. He is squeezing the phone in his left hand.
The phone is creepy, but there’s nothing more to do about it. Maybe Dan should try to forget about this happening and loosen up. He is out with his friends after all, having fun. He slides the phone into his pocket and starts walking back to his booth.
“What took you so long?” Johnny asks when Dan is in earshot.
“There was a line,” Dan lies smoothly.
“The ice in your drinks is starting to melt. Sit down!” Lisa says.
Dan sits in the booth and looks at the two drinks on the table. The sick feeling in his stomach twists again. There’s his herbal drink that he wanted to try. But next to it sits a brightly colored drink with an umbrella decoration. Something Dan would never order for himself.
Dan sips his herbal drink, savors the bitter taste of it. His friends keep chatting around him, but Dan can’t focus on any of it. He is confused.
There’s an empty spot next to him in the booth and an unfamiliar looking drink that Dan doesn’t dare to touch.
It all feels off.
The cold feeling in his stomach spreads to his chest. What is he doing here? Why did he even come out in the first place?
“Dan, are you okay?” Marie asks. Everyone in the booth turns to look at him with varying levels of concern.
Dan looks at Marie like a deer in the headlights.
“Uhm— Yes. Sorry, I think the alcohol hit me faster than I thought,” Dan says, clearly lying yet hoping that there will be no followup questions.
“Don’t hesitate to talk with us if something happens, okay? You’ve had amazing career wins lately, but it doesn’t mean that you have to ignore everything else,” Lisa says and smiles Dan’s way.
Dan smiles back, nodding. “Thank you. I guess it gets overwhelming sometimes.”
The night goes on like usual after that. Except for the drink that haunts Dan on the table. The others don’t seem to mind it, but Dan can’t for the life of him figure out why he ordered such a sweet cocktail. All the ice has melted, but Dan hasn’t taken a sip of it. It’s so different that it almost feels like the drink is someone else’s.
Dan shakes his head to get rid of the thought. He doesn’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural. Why is his mind wandering to those places because of one drink he doesn’t remember ordering?
When the group leaves, Dan turns his head to look back at the untouched drink on the table one last time. Why does it feel like his heart is being ripped in half when he walks away? Such a silly thing for a drunk person to get attached to a drink.
At home Dan turns on the lights and sighs. The night out was supposed to celebrate his success with his podcast, but it feels like such an insignificant thing now, looking back.
Dan drags his feet into his bedroom and takes off his going out clothes. As he picks up the jeans, his hand feels the shape of a phone in the back pocket.
Oh, the phone.
Dan holds the phone in his hand and looks at it suspiciously. There’s a photo of himself in the back of it with a loose fish sticker. Who would have such a phone case? Not to mention he doesn’t remember taking such a photo.
The Dan in the photo card is wearing a bright orange jumper with “everyday sunshine” written across the chest. Something Dan would never voluntarily wear.
Out of curiosity, he takes the clear phone case off the phone to inspect the card further.
The fish sticker falls on the floor but Dan manages to keep the photo card from following it down.
The other side of the photo card is blue with some darker blue details, like the surface of water. When he tilts the card, there’s a shift in the color, clearly a manufactured piece of merchandise. Dan knows a thing or two about merch since he is a youtuber and has dabbled into producing goods. Such a thing couldn’t be made at home. In the middle of the back of the card was also a logo Dan has never seen before: a white star with d&p on top of it.
Dan furrows his brow. How could such a thing be laying around in a random club toilet? There was no one in there that could have owned it. Does he have a stalker that dropped their phone? It makes no sense to Dan.
He picks up the fish sticker and assembles the phone case back together.
The black screen reflects back Dan’s confused face. He presses the button on the side of the phone to activate the home screen. The screen lights up, but a pass code is needed to access the phone properly. Dan stares at the numbers on the screen. He has no idea what code could possibly open the phone.
It’s better not to try too many times, as that would lead to the phone getting locked which would be more annoying. Dan places the phone on his side table and sits on his bed. The sick feeling in his stomach isn’t going away. He buries his face into his hands and sighs.
He has the feeling that you get when you know you have forgotten something important, but can’t remember what.
“Fuck it,” Dan whispers to himself and stands up almost too fast. There are stars in his vision, but he doesn’t care. Dan goes to the bathroom and takes a long awaited shower.
His sleep is restless and haunted by someone he doesn’t manage to see. Someone that haunts the narrative, always there, but never in the line of Dan’s sight. It frustrates him. He tries to reach out to the figure he knows should be there, but never lets themself to be seen.
In the morning Dan opens his eyes and looks to his right. The other spot on his bed is empty, of course, but for some reason he feels like that shouldn’t be the case. Has he been single for too long?
Dan drags himself out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen. He has to eat breakfast before going to the podcast set. He doesn’t feel inspired to film in the slightest. Two cupboards are open, has someone broken in and messed with his things? Dan never leaves cupboards open. He furrows his brow and closes them.
Dan takes out a bowl and oat milk. When he reaches for the box of crunchy nut cereal in the cupboard, he notices that the box is empty.
“What the fuck? I never leave the empty box—” Dan says out loud in disbelief. Everything about his life feels wrong.
Dan puts the milk and the bowl back and toasts some bread instead. Is he losing his mind? His dream continues to haunt him through the morning, feeding the pit in his stomach.
Dan eats the bread and drinks his coffee fast, he is going to run late at this rate. He needs to get his head cleared up. Filming the podcast requires him to be focused and ready to entertain his audience. Dan runs around the house, gathering things he needs for the day at work: laptop, laptop charger, phone, phone charger, wallet, sunscreen, snacks.
While gathering all the things he needs, Dan walks past a door to the other bedroom. His stomach drops further.
He knows that he has three bedrooms in the house. He knows it. But why does the sight of one of them make him feel so sick?
Dan opens the door carefully.
The bedroom is decorated with great taste, of course. But the green feature wall doesn’t sit right with him. Why did he decide on a green wall in his house? He would never do that.
Dan steps further into the room and looks at the paintings on the wall, above the bed. Bamboo paintings based on pictures he took on his vacation in Japan. How did he get those again?
To Dan, the room looks like a hotel room. Someone else must have decorated it or he had lost his mind back then. He doesn’t use the room all that much since the black bedroom is more his style. Having a whole other bedroom with a bathroom and a walk-in closet seems excessive all of the sudden, considering that he has another guest room too.
Dan walks into the bathroom and looks around. Nothing is out of place, yet nothing makes sense either.
There is no shampoo or conditioner in there.
Then he walks into the closet. It’s smaller than his, but still a full walk-in closet that one person could easily fit their clothes in. Had he built this with a potential future partner in mind? He must have. Otherwise it makes no sense for a single man to have such a huge house alone.
Dan smiles dryly at himself. He is chronically single since— since forever, he supposes. He tries to think back on his life. Coming out was hard, hiding his sexuality was hard. And he never really dated anyone after experimenting the summer after high school. Isn’t that sad? Dan looks at his pale face in the mirror. He isn’t bad looking. He is tall and has a full head of hair. Why is he single?
The thought makes his palms sweat. The feeling is back, with full force. Like he is forgetting something huge. Dan is brought back from his thoughts by the buzzing of his phone.
It’s Rose, asking him to bring a new SD card to the podcast shoot. It’s good that he has such a good team working with him, otherwise the podcast would not be going as smoothly as it has been.
Dan curses under his breath. Nothing is going to plan. He has no idea where he keeps SD cards. In the office perhaps?
Dan walks over to the office and stops in his tracks. His computer is further from the door than would look natural. There’s a whole other space next to it, almost like there’s space for another computer. The layout looks odd. Dan steps over to his computer and sits on his chair.
The mouse mat he has is a double mat. Like someone who’s right handed could have their mouse on the other side. Dan looks at the empty space on the table absentmindedly and drags his finger over the mousemat.
“Oh— the SD cards,” Dan mutters and starts digging through the drawers. It takes him about three minutes to finally find new SD cards.
A quick glance at the clock tells him that he is running late. Typical of him. A wash of cold runs through him. It feels like someone should find him being late annoying, but he lives alone. Maybe he was thinking about the producers of his podcast?
Dan orders an Uber and runs through the house to collect everything he’ll need for the recording. He is truly a mess.
In the Uber Dan finally has a moment to breathe. He opens his phone and starts doing the wordle of the day. He really wants to beat—
Why does he want to do the wrodle so badly?
He doesn’t think about it further but focuses on the task at hand. Surely he’ll avoid getting dementia in his older years if he plays games like these while still young?
“Dan! You aren’t even late today,” Rose says playfully as Dan steps into the studio. Dan’s working relationship with the producers is good, thankfully.
“I was running through the house, trying to find everything. Thankfully I made it. Hey, do you have the pointers for the episode prepared? I’d like to look them over once more before we start filming,” Dan says.
“Sure, I’ll show them on the display,” Rose says.
Dan fixes his hair and sits on the deflatable chair. He looks at the set. It looks nice, but not quite like Dan’s usual style. Now that he thinks about it, the vision might have come from the brain of an alien. Why is everything so purple?
Dan focuses on the screen displaying the topics he is about to talk about on his podcast episode.
Hard Launch ep.5
Cold open: Rose got asked to work for another podcast, Dan wants to fight them
Topic 1: Gay friends from Manchester, cats, I LOVE CATS
Topic 2: New York mayor Mamdani, hopecore
Topic 3: Fan art > femboy baking, yaoi
Topic 4: Is Dan haunted? The cursed dirt
Topic 5: Questions for god > my alternative profession
Topic 6: bts of the calendar shoot
Topic 7: a rant against capitalism and labubus
Topic 8: DDR memories
Topic 9: Blackpool trip
Topic 10: Richard
Hard launches
Dan reads through the list and knits his eyebrows together. Hard Launch? Why is the podcast named Hard Launch? The set theme goes with the name, he supposes, but it all seems so random. Why is he talking about such mundane topics on his own on a male podcast? Isn’t it going to be boring?
“Rose? Why is the podcast called Hard Launch?” Dan says casually. He can’t get it out of his head.
Rose looks at him like he has lost his mind. “You said it came to you in a dream. It doesn’t really have a meaning. The set is cute so it all goes together.”
Random?
Dan can’t believe that he would randomly decide something so important. Him. The control freak Dan Howell, randomly chose to theme and name his podcast against all his tastes and aesthetic.
“Okay— I have read through the pointers. Let’s start,” Dan says.
The filming feels oddly foreign and uncomfortable for Dan. How is he supposed to talk about all these things alone for 45 minutes without driving the audience insane? By the end of it he is sick of his own voice and jokes. The filming doesn’t flow at all. He has experience with radio hosting, but podcasting is a whole different media.
Dan decides to watch the previous episodes back at home to refresh his memory, are they all this clanky and disjointed?
After filming some tiktoks Dan is free to leave the studio. Through the work day the feeling of things being wrong just grew. It is almost like something is missing, but Dan can’t for the life of him detect what. Everything is normal, just like always yet Dan feels like nothing is like it should be.
Back at home Dan collapses on the couch and buries his head into the pillows. He starts playing the first episode of the Hard Launch podcast on his phone to get a feel of the show. For some reason he has no recollection of the filming of the episodes, was he that nervous?
The episode starts with him telling a story of how he woke himself up with sleep talking. Dan can’t understand how that’s in any way interesting and why he started the first episode of his podcast with such a story. Then he goes into a little rant about how he wanted to make a podcast and how the name “Hard Launch” came to him in a dream. Some viewer comments and general life stories later the first episode is concluded.
Who the fuck is listening to this shit? Why did I even start this fuck ass podcast?
Dan spreads his arms wide and looks at the ceiling. He might just be losing his mind, otherwise he has no idea what could be making him feel so weird all of the sudden. He decides to put on some trashy reality TV and forget about everything that’s been bothering him.
At first it does work. He cackles because of the absurdity of the show and looks for some snacks in the house. When he opens a cabinet, there’s a bar of chocolate there, hidden behind a pack of microwave popcorn. He knits his eyebrows together and grabs it.
“Open can,” he says out of habit and watches the smart bin open.
Why is there chocolate here, he can’t eat it—
Dan stops in his tracks, the chocolate still in his hand. His heart starts beating faster and his palms turn clammy. He doesn’t know who can’t eat chocolate. Dan likes chocolate like any other person.
He looks at the bar and the feeling of dread spreads from his chest all the way to his finger tips.
“What the fuck—” Dan mutters.
He places the chocolate on the kitchen counter and stumbles back a few steps. Then he remembers it— the phone he found the previous day.
Like a mad man, Dan runs to his bedroom. He needs to see the phone. There it is, untouched where he had left it on the bedside table. With shaky hands Dan turns it around. The picture of himself that he doesn’t recognize with the fish on the back of it mock him.
How could that picture possibly exist?
Is someone playing a prank on him? Are there hidden cameras in his house? Is the picture created with AI?
He doesn’t know, but for some reason he doesn’t think any of those things are the answer. The feeling of him having forgotten something important intensifies.
Dan presses the button on the side and looks at the lit up screen. The key pad is looking back at him, mockingly. He sits down on the bed and draws in a breath. He could open the phone and see what’s inside it, right?
He tries the obvious ones first: ‘0000’ and ‘1234’.
Both of them are wrong, it isn’t going to be that easy.
Dan looks at the picture again. Think think think think.
His heart is beating faster and faster. It feels like the answer is at the tip of his tongue. Like he could almost piece together what is missing.
Dan turns the phone back around and looks at the key pad.
It couldn’t be, right?
With shaky hands Dan presses the numbers one at a time
‘1’
‘1’
‘0’
‘6’
When he presses the last number, the lock screen immediately opens. The passcode is Dan’s birthday.
“What the fuck—?”