Work Text:
Phil hated how some things stayed with him as a ghost, while he couldn't remember other things for the life of him.
The life of him. That was the problem, wasn't it? No life. And he couldn't even remember how it happened.
But as he looked at Dan cradling his pillow, he remembered so clearly having told him that he hoped he would be haunted one day.
God, not like this. Phil had been watching Dan grieve for 3 days now, and Dan couldn't seem to see or feel him there. There were moments here and there where Phil thought Dan might sense him there, but nothing had come of it. It was mostly moments where he saw Dan smile that he thought, surely, he knew he was by his side. Moments where Dan remembered something dumb Phil said. That's all it was though, remembering. Not hearing or seeing in the now.
It made Phil itch. Something he didn't think ghosts could feel. But sure enough any time Dan smiled, he would get this warm sensation first, a feeling like the first time a boy kisses you, followed by this all consuming itchiness like he was allergic to the now fleeting episodes of joy he saw in Dan.
It all made him feel sick. Another thing he was surprised to feel as a ghost.
He just wanted Dan to know he was there.
The next morning, Phil followed Dan into the kitchen, only to stop suddenly just behind him. Dan was staring at an open box of cereal. It'd been there for probably a week. Dan hadn't thought anything of it in the last few days. Background noise of a now all too quiet house. But this morning Dan was at a standstill with the box. He suddenly hated that it was on the counter. He felt a well of anger in the pit of his stomach that he had to either put it away and finish the box like normal, or throw it away. Both felt wrong. How could he keep eating that cereal when the last person who had it was Phil. How could Dan roll his eyes and put it where it belongs when there wasn't someone to leave it out again at 4 in the morning?
In one swift moment, he made a decision.
"Open can." Dan said, and threw the cereal into the trash. He was planning on getting a new, plain old trash can the next time he felt like leaving the house.
Phil wished he could repeat those words and take the cereal back out. He didn't want to do it to scare Dan, and he wasn't mad about it being tossed. He was well aware he wouldn't be eating it ever again. But he was desperate for Dan to know that he wasn't alone in this house built for the two of them. That it's okay to hate the trash can and the kitchen hob and their bathroom and his pillows, but that he can still have these things with him.
"Please," he thought, "let me still have these things with him".
Just as this thought came to him, he heard Dan speak aloud, his word melding with Phil's.
"Please..." Dan said, still staring at the trash can.
Phil did what he had taken to doing over the last few days when he felt at a loss. He put the form of his hand on Dan's shoulder and squeezed. His skin didn't indent, his shirt didn't rustle, but it still felt real enough to Phil. It had to. He had to make up in his mind for what Dan was missing. He would tell him "it'll be all right, babe" and hold him and know that Dan felt none of it. But love is still there even when we don't feel it. It was then.
Months went on like this. Dan cried a little less, went out with friends a little more. He was far from moving on but he was moving every day on his own. Some days he'd move less. Those were often spent with Phil wrapped around his back and Phil's pillow in his arms. On busier days, Phil would spend a few hours wandering around the house feeling truly spectral, and hope that Dan would come home with a smile on his face.
Things had been going well, considering everything he'd been through, for Dan until the calendar turned its page to June. His first pride month without Phil. God, his first birthday month without him. From day one of the month, Dan felt a gloom fall over him that he hadn't felt in months.
"How am I supposed to keep having these firsts without him?" He said on the phone with his grandma a few days into the month.
"You had firsts with him, too. Remember that." She said, her voice calmed him, despite the warm tears slowly making their way down his face. That was his cue to get off the phone. He hated the way his voice cracked when he cried.
He said goodbye to his grandma, and laid down on the couch, taking deep, slightly shaking breaths.
"Technically you're having all these new firsts with me! You just don't know it!" Phil said, raising his voice a little as if that would make Dan hear him.
"I don't want this to be the end!" They both said at the same time. Phil didn't know if there was magic in the way they had so often said the same thing at the same time in life, or if the fact that they did that in death too unlocked something, but suddenly Phil felt different.
And just as suddenly, Dan whipped his head toward the empty room in front of him.
"What?"
"What?" Phil echoed Dan.
"What the hell was that." Dan sprung up and went to check if something had fallen off a counter or table, despite not having heard anything falling. What he heard, or more accurately what he felt, was something he couldn't describe. It was like he had been transported into a wooded area that was whistling with wind running through its branches.
He did a survey of the house and nothing was amiss, but his heart was racing. He went back to the couch and laid back down, closing his eyes and trying to slow his pulse.
"Jesus, I must really be cracking." Dan thought.
Phil sat himself by Dan's feet.
"You're not. You're not cracking, love. You just gotta see me!" He put his hands above his head like a child looking to be picked up. He held himself that way for a few seconds, before sadly putting his arms down again. "Please, Dan. I just need you to see me. And I know you need it too. Look at me." He put his hand on Dan's leg.
Dan propped himself up a little and scratched at his pant leg where Phil had just hovered his hand over.
Phil could feel that something was changing. Something, for some reason, was making Dan more aware of Phil's presence. Phil didn't care that it was in almost imperceptible ways. Anything at all happening meant that anything at all was possible.
"If anyone can do this, it's us." Phil smiled at Dan, knowing that he couldn't see it, but hoping he could feel it.
Phil would've been happy to know that Dan fell asleep easier than he had all week that night, despite the strangeness of the evening, and despite falling asleep on the couch. He dreamed of two young boys who had everything and more than everything, they had each other.
He missed being part of an "each other". But the dream was perfect. A reminder of what he'd been given in this life.
He woke up in a decent mood, sad but feeling hopeful. That all went away when he walked into the kitchen.
There was cereal all over the counter and the floor, and the trashcan was glitching in a way he'd never seen it do.
"Open can- open can- open can- open can-" It said over and over, in a garbled voice.
Phil was standing, still invisible to Dan, in the middle of this mess, feeling embarrassed and guilty.
He had been working all night on finding a way to send Dan a kind of message. Hours upon hours of absolutely nothing working, only for an explosion from the trash can to happen at around 4 am. Phil couldn't believe the sound didn't wake Dan up.
"Maybe it made a ghost sound..." Phil thought.
Dan groaned and kicked at the trash can. He made the most realistic assumption; the dumb can he'd wanted to get rid of months ago but couldn't had finally shat itself to death. And cereal was the shit.
He grabbed a broom and started making a pile of cereal to dump back in the garbage.
"I'm sorry!" Phil cried.
Dan whipped around, screaming.
"What the fuck is that?" Dan screeched. Phil found that even being a ghost, Dan could hurt his ears.
"Daniel??" Phil croaked, suddenly feeling the throat he technically didn't have close up.
"No." Dan said, and turned back around, broom still in hand, and frantically began sweeping so that nothing was actually being swept up but just wildly scattered across the floor.
"Yes! Dan, it's me. I swear it's me. You're not crazy. I'm here!" Phil said, breathlessly.
"No, no, NO. Ghosts aren't- And YOU are- But you're not you because I can't be-" Dan suddenly collapsed onto the floor, letting the broom drop next to him.
"You're not some Victorian widow who's gone mad from the grief," Phil tried to make a joke of it all, "I don't know why any of this has happened, but it has and as far as I can tell it's real. And if I'm real, and you're real. Then we both get to be here together again. Right?"
"Wrong. Something must be seriously WRONG with me right now." Dan replied, so sure that he was about to have to make one of the worst kinds of phone calls to your family.
"Dan. I've been here since... Well, since I wasn't anymore. It's been months of you not being able to see me. Please, I'm begging you to believe me." Phil said, his voice still sounding apologetic. And he was. For making a mess. For leaving. For showing up again. And suddenly he was saying all of this out loud. Apologizing without realizing he was doing it. "I'm sorry I left you. Please don't leave me."
Dan looked up at Phil, his eyes wet.
"Fuck you. When you put it like that, how could I?" Dan stood up, meeting Phil's eyes with his as they both now just stood stone still for several seconds.
After those seconds past, seconds that felt like decades, Phil threw his see through arms around Dan and held him. And he couldn't believe it worked.
Maybe it worked because they both wanted it so badly, maybe it was that at the same moment Phil did, Dan wrapped his own arms around the mist that was his soulmate. But they were granted the gift of being able to hold each other again.
And after several more decades, or maybe longer, of holding each other, Phil kissed Dan.
"Oh!" Dan said, pulling away in surprise for a moment.
"Sorry, was that too weird?" Phil asked.
"No, I just wasn't expecting... your lips are cold. And much softer than they used to be. No offense." Dan said, and Phil watched as a smile spread across Dan's face.
"Wow, even death can't stop you roasting me. Okay, Dan."
"Say my name again. I want to see your mouth when you say my name."
"Dan." Phil leaned in and kissed him again.
"Okay, now let's see if your haunted ass can hold a broom." Dan replied, picking up the broom and kissing Phil back.
It felt so good to be teased again, Phil thought. He could handle a lot. But going an eternity without hearing Daniel Howell's laugh when he does something silly might as well be hell.
And if an afterlife without Dan is hell.
Phil thought to himself, knowing he'd never tell Dan, maybe he found heaven after all.