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Playing the piano feels like shouting into the silence that has settled in the flat. The quiet has lingered for far longer than ever before, whilst the sounds of traffic outside offer no relief. London is such a vast place, with more people than one could ever put a number to, and yet it feels so achingly lonely tonight. Perhaps it’s the awful rain that hasn’t let up for days. The single-glazed window frames help very little to keep the tracks of silvery water from winding down the walls.
Dan likes quiet, of that he’s sure. But this quiet feels painful. It prickles at his ears, makes goosebumps appear on the skin of his arms if he lets it, and more than anything else, it makes the blood in his head feel cold. So he plays piano. The same piano that had dictated his room to be his when they’d moved in a year ago. It’s not in tune, and Dan never wants to tune it. He finds some comfort in the off notes and the way some of the keys stick when he bashes them. He’s not convinced the neighbours find the same joy in it, but he never sees them, so he’s okay with that.
Tonight he’s chosen to play Nocturne in F Minor, the melancholy of it all pressing at his temples as he goes. When he taps the wrong note, he swears out into the hallway. Hears his own voice carry through to the kitchen.
“Fucking hell.” He whispers, aggressively slamming both hands down and producing an ungodly sound. It’s not fair, really. It’s not fair that an instrument that has been in this room for years, through multiple tenants, has ended up in his hamfisted care. If only he had stuck with his piano teacher when he was little, he would be so much better. He leans his head forward until it thunks against the wood. The slight vibrations echo from the amalgamation of the terrible keys he has just pummelled, through the wood and straight into his brain.
Tuesday had been the worst day he’s had for a long time.
He couldn’t tell you (or wouldn’t admit) when it had started. The grey cloud had worked its way into their bedroom, casting a forboding shadow over Phil’s brightly coloured sheets, and stayed there until Dan paid it some attention. There was no way to ignore its thunderous rolls, the flashes of lightning poking his forehead until he opened his eyes.
“Bad day?” Phil had asked, lazily. He couldn't see the cloud, of course, but he could see Dan’s face. That was all it took, sometimes.
Dan had nodded, not saying a word, just staring straight ahead.
When he was still there, five hours later, that’s when Phil had said something.
“I think you should get out of bed, maybe.”
Dan certainly wasn't proud of how things progressed after that. He wishes more than anything that he hadn't shouted. That he’d just held his tongue. Just waited a fucking second before he spoke, for once. It physically pains him to think of the words they’d exchanged in vitriol. Well, from him it had been as much. Phil had been so calm, so patient with him. Just tolerating it. That’s what makes it feel much worse.
For the first time in four years, Phil had walked away. And the thing that made his cheeks sting unbearably was that he hadn’t really said goodbye. Not properly.
“I just, I need a minute,” Phil had said. Standing in Dan’s doorway, where Dan had curled up on his ‘own’ bed. “I’m not, I’m not walking away from you. Just from today.”
Dan had said nothing.
He hadn’t called him back. In some weird, altogether too twisted way, he had felt that this was what he deserved.
So he supposes, neither he nor Phil had really said goodbye.
Dan can’t bear to play the piano anymore. He knows what he should do, he knows he should ring him. What would he do if this were a romance movie, dripped in unrealistic nineties romance and affordability? He’d get on a fucking plane to the Isle of Man and apologise. Beg, in fact. For Phil to just get angry with him, to shake Dan and tell him to just ‘get fucking better, this is killing me too,’ and Dan would. He would.
What he does instead is such a juxtaposition that it would seem someone has slapped the last bit of sense out of him. He first calls a friend, and then he pulls on his big black coat and zips it right up to his chin. As he thunders down the stairs, he flicks each light switch off. Leaving the abyss of their empty flat behind him.
The little pub round the corner is as welcoming as always, which is not welcoming at all. If he had to guess, he’d say the pub has been there for over one hundred years. And he’d wager they haven't repainted the facade in just as long. There’s a ghost sign, reading Courage’s Ales and Stouts. Dan loves ghost signs, small, fractured glimpses into the past lives of those Londoners who have walked the same streets as himself. The spirit of those who have been drinking away sorrows in the same pub as he is serve as a blanket of anonymity.
“Where’s Phil tonight then?” Dan’s friend asks. It’s a causal question. Well-meaning. Easy off the tongue.
“We’re not joined at the hip, you know. We’re separate people.” He crosses his fingers on one hand, uncrossing them again. As if to imitate the very fact that they can untangle themselves from each other. He says it in a tone that screams ‘obviously’, but his heart aches a touch more. For the truth is that it could never be that easy. The very fibres of their beings are tied in neat knots; no nimble fingers or scissors could rip them apart. And yet here they are, so far away from each other. The strings tripping people up and getting wrapped around furniture, maybe, but still firmly attached at either end.
“Oh. Sorry mate. It’s just weird to see you without him. Weird, but you know,” The friend pushes his pint around the mahogany table. It leaves little wet rings in its wake, moving over alcohol bleached stains from drinks past. “You know, nice weird.”
Dan’s drink barely touches the side. The gin as bitter as he can make it, with dry tonic and extra lime. He forgoes the straw, barely breathing through sips. Soon, they’re surrounded by a graveyard of empty glasses. And they’re loud.
“You never answered my question!” The friend is basically shouting. Dan would never have picked to be here, with him, right now. On any normal night, he’d be at the flat. Wrapped up in three blankets to combat the bite of the cold that manages to weave through their floorboards, wrapped up in Phil.
“Huh?” Dan is most definitely slurring a little as he speaks. It takes a lot to get him to this point. He dreads the thought of waking up with a dry mouth and an empty bank account, yet tonight he cannot seem to stop.
“Where’s Phil?”
Nail in the coffin, as they say.
He begins to cry. He’s not proud of it. Sure, this is Dan’s friend. He’s known him for years, since sixth form, in fact. But he doesn’t cry in front of people. Except Phil.
“Woah, mate. What’s wrong?” His friend puts a hand on Dan’s forearm.
That’s when Dan notices the sticker. A cat sticker. Still stuck to his shirt sleeve. He cries a bit harder then. Phil, when he’d come in to ask Dan to get up, had bought in a sheet of these ridiculous cat stickers. He’d been decorating his new laptop, one they’d gone to the Apple Store in Covent Garden to buy together, just last week. When Dan hadn’t replied straight away, Phil had begun sticking them to him.
“Let’s go.” Dan says. He’s had enough. He doesn’t want to be here, in this pub. This pub, where he and Phil have had many a drink, hidden in one of the back rooms. Covered by the darkness of the corners of the bar, just out of reach of the bouncing light of the fire.
“Okay. I think it’s time to get you home anyway, mate. One too many, we’ve all been there.”
Dan could slap him. He doesn’t, though. He just follows on his tail, out of the squeaky front door and into the cold, damp night. He reckons it’s around ten thirty. Just late enough that when he gets home, he can comfortably crawl into their bed and let the alcohol put him to sleep.
His friend is kind enough to walk with him right to his front door. He watches with this pained, concerned look as Dan struggles to get the key in the door. Dan doesn’t notice the look, far too focused on getting the ‘fucking key in the fucking lock.’ He stumbles over the lip on the doorframe as he pushes the door open. He remembers at the last second that it would be polite to say goodbye.
“Text me when you get home safe.”
That feels like a normal human thing to say, Dan reckons. His friend returns a kind smile, waiting until Dan shuts the door to turn around.
His bones feel heavy. His feet clumpy, and his brain not quite in a solid state. Dan’s eyes are puffy, sore, sure he’d stopped crying as soon as the cold air had bumped his face, but he feels wrecked. He might not be all there tonight, and he’ll definitely need to sleep this one off, though he doesn’t think he imagines the hallway light flickering on and off as it always does. He’s sure he turned the lights off when he left?
He’s humming a song under his breath as he climbs the stairs, stopping occasionally to steady himself against the wall. It’s Nocturne again. He keeps tripping up on the same notes that he couldn’t play earlier. A perpetual loop of failure, even in his own brain. He rounds the top of the stairs. The lights are off up here, so he reasons he must have just left the hallway one on by accident. The quiet is still there, still suffocating.
He’s still humming. He’ll play piano, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll play this song over and over again until it’s perfect. Until each note he plays is exactly where it should be.
His room is pitch black, but he doesn’t need the light on to know where the piano lives. To know how to press the keys. His eyes are throwing colourful fireworks at him, a ringing of tinnitus so loud in his ears he thinks he might not be able to hear properly ever again. Then he plays. He plays and plays, until his fingers start to ache. Until he begins to understand the music.
He doesn’t realise he’s crying until one tear runs over his lip. He licks it away and carries on regardless. He won’t sleep until he does this perfectly. Phil loves it when Dan plays piano for him, so Dan will make sure that when Phil gets back, he has a perfect song to listen to. Dan will make sure that Phil never sees him as imperfect ever again.
The next time he plays it, he does it perfectly, right down to the note.
“Dan.”
He barely hears it over the resounding note. His fingers still exactly where they are, pressing down on the keys. He’d recognise that voice even in this pitch dark, even without ever seeing his face. He would know how his name sounds from Phil’s lips in a room full of a thousand people calling out for him.
“It’s beautiful.” Phil is standing in the doorway. He hadn’t turned any lights on, so Dan hadn’t seen him approach. How long had he been there?
“I wanted it to be perfect,” Dan starts. He sniffs loudly, lightly pressing one of the keys. “I was going to wait until you got back, you know, if you got back.”
“I was always coming back.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dan says quietly. He still can’t look at him. “I thought maybe this might be it. That you’d finally had enough.”
“Oh, Daniel.” When Phil says his name like that, Dan can’t help but fall apart.
He cries properly, wet and hard and painfully. Phil doesn’t wait a second before he’s at Dan’s side. Lifting him gently off of the piano stool, guiding him to his bed. They never sleep in Dan’s room, but Phil isn’t sure they’ll make it any further. Dan sits on the edge of the bed, watching with big eyes and blown pupils as Phil stands in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” Dan whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m going to get help. I’ve got a doctor's appointment on Thursday. I’m, I’m going to fix this.” Dan’s head is in his hands now; he can’t bring himself to look at Phil when he speaks his vulnerability so loudly.
“Shh.” Phil sits next to him on the bed. Not quite close enough to touch. But close enough that Dan can feel the heat coming off of his body. “I was always coming back, Dan. I’ll always come back.”
Dan sobs. It’s unattractive and damp. Phil moves his hands away from his face, holding both of his wrists.
“I just needed some time. I wanted, I wanted to give you some space. I didn’t know what was right. I thought, if I stayed, that I would make it worse.” Phil sounds absolutely wrecked, just like Dan.
“Where did you go?” Dan knows it isn't important, really.
“I went to Brighton. To a friend.”
Dan doesn’t need to ask which friend; he knows immediately. That much is a comfort to him. That Phil had someone safe to go, somewhere with a trusted person. And that most crucially, he hadn’t been far. He hadn’t been two hundred miles away, but a mere forty. He hadn’t left Dan.
“Jesus. I’m just. It’s been so quiet here. I’ve been…just lost.” Dan admits. Heavy-hearted and sunken.
“When I got back here tonight, and you weren’t here, I thought,” Phil lets out a breathy laugh, one that doesn't quite sound like him. “I thought you’d left me.” He drops one of Dan’s hands and runs a hand through his blue-black fringe, letting it fall unceremoniously back into his eyes.
“Never.” Dan doesn’t laugh with him.
“I fucking love you, you know. I couldn’t stand to be without you for one night,” Phil smiles. “They had to stop me from getting back on the train and coming right back.”
“I didn’t sleep,” Dan smiles right back.
It’s a truce, of sorts. One that is held up with the fabric of four years of love and light. Four years of being so intrinsically infused into one another that they can’t be separated at any point. Dan will not magically make himself better. He will not heal in one night, but he will try and try, until he’s something like normal again.
Phil will stay around. He will stay even when the grey cloud is persistent and angry. He will stay a consistent presence, right there next to Dan, when all he does is stare into space. He will stay when Dan is okay and their days are filled with giggles and video games, and when they lose hours of an evening to one another.
Phil and Dan are made up of bits of each other, after all. They are a complicated puzzle so irrevocably fucked up that it could never be completed by another person, and that’s just how they like it.