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“He’s still there,” Phil Lester whispers into his phone, reporting the fact to PJ Liguori while pressing his back flat against the bedroom wall, as though brick and plaster might somehow shield him from the man currently unconscious on his sofa.
He isn’t sure what he’s expecting anymore. He’s worked up the courage to check on him three separate times now, each time holding his breath, each time rewarded with the same sight: limbs slack, chest rising steadily, utterly uninterested in waking. At this point, Phil can only hope PJ has some sort of solution to offer him. Anything would be preferable to spending Christmas Eve barricaded in his own bedroom, waiting for a stranger to leave of his own accord.
Only belatedly does Phil realise that opening with such a vague declaration - no context, no explanation - does little to convey the series of events that led him here. It also explains why PJ pauses, then asks, reasonably: “Who is?”
“The man on my couch!”
There’s another brief silence on the line, the sound of PJ presumably processing this new information before he responds, dry as ever. “What, did Santa come early to you?” he asks. “Because I didn’t wake up to anything under my tree. Or in my bed.”
Phil thinks he hears the faint, unmistakable sound of PJ’s girlfriend swatting his arm on the other end of the line, playful if reproachful. But he can’t find anything remotely funny about the situation.
“I’m not joking, Peej,” he says, low and sharp.
“I didn’t say you were,” PJ replies mildly.
“No, I mean - this isn’t something to joke about,” Phil amends, voice tight. He risks another glance around the edge of his bedroom door. The same head of dark, unruly curls is still visible above the arm of the couch. “I’m panicking. Not bragging.”
“What exactly is there to panic about?” PJ asks, and for the first time his tone softens, curiosity edging into something almost sympathetic. “Was it that bad?”
A cough bursts out of Phil before he can stop it. “No!” The word comes out sharper than intended. He presses his lips together the moment he hears it, mortified, and fixes his gaze on the couch just in time to see the man stir, rolling onto his back in vague unconscious protest.
Phil freezes. His hand remains clenched around his phone as he watches the movement settle. One arm now dangles off the side of the sofa, fingers slack. There’s a smear of colour on them, faintly brown and festive, likely the remnants of the cookies the man had been holding the last time Phil saw him awake before they’d both met an untimely end.
“No,” Phil repeats, quieter now, measured. “It wasn’t like that.” He exhales through his nose, steadying himself. “He’s my neighbour. He knocked on my door last night, and I think he was… really drunk.”
“You think?” PJ laughs. “Did he get lost and mistake your flat for his?”
“Maybe. I don’t know - he got about halfway through a sentence before throwing up all over my carpet,” He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. Recounting it now feels oddly unreal, like he’d dreamt the whole thing rather than lived it.
He’d been awake at the time, painfully so, but the speed of it all - the hour, the mess, the sheer inevitability of it - had rendered the moment almost impossible to process properly. “So I sat him on the couch while I went to get him a glass of water, and when I came back he was asleep.”
PJ’s laughter only grows, unrestrained now, and Phil is fairly certain Sophie has joined in somewhere nearby. He still can’t quite find the humour in it himself, being trapped inside the situation has a way of robbing it of charm, but hearing the two of them laugh softens something in his chest all the same. A reluctant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
He leans back against the bedroom wall again, letting out a long groan until the back of his head taps against it. “Why do these things happen to me?”
“We’ve all said it before,” PJ replies easily. “You attract weird people. Wish I could tell you why.”
Phil scoffs. “You should really think about what you’re saying. You’re literally my mate.”
“I’m weird, I don’t care,” PJ says without hesitation. “Sophie and I’ve been stuck in traffic for over an hour because yesterday we saw a plastic reindeer someone abandoned on the side of the road, and we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. We’ve named him Randolph.”
“Weirdos,” Phil mutters, though there’s fondness threaded through it.
A brief silence settles between them, the kind that invites thoughts to wander. Phil seizes the opening for the question that’s been gnawing at him. “Are most of the roads still blocked?”
He crosses the room as he speaks, careful with his footsteps - not just for the man in the next room, but because of the quiet weight of anticipation curling in his chest. He pulls the curtain back an inch.
White. Everywhere. So blindingly clean it makes him squint.
Snow continues to fall in lazy drifts, not heavy enough to feel dramatic, but persistent and patient in the way it accumulates when you’re not paying attention. What began as a novelty five days ago has quietly turned into an obstacle. Back then, he’d been delighted, giddy even. He couldn’t remember the last time it had snowed this close to Christmas, and those first short walks through it had filled him with an almost childish joy.
Now, it’s infuriating.
It clogs roads and traps cars, halts trains and grounds planes. It keeps people from their families, strands them in queues of red brake lights and apologetic announcements. It turns something meant to be magical into another thing standing stubbornly in the way.
“Yep,” PJ confirms. He sounds far less put out by it than Phil feels, almost buoyant, even. With Sophie’s family nearby and somewhere warm to end up, the inconvenience barely registers for him. “Looks like it’ll be a white Christmas.”
Phil hesitates. He doesn’t want to puncture his friend’s cheer, but the words slip out anyway, heavy and unguarded. “And a lonely one, at that.”
The line goes quiet.
After a beat, PJ asks more gently, “Are you okay, Phil?”
“No, I’ve never spent Christmas without my family,” Phil exhales, drawing the curtain closed again, shutting the snow from view. The admission settles in his chest, uncomfortable and true. “It’s my own fault, really. I should’ve booked a train sooner.”
“You couldn’t have predicted the weather. Half the time, the people who get paid to do that can’t predict it either,” PJ says at once. There’s a warmth to his voice, sincere, grounding, and Phil can picture the small, reassuring smile that must be tugging at his mouth. Despite himself, Phil mirrors it.
“Besides,” PJ adds, clearly unable to resist, “You’ve got your neighbour for company. For now, anyway.”
“Shut up,” Phil scoffs, shaking his head, though the edge of his frustration dulls just a little.
PJ huffs at his own teasing before sobering. “Seriously, Phil. Just wake him up?”
It’s exactly what Phil knew he’d say; the inevitable, sensible solution he’d both dreaded and hoped for.
He’s come close to doing it more times than he cares to admit. Each time, the same thought stops him: having to recount the chaos of last night, to ask the man to leave, all while making that moment the very first real conversation he’s ever had with his neighbour. Beyond the occasional polite nod in passing, that would be his introduction. The mortification of it is enough to make him retreat every time.
“It’ll be so awkward, though,” Phil mutters.
“More awkward for him than you,” PJ replies promptly, matter-of-fact. “I guarantee it.”
Phil can’t argue with that. The reminder, that embarrassment will be shared and not borne alone, loosens something in his chest. He exhales, resigned. “Alright.”
“Keep me updated?” PJ asks.
“You too,” Phil says, a faint smile creeping in. “Send me a picture of your newly adopted son Randolph.”
“You’re getting several,” PJ promises, laughter curling through his words.
They say their goodbyes, quick and familiar. Once the line goes dead, the flat feels quieter, emptier, without PJ’s voice anchoring him. Phil clutches his phone to his chest for a moment before peering around his bedroom doorway one last time.
Nothing’s changed. His neighbour is still asleep on the couch.
Phil approaches on socked feet, each step careful, as though sound itself might undo him. He stops at the end of the couch, looking down at the man where his head rests, and allows himself a moment to simply take him in.
Now that he’s rolled onto his back, Phil can see all of him rather than a sliver of shoulder and curls. None of it is unfamiliar, they pass each other often enough, a few times a week at least, but familiarity has never translated into conversation. They’ve always been too shy, too polite, mostly content with fleeting acknowledgments and nothing more.
His hair is dark and unruly, curls flattened in places from sleep. He’s taller than Phil, even folded awkwardly into the couch, and on the rare occasions Phil has seen him smile, dimples have appeared without fail.
Phil crouches beside the sofa and places a tentative hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle shake, then a squeeze. When that only earns him a low, disgruntled hum, Phil steels himself and tries again, less hesitant this time.
Eventually, the man stirs, lifting an arm to rub at his eyes, blinking sleep away.
“Yeah?” he yawns. His voice is rough with sleep, warm and unbothered, as though he’s just woken from the most peaceful night imaginable. Phil catches the colour of his eyes when they finally focus; brown, wide, startled. “Oh.”
“Um,” Phil manages, the word slipping out before he can stop it. “Hi.”
It’s just as awkward as he’d feared. His neighbour blinks at him for another second, clearly still trying to situate himself in both space and time. “Hello,” he says at last, bewilderment edging his voice. “What - uh - what are you doing here?”
Phil’s face pinches at that, uncertainty folding in on itself. “I think,” he says carefully, “I should be asking you that?”
The man jolts upright immediately, eyes darting around the living room as recognition dawns in fragments. This is not the flat opposite Phil’s front door.
He looks everywhere at once, taking in the framed posters crowding the walls, the cluttered surfaces piled with odd little objects, all unmistakably someone else’s life. Phil feels oddly exposed under the scrutiny, as though the room itself is confessing things he never would.
When the inventory is complete, his neighbour goes very still, staring at the wall ahead of him. “Fuck,” he mutters, the word barely audible, like it’s meant only for himself. He drags a hand through his hair, flattened on one side from sleep, fingers curling into a fist at the back of his head.
The motion seems to ground him just enough. Then he glances back at Phil, eyes wide with dawning panic.
Phil isn’t entirely sure what he’s supposed to do next. He starts to stand, then hesitates, suddenly aware of the imbalance it creates; him looming, the other man still half-folded into the couch. Instead, he busies himself by shifting a dirty mug aside and perching on the edge of the coffee table, close enough to be present without feeling imposing.
“You’re Philip, right?” the man asks, twisting to face him fully.
“Yeah,” Phil says, resisting the urge to correct the name. It feels oddly formal coming from him. “How’d you know?”
He shrugs. “I get your post sometimes.” His gaze lingers, sweeping Phil up and down with an unfiltered curiosity that mirrors the earlier inspection of the flat. There isn’t much to take in, just bed hair and a pair of Minecraft pyjamas, but something about them seems to jog his memory of basic decency. “Fuck - sorry,” he adds quickly, rubbing at his temple. “My head’s killing me. I’m Dan.”
Something softens in Phil at that. He’s often told he’s too good, too accommodating - he rarely believes it - but right now, he can almost understand why people say it. “Do you want some paracetamol?”
“If you don’t mind,” Dan says, offering a tired, grateful smile. “I usually just sleep it off.”
“Sorry I woke you.”
Dan shakes his head at once. “No - don’t. I should be the one apologising.”
Phil answers with a small nod before heading for the kitchen. He moves on instinct, opening the cupboard where he keeps his medication and selecting two paracetamol, then adding an ibuprofen for good measure. He fills a glass with water, and as he does, he leans back just enough to glance into the living room.
Dan has sunk back into the sofa, one arm draped over his eyes, the other slack at his side. He’s staring up at the ceiling as though it might offer some kind of explanation, or absolution, for how he’s ended up here.
The sight tugs at something in Phil. He thinks of PJ’s voice only minutes ago: the snow thick on the roads, a Christmas spent alone, the joke about having his neighbour as company for now. Dan is probably feeling worse than Phil ever could in this moment, trapped in a stranger’s flat with a splitting headache and the slow dread of memory returning.
That realisation settles warmly rather than uncomfortably in his chest. Before he quite knows he’s decided it, he calls out, gentle and earnest, “Do you want some coffee with it?”
“Please,” Dan calls back immediately, surprise flickering through his voice.
Phil makes them both instant coffee, the kind that’s more functional than enjoyable, and adds oat milk to each on instinct. He pauses for half a second, considering whether Dan might object, then decides to risk it. If nothing else, it feels kinder than black bitterness on top of a hangover.
When he brings the mugs back and settles at the opposite end of the couch, he watches Dan carefully as he swallows the tablets with a few gulps of coffee. There’s a fleeting moment of tension, then relief as Dan’s expression softens, visibly pleased. Phil feels an unexpected flicker of pride at that.
They sit in a quiet that’s awkward but not unbearable, both nursing their mugs, each clearly waiting for the other to speak first. Phil has just begun to think he might need to fill the silence when Dan shifts, turning to face him. Phil mirrors the movement, drawing one leg up beneath himself.
“Um. I have to ask…” Dan begins. He ducks his head slightly, and Phil has a pretty good idea where this is going before he finishes. “…did we?”
Phil coughs into the rim of his mug, heat rising to his cheeks. “No,” he says quickly, answering over the steam.
“Oh, thank God,” Dan breathes out, immediate and unguarded. Then he winces, amending himself. “I mean - not that it would’ve been a bad thing. Just… I don’t really know you that well, and I was very drunk last night.”
Phil feels the heat in his cheeks deepen at the reminder, suddenly recalling just how unsteady Dan had been when he opened the door to him. The memory only makes it worse, and when he speaks his voice comes out awkwardly stiff. “Good night?”
“It’s probably not what you’re thinking,” Dan says quickly. “A mate and I picked up the cheapest bottle of alcohol Tesco had—”
“Oh no,” Phil winces instinctively.
Dan laughs, short and self-aware. “Yeah. Exactly.” He takes another generous sip of his coffee. “We mostly just… bitched about our lives all night.”
“Right…” Phil says, eyebrow lifting at the bleakness of it, “That sounds… cathartic?”
“It was for me,” Dan shrugs, unbothered. He glances down at the chaos of Phil’s coffee table and, without ceremony, nudges a half-full mug from the night before off its coaster to claim the space for his own. “I hope I didn’t ruin yours.”
Phil shakes his head, but the question still nags at him, unresolved. “How did bitching about life end with you here?”
“That does make it sound like I was bitching about you, doesn’t it?” Dan glances over at him, a teasing smile tugging at his mouth - and there they are, unmistakable dimples. “I promise I wasn’t. You’re a good neighbour.”
It feels, suddenly, like he’s skirting the truth on purpose, dodging whatever it was that actually drove him to Phil’s door so late at night. Or maybe he’s just deflecting. Either way, Phil is unfortunately susceptible to compliments, and the distraction works. “Thank you,” he says, smiling back despite himself. “You are too.”
“Up until this point,” Dan amends lightly.
He leans back then, apparently forgetting that their earlier shift has left nothing but the arm of the sofa behind him. He ends up more sprawled than seated, the position clearly uncomfortable.
Phil, out of a mix of politeness and pity, says nothing. Dan catches his eye anyway, fixing him with a look that silently pleads for mercy or dignity, if nothing else.
Phil obliges. Mostly. He just raises an eyebrow, which seems to say enough.
“I think…” Dan begins slowly, eyes flicking up toward the ceiling as if the answer might be written there. “I remember having the brilliant idea to give you back your post?”
The hesitation, the careful pauses between words, make it sound entirely improvised. Assembled in real time and only barely convincing.
“You usually just slip it under my door,” Phil says, genuinely puzzled. It’s true, he’s never even realised Dan sometimes ends up with his post, given that it always appears on his floor without ceremony.
Dan shrugs again, a little sheepish. “Well… I just thought, since it’s practically Christmas and all…”
That’s enough to make the smile on Phil’s face spread, tugging at his cheeks despite his best effort to keep it contained. “Is that really what happened?”
“Yeah,” Dan says, just a touch too quietly, his gaze drifting around the living room again as if the walls might come to his rescue.
Phil follows his lead, but pointedly. He twists in his seat, exaggerating the motion, peering behind himself and even craning his neck toward the front door. The floor there is conspicuously empty: no envelopes, no parcels, nothing tucked away anywhere else either.
He looks back at Dan, eyebrow arched, a playful glint in his eye.
“Where’s my post, then?”
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
In hindsight, Dan Howell had been uncertain from the very beginning about how Louise Pentland thought getting drunk while blasting Christmas music on repeat would somehow force him into the festive spirit. Still, he could sympathise. Louise was the kind of person who felt Christmas the moment November arrived and enduring a friend who could be favourably compared to the Grinch was, no doubt, a trial in itself.
The truth was, Dan hadn’t really felt festive since adolescence. Since the novelty of Santa and elves, of believing in something harmless and magical, had worn thin. Christmas had long since lost its shine, reduced instead to obligation and expectation and a faint, persistent sense of disappointment.
Even so, he hadn’t denied Louise the small hope that the night might work. If nothing else, it meant spending Christmas Eve Eve with a friend, armed with cheap alcohol and the promise of conversations he could later pretend had never happened.
And really, there was a lot he needed to talk about.
“I’m such a poor example of a gay guy,” Dan had announced, slumped dramatically against his kitchen counter, Mariah Carey belting relentlessly.
Louise frowned at him, immediately, and shoved the bottle of spirits into his hands like it might counteract the thought. “Don’t say that,” she scolded. “It sounds like you’re insulting yourself.”
“I am,” Dan says, lifting the bottle to his lips and taking a long pull. The burn hits his throat fast and unforgivingly. He’s not sure whether the sigh that escapes him afterward is because of that, or because admitting the far more embarrassing, humiliating truth is suddenly unavoidable.
He has the most mortifying, teenage-level crush on his neighbour.
“It should be simple.”
“Well, it hasn’t been for you,” Louise replies gently, because it’s true. Years ago, even recognising attraction towards a male would have sent him spiralling. Now it’s worse in a different way: he allows himself to feel it, but has absolutely no idea what to do with it.
George Michael croons somewhere in the background, perfectly unhelpful. Dan sighs again. “I need an excuse to talk to him.”
He passes the bottle back to Louise, silently hoping that if she gets drunk enough, she’ll produce a better idea than simply trying to drown him in Christmas spirit.
“Is it too late to welcome him to the building?” she suggests.
Dan hates that he actually considers it. “I think so,” he says slowly. “He moved in a few months ago…”
“How many is a few?”
“At least four,” Dan admits. “Give or take.”
Louise scrunches her face, and Dan’s stomach sinks despite already knowing exactly what that expression means. “If it were three, you might’ve gotten away with it,” she says. Then, inevitably, she asks the question he’s been avoiding himself. “Why didn’t you do it then?”
“Because I didn’t want to,” Dan replies simply, without apology.
He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. He’s never been what anyone would call extroverted, or even especially sociable. Solitude had always come easily to him, comfortably, inevitably. Letting people in had been a slower, more deliberate process, one he’d only recently begun to attempt in earnest.
“But then he started smiling and waving at me and shit.”
“Well, there goes my next brilliant suggestion of introducing yourself the next time you see him,” Louise huffs, throwing her hands up, careful not to slosh the bottle she’s holding. “I thought this was a ‘he doesn’t know I exist’ situation.”
“Oh, he knows I exist,” Dan says, breaking into laughter at the idea. “I make sure I wander directly into his line of sight at least once a week.”
“Then I’m genuinely confused,” Louise says, setting the bottle down on the counter behind her before stepping closer. “What’s stopping him?”
“Him?” Dan echoes.
“Yes - him,” she insists. “Why hasn’t he introduced himself to you yet?”
“I think he’s just as antisocial as I am,” Dan says plainly. Then he winces at the next thought as it leaves his mouth. “And if he isn’t… maybe he just doesn’t want to be friends.”
Louise scoffs, lips curling as she repeats the word. “Friends.”
“We can’t just assume the feeling’s mutual, Louise,” Dan says, rubbing at his temple. “He might not think I’m attractive.”
“Shut up. Actually, shut up,” Louise demands at once, eyes squeezing shut as she lifts her hands like she’s trying to physically ward off the sentence. Dan rolls his eyes, though he can’t stop the helpless smile that tugs at his mouth. “Who the fuck doesn’t think you’re attractive?”
Dan starts counting on his fingers. “Lesbians. Straight men—” He pauses on the second finger, faltering as he replays a few very specific memories. “Wait, no. He’s definitely not straight.”
Louise’s eyes snap open. “How do you know?”
“He wears weird shirts with gay euphemisms on them.”
“In public?” Louise grins, laughter spilling out, sweetened by alcohol. “He s—”
“A proud homosexual,” Dan finishes for her, shaking his head. A parade of questionable fashion choices flashes through his mind.
Just over a week ago, he’d watched Phil come home juggling two brown paper bags, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with two pigeons kissing. The implication hadn’t exactly been subtle that they were gay pigeons, especially not with the caption spelling it out beneath them. “I’m pretty sure one of them literally said that.”
Louise shakes her head, still smiling. “I was actually going to say he sounds a bit weird.”
Something in Dan’s expression must give him away, because she pauses. It’s not really his place to feel defensive, he knows that, but the comment lands oddly. Especially coming from her. If anything, this entire conversation is proof that they are far weirder than most.
He rolls his eyes, reaching for the bottle and taking a quick sip before pointing it at her in warning. “Don’t insult him. He’s nice.”
Louise’s eyebrows shoot up. “So you have spoken to him?”
“He said good morning to me once.”
She bursts into laughter. “Wow. He wants you so bad.”
Dan suspects she’s well past tipsy now, given how delighted she seems by his spiralling internal dilemma. He’s probably not far behind himself, evidenced by the fact that Michael Bublé crooning through the speakers barely registers anymore.
For a moment, he just watches her, still giggling at their shared theatrics. Then the laughter drains out of him, replaced by something quieter and more earnest. He sighs, frowning with the weight of it all; the absurdity of liking someone this much without even having the courage, or the excuse, to speak to him. “
Seriously, Louise,” he says softly. “He’s really nice.”
Louise meets his gaze, her own sigh following, amusement dimming into something more thoughtful. “I’m sure,” she says gently. “I only meant that the weird fashion sense makes me want to meet him even more.”
It’s nothing Dan doesn’t already know. What he’s really trying to say, without quite managing it, is that he doesn’t want to ruin anything. Phil seems kind, and Dan has a long, frustrating history of somehow messing things up despite his best intentions.
They lapse into silence as the next song drifts through the flat, though Christmas itself is the furthest thing from either of their minds. Instead, they circle the same question: whether this polite, distant, neighbourly stalemate could ever shift into something more.
Louise frowns once. Then twice. Then her eyes widened.
“Wait,” she says suddenly. “Oh my God. I’ve got it.”
“What?” Dan asks warily.
She grins and steps closer, reaching out until her hands land on his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. “We take shifts watching his door. And the next time he leaves, I coincidentally leave at the same time and introduce myself as your friend,” she says brightly. “Boom. You’ve got an in.”
Dan can’t stop his expression from twisting into something deeply concerned. “That’s… good,” he says carefully, “if we take out the taking shifts watching his door part.” He scoffs, pointing at her lightly. “I think that’s, like, borderline stalking?”
Louise levels him with a look that communicates far more than words ever could. Apparently, glancing out of his own window does not constitute crossing any lines, and she will not be hearing arguments to the contrary.
“What? I’ve been respectful,” Dan protests.
“Didn’t you find his name by searching his surname on Facebook?” she asks. It’s framed like a question, but they both know better. It’s a statement. A reminder.
Dan grimaces. In his defence, it wasn’t his proudest moment, and he certainly hadn’t typed LESTER into the search bar expecting anything useful to actually come up.
Still, his cheeks warm with embarrassment. He’d confessed that particular sin during a previous drinking session, one he’d promptly denied the following morning. Evidently, his strategy of saying things he’d never admit sober had failed him spectacularly. He takes it on the chin.
“Yeah,” he concedes, “but I didn’t go through his mum’s profile or anything. And it was an old Facebook.”
“I think it being an old one actually makes it worse,” Louise says with a grin. “Can I see it?”
“You’re just as bad as I am,” Dan mutters.
“Cheers to that!” She claps once, triumphant, then promptly steals the bottle from his hands and rummages through his cupboard for mugs.
He had forgotten to turn the dishwasher on this morning, hence the mugs rather than their usual glasses. She pours only a modest splash of spirits into each and hands one to him. They clink them together, both visibly aware that drinking alcohol out of mugs feels vaguely wrong.
Mid-sip, a bright little chime rings out from the other side of the counter. Louise leans over to check her phone, and they both blink when she reads the time.
“Oh - mmph. God, that’s flown by,” she says around a mouthful. “I’d better head off. That elf on the shelf doesn’t move itself.”
“It doesn’t?” Dan smirks. Then, softer, “I’ll call you a taxi.”
He does, tapping away on his phone while Louise pulls on her boots by the door, bracing herself for the thick blanket of snow that’s settled over the city in the past few days. She buttons her coat right up to her chin and fishes a pair of gloves from her pocket, tugging them on to guard against the sharp cold that had brought the snowfall with it.
As she threads her thumbs through the holes of her gloves, she looks back at him with a small, fond smile. “You’ll ring me on Christmas, yeah?” Then, lightly teasing, “Feeling festive yet?”
“No,” Dan answers without hesitation.
They both knew better than to expect otherwise. You can’t force cheer where it doesn’t want to live.
“But,” he adds, “I will put you on my ever-growing list of people to call and wish a merry Christmas.”
“Put me at number one,” she says.
“Two,” Dan corrects easily. “Grandma comes first.” He pauses, then amends, “Possibly three, actually. For my mum’s sanity.”
Louise’s smile softens into something sympathetic. “You’re going to be okay here on your own, though, right?”
Dan shrugs, because the honest answer is that he isn’t sure. Christmas with his family is often a tangle of affection and quiet tension, something he both anticipates and dreads. But with trains delayed by the weather, motorways iced over and clogged with accidents, that familiar stress has shifted into something else entirely: the hollow weight of not seeing them at all.
For all that he claims not to care much about it, Dan knows Christmas is more than the noise surrounding it, more than Santa and elves and forced cheer. His grandma would say it’s about the birth of Christ, and maybe she’s right, but to Dan it’s something quieter and broader than that. It’s the way families and friends are pulled back into one another’s orbit, if only briefly.
Realising that won’t happen for him this year leaves a hollow ache behind his ribs, lonelier than he usually allows himself to feel.
Still, he reassures Louise anyway. She’s a good friend, and he doesn’t want her carrying worry for him into her own Christmas. “I’ll be fine,” he says, offering a small, lopsided smile. “You know how much I enjoy my own company.”
“I know,” she replies, tilting her head, clearly unconvinced but choosing to accept it all the same. “But I don’t think anyone really does on Christmas Day.” Then, gently, “The offer still stands, you know. Dinner at ours.”
Dan shakes his head. He’s already declined more times than he can count. As lovely as it sounds, he can’t shake the feeling that he’d be intruding; Louise has a husband, a child, a small, complete orbit of love. “That’s alright,” he says sincerely. “Thank you.”
He holds the door open for her into the narrow hallway of the building. Phil’s door sits directly opposite his own, familiar and unassuming, and they both pointedly ignore it as they make their way down the stairs toward the exit.
The moment Louise steps outside, a brutal gust of wind and snow rushes in after her, biting and relentless. Dan hunches instinctively, arms folding tight against his chest as the cold claws at him. He can barely hear her over it. “You should bake some biscuits and say you made too many,” she shouts, rolling her eyes when he visibly recoils. “It’s neighbourly. It’s Christmas.”
“I’m shit at baking,” he calls back.
“Then buy some and put them on a plate,” she fires back without missing a beat. “He’ll never know.”
Dan hesitates. It feels ridiculous. It also, annoyingly, feels clever. “That’s… genuinely genius,” he admits, and Louise beams at him like she’s won something.
She waves him off and disappears into the snow toward her taxi. Once the door swings shut behind her and the quiet returns, Dan climbs the stairs and lets himself back into the warmth of his flat. He turns the radiators up a notch, welcoming the slow bloom of heat as it chases the cold from his skin, and, before he can overthink it, orders a box of cookies from the nearest place still open.
Fortunately, there’s a Subway nearby that doesn’t close for another hour. He briefly considers the teenagers working the late shift doomed to receive an order mere minutes before closing, but only briefly. Subway cookies are, marginally, the best, and desperation trumps guilt.
While he waits, he finishes off what remains of the bottle he and Louise never quite conquered; just under half. He knows he shouldn’t. He also knows that courage has never been something he’s had in abundance while sober. He doesn’t feel particularly tipsy, and if he’s going to knock on Phil Lester’s door, he’ll need at least a little extra chemical assistance.
By the time the cookies arrive, he’s well past the point of accurately gauging his own sobriety.
He has hazy impressions afterward; warming the cookies in the oven for a minute, just long enough to suggest effort. Crossing the flat with less balance than dignity. Standing on the opposite side of the building, heart pounding, knocking on Phil’s door with what he thinks is confidence.
Everything else is gone.
There’s something undeniably funny about all of this, now that Dan is clearly trapped in the realisation that Phil is not nearly as oblivious as he’d perhaps hoped. The proof of it is written all over his face; how he stiffens where he’s slouched on the couch, guilt and something like shame flickering across his features before his eyes finally lift to meet Phil’s. It’s enough to send Phil into genuine laughter, warm and unrestrained.
That laughter seems to do something for Dan. It softens him. Phil can see it in the way he relaxes again, reassured by the sound, by the smile, by the unmistakable sense that Phil isn’t actually upset about his missing post, if there ever was any to begin with. Or maybe it’s simply the ease of it all, the way humour slips in and dissolves the tension neither of them seems capable of holding for long.
“I must’ve lost it somewhere between knocking on your door and coming inside?” Dan says, attempting a joke. Then he pauses, brow furrowing as realisation catches up with him. Phil watches the exact moment it lands. “Why did you even let me come inside in the first place?”
Phil drags a hand down his face, trying and failing to smother his laughter.
He doesn’t particularly want to explain the real reason now that they’ve both relaxed into each other’s company. It’s guaranteed to mortify Dan. Still, there isn’t an honest way around it, and lying - tempting as it is - is something Phil usually reserves for misremembered history facts and harmless anecdotes.
“Well,” he says carefully, “You threw up on me.”
“I - what?!” Dan blurts, a hand flying to his mouth as if he might still be able to contain last night’s crimes. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not, I’m afraid.”
Dan groans and folds in on himself, both hands coming up to cover his face. “As if this couldn’t get any worse,” he mutters, mostly to the space between his palms.
After a moment, he peeks through his fingers at Phil, eyes wide with horror. “I’m so sorry. That’s… revolting.”
“A bit,” Phil agrees, though there’s no real bite to it. What he’d cared about at the time wasn’t the mess; it was Dan, unsteady and clearly worse for wear.
He doesn’t say that out loud. Maybe he should have, though, for Dan sighs. “You’re meant to make me feel better about it.”
“Oh - sorry, am I?” Phil asks, a little too earnestly, suddenly worried he’s missed a social cue. Only after Dan’s expression softens does he realise it had been a joke, or at least half of one. He relaxes, offers a small, placating smile. “It happens to the best of us?”
Dan lifts an eyebrow, sceptical. “Does it?”
“I get motion sickness from VR headsets,” Phil confesses, then, after a pause that suggests he’s already said too much, adds, “Do you want to know how I found that out?”
“Not really,” Dan snorts, the sound airy and fond as his hands fall back into his lap. “But… thank you.”
They sit together a moment longer, the silence no longer awkward, just thin, companionable. Phil finishes the last of his coffee, noting absently that Dan’s mug has been abandoned on the table, forgotten.
Ordinarily, this would be the point where someone stood, murmured an excuse, and left. But Dan doesn’t. He stays, fingers worrying at a loose thread on the hem of his jumper, waiting without quite saying so. Phil watches him and realises, with some quiet surprise, that he doesn’t mind at all - certainly not as much as he’d feared he would when he woke up to find him there that morning.
Still, he makes a slightly exaggerated little hum as he sets his mug down on the coffee table, as if to punctuate the moment. He should probably be thinking about breakfast by now, his stomach has been nudging at him for a while, and he briefly considers whether it would be polite to offer Dan something too, even if it’s edging closer to lunchtime.
He’s just about to say as much, mostly to fill the silence that’s begun to stretch again, when Dan shifts on the couch.
“I really am sorry for the trouble,” he says quietly. His fingers are still worrying the hem of his jumper, eyes fixed on it as though it might offer absolution. “I’m not usually… this much of a mess.”
Phil frowns, genuinely perplexed. “What do you mean?” he asks. “I don’t think you’re a mess at all.”
Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling again, effortlessly. “Shit,” he says, soft and almost fond. “You really are nice.”
The compliment catches Phil off guard enough that he looks away, heat creeping into his cheeks before he can stop it. When he glances back, Dan is watching him; face carefully neutral, eyes open in a way that feels like an invitation Phil doesn’t quite know how to accept. Dan seems to realise this too, because a second later he’s startled, pushing himself to his feet.
“I better get going,” he says, already half-retreating. “Thanks again.”
The feeling hits Phil all at once - sharp and unexpected - the sudden, unreasonable certainty that he doesn’t want Dan to leave. There’s something about the way Dan had looked at him just then, open and uncertain, that tugs uncomfortably at Phil’s chest. He doesn’t want this, that, to become the thing Dan remembers when he thinks of him. The embarrassment, the accident, the awkwardness of it all. He doesn’t want it to be a full stop.
Because the truth is, Phil has always noticed him. Those small, almost incidental moments; their doors opening at the same time, one of them arriving as the other leaves, a shared nod or quiet smile in the hallway. They have a way of brightening even the worst days.
Lately, Phil has been clinging to those moments more than he’d like to admit. He doesn’t want to lose them now, not when the world already feels so narrowed by cold and snow and solitude.
So, just as Dan is about to pass him, he speaks, the words tumbling out before he has time to reconsider. “You’ll have to make it up to me sometime.”
Dan stops. Turns back. Blinks, like the sentence needs decoding. “How?”
Phil shrugs, hoping the casualness will disguise the nervous flutter underneath it. “I like food,” he says simply.
“You want me to buy you food.” Dan says slowly,
Phil’s mouth quirks. “Those cookies looked really good. Right up until you were sick on them.”
“Don’t remind me,” Dan groans, though the grin is already back, soft and almost self-deprecating. He doesn’t look away this time, just studies Phil as if weighing something up, an idea settling into place. He goes oddly still, then says, “You could come over to mine. I could cook something for you.”
It isn’t what Phil had been expecting. He’d imagined takeaway at most, something impersonal, an easy out. Not this. Not an invitation that implies time, proximity, the quiet intimacy of being in someone else’s kitchen. And yet, it’s exactly what he’d wanted a moment ago, when the thought of Dan leaving had felt wrong in a way he hadn’t been able to articulate.
He hesitates, more surprised than unwilling. It’s Christmas Eve, after all; people usually have plans, errands, obligations. Phil realises he’s been assuming Dan does too, without any real reason.
“Are you… not busy?” he asks, careful, even though the invitation had been Dan’s to begin with.
“No,” Dan says simply. Then, after a fraction of a second, he adds, “...Are you?”
Phil shakes his head, a smile pulling at his mouth before he quite realises it’s there. “Not at all.”
A quiet pause settles between them; not uncomfortable this time, just careful, like both of them are aware something has shifted and don’t want to move too fast and scare it off.
“Can I have an hour to get ready?” Dan asks.
“Yeah,” Phil says easily, then glances down at himself; rumpled, sleep-soft, unmistakably still half in bed. He feels his cheeks warm. “I probably should too.”
Dan laughs at that, low and genuine, already backing toward the door. Phil still hears it as the door opens, along with, “Keep the pyjamas,” and then, after a beat, “I’ll put some on too,” before the door shuts and Dan is gone, leaving behind only the faint echo of his presence and an empty mug on the table.
Phil gathers it with the others and rinses them under the tap, loading them into the dishwasher along with the rest of last night’s neglected clutter. Once it’s humming quietly to itself, he turns his attention inward; toward the shower, toward waking himself up properly. And though Dan had told him to keep the pyjamas, Phil decides it’s best to change into a fresh pair anyway. Clean, comfortable, familiar. Pyjamas all the same.
His bedroom isn’t in much better shape than the rest of the flat, and while he’s rummaging through his drawers for a clean pair, he ends up straightening it almost absentmindedly; folding a hoodie, stacking a few books, nudging discarded socks into a corner where they’ll at least pretend to be dealt with later. It strikes him as faintly ironic; most people tidy before company arrives, not after. Still, it feels oddly calming.
On his way to return something to its rightful place, his attention catches on the cupboard beneath the television, the one crammed with games, controllers, half-forgotten consoles, and board games with worn boxes and missing instruction leaflets he knows by heart anyway.
Conversation, he’s learned this morning, is something they can manage. But he can’t see the harm in bringing a couple along, just in case Dan wants something to do with his hands while they eat. Or in case Phil does.
He tears himself away before he can overthink it and steps into the shower, steam curling around him as he hums absently to whatever tune drifts into his head. Halfway through, over the rush of water, he hears his phone chime from the sink.
When he checks it, it’s PJ.
PJ: update?
Phil exhales a laugh. He had said he would.
Phil: hes gone
He hesitates, thumb hovering, already anticipating the follow-up he knows is coming.
Phil: im going to his now tho
PJ: what
Phil: hes making me dinner as a thank u
There’s a pause after that, long enough that by the time Phil steps out of the shower and towels his hair dry, PJ is still hovering in that familiar typing limbo. Eventually, the reply comes through.
PJ: that kind of sounds like a date
Phil: we dont really know each other
PJ: a blind date then
Phil: its not blind. I know what he looks like
PJ: :face-with-rolling-eyes:
have fun. dont get poisoned
An image follows: Randolph the plastic reindeer perched proudly on PJ’s dining table, Sophie leaning in beside him with a paintbrush, carefully restoring his red nose. Phil rolls his eyes, fond despite himself, and locks his phone before pulling on fresh clothes.
By the time he’s ready, the hour has slipped by with only a few minutes to spare. He gathers the small stack of games he’d set aside, tucks them under his arm, and slips on his shoes. The journey to Dan’s flat amounting to little more than a handful of steps and a surprisingly loud heartbeat.
He knocks with his elbow, careful not to drop anything.
The door opens almost immediately. Dan stands there much as he’d left him, hair still doing whatever it wants, face a little too expressive to hide anything. But true to his word, he’s changed into pyjamas of his own.
“Hi,” He says, the word carrying the same tentative warmth it had that morning. His eyes flick down to the boxes in Phil’s arms before he steps aside. “Come in.”
Phil steps inside, the door clicking shut behind him, and is struck almost immediately by the familiarity of it.
Dan’s flat mirrors his own in layout and spirit - same bones, same quiet London practicality - but where Phil’s tends toward gentle chaos, Dan’s feels curated. Cleaner. Tidier. Still unmistakably lived-in, though: books stacked with intent rather than precision, a scattering of miscellaneous objects that suggest hobbies picked up and abandoned, reclaimed, reconsidered.
It feels personal without being performative, and Phil resists the urge to comment, too busy matching Dan’s pace as they move through the space.
They end up in the kitchen, where the small table is pushed flush against the wall. Dan gestures for him to set the games down there, and Phil feels the weight of Dan’s attention lingering at his shoulder as he does.
When he turns, Dan is leaning back against the counter, arms braced behind him, looking of all things slightly sheepish.
“I may have… massively overestimated how much food I actually have,” he admits in one breath, like a confession he’s been rehearsing and just wants done with.
Phil lifts an eyebrow, folding his arms as he mirrors the lean against the table. Dan worries the inside of his cheek, the two of them suspended in that quiet, wordless exchange where posture says more than speech.
Then Dan pushes off the counter and opens the fridge, followed by the freezer, as if presenting evidence.
The result is endearingly bleak: a solitary pizza box wedged onto a shelf, a couple of half-forgotten Chinese takeaway containers, a precarious assortment of potato and sweet potato fries in the freezer drawer. The basics are there; milk, cheese, and butter, all surviving faithfully. But nothing that quite resembles a plan.
“We could do picky bits,” Phil offers, stepping closer to peer into the fridge again. His gaze lingers on the door shelves; an impressive lineup of sauces in various stages of neglect and a half-drunk bottle of cherry Coke.
“Picky bits?”
“Yeah,” Phil says. “You just put a load of random things together and pick at whatever you fancy. We did it a lot when I was growing up.”
Dan tilts his head, studying Phil with open suspicion, like he’s just announced a cultural phenomenon he has somehow missed entirely. “Where are you from?”
“Rawtenstall,” Phil replies, glancing back at him. “Town in Lancashire. You?”
“Near Reading,” Dan says, already moving. He reaches into the freezer for the two bags of chips, then grabs the pizza from the fridge in one decisive sweep, nearly colliding with Phil in the cramped space.
Phil laughs softly and retreats a step, taking it as his cue to get out of the way. Helping himself to someone else’s cupboards feels oddly intimate, like crossing a line he’s not sure they’ve agreed exists yet. He settles instead by the table, watching as Dan rummages with his back turned, doors opening and closing in quick succession.
“Is that a northern thing?” he asks, voice slightly muffled as he leans into a lower cupboard.
“I don’t think so,” Phil says, craning his neck to see what Dan’s unearthing. “More of a ‘mum couldn’t be arsed to cook’ thing.”
Dan resurfaces with a half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives and two lemon Mr Kipling slices still sealed together, triumph flickering briefly across his face. He drops them onto the counter among the cold takeaway cartons and the general sense of improvisation, and Phil can’t help the laugh that threatens to spill out - especially when Dan immediately turns back to open yet another cupboard, as if the kitchen might still surprise them both.
Phil amuses himself by guessing what might come next in the scavenger hunt - an out-of-date tin of beans, a lone sachet of gravy granules - but this time Dan only retrieves a baking tray and two mismatched plates.
The sweet potato fries and the regular ones are dumped together without ceremony, the tray rattling as Dan slides it into place.
When he’s done, he steps back and plants his hands on his hips, surveying the arrangement like someone who has committed fully to a bad idea and with the chaos temporarily complete, Phil drifts to join him.
“How does this compare to your childhood?” Dan asks, gesturing vaguely at the chaotic spread.
Phil laughs then, easy and genuine. “Needs more beige,” he says. “And at least one thing no one remembers buying.”
For reasons he doesn’t immediately understand, that sends Dan straight back into the cupboards. Just as Phil opens his mouth to backtrack and insist that he was only joking, that it already looks good to him; Dan resurfaces holding a dark, vaguely threatening contraption.
Phil recognises it instantly.
“Toastie machine,” Dan confirms, already plugging it in. He turns to the bread bin and produces a loaf of Sainsbury’s sourdough, selecting the larger slices for himself with zero shame. “I have literally no idea where it came from.”
Phil’s attention follows him until cheese becomes the next thing he reaches for. He winces, the confession forming reluctantly. “There’s a problem,” he says, tentative enough to soften the blow. “…I hate cheese.”
Dan freezes mid-assembly and turns on him slowly, horror written plainly across his face. “Phil, what the fuck,” he says, voice rising with genuine disbelief. It’s a reaction Phil is well acquainted with; apparently, disliking something as sacred and universal as cheese is a personal affront to most people. “How can you hate cheese?”
Phil only shrugs, helpless and unapologetic. Dan studies him with narrowed eyes.
“Right,” he says at last, resolving the matter with exaggerated finality. “You can have cold, plain toast.”
He slots Phil’s smaller slices into the regular toaster, returns to his own considerably more ambitious toastie construction, and leans back against the counter.
Together they wait: for the chips to finish in the oven, for the toastie machine to begin its inevitable protest, for the toaster to threaten smoke before surrendering its prize.
It doesn’t take long at all, but by the time they transfer everything to Dan’s modest little table it already looks as though it might collapse under the commitment. Food is crammed together in cheerful disarray: the pizza box hangs precariously over the edge, plates are wedged wherever they’ll fit, and there’s scarcely any room left to even consider the board games Phil brought with him.
Dan solves this by dragging a chair to the head of the table, using it as an improvised extension of surface space with quiet determination.
“Don’t go so easy on the butter, at least,” Phil says with a smirk as he takes his seat, watching Dan slather his two slices of toast. Dan doesn’t, though he does it with a sort of begrudging exaggeration as if making a point, before dropping the toast onto his plate and flopping dramatically into the chair opposite Phil.
He immediately starts picking at the spread: cold pepperoni pizza, garlic broccoli, udon noodles, chocolate digestives, Mr Kipling slices, and mugs filled with the remnants of cherry Coke. It’s chaotic and mismatched and oddly perfect.
Phil knows it isn’t intentional, but the scene tugs at something tender in him. He’s been missing his mum more than he’s let himself admit, and this reminds him of her in a way he can’t quite place.
He’s quietly glad he isn’t alone, even if his company is new and a little nerve-racking. He concentrates perhaps too hard on keeping his feet tucked in, hyper-aware of how close they are beneath the table, terrified of an accidental brush that might startle them both.
“What’ve you brought, then?” Dan asks around a mouthful of food, words slightly muffled and entirely unapologetic.
Unlike Phil, he seems blissfully unconcerned with how little space there is between them. He leans down to paw through the chair stacked with games, and Phil is almost certain the fabric of their pyjama bottoms brushes in the process. He pointedly does not acknowledge it.
“Just the classics,” Phil says, focusing very deliberately on his cold noodles. “Cluedo, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit—”
“This is not the Trivial Pursuit I know.”
“That’s because it’s a special edition. All the questions are about horror films.”
Dan’s eyes light up immediately, mischief sparking across his face as he looks up. “Are you competitive?”
Phil’s answering smirk comes easily, instinctively. He leans back in his chair so the words land with intent. “Very.”
“Good,” Dan says simply, clapping his hands together to rid them of crumbs before reaching for the box. He starts setting the game up with exaggerated seriousness. “Because I watched the first Saw in cinemas, and I need a worthy opponent, Lester.”
Phil snorts, entirely missing the fact that Dan has apparently memorised his surname. “I saw The Sixth Sense.”
What follows can only be described as chaos. Or, more accurately, gleeful immaturity.
Neither of them backs down on their competitive streak, and for a while they’re no longer tentative neighbours or accidental dinner companions but full-blown rivals - an abrupt leap that somehow feels like the first step into something inevitable.
They learn each other quickly: the scowl that means the answer is right, the dramatic sigh that signals a bluff, the increasingly loud accusations of you’re reading that wrong and develop a language of their own. One that's made up of shouting, laughing, talking over each other while somehow still listening intently.
Dan is loud. Phil had suspected as much; there have been plenty of nights where his own flat is steeped in silence, only to be pierced by sudden, inexplicable yelling through the wall. Hearing it up close is something else entirely. His ears don’t bleed so much as plead, whether for mercy or for more, Phil isn’t sure, because he can’t stop finding it endlessly entertaining.
At one point, Dan is stalled on a question about what animal is strongly implied to be the Devil in disguise in The Witch. He hesitates long enough that Phil starts humming a ridiculous game-show countdown, tapping his fingers against the table for emphasis.
Before the final note can escape him, Dan is on his feet, snatching the card straight out of Phil’s hand. “Shut the fuck up!” he yells.
Phil laughs so hard he has to lean back in his chair, breathless, entirely forgetting his earlier carefulness. When Dan drops back into his seat, having flung the card somewhere onto the floor, they collide under the table, legs tangling without ceremony. Neither of them pulls away. They play footsie for the rest of the game, deliberate or not, and no one comments on it.
Somehow, despite all odds and distractions, Dan still wins.
Phil lets him boast, if only for the privilege of watching him do it. Despite how invested he’d been in the game he finds he isn’t particularly upset about losing, not when Dan is grinning like that, smug and bright and entirely too pleased with himself.
“Do you want to play one of my games now?” he asks. The grin lingers as it turns toward Phil, for no obvious reason - or at least none Phil can immediately place. Then it softens, settling into something more thoughtful as he adds, “Or do you need to get back?”
Phil knows he probably should. Dinner’s finished, the game’s over, and they’ve drifted well past the point where politeness would have excused him. That, he suspects, is exactly why Dan is asking. And yet, there it is again; that familiar, insistent pull, only this time it’s aimed squarely at himself. He doesn’t want to leave.
The thought lands fully formed, and once it does, he realises there’s no real reason to ignore it. He has nowhere else to be, no plans waiting, no obligation tugging him home. If he hadn’t woken up to Dan on his couch that morning, his day would’ve been quiet and unremarkable; he’s fairly sure Dan’s would have been the same. Neither of them has anything better to do than this, than sharing the evening, Christmas Eve of all nights, in unexpected company.
“That depends what you’ve got,” he decides, his smile gentle and sincere.
Dan beams in response, already pushing back his chair and standing. Phil rises with him without thinking, following his instinct.
They abandon the wreckage they’ve left in the kitchen, something Phil quietly vows to help clean up later, and migrate to the living room instead.
“Nothing as good as horror Trivial Pursuit,” Dan says over his shoulder, gesturing for Phil to sit on the couch. A thick blanket is draped over the back, and Phil no longer feels shy enough to ask permission; he pulls it around himself, settling into a comfortable cocoon. “But I think I’ve got a few card games knocking about.”
Dan rummages through a couple of drawers while Phil watches, warm and content, until he resurfaces victorious with a small stack of boxes. He fans them out: classic Uno, Cards Against Humanity, Exploding Kittens - but one title catches Phil’s eye.
“What’s Sip or Spill?” he asks.
Dan’s mouth curls instantly into a smirk. “Do you drink?”
“Yeah?” Phil replies, eyebrow lifting. “I’m a bit of a lightweight, though.”
“That’s fine. We can share a glass,” Dan says, leaving no room for argument as he disappears back into the kitchen and returns a moment later with a glass of what Phil’s brain initially insists is Ribena, until the more adult part of him recognises it as red wine.
Dan settles back onto the couch. “Although… fair warning,” he adds lightly, “you might be sipping a lot. This isn’t exactly the ideal game for strangers.”
“I don’t think we’re strangers,” Phil says softly. “Not after last night.”
Dan huffs out a breath that might be a laugh, might be a concession. He opens the pink box, revealing two neatly separated decks, each labelled exactly as the title promises.
“No,” he admits, glancing down at his hands. “You’re right. Not even my closest friends see me like that.” The words come with a sigh, half self-deprecating, half sincere.
He drops down onto the couch beside Phil, close enough that their shoulders nearly touch. Whatever unspoken agreement has settled between them seems to extend to the blanket too; Dan tugs a corner of it over his own legs, unapologetically sharing the warmth.
The cards are placed on the coffee table. Dan pauses, considering Phil with a thoughtful tilt of his head. “Acquaintances, then?”
He says it lightly, but there’s something teasing underneath, something almost challenging; like he’s daring Phil to contradict him, to reach further.
Phil considers it, lips pressing together in mock seriousness.
“For the purposes of the game?” he says. “Girlfriends. For now.”
Dan snorts, delighted, and flicks a card from the deck. The box does, after all, declare it a girls’ night game.
They put the television on mostly for something to fill the quiet in between questions, Dan half-reaching for the remote with the intention of throwing on lo-fi or whatever ambient nonsense YouTube decided they needed. He doesn’t quite get that far. Christmas Eve has other ideas, and every channel seems determined to outdo the last with festive programming until they land, inevitably, on The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Phil becomes acutely aware of Kermit the Frog the exact moment he clears his throat and reads the first card aloud, pre-warned tone and all.
“Have you ever squirted?” He pauses, then adds dutifully, “If yes - lol nice?”
There’s a beat. One, two. They stare at each other.
Then both of them completely lose it.
Phil bends forward, laughter punching out of him as he covers his face. “Dan. Why do you own this?”
Dan wheezes, clutching his side. “I love women—” he manages, still laughing, before abruptly stopping when Phil looks up at him, eyebrow raised entirely by accident. “Phil!”
“What?” Phil says, genuinely baffled.
“Why did you look at me like that?”
“I didn’t look at you like anything,” Phil replies, honest to the bone. And he hadn’t, at least, not consciously. If there’s a flicker of thought somewhere in the back of his mind about the possibility that Dan might not be straight, that’s less assumption and more the product of a chronically unreliable gaydar and some quiet, unexamined hope.
Dan rolls his eyes, flopping back against the couch. “Oh my God. Pass me a spill card.”
Phil does, settling back into the cushions, watching as Dan reads it silently. His lips move along with the words; his expression shifts from neutral to wary to outright offended.
“You are fucking kidding me,” Dan groans. “Drink if you’ve thrown up at a bar. Or at work. Or on yourself. Basically—” he lifts the card, glaring at it, “—if you’re messy.”
Phil doesn’t even have time to respond before Dan reaches for the wine glass and takes a pointed sip, eyes still narrowed at the card like it’s personally betrayed him.
He slides Phil a spill card as well, already halfway through another sip of wine. He squints at the text through the curve of the glass before reading it aloud, his voice slightly warped by the rim.
“Have you had your first kiss?” He pauses, then adds with theatrical solemnity, “If so, share the details.”
Phil has no idea why he blushes. It’s hardly scandalous, kiss is a tame word, all things considered, but something about hearing it in Dan’s voice makes heat creep up his neck anyway.
“Yeah,” he says, a little too quickly. “With a girl I dated for a week in school.”
“A girl,” Dan echoes, eyebrow lifting as he peers over the glass. “Really?”
“Oh, shut up,” Phil replies, rolling his eyes with practiced ease. He doesn’t bother defending himself; instead, he presses on. “We were in the back of my mum’s Corsa while she got petrol at the Asda.”
Dan laughs; loud and sharp and entirely uncontained. “In the back of your mum’s Corsa,” he repeats, incredulous, like the phrase alone is enough to sustain him. “That doesn’t count. That couldn’t have been more than a peck.”
“It said kiss, not make-out,” Phil counters.
“Tell me anyway.”
Phil exhales, fond exasperation lacing the sound. “Me and my friends used to play spin the bottle,” he says, glancing at Dan, who’s now leaning forward with his elbow on his knee and his head propped in his palm, listening with exaggerated seriousness.
“I hated that game,” he cuts in, shaking his head, his tone deliberately aggrieved. “It only ever counted if it landed on the opposite gender.”
“Yeah - well, not my friend group…” Phil smiles, a little sheepish, and it’s enough to make Dan’s eyes widen just slightly. “One time my parents went away for the weekend and left me and my older brother at home. We both had friends over. He came in to tell us to shut up and—” Phil lets out a quiet laugh. “It was painfully obvious what we were doing.”
Dan snorts. “Was he cool about it?”
“Yeah,” Phil says, softer now, exhaling like the answer carries a weight he hadn’t realised he was holding. “My whole family is, really.”
Something in Dan goes still at that. He lowers his gaze, absently threading the card through his fingers, bending it and straightening it again as though it might give him something safer to focus on. When he speaks, his voice is quieter, careful. “Do you miss them?”
“A lot,” Phil doesn’t hesitate, the word settling heavy but honest between them. He looks back up at Dan, and for a fleeting second he almost asks the same question in return, almost reaching for it, before noticing the way Dan’s fingers still, the card no longer serving as a distraction.
There’s something carefully guarded in his hesitation, a quiet tension that suggests Phil should already understand. Or perhaps that he shouldn’t pry. Dan being alone this Christmas feels, on the surface, painfully easy to explain.
It’s written in the world beyond the window he’s facing, the snow still clinging stubbornly to pavements and rooftops, the streets glazed with frost that turns even the simplest journey into a risk. The storm has eased, technically, but that doesn’t mean the trains will suddenly remember how to run. For that, the sun would have to do its job properly; burn away the ice, thaw the roads, restore some sense of normality.
Christmas miracles, as far as transport is concerned, are in notoriously short supply.
Still, Phil braves it. “What about your family?”
Dan exhales a complicated sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, as he shifts sideways leaning into the couch and resting his head against the back of it. When he speaks, it’s careful, economical. “My family are cool,” he says. “I love them a lot. They just… overwhelm me sometimes. Especially at Christmas.”
The empathetic part of Phil wants to nod, to mirror the understanding Dan seems to be offering him, but he can’t, not quite. He doesn’t understand it in the way Dan means. His family can grate on him, yes, but it’s the kind of irritation cushioned by warmth, by the certainty that he belongs there. Affectionate exasperation, not something that presses too hard against the ribs and steals the air.
Luckily, Dan doesn’t leave the thought hanging.
“I miss them a lot, too,” he adds, quieter.
Phil hums softly in response. That, at least, they can meet each other in. The shared absence, the dull ache of wanting something that’s out of reach for now. Neither of them says the obvious; that the space is being filled just a little by this moment, by each other, but it settles there anyway, unspoken and understood, as they turn back to the game.
Phil reaches for another card. “Have you ever lied to anyone in this room?” He glances up, already amused. “What was it about?”
Dan’s reaction is immediate and deeply incriminating. His cheeks flare red as he grabs a sip card and lifts it in front of his face, as if printed cardboard might somehow conceal the betrayal.
Phil notices. Of course he does.
He reaches out, fingers closing gently around Dan’s wrist, tugging the card down until Dan’s face is fully visible again; flustered, caught, undeniably adorable.
Phil laughs, breathless with surprise. “What?” he demands. “How have you even managed to lie to me? We’ve known each other, like, a day.”
Dan opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Phil tightens his grip just slightly, smiling. “You have to tell me.”
“Not by the rules of the game,” Dan says quickly, as if that alone should save him.
Phil scowls anyway, crossing his arms in exaggerated offence. Whatever expression that earns him must be the breaking point, because Dan lets out a quiet chuckle, the sound soft and fond despite himself, before releasing a long, resigned sigh.
“I don’t actually know how to cook,” he admits at last.
“Oh,” Phil says, arms dropping. “Well. I knew that.”
“I hardly ever get your mail.”
“I knew that too.”
“And,” Dan continues, clearly committed now, words tumbling faster, “The one time I did, I Googled your surname and stalked your old Facebook page. That’s how I knew your name.”
Phil blinks.
“…I didn’t know that.”
Nor does he really know why Dan seems so hesitant for him to know. There’s nothing especially humiliating about any of it; being bad at cooking hardly earns ridicule when Phil is scarcely better himself. And if there’s anything remotely mortifying in the situation, it’s the very real possibility that Dan has seen the photos and videos from his teenage years, the aggressively side-swept fringe, the eyeliner experiments that never quite landed. That, at least, feels like fair grounds for embarrassment.
But Dan seems to take Phil’s response as judgment all the same. His gaze drops back to his lap, shoulders curling inward as his fingers begin worrying at the hem of his pyjama bottoms, twisting the fabric between them. When he speaks, his voice is quieter, stripped of its usual sharpness.
“I didn’t mean it to be creepy. I just wanted to know you.”
It lands like a quiet revelation, the sort that doesn’t announce itself with fanfare but settles deep all the same. A confession, maybe. One the Phil isn’t sure he’s allowed to accept, let alone return, and yet he does, instinctively, because the truth of it mirrors something already lodged in his chest. He’s wanted to know Dan too.
Not just his name on misdelivered post, but the version of him that existed before this building, before the thin walls and passing hellos. The ordinary things. The important ones. And it feels strangely momentous to realise it hasn’t been one-sided after all; that this quiet yearning for a friendship that didn’t yet exist had been shared, unseen, all along.
Phil doesn’t usually believe in fate, or cosmic design, or the idea that the universe nudges people together with intent. Those thoughts feel more like decorative comforts than truths. And yet; snow grounding the city, trains stalled into stillness, the building emptied out into quiet, Dan getting drunk enough to finally knock on his door after all this time.
If this isn’t a Christmas miracle, it is at least something close enough to pretend. Something warm and improbable and fleeting.
He knows tomorrow might bring embarrassment, second-guessing, the urge to catalogue everything that went wrong. But tonight, on Christmas Eve, he is stupidly, unmistakably happy that it is just him and Dan, here.
He doesn’t know how to say any of that aloud. He doesn’t know how to reassure Dan without overwhelming him, or how to match a vulnerability that already looks like it’s cost him something. Knowing all of someone feels like too much to promise, too soon, and Dan already looks a little undone by his own honesty. So Phil chooses something smaller, something he can manage.
He shifts closer on the couch, just enough to shrink the space between them, even if a careful margin still remains.
Then he reaches for the Spill cards, gathers a small stack into his hands, and sets them down with quiet resolve; vowing, silently, to spill every truth they ask of him.
Unsurprisingly, the cards coax more out of him than good sense might recommend at this early stage; half-formed confessions, gentle embarrassments, truths that probably ought to have waited. And yet Dan meets each one with an equal willingness, an easy reciprocity that makes the spilling feel less like exposure and more like exchange.
It stops feeling reckless and starts feeling right, as though this is simply how the evening was always meant to unfold.
Because neither of them is sipping much, the glass of wine Dan fetched earlier sits forgotten for a while, abandoned on the coffee table. Eventually, it becomes less a drink and more a prop, passed back and forth between bouts of laughter, a shared joke in itself.
By the time The Muppet Christmas Carol ends, Tiny Tim emphatically not dead, they’re in that comfortable in-between state: not tipsy, not sober, just pleasantly warm, shoulders nearly touching as Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas starts up without much discussion at all.
Despite the modest amount of wine, Phil finds himself drifting. He blames the alcohol, vaguely, though it might just as easily be the warmth, the low murmur of voices, the unfamiliar of not being alone.
He slips under slowly, consciousness thinning at the edges and resurfaces only briefly to the sensation of a blanket being pulled over him, careful hands easing his shoes off so he can stretch out properly. He feels warm. Comfortable. Safer than he remembers feeling in a while.
Half-asleep, he murmurs, barely louder than a breath, “Dan?”
“Yeah,” Dan whispers, close enough that Phil can feel the comfort of the word rather than hear it. “Do you want to go home?”
Phil shakes his head, a small, decisive movement. He doesn’t. He wants to stay. He wants to fall asleep here and wake up here, wants the quiet symmetry of Dan finding him in the morning the way he’d found him today. But the thought is too large, too precise for his tired mouth to manage.
What comes out instead is softer, blurred at the edges. “Is it Christmas yet?”
“Only just.”
“Merry Christmas, Dan,” Phil murmurs, a yawn stealing the last of his sharpness. Wrapped in warmth of the blanket, of the room, of Dan’s nearness, he finds the courage he’s been circling all evening. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
The silence that follows is deeper than before, fuller. It stretches long enough that Phil, uneasy in its weight, blinks his eyes open despite how badly they want to stay shut.
Dan is there, crouched beside him, his face half-lit by the glow of the television, eyes softened with something unmistakably tender. His hand lifts slowly, deliberately, giving Phil every chance to pull away.
He doesn’t.
“Merry Christmas, Phil,” Dan whispers, brushing his hair gently back from his face. “I am too.”