Archive of Our Own

The small town of Rawthenstall greets Dan with sunny weather and wind that almost beats the air out of his lungs as he walks onto the street having just arrived a minute ago. A train from London to Manchester, then a bus ride to Rawthenstall, and now he is almost getting swarmed by other people who have just arrived and their relatives and friends who came to greet them. Spring has sprung but it is still quite chilly, and Dan hides behind his expensive black coat. He tries to move away, but someone still hits him in the shoulder — he feels someone’s bag on his arm and he rubs the bruise away as he looks around in search for a map of the town. Eventually he just follows the crowd onto the street and walks to the nearest bench hoping to navigate the surroundings using his phone. The map is loading slowly, and Dan already misses quick Internet connection of the city — some part of him is surprised that the Internet is even available here, no matter how slow and frustrating it is. He never particularly liked small towns – there’s no crowd to get lost in.

The inn he searches for pops up on the screen, and Dan decides to take a walk there and at the same time familiarise himself with the town. He takes his bag and starts to walk down the road.

It isn’t that Dan hates his job — he wanted to work in media ever since he first saw an investigative show on TV — it’s just that he doesn’t really believe that there is anything worth reporting in this small town. Especially of extra-terrestrial nature. Overall, his job was good but two months ago Christie Adams, the head editor of The Scoop: London announced that she was pregnant, so while she is taking care of her health and a newborn, the chief editor had to send in someone to replace her. Dan genuinely liked Christie — she gave him a chance to work in the newspaper when he was still at university and then allowed him to become a part of the team when he graduated. She was a kind person but a very stern boss, and Dan knew that many people didn’t particularly like her. Dan thought she was a brilliant editor and frankly, it was all that he cared about. So, he was quite concerned when he first saw their new head editor Paul Neal who had to replace Christie while she was busy with her growing family. Paul Neal was fresh out of university and was a nephew of someone who sponsored the newspaper, and Dan hated him at a first glance. Paul then gave him all the more reason to hate him, as he favoured sensationalist article and gossipy drama, basically turning The Scoop into a cheap tabloid. He was also inexplicably drawn to supernatural activity and really wanted to have as many reports of it as possible.

The Scoop had hard time. Dan had heard that some of the local publishers of the newspaper had to be closed down and many people were made redundant; The Scoop: Manchester lost about half its people, and some said that the same is soon going to happen with the London branch in the near future. The newspaper tried to do everything to keep the audience — changing the focus from serious journalism to a more entertaining read seemed like a way to keep the people engaged. Dan, on his part, was losing hope in humanity. He really didn’t want to go on some sort of supernatural investigation, but the last three articles he’d written weren’t even read by Paul, and many before that one were rejected. His job application letters were left unanswered, and his bank account was getting dangerously close to two-digit numbers while he still had to pay the rent for his shitty flat and have something to eat every day. A paid work trip seemed like the best option at this point even if he had to write a stupid supernatural investigation.

This is why right now Dan is walking down the stone-paved road, looking around for an inn where he is supposed to stay in the next week to conduct his ghost hunt. He can’t believe that this is what his life has come down to.

‘Lion’s Den’ is written on a sign at the entrance. It is a three-storey house, squished between a florist and a carpentry. It looks old, just like the rest of the buildings he has seen to this point but it seems well-maintained and restored. At the very least, it doesn’t look like it’s going to crumble down at any second, which is definitely reassuring. Taking a deep breath and resigning himself to his fate, Dan steps inside and the bell above the door rings softly.

The interior design of the hall is… eclectic. Dan is instantly assaulted by an abundance of colour and whimsical furnishings. It seems like the hallway was decorated by a child with hyperactive imagination. Among the bright colours Dan notices a fish tank with a blue betta fish. Right next to the tank, placed on what looked like an antique dresser are two plush toys of lions, one with a mane and the other without it. Dan takes a look at the pictures on the walls: some of them are black and white, some are modern, all of them depicting the different parts of Rawthenstall as much as Dan has seen it. Among the landscapes of the Rossendale Valley and the pictures of the town are photographs of people. Judging by a resemblance, he presumes that this is the family that owns the inn. The family smiles in the pictures, and Dan looks away, biting down on a bitter taste on his tongue.

“Hello!” someone says in a cheerful voice, and Dan turns around. At the registry desk he sees a man about his age with a friendly smile. The shirt then catches Dan’s attention — instead of something resembling a uniform (though he doubts that a small inn would ever invest in uniforms) it is a white shirt with blue pigeons on it. Despite the childish-looking T-shirt, the man is attractive with his bleached blond hair (blending into his natural darker colour at the roots already) and his bright blue eyes and a wide smile. “Welcome to the ‘Lion’s Den’! How can I help you?”

“Hello,” he says in return. He searches for a name tag for a second before he notices a small pin with a name written in flowery handwriting. Phil, it says. Dan’s voice is a little hoarse from the trip and he clears his throat. “I have a room booked here. The name is Daniel Howell.”

“Yes, Mr. Howell,” Phil replies with just as much cheerfulness in his voice as he looks at the computer screen. “We have a room for you for seven nights, correct?” Dan nods. “Great. Now, let me just get everything sorted for you.”

Phil starts the printer for the paperwork, and as he types on the keyboard, he explains, “No meals included, but there is a boiler with hot water in the lounge on the first floor. It’s clean and drinkable and you can have as much as you want. As well as the biscuits,” he adds, though Dan thinks he hears a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “The phone number of the front desk is written on your copy of the paperwork and you can call if you have any questions. Though,” he looks up at Dan, still smiling, and Dan realises that he doesn’t know what the smile means. Being hospitable is Phil’s job, but he is sure that he doesn’t have to smile so sincerely for everyone. “I have to say that not many people are here this time of year. It is rare that someone visits this early into spring.”

“I’m here on a work assignment,” says Dan, not really knowing why he decided to explain the situation. Phil doesn’t care. Nobody cares. This is why he is in this situation: people don’t care. They only want to read some stupid sensationalist shit. “Investigating supernatural in the town for a newspaper.”

Phil perks up and his smile brightens. “Oh, that’s exciting! There’re so many things here in the town. Take, for example, a wailing oak near the pond. Or a moonlight dread by the hill. Or…” Phil then stops himself and offers a polite smile along with the key to the room. “Well, you’ll see for yourself. Here’s your key, room 3. And just sign here and here.”

As Dan signs the paperwork, he can’t help but sneak a look at Phil. He seems excited at the prospect of all those supernatural things, and Dan can’t decide if he is just naive or simply stupid. Judging by the interior design and his pigeon shirt, Dan can’t help but feel like it’s partly both. He sighs. The amount of people who believes in supernatural is slowly killing his belief in humanity, so he can’t spend any more time mourning every single individual out there who thinks the Bigfoot is real.

So Dan just thanks him, takes the keys and walks up the stairs to his room. The room is small but cosy enough to survive a week, so he can’t complain. He side-eyes some of the more obnoxious furnishings: the golden pig in the counter looks particularly out of place and he has half a mind to simply hide it somewhere for the duration of his stay. He almost reaches out to it when he hears a knock at the door. Startled, Dan looks at the pig once again and goes to open the door.

Phil stands in front of him with a smile still dancing on his lips and his blond hair framing his face.

“Hello again,” he says. “I just wanted to talk something through. As right now you’re the only guest here, Mr. Howell—”

“Just call me Dan, it’s honestly better,” Dan waves his hand dismissively. They must be around the same age, right?

“Alright, Dan,” Phil’s smile somehow turns brighter. “As I was saying, you’re the only guest and since my family is away for a few days, I’m the only employee here, so I thought it’d be easier for you to have my number in case you needed anything?” he clasps his hands in front of him and looks at him, eyes full of hope.

Honestly, there’s no way anyone could refuse him, and Dan isn’t really opposed to the idea in the first place.

“Sure,” he replies and takes out his phone for Phil to tell him the number. He makes a test call to make sure he got it right as well.

“Great!” Phil beams as he declines the call and nods. “So feel free to call or text me if you need anything. I should be here most of time but you know, just in case.”

“Sure,” he says again. He takes a look around, trying to hide the nervousness.

The pig stares at Dan mockingly as he looks away. There’s something about the pig that makes his skin crawl. He walks across the room, picks up the pig and turns to Phil once more. Phil is looking at him with a curious glint in his eyes.

“Can you please take this thing away?” Dan says as he thrusts his hands forward presenting the pig.

Phil raises his eyebrow, still grinning.

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“What’s— It’s a golden pig,” Dan replies, a little stunned. Phil’s smile unnerves him. He’s used to be in control and now he’s feeling like he’s losing it. Not only the control — he’s hoping to get rid of the golden pig and somehow he feels like he’s the one being unreasonable.

“It’s just a decorative item,” Phil shrugs. He reaches out to take the pig. “Alright, if you say so. There you are, boy,” he coos at the pig, and Dan stares for a moment. He feels like he’s missing something. It’s a pig, for fuck’s sake. Phil is weird, he decides.

“Anything else?” Phil asks with a friendly smile, and Dan knows he’s being teased at this point.

“Nothing. Thanks,” he responds dryly.

“Well, I’m just a phone call away,” Phil nods and leaves, and Dan still stares at the closed door like it’s going to give him an explanation of what just happened. The door is silent, and Dan sighs.

He has a job to do even if he hates it. He finds his laptop and looks through all the files that he made in preparation. He might hate his assignment but he’s going to take it seriously. It’s not like he has much of a choice.

By the time the evening arrives, it’s raining outside, and Dan just looks out the window for a moment. He’s been working for a few hours already, and the internet here works quite slowly. He’s not entirely sure why — it can be because of the weather or because the town is small and the reception is just bad.

When the lightning strikes dangerously close to the window, Dan jumps and stares at the street behind the glass. A tree on the opposite side of the road bends in the wind. Dan shivers. He’s never been a fan of rainstorms. He looks through his materials and sighs. It would have been easier if he actually cared for the topic at least a little. He wrote lengthy essays on climate change and faulty education systems because he knew it was something important. It changed people’s lives. Supernatural sightings, though? This helped no-one and it didn’t mean anything except more people believed in fictional bullshit. He doesn’t want to spend his time doing something he hates but if The Scoop continues in the same vein, he’d have no choice but to quit eventually.

A quiet voice in the back of his mind giggles at his misery, and Dan winces. He has spent the last decade trying to prove that his job is important, that he can influence people and change their lives, no matter what his family says. He was going to be a serious journalist, and his career was going quite well even if it wasn’t quite what he wished for. He never exposed any corrupt businessmen or conducted an independent investigation but his articles were well-researched and he knew that they made a difference for those who cared. Right before Christie had to go, he started to work on his article about bullying in schools especially when it’s connected to LGBT+ community. It was something that he wanted to do for a long time but never felt like he could. And right as he started to gather the materials, the new editor arrived, and now Dan is in Rawthenstall working on a stupid article about ghosts. A thing that doesn’t even exist.

Another lightning makes Dan jump, and he almost drops the laptop on the floor. The storm seems to be getting closer, and the wind howls louder. He puts the laptop away and hugs himself to stop shivering.

He stands up and goes to find a lounge. There must be something to drink, and Dan would really appreciate a cup of coffee right now. He walks through the hall and looks at the pictures on the walls. Some of them are landscapes, some of them are presumably family photos. Dan doesn’t get it.

He finds the lounge and a coffee machine. The bowl where the biscuits are supposed to be is empty, though. For some reason Dan had an inkling that it may be the case. The lounge window looks to the other side of the house, and Dan can see a glimpse of the blue sky somewhere in the distance. It’s also a bit quieter in here, so he decides to stay in the lounge to have a coffee. The sofa seems old, it matches the rest of the eclectic furniture but it’s surprisingly comfortable. There’s a small TV just above the bookshelf on the opposite wall, and Dan decides to turn it on. He surfs through the channels lazily as he sips on his coffee and eventually he stops at the nature documentary. He throws the remote control away and lets the program mutter in the background as he takes a breath.

His parents never really liked his decision to pursue journalism. They fought and shouted, and eventually Dan still left his home and went to study journalism. It wasn’t quite like his dream, but it was something that he knew how to do, and he did his job well. In the beginning he used to tell his family when the issue with his article comes out, but then he realised that they never asked him in the first place. They were never interested. Even when he did something useful, they never quite forgave him for choosing his own path. And for a while he felt guilty. He thought that he did something bad. It took him a while to stop feeling guilty for being himself.

He doesn’t realise as he drifts off a little and only comes round as he notices someone in the lounge with him. It takes him a moment to remember where he is and that he’s not alone in the inn. Phil is sitting in an armchair and watches the TV program munching on a biscuit. There doesn’t seem to be any more of them. The documentary is still on. Dan takes a look at the screen and sees a pride of lions lying on a rock together. They curl into each other as the mother lion licks her cub on the head. Dan takes a glimpse at Phil. Phil seems mesmerised by the program. He is leaning forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and his eyes sparkle with unmistakable interest.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Dan listens to the noises outside and decides that the storm must have passed. It’s still dark — or maybe it’s already dark since he has no idea how much time passed. Couldn’t be that much if the documentary is still on, though. He feels tired from the trip this morning, from work and from the storm, even the coffee seems to have little effect. He is reluctant to move and he’s just watching the documentary as his eyes slowly adjust. The camera watching the lions turns to night mode.

“An old but a neat trick,” Phil says, and Dan glances at him. He doesn’t get why Phil is so invested in the documentary. There must be nothing else to do for him to stare at the screen like this.

“What time is it?” Dan asks in a hoarse voice.

Phil isn’t startled by his voice. He just picks his phone and checks the time.

“Half past five,” he says, while his eyes are still glued to the screen.

Dan watches the screen for a few moments more and he doesn’t get it.

“You seem to be very interested,” he says. The night still rules over the lands of the pride as the narrator explains the way lions sleep. It doesn’t sound particularly interesting to Dan. Phil’s just weird, he thinks. But he still can’t stop thinking about the way his eyes shine as he looks at the screen. Dan can’t help but think that there must be something important if Phil looks at it like this.

“Oh I love lions. They’re my favourite animals,” Phil says with a smile. A small lion cub yawns, and Phil melts at the sight of it.

“Sure. ‘Lion’s Den’ and all that.”

“Not only that,” Phil shakes his head. “They are just great animals.”

It seems to be good enough reason for Phil as he doesn’t say anything else. Dan watches the documentary for a few more minutes.

“I had no idea they still show it,” Phil mutters, seemingly to himself, but Dan is bored and he can’t help but feel a hint of interest toward Phil. There’s something about him that pulls Dan closer.

“Is it old or something?” he asks as he looks at Phil.

“You can say that,” Phil bites his lip as if in thought. “I think it was around 2009?” he looks away for a moment, calculating. “I must have been fresh from uni, so either 2009 or 2010.”

Dan nods, still not getting why is Phil so obsessed over some lions.

“I never appreciated how well it’s made,” Phil goes on. “Must be one of my better works.”

Dan stares at Phil, not sure if he’s heard correctly.

“What do you mean? You worked on the documentary?”

“I was an editor, yeah,” he says with a wave.

Dan stares at Phil.

“You are a film editor?”

“I used to work for a film company for a while, but it never worked out,” Phil says with a shrug.

“Why?” Dan asks softly.

“Freelance work,” Phil says flippantly. “It has its downsides.”

Dan looks at him for a moment. Phil doesn’t seem sad. He doesn’t even seem resigned. He’s just… accepted it and lives on. It’s something that Dan has never quite learned how to do.

It doesn’t make sense.

“But why live here?” he asks louder and for the first time since Dan woke up Phil looks at him. “In this tiny town with nothing to do. You could have moved to a bigger city, find a job—”

“I used to live in Manchester.”

“Then why are you here?”

Why would he leave the big city and stay here?

Phil shrugs. “They offered me a job at Christopher Nolan’s company. I said no.”

“Why?”

“I just realised that it won’t make me happy.”

“How would you know?”

“I just do.”

Dan stares at him. He doesn’t understand. He would never understand what’s there in the tiny town that can make someone choose it over bigger opportunities and bigger life. Dan hated his hometown. He never wants to go back. What’s different, then?

Small towns tend to be even more rigid in their views than the rest of the population. They always seem to hang on the outdated beliefs and never hesitate to try and choke the life out of young people. Why would anyone want to return there, choosing it over a grand opportunity. Dan looks at Phil, thinking that he must have simply lost his mind for this to be the case.

He doesn’t get it. Dan stands up and leaves Phil alone in the lounge.

His room is exactly the same as he left it. Then he notices the golden pig, tall and proud on a nightstand. Phil must have brought it in when he was in the lounge. There is no-one else around.

Dan has no energy to deal with the pig. He picks it up, opens the door, walks a few steps and leaves it in the hallway. The pig is glinting smugly at him and Dan winces. He can’t have the thing mocking him. He can’t let the thing win. He locks the door with the key and goes to bed.

When Dan wakes up again after a couple of hours, his head is clearer and he feels more rested. The storm has passed and he feels better. He must have been more tired than he realised. He lies on the bed for a few minutes, his eyes closed and limbs unmoving. It’s rare to have a quiet moment in the city — there’s always someone loud and noisy outside, and right now he can’t hear anything apart from a soft chirping sound of some kind of bird. As he opens his eyes, he can see the street outside — it’s dark but the clock on the nightstand tells him that it’s only about eight o’clock. He is rested and he is hungry, so maybe he should take a look around the town and find something to eat.

He turns around and lets out a loud shriek. He jumps out of the bed and tries to catch his breath. He takes a look at the bed and something angry starts to boil inside of him.

The fucking golden pig is lying on the bed, facing him and mocking him. He doesn’t know why but it seems like an evil pig. There’s something about it that is just… creepy. Like it’s only coming up with devious plans. Something about its face makes Dan’s heart clench uneasily.

But the worst thing is that Phil brought the pig into his room again. After Dan tried to get rid of it twice. Dan looks around the room and spots a rubbish bin next to the wardrobe. He grins contentedly. He picks up the pig, ceremoniously walks across the room and places it into the bin. The pig is still peaking from the bin but at least he doesn’t have to look at it any more than he has too. He can just never use that bin.

Satisfied with his decision, he puts on his sneakers and a coat and walks out the room. He remembers seeing a small cafe down the down. If he’s lucky, it might be still open.

The front desk is empty but he quickly notices Phil near the fish tank. He is feeding the fish. The fish floats up to the surface and moves its fins as if excited for food.

“Oh hey!” Phil smiles, turning to look at him. “Going out?”

“Yes, I wanted something to eat,” Dan says quietly. He doesn’t understand Phil and yet, some part of Dan wants to talk to him — and who can honestly blame him? Phil’s hot and he has this sunny personality, he’s always smiling, and to be completely honest, Dan misses this sort of light. Something about Phil makes him want to reach out to him, to become a part of his light and to see how far it stretches. Can anybody really be that cheerful and kind all the time? Is he just being polite?

But he’s not polite, Dan reminds himself. He’s hospitable, but he’s not polite. He has brought the stupid golden pig to his room twice after Dan has explicitly told him to get rid of it. He finds it funny to prank Dan, his only guest at the inn. It doesn’t make sense.

What doesn’t make sense more is the fact that Dan still wants to talk to him. Must be the good looks because otherwise he has no idea why he’d be interested in someone who clearly disrespects his wishes.

Phil nods. He turns to look at the fish who is catching the bits of food floating in the water.

“You might want to hurry,” he adds. Dan looks at him. “Some of the places are closed already.”

“Which ones aren’t closed?”

Phil tilts his head and thinks for a moment.

“There’s one that I frequent,” he says eventually. “It must be open until nine. I can show you if you want.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I guess.”

Phil shrugs. “Well, it’s my job anyway. Give a moment, I’ll finish feeding Norman and we can go.”

“Norman the fish?” Dan asks. Phil nods. They stay in silence for a few minutes as Phil makes sure that the fish is well-fed and everything at the front desk is in order.

“While we’re walking I can show you some of the ghost sightings,” Phil says with a smile as they leave the inn. Dan can’t help but let out a sigh.

“Please don’t say that you believe in ghosts,” he mutters as they start walking down the road. The streetlights are dim and there are still puddles from the rain, so Dan has to walk carefully. Phil, on the other hand, doesn’t even look down. Either he knows the way perfectly and so sure of himself, or he’s just careless. Dan tries not to feel too interested.

“Don’t you?” Phil inclines his head as if in curiosity.

“Not really, no.”

Dan feels on his skin that Phil is itching to ask more. Sometimes, he’s jealous of people who can believe in something so stupid. Must be nice to not care about anything in the world.

“Well, you said that you’re on a work trip, so I just assumed…” Phil trails off, and Dan sighs.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t mean I believe in ghosts. My stupid substitute editor made all of us write about extra-terrestrial stuff,” he adds because it’s not fair to Phil. It’s not his fault that Dan hates this assignment and by association hates the situation he has found himself in. He hates the small town, but he can’t hate the only person who can show him where the food is. Not yet, at least.

“What’s the newspaper called?”

“The Scoop: London. It used to be a respectable place but this imbecile just wants to ruin everything.”

Phil nods as if in thought. Someone passes by and Phil waves at them with a smile. Dan decides not to ask. The town is quiet with only occasional car driving by in the distance. It makes Dan uneasy: he’s used to noise of a big city and he feels on edge because there’s none of it.

“So you came here to write about some paranormal activity but you don’t believe in it?” Phil says after a moment of silence. They turn at the corner and go into a narrow alley between two old-looking houses. Dan takes a sneaky glance around. Suddenly he doesn’t really feel safe. Maybe he’s just exaggerating but the alley seems to get narrower and narrower with every step.

“I believe in nothing,” Dan says decisively. The alley doesn’t have streetlights, so they literally have to walk in the dark. 

“Must be boring,” Phil says with a shrug, seemingly unaffected by the fact. “Well, if you believe in nothing you have nothing to be afraid of, either.”

“What’s there to be afraid of?” Dan asks against his will. Honestly, Phil seems like the weirdest guy Dan has ever met. The alley seems like a sneaky place to hide a body, his mind supplies, and Dan shudders against his will. Phil is not a murderer. He’s too smiley to be a murderer, right?

“Up there, see?” Phil points at the window of one of the houses facing the alley. It almost reaches the roof, must be an attic window. Dan hums. “Some say that about a century ago there lived a young woman. She was unmarried and she refused to get married, no matter who asked. But one day a man arrived to visit her. They have spent hours there and they never left her room. When the landlady came upstairs with dinner, she found them both dead with no visible signs of violence. Afterwards, the people living there started hearing strange noises and screams. It’s the ghosts of them,” Phil goes silent for a moment as they pass the window by and leave the alley. “But it’s only during the deep of the night, so we’ve got nothing to worry about,” he adds with a short smile.

Dan stares at him for a moment and bursts out laughing. Phil furrows his eyebrows.

“What?” he exclaims.

“Sorry, it’s just…” Dan trails off and spends a few moments catching his breath. “Don’t get me wrong, the possible murder is mysterious, sure, but the ghosts? That’s just silly,” he waves around. “It’s an old house, it’s probably breaking down, ergo the creaks and weird noises.”

“Ergo,” Phil says softly, as if almost automatically. “Sure, but then someone reported seeing a light there, but there was no-one renting the room after them.”

“It could just be the landlady lighting up a candle to clean the room,” Dan shrugs. They leave the house behind and after a few steps Phil stops at the door of a small cafe.

“Here we are,” Phil smiles. “My friend works here, so I get discounts.”

They order sandwiches and coffee. Phil makes a friendly chat with the barista who grins at him and laughs at his jokes.

Dan wants to get away, move as far as possible but as he takes his order — one that for some reason takes ages to get done, despite Phil’s similar one only taking a few minutes — he finds himself gravitating towards Phil. There is something magnetic about him, even though he believes in bullshit. But he smiles brightly and he is nice to look at… and Dan hasn’t been with anyone for a very long time. He has to get a grip. He’s here to work, not to make… friends.

“Can you tell me more?” he walks up to where Phil is sitting at the table in the corner. Phil looks up at him in surprise.

“You don’t believe in it.”

“I don’t,” Dan concedes. “But my editor does. And I need to write a good article and get paid so I can leave this… place. So…” he sighs. “You seem to know a lot about this, and I need some guidance. Please.”

Phil looks at him for a moment. He seems to really think about it.

“You won’t say that it’s stupid,” he says pointing a finger at him. “It’s no fun to tell a story when someone’s constantly shutting you down.”

Something about the way Phil says it makes Dan stop. It makes him think even if he doesn’t really want to. It seems like something meaningful and important to Phil, even if Dan can’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe it’s the words or maybe it’s how serious Phil has suddenly become. It suits him, somehow.

“I won’t,” Dan finds himself promising.

Phil nods on return, and now he’s smiling again, wide and bright.

“Then be my guest,” he offers him a seat on a chair next to him, but Dan still chooses the one opposite Phil.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” Phil says as Dan enters the inn in the morning right after getting some breakfast. Only some sort of inner will keeps him from tumbling down.

“I’m not—“ Dan starts to say and stops because it’s not true. He’s been over this, and it’s okay. Just a knee-jerk reaction. It takes a while to get these kinds of things behind you, to get used to being called hot by other people, by other men. He still shakes his head. “It’s not very professional of you, is it?”

Phil shrugs.

“You tried to bin the golden pig. It’s personal now.”

For a moment Dan stops to think. He didn’t realise that Phil noticed. Then again, he must have gone up to clean the room while Dan was out for breakfast and a short walk. He was going to start working on his article using the interview with Phil that he managed to record yesterday, and he definitely didn’t expect to be greeted like this. Some part of him wants to be angry. Some part of him wants to blush.

“Why do you care about the pig so much?”

“I don’t know, why do you?” Phil quirks his eyebrow and smiles smugly. Dan’s blood boils. Somehow Phil looks even hotter. This doesn’t make sense.

“It’s ugly. It’s a freaking golden pig!”

“Don’t say that about them!” Phil exclaims and for a moment Dan thinks that Phil is genuinely insulted.

“It’s a ‘they?”

Phil seems to think. “They are now,” he says eventually. Dan hates that he’s given him an idea.

“Whatever,” he shakes his head. At the same time he can’t help but let out a smile. He thinks there must be frustration, but there’s none. Something about Phil’s light-hearted teasing makes him want to engage in it, to hear it more. Maybe even tease in return and see how his eyes sparkle, how he smiles and laughs, even at Dan’s expense.

Yes, he’s been single for a very long time. And Phil is really good-looking, beautiful even, especially in that white T-shirt with strawberries. He looks bright, like a ray of sunshine between the clouds in the sky.

Just as Dan wants to say something as he realises that he has spent the last few minutes staring at Phil, the bell over the door rings. Phil raises his head and beams.

“PJ!” Phil exclaims. “I thought you decided to just leave me here alone.”

“What would you do without me?” says PJ with a similarly wide smile. He notices Dan. “Hey there.”

“Hello,” Dan replies as he looks at PJ.

“How’s Sophie?” Phil asks. He turns away from his computer and leans on the counter.

“She’s getting better, thanks. I was actually hoping to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Dan leaves to go upstairs. He has work to do. He needs to transcribe the interview, he needs to find more materials and he needs to compile everything into one article. He doesn’t want to. He stands still on the stairs, thinking about the lonely room and the empty word document and turns on his heels. He returns to the front room and walks back into it as Phil and PJ are still discussing something.

Phil looks up at him and raises his eyebrows.

“Phil?” Dan asks and there’s sudden tremor in his hands.

“Yes?”

“Are you busy later today?” Dan says, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I, well… No, why?”

“I might need your help with the article again.”

Phil smiles, soft and warm.

“Sure. What about twelve?”

“Works for me. I’ll be upstairs.”

He walks back upstairs. Something inside him feels warmer. He takes his laptop and goes into the lounge.

As he starts transcribing, he drifts off somewhere deeper in his mind. Sunlight tears through the half-closed curtains and shines on the eclectic interior. As Dan occasionally glances upon the furniture, it gets brighter in the light. He thinks of Phil as he hears his voice in his earphones. Even if he doesn’t care about the topic, he still finds himself enjoying listening to the story for another time. He laughs in all the right places. He smiles throughout the recording. He even feels tense, even though he knows the ending. Phil is a great storyteller, Dan thinks. There is something about his voice and a way of words that makes it sound like the most exciting thing in the universe.

For a while he gets lost in the audio and only wakes up when he hears Phil’s steps in the hallway. Dan looks up and can’t help but smile.

“Wow, a smile,” Phil chuckles and grins. There is no mean intent behind his words, Dan knows it somehow. For some reason, he just knows that Phil has a kind soul, despite his inclination to mock the hell out of the inn guests. “How’s your article?”

“Just a few minutes left to transcribe,” Dan says. Some part of him hopes that Phil doesn’t prank other guests.

Phil nods and sits on one of the armchairs opposite him. Dan watches him for a moment and realises that Phil’s demeanour changed: he seems quieter, his smile tighter at the corners, as he glances at the clock on the wall.

“Something happened?” Dan asks carefully after another moment.

Phil nearly jumps at the question and turns his head to look at him, wide-eyed and his mouth slightly open.

“It’s… Well, you might say that but…”

“Is it something you need to do?” Dan asks, somehow knowing full-well that Phil really has something important to do and at the same time he is too polite to say so outright.

“I agreed to help you first,” Phil says with a soft smile. Dan takes off his earphones and closes the laptop.

“Come on, we’ll go together. I can’t keep you here if something’s bothering you.”

Dan walks up to Phil and offers his hand to help him up. Phil looks at him, wide-eyed and surprised and eventually places his hand into his and stands up. They are almost the same height, even though Phil usually slouches a bit. Dan can look him in the eye and see that there are not actually just blue: blue flows into green and mixes with specs of yellow dots. They stay silent for a moment just watching each other, seeing the smallest changes between the expressions. Dan lets out a soft breath as he glances down at Phil’s soft lips.

Then he remembers who and where they are and looks away. He picks up his laptop.

“I’ll just drop my things off and I’m coming down, okay?”

Phil nods slowly, still looking at Dan.

As he walks into his room, he feels his cheeks redden just thinking about what just happened. It isn’t like him to just drop everything at short notice, and yet, he still did it just now. He just couldn’t stand to see Phil like this, and this is new. He’s not the one to rush to help random strangers. He’s not the one to feel his chest tighten at the mere sight of a handsome man, and yet…

Dan’s not blind. He can appreciate male beauty, and Phil checks all his preference boxes. Plus, he seems willing to flirt with him which for Dan doesn’t happen often.

As they walk down the street together and Phil quickly tells him what happened, Phil’s nerves seem to unwind a little, and Dan thinks that this is a right decision. He wouldn’t want to rob Phil of doing something important just because he is unable to do his own job properly. After all, he still has a lot of time to finish his article.

“I don’t know how bad it is,” Phil says after explaining that some teens vandalised a war memorial.

“It’s probably fine,” Dan says as he sees how Phil obviously cares for it. He was never much interested in history and he doesn’t really give a fuck about the memorial. Phil’s gravitational pull, on the other hand… It is quite embarrassing to even admit out loud that he’d follow Phil wherever he wants. Obsessive – one of the things he should avoid, but he wasn’t this much interested in a long time. Who actually cares?

There are quite a lot of people who all seem to be busy restoring the monument to its proper state. Dan has never actively participated in community jobs and he has to fight the urge to flee as he is faced with a crowd of people. Phil talks to some elderly lady – she shakes her head solemnly and Phil says something to her, and she lets out a laugh. There are other people who recognise Phil and want to talk to him. Dan stays back. Some of them shoot an interested glance at him, and Dan feels his cheeks blush a little. Suddenly he realises how stupid he must look. Those people probably know each other for their whole lives, and he doesn’t even care that much. He only came because Phil has some sort of gravitational field that pulls Dan close even when he actively tries to resist it.

He can’t quite provide examples of active resistance but thankfully, no-one asks him to. He watches from afar as Phil speaks to people, as they laugh and smile at his words and how his own grin blossoms on his lips. Phil smiles at them when they greet him, he asks questions about their lives and receives praises for helping the community. They don’t seem to pay much attention to Dan. It really seems as if Phil is liked by about everyone in town, and Dan can’t help but bask in his light a bit. He can’t tear his gaze away from his brightly lit eyes and the crinkles of his face. He has never felt anything close to this in a long time.

Eventually Phil gets the necessary supplies and returns to where Dan waits for him. Phil procures a couple of cloths and a washing solution and they get to work along with few other people. Phil smiles softly, and Dan looks at the kaleidoscope of colourful specs in his eyes.

“Some of the teens just don’t see why it’s so important,” Phil says with a sigh as they reach the memorial.

“As if you never had a rogue thought when you were sixteen,” Dan smirks as he looks at the vandalised stone. The bronze plaque is going green but it seems well-taken care of overall. It’s nothing special — a few pillars made of stone commemorating the people who lived in the area and were killed during the war. Now it has paint stains all over it and the people are actively cleaning it.  

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Phil shoots him a look, and honestly, Dan isn’t really opposed to this new development of their relationship. “And sure, maybe I made out with the boys in that alleyway,” he tilted his head to the left. “But I never done anything like this. It’s just disrespectful.”

“Like many teens are,” Dan shrugs. “I’m not trying to clear their names or whatever, though. I mean, it’s just not surprising. And it happened all the time as long as teens existed.”

Dan can’t help but remember his first ever crush. He was a little boy at school and he had a friend that he liked maybe a little bit too much. It never led to anything but to this day Dan can remember the way the sun shone on his face. It doesn’t compare to Phil’s soft smile at all. Dan knows it’s going to burn his eyes, and he can’t look away.

“So what’s your worst?” Phil asks after a moment.

“Apart from straightening my hair so I could look emo?” Dan quirks his eyebrow.

“Of course, you were an emo,” Phil chuckles as he sizes his all-black clothes but there’s no disdain or dislike in his voice. On the contrary, it sounds like he has just found a piece of puzzle that he was missing. For a moment Dan is curious as to what exactly is going on in Phil’s head. “It’s not like I can talk though. At least, MySpace is gone with all my cringy photos.”

“Fucking hell, you just reminded me that MySpace existed.”

“I’m sincerely sorry. Though I was kind of a big deal on MySpace.”

Dan shakes his head and laughs.

“Oh, simpler time. I wanna go back,” he whines, only half joking. His life was a mess at that time but at least social media was better.

“I did get catfished a few times as well,” Phil adds and Dan listens to some of the stories of Phil’s youth while they scrub the paint off the pillar. He already knew that Phil was a good storyteller, but as he sees his hair glow in the sunlight, his animated features and soft smile, he secretly wishes he could just have a video of him talking so he could rewatch it and smile. He doesn’t dwell on how creepy it sounds. There is no such video anyway, so who cares? Nobody has to know. He’s just appreciating someone’s talent, it’s all.

“So then I decided to stop meeting people online,” Phil says as he finishes another story of a weirdo who almost stalked him. Dan watches his eyes go a little dimmer. “I liked it, I really did but it never seemed to work out and I was starting to fear for my safety. All of that combined with growing anxiety, so I just decided to stop altogether. Stopped making videos, stopped posting online. I decided to put more effort into getting a job at video production but it never quite worked out either. So I came back home and started to help my parents out with the inn, and surprisingly I quite liked it. It turned out I missed the small town. Everyone is so welcoming here, so I just stayed.”

“And you never tried again? You could have done it eventually. You had an opportunity to work for Nolan, for fuck’s sake!”

Phil shrugs.

“It’s all gone anyway, and I like the life I have here, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I guess it’s nice to have a hometown to return to,” Dan mutters softly but Phil still hears him.

“You don’t have one?” Phil asks in a soft voice, full of curiosity and warmth.

“You don’t want to hear a sad gay story of a boy named Dan,” he shakes his head.

“I can decide that for myself,” Phil raises his head smugly. “I won’t force you, but I do want to know.”

Dan looks at him for a few long moments. Phil doesn’t bulge under his gaze. He is still smiling softly and his face is glowing in the rare English sun and Dan can’t help but reach towards the light emanating from Phil. He doesn’t move physically but metaphorically he touches the halo surrounding his body and really wants to have piece of that to himself.

“It’s long and depressing,” Dan says.

“That’s what he said,” Phil responds not missing a beat.

Dan laughs loudly despite himself. “Fuck, this joke is so old, it’s six feet under.”

Phil shrugs and smiles wide, and Dan stares at him.

A few moments pass by, and Dan starts talking. He rarely tells anyone about his childhood and teen-hood. He almost never mentions how painful it was for him to realise that he was different, that the big bad word that everyone on the playground used to throw around actually applied to him. How deeply miserable he was for years until he broke and finally started seeing therapist because his world got darker with every passing day and he had no idea how to fix this. It is a long path that is still lying ahead of him but he manages to keep going and sometimes to even feel proud for doing so. And somehow, it’s miraculously easy to tell Phil about his struggles, about many painful conversations he had with his family that never quite forgave him for choosing himself. Some part of him waits that Phil will say something insensitive or callous — not because of malice but because of obliviousness, but Phil never does. He nods at the right places, lets out noises of confirmation and understanding and just listens to him until Dan finishes. He has never met anyone that could meet all his heavy past with such softness.

“I liked my job at The Scoop, but now it’s just…” he shrugs and waves his hand not really pointing at anything in particular. There’s a pull at his heart, making him a bit light-headed, and Dan takes a seat before he can feel dizzy – he doesn’t know if it’s because of his low blood pressure or because he just told this person who he had known for a total of two days his life story. It takes a few moments for Dan to regain his composure and when he looks up at Phil, he sees something in his eyes. He can’t quite decipher it, he never knew how to make sense of what other people seem to think about. He never knows what is going on in other people’s heads.

“And now I’m writing this stupid article that I don’t care for in the slightest,” he lets out a bitter laugh. The thought seems so ridiculous as he says it out loud, he can’t help but laugh at the mere notion. “Seriously, Phil, what am I doing here? I don’t believe in shit, I don’t give a fuck about this tiny town and its stupid ghost mysteries! I never wanted to even go here in the first place but my arsehole of a boss just won’t publish any of my serious stuff. Phil, I wanted to make a difference,” he looks Phil straight in the eye, not noticing how his voice is raised. “I promised that I will write the things that can change people’s lives and so what? This is so stupid,” he shakes his head.  

“It does sound stupid,” Phil says. Dan stares at him and blinks.

“What?”

“You said it yourself. You don’t believe in it, and yet you made all the way here from London. It is stupid. Maybe the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while,” Phil returns to scrubbing the paint off. Dan just stares at him, unmoving and still shocked. “What isn’t stupid though?” Phil says and looks at him for a moment. “Life is stupid, actually. Stupid and weird but I won’t have it any other way. It has to be like this.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in fate,” Dan shakes his head. He suddenly feels tired.

“I have to. My grandma was a psychic. I even inherited some of her powers,” Phil smiles and preens a little.

“What, you can see future?” Dan huffs, his voice seeping of sarcasm. He knows that Phil is superstitious but this is even worse.

“Yeah, of course I can. I predicted you.”

Dan once again is left speechless and able to just stare at Phil.

“You what?”

“Predicted you,” Phil shrugs, saying it like it’s the most mundane thing ever. “I did a taro reading a few months back, and I predicted you.”

“Stop saying ‘predicted’,” Dan rubs his face.

“But it’s true!”

“You can’t predict people!” Dan snaps, his voice raised, and Phil blinks at him in surprise. “There’s no such thing as ghosts and there’s no such thing as fucking psychics! None of this stuff is real! People just choose to believe in astrology or taro or hand reading or whatever else but it doesn’t exist. It’s because of people like you who believe in stupid shit I am going to lose my job!”

Phil looks at him for a few moments. Dan suddenly realises everything that he has just said to Phil, and the realisation makes him freeze in place.

“You don’t have to be mean about it,” Phil says in a quiet voice and looks away. He doesn’t move away, so they just stay in the shared painful silence.

“Phil, I—”

“What? You’re quick to love and hate, it’s to be expected,” Phil shrugs, and Dan feels even more lost than before.

“I didn’t mean to…” he trails off because in reality, he did mean exactly what he said. It doesn’t make any of this better. It just pains him more. How easily he can hurt people who are kind to him. How quickly he can ruin something potentially good with just his words.

“Dan, it’s fine,” Phil smiles, and it hurts to see it appear so genuine. “You don’t have to believe in it. I know you don’t believe, you’ve told me as much. I don’t expect you to believe. It is quite stupid. But it makes everything so much more interesting.”

Dan doesn’t plan on avoiding Phil. It just happens naturally because whenever Dan is at the front desk, Phil is nowhere to be seen. He has his phone number but calling him feels even worse than seeing in person because it implies intent, and Dan doesn’t really know what he wants to say. No matter what Phil says, Dan just knows he shouldn’t have said any of the thigs he did. He never should have opened his fucking mouth in the first place, so all of this is entirely his fault. Maybe he should be fired from his job for being such an awful person.

When Dan does happen to see Phil, he is acting achingly polite – no snippy remarks, only blank smiles and short sentences, and Dan stops himself before even starting a thought. He manages to host a couple more interviews on the supernatural in town, and as much as he hates the article, it slowly comes together. It’s nowhere near his best work but at the very least he can say that he put some effort into it. He would be much more interested in the psychology of people who believe in supernatural and in superstitions but his stupid editor will never approve this kind of an article.

Dan spends the next two days either sitting at the café or in his room. The golden pig stopped appearing on its own there, and Dan hates to admit that he slightly misses the thing. If the pig had appeared here, it would have given him a reason to start a conversation with Phil, and then maybe he’d have enough guts to apologise. But the pig is nowhere to be seen – Phil must have taken it to his own room.

It's the other thing – Dan knows that Phil lives in the upper floor of the inn. There’s a small flat there and he even knows how to get there. He still doesn’t. He came to the town to work, not… make friends with attractive men who fascinate him so much he can’t stop thinking about them and the way they had quite a pleasant time together.

He types the text of the article in the word document when his ears catch a familiar voice. He freezes and looks around. The room is still empty, and Dan remembers that he is wearing headphones, so the sound must come from the laptop audio. His gaze slips towards the YouTube page in the corner of the screen. He left it on auto play so he won’t have to choose a new video every fifteen minutes. As he looks at the minimised page, the voice still rings in his ears and he sees Phil. It takes a moment to recognise him – jet black hair and an emo haircut is throwing him off but overall, he looks pretty much the same. Phil smiles at the camera as he talks some nonsense about how his mother is a lobster and Dan stares at him. The video ends too quickly and the queue starts to play something else. There’s no Phil on the screen, and Dan rushes to go back to the previous page. It almost seems ureal. As the pages loads again, he almost convinces himself that he is mistaken. It’s simply not possible. The universe must be mocking him, and he doesn’t even believe that the universe is able to do it.

He is once again met with an image of Phil as he says ‘hi’ in a soft voice. It sounds softer than it is now. He is sitting in front of half-made bed with blue and green sheets and he is wearing a light blue T-shirt with a print on it – at least that remained the same. The black hair reminds Dan of his own teenage years and emo haircuts, even though his never looked quite as good as Phil’s.

Phil asks to think of a card and Dan rolls his eyes. Yes, it’s definitely Phil. As a bit of fun, he thinks up the Queen of Hearts, and he jumps as Phil shows it on the screen. His grandma was a psychic, he hears in his mind and immediately rolls his eyes. There is no such thing as psychics, he reminds himself. It’s just a coincidence. And it’s not even that big of a deal – the deck consists of 52 cards, so the chance of getting the card right is… He trails off because the probability is only around two percent.

Dan shakes his head. Phil goes on with his story, and Dan really tries to focus on his words – and not on the way he bites his lower lip, how bright his eyes seem, how soft his voice sounds and how cheerful his smile is.

The story of lobster mum is soon followed by his Halloween costume.

‘People need to think outside of the box,’ Phil says, and something inside Dan feels different.

The video lasts for less than two minutes, and soon enough Dan is staring at the next suggested videos. He stops the auto play and scrolls down. There aren’t many views but as far as Dan could tell, for 2008 (fucking hell, has it really been that long?) the number is quite decent. AmazingPhil, it says. He clicks on the channel icon that brings him to a page of videos, all of them old. The first one dates to 2006. It makes Dan stop for a moment.

He remembers early YouTube. It was drastically different from what it is now. The videos were shorter, the topics were all over the place, there was no money and there were barely any people there, so Dan starts to wonder how come he never stumbled upon Phil’s channel when he was a teenager. Or maybe he did and just never paid him any attention. He would never know now.

A video titled Snokoplasm catches his attention. The word makes no sense but Dan can clearly picture Phil coming up with it after knowing him for just a few days. The sheets in the background are the same but at least the bed is now made. Phil is looking ridiculous with a tie tied around his head as he tells an absurdist story about snokoplasm. The next frame has Phil bare-chested, and Dan’s gaze trail down the white skin of his shoulder. Phil looks ridiculous. Yet, Dan can’t stop staring at him. His mind doesn’t even try to stop him.

The videos start at 2006 and end somewhere at 2010. Just gradually cease to exist, like many small channels that lit up like a lightbulb during the beginning of YouTube and died because they never got proper recognition or the people who worked on them just moved on to different things.

Dan stares at the screen long enough for it to start to dim. He tries to piece together the picture: Phil said that he did video production, he was even offered a job position and judging by him making the videos he tried to put his skills to use. He suddenly remembers Phil mentioning making videos and wonders why he didn’t try to ask about it instead of having a tirade about the supernatural. It must have simply never worked out. This happens constantly, and yet, Dan can’t seem to let it go. People like Phil were the reason Dan could keep going when it got to the worst parts. People on YouTube were the reason why Dan decided to pursue journalism because it allowed him to reach out to people.

He spends the better part of the hour watching through every video – there are quite many of them but they are short, so it still doesn’t take long. Phil is younger here but essentially he doesn’t appear as different as Dan could have guessed. Take Dan twenty to fifteen years ago… he prefers not to think about that, about young, scared and depressed Dan. He made it, and that’s what matters.

Before he knows it, he goes out to search for Phil. He doesn’t find him at the desk, nor at the lounge. He could call him but he still feels awkward.

He decides to go for a walk to think. He opens a browser and types in ‘AmazingPhil’ in the search bar, not really hoping for anything but still willing to try. Apart from the YouTube channel, the only links that show up are Phil’s Twitter and an old post from Reddit. He clicks on the post. It’s a subreddit dedicated to late noughties Internet where someone asked if anyone else is familiar with this channel five years ago.  

I rarely go back to the channels I watched in high school but amazing phil is one of the only ones I enjoy rewatching from time to time, says one of the commenters.

The other adds, I kinda wish he kept going. but ig its better this way than to see him become a part of a drama like others

I actually met him once by accident not that long ago!! The third comment says. He was really sweet! as far as I understood he lives a private life in his hometown and he is okay!!

This one receives a number of replies and Dan scrolls past all of them. Most of the replies to OP are positive, people sharing their memories and feelings and missing old times. Dan clicks on the Twitter link. It seems to be still active, mostly full of retweets of animals and some game and film news. The handle still remains @AmazingPhil but it has his full name, Phil Lester. It is actually the first time Dan learns his family name. It sounds nice.

Before Dan can stop himself, he opens the messages with Phil.

hi

i promise im not a stalker

it just happened

His own words don’t sound reassuring but this will have to do. He finally had a reason to talk to Phil even if only to find out why he stopped his channel.

It doesn’t take long for a reply to arrive.

do I want to know how you found me here?

Dan sighs. Still, Phil replied so it must be a good sign. He could have just blocked him immediately.

it’s a long and weird story

I’m on a break right now

A clear invitation, one that Dan is happy to accept.

He sees Phil even from afar – his hair, bleached blond shines under the sunlight. He has a cup of coffee in his hand and he even smiles as he sees Dan. Something tugs at his heart.

“Hey, not-stalker,” Phil looks at him with his eyebrow quirked.

“I promise it’s an accident,” Dan looks away, knowing that the blush starts to creep up his cheeks. He tries to convince himself that it’s because of the embarrassment. “You are right, though.”

“I’m always right,” Phil shrugs. “What do you mean?”

“People should think outside of the box. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with you.”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

Dan chances a look at him. Phil looks properly confused and still gorgeous. Dan might actually have a problem.

“Is snokoplasm a homosexual allegory?” he asks instead as he looks at Phil.

His bright blue eyes go wide with shock and he stares at Dan for a solid minute. He then lets out a laugh – not unlike he laughed in those videos – and shakes his head.

“I haven’t heard this word in actual ages. It doesn’t help with you not being a stalker though. Quite the opposite, actually. So you found my old channel?”

“The video just appeared on my auto play. I didn’t mean to.”

“And then what? You went looking for my Twitter?”

“Maybe,” Dan bites his lip. “I was just meaning to ask, why did you stop making videos? They were not bad.”

“You watched them?” Phil stares at him once again, and Dan thinks that he is only making this whole thing worse. But he had started now, so he needs to finish.

“Yes.”

“Wow,” Phil ruffles his hair, and his face is stricken with painful wince. “And you liked them?”

Dan nods carefully, watching Phil’s reactions.

“You guessed my card,” Dan adds after a moment, and Phil laughs, open and real. He bites his tongue as he laughs and Dan finds it ridiculously endearing.

They stay silent for a moment as Dan basks in Phil’s appearance – he wears a colourful jacket that stands out in the spring gloom.

“I’m sorry,” says Dan eventually.

“What for?” Phil asks, still emanating that bright light that Dan doesn’t quite understand.

“Just… Just because I don’t agree with something, doesn’t mean you deserve to get shouted at.”

Phil looks at him for a bit and smiles softly. Something breaks in Dan’s chest, lets out soft feathers and makes him feel better.

“I… I’m sorry, too,” he tilts his head to the side. “I shouldn’t have avoided you.”

“And now I stalked you,” Dan responds with a grin.

“I guess I deserved it,” Phil laughs, and Dan believes it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

As they once again look at each other, Dan knows he can’t ignore it any longer. He can’t pretend that he doesn’t feel anything or that his heart doesn’t beat faster every time he sees Phil and hears his voice.

He can’t pretend that Phil isn’t attractive, that he doesn’t check off every box Dan has, that he is pulled in way more than he is supposed to be, that he misses him despite only knowing him for a few days and despite him going back to London soon.

He doesn’t anticipate going back to London, though. There’s nothing waiting for him there apart from the job. But he has been thinking about leaving The Scoop for a while, ever since it changed direction. He has no-one waiting for him. He always felt lonely ever since he was young, and the big city never quite helped with the feeling. After the work he just goes back to his flat and spends hours on the Internet. The trip to Rawthenstall was never meant to be something important – just a way to finally publish something. He never thought that he’d meet someone like Phil, someone that could capture his interest and make Dan… never want to go away?

Isn’t that stupid, Dan thinks, that he felt more connected to Phil who he has only just met instead of the people he has known his whole life.

“Why did you stop making videos?” asks Dan again. The question burns on his tongue. “They were quite good. People liked them.”

“I don’t know,” Phil shrugs, taking a look away. “When I started, it was just a bit of fun, just something to do when I was bored in university but then… I guess I was doing it all by myself and I had no-one to share it with. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, it’s… I think I get it,” Dan looks at him and aches to touch him. “So if you had someone to keep you company, you might have gone on?”

Phil shrugs.

“Maybe, who knows. Or maybe I could have still worked in video production. Or maybe I wouldn’t have ever got a master’s degree and then who knows if I’d ever started YouTube. There are too many things that could have happened differently.”

“I thought you believed in fate and destiny and everything.”

“I do, sometimes,” Phil tilts his head with a contemplative smile. “I like to think that there’s a meaning to all of this. But I also acknowledge how many things should come together for something to happen and it seems like a lot of work to bring all of this together. I think that the big egg in the sky could have thought of some things but not everything.”

“An egg in the sky?” Dan lets out a laugh.

“Yeah, why not?” Phil replies excitedly. “It would have been much more interesting.”

“Sure, right,” Dan shakes his head.

As he looks up at Phil, still smiling, he thinks that he is definitely fucked.

Here’s the thing: Dan doesn’t believe in fate. He doesn’t believe that people are supposed to meet in specific circumstance. He doesn’t believe that anything could be arranged exactly the way to allow them to collide. And even if sometimes things happen the certain way, they require a lot of work and outside force to do everything properly. People don’t just see each other and fall in love. And even if they do, they must choose to love each other every single day.

Dan has a problem with the concept of fate. It means that every shitty thing that his parents put him through means something in the long run. Or even worse: someone (or something) finds some sort of perverted pleasure in arranging his life to be miserable. It means that every child that has died of an uncurable disease was just an entertaining short story for someone up there. All these things can be explained, and he finds more comfort in knowing that his parents just screwed up on their own instead of thinking that he had somehow deserved to be treated like that or that he has to go through some sort of trial to achieve something meaningful in his life.

Dan has made too many decisions in his life for them to be written off as fate. He made a decision to wake up in the morning and deal with his life even when everything hurt and he saw no reason to leave his bed. He made a decision to leave his family behind when for the umpteenth time they chose not to listen to him. He made a decision to go to Rawthenstall because he needed money.

He never chose to crush on Phil, though. He never chose to drown in his eyes and feed on his laugh. He never imagined having someone like Phil willingly at his side when Dan has made it blatantly obvious that he is a mess of a person. He never expected for Phil to help him. He never planned on meeting Phil at all.

“What did you mean when you said that I’m quick to love and hate?” Dan asks as they sit together in the lounge. There’s barely any space between them, and there’s barely any time left. He doesn’t know why he keeps staring at Phil’s mesmerising eyes and keeps finding something new to them with each passing moment. He feels the answer claw at the back of his head and he still doesn’t get why he feels this way.

“Oh, that wasn’t me,” Phil shrugs, keeping his gaze fixed on an old newspaper that he has acquired from the attic. He is hoping to find some more content for Dan’s article, and he seems adamant on helping him as much as possible. “As I said, I did a taro reading and it was the card that I pulled. The Knight of Wands.”

It doesn’t mean anything to Dan, and it doesn’t satisfy his curiosity either. He looks down at his laptop, mostly because he can’t stand looking at Phil anymore.

“How do you know it’s about me?” he asks, his voice quiet and hoarse. He doesn’t look at Phil. “I’m hardly worth being predicted.”

“Do you sometimes have this feeling that you can’t explain but know that it is true?” Phil says.

When Dan raises his head, he is met with Phil’s piercing blue eyes. He doesn’t quite jump upon seeing them, but it’s a close call. They look at each other for a few silent moments. Series of images flash before Dan’s eyes. He doesn’t believe in such feelings. Rational part of his brain rebels against any such idea. He doesn’t believe that fate even exists. He doesn’t believe that some small thing can somehow make everything different, let alone better.

“Yes,” Dan whispers, barely audible. The words float in the space between them, almost ready to crash down with a loud bang. Dan sees how Phil’s eyes darken, hears his breath hitch. He wears a dark red shirt that accents his bleached blond hair and allows a sneak of his neck. Dan hasn’t been able to do much work ever since he saw the shirt on Phil.

Phil’s eyes drop to his mouth for a moment – so quick Dan could have missed it. He doesn’t know what he is going to do next. The air is charged enough, it’s almost starting to crackle with heat, and they sit still against each other as if waiting for the other person to make the move.

“It is kind of like that,” Phil says eventually, and Dan needs a moment to remember that he asked a question in the first place. He can barely breathe.

They look at each other for a few moments before Dan tears his gaze away and looks at the screen.

It breaks his heart to ignore Phil’s soft sigh as he does so.

Dan doesn’t believe in supernatural. He doesn’t believe in fate. He isn’t even supposed to be here, he keeps telling himself. He can’t be the Knight of Wands. Phil deserves the real, proper knight. Someone that can treat him right, while Dan has barely got a hold of his own issues. Nobody deserves to be subjected to it. He can’t steal away something that is clearly so important to Phil just because he is feeling selfish. It is his choice – clearly, he makes his choice, stupid universe – he can do something right, instead of causing them both pain. He is going away in just a couple of days. It isn’t something that was meant to last anyway. It’s just an error, a mistake on everyone’s part. Dan should have never even tried to start this stupid article.

He would have never seen the light of Phil Lester, and he would have never needed to say goodbye to it. He would have never lost something that he could never have. It would have been easy to pretend that this thing between them didn’t exist if there was no reason to pretend at all. Phil lives in a different world, made of pigeons, lions and fish, of colourful shirts and soft smiles, of helping others and guiding them to the light. Dan’s world is lonely. He can’t force Phil into it. He can’t rob the world of his smile and laughter. If that’s what fate is dictating, he isn’t going to listen to it. Just because he was able to find something so grand in such a small place, doesn’t mean he can just take it away. There’s nothing he could do.

They later go out. They keep up the conversation, easy and quick as if they’ve done it for ages. It doesn’t feel like they’ve known each other for less than a week. Dan knows that Phil bites his tongue when he laughs, that he trips over his own feet and can talk about any topic in the world. He comes up with the most ridiculous stories, and Dan wants to hear them all even if he pretends to get annoyed. Phil somehow sees right through his façade.

“You like what I tell you!” he accuses Dan when he rolls his eyes.

“That’s a low blow,” Dan says as he looks at him, barely hiding his smile.

“You want to hear more,” Phil goes on, and Dan doesn’t even try to argue.

“Okay,” he says as he bursts out laughing. He sees Phil’s grin from the corner of his eyes. It’s not supposed to be this way.

Dan has stopped wondering how it’s supposed to be.

Dan would give half his life for the days that he spends with Phil before he needs to go. He feels elated, he laughs and smiles more than he had in the last few years, and he is always hurting at the idea of leaving this behind.

They play games in Phil’s room upstairs – Dan beats him at every video game Phil owns, and they come dangerously close to a draw when they have a race at Mario Kart. They watch a short film that Phil directed and edited in university and Dan can’t stop wondering why Phil stopped doing video editing. They walk down the streets of Rawthenstall, having an ice cream each and try to trick each other into marking their faces with it. They walk up the hill to the Halo Panopticon and look down the endless hills laying before them. They go to the last temperance bar and they laugh loudly even if the drinks are alcohol-free. They spend the time they have together, never questioning what is next. They never even bring it up. They just choose to ignore the gnawing pain at their chests that follow them everywhere they go.

Dan never bothers to think about it more than necessary. He never tries to start the unavoidable conversation that watches their every step.

He knows he should stop and reflect and ask what’s next. He never does. He knows that it will only bring him more disappointment.

As Dan packs his stuff before the early departure tomorrow, he knows Phil is lingering at the door, arms crossed and his face stricken with a deep frown. He knows that Phil is there and he takes his time before turning around as if he isn’t sure if he can really face him.

As their eyes meet, Dan knows that he’s never going to make it. Something about the way Phil looks at him makes it impossible. Soft, loud and inescapable, he never quite knows how to resist something right in front of him. He’s always been impulsive, to the point where there was nothing he could do. He was never going to win this non-existent fight.

As their mouths crash against each other, Dan forgets to breathe. He forgets that he is a person even, his whole world centred where their lips are connected. He can feel Phil’s cold hands on his face – flaming hot, and the contrast makes his heart beat even faster. He tilts his head to the side and moves his lips, slotting their mouths perfectly as if they were made to fit in with together. He tastes Phil’s lips with his tongue – a faint scent of chocolate lip balm that makes his lips glisten, and he feels dizzy. There are wet noises as they seem to be unable to let go of each other, heavy breathes as they take a second to fill their lungs with so much needed oxygen. Dan feels the wall slam onto his back as Phil pushes his against it, and there is no will in Dan to stop Phil from doing so. He allows to be pushed against the wall, he lets it hit his shoulder as he pulls Phil closer, not bothering to check if he is really hurt. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the way their hands wander down their bodies, searching for something and never finding. Dan shows his neck and Phil covers it with long bruising kisses, and Dan can only let out deep sighs as he locks his own hands behind Phil’s neck and pulls him even closer, as if begging to leave a mark, to allow him to have a reminder of the madness that he has allowed himself to partake in. He feels drunk on the feeling and he never wants to sober up.

His knees wobble, his head spins and there are black spots before his eyes. He is too distracted to pay attention to his own body, and he only realises that something is wrong as he hears Phil’s worried voice. It takes a moment for him to come around, and he realises that he must have fainted for a while. He is sitting on the floor, still a bit dizzy with his back against the wall. Phil’s looking at him worriedly, his lips still red and plump from the kisses, cheeks flushed and eyes wide open.

“Dan?” Phil calls, his hands cupping his face. They aren’t as cold, Dan notices.

“I’m… I’m okay. Low blood pressure,” he adds for a good measure and takes a deep breath.

Phil nods and visibly relaxes. The idea of Dan knowing what happened seems to bring him enough comfort to smile and lean in for another kiss.

This time, though, Dan doesn’t allow it to last. It stops after a quick peck at the lips and Dan turns his head to the side.

“Dan?” Phil asks again, and Dan knows that there is a crease between his eyebrows. He hates that he knows that already. “Is something the matter?”

Dan could lie. He can come up with thousands of excuses why this isn’t going to work. He can just not explain anything, because they don’t owe each other anything after less than a week. Lies die on his tongue as he just thinks of them.

“It’s not a good idea,” he says quietly, still relishing in Phil’s touch. He is going to lose it soon enough. He was always going to lose it but he just decided to make everything worse by hurting both of them. That’s just his life.

“What? Why?” Phil asks, still not moving away. Dan kind of wishes that Phil was a worse person.

“Because I’m going away,” he says blankly. “Because I was never even interested in fucking going to this town and fucking meeting you. Because this is not going to work.”

“Why not?” Phil asks, almost pleading and Dan hates to crush his heart even more.

“Because there’s no such thing as fate,” Dan shrugs. “There is no such thing as going to a small town and finding everything you ever wanted there,” the lie burns his tongue and he knows that he is wrong. It takes a lot of time to understand.

Phil looks at him, and Dan sees his lip tremble with something that he yearns to say.

“There is no such thing as a Knight of Wands. I’m sorry, Phil,” Dan says, and he feels Phil’s hands drop. It gives him a moment to stand up.

He avoids looking at him, as he tries to hide his tears.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Phil says, and Dan turns around to stare at him. Phil’s eyes are bright with some emotion that he has never seen before.

“What?”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Howell?” Phil repeats, and Dan flinches at the use of his last name. “Do you think I live in some imaginary world? Where everything just magically happens? Do you think I’m a fucking child?” Dan has never heard Phil swear, and the word hits him like a whiplash. He stares at him, eyes wide open. Phil lets out a bitter laugh. “What did I expect, though? Of course, Philly has no idea of the world, he is childish and stupid because he likes animals and printed shirts. And he believes in meeting a knight in shining armour,” he shakes his head.

“It’s not—”

“What does it matter what you meant? Do you think I’m living in delusions, yes or no?” Phil fixes him with a stern gaze, and Dan doesn’t know what to say. Phil stands up from the floor and brushes off his green trousers. “Why did you even kiss me?” he asks as he moves to the door. He waits for an answer at the threshold. As Dan stays silent, he shakes his head and leaves without another word.

As Dan leaves the inn the next morning, he can’t find Phil anywhere. The only thing he needs to return is the key, and Dan eventually decides that it doesn’t matter if Phil’s not there to pick it up. Dan leaves it on the front desk and leaves the inn without a second glance.

He doesn’t know what he expected. After all, he messed the whole thing up quite spectacularly. He deserves nothing more even if he hoped to see Phil once more. He has made his choice, and he pushed Phil away.

It’s a cold morning, and his coat doesn’t provide nearly enough warmth. He saves his breath but his eyes sting. He doesn’t allow himself to cry even if it hurts. There’s no use in pitying himself.

As he sits on the bench at the bus station, he drifts away inside his mind. He takes a mental look at this past week. He remembers Phil’s bright eyes, his soft smile – stark contrast with how Phil looked at him last time he saw him; broken, angry, sad. There is something in Phil that Dan can’t quite put into words. There is something about him that he has never seen in anyone ever before. Phil is different. He must have never understood just how much different he is. And how could he after knowing him for such a short time? And now he’d never have the opportunity to know him because he is going away, and Phil…

He hears a creak of the bench next to him and he chances a look at the person who decided to break his wallowing only to freeze on spot.

Phil is biting his lip, wrapping himself in his colourful jacket, and he looks drastically out of place. Dan can only stare at him, his mouth open and eyes wide.  

Phil sighs as he sits next to him, curled onto himself and looks at the empty road in front of him.

“I left the key at the desk,” Dan says because there is nothing else he can say at the moment. It sounds as stupid out loud as it sounds in his head.

“Okay. Thank you,” Phil replies quietly.

“Why are you here?” Dan asks carefully. He doesn’t know if there is an answer that he can accept easily.

“I couldn’t exactly let you go without saying goodbye,” Phil shrugs. “Just because you can—”

“Don’t. Please,” Dan pleads. It hurts more than he thought it would. He now knows the taste of his lips, he knows that Phil can push him against the wall, and he will allow it. He knows that Phil is still going to say goodbye. What he doesn’t know is how he is going to cope with this information.

“Alright,” Phil says easily. They stay in silence for a few moments more. “I wanted to apologise.”

“What for?” Dan’s head whips to the side and he stares at Phil. “There’s nothing—”

“For saying that it doesn’t matter what you meant to say. It does, obviously,” Phil sighs. “I just allowed my own assumptions to lead me. It’s not your fault that other people treated me a certain way and I learned that it’s the only way others see me. I’m sorry for snapping. You didn’t deserve it.”

“I… It’s okay,” Dan still watches him closely. “I understand. I’m sorry, too.”

Phil nods, quiet and accepting as if they reach some sort of agreement. It doesn’t fix anything but it heals some of the raw wounds.

The chilly wind blows, making Phil’s hair flare in different directions. Dan urges to touch it, to remind himself how soft it is – it was just a brief moment yesterday when he felt Phil’s hair at his fingers. He still wonders what it would be like to stroke the locks between his fingers, to weave through them and just know that it will be allowed.

“Do you have everything you need?” Phil asks.

“I do,” for the article, as for the other things... “I’ll see how it turns out.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Phil smiles softly. “It must be good.”

“If I’m going to be fired then it’s better to go out with a bang.”

“Fired?”

“Or I’m going to resign. It doesn’t matter,” Dan shrugs.

“We all make our choices,” Phil says with sudden seriousness. “It does matter if you get fired or leave on your own.”

“To keep your face?” Dan quirks his eyebrow.

“What? No,” Phil turns to look at him. “You really don’t understand?”

“Is this one of your games, Phil? I—”

“Stop it,” warns Phil, and Dan shuts up. “Do you really don’t see the difference? I left the editing before they could fire me. It was always my choice.”

“Then it makes even less sense,” Dan says, still drowning a little in his piercing eyes. “Why would you want to stop doing something you liked? And for what?”

“I never said I stopped,” Phil says. “I refused the job position but I never stopped. I still do it sometimes. I sometimes edit videos for other people. I sometimes film myself. It never brings enough money, so the inn is the way to have an income, but they could never force me to quit.”

“You never told me,” Dan replies, suddenly feeling very stupid.

“You never asked,” Phil shrugs. He’s right: Dan just assumed.

The silence that lies down onto them is not as heavy but still is weighted. It feels different this time.

Just as Dan wants to say something, the bus pulls up and people start to board it. Dan stands up automatically but his mind is elsewhere. He looks at Phil – he raises his head from where he sits on the bench. They look at each other for a moment.

“If I decided to create a video documentary, would you edit it for me?” Dan asks, still not moving.

Phil stands up even if Dan isn’t sure why.

“What documentary?” he asks. The people rush inside the rumbling bus.

“LGBT+ in schools. Bullying and its consequences,” Dan takes a step towards the bus.

“Important topic,” Phil nods. “Is this something you wanted to do?”

“Ever since I was a teen myself, actually. If I can do at least something, I should.”

Dan takes a few more steps. The pieces are finally starting to fall in their places.

“I mean, I will be glad to,” Phil shakes his head. The bus blares. “Are you sure?”

“I am, yes.”

“You have to leave.”

“I do,” another step. The steps leading to the bus are creaky and metallic.

“Okay.”

The door closes. The bus drives away.

The wind still blows, making the road dust flutter around in flowery patterns. The sun starts to peer through the clouded sky and warm the surface. It feels faraway, like looking through a glass and disturbing the image. It doesn’t feel real. The town is coming to life as the day starts to seep through the paths and roads.

The problem with fate is that it doesn’t leave room for free will. This paradigm doesn’t leave room for intentions. People might want to let their lives go, they might want to leave them for the non-corporeal powers, but they still make choices every step of the way.  

As the dust settles, Dan is still kissing Phil, not intending to let go.

three years later

Phil watches Dan pace the room with a smile. He is equally nervous but he isn’t about to add to the entropy of the universe by joining his chaotic partner in his useless anxious energy. If he were alone, he’d definitely have a breakdown and cycle through every single thing that can go wrong. But as they are together, it's a lot more interesting to watch the other go through the motions, even if Dan's black and white clothes make him a bit dizzy. 

As Dan is still pacing, Phil finds himself calmer. There is no use for them both to freak out. Everything was already decided and settled. It’s not like it’s their first time.

The Scoop: Manchester was desperate for any material and they agreed to publish the first documentary, not even asking any questions. They have spent few months working on it, and it wasn’t easy by any means, but it was worth it. Their first documentary was about supernatural – both the stories and mentality of people who chose to believe in it. It was Dan’s idea – even he wasn’t desperate enough to jump into the heavy topic headfirst with no guarantees. As much as Phil wanted him to have his dream story about teen bullying, Dan had to agree that he needed to start somewhere first. They were ready for it to flop.

What they weren’t ready for, is for it to gain a semblance of popularity on the Internet and for people to start posting clips from it all over Twitter and TikTok. People liked Dan’s sincerity when approaching a topic and they liked his charisma and humour. Dan was really made for a spotlight and something inside him shone brighter with every frame they filmed and every line of the script they wrote.

They hoped for the documentary to do well but they never accounted for it to go viral. And with virality came more viewers, and suddenly it was coming even in terms of money. They could hardly understand it, but they tried to.

Then someone recognised Phil as the very same boy who used to film avant-garde short films in his bedroom twenty years ago, and from that point on, they stopped trying to understand what was happening. Some of the people started to feel nostalgic for his videos. Some of them were interested in early YouTube and claimed that his videos had research interest. They never anticipated anyone to recognise him from the total of fifteen seconds that he was on screen – mostly accidental, almost to the point that they barely realised that he was in frame until they went to edit the whole thing. They were just glad that it seemed to accomplish its goal – it reached people, and people reached in turn. They almost cried.

“Stop it, you’re giving me a migraine,” Phil says and rubs his forehead. Dan stands still, looks at him for a moment and eventually takes a seat next to him. “Thank you.”

They are waiting to get an approval on their second documentary – it still wasn’t Dan’s dream but it was closer this time. They interviewed queer internet stars and asked how the things changed for them over the years. It was emotional and beautiful, and they decided that the money must go to charity for the LGBT+ youth.  

“What if they hate it?” Dan asks because of course he does.

“They invited us to the office, they won’t hate it,” Phil says, sounding more confident than he actually felt, still feeling Dan’s ruffled feathers.

“Says who?”

“Says me. And you know I’m always right, knight,” Phil grins, and something melts in Dan’s eyes. He tries to hide it, and even after all these years he still haven’t accepted that Phil can see right through him. He might not be able to read thoughts, but he has learned a lot about Dan to know what he thinks about most days.

“Alright, fine,” Dan sighs and crosses his arms. “We still need to get some groceries. You ate all my cereal again.”

Phil can recognise a change of topic. Dan doesn't care as much; he definitely doesn't care enough to bring it up in the office right before they are supposed to meet the producers. 

“No I didn’t,” Phil replies. He has left some, so it isn't technically a lie.

“If not you, who did it, then? There’s only two of us.”

“A ghost probably,” Phil shrugs.

“Not a single ghost will be able to bear living with us,” Dan shakes his head, pretending to be annoyed. He has got better at pretending but Phil still sees the way his eyes crinkle and corners of the lips pull up.

“Maybe it’s a pervert ghost. A perverted gay ghost who likes to spy on some terrible gay activity.”

“If by terrible gay activity you mean the way you managed to overwater the cactus,” Dan tilts his head as if really thinking about it. “Well, who knows.”

“Hey, you killed a plant too,” Phil says, pointing a finger at him. “It’s probably because your black clothes absorb all the light.”

“I’ll absorb you,” retorts Dan lazily.

“In some terrible gay activity,” Phil responds quickly and they fall silent. 

It took some time to get used to living together; they probably moved in way too fast but they managed to make it work, so it doesn't matter. They had a small apartment not too far from the inn, so Phil could still work, while Dan took numerous day trips to Manchester to speak with the people at The Scoop. They still saw each other almost constantly: first, they worked on the script, then they hosted interviews and edited the videos, then they had to meet with people in charge of posting the documentary on the website and figure out the financial side. They still floated on a high of a newly started relationship which was probably the main thing that kept them going for months. When Phil finally saw it finished, he was almost blinded by Dan's bright smile, and he decided that he doesn't care how much works it requires if it allows him to see Dan like this – open, smiling, happy. As they opened a bottle of rosé and sat on the sofa watching the opening scene together, Phil knew that it was exactly what he wanted. 

He isn't in a hurry, though. They still have a long way waiting for them before they can consider anything else. Maybe a bigger apartment. Maybe even a house. Having their own production company will also not go amiss so they won't be dependent on the producers anymore. They still have a lot to experience together. 

As they sit together waiting, he watches Dan's curly mullet flail sideways and grins at his dishevelled state. He loves watching him like this. He loves him in general even if Dan scoffs when he says it out loud. It doesn't hurt, it only makes Phil want to say it more - just to see him pretend not to care and fail miserably to hide his blush. 

He doesn't know if the universe has anything to do with them meeting. He doesn't really want to know, to tell the truth. He is comfortable just having this life, with Dan, full of arguments and laughter. 

He never intended for it to go this way, but he knows he won't regret anything.