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It looks like Phil. That's what messes Dan up.
It looks like Phil, the way he looked when Dan last saw him. He'd got up to get a glass of water, and he'd been about to ease the kitchen door open when Phil spoke suddenly behind him. He'd nearly had a heart attack.
Phil had laughed and Dan had pushed him in the shoulder, and that's what this thing looks like. Phil in his pyjamas, with bed hair, wearing his glasses and a sleepy, calming sort of expression.
“It makes sense,” The not-Phil thing says. Dan knows it's not Phil. He couldn't for the life of him explain how, or why he knows, he just...knows. The figure standing in front of him is Phil down to the ground, down to the stupid plaster on his bare foot where he'd managed to break another glass the day before yesterday and cut himself. And yet there's something about it, something undefinable that's making goose bumps break out along Dan's arms even though he isn't cold. “I mean, who else am I gonna look like, really.”
“Don't,” Dan says. He's had fucked up dreams before but this is a new one on him – standing in the back garden of his parents' house with this not-Phil...thing. Even the standing outside is weird, because it's winter – the trees whose branches curve over his parents' back fence are bare, and the grass is scrubby and wet under his bare feet, but Dan doesn't feel any of it. He's not cold, and he should be cold. Phil should be cold, but he's just looking at Dan, this weirdly calm non-expression on his face. “What the fuck is going on?”
Phil shrugs.
“You tell me.”
“No,” Dan's not taking this shit, not from his own brain. “What the fuck are you? What are you supposed to be?”
Phil smiles, and it's a weird smile.
“Hey guys!” He says, giving Dan a little wave. “I'm-”
“No,” Dan interrupts, fiercely. “Don't do that.”
“Sorry,” Phil says, blandly. “Just doing my job.”
Dan opens his mouth to respond, and then everything gets a whole lot weirder. The back door of his parents' house opens and a kid runs outside. Not just a kid. Dan as a kid, and Dan's heart clenches in his chest like he's swallowed something really cold. He can't move, can barely breathe for a second. There's something so familiar but alien about watching himself – he can't be older than five or six, drawing something on the back wall of the house in chalk. The back door's open still, and Dan can hear his mum's voice, distant and blurry, probably on the phone. He can hear his younger self humming under his breath as he draws, the scrape of the chalk on the brickwork. He remembers, sharp as a pin all of a sudden, how it feels when the chalk gets too small and you end up scraping your fingers against the brick, how it might hurt and graze your knuckles-
As if on cue, the small boy in front of them cries out in pain and the chalk falls.
“Mum,” He calls. “Mum-!” And he's gone, running back inside, the back door swinging closed behind him.
Phil's just watching him, not reacting to any of this at all.
“What the fuck,” Dan says, stepping backwards so quickly he almost stumbles. “What the fucking hell-”
“Have you ever heard of A Christmas Carol?” Phil says.
“Fuck off,” Dan breathes.
“Yeah, you're right, this is nothing like that.”
Dan stares at him. He wishes he didn't look like that – all sleepy and warm and approachable.
“What's happening?” He asks. He's not going to be one of those people – one of those people who knows he's having a dream and never shuts the fuck up about it being a dream. If he's having a dream he's gonna go with it. He just wishes real Phil could be here instead of this creepy substitute.
“I'm showing you things,” Phil says. “Like A Christmas Carol, only not like that at all.”
“You’re showing me things?”
“The past,” Phil says.
“Why?”
Phil shrugs.
“If I told you it'd sort of defeat the purpose,” He says. “Sorry.”
Dan sighs. Of course. Even in his sleep he's not willing to help himself out.
“Why d'you look like him, then?” He asks. “You could at least try a bit harder, it's weird.”
“I'm an exact replica,” Phil says. “It's not my fault if you can tell the difference.”
“But why-”
“It has to be someone you trust,” Phil says, simply. “Someone you believe in.” He pauses. “Idols, that sort of thing.”
Dan scoffs. It's an instinctive, self-protecting response, which probably doesn't make a lot of sense considering this is a dream and nobody else will ever know about it. Whatever, Dan's allowed to make no sense in the privacy of his own head.
“You had me at the first bit, and then...”
Phil doesn't say anything, he just...shifts. Shimmers. Dan can't explain it properly, except one second he's all bed-hair and pyjamas and the next second his hair's longer and his face is different and his glasses are gone and his t-shirt is gross and yellow and he's-
“Jesus Christ,” Dan hisses, rearing away from him in surprise. “Fuck.”
“Idols,” Phil says. A younger, longer-haired Phil, a Phil that didn't know Dan, a Phil who Dan could make an Internet Explorer window shape around in the air with his fingers to make this whole thing a little less freaky. “Respect, total belief, all of that.”
“Fine,” Dan says. “Point taken.” He pauses. “You can stop looking like that now.”
He does. Dan can't pinpoint the moment that it happens, but he's back. Dan's Phil – with neater hair, glasses, wearing Phil's favourite check shirt.
“Happy now?” Phil says. “I didn't ask to look like this, you should know, it just...happened. I'm the face you're most likely to respond to positively.”
“Seriously?” Dan says. “An idol whose face I'm most likely to respond to positively? And it's not, like, Beyoncé or someone?”
Phil shrugs again. God, Dan's imagination seriously needs some work.
“Honestly? Can't I swap you for Beyoncé? Not that, like,” He pauses, sheepishly. “Like, Phil's great, of course he is, but if this is some big journey thing and I need an idol to take me on it, why can't it be Beyoncé? I see Phil every day.”
“No can do,” Phil says, shaking his head. Dan rolls his eyes. “Think about it. Who would you rather be stuck in a lift with?”
Dan opens his mouth to say Beyoncé almost immediately, then stops.
“That depends,” He says slowly, scowling when Phil grins. It's still wrong, but that's a near-perfect mimicry of Phil's you know I'm right and you've finally admitted it after hours of sniping at me smile. “Like, is this a fantasy lift scenario? Because if it is then-”
“Phil,” Phil says, like the thoughts in Dan's head are just available to be plucked out of thin air.
He's right. Of course he is. Dan's been stuck in lifts with Phil before and Phil's just...Phil. He's endlessly understanding. Last time it had happened Dan had freaked out and Phil had dealt with all of the pressing the emergency button stuff, then he'd let Dan use his phone to play some stupid game until he could breathe in without wheezing. They'd sat there on the floor, and Phil hadn't even taken the piss later about the way Dan had leant into him the entire time they were waiting for help, even though he could've.
If he got stuck in a lift with Beyoncé, he sincerely doubts anything more would happen than him feeling cripplingly, horrendously awkward for the entire time, after which he'd spend the rest of his life in therapy to rid himself of the endless flashbacks.
Not-Phil is still doing that smile. It's more obviously not-Phil after his reverie about actual Phil, and it's so jarring that it makes Dan shudder.
“We're on the same page now, right?” Phil says. “I can't change from this form.”
“And, what, you're showing me the past?” Dan gestures at his parents' house – exactly the same as it looks now, except with weird alterations, little differences. The chalk scribbles on the back wall, the abandoned toys, the apple tree in the corner that isn't even an apple tree yet, just a spiny little sapling. “What's the point? Why?”
“You have to decide that,” Phil says. “This was just a test, anyway. A demonstration, so you'd know what was happening.”
Dan narrows his eyes at Phil. It's eerie, the matter-of-fact way he keeps saying things, the way he's only smiled twice, how still he's standing. Dan doesn't like it. It makes him want Phil to be here – Phil'd know what to do in this situation. Even if he didn't, he'd either pretend that he did know to make Dan feel better or he'd be just as clueless as Dan and then Dan's cluelessness would be ok because it wouldn't be just him.
“And I have to do this,” Dan says. “I can't just pack this in and have a better dream?”
Phil gives him this look that Dan can't identify. It's not an expression he's ever seen on real Phil, anyway.
“You have to do this,” He says.
“Ok,” Dan says. He'd been afraid of that. “Can we get it over with, then?”
-
They're in school – Dan's high school, to be exact. Dan finds himself flinching at the smell of industrial floor cleaner and Lynx before he can help himself. God, that smell - the smell of a thousand dismal Monday mornings. They’re standing in the middle of a bustling corridor, unseen. Well – Dan guesses they’re unseen, considering none of the passing students are reacting to the guy in boxers and a t-shirt who’s just appeared amongst them all.
It’s stupid, but the way the groups of kids are chattering and laughing together as they pass already has Dan’s palms sweating and his heart beating just that little bit faster. What is it about teenagers laughing that sounds so cruel? They could be laughing at anything but Dan always, always thinks it’s him, even now. And not in the good way, either, where he’s a master of comedy and people can’t help but laugh at how witty he is. No, Dan always thinks it’s in the I was a massive nerd in school and they can sense it like sharks sensing blood kind of way.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” He says. “Oh God, are you kidding me? This was bad enough the first time.”
“It's not for long,” Phil says. He's just standing next to Dan, watching the students walking by in their hissing, giggling groups with this blank look on his face. 'Blank' isn't even the right word – this not-Phil is like someone started to draw the real Phil and got bored, just drew in the face with this empty look instead, a placeholder for a real smile. Dan pulls a face and makes himself look away because he hates it. Real Phil would never look like that, and he's about to say something about it when he sees himself, walking down the corridor they're standing in. Walking right in their direction.
Younger Dan's hair is in his eyes, and Dan's brain kicks into gear, guessing and calculating. His hair's longer so he's about fourteen? Fifteen? He has one earphone in, red wire trailing down into his bag. God, he'd forgotten he ever owned that bag – a gross fabric messenger bag, black on black because some things never change, stuck with safety pins and fake torn edges because he'd been going through his emo phase in a big way. He must be fourteen then, because as soon as he lays eyes on the bag he remembers the day he'd had to chuck it in the bin because the seams had split and his mum had bought him a new one at the start of Year Ten.
“That hair was not a good idea,” Dan says without thinking about it, watching his younger self shaking it out of his eyes. He glances at Phil. “Is that what this is about? Are you the ghost of hairstyles past?”
Phil just shakes his head. Dan turns back to himself – his younger self, walking closer and closer, and tries to think. He doesn't ever like to think of high school – the whole thing's a mess, a blur, and he can't remember one day that was better or worse than any other, they all bleed into each other in his memory.
“What is this?” Dan starts to say, but then it's like with the chalk and the messenger bag – he remembers all at once, like a dam being unbricked.
He watches himself walking along, walking past him and Phil, keeping walking, and there's the group of guys clustered outside a classroom who all start hooting and jeering when he passes, and he flinches when their noises coalesce into words (it's beyond weird to watch his younger self attempt to suppress the exact same thing, hiking his bag further up on his shoulder as he keeps walking). Gaylord, they say, which is so fucking old. Dan's fuming, his skin's prickling. Who the fuck says that anymore? Who the fuck says that, full stop? They're saying worse things, but Dan's brain's buzzing too loudly for him to hear. He watches his younger self stumble, and that just makes the jeering worse.
“They, er,” His voice sounds very far away. “They used to do that all the time. Like. The classic insult, right? Because they, er,” Dan's throat's dry and he swallows with an uncomfortable click. “They thought I fancied this other guy, this Robert guy, and they started off calling us both but then he...he decided the only way to get out of it was to turn it around on me, right, so he told them that he'd spotted me staring at him all the time and I was totally gay and he was so completely disgusted by my existence...” He stops short, embarrassed at the venom in his tone. Phil's face is still non-reacting, not at all like Phil's real reaction when Dan told him about this. “Sorry.”
Phil doesn't say anything. He just looks at Dan like he's waiting for something.
“And I think,” Dan says, slowly, like it's being pulled from him – like poison from a wound. “I think I wouldn't have been half as upset by it if it hadn't been...I mean, I'm not gay, right?” If he can say this without being judged anywhere then it has to be inside his own mind. “But Robert, I...” He forces his eyes shut for a second, cringing at himself. “I'd be lying if I said I hadn't, you know, thought about it. About him. And, like, God, the way he just threw me under the bus.” Dan trails off, thoughtfully. He shakes his head, like a dog clearing water out of its ears. “It's fine, anyway. Whatever, it was years ago. And he did turn out to be gay in the end, Robert. So I guess it was self-preservation, on his part?” Dan scowls, looking down the corridor where the group of boys are still laughing. “Doesn't make him any less of a dickhead, but I can understand why he did it.”
He waits, but Phil still doesn't say anything. Impatient, Dan speaks instead.
“What? Did I get it? Have I learnt my lesson? Is that what you're here for, traumatising flashbacks? Let's stick around here, shall we, I'm pretty sure we're near the time they stole my uniform after PE, that was a fucking breeze, should we stay and have a laugh?”
Phil shakes his head.
“No, I think we're good,” He says, and the scene changes.
“So, what?” Dan says. “What was I meant to get from that? Is that all this is gonna be, really humiliating shit that's happened to me? I can give you a list if I-”
“You're kidding me,” Phil says.
“No,” Dan hears himself respond, and he spins on his heel just a second too late – they're in the middle of a busy street and the two people he's trying to look at pass through him like he's smoke. He hurries to keep up with them, unthinkingly, gravitating towards real Phil and -
“Oh God, my fucking hair,” Dan groans. “It gets worse, Jesus Christ.”
“I promise you I'm not here to show you your hair,” Not-Phil tells him calmly, keeping up with Dan no problem. He's moving quickly, they both are – quicker than Dan normally ever could, and Dan's not even breathless. In that one respect, dreams are brilliant.
“Ok, ok, you're watching that as soon as humanly possible,” Phil's saying to Dan. His hair isn't exactly a picture, either, but Dan notices that it still somehow looks better than his, even though they're both kind of similar from the back. Plus, Phil's taller, which is fucking weird to see in real life again. “We can check it out when we get back to mine. I have popcorn.”
“Of course you do,” Dan says. He's avoiding Phil's eye and smiling, and Dan rolls his eyes and glances at not-Phil, walking calmly next to him.
“That's me being cool,” He explains. “Trying to be cool.”
“It looks like he's buying it,” Not-Phil says, gesturing at Phil, who's grinning in a way that gets to Dan like he's been hit in the stomach.
“Of course he is,” Dan says. He'd meant to sound a bit sneering but instead he sounds almost as dreamy and stupidly adoring as the idiot with long hair he's walking behind. “He's an idiot.”
Not-Phil doesn't say anything again. It's weirder with real Phil so close – not real Phil, not Dan's Phil, not properly, but Dan falls silent himself and watches the two of them talking. He remembers this afternoon. He'd remember it anyway without this weird dream-flashback bullshit – he remembers all the times he visited Phil in Manchester. That's weird too, being back in Manchester – they're walking down by Marks and Spencer, Dan knows, and they'll come up to the wheel soon on the left (it's just there anyway, towering over everything, and he watches Phil, real Phil, glance up at it and smile this tiny secretive smile). They're probably on their way to Starbucks, or Phil's enabling Dan's obsession with shoes by letting him stare at some for an hour before they get lunch.
“There you go, see,” He says, out loud, as he watches himself and Phil preparing to cross the street. “We're probably gonna end up looking at shoes for ages. Is that what we're here for?”
Phil doesn't answer. Of course he doesn't. And then the world answers his question for him, because Dan watches himself and Phil get to the other side of the street where they're immediately set upon by a girl in a green hoodie.
“Oh God,” Dan says. “Shit, I'd forgotten about this.” Not-Phil's looking at him. He feels like he's being judged, which he's completely not ok with. “I mean – it's not like – it's hard to remember them all, you know? Especially after a while. But this is...” His eyes catch on his own hair, how young he is – Jesus, just the fact that Phil's taller. “This is one of the early times, I think.”
“You think?”
“Well, he was just asking me if I'd ever seen the Buffy movie,” Dan says. “I think. Which is a really bad movie. Comparatively,” He adds, before he can help himself. Then he rolls his eyes, gesturing across the street where Phil's talking to the girl in the hoodie and Dan's shrinking back, looking nervous as hell. “A comparatively bad movie, that's what he always says. Like, compared to the series. And now I've seen it about a million times, so if I was saying no here – and my hair, and his hair, like – this is pretty early.” He pauses, eyes catching on his younger self. God, he looks terrified. He's biting his thumbnail, eyes wide. Dan almost wishes he could go over there and help him out.
He's walking before he realises he even wants to, crossing the road, right through a passing cab, close enough that he can hear Phil saying, “It was really great to meet you,” before the girl grins at him and walks away.
“Shit,” Phil says, turning to Dan. “You were right.”
“Mm,” Dan watches his younger self say. He's fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket, pulling them down to cover his hands, trying to smile.
“I swear, that only happens when I'm with you,” Phil says.
“Lying fucker,” Dan says, for not-Phil's benefit. “That's him trying to be cool.”
“You're buying it, too,” Not-Phil points out.
“Yeah, that's 'cause,” Dan had been about to say something disparaging about his younger self, but he can't bring himself to do it. It's far easier to shit talk himself when all he has to go on are old videos and Facebook posts, it turns out. When he has a front row seat on a younger him being nervous and panicky and self-conscious, it's a lot harder. “That's 'cause Phil doesn't have to try all that much. To be cool. Not that -” Dan breathes out a laugh, watching Phil being reassuring. “Not that you'd ever tell him that.”
“-speak to people the way you do,” Younger Dan's saying, still tugging at his jacket sleeves. “Like...fuck, you're so...” He just gestures. Dan remembers that feeling – still gets it sometimes, the frustration when there's so many words in the world, adjectives and verbs and all of that, and all he has to do is stick them in a row to describe Phil and he just can't do it.
“So what?” Phil prompts, with this unbearable smile, like he knows everything Dan can't verbalise.
“Wanker,” Dan breathes, trying to fight a smile of his own.
“You know,” Younger Dan says, apparently echoing Dan's own sentiment – although he lets himself smile back at Phil.
Phil grins and catches hold of Dan's wrist until he stops pulling on his jacket. It lasts all of two seconds and Dan pulls his hands away quickly, wide eyed and startled, and because Dan's the objective party in this situation he can see now how that makes Phil's face look for a second – pained, awkward, rejected – and he wants to walk off to smash his head into a wall. Younger Dan's oblivious, though, because all he gets is another of Phil's smiles when he mutters out an apology.
“It's ok,” Phil says.
“It's not,” Dan says, watching his younger self, eyes flickering between the two of them like he's watching a tennis match. “It's not ok, why the fuck did he always say that? Fucking – letting me get away with shit, all the fucking time.”
“It's not ok for you to be nervous around strangers?” Not-Phil says.
“It's not ok for him to – like, it's fine for me to be nervous, yeah, and for me to – not want people to see us...you know, but it's – I don't have to be a twat about it,” Dan says, scowling at his younger self. “I didn't have to be a twat about it.”
“You're not being a twat,” Phil says, and Dan tunes back into their conversation quick as anything, his heart lurching in his chest for a second.
“I am,” Younger Dan insists. They're moving, walking up the steps and into the shopping centre, and Dan follows just so he can hear what shitty excuse he's gonna churn out. “I just – fuck, I can't speak to people, ok? I mean, I can, sometimes, but like – how do you do it, you don't even know these people and they just – fuck, they come out of nowhere and it's like...” He falters, gesturing vaguely. “I'm gonna be fucking great at uni, aren't I,” He adds, gloomily, as Phil lets him go through the door and onto the escalator first, Dan and not-Phil following close behind. “Can't even...fuck.”
Words seem to fail younger Dan, and Dan's about to scoff and make some cutting remark about it when Phil steps up so they're on the same escalator stair and – it's such a tiny movement, if Dan didn't know he was gonna do it he'd have missed it – hooks his little finger inside Dan's jacket sleeve. It's the tiniest thing, probably a response to Dan overreacting outside, but Dan remembers with sudden clarity the way that tiny brush of skin against the skin of his wrist felt like the biggest thing, like Phil was holding him up and without him he'd just topple over like a stack of wooden bricks.
“It gets better,” Phil says, quietly. “It gets easier, I promise. I mean – I was terrified out there, and I'm still ok, right? It's just – they're just people, Dan. It seems like they care about you but they really don't.”
Dan snorts.
“Alright, yeah, because-”
“Alright, yeah, because it's not like that's not something I worry about all the fucking time,” Younger Dan finishes before Dan can even get there.
“I don't mean it like that,” Phil says, letting go of Dan's sleeve as they step off the escalator. “I mean, people are all entirely focused inwards, right? You know when you speak to someone and you're thinking about who you just texted and what you're gonna have for tea? Everyone's like that. Sure, that girl thinks we're – I dunno – cool, or whatever, but she was probably thinking about the bus ride home or something.”
“Oh yeah, ok, sure, she was thinking about some kind of ride,” Young Dan says, as the two of them trail over to Starbucks. He nudges Phil. “I saw the way she was looking at you.”
“Dan,” Phil says, horrified, and then laughs. “You're disgusting.” His smile fades slightly as they step over the threshold into Starbucks and shuffle themselves into the queue. “You see what I mean though, right? You – you don't need to worry so much. And it'll get better. Honestly.”
“This used to be his favourite shit to say to me,” Dan says. “I'm pretty sure by this point I'd heard this about eight million times.” He pauses, stomach flipping when he watches his younger self lean up and kiss Phil on the cheek. “Ugh, that was lame, Jesus.”
He can feel himself flushing, and his younger self is, and – Jesus – Phil is, too.
“He doesn't think so,” Not-Phil says, helpfully.
“No,” Dan says, faintly. He coughs. “He doesn't have taste, that's why.”
“Thanks,” Younger Dan says, awkwardly. “God, I'm so lame.”
“You are,” Dan assures him, unheard, but there's no real heat behind his words. He's too busy looking at Phil, because he thinks he remembers what Phil's gonna say next, and he doesn't want to miss it.
Phil shakes his head, first. Then -
“For the record,” He says. He's turned half-away from Dan like he's looking at the muffins through the glass of the counter. Dan suddenly remembers the way that had frustrated him when he'd looked back on it – he'd wanted Phil to look at him so he could be sure he wasn't joking, or just saying it to humour Dan in some way. “Everyone else might be like that – you know, thinking about other stuff when they talk to you, totally in their own heads, you know, but – when I'm with you, I – you're all,” Phil waggles his fingers up by his head and finally looks at Dan's younger self with this bashful smile. “You're all up here, too. So.”
“Oh,” Younger Dan says, faintly. If he'd been red when he'd kissed Phil on the cheek he's even redder now. “Oh, well. Same, actually. With you, I mean.”
“Yeah?” Phil says, all hopeful.
Younger Dan nods.
“Fuck,” Dan breathes. “Fuck, that was – actually, that was really cheesy a second time around.”
“Really?” Not-Phil says. He sounds sceptical, like he knows how fast Dan's heart's beating.
“Really,” Dan says. He steps back, and they watch Phil ordering for the two of them, fussing about with his wallet. “Is that it, then? What was the point of this one? Is there a common theme?” He looks over at not-Phil. “I know you're not gonna say, but you could at least play along.”
Not-Phil gives Dan Phil's most withering look, usually reserved for when someone tries to cheat at Monopoly.
“Do you think there's a common theme?” He asks.
“I think I felt humiliated both times,” Dan's quick to answer. “So, what, the common theme's the fact that I'm an idiot? Because I didn't need some time travel trip to tell me that, Phil, I already knew that.”
“I'm not Phil,” Phil reminds him.
“I know,” Dan says. “Jesus. Would it kill you to be a bit more realistic?”
“I'm an exact replica,” Phil says.
“You're really not,” Dan tells him. Then he sighs. “Something...something about me being embarrassed?” No, that's not it. He can tell that's not it because they're still here, and Phil's looking at him, all expectant but not expectant at the same time. Something occurs to him. “If this is some fun trip about accepting my sexuality I swear to God-”
“You're half right,” Phil says.
“I am?” Dan says, then frowns. “Seriously? I don't want some road trip of self-acceptance-” He stops. “Shit. That's what this is, isn't it? This is some self-acceptance bullshit.”
Phil doesn't say anything.
“Oh my God,” Dan says, frustrated. “I'm right, aren't I? Well, fuck, I accept myself. I'm great. I'm brilliant. Do I have to do the rest now?”
“You're half right,” Phil says, again. “Maybe you'll get it with the next one.”
“For fuck's sake,” Dan says, but everything's already fading around them.
-
The echoing babble of voices from the Starbucks and the shopping centre beyond fades to a complete, uncomfortable silence. Before everything around them even reforms, Dan has an idea of what's about to happen.
“Oh, come on, then,” Dan says, as the foyer of a university building swirls into existence around them. “What day's this gonna be? The day I quit? That time I dropped coffee on some girl who was standing in front of me? There's so much to choose from here, you're having a field day with this, aren't you?”
Phil just nods at something past Dan, and Dan turns to face himself. He'd expected himself to look older – if he's at uni this can't be more than a year since the last vision, but he also knows this is when he went through his awkward growing phase. He looks the same, though – he looks young, and tired, and his hair's fucking square.
“This is the worst,” Dan tells Phil. “Like, it got worse after this – there was this whole thing where it was longer in the back than it was in the front, that was pretty bad, but this is like – this is before the point of no return, so there's really no excuse for it.”
“It's honestly not about the hair,” Phil tells him, patiently.
“Yeah, but that's what I'm getting from this,” Dan says, bringing up a hand to rub at the short sides of his hair, absently. “Like, fuck, talk about character development.”
Phil doesn't say anything, and Dan gets distracted just watching himself, lingering uncertainly nearby, looking from his phone to a scrap of paper clutched in his fist to a screen on the wall that has a list of the rooms in the building and who they're being used by and when, like a train timetable for the seminar rooms. He spends far too long looking, and with a rush of sympathy Dan remembers that feeling – the lonely, getting lost, being too afraid to ask for help feeling, coupled with the heaviness deep in the pit of his stomach as he slowly realised that he'd either have to ask someone where he was going or be late. Dan was never sure which was worse.
“This isn't even a problem anymore,” Dan says. “Like – yeah, we get lost and we're late so often, but – most of the time Phil's with me and it's ok. Plus I'm way more organised now. We are.”
He watches himself struggling to look at his phone as it buzzes in his hand. He can see himself getting more and more agitated – gross sheen of sweat on his forehead, his face pink. He reads the text and whatever it says encourages him to move further into the building, through a side door and down a corridor, Dan and not-Phil following close behind.
He comes to a halt outside a room with a little window in the door – a window through which it's clear whatever class Dan's meant to be in has already started.
“Oh shit,” Dan says. “Shit, this used to happen all the time.”
It's weird to watch because Dan's not feeling whatever his younger self is feeling, but he remembers it. He remembers how his palms would sweat and his heart would beat so hard and his mouth would be bone dry, and reaching for the door handle and walking into the room felt like the biggest thing in the world – lifting the handle would be like Atlas shouldering the world on his back. Dan hardly ever managed it. Even now, the low buzz of voices through the door, the slice of brightly lit lecture theatre, is making Dan feel kind of sick.
Dan's younger self stands there for an age, it seems.
“He should just,” Dan says. He's whispering, even though he doesn't have to. “God, this was always the worst thing, but – but it's better to just go in there, right? It's like Phil was saying about people not giving a shit. They don't give a shit. I mean,” He thinks for a moment, drags his damp palms down the front of his t-shirt. It's weird how much this is getting to him. “Being late to stuff is still shit, fuck, it's the worst, but now I – we're normally on time, and if we're not it's not the end of the world.”
His younger self lets out a breath of air and just walks off back down the corridor, wringing his hands and shaking his head a little, and he hits the door at the end of the corridor with force and bangs his way back into the foyer. Dan stares after him, not moving for a second, then sets off walking after him slowly, Phil looking at him.
“Jesus,” Dan breathes. “If worrying about shit shortens your life then I'm fucked, aren't I? Because,” He gestures at the door that his younger self just walked through. “Something like this, I'd end up thinking about it for weeks. Weeks. I'd never – sometimes I'd even stop mentioning it to Phil because I'd worry I was fucking him off. I worried about worrying, can you imagine?” Him and Phil pass through the door like it's water, and he sees himself, fumbling with his phone, his breath catching in his throat. “I'm not saying I don't worry anymore, because I really fucking do, like – anxiety's just second nature sometimes, but...nowhere near this. Not anymore.”
Phil raises his eyebrows and nods, like Dan's raised an interesting point.
His younger self is leaving the building, and they follow, close enough that they can hear when he's on the phone.
“Phil,” Dan says, quietly. “I used to always ring him. I'm-”
“God, I'm such a fucking idiot,” His younger self splutters, thickly, into the phone, no need for a hello. Even without their constant texting, Phil was never shocked or surprised to be dragged into Dan's stupid bullshit – he'd go along with it immediately, instantly helpful, something undefinable about his voice making Dan's racing heart slow, like hearing a familiar old lullaby from when you were a kid. “Fuck – I couldn't go in there, I couldn't – fuck, I'm so fucking stupid.”
“He's gonna cry,” Dan feels the need to point out, embarrassed, as his younger self swipes at his eyes viciously, angry with himself. “Jesus.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” Phil asks.
Dan looks at him.
“No,” He says, slowly. “No, but – he was just late to class, it shouldn't have been some big deal-”
“But it was,” Phil says, gesturing at younger Dan, whose breathing is ragged, quiet as he listens to Phil speaking down the phone line.
“Yeah,” Dan says, uncomfortably. “But like I said, I used to worry about all sorts of stupid shit that doesn't even matter.”
Phil doesn't say anything then, and Dan makes an impatient noise and turns back to his younger self, who's speaking again.
“Are you sure?” He's saying, in a tiny voice. He sniffs, then says, “Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a bus in like two seconds.”
“Going to Phil's,” Dan explains. “I spent more time at his than I did at uni, I swear to God.” He gives Phil this side-glance. “So is that it? You're just showing me my failings as a human, right? I used to get picked on and I find it hard to speak to strangers and I hate being late because – because fuck, just the thought of walking into a place like that and having everyone look at you, that's – that's why he's out here,” He gestures at himself, digging his headphones out of his jacket pocket. “I remember what that feels like. So yeah, I'm a shitty functioning human being. I think I get it now.”
“Almost,” Phil says, and everything changes again.
-
For a second, Dan thinks he's woken up, because he's back in his bedroom. Except not-Phil's next to him, and the neatness of the room isn't Dan's usual I'm filming a video so I have to clean neatness, it's just-moved-in-neatness, and Dan turns to look at not-Phil, almost disappointed. Part of him had been hoping for something in the old apartment - he misses that place sometimes.
“How much more of this is there?” He asks. “It's getting kind of old.”
“Literally,” Phil says.
Dan looks at him.
“You know, that's the closest you've come to being an exact replica of Phil during this whole thing,” He says. “He loves making jokes that aren't funny.”
Phil doesn't say anything, but Dan hears his voice anyway, from outside the room.
“Dan?” He's saying. Dan hears the familiar creak and shuffle of Phil edging out of his bedroom. He moves over instinctively, peers around his ajar bedroom door.
“What's up?” Dan says, without thinking about it, but of course Phil isn't talking to him. He's talking to his own Dan. He doesn't even know Dan's here.
“Dan?” Phil says again, then sighs. Dan watches the way he stops in the hallway. He's almost hanging his head, like it's too heavy to hold up. There's something about that and the length of his hair that's giving Dan an uncomfortable, prickling suspicion about what he's about to see.
“Tell me this isn't what I think it is,” Dan says, quietly, but of course, not-Phil doesn't say anything, and Dan ends up watching Phil climbing the stairs to the office with trepidation, waiting a second before he follows.
“Dan,” Phil says, softly, edging the office door open.
Dan's starting to feel sick. He knows Phil's not gonna get a response, not today. The office is lit up by the glow of Dan's Mac – this is before they'd even set everything up properly.
“Dan, come on,” Phil says. “Just leave it for now, it's ok.”
“No,” Dan hears himself say, quiet. “No, Phil, this isn't ok. This is – fuck – this is a nightmare.”
“It's fine,” Phil says. His voice is soft but it's only now that Dan can see how upset he is. Probably more upset by the hunch of Dan's shoulders than he is by whatever stuff written about them Dan's raging against online.
Dan hears himself laugh, harsh and humourless.
“Yeah, alright,” He says, voice heavy with sarcasm. When he finally turns to look at Phil, he's sneering. “Yeah, it's fine. Let them watch what they want, right? Let them say what they want, just let it all happen, it's not like it's about us-”
“Dan,” Phil says. Dan's voice had been steadily creeping louder and louder, but Phil's quiet voice brings him to a dead halt.
Dan heaves in a breath like he's about to yell, and then he ducks his head like he can't do it. He can't look Phil in the eye.
“I know you think I'm overreacting,” He says, in this forced calm sort of voice.
Dan isn't even looking at himself. He can't take his eyes off Phil, off the line of his jaw and the paleness of his skin and the way the dim light washes him out, like he's a faded painting on the office wall instead of a real person. Like he's the ghost, the echo of himself standing next to Dan with a bland, uninterested expression.
Dan's making him look like that. Dan made Phil look like that, like water's bleeding through his edges, blurring him away.
“I know – I know it seems like people – like they know,” Phil says. “But they don't. They don't, Dan. People know what we tell them, and that's it. They can guess and they can speculate all they want, but they don't know anything.”
“But they do,” Dan says, suddenly loud, pushing his Mac away from himself with a thud. “It doesn't matter if we didn't tell them or not, Phil, they know – some of the shit they're saying is true, and-”
“But they don't know it's true,” Phil says. “Jesus, the more you respond to this stuff the more you...” He stops and swallows. “Look, I know it's shit and it's difficult but the best thing you can do is ignore it, alright? If you respond to it it makes it seem like it might be true.”
“He's right,” Dan says, softly, watching the two of them staring each other down. “Of course he is. Fuck. I never – I should listen to him, like, if there's one thing I should've learned after all this time it's to listen to him, and – sometimes it's just fucking hard. It's like there's all these voices in my head and I should listen to his but – the other ones are louder.”
“I can't,” Dan watches his younger self say. He remembers this day like the dull throb of an old ache in the back of his mind. He remembers how he'd sat up here all day, brooding. He remembers Phil coming up to try and talk him out of it, and he remembers -
He tries not to remember the argument that came afterwards. The argument that's coming. They hadn't spoken for days afterwards. Dan had spent the entire time wallowing in his own wretchedness, in the certainty that the argument had been entirely his own fault. Even when they started talking again, Dan felt like he'd fucked something up for a long time afterwards, even though Phil never mentioned it.
“It's not that big of a deal,” Phil's saying, patiently.
“I don't want people talking about us like this,” Dan says, gesturing at his closed laptop. “It makes me feel sick.”
Phil swallows and says, “I don't...I know we decided on privacy-”
“Because we need it,” Dan cuts in, sharply. “There's no alternative other than insanity, Jesus Christ, Phil.”
“I just,” Phil says, voice so quiet. Dan feels like he's trapped in amber, watching the way Phil's Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows again. “I dunno when you got to be so ashamed of me, that's all.”
Dan just walks out of there. He doesn't know if there are rules to this dream, but it's his dream, and fuck this. He doesn't have to stand around and watch this shit. He rushes downstairs as the voices upstairs get louder, faster and faster than he could ever manage when he's awake, bursting through the flat door and down the hall and out onto the street. He keeps going, keeps moving, not looking at people who are passing. Echoes, ghost people, figments of his imagination.
God, Phil's face. That had been – fuck, it hadn't been a good time. For the longest time, it hadn't been good. They'd had so many arguments, sometimes it felt like they were just picking up where they left off the last time, like returning to bookmarked pages.
Seeing that – seeing how it used to be - makes Dan want this to be over more than anything. He wants to walk out of his bedroom and down to the kitchen, he wants to catch Phil nicking his cereal and he wants to give him shit for it and he wants them to play Mario Kart with their shoulders bumping and he wants how easy it is again now, like breathing. Dan doesn't need this extended guilt trip, this whistle stop tour of how shit he is. He knows how shit he is. He doesn't need a reminder.
“Dan.”
“Fuck off,” Dan says, and doesn't stop.
“Dan,” Not-Phil says. It's a blank, soulless, empty version of Phil's most patient, understanding tone, and Dan doesn't need it right now.
He turns to look at the thing that isn't his best friend. The wrongness of it looking like Phil but not being him jars Dan's insides.
“Fuck off,” Dan says, again, because once wasn't quite enough. “Fuck off and leave me alone and – and stop looking like that, right now, ok? You can't use his face on me to teach me some fucking stupid lesson, it isn't gonna work.”
“I can't change from this form,” Phil says.
“Try,” Dan says. “I don't want this bullshit anymore.”
Phil's quiet for a second.
“It's just a memory, Dan,” He says. Dan wants him to stop looking like that right now, stop using the voice that's always uncurled tension from Dan's shoulders whether he wanted it to or not.
“I don't give a shit what it is,” Dan says. He's embarrassed now that they're away from the apartment by how much of a fucking drama queen he is. It's not been the same as remembering, this whole thing hasn't been like visiting memories at all, it's been like reliving – like feeling the aftershocks of distant earthquakes, far enough away that nothing breaks but close enough that you feel unsteady on your feet. “I don't want to see you anymore. Jesus, I hope you don't do this a lot, you're shit.” Maybe it's his imagination that's shit – maybe he can't capture Phil properly, maybe that's what leads to this fakeness, this façade. Although he's dreamt of Phil a million times before, and never like this.
“I'm an exact replica,” Phil lets him know again, then fades away. Dan's surroundings shimmer, and he's standing in the middle of London by himself. It's not the same day – the weather's too good, everyone who passes is in short-sleeved t-shirts or wearing sunglasses, and there are people everywhere.
“If you give me a sec,” Dan hears himself say, and he turns on his heel and comes face to face with himself for the sixth time in this stupid dream. Except this is a version of himself that's more familiar, a version of himself that he recognises more recently from the mirror. He's frowning down at his phone, trailing Phil, who's laden down with shopping bags, pale skin of his forearms practically glowing in the sunlight, squinting in the glare of the sun. Just that makes Dan remember – but it's a different sort of remembering. This had been last week, he's sure, when they'd gone out shopping and Phil had forgotten his sunglasses and refused to wear Dan's no matter how many times he offered them. “I definitely wrote it down on here somewhere.”
“We've got mostly everything, though, right?” Phil asks. Dan's heart twists up in his chest just because it's Phil – it's his Phil, absent-minded and ridiculous and tilting his head back as they pause in the street so the sun hits his face better. He wants freckles, he's decided – freckles like Dan's, to be specific, and lately he hasn't shut up about spending time in the sun until he gets them. “I feel like we've got everything.” He adds, meaningfully, and Dan watches himself, the way he smiles before he can help himself, looking up from his phone and over at Phil.
“I can carry the bags,” Dan watches himself say. “How many times did I say I could carry the bags?”
“About five,” Phil says. “But I like it this way.”
“Why? Working on your muscles?”
“No,” Phil says. “But you're all, you know,” He lifts a hand with effort, bags hanging from his wrist, to gesture at Dan's outfit. “And it makes it look like I'm your mistreated PA.”
“I'm all what?” Dan says. “What?” He laughs, uncertainly, as Phil grins at him. Dan wishes he was closer so he could see what that smile's doing to his eyes. “Oh my God, you're a dickhead. You're carrying the bags so you can make me look like a wanker, that's your plan?”
“No,” Phil says, and laughs. “No, no, I was genuinely trying to be helpful, I just thought of that when we were walking. Like, that's what it looks like. Especially if you put your sunglasses on.” He shuffles forwards, putting some of the bags on the floor for a second so he can reach up to the front of Dan's t-shirt where his sunglasses are hooked into the collar. It's only from his outsider's point of view that Dan realises that when Phil spends more than a few seconds unhooking the sunglasses, it's more of an excuse to leave these feather light touches on Dan's chest. “Here we go,” He says, and Dan scrunches his eyes shut as the glasses come close, then Phil rests them on his nose successfully, brushes the back of his hand across Dan's cheekbone for all of half a second and then says, “See, now you're the celebrity and I'm the mistreated PA.”
“You're a dick,” Dan says, shoving him a little. He's grinning, though. “And you'd make a shit PA.”
“I'd make a brilliant PA, shut up.”
“Yeah, alright,” Dan says, snatching up the bags Phil had put down before he can protest. They keep walking, slower this time. “Who's the one who lost the to-do list?”
“Don't know.”
“Don't know?”
“Yeah,” Phil says, on the edge of a sigh. “Some guy called Phil, I think?”
“Yeah?” Dan says, playing along.
“Yeah,” Phil says, nudging Dan's shoulder as they walk. “Didn't get a good look at him. He seemed cool though.”
“Oh yeah?” Dan says. He knows he's rolling his eyes because he remembers doing it. “Tall dark and handsome, was he, by any chance?”
“Yep,” Phil says. “With, like, impressively defined arm muscles from carrying shopping bags.”
“Oh my God, shut up,” Dan says, laughing. “I don't remember what we had to do, what was left on the list?”
“We had to go to Superdrug,” Phil says.
“For sun cream, yeah,” Dan says, tapping it out on his phone, but he doesn't get very far before the two of them are interrupted.
Dan hangs back to watch this, because the last thing he wants is to see him making an idiot of himself again. He's better at meeting fans now, better at this whole thing – the guy who'd hung back, all but hidden behind Phil on a side street in Manchester, could be a different person entirely.
“See what I mean yet?” Not-Phil says. Dan doesn't even jump; he thinks this whole thing's got him desensitised.
“What, is this you giving me a clue?” He says, turning to look at him.
Phil shrugs.
“Time's nearly up,” He says. “I was just wondering if you'd seen it yet.”
“Seen what?” Dan asks, but he doesn't expect an answer. He looks over at where he and Phil are talking to the girl and the boy who'd approached them, trying to huddle together for a picture. “My hair looks pretty good.”
“We're not here for hair,” Phil reminds him.
“Phil's hair looks good too,” Dan says, ignoring him. “He's such a nerd,” He adds, in a low voice, when Phil smiles. He looks at not-Phil, and gestures in real Phil's direction. “You can't pull that off. See what I mean? You just can't do it.”
“I'm an exact-”
“Yeah, yeah, an exact replica, I know,” Dan says. He falls silent, thinking. “Do I have to figure it out before this shit's over?”
“It's up to you,” Phil says. “I think you know already, though.”
Dan frowns.
“I've – changed a lot? This is self-acceptance shit, isn't it? You said I was half right about that.”
“You've changed a lot,” Phil agrees. “And you're half right, yeah.”
“I'm,” Dan stops for a moment, thoughtful. “Apart from this, I wouldn't do any of that shit anymore. Like, I wouldn't – what people say doesn't bother me as much, and – and I'm willing to do more stuff?” He looks at Phil like he'll indicate if Dan's on the right track, but of course he doesn't. Dan huffs out an irritated sigh. “Erm, I – I've grown up? I'm taller than Phil now, for starters. And my hair's better – don't even say anything, the hair's an important thing,” He says, waving a finger at Phil in case he tries to interrupt. “I – shit, I don't know. This is like an exam, Jesus.” He looks over at himself and Phil, tries to think hard. “I guess – watching myself was like – I can shit talk myself ‘til the cows come home, you know, but being there and watching it, it was like – I've done stupid shit, and I've done embarrassing shit, but God, I'm just a person, you know? Watching it was like – like it was someone else. Someone else who I kind of felt sorry for, actually. And none of it was as bad as I made it out to be, and maybe I should shit talk myself less.”
“Maybe,” Phil agrees.
“Because I'm way better now,” Dan says, getting into his stride. “Like – God, it's lame to say, but I'm more confident now, you know? I'm way more confident. Jesus, I'm obnoxious sometimes. All the time. But that's ok. And anything that's shitty now, like, that'll just smooth itself out, maybe, because God knows everything else has.”
Phil hums, but doesn't say anything else.
“And Phil,” Dan says. “Like. We're not here for Phil, I know, but – Jesus, the shit he's put up with from me. He's too good for me.” Dan looks at not-Phil. “I should just have you instead. Blank copy that can't smile properly. That's good enough for me. I mean, it's not, but it's like – he's just...too much. For someone like me.”
Phil blinks at him.
“What d'you think he'd say to that?”
Dan laughs.
“He'd be pissed off,” He says. “We've definitely had that conversation before. He can't take a compliment.”
“Maybe he just can't take compliments when they involve you talking yourself down,” Phil says.
Dan scowls.
“Shut up.” He says, then sighs. “That's completely it. He's like – my gran used to say something about people having stuff written through them like sticks of rock. I think she used to mean it, like, bad stuff, but it makes me think of Phil 'cause – 'cause there's just good stuff all the way through him. Written all the way through.”
“And you're not the same?”
Dan scoffs.
“No,” He pauses. “Not like him.”
“But he'd say you were,” Phil says.
“Probably,” Dan says. He means definitely, really.
“Yeah, you should think about that more often,” Phil says, and then everything fades again.
-
Dan snorts himself awake.
Awake. God, he knew that shit was a dream. A stupid, easily forgotten, fucked up dream. Dan rolls over onto his stomach and breathes in the smell of his pillows with glee, far too awake and in too much of a good mood considering he only just woke up.
He gets out of bed the next second, catches sight of his reflection in his mirror and pats the shorter sides of his hair. It looks great aside from being messed up from being asleep. Everything's great, even though his legs are weird and his stomach's weird and his – whatever, everything's great.
He makes himself wait until after he's made Phil a cup of coffee before he wakes him up, even though it had taken too much willpower not to rush out of his room and burst into Phil's immediately. It's beyond stupid to miss him when he saw him a matter of hours ago – it's weird how dreams can fuck you up, and that one fucked Dan up massively. He drifts off into a daydream about it when he's waiting for the kettle to boil, and nearly burns himself on the hot water because he isn't concentrating properly.
He shoulders Phil's bedroom door open a few minutes later, grinning stupidly at him, misshapen lump under the bedcovers that he is. The whole room smells like his aftershave and his stupid scented candles, and everything's ok.
“Mmf,” Phil says, shortly after Dan's set the coffee down on his bedside table and touched his shoulder through the duvet. “Time's it?”
“Dunno,” Dan says. He tugs the duvet, close enough that he can see the dark top of Phil's head, the way he grumbles and tries to turn away from Dan. That leaves him enough room to pull the covers back and slip in next to him, squirming until the cold of his nose presses against the back of Phil's neck.
Phil flinches away from him with this hilarious squeaking noise, then he sighs. Dan's hand finds his hip under the covers and just touches. He can tell the exact moment that Phil resigns himself to being awake, because he sighs again, then turns over to face Dan.
“I hate you,” Phil says.
Dan doesn't care. Phil's face is flushed and pillow creased. His eyes are half closed and his hair's as messy as Phil's hair ever is. It's stupid, but Dan feels so much all at once in that second that he thinks he might burst.
“I made coffee,” He says, and kisses Phil's nose.
Phil makes a snuffling, laughing noise, then yawns.
“How much?” He asks.
“I used the big mug,” Dan says, reaching up to touch the soft skin at the corner of Phil's eye with his thumb. “The early mornings one.”
Phil scrunches his face up and smiles.
“Maybe you're not so bad after all,” He says, and Dan kisses him properly this time. He can't help himself, and Dan knows Phil can't either because he kisses back for a long moment before separating them with a hand to Dan's shoulder.
“Morning breath is gross,” He says, pulling a face.
“You're gross,” Dan says, and kisses him again.
“Mm,” Phil says. Dan kisses his neck because it's just right there and nobody's kissing it, what the hell's that about? “Dan. Dan, hey.”
“Give me a sec,” Dan says absently, breathing in the smell of Phil's skin at the collar of his t-shirt. He smells like warmth and sleep and sweat and stale aftershave, it's amazing.
“Dan, oh my God,” Phil says, laughing, and he squirms away from him, shifting around until he can look Dan in the eye, half-in and half-out of the covers. He's squinting without his glasses. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah,” Dan says. He grins. “Yeah, Phil, Jesus, now can we get back to that whole thing-”
“No, no, wait,” Phil says, a hand on his shoulder. He reaches his other hand up to rub some sleep out of his eye, and yawns before he carries on speaking. “Yesterday, you were all...” He trails off, thinking of the best way to say it.
“Obnoxious,” Dan suggests, helpfully.
“Not ok,” Phil says instead. “And now you're, like, extra ok. And kissing me.”
“I kiss you all the time.”
“Not when you're not ok,” Phil says. He frowns, strokes clumsy fingers along Dan's hairline. “So you're feeling better now?”
“Would you believe me if I said I'd been visited by some ghosts in the night?”
Phil's just looking up at him, this worried frown on his face.
“No,” He says. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Dan shakes his head.
“No, no, it's ok, I'm ok,” He says, then shuffles off Phil, flopping onto his back next to him. Phil turns over, curling up along his side, moving to rest his head on Dan's shoulder. “I had this weird dream. And you were there, but it wasn't you, it was this fake-you, and it kept being like, oh, I'm an exact copy of Phil, but it wasn't, and you should've seen the way it smiled, it was all wrong.” He lifts his head to look down at Phil, and nudges Phil's chin with his hand. “Smile?”
Phil's smiling anyway.
“Yeah, exactly,” Dan says, resting his head on the pillows again. “Anyway, this thing was all like, I'm gonna show you moments from your past, and it did. And that was it, really.”
“What sort of moments from your past?” Phil wonders, resting his hand on Dan's chest, warm through his t-shirt. “Bad ones?”
Dan makes an unsure noise.
“Not all bad,” He says. “Mostly stupid. Just me being an idiot. And you not being an idiot.”
“I was in the past moments too?” He sounds really pleased, and Dan can't help but huff out a laugh.
“Yeah,” He says. “'Course you were.” He pauses. “I wish you'd been there to see it all too.”
“That's not how dreams work.”
“No, I know,” Dan says. He looks down at where Phil's hand's just resting on him, fingers stroking a little. “This guy who wasn't you was all, like, wanting to teach me something. Show me something, whatever, and I had to figure out what it was.”
“Show you something?”
“Like,” Dan hesitates, because even if he's talking to Phil – the right Phil, the real one, warm next to him, his foot hooked over Dan's ankle - he knows it's gonna sound stupid. “Like, me. I think it was meant to be like, this big character development thing. Like some This Is Your Life shit.”
“How you've changed and stuff?” Phil says, just getting it. Just like that. “Hair through the ages?”
Dan snorts out a laugh before he can stop himself.
“Oh my God, you should've seen it.”
Phil laughs.
“Square?”
“So fucking square,” Dan says, fervently. “Like a Minecraft character.”
“Like a Lego person,” Phil says, and laughs again. Then he says, “I always thought it looked good, you know.”
“What, square hair?” Dan scoffs. “Shut up.”
“No, I mean – just you.”
“Hmm,” Dan says, like his stupid heart isn't beating just that little bit faster, right under where Phil's hand's resting. “It's weird how much it made me miss you, you know? Like, it's fucking lame, Jesus, and I know it wasn't real but – you weren't there, and there was this fake you, and these younger versions of you, and they were all wrong.”
Phil moves so he can prop himself up on Dan's chest and look him in the eye. He's half lying on him, all awkward bones in awkward places, but it's Phil and Dan really did fucking miss him, whether that's lame or not. He doesn't say anything – just looks like he's listening. Dan touches his hair without really meaning to – just because it's there and he can.
“I saw us arguing,” Dan continues, closing his eyes for a second. “That was shit. Made me feel like shit.”
“What kind of arguing?” Phil wonders. He's sleepy-eyed with Dan's hand in his hair. Dan wants to kiss him again but he's started this so he has to finish it. “Was it, like, Mario Party arguing?”
He can tell just by the way Phil says it that he knows exactly what sort of arguing Dan had seen. He's giving Dan a chance to lie about it so they don't have to talk about it, and maybe on any other day Dan would take that but the memories are still too clear in his mind.
“No,” Dan says, quietly. He swallows. “You know what I mean. When I mean.” He pauses. “I never meant to make you feel like that, you know. Like – like I didn't want you, or whatever.”
“You didn't,” Phil says, but Dan shakes his head before he's even got the words out.
“I did,” Dan insists. “I'm sorry.”
“It's ok,” Phil says, so quietly that Dan sees him say it rather than hears him.
“No,” Dan says, because he's not gonna let himself get away with it that easily. “It's not. I mean, it is. But that was never ok.”
Phil shrugs.
“Doesn't matter.”
Yeah it does, Dan doesn't say. Instead he pulls a face and says, “I never thought I'd have to see anything like that again.”
They both fall silent for a moment after that. Dan gets distracted stroking Phil's hair. He's so relieved that this is what it's like now – simple and easy most of the time. Dan still has bad days, of course he does, like yesterday, but seeing what it used to be like puts his bad days into perspective.
He's about to say as much when Phil says, “If you saw past moments, was I taller than you?”
He sounds so hopeful that Dan's smiling before he even knows what he's doing.
“Loser,” He says, with a grin. Phil smiles back at him. “Yeah, you were. It was bizarre.”
“You're not that much taller than me now.”
“Whatever. Remember that advert from years ago where that kid had to stand on a phone book to be tall enough to kiss someone?” Dan says, and laughs when Phil digs his fingers into Dan's side, right where he's ticklish. “Hey, no, stop, don't do that-”
“I could be taller than you again,” Phil says, which as threats go isn't the weirdest he's heard from Phil. It isn't even the weirdest threat he's heard from Phil in Phil's bed.
“Oh yeah?” Dan says, trying to throw Phil off because he's trying to climb on top of Dan properly, and the tickling's triggered his kid instinct of not giving in. “Gonna chop my legs off?”
“No,” Phil says. His hands are tight at Dan's wrists, holding them above his head. Dan just stops, breathless, and grins, liking where this is going. “No, you can just knee walk all the time with like, shoes on your knees.”
“Really,” Dan says. “How're you gonna make that happen?”
Phil frowns thoughtfully for a second, then darts down and nips at Dan's ear. Dan makes this high-pitched surprised noise, but Phil's already talking again.
“I could put it in my contract. Do I have a contract?”
“No. And I'd have to sign it if you did,” Dan tells him. “And I wouldn't sign anything that stupid.”
“That's my plan foiled then,” Phil mumbles in the tiny space between their lips, right before he kisses him.
-
Later, when they're half-dozing, Dan says, “Phil.”
“'M'awake.”
“No you're not,” Dan says. Phil's burrowed his way under Dan's arm like a mole or something, his hair tickling the skin of Dan's side. “You didn't even drink your coffee.”
“Have it in a minute,” Phil says, sleepily. “Like iced coffee.”
Dan pulls a face at that, but he's not gonna be side-tracked just yet.
“Phil.”
“You already said that,” Phil says. Dan can feel his breath, warm against his skin.
“D'you think I'm a good person?”
Dan feels Phil considering it, feels him stretch because it's probably the sort of question best dealt with when you're slightly more awake.
“Mm,” He says, eventually, and his head knocks against Dan when he nods. “Mm, 'course.”
“Really?”
Dan feels him nod again.
“S'like,” Phil raises his head and rests his chin on Dan's chest. Dan can see the dark curve of his eyelashes, and the little red patch of skin on his cheek where they'd been resting right up against each other. “S'like it's right through you, y'know? Good all the way through.” He prods Dan's chest, right over his heart. “It's not even a question.”
“Good all the way through?” Dan repeats, his heart clenching.
Phil nods and yawns. He shuffles until he's half out of the covers, and the way the sunlight creeping under the blind hits his bare skin makes it hard for Dan to breathe for a second.
“Like a stick of rock. You know, with the words in?” Phil says, reaching for his cold coffee. He takes a sip, and makes a happy noise, blinking. He keeps drinking and drinking, and a trickle drips down his chin. He doesn't even have the decency to look gross when he's all sleepy and dribbling cold coffee onto his bedsheets. Dan'd hate him except he really really doesn't.
Eventually Phil puts the coffee down and wipes his mouth, then falls down onto the pillows next to Dan, who turns over to look at him. “Don't be daft, Dan. 'Course you're good.”
He throws an arm over Dan's side, and Dan doesn't know if it's an invitation but he takes it anyway, folding himself right in until his head's tucked into Phil's neck.
“Ok,” Dan says, with a secret smile, and closes his eyes.