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Phil wakes up and Dan is not there.
It’s not a “went out to get bread” situation – Which makes sense because the odds of that happening are pretty low to begin with. Dan is more likely to sit down on the sofa and not eat any breakfast for hours straight, than going out the busy London streets in the early morning to visit a crowded bakery. They both are.
It’s not even a “Dan finally had enough and ran out on him” situation, which is reassuring, but also not, because Dan tried doing that twice, and Phil has managed to bring him back both times. But the truth is: Phil doesn’t know how to do that now.
Because what the situation is, is a tangible, palpable universe shift. The universe has shifted, and Dan is not there, not because he left, but because the universe made it so that he was never there to begin with.
Phil can feel two realities diverge like he pulled apart and untangled two strings of the same twizzler.
There is one reality, his reality, where he fell asleep with Dan wrapped around him, the way they fall asleep a lot. Where they have a successful YouTube channel, where they have, inexplicably, millions of fans rooting for them (with a varying spectrum of invasiveness), where they have built a house together, and built a home together. Where they sit on other sides of the house when they game, and are happy.
If he tries really hard, he can still feel that reality, smooth like satin, elusive like water, running through his fingers, impossible to reach for.
The other reality, that’s a new one. Some part of him can feel that it’s new, because he still remembers the other. The other part of him has lived in this new reality its entire life.
He’s an editor for porn in this one.
Which is a little bit ridiculous, but it pays well, and it’s not as funny as people would make it out to be. A serious profession, and he’s good at it. Bit hard to bring up at dinner parties, but when he does, people are more fascinated than they are appalled. He has a large circle of friends, most of them gay. He doesn’t have a boyfriend, but he had a very amicable break up half a year ago, when his partner of two years decided to move to Canada for his career as a journalist.
It’s not his life, but it’s his life. Has always been his life, except it hasn’t.
Because Dan isn’t here and that’s not right.
Phil has a headache.
He rolls out of bed, and walks to his kitchen, and the place is all wrong, but also familiar. In this life, he still lives in Manchester, and that’s nice. Dazzling gay community. That he is a part of. That he gets to be a part of, because he has no reason to be in any closet. There is bread in his kitchen. There is a dead plant on the window sill.
At least some things didn’t change, then.
He grabs a glass, fills it with water to the rim, and drinks it with shaky hands. He tries to think, but he comes up with his thoughts going in so many fruitless, endless circles that his headache gets worse again, so he tries to stop.
He has no idea what happened. He has no idea what to do. His first thought is to tell Dan and find a solution together, but Dan is not here. Right now, a snarky, cynical comment could probably fix him, could take the edge off the quickly mounting panic, but there’s nothing but the quiet buzz of his fridge.
Dan is not here.
What is going on? Has he woken up from a year-long coma and dreamed all of this? Is he going insane? Has the universe actually eaten him up and then spat him out in another reality? Was Dan just a figment of his imagination? Has some butterfly flapped its wings too hard?
What the – excuse the language, but the occasion calls for it – fuck is he going to do?
Okay. Okay. No need to panic. In this reality, he works from home with a deadline that is far enough away. He’s not going to ruin his new old life, for now. He thinks about calling his mum, but what is she going to do, other than send him to a mental institution?
He goes through his friend circle in his head. New friends, old friends, friends that stayed the same in both realities, the one he remembers living, and the other one, which he also remembers living.
It’s not a bad one, is the thing. It’s pretty nice, even. He has a stable job with chill work conditions. He has friends and family who love him. He’s gone on a couple dates with a guy from grindr.
He could make his peace with this, if he has to. A whole new old life.
There’s just one problem, one tiny little issue that he cannot, in fact, make peace with:
Dan is not here.
So, if there is only one real problem, instead of focusing on trying to fix the impossible, Phil decides, for the sake of his sanity, to focus on that. He grabs his laptop, which is still where he left it, except he hasn’t left it there at all, because last night, he still existed in another reality in London, and opens Google.
It’s weird, but reassuring that Google is the same. The date is the same. Everything is the same, except for the lack of Daniel Howell.
That’s what Phil ends up typing into the Google search bar. A name he feels he has to have typed a hundred times already. Marvels at the familiarity of it for a short moment, lets it give him comfort, before taking a deep breath and hitting enter.
For a moment, he doesn’t dare looking at the screen. He contemplates the concept of a new reality in which Google is still a multi-million tech company heavily influencing the world, instead, because that’s somehow easier to face than an existence in which Dan Howell doesn’t exist.
What is he going to do, once he digs into the search results and finds out that the only defining difference between this reality and the other is that Dan doesn’t exist? Go back to sleep and hope it was all just a bad dream? Hope that he wakes up right where he went to sleep last night, with Dan spooning him and breathing quietly into his ears?
But he remembers last night twice, and one version of that didn’t involve Dan, and it feels as real as the other one, in a way. And it frightens Phil. It really does.
He looks at the screen, and he nearly cries.
There’s a photo of Dan looking back at him, right there, in Google’s AI overview that he hates so much. Curly hair, sardonic smile, and inexplicably, a tie, but it’s Dan.
Dan, who in this reality… Oh boy.
So in this reality, where Dan and Phil never met, Dan actually made it through law school.
Good to know.
(Holy yap.)
He’s not sure what to do. Dan has his own law firm, which is unreal. He straight up cannot comprehend it. This is not some parallel reality to the other one in his head, that he grew accustomed to, this is new information. The only Dan this Phil knows is the one who belongs to another reality, so he isn’t sure how to process this new version of him. At all.
He has his phone in his lap, and he’s been turning it in his hands for the past thirty minutes or so. The number is online. He could just call him. Just to hear his voice – but he’s unsure if that would make things better or worse. This Dan doesn’t know him. This Dan has no idea who he is. And Phil knows, if he tells any – any – version of Dan that he’s accidentally somehow magically misplaced his own reality, where they were lovers for sixteen years and ongoing, he’d declare him insane and hang up.
This one might even laugh uncomfortably and tell him he’s straight first, which is a very real possibility that Phil is not sure he can take right now.
So. For a change – Phil has no idea what to do.
“Legal advice,” he mutters like the protagonist of a movie, which is appropriate, he thinks, because he’s clearly stuck in a movie plot. Maybe the Doctor would barge in at any given minute, telling him he’s accidentally been teleported by some crazy evil Time Lord, or something. Everything was possible now, apparently. “What could I need legal advice for?”
He has no clue. He still doesn’t when he finally calls. All he knows is that it’s getting harder to breathe, because it feels like there’s something sitting heavy on his chest and he. Needs. Dan.
So he calls.
The phone rings once, twice, three times, the appropriate amount of four times, and then a secretary picks up, introducing Howell’s law firm to him like it was a normal, existing thing, which he supposes it is.
“Hi, uhm, sorry, I– could I possibly speak to Daniel Howell?”
Never, in his entire life, has he had to ask this. People ask him to speak to Dan.
It’s Dan and Phil, not “Dan and the creepy guy calling his law firm to beg to speak to Dan”.
“Excuse me, who is this?” the woman on the other end of the line asks.
“Uh. Ph– My name is Phil Lester?” he asks, as if that could possibly ring any bells for her. “I need– legal advice. For uh– it’s very private, I’d really rather discuss it with D– Mr. Howell.”
He wants to hang up. He wants to cry. He wants to run away. He should really come up with something to need legal advice for, soon.
“I’ll try to put you through, but he might be busy,” says the secretary, and she sounds kind, and it makes Phil want to cry even more.
The phone rings again. Once, twice, three times, Dan misses the appropriate fourth time to pick up, so it rings a fifth time, a sixth time – Phil feels as if his chest is about to explode – and then there’s Dan’s voice, a familiar shock to his system.
“Hello? Daniel Howell here?”
“Yes I– hi,” says Phil, unsure. Never in his life has he felt so unsure talking to Dan, even as relief spreads in his body, tears collecting in his eyes at the sound of his voice. It finally breaks through his numbed mind fully – This is messed up. This isn’t right. None of this should be happening.
“Hi,” says Dan, who doesn’t know him. He sounds confused, and impatient. “Sorry, who am I speaking to? How can I help you?”
Phil swallows down a sob. He wants to say “It’s me” but he’s not sure he’s prepared for the answer.
“My– my name is Phil Lester,” he says and he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t pause to wait for a response, to wait for recognition, but he does.
There is none.
“I need some– I need some legal advice?”
“Yes, that is sort of what I figured when you called my law firm,” is Dan’s dry response and Phil laughs automatically, as if he’s programmed to, and then, to his horror, the sound turns into a sob halfway out, and he’s finally full on weeping.
“Jesus, okay, what the– What is wrong? Did you kill someone? I can help– uh. Probably. Just please tell me it was someone who had it coming.”
“No,” Phil manages to bring out, and then, without thinking “yes. Well, no.” And he keeps speaking, his mouth moving without any input from his brain, because it’s Dan, and it’s so hard not to. “It’s my plant. I think I killed it. And my– my partner is going to be so mad, he loves his plants, you know. And he made me promise– he made me promise I’d not kill this one. And I’m so scared–” Another sob made its way out, Phil’s voice breaking for a moment before he kept babbling. “– I’m just so scared that he’ll leave me and I’ll never see him again.”
“Yeah, uh, no offense dude, but I’m not sure I’m the right person for this. Have you tried a therapist? Maybe multiple therapists?”
Phil wants to laugh, but every laugh turns into another sob. It’s quite horrible, really. Dan is probably going to hang up on him any time now.
Dan does not hang up.
“What’s wrong, man? This can’t all be about a plant.”
“I don’t know how to live without him,” Phil says because he can’t not be honest with Dan. “I’ve built my whole life around him. And it’s not like– not like it’s because either of us decided it should be over, it was just. Taken from me. He was taken from me and I don’t know what to do. I just don’t– I just want him back.”
There’s a pause, and Phil can tell, with the efficiency and familiarity of someone who knows the guy for sixteen years, yet doesn’t know him at all, that Dan is trying to find anything useful in that onslaught of senseless words he’d just been hit with.
“Do you… need a lawyer to– I don’t know, what do you mean he was taken? If you need a divorce lawyer… Or was he kidnapped? Might wanna call the police in that case, buddy.”
“ACAB,” Phil says, instinctively, which is a risky thing to tell a lawyer, but a very normal thing to tell Dan, so when he laughs, Phil isn’t so much relieved as he’s vindicated.
He loves him so much, is the thing.
“Okay, well, I don’t know how to help you, man.”
Phil doesn’t know either. Phil hasn’t known anything since he opened his eyes this morning, except that he wants Dan. “You’re gonna have to talk to me. And use words that actually make sense to me, you know?”
He sniffles. Honestly, right now, Phil feels like he’s a kid again, and he’s lost his mom in the grocery store, and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened, and he doesn’t know how to get back home.
“The plant thing,” he finally says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Do you think if he sues me for man– uhhh, plant-slaughter, you could represent me?”
Dan is laughing and it’s like the world’s worst, most useless plaster on a large, gaping wound in his heart, but Phil clings to it anyway.
“Sure. We’ll make a case about you being mentally challenged or something. Just present yourself exactly like this in court, and we’re golden. Won’t even have to get an assessment.”
It would sting, but it doesn’t, because that’s just Dan’s humour, and Phil is as familiar with it as breathing. Has adapted to it so much, it feels like he’s bereft now that it’s not living under the same roof with him, robbed in broad daylight by the universe.
(Plus, he’s very well aware that he’s both, sounding insane, and also wasting Dan’s time whilst sounding insane, so he deserves it, a little.)
“You know what, you’re a good lawyer,” Phil says and he’s not sure that’s true, actually, because yes, Dan likes debates, and he likes to talk endlessly, and he likes to gaslight you into defeat, but he’s also Dan. Deadpan, “fuck off, shut up” Dan Howell. He’s the guy who tweeted “btw I like vagina” and thought it was believable. He was supposed to have a YouTube career and slowly inch out of the closet, not whatever this is. “I might get back to you, if I ever get sued.”
“Yeah, well, I can also recommend some other lawyers. You know. Ones that I really hate.”
“No, no, no, it would have to be you.”
“Are you sure? I have an excellent colleague who is so sure he can win more cases than I do. He’ll be so happy when I refer a nutca– new client to him.”
“No no, I decided. Any and all charges of plant-slaughter need to be represented by Dan Howell. Man clearly knows what he’s doing.”
“Daniel,” Dan says automatically and Phil feels his entire body jolt.
“Oh. Sorry. You don’t go by Dan?”
“No I– do?” Dan sounds unsure himself and Phil doesn’t know what to make of it. “Uh. Listen, if you’re alright, I’ll hang up now. I’ve got a client coming in in a minute, and I haven’t even managed to have a coffee yet.”
Right. Dan has a life to get back to. A life that doesn’t involve Phil whatsoever. His voice only cracks a little when he says, “no sure, yeah, I’m okay, don’t worry. You go about your day, I’ll uh–” The sentence kinda fades out. He doesn’t know what to do, after all.
“You could try watering the plant,” Dan suggests mildly.
“I did that!” Phil calls out. “It died anyway!”
“Uh-huh.” He can hear Dan’s smirk in his voice. He can imagine it vividly on his face. It’s enough to make new tears well up. Phil doesn’t know how to go on without this in his life. “Try not to water it too much, then. Maybe it recovers from being drowned, who knows.”
“I did not drown the plant,” Phil says meekly. He may have drowned the plant. “I’ll… try not to drown any more plants.”
“Good boy,” Dan jokes, and it’s like a jab to Phil’s heart. “Well okay… I’ll hang up now, yeah? You’re okay? Mentally stable and all that?”
He’s not, he’s really, really not. It takes everything in him not to beg Dan to keep talking to him.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he says instead. “You have a nice day. Thanks for the great legal advice.”
Dan’s snorting. “Yeah, you too, bud. Have a good one.”
And then there’s silence, in Phil’s living room that isn’t his. No sound but the low buzz of the fridge from the kitchen. No Dan yelling “motherfucker!” at his screen because he just lost in a video game. No Dan chatting to a camera. No Dan calling to him from the kitchen because he kept the cupboard doors open – again. No Dan at all. No Dan.
Phil edits porn.
He’s seen gay porn a hundred times by now. He’s had gay sex, too. In this reality, in the other reality, possibly in every reality.
It’s nothing special, it’s almost clinical at this point. He cuts out anything that projects personality, edits out everything that is endearing, and personal, and real, until he’s reduced it down to nothing but sex.
It’s two people, going through the motions. They do all the right things. Stick all the right genitals into the right holes, like the industry expects of them. They get you off, systematically and impersonally, and then they’re done, and so is Phil.
No one but him gets to see the aftermath. People handing the actors towels and clothes, as they get ready for their showers. Sweat and tears and cum being wiped away. One by one, they dismantle the cameras and the set, until the feed Phil is editing cuts out.
That’s Phil. Going through the motions. He does his job, he does it well. He meets the deadlines, he calls his mum, who is the same she always is, but he isn’t, and she doesn’t notice. He meets up with his friends. They don’t notice either. He makes breakfast for himself, skips lunch, then orders dinner. He turns on the TV in the evenings and watches mindless drivel without really watching it, but misses Dan’s constant commentary anyway.
And then, when all the watchful eyes on his daily routine are gone, he unravels. Thread by thread coming undone, all cameras off, the set falling apart to reveal the real world – Phil, alone, abandoned, adrift.
He makes it exactly a week before calling Dan again.
“Hi,” he greets the secretary, the same one as last week. “It’s Phil Lester, I’d like to talk to– Mr. Howell?”
“Good timing. He should have a minute, I’ll put you through.”
“Hello, Daniel Howell?”
Phil smiles. He’s a little more emotionally stable, has had a little time to adjust. He’s not going to start to cry again, probably.
Though the possibility is not entirely off the table.
“Hi, Phil Lester here.”
“Oh boy.”
“You know, I’m starting to think you don’t have any clients. Every time I call, you’re actually available. Movies teach me that’s almost never the case.”
“Movies also teach you that there’s surprise witnesses suddenly crashing the court room with brand new information. Doesn’t happen.”
“It doesn’t?” asks Phil with pretend-shock. “That’s disappointing.”
“Everything is much less dramatic in real life, I promise. At least until you call – feeling better? Well enough to actually want to talk about your case, by any chance?”
Phil chews on his lower lip. He’s a little better prepared but– well.
“So, I work in porn,” he says, straight-up.
“Oh,” says Dan. “Didn’t actually expect you to– okay. What do you need?”
“I was just wondering. I mean, we know about porn, right? Plenty of exploitation happening. Not always super ethical. People go into it for all the wrong reasons – not always, of course. And I don’t want to believe that my workplace is like that. And I’m not really involved in any of the– I just do the editing.”
“That’s like– an extra job? Editing porn?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. The dream of every man, and you’re living it.”
“It’s overrated, honestly. Makes you look at sex and porn entirely different. After the fifth full-length movie you have to work on, it kind of loses all erotic appeal.”
“I can imagine,” Dan is grinning, he can hear it in his voice. “So you– what? You want to know if you’re liable if one of the…. performers decides to sue?”
“Basically.”
He couldn’t give less of a shit if he tried. Honestly. This life, it feels like he’s on a holiday. He can’t ever fully settle in, can’t unpack his suitcase, because a part of him is consistently waiting to go back home.
Talking to Dan, though, that’s the closest he gets to that.
“Uh, let me get this right – you do the editing, with no involvement in the actual filming or hiring process, you’re employed, and you know of no account of exploitation whatsoever?”
“Yup,” Phil nods uselessly.
“Yeah… you’re good, man. Wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Cool,” says Phil. “Thanks. Good– good lawyering. I feel loads better already.”
“Uh-huh,” makes Dan. “How about the real reason for why you’re calling, then?”
Phil uses his free hand to play with the hem of his shirt, now feeling a little bit like crying after all. He wishes he could tell him, he really does. Everything’s so messed up. Everything’s so wrong without Dan.
“No, that’s just– that was all, really.”
“Didn’t have much to do with what you talked about last week,” Dan points out almost softly. He has those moments, even if he doesn't like to let them show. He is perceptive, and he is so smart, and he can read people really well, and when Phil needs him to be there, he usually is there.
Phil really needs him to be there right now.
Not this Dan, though. His Dan. A Dan who knows him. A Dan he has sixteen years of history with. A Dan who loves him.
This – this is going through the motions. This is the mimicry of the real thing, a twisted, lifeless parody that some editor cut the life out of.
Phil is crying again, soundless this time, silent tears running down his cheeks.
“No yeah, last week was its own thing,” he finally says when he trusts his voice again. “This week is another thing. There can be more than one thing.”
“Right,” says Dan, in that long, drawn-out way he does when he doesn’t believe you and isn’t afraid to show it.
Phil wishes he could touch him right now – nothing big, just a playful nudge. Wishes he could turn his head the way he always does, when they sit side by side in front of a camera, just to grin at him until Dan caves and rolls his eyes and grins back.
This sucks.
“Any luck with your ex?” Dan finally asks. “The one who was potentially kidnapped and/or left you for plant-slaughter?”
“Still gone. Might be gone forever. Dunno how to get him back.” Phil tries everything, really everything in his power to keep his voice from breaking. He’s not sure he’s doing a good job. “I don’t– fully know what to do with myself, without him.”
The understatement of a century.
“Mh,” makes Dan, thoughtful. “Baby steps, I suppose. I heard it gets easier with time.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say,” Phil replies tonelessly. “Though I’m not sure if the people who say that ever had their soulmate disappear on them after sixteen years of co-dependence.”
Dan hesitates.
“Seriously, is this a missing person case? Because you’re really gonna want to file that with the police.”
“No,” says Phil. “Not really. Nothing the police can help me with, anyway.”
Dan is sighing on the other end of the line.
“Okay bud. Just– take it slow. Make it through this night, you know? And then worry about the next.”
Phil can’t help but smile, even when he feels the stretch of his cheeks almost painfully.
“I will get through this night,” he promises Dan, and it hurts more than it should, that Dan isn’t in on the joke.
“Good. How about your plant, you think that’s going to make it through the night, too?”
Phil huffs out a laugh.
“Still drowning.”
He wonders when he has become the plant, and whether Dan knows that he is.
“Well, don’t over-do it, don’t overcorrect. Sometimes the best cure is to just let things rest a little.”
What great advice. He wonders if this version of Dan is out. He wonders if he has a man to go home to. If he feels an aching loneliness in some hollow part of his soul where Phil belongs, and doesn’t even know it. If he’s worked through years of trauma yet. If he’s comfortable being himself yet. If he has someone he laughs with as much as he does with Phil, in another world.
“Are you okay?” he asks him, because not knowing is actually going to kill him in the next five minutes, he’s very sure of nothing but that.
Dan stumbles over whatever futile plant-advice he was giving Phil in that moment, and falls silent for a long moment.
“Huh?” he finally asks.
Phil shrugs at no one.
“Yeah. We keep talking about me, what about you? You doing okay?”
Dan is still suspiciously silent.
“I mean–” he finally says. “Yeah?”
“You sure? I’m a good listener. If there’s anything– ever– I can listen. Is all.”
“Why…– what makes you think I’m not okay?”
Dan sounds so offended at the notion, caught out, and going into his defensive stance. It’s familiar, but he stopped doing that with Phil so many years ago, it’s weird to hear it now.
“Nothing,” he says tiredly. “It’s less of a ‘I think the guy’s not okay’ and more of a ‘what if he has something going on and all we do is talk about my issues’. You’ve been really nice to me.”
He can basically hear Dan’s frown through the phone. “I don’t think you’ve met many nice people if that’s what you think.”
“I like your humour, it makes me laugh. I can use some laughs.” Phil is so used to reassuring Dan, so used to gently redirecting his self-deprecation, he doesn’t even have to think about what he’s saying. “And you’re not hanging up on me, even though I’m clearly wasting your time.”
“Hotline number. I get paid for every second you talk to me.”
“Wait, seriously?” asks Phil, lowering his phone to check the screen for a moment, but Dan is already cackling his chaotic gremlin laugh, and something inside of Phil twists painfully at the sound.
“No, you idiot. God, are you always this guillable?”
Phil can’t help the little laugh escaping him.
“I have my moments, I guess. But don’t think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t answer my question.”
Dan lets out a slow little breath on the other end of the line.
“I genuinely can’t tell whether you’re completely nuts or a genius,” he finally says. “You’re a hard one to read.”
“Just a little of both, I think,” Phil smiles. “It’s a fine line, I’ve been told.”
“Yeah, I never believed that shit, but maybe they were on to something.”
“They.”
“Whoever made that idiom up.”
“You’re a lawyer, shouldn’t you know who said it? How’d you even pass your bar exam?”
Dan laughs.
“Whoever let me become a lawyer definitely fell onto the insanity side of things, that much’s for sure.”
“Okay,” says Phil, “I think you should definitely know who that was.”
“Eh, several professors involved. They all carry some of the guilt.”
“You’re a good lawyer,” Phil assures him again, with more conviction than last time, even. “You gave me valuable legal advice twice now.”
“I gave you free therapy sessions,” Dan replies dryly. “And I’m definitely not qualified for that. Because quite frankly – no, I’m not okay. And you should not be getting your advice from me.” He pauses. “Unless it’s legal advice, of course. God, my assistant is going to kill me if I don’t stop telling people not to take my advice.”
Phil grins quietly. He can’t not do it. His entire being is so attuned to Dan, his jokes, his sarcasm, his wits.
“Well, I liked your advice regardless. And my offer stands – if you ever wanted to talk…” He lets it trail off, Dan knows where it was going anyway. He’s a little like a shy animal in the wild. Show too much attention and care and he jerks away, running on shaky four legs like Bambi.
The thing is – the thing is, the Dan he knows didn’t have many people to talk to. Certainly not about the things that really plagued him, the abuse, the trauma, the internalized homophobia, the spirals of shame and self-hate. Phil had patiently taken care of it all, had helped him work through it, had helped him trust again, had made him believe that he was loved, and then helped him carry that burden until it slowly, step by step, had disappeared a little more.
He can do it again. If this is a reality he is stuck in now, he refuses to let it be Dan-less. If there was a red string tying him to Dan in his other reality, then he will find it here too, and he will wrap Dan up from head to toe if he has to, and then he’ll fix him all over again. It’ll suck, and it’ll hurt, but it’s better than the alternative, and Phil is ready to do it.
He already knows how to do it. He’s got all the cheat codes.
The hardest part of this is getting close enough to Dan to be let in – but that’s okay. Dan showed him how to do that part himself. Just stalk a guy until he becomes your friend.
It’s been done before.
“If I ever wanted to talk, I’ll talk to my client with the triple divorce, because she’s, I have to inform you, still having a better grip on life than you seem to have.”
That’s rich, coming from Dan, but he’s not going to tell him that.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Phil says instead. “I did murder multiple plants.”
“Hey, I gotta go.” It’s nice, honestly, that Dan sounds almost apologetic about it. He must like talking to Phil a little, right? It’d be absurd if he didn’t. This is a Dan who has never met him, but it is still Dan. Which means they still click. Right?
It has to mean that.
He’s not sure what he’ll do if somehow they don’t.
“Call me again if you need some actual legal advice, will you?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Phil smiles. “You’d be shocked how often I can get into trouble.”
Dan’s sigh is heavy as he hangs up. It’s a sigh Phil has heard a million times. Full of affectionate resignation.
He’ll take it.
Phil hangs out with Tom. Tom is his friend in both realities, though, admittedly, in the other one they haven’t seen each other in years. With Dan, it is hard to maintain relationships, when you can’t tell people that you’re gay, and in love. They have developed some symbiotic co-dependency and live most of the time alone in their phouse (heh), and Phil doesn’t hate it that way, even though he knows they probably should work on that. They were going to, before Phil woke up here. Now that they came clean. It was supposed to be their happy place.
It’s enough for him. Dan has always been enough for him. When facing the choice of a normal, social life out of the closet or a life in social isolation inside the closet with Dan, Phil would always choose Dan – And he’d stood at that crossroad, multiple times even. Had made that choice.
He’d do it again.
God, he’d do it again in this reality, if he had to. Do it again with 38, start all over again, what did it matter?
All that counts is Dan.
But instead, he hangs out with Tom.
Tells him he’s thinking about going blond, because in this universe, he isn’t yet. Tom tells him he can’t imagine Phil with blond hair, and Phil grins quietly, because he doesn’t have to imagine it.
They go buy bleach and Phil dyes his hair and feels a little bit more like himself, but he misses Dan worse now, because all he can think of is Dan falling on his ass in shock.
Tom tells him it looks great. Phil smiles and thanks him and agrees.
Going through the motions.
Dan told him to get through the night, but if Phil is being honest, the mornings are the worst part.
Each morning Phil wakes up and keeps his eyes closed and waits, silently, motionlessly, in the darkness. For another person’s breath. For a shuffle of the sheets. For Dan to press against his back and mumble something incoherent in his sleep.
Each morning he wakes up with the hope that whatever had catapulted him into this reality, had catapulted him back where he belonged.
Each morning, when he eventually opens his eyes, he feels the disappointment crash down on him like a rock.
The next time he calls Dan, the secretary (assistant?) knows who he is.
“I’ll put you through,” she says before Phil can even ask for Dan.
Neat.
“Look who it is,” Dan greets him. “The constant thorn in my side. Murdered any plants lately?”
“Only a few,” Phil reassures him.
“You’re unbelievable.”
It feels so familiar, it’s a little hard to breathe for a moment.
“I’ve been told.”
By you, he doesn’t add.
“So, what made-up legal problem ails you today?” asks Dan and Phil can hear a chair creaking, like he’s making himself comfortable. Probably wise.
“So, I’ve gone to this Muse concert,” Phil starts. “Do you like Muse?”
Of course he does.
“Nice try, they’re not touring until 2026.”
Maybe a little too much.
“Please don’t poke holes into my plot device before I’ve finished telling the story, it’s impolite.”
Dan loudly cackles at that.
“You’re an entertaining nutjob, I’ll give you that.”
“Heh, nutjob,” grins Phil. “Gay.”
He regrets it immediately. There’s a long pause, and he’s really almost scared of what Dan will say. This is such a wild card – for all he knows, this version of Dan who has never met him could’ve lived in suppression of his sexuality (un)comfortably into his thirties.
When Dan finally does speak, his tone isn’t harsh or defensive though. In fact his voice is laced with such affection that Phil has to swallow for a moment.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“I don’t always think before I speak,” Phil agrees easily. “It’s what makes me endearing.”
“It’s what makes you obnoxious,” Dan quips back, sounding absolutely endeared.
Hah!
“Do you want the rest of the story or not?”
Dan breathes out heavily.
“Well, you went through all the trouble of making it up, you might as well tell me.”
Phil grins.
“Good, it’s a good one. So, as I was on the Muse concert a couple days ago, you know, the one in Manchester–”
“You’re in Manchester?”
“– the one in Manchester that totally happened. There was this guy standing way too close to me. And he kept dancing into my space. And it’s not exactly a moshpit, you see, so I keep trying to stand my ground, as you do.”
“Right,” says Dan. “If this is going to end up in anything less than a physical boxing fight, I’m gonna be disappointed.”
“Much, much more brutal. So I try to stand my ground. But the guy, he’s not having any of it, and I’m a little bit of a twink. Not muscular in the slightest.”
“Really not selling yourself here.”
“You like it. Anyway. He ignores me standing my ground, so I– some time during Uprising, I felt inspired by the message of the song, maybe a little too much–”
“Uh-huh,” makes Dan, physically unable to shut up.
“– and I step on the guy’s foot.”
There’s another long pause.
“Oh,” says Dan finally. “Is that it? You stepped on a guy’s toes? Literally? That’s the story?”
“I told you it’d be brutal. Not a dry eye in sight.”
“Absolutely gut-wrenching,” Dan confirms dryly. “So what legal advice do you want?”
“Well, technically, I committed battery, right? Can I be charged?”
Another heavy sigh from Dan. Phil grins.
“It’s a concert. There’s a lot of people in a cramped space. Dancing. Even if there were fifty witnesses reporting that you stepped on this man’s toes, a camera pointed at you, and the man, for some inexplicable reason pressing charges – you’d be completely fine. Duh,” Dan added with a little mutter under his breath.
“Oh, great,” Phil smiles. “You always have the best advice.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Dan says. “This is some convoluted, absolutely ridiculous long-term scheme to hit on me, yeah? Because – don’t get me wrong, it’s still insane – but it makes me want to get you institutionalized a little less.”
Phil huffs out a laugh, his shoulders shaking silently.
“I don’t know, is it?” he asks, grinning, and then, “… is it working?”
“I mean, I clearly must be insane,” says Dan. “But… kind of?” He pauses. “How did you know that I like Muse?”
“Every gay does. At least the ones with taste. And you have to have taste to get with me.”
Dan snorts out a laugh, but even as he does, Phil can hear some hesitation in his voice. He waits. He knows what’s coming.
“How… did you know I was gay?”
Phil smiles. Dan sounds vulnerable, but not horrified. He’s at least ready to admit it to Phil. It’s good. He can work with this. He’s done this before – be openly queer in front of the closeted, traumatized guy, give him some space to feel safe in and then give him even more to open up.
“I didn’t,” he lies easily. “I just hoped. Gotta shoot your shot.”
“You’re so weird,” says Dan, but it doesn’t sound like an insult at all.
Score.
That night, as Phil goes to bed, it’s the first time since the shift he’s doing so smiling.
They do this for a while. Weeks stretch into months, and it almost, almost becomes a life Phil can handle, if it wasn’t for the long stretches of silence. Sitting alone in his house, still catching himself wanting to show Dan something, only to remember he isn’t there.
It is like a constantly returning chronic pain, a kind of grief he has never expected to have for someone alive. The times he spends coming up with some new crazy story for Dan, imagining his reactions, those are the times he feels most okay during the week. The times he calls him are the worst and the best all wrapped in one. Like giving yourself the shot of heroin you know will some day kill you, but you still do it, because everything just feels too hollow without it.
Then, some night, as he’s in the middle of a particularly boring edit, Phil’s phone rings with an unknown number. He looks at the screen, debates if he should even answer, then pauses the video with a sigh and answers anyway.
Who knows who the hell calls him with an unknown number in this messed up, twisted universe. Maybe it’s whoever threw him here, asking for forgiveness and telling him how to get back.
It’s not, but it’s the second best thing.
“Hey,” Dan’s voice greets him, and he sounds– not well. “It’s Dan.”
“Oh, now it’s Dan, not Daniel, is it?” Phil is joking, because it seems Dan can do with a laugh right now. When it comes, it’s weak and shaky.
“Well, I’m off the clock.”
“This is your personal number?”
“Yeah.”
Phil sighs.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, I just thought–”
“Dan,” he’s putting aside all jokes, speaking to him completely earnestly. He’s been the one broken and desperate the last couple calls, but when Dan needs him, he’s going to be there. No matter which version of him. “What is it?”
It’s like a dam breaks. Phil has heard this breakdown before. The barely held-back tears, the shaky disgust in Dan’s voice, not with anyone but himself, the panicked rambling getting worse and worse the longer it goes on, frantic, raw, dripping with guilt. Dan telling him he’s better off without him. Dan scared that he’s holding Phil back. Dan scared that Phil will one day resent and leave him.
Only this time, that’s what happened. Another notch in the long belt of possible traumas life could throw at the guy.
“My partner of two years just left me. Just– went through the door. Had enough. And I can’t even– it’s my fault. It’s my fault. Because I’m an idiot. Because I can’t come out of the damn closet. It’s like– like I’m paralyzed. Stuck in time. And I’m entirely too old for this, it’s ridiculous, it’s embarrassing. I should be fine, but instead I’m making everyone miserable who touches me. He’s not even the first one. I knew this, I knew this going in and I still– And I can’t be doing the same thing to you, okay? I can’t. There’s only so many people I can disappoint, can ruin before–”
“Dan.”
“It’s not like I didn’t know he was going to leave. It has been over for months now. He was being nice, staying as long as he did. And I– I like you. You’re a nutcase but you’re– and it’s all really– but I can’t. Because I’ll just– I’ll do it with you, too.”
“Daniel–”
“I can’t do this to anyone. I keep thinking I can fix myself, if I can just– but I’m too fucked up. I’m just too broken, I think. I just–”
Okay. More drastic means, then. Phil can do that, too.
“I’m surprised you even made it two years, to be honest,” he says loudly over the increasing ramblings of his beloved mad man.
Dan, stunned, finally falls silent.
“W– What?” he splutters, half-laughing, half upset.
“Yeah, I mean, with how fucked up you are, two years? Quite the achievement. Good job on that front.”
Dan is still silent, clearly speechless.
“I’m a big guy, by the way. I can handle your crazy. And I can handle your broken. And if you want to sit in the closet your whole life, I’ll come sit with you.”
“You– no. That’s not– fair on anyone,” Dan says, but he’s clearly lost his wind, not quite sure how to proceed with Phil joining in.
“We can make it cozy. A real nerd cave. Nice lightning. Have a good time in it. Doesn’t matter, as long as I get to spend it with you.”
“Why are you so nice,” Dan’s voice cracks when he asks him. “No person is this nice. I swear, you must be secretly a serial killer.”
“Of plants, yeah.”
Phil has his phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder, typing with both hands to look up Dan’s address. He can’t find his home address, but getting the address of his law firm is easy enough. He’s in London, which makes sense.
“Phil!”
“Dan!”
“Stop it.”
“No,” Phil says gently. “I can tell you right now, I’m not. I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to stop calling you. I’m not going to stop being there. I’m not going to stop hitting on you either, for what it’s worth.”
“Why! Why did you call me? Why do you keep– I don’t understand. What do you want from me?!”
Phil sighs, as he clicks through his tabs to book his train tickets.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve known you in another life?”
“No!” Dan yells. Then, “... Maybe.”
“Listen, Dan, it’ll be okay. It’s not for everyone, but I don’t mind. The hiding, the closet, I’m all used to that. I’d do it all again for you. I’d do it forever for you.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t even know what you look like. I don’t know you. You can’t just say things like that.”
“Just did,” Phil quips. “And besides. Yes. You do.”
Because there is no universe, not a single one, in which the pull of gravity between them isn’t there. If Phil feels it, so does Dan.
And if he doesn’t…– well. Then whatever he’s trying to do here is pointless anyway, so Phil might as well bet everything on this card.
“What about your guy, huh?” says Dan, and he’s holding it like weapon and shield, pushes it between them as a last, frantic resort to keep Phil away. “You said he’s your soulmate, you said you were together for sixteen years! And now you’re saying you knew me in another life or whatever. What, you pull this crap with everyone?”
“No,” says Phil. “Just with you.”
Phil arrives in London early and tired, having barely slept all night. He’s tried to talk Dan down, but it was hard getting through. He’s like a wounded animal in this state, lashing out at everything and everyone coming too close, sensing a potential threat everywhere.
Still, as he steps off the train, Phil can’t help but feel a little better. It’s the first time he’s come to London since everything changed, and it’s nice being home. Everything still looks the same. He grabs a coffee from his favorite coffee shop and it tastes the same. The streets are busy, as they always are, red double-deckers taking the curves like they’re trying to hit as many people on the sidewalks as humanly possible, while somehow magically not hitting a single one.
He resists the urge to go and find the house he lives in in another reality, and instead makes his way to Dan’s law firm.
The truth is, even after all this time, Phil doesn’t know what to do. But he knows now, there is no way to figure it out without Dan.
So Dan is who he goes to see.
It’s a house like every other, except for a little sign hanging outside that announces that his soulmate is inside.
Weird, how something so important to your life can be marked by something so insignificant.
Phil rings the doorbell and pushes the door open when he’s buzzed in. He steps in front of the counter, and finally sees Dan’s assistant in real life – A kind looking lady with dark hair and glasses.
He goes through the motions, determined to finally come out on the other side alive.
“Hi,” he tells her. “I’m Phil Lester.”
He watches her face light up like fireworks.
“Oh, thank God,” she mutters. “He seems like he could really use a friend today.”
Phil smiles at her.
“‘s what I’m here for.”
She lifts her phone and rings through to Dan.
“There’s someone here for you, if you have a minute. Actually, scratch that. I’ll send him in whether you have a minute or not.”
Phil gives her the thumbs up, and follows her directions to Dan’s office. Braces himself for what he knows will be painful – Facing a Dan who won’t recognise him, that is… It is alright. It has to be alright. It’s all he has now.
He pushes open the door, not bothering to knock.
Dan, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. He just looks up with a tired rub of his eyes, and Phil can’t stop his heart from beating wildly out of his chest. It’s not as alive as it used to be, but it’s the closest he’s come. Because there is Dan. Brown, warm eyes. The ghost of dimples around his lips, even with that forced smile he’s trying to put on. Sweet little curls and all. Even the dark clothes – that’s just Dan.
He isn’t wearing a tie like on his Google overview picture, not even a suit, which is a relief. Phil likes him much more casually dressed in black clothes. It feels homely.
What he doesn’t like is the empty gaze with which Dan regards him – Waiting for an introduction, waiting for an explanation.
“Hi,” says Phil instead of giving any of that, and watches a series of complicated emotions rush over Dan’s face, each and all of them he is able to identify and name, because he knows that man inside and out, before settling on narrowed eyes.
“Yeah,” says Phil. “It’s me.”
“Jesus– You did not drive all the way– You’re from Manchester, for fuck’s sake!”
“You needed me.”
“I do not– I was having a little breakdown. You called me with a breakdown before, and I didn’t show up at your front door!”
“Didn’t have my address,” Phil points out, grinning as he bobs back and forth on the balls of his feet, watching the familiar exasperated expression wash over Dan’s face. “Yours is very easy to find. For your company, anyway.”
“That is not why–” Dan rolls off his chair, stepping around the table towards Phil. “Fuck, you actually are insane, aren’t you? You’re some creepy-ass stalker and you know my address.”
“Yeah, sure,” Phil nods. “A little stalking is good for the relationship. I’ve heard.”
Dan blinks heavily, staring at him, and Phil just laughs.
“Though I’m actually here for legal advice,” Phil said. “You know, there’s this guy I met that I only talked over the phone before–”
“Oh, Christ.” Dan’s eyes roll back so far, if Phil didn’t know him better, he’d think he was fainting. “You’re so damn lucky that you’re pretty.”
Phil grins.
No one’s ever called him pretty but Dan. It makes him a little proud every time it happens – even here. Objectively, he thinks Dan’s the pretty one in their relationship. The new hair helps, though! He’s glad he’s bleached it again now.
“Pretty enough to get out of my legal trouble? How much do you get for stalking, by the way? Think you can get me–”
“If you say ‘get me off’ now, I might kill you.”
Phil promptly shuts up and Dan, tired as he looks, manages a laugh.
“I think there’s some serious sentences out there for killing,” Phil suggests meekly.
Somehow Dan chooses that moment to kiss him. It makes sense, probably. It is one of the most efficient (and only) ways to shut him up. Dan at home has done it that way constantly. Phil quite likes the idea of this one doing it, too. He quite likes everything about this – Dan’s lips against his are the first thing in this reality that feels right, trusted, without the shadow of “this is wrong” constantly looming over him. They make him forget about everything else – even after sixteen years, everything else tunes out and there is only Dan. Dan, in his space, running a hand over his cheek, as if in awe, as if he can’t believe Phil is really here.
None of this is wrong. Couldn’t possibly be wrong.
It’s Dan.
“I don’t know what to do,” Dan admits, quietly, and Phil gives him his warmest smile, interlocks their fingers for a short moment.
“That makes two of us. How about we just figure it out together?”
Everything about this is wrong.
Dan takes him home that night, to his tiny London apartment. It’s not one they ever lived in, but Phil isn’t sure he could’ve taken it if it was.
They don’t have sex. Dan feels too raw, and Phil does too, for entirely other reasons. They curl up on Dan’s bed, an ironic contrast to the first day they met in Phil’s other reality, and just stay like that. Dan is curled up around Phil, just soaking up the closeness, and Phil tries to shut up his brain, tries to just enjoy it, tries to forget, just for a moment, that this is not his Dan.
They’re both looking for a comfort they’re not sure they can find in the other, but it’s the closest thing to possible, here, in Dan’s dimly lit bedroom.
“I don’t want to ruin you,” Dan tells him, with his face hidden in Phil’s neck, giving him the security blanket to say things he normally wouldn’t. “You’re so nice. I don’t want to ruin you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Phil is half-asleep, he hears it in his voice more than he feels it. “I’m already ruined.”
He wants to go home. He wants to go home so badly.
Dan falls asleep first.
Phil knows, because he’s forcing himself to stay up until he hears his breathing even out, hears him get a minute of peace. He turns his head, kisses Dan’s forehead softly, and it’s almost enough. Almost enough.
A little piece of him shatters. That piece that had held him together, that piece that held all the hope that if only he could get through to this Dan, he’d be okay, he could find some purpose in this wrong life, with a wrong Dan, it turned into a painful, jagged shard, burying itself deep into his heart.
The only thing Phil knows to do, is hold onto Dan a little tighter.
Phil falls asleep crying.
The mornings are the worst part.
Each morning Phil wakes up and keeps his eyes closed and waits, silently, motionlessly, in the darkness. For another person’s breath. For a shuffle of the sheets. For Dan to press against his back and mumble something incoherent in his sleep.
Each morning he wakes up with the hope that whatever had catapulted him into this reality, had catapulted him back where he belonged.
Each morning, when he eventually opens his eyes, he feels the disappointment crash down on him like a rock.
This morning, Dan is there.
Phil remembers within a heartbeat, two of them, because he feels Dan’s too.
He’s still wrapped around Phil. He’s breathing in the darkness. He’s shuffling in his sheets. He’s pressing against his back, as he mumbles something incoherent in his sleep.
Phil wants to throw something through the window. Preferably himself.
How is this worse? How can this be worse?
He doesn’t know how to let go of Dan. He wants to, but he doesn’t want to. He feels himself tear apart like someone pulled apart and untangled two strings of the same twizzler.
Phil shakes, trying to suppress a sob. He needs to get out of here, and fast, before–
“Phil?” Dan sounds sleepy, eyes blinking in an effort to stay open, get rid of the blurriness, when Phil turns around to face him. When Dan’s vision finally focuses, he jumps up hastily, concern waking him up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I just– bad dream,” Phil tried.
“Yeah, right, try that with someone else,” Dan deadpanned. “How long do you think I’ve known you for, three months?”
Phil opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“No?” he asks.
“The fuck you mean, ‘no?’ What is wrong with you?” Dan reaches out, movements still a little uncoordinated, the way he sometimes is when barely awake, and manages to grab Phil’s wrists, pulling him up and pulling him close. “Why are you crying, you idiot? What happened? Did someone die? Did YouTube finally decide that our channel is a crime against humanity? Did the Tories win? Urgh. Now I made myself upset, and we don’t even have elections.”
Somewhere, squished against Dan’s neck and crying into his curls, Phil’s universe shifts back into axis. Dan’s shampoo smells just right. The shirt he is wearing is one of Phil's baggy ones that they had failed to throw out when it definitely should’ve been thrown out. The way Dan holds him isn’t like he’s some pretty stranger he’s met for the first time yesterday – It’s the touch of someone who knows him inside and out, like a soulmate of sixteen years.
“Holy shit, Dan.” Phil finally manages to get his arms around Dan and pulls him closer, so close they both can barely breathe, but he doesn’t care. He’s sobbing again, but fuck, he’s so happy. He’s never been so happy in his entire life. “Dan, fuck, I love you.”
“That’s a shit and a fuck in the same sentence. What the hell is going on with you?”
Phil pulls back just enough to kiss him, and that feels just right too. He’s home. Somehow, he’s made it home. Somehow, he’s made it back into their bed, that they share, in their house, their home, and there’s Dan, and he’s warm and perfect against Phil and everything is finally, finally right again.
“I’ll tell you. But you have to promise me you’ll believe me, because if I have you telling me that I’m going insane or that I had a bad dream, I swear I’ll lock you back into the closet.”
Dan grins. “You can try, but I don’t think the world is going to believe you.”
Phil rolls them down onto the bed, rolls himself on top of Dan, and kisses him slowly and languidly, just enjoying the fact that he can. At least for as long as Dan lets him before he pushes him down, rolling his eyes as he demands another explanation.
Phil lets himself be held, because he can, and tells him.
Dan believes him. But it’s a close thing. He probably wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t seen Phil, shaking and crying in his arms, the way he never has before.
Phil is just relieved, if he is being honest, to not carry the brunt of it alone anymore. Dan understands, somehow, the urgency of not letting go of Phil even once. He holds him, he touches him, he comforts him, he kisses him, and slowly but steadily, Phil manages to really arrive back home, piece by piece.
Still.
Some part of him hopes the other Dan is doing okay.
“Phil? You want some breakfast? I have uh…” Dan looks mildly ashamed, standing there in the doorframe, staring at Phil’s half-awake form in the bed. “Okay, so I don’t have a lot. But I have Lucky Charms.”
“I’ll take it,” grunts Phil, propping himself up in the bed. “Huh.”
“What’s wrong?” Dan asks absent-mindedly, already on his way back to the kitchen to prep the bowl of cereal he has the audacity to call a breakfast.
“I dunno. Weird dream?” says Phil, unsure. He thinks back. He remembers meeting Dan. But it feels weirdly far away. Like a dream. He remembers the calls, but something feels off. Like someone else had taken over his body, at the time. He remembers feeling sad, unbearably sad, but he can’t remember why.
Has he really just impulsively bought a ticket to London to crash in what was basically a stranger’s apartment? A stranger he’s immediately fallen so hard for?
He steps into the kitchen where Dan is handing him the cereals with a slightly embarrassed pout. It looks cute. He tries to dig for yesterday’s sadness and comes up empty-handed. He’s just enjoying himself, if he’s being honest.
Phil looks down at the bowl and wrinkles his nose.
“Sorry, forgot to mention I can’t have lactose.”
“You’re kidding me,” Dan mumbles. “After I’ve already– I should throw you out.”
He does nothing of the sort. He rolls his eyes, kisses Phil and starts eating the cereals himself.
“Just for that, you can starve.”
They order something ten minutes after Dan finishes his cereal. They talk about TV shows and find out they have vastly similar tastes, so they cuddle up on Dan’s sofa and watch Buffy.
Between episodes, Dan looks at him with a frown on his face.
“What?” asks Phil.
“You look at me differently,” Dan says.
“I feel differently.” When Phil sees Dan’s expression, he shakes his head. “Not about you. Well, yes about you – less… desperate. Sad. I don’t know where that came from, but it’s gone now. But I really like you, I promise.”
Dan looks at him for a long minute, and there’s something on his face. Like he understands something that Phil doesn’t.
He’ll ask him about it one day. Right now, he’s fine with just hanging out and ignoring the new flutter in his chest whenever Dan touches him.
It’s easy. It’s nice. It feels like the start of something.
So Phil decides it doesn’t matter how he got here – what counts is that he’s here now.
“Red string theory,” Phil grins at Dan from his stupid inflatable podcast chair that he loves a little too much. “We were meant to find each other in every universe.”
Dan grumbles something – He usually likes to shoot these down by mentioning his hard, hard stalking work.
He’s not sure he can, anymore.
“Yeah yeah,” he grunts instead. “But we helped!”
Phil grins at him, his stupid, beautiful wide eyes gleaming. “We definitely helped.”