If you've clicked on this story and haven't read the first part yet, I strongly advise you to do so in order to understand the context of this story. I've put some mentions of the first part so you remember what happened earlier, but reading the first part is essential (and who doesn't love long stories?) :D The title is Love Through a Lens and you can find it on my profile
Big merci to caustichowell from Tumblr who betaed the first five chapters :)
"This is the rhythm of the night, the night, oh yeah,
The rhythm of the night,
This is the rhythm of my life, my life, oh yeah,
The rhythm of my life"
[Bastille, Of the Night]
He always considered himself to be a night creature. The late hour did nothing to his self-confidence. In fact, it let him stay invisible, stay out of anyone's attention. Balancing heavy carriers as he walks through the empty streets of London, Dan feels safe. More safe than he ever would in a daylight.
Phil and him hadn't talked in quite some time. Dan felt too self-conscious after what happened to visit or check up on the black-haired. It was as if their relation had suddenly gone back to square one, becoming raw again, with an invisible wall between them. Dan couldn't put his finger on the reason of it. Was it because of what he learned about Phil or was it because his own wall crumbled, if just a little, back then in Phil's flat?
From his experience, Dan learnt that people aren't trustworthy. They're tricky, easily betraying one another and easily leaving their friend who needs help if said friend has little bit too much on their plate for their own selfish goddamn comfort. What's so scary about problems? Is it the same definition of the word?
A troublemaker. Problems mean trouble, but what is it about trouble that makes so many people turn away? Is that really it? Or maybe it's all about a simple convenience. It's simple not to have to deal with anything nasty and shitty.
Dan shakes his head. It's too late to be thinking about this. His mind will drift into the parts he normally keeps under the lock and he can't let himself do that now. He can't let himself be engulfed in the past. It's reminiscent of what used to be, and it only serves as torture nowadays. He has to move on from his old friends, his past surroundings. For his and Phil's anything-that-is-between-them sake.
He doesn't want his past experiences to stay with him forever, but how can one pick a rose so carelessly as if for the first time, if they know about the thorns which decorate the beautiful flower? They can't, and that's Dan's problem.
Sighing, he takes a turn. It's two in the morning and he's on his way back from work. He's tired. No, he's plainly exhausted. His mind doesn't work as it normally does, and he finds himself nodding to his own thoughts.
Jesus, it must be bad with me, he thinks bitterly as he avoids hitting a lamppost in the mere last second.
He hadn't thought much about the deal which he and Phil agreed upon. He would rather not think about it; every time he does, a knot ties around his stomach and his heart skips a beat.
Dan is scared, more scared than he would want to admit in his lifetime. Because he fell. Somehow, in some twisted way he fell for the guy who draws like Picasso and takes delightful photos.
He shudders, but not from the cold, but at the same thought of when his and Phil's work will come to an end and they will have to make a final decision. Having no 'what ifs', but a certain 'I know what I want' should help Dan, but it only brings a dark cloud over his mind. As much as he knows he wants Phil in his life, he can't help feeling insecure and terrified. Phil doesn't know a squat about the reality in which Dan lives. Dan has no idea about how he should break it to the ebony man either.
If I should break it to him at all, he adds sadly in his mind.
He awakes from his thoughts as his phone goes off. Dan cringes involuntarily as it lets out that high-pitched sound he hates so much, yet never bothers to change. Maneuvering his carriers into one hand, he answers the call, his right hand shaking dangerously with the weight of the bags it needs to carry.
"Hello?" he asks, silently hoping it's not Nessa calling him that he forgot to shut all the lights in the staff room again. He's ready to kill if he needs to go back to Raspberry Bar one more time that day.
"Dan?!", the shriek is so loud that Dan nearly drops his phone right there and then. "I- wow, sorry, I just didn't expect you to answer," the voice admits quietly and Dan's throat tightens.
He barely coughs up, "Phil."
They hadn't spoken a word to one another since the very day Phil opened hisheart and soulto him. Dan, as the perfect fuck up he is, couldn't give back the same gift he was given.
"I've called you like a hundred times!"
Dan winces at the indirect message and accusation.
He feels extremely guilty for not calling back or picking up calls. But is it really his fault that whenever Phil called him, Dan was at work or was too busy with Nat? Who, not to mention, recently started her teen phase, arguing and disagreeing with him at every possible occasion?
"Dan, are you there?", Phil questions but Dan feels too much to answer.
What is his mouth even capable of making? He's so scared to lose Phil, but even more so, to let him in. He spends all his nights wondering about the best possible way he could tell him about Nat, about his father, Michael, about everything, but yet, as the sun comes up, he's left with nothing.
"I swear this phone is broken or..."
"No, it's not. I'm here," he hastily breaks in before the other hangs up. Dan's been putting this off for far too long. "I'm here," he repeats, more to ensure himself there's nothing to be afraid of about talking with Phil.
"Oh," lets out the black-haired and they're both silent for a moment.
Dan feels he should be the one speaking first, the first to explain himself. But once again, tremors pass his body and something closes around his heart as he finds himself unable to utter a word.
"I've called you a dozen times," Phil picks up the topic again, his voice gentle as if he's scared to start a war.
Dan stops in his tracks.
Sighing heavily, he lets his arms fall to his sides. He takes a shuddering breath, "I know, Phil, and I'm sorry, I just-" he pauses.
He what? What explanation can he give to Phil? That he was too occupied with keeping his job and his boss from finding the right excuse to dump him, is that really what he should say? Could Phil even understand him and place himself in his situation? He's not the same as Dan, after all. But then, life proved once that differences between them could be similarities, as well.
So what is really stopping him from saying all the right words?
"It's just work. You know how it is with having night shifts, sometimes they suck," he decides to say, rubbing the nape of his neck and yawning accidentally into the speaker, "Sorry for that," he apologises right away.
"It is two a.m. so I'll let that one slide," Phil jokes and Dan half smiles into the speaker.
"It is, indeed."
Silence falls between the two but this time, it's not so awkward. And Dan feels somehow content with none of them speaking, the same thought that there's someone he could speak to at any second comforting him. He carefully lifts his bags and starts his walk back home again, phone by his ear.
"Dan?"
"Yes?"
"Are you sure you're alright?"
'No', is what he has in his mind.
"Yes," is what leaves his mouth. "I just got caught up in work, is all. We have loads of customers to serve these days," he explains, hoping it sounds convincing.
"Oh. I get that, yeah, I've been caught up in work too," Phil admits and Dan nods along to his words, even though the man can't see him.
The brunet walks in silence for a minute, the street lights gleaming with dim orange luminescence. He learned that practically no one wanders the streets at this hour, leaving out dodgy, suspicious individuals like him or that dealer he sees once in a while around just this corner.
"How's it going?" he asks, trying not to think much about the dealer. He's not scared of him, not at all.
Phil sighs into the speaker and Dan can easily picture him fixing his fringe, "Good, good..." his voice gentle, silk, just like when he entered Raspberry Bar for the first time. "I just miss you," Phil adds after a second and Dan's heart squeezes suddenly.
A warm feeling of being missed, of being thought about fills every cell in his body. He suppresses the tears that threaten to leave his eyes. He swears he gets overtly emotional at two in the morning.
"Me too," he whispers shakily.
There's just something special about having the chance to be around Phil, to share the same space and air. It's magical, because Phil can make even the worst weather turn into a dazzling sun. And damn Dan's punk style, but he misses the black-haired's face, this silly but totally adorable tongue thing Phil does when he makes a joke, his fruity scent and that vibrant laugh that can make anyone want to reach the stars.
Dan enters the front door of the block of flats he and Nat live in. It looks derelict from the outside, which is an exact same picture of the inside interior, too. The paint peeling off of the walls, Dan carefully crawls up the stairs, trying not to make much noise.
"Hey, are you free this Friday maybe?", Phil asks out of the blue.
"Nah, I'm working a night shift," he replies quietly, half-distracted, as he looks up to check if any of his neighbours had come to the staircase for a smoke. He doesn't like the curiosity they always seem to have. If one of them recognises him, they'll surely call the police either from civil duty or just to get some money for finding the runaway.
"That's inconvenient," Phil continues and Dan shakes his head, trying to remember what they were talking about earlier. Something about Friday, right? Dan rubs at his eyes as he starts his way up the stairs again, tiptoeing but making quite the sounds despite his best efforts.
"I thought we could go to a cinema?", the black-haired half-asks, half-informs. Dan halts abruptly, face turning red at the realisation that Phil wants to take me out on a date, oh God.
"I'd love to, but I'll be done at around two. I doubt any cinema is open at that time." He would really love to spend some time with Phil, even something as simple as watching a movie together, but he finishes around two, just the same as he does nearly every day.
"Well, what about Saturday night then?", Phil prompts and Dan draws in a breath. His mind goes in all dirty places at the word 'Saturday night', and he shudders, having finally reached the door of his flat.
Leaning on the door, he responds, a tingling sensation in his stomach, spreading slowly around his body as it reaches his heart at last.
"Sounds great," he mumbles, wondering how many shades of tomato have been on his face that day. "I'll just have to make sure I don't have any overtime to do."
"That's just fantastic!" Phil's voice beams with happiness, like the hour matters no longer, and Dan's answer just gave him a new energy that he can use to spread happiness all over the planet. Dan rolls his eyes at his own interpretation but smiles at how close he may be to the truth.
Bearing in mind that the door makes a characteristic squishy sound just when it's an inch from being opened up, Dan pushes them with more precaution than he would usually. Nat is surely sleeping and he'd feel incredibly guilty for waking up his little sister.
"So, a horror movie, an action movie, or a romantic comedy?", asks Phil as Dan pushes open the door and grinning Nat welcomes him from the other side.
Like hell he believes her when she says she wasn't just ear dropping. She couldn't have just woken up, her hair isn't tousled. Dan makes a mental note to have a chat about her sleeping habits later.
The teen winks at him and Dan feels the urge to slam his head into the cheap plastic door as his cheeks turn a fair rosy shade. What's stopping him from the action is the knowledge that his head would absolutely carve a shape into the door, just like all his neighbours' fists did, the door looking battered and as if a car tried to drive into their flat. Okay, Dan may be a little exaggerating, but it must have been at least a good twenty pound bike.
"So...?" Phil inquires.
Dan shuffles awkwardly and Nat only grins wider. How is that even possible, he won't question, he just knows the girl is changing into an actual Cheshire cat with every next second.
"Phil?" he swears under his breath for saying Phil's name as the word makes his sister's eyes widen in confusion (or maybe a surprise, he doesn't have much time to decide which one fits the description better), and then transform into that smug smile Nessie shot his way the first few times Phil walked into Raspberry Bar. "Phil, I'll call you back later, I've got to go, sorry," he cringes as the words come out of his mouth all at once.
"Everything alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just..." he breathes out, feeling his head is floating in that 'it's two am, what even is air' state. His head lolls backwards as he leans into the doorframe and he shakes it, some of his curly hair poking his eyeballs. "Long story, I'll explain later, okay?"
Phil giggles, "It sounds like you're just fighting an alpaca," he points out and Dan snorts.
"Well, you've got no idea how close you are," he replies, throwing Nat a look with a couple of daggers. The teen juts out her lower lip, feigning hurt and wiping fake tears off of her cheeks.
"Ha! I'm waiting to hear that story soon", says Phil and the corners of Dan's lips rise upward. He's looking forward to tell that story, too, if he puts away all his fears and uncertainties about Phil rejecting him.
"Sleep well, Dan."
Those exact three words are spoken with so much softness that Dan's heart stops for a second or two. There's so much gentleness in Phil's voice, as if Dan suddenly turned into a rare flower, its petals so thin if anyone touched it too roughly, they could close in and not let anyone to enjoy its formosity.
Dan's throat aches and he struggles as he whispers, "Good night, Phil," into the speaker. At this point, he has no idea whether he just doesn't care Nat will pick on him for it for ages or if the moment feels too special to be interrupted only because of something such small as his dignity.
"Call me in the morning?" the other boy ensures. Dan feels guilt begin to form in his chest at the amount of desperation and pleading he hears in Phil's voice. Dan was the one who declined the calls. Jesus, there must be an actual prize for being able to mess up so many relationships in one lifetime. He would get hundreds of those.
"Dan?"
"Oh, yeah, I will, Phil. I definitely will," he croaks out. Then he remembers the very presence of his younger sister in the room, and he rolls his eyes at the heart signs Nat sends his way.
"Okay, bye, Dan."
"Bye, Phil," he says sadly into the phone and the line drops dead.
The squeaking comes instantly and Dan scrunches his eyes in pain. Nat stares at him, apparently waiting for more information her imagination could feed off.
"I don't know if either I should ground you for that ear dropping or either close your mouth with a tape for like, ten years," he ponders out loud, putting his bag and the carriers with shopping on the small table and plopping down on a black knackered sofa which lets out a puff of air it gathered inside.
Nat jumps up to him, laughing carefreely at his joke, like they're not just in the middle of the night.
"Nat! The curfew!" he scolds her.
The younger rolls her green eyes at him as she drops on the sofa next to him, cuddling into him. "Does anyone ever abide it?" she asks as she nuzzles into his blouse.
"Yes. The people," he points out to her, yawning massively and leaning his head on his arm, exhausted.
Nat laughs bitterly at him, "Like that freaking Uncle John who gets so busted he mistakes our flat with his own?" Dan grimaces at the remark.
The Uncle John she talks about is obviously in no way related to them. The teen made up that nickname a while ago. Dan can't remember well where it came from. Probably from the first night Uncle John got so drunk he banged on their door, shouting obscenities at his 'supposed' wife to let him in.
"Well, he is drunk when that happens," Dan says, matter-of-factly.
"But his flat is like on the sixth floor, Dan!" she exclaims, and he closes his eyes tightly as the sound echoes in his head with an angry buzz. "I'm not gonna sit quietly like a mouse when others are freaking cats!", she moves as she speaks and even this motion makes him dizzy in his 'nearly-dead-from-lack-of-sleep' feeling.
"Nat! Watch your language!"
"UGH, Dan, you're such an impossible human! I'm fifteen!" she objects, moving slightly away from him. Dan thanks his lucky stars for the space, because every inch of distance makes her shouting a little less cringey to his over sensitive ears.
"Nat-" he begins, when a loud bang cuts the arguing siblings.
Standing up, he groans inwardly. He takes a breath before he opens up the front door.
"The fuck do you think you're doing, huh?!"
Oh, just sweet, Dan thinks as his landlord, a forty-something man, spits in his face. The man looks beyond pissed, he's nearly eyeballing him, judging his tattooes like he always does. Dan likes to pretend it's because the man is simply jealous of his awesomeness.
(The thought is better than letting himself understand the man despises him for every breath he takes.)
"Uh, I was just going to sleep," he explains, leaning on the doorframe to hide Nat from the man's ever too curious gaze.
"Then sleep in the fucking silence! Do I need to remind you of the rent you already owe me?!" Dan looks down, feeling his cheeks redden in embarrassment. He's just being shouted at in front of his little sister. God, this is humiliating.
"No, sir. I'll pay you as soon as I get my payment," he promises and the man's face twists into an evil smile.
"I know," he says, "because if you don't, just pack your stuff. I don't even want to see your stupid face around here anymore if you don't pay me off in two weeks." Dan swallows heavily, nodding. The man leaves in silence.
The room's quiet.
Nat doesn't ask, but as he turns toward the sofa, a pair of scared green eyes of a fifteen year-old who went through too much search his, looking for some comfort.
Dan sits down on the sofa. As Nat nuzzles her head into the crook of his neck, he whispers, "We're not other people, Nat."
Review and let me know what you think of the second part. I love writing this story and I'm really excited because I've got some cool stuff planned ahead :D
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