Dan's POV
It was a pleasant day in autumn. It was already dawning and we were sitting together in Phil's parents' garden.
I had mentioned a few days ago that I wanted to go home again and the boys were right there. I haven't even been there since rehab because I just didn't feel ready to stand in front of all those people after I fucked up so bad.
But nothing had changed.
You could say that there's probably no place in the world I'd rather be right now.
In the middle of us a campfire was burning that Phil's dad had just lit as the air became much cooler as the evening went on. We had formed a circle around it and had a beer in our hands from which we hadn't drunk for a long time because we were thirsty, but only sipped on it because it was just there.
Next to me was Oliver. His parents, who had adopted me as well as he had, showed me nothing but love when we showed up there. Phil had immediately gone to his parents and since they wanted to see me again after rehab, they invited Oliver and me over.
Opposite of me Phil was sitting next to his mom, who had welcomed me as loving as ever. Phil's father was about to get more wood. Unfortunately Phil's brother was somewhere else, which I found a a bit sad, because I would have liked to see him again as well.
Phil stared silently into the fire and gave the impression of not participating in the present at all.
Kathryn opened some topic, in which I first participated as usual, until my attention was again focused on Phil, who showed no reaction at all. But when his mom and Oliver started laughing about something, he seemed to wake up and drove through his hair until his eyes found mine.
I had been back for almost four months and yet I still couldn't really let him go. Every time he looked at me, said my name or just laughed, I fell in love with him again.
He turned away again when his father threw some new wood into the fire and let himself fall next to Kathryn. I put the bottle against my lips again and some peace returned. You could only hear the sounds of nature, which made me feel really good for the first time in a long time.
"Are you allowed to drink beer at all?" Phil's father asked, jokingly, half serious, thus tearing us all out of our thoughts. It was my family, so such conversations were kind of okay, even if they were kinda akward.
"I shouldn't necessarily get drunk, but a beer with you guys is fine."
He held his beer bottle up to me so we could toast, which I accepted with a smile. Afterwards we both took a sip, whereupon my eyes fell back on Phil, who was kind of introverted.
He had told me on the way here that he had broken up with John. Oliver had looked at me for a split second until he stood by with compassion. After a few minutes I also pulled myself together to stand by him as a friend.
For that moment in the car it seemed as if something like that was actually possible. Us, just friends. But I would never stop wanting him.
I looked at Oliver, who, oddly enough, was also looking at me.
"I'm gonna take off for a minute, okay? I'm gonna take a little walk."
"You okay?" he asked quietly and I nodded immediately. "Don't be long."
"Yes, mom." I joked and stood up, and Phil looked at me. I explained to everyone that I was leaving for a moment and in a short while I disappeared from the house. I had to let it sink in what was going on. Too many feelings came over me. That's what I had learned in therapy: That it was okay to back out.
Phil's POV
Where did he go? What was he doing? What did he think?
If he seriously thought that I believed him, that he just wanted to go for a walk, then all those drugs had probably already cost him more brain cells than one might have expected.
"Don't you want to go check on him?" my mother suddenly asked and I looked up at her, then at Oliver, which had become a reflex lately. My mother didn't know about everything that had happened and she knew how important Dan had always been to me.
Yes, I wanted to look after him, and normally Oliver would have done at some point, what I was secretly hoping for. But he didn't, and I knew exactly why.
"I can tell you worry." she went on and put her hand on my shoulder. I smiled half-heartedly.
"He'll be okay." I refused briefly and stared back into the campfire flame, ignoring Oliver's gaze. The crackling and the heat had made me so tired, but since Dan had disappeared, I was wide awake again.
"Sure? I mean since he was in the clinic- I don't know."
"That's why he was there, Mom. To get better. He'll be okay." I tried to calm her down and I felt Oliver's telepathic slap.
"If you say so, darling." she gave in.
Her tone of voice sounded as if she resented me not wanting to check on him, and it wasn't long before she confirmed this impression.
"All I know is, if that were my best friend, I would check on him. What are friends for? To be there for each other, isn't it?"
"My God, Mom. I've been there for him enough times." I tried to fight back, but she was smarter than me.
"And now is not the time to stop."
We were supposed to have a working friendship, and how could we be if I refused to be there for him because of our history?
I gritted my teeth and lowered my gaze.
"You're right, I should go check on him." I announced and stood up while Oliver smiled weakly or rather proudly at me. I left the warmth of the campfire and disappeared from my property as well.
I was cold, so I buttoned my jacket and crossed my arms while walking through the streets. I had an idea where Dan could be and if I still knew him as well as I did a year ago, I would find him there. But at the moment only a few insects flew in my face while I was fighting my way along the narrow forest path.
Around me there was nobody, not a soul and above me the moon shone through the pitted ceiling of leaves.
In front of me the forest slowly thinned out and I recognized another small piece of meadow. While I looked around and it didn't take me long to realize that I had found what I was looking for.
It was a small piece of healthy lawn lying in the middle of the forest. Oliver, Dan and I had often come here in our youth to just relax or something. Even after we moved to London, we came back a few times. It was something like our place that sealed our friendship.
And there he sat. Where he used to sit and let his hands run through the slightly damp grass. Slowly I walked towards him and when he heard my dull steps he turned a little and recognized that it was me.
Somehow I was relieved that he seemed to be okay, but on the other hand I didn't know what the consequences would be now that I had really followed him.
"What are you doing here?" he asked insecurely while I was sitting down as well.
"Checking on you."
He smiled at me gently and maybe we could talk about some things again. We've never had pizza together, never met since he's been back. Just with Oliver. But maybe talking in private about what was going on with us isn't such a bad idea.
"You didn't have to come." He said, turning his gaze back to the wholesome lawn.
"The way you say that makes it sound more like you didn't want me to come." I said, smiling at him, but he was completely ignoring me.
"Maybe."
"Why?"
I couldn't immediately explain why I felt that way, but somehow I was disappointed that he reacted so dismissively.
"I wanted to be alone." he almost muttered and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Should I leave?" I asked carefully.
He didn't move, didn't say a word, and I knew deep down, whatever he was thinking, I didn't want to go. Just as I knew that I wasn't only here because I was worried. Actually, that had been rather incidental and I hoped that he would immediately shake his head, shyly or whisper softly that I should stay. But my hope remained unfulfilled.
"I don't think you want me to go." I took over, handed myself over to him.
"I don't know what I want." he mumbled indecisively and I almost got up and left, but then he kept talking.
"Or rather, yes, I know what I want, but I don't know if it's so good for you to do it or to give me what I want."
"What do you want?"
At last he looked at me and I could almost see it on his lips. How he wrestled with himself. And then he looked away again without saying anything.
"Do you still blame yourself? Because of what happened back then?" I wanted to know and saw him swallow hard and slowly start nodding, but not looking at me. "You don't have to blame yourself. What has been is over and if you don't stop scourging yourself and allow yourself no more human feelings at all, you will never be happy." You could tell he was trying to suppress his feelings, but I didn't want him to do that.
"What do you mean, no human feelings? I feel quite a lot, I'd say." He laughed bitterly for a tiny moment and then closed his eyes as a breeze moved his hair.
"So tell me." He looked at me, as if he was scared. "Tell me what you feel."
"I go crazy thinking that you might spend the rest of your life with someone else and not with me. I mean, yes, you broke up with John, but it doesn't mean anything and I know it doesn't mean anything. It just means that at some point, someone is gonna come along and I'll have to deal with it."
Suddenly it was so palpable to me how hurt he really was and how much he was holding back. I couldn't even imagine how often he had had this conflict with himself in the last months, sometimes with a better, sometimes with a worse outcome.
"I think you're thinking a little ahead here." I tried to calm him down, although I didn't realize what that would achieve.
"I don't know." he brought out in a trembling voice. "I understand everything you've just explained to me and maybe you're right that I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but, honestly, how could I not be after all this? Where's that fucking development I spent twelve months in therapy for?"
I wanted to say something, but he just kept talking.
"I just haven't changed a fucking bit. I'm still the selfish asshole who wants you. In therapy, I told myself I was over you and as soon as you're in front of me, everything is exactly the same. And I don't know if that's ever gonna change. And you looked happy with that John. He seemed nice, but I hated him because he wasn't me. I'm no fucking better than I used to be."
Every word he said touched me deeply and caught me off guard. Maybe I wanted him to be selfish. Maybe I wanted him to think about himself and try to get what he wanted by any means possible. Perhaps because what he thought was his own happiness, which he had to renounce for my sake, was actually the same and the only thing that could fulfil me completely.
"Dan." I breathed and came closer to him, although he didn't come towards me at all, only made me mute, because he still thought that he had to control himself.
"How can you think that you haven't changed? You- whatever it was then that made you act so wrong-" I had to smile when I imagined what he thought, that he worried about doing the wrong thing when he fought for me or felt something reprehensible when he was jealous. And that when I had never really wanted anything but him. "It's gone." I came a little bit near him.
He flinched as if he had been electrocuted, but I didn't let that irritate me and tried a second time.
And this time he let me.
It happened, we touched each other and immediately all my senses went crazy, not letting my own thoughts get a word in, with which I tried again and again to make myself clear what was happening here. I couldn't understand it at first, until my feelings suddenly overwhelmed me and I understood. Dan and I, we, we were connected again, on this physical level, which could not function without the spiritual level and vice versa. My lips met his. I was alive. Awakened, breathed, pulsed like life. As it had to be. Not flawless, but perfect. For each other, at least.
We were life, love and passion and a hell of a lot more than I ever wanted to be. A hell of a lot more than I needed or was satisfied with. We united pain and joy, selfishness and self-abandonment, noise and silence, body and soul. Were all these at the same time and in abundance, but for us, just for us, it was just as right. Because we were one and whoever or whatever tried to separate us failed and broke between us.
Especially ourselves.
"Phil, wait-" Dan gently pulled away from me and looked at me. His hand was on my neck and he looked at me with such love that I felt like I could explode.
"What?" I asked beathlessly.
"I love you." My breath stopped and I looked at him with big eyes. He had never said it before. Of course I always knew, but he never said it. He never said it. "I know I've never said it, and I expect absolutely nothing from you. Nothing. I just want you to know."
"I knew. I know." His eyes glazed over, whereupon he leaned in gently, I let him and he reunited our lips.
And it was funny how after a few minutes we could detach and just lie there next to each other. It was strange for us, but in that moment it felt right to stop and just be there. To exist. Side by side.
For a while we lay there in silence and stared at the night sky. It was completely dark and you could see some stars. You could hear the insects flying around in the bushes and I hoped that no giant beetle would attack us.
Dan was so calm and radiated a kind of peace as well. He wasn't the Dan from a year ago, nor was he the Dan I had met. He had changed, but in the best direction.
"I was in therapy while you were away." I confessed and his head turned to me. "Because of the stress, mostly. And all the other stuff that happened. Oliver suggested it and I thought, why not? It really helped."
"Are you still going?" he asked with interest and I shook my head.
"No. I was there for half a year and after that I felt pretty good again." I explained, and Dan smiled softly at me, whereupon he looked up at the sky again for a moment and seemed to think about something.
"Are you happy?" he asked. For a moment I thought about this question until I started to nod.
"Yeah, I guess so." He swallowed hard. "But I think happiness has something to do with yourself. No one can help you there, you have to find it yourself. Happiness isn't the same for everyone."
"Makes sense." He agreed, and in that moment everything felt so okay. It was okay to lie here with him, in our place and talk about things like that.
"I had happy moments with you. But you have nothing to do with my happiness. Just like I have nothing to do with yours. Do you understand?" He seemed to think for a moment until he started to nod, apparently he really understood. I was glad he understood, but I didn't expect anything else from me.
"Well, are you happy?" I asked.
"I'm on my way there." He said honestly.
I took his hand and squeezed it briefly until I let go and put my hands under my neck to protect it from the tickle of the grass.
I remembered how I didn't believe that Dan could get better. For a moment I felt bad about it, but then I was overcome with the happy knowledge that he was safe and sound next to me. He was almost happy, he was healthy. He was Dan.
I was so fucking proud of him.
And not knowing what to do, I bridged the distance between us and put my lips on his.
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it could end here, but i remember that i promised a big smut chapter, so that will come at some point.
also, i waited so so long to write this chapter. holy fuck.