a/n: I call this one ‘shelley tries to write a normal average coffee shop AU but still AGAIN manages to turn the entire thing into some huge fucking space-related metaphor’. Oops

(real talk I worked my ass off on this I swear ok it sounds so dumb but I genuinely think this might be the hardest I’ve ever worked on a fic before hahah ahhahahaha AHah im really tired)

also there’s no ‘amethyst coffee house’ actually on southbank it’s a fictional place

special thanks to my wonderful beta aqua who was such a big help with this fic tysm my Queen <33

summary: Phil, the clumsy Barista working an unstable job in a café along the Thames, always carries around too much spare change and really should stop smoking on his lunch breaks. Dan is a struggling street musician making his fortune in pennies on the south bank of London, another stranger in the city, who deserves so much more than the copper thrown at him by passers-by every day. But London is big, loud and really fucking overwhelming at the best of times, and sometimes, city life doesn’t always go to plan. And that’s okay.

warnings: smut, swearing, very pretentious space metaphors, alcohol, smoking and i think thats about it

words: 19.6k (go get a drink or a snack or smth bc it’s a long one)

(disclaimer: I have no intention of romanticising/condoning smoking. A lot of this fic is about giving it up.)

READ ON AO3

“Maybe the best thing about London, or any city in general, is how it’s a bit like the universe.

“The city harbours millions and millions of individual lives, seeing trillions of births and deaths of humans, just like the countless life cycles of stars; exploding either to create beautiful supernovas or to burn out without a spark, and that’s something Phil often thinks about. If he were to die tomorrow, the city would keep on breathing. The buildings would keep twinkling into the night. Commuters would still sit in their offices. The sun will keep on rising, and the stars, wherever they are up there, would keep on shining.

Because, most of all, similar to the universe, the city waits for no-one. The city, like the universe, doesn’t give a shit about what happens to you while you’re there, so it’s up to you to find your place in the city, not for the city to find a place for you.”

-

-

“Success doesn’t come on a silver platter. It gets served in mud. You decide whether you’re going to get dirty to clean it” 

-

 The best thing about London, Phil thinks, is how it looks in the summer.

It’s late-July, and the sun drowns the city in a white golden glow. The tall, angular apartment buildings lining the sky in front of him shadow the shorter, older and, in Phil’s opinion, prettier buildings alongside the new architecture. There’s an echo of traffic in the atmosphere, engines and buses and car horns humming in every direction around him, but the trees lining the south bank are in full bloom, branches of green stretching out and casting rare shadows on the concrete. Sat where he is, underneath a tree on a bench, he can see shimmers of sunlight reflecting off of the water’s surface, almost like someone had sprinkled glitter into the river, perhaps to brighten up the dull murkiness of it. It is the Thames, after all.

As it’s summer, school has finished and the south bank is packed with families and this morning Phil could barely move for the crowd of bustling tourists, tickets to the London Dungeon or the Aquarium or the London eye clutched in their hands, probably alongside a selfie stick and a travelcard. Phil’s never seen the attraction of the London Eye – on a day like this, it very much feels like being trapped in a greenhouse for half an hour, just with fewer plants and more smartphones. He’s never actually been to the Dungeon and he thinks Aquariums are pretty cruel to be honest, so right now he really can’t understand the attraction, can’t understand why all these people are elbowing each-other out of the way for a tiny glimpse of the Shard, or whichever landmark it is gripping their attention right now.

Then again, he is a local. He loves his hometown more than anything else in the world, his heartbeat aligns with the city’s rhythm and when he inhales the polluted air, the scent of petrol in the wind, he feels like he’s home, but he can’t deny the novelty of it all has definitely worn off. At the end of the day, landmarks such as Buckingham palace are all nothing more than buildings after all. Sure – they might be very famous buildings, but they’re still the same arrangement of bricks and cement and concrete you’d get anywhere else.

His break ends at quarter past one. The minute hand on his wristwatch is edging towards one o’clock now and he’d binned the rest of his falafel wrap after deciding he isn’t actually that hungry – the stench of onions and cheap mustard coming from the hot dog van a few metres away from him is enough to put anyone off eating, to be honest. He grabs his sachet of tobacco, picking it apart and sprinkling it into a rolling paper. He doesn’t actually like smoking that much, but at least the nicotine will curb his appetite for the rest of his shift.  

-

London attracts tourists for the stupidest reasons.

Phil wonders why and how a city so packed to the very brim with art, rich history, architecture and politics can be so overlooked by tourists more interested in buildings that look like fucking cheese graters or gherkins. Apparently they deserve more attention than St. Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey.

It’s the same on Southbank, Phil thinks. Tourists don’t go there to look at the plaques of history next to the sculptures or for a trip to the National Theatre – they go to gawp at some idiot eating fire or juggling knives or some guy covered in silver paint pretending to be a sculpture or a floating Yoda or something. He glares at the flashing neon colours of the carousel which, for some reason, is always there next to Jubilee Gardens. He doesn’t know why – it’s a city, not a fucking fairground. He remembers what London used to look like before they erected a huge ‘ferris wheel’ (as he once overheard a child exclaim, pointing up at the giant attraction with sticky fingers) and it’s just a shame, really. London’s more than cheap candyfloss and teacup rides.

-

Two cigarettes and another half-eaten lunch later, Phil finds himself wandering again. He has five minutes left of his break, but the city just looks too pretty under the patchwork sky of blue and white for him to go just yet. The sun comes out every now and then, warming the streets and lining the clouds in the sky with a silver thread before disappearing again under their white shield. It might be summer and it might not have rained for a good week or so, but it is England and it’s not often the weather is as consistent as this, so he might as well enjoy it whilst he can before the inevitable grey sheet of sky paints over the warmth and brightness of July and they’re back to umbrellas and misery and packed tube stations. He’d left the bright colours and obnoxious performers making their salary through a juggle of a blade or a mouthful of fire back behind him, and the waltz-like music from the carousel mixed with a beatboxer who had somehow accumulated an audience is only a distant noise now, swallowed by the hundreds of separate conversations of the crowd he’s currently weaving his way through.

The further down he walks, the more he can identify a different kind of music that fills the atmosphere. He hears a guitar strumming out slightly flat chords and a rough singing voice, amplified and tinny through the cheap microphone. He dodges out of the way of some pram he was nearly about to walk into and hears a few ‘tuts’ aimed in his direction, but he ignores it and follows the music, quickening his pace a little. It’s really time he should get back to the café, to be honest, but it’s been a while since he’s heard something through a microphone that isn’t either ridiculous beatboxing or a public comedy act that isn’t actually that funny.

There’s a clear distinction between street performers and street musicians; the main difference being Phil’s never had much of a problem with the latter. He doesn’t mind walking past a trumpet player belting out the best of Miles Davis in South Kensington underground station. Accordions are kind-of loud and annoying but that performer in Embankment can make it sound good, Phil thinks. And violins are even worse when played badly, but there was a very talented girl down here last week who definitely knew how to tackle Mozart on her instrument and Phil feels guilty for only having a two pound coin on him and not anything more.

He’s never heard this guy before – the last guitarist they had down here had packed up and gone months ago after somehow landing himself an actual record deal somewhere, and Phil hasn’t seen him since. But this guy, his voice is rough with a southern twang to his accent and if Phil isn’t mistaken, he’s singing a song by Oasis. Phil doesn’t know the name of it, but he could recognise that chorus anywhere.

He hums along, dodging businessmen and mums and running children, and digs in his back pocket, fishing around for whatever change he was handed from the ten pound note he used to buy a bottle of wine yesterday.

It’s not much – only three pounds, but it’s one pound more than what he could give the crazy talented violinist, so there’s that.

He doesn’t really want to disturb him and he’s running late as it is, so he drops the money and scarpers quickly, only having time to throw the musician a glance only lasting a fraction of a second. All he really gets from it is brown hair falling over his eyes, obscuring his facial features in a shaggy fringe that doesn’t look as if it’s seen a hairbrush for weeks, and a jacket made out of worn black leather.

-

The view from the Jubilee Bridge is like stepping into a postcard.

The buildings sit picture-perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degrees before the eye and if Phil was a painter, if Phil had a shred of creative talent within him, he’d be itching to grab a stained apron and a canvas and recreate the view from here in rough brushstrokes and oil colours.

But he isn’t a painter – he’s a barista and right now he’s late for work again. He patters down the stairs clutching onto the banister and bites back a grin when the familiar, twang of steel strings fill the atmosphere again. He digs into his back pocket as soon as he reaches the foot of the stairs, weaving through the crowd and, without stopping, drops a crumpled five-pound note in the general direction of the musician’s open case. He hopes it goes in – he doesn’t stop to check because he has three minutes to spare and he really needs to get a move on, but he hears the singing voice hesitate for a split second before continuing.

-

Actually, maybe the best thing about London is how it looks in the evening.

He’s walking home, and the sun is beginning to set behind him. The light has softened from dazzling daylight to gold, painting colours across both the sky and the city in the same shade of warm, and stretching his shadow up the concrete in front of him – the silhouette of himself looks about eight foot tall with chopsticks for legs and branches for fingers.

This is his favourite time of the day – the time where the crowds have dissipated slightly after tourists catch the last train home and the carousel, candy floss machines and overpriced street food stands have been shut up until another day. It’s just so peaceful.

He finds himself lighting up again, his thumb flicking over his zippo lighter until there’s a flame. He inhales chemicals and exhales the stress of his work, pushing thoughts of busy cafes and wrong orders and angry customers out of his mind. It’s been a long day.

He can hear a feint guitar melody, but he can’t quite work out where it’s coming from. It’s broken and disjointed, and whoever is playing it can apparently only stick to one song for a total of twenty seconds before the verse stops and something else starts.

He follows the sound, his shoes scuffing the tired pavement which probably hasn’t seen a square centimetre of emptiness all day until now. There’s a warm breeze which styles Phil’s fringe; a black mess flopping over the majority of his forehead that he should really get cut at some point, but he likes it this length – the length where it’s been a good few weeks since his last haircut and it’s long enough to run his hands through but short enough to keep him from resembling a lion. He wishes it would just stay this length forever.

The closer Phil finds himself to Jubilee Bridge, the clearer the guitar playing gets, and it’s at this point he identifies a half-tuneful voice too. He frowns into the distance, still walking, and a couple of footsteps later he sees a figure leaning against the wall just next to the stairs leading up to the bridge, clutching a guitar and fiddling about with the tuning pegs. It’s that street musician.

A week had gone by since he first saw him, and he’s been there in the same spot beside the bridge every day since then. Phil pretends it isn’t the reason he’s edging towards Jubilee Bridge right now, despite his house being on the other side of the city.

He slows down a little, taking a moment to properly study this guy without the interruption of the city’s people. He makes sure he’s standing with enough of a comfortable distance between them for him not to be considered creepy, despite the fact this guy hasn’t even seen him yet.

He still has his head of messy brown hair, and it’s still shielding the majority of his face in a fringe Phil would personally consider way past his personal “lion-mane” stage. He’s wearing a black denim jacket today, coated in iron-on badges and jeans with messy rips cut into them which don’t look like a deliberate stylistic feature so much as literally owning the same pair of jeans for a good decade, or so. And the closer Phil gets, the clearer it is that his expression is twisted into something irritated and he just can’t tune that E string.

His cigarette is coming to an end so he stubs it out on the nearest wall, treading it into the pavement along with years of other flattened cigarette butts and blobs of chewing gum, and continues walking. He feels his back pocket for a jingle – it’s almost instinct now, and-

There’s a loud snap, and a curse. Phil looks up.

“Oh, shit,” the brown-haired guy sighs, grabbing the small metal string that had flown free of the fingerboard, curling around the neck of his guitar. There’s no heat behind his exclamation, just, well, by the sounds of it, weariness.

Phil, now walking into the range of both eye and earshot of this guy, hovers awkwardly for a couple of seconds, nibbling the inside of his cheek. The musician still hasn’t noticed him, he hasn’t looked up once; his eyes are fixed on his worn guitar, too busy desperately trying to stretch the broken metal back into place and oh god, Phil can’t just ignore him now.

“Hang on,” Phil says before he can stop himself, approaching the guy just as he’s giving up and reaching for his guitar case, ready to pack the broken instrument away. It’s nearly empty with the odd exception for a few pennies and maybe a pound or two, and that alone is enough to make Phil’s heart twist a little with sympathy.

The guy jumps, Phil having obviously startled him, and glances up at him; brown eyes wide.

“Here,” Phil digs in his pocket and pulls out three pounds, holding his hand out to the other boy like a timid child feeding a horse for the first time. He takes a deep breath. “Buy yourself a new guitar string, yeah?”

The man swallows, frowning a little at the gold coins in the stranger’s palm.

“I- er-…”

“Go on,” Phil urges. “Take it.”

He nibbles his lip, but at last his shoulders sag a little and he holds out his hand, a hint of reluctance in his posture.

“You don’t have to,” he mutters. “Really. It’s-“

“Look, don’t argue,” Phil says, but not unkindly. “Just take it.” The street performer nearly smiles at that, but the twitch doesn’t quite reach the corners of his mouth.

He looks down at the coins, which are a little warm from the other boy’s clasp. He’s staring at the money like it’s more than he’s ever earned in his life.

“Why?” he mumbles to his palm. Phil smiles.

“Because. You can’t play a broken guitar, can you?” he keeps his voice carefully neutral.

“I’ve played worse,” the other guy mutters, still not really looking up. Phil wonders how such a beautiful singer can have such a monotonous speaking voice.

“Shame,” Phil feigns disappointment, keeping his eyes to the floor.

“Is it?” the other boy scoffs bitterly, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Phil replies, and quickly adds, “Especially as you’re one of the very few musicians down here that I can actually stand.”

And with that, before the other guy can ask anything, before they even have time to exchange names, Phil saunters off, heading towards the stairs of Jubilee Bridge and feeling a pair of confused brown eyes burn into his back.

-

Work smells like burnt paninis and freshly ground coffee, and Phil bites back a curse word when he opens the grill and gets a face full of smoke from the charred toastie. They’d got a bit of money to spend on new equipment last week and Phil still hasn’t really got the hang of the settings on this grill thing – either half an hour passes and the bread is still soft and uncooked, or it’s turned black in less than five minutes.

“Oh, Christ, I don’t need this,” the bearded man behind the counter shuts his eyes upon seeing Phil’s mistake. “I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes – I can’t afford to waste time waiting for you to do your job properl-“

“I’m awfully sorry, sir,” Phil grits his teeth, scraping the majority of the charcoal off of the rack and binning it. “This grill is new and- it’s rather temperamental, and-“

“You should know how to work it,” the man cuts him off. “It’s your job. Didn’t you have any decent training, kid?”

Phil swallows his irritation. “I’m sorry, sir,” he repeats, resisting the urge to start a fight or even defend himself.

“Look, can I talk to the manager?” he huffs out a sigh of exasperation, glancing at his Apple watch and shaking his head at the time. “That is – assuming you have one.”

Phil wants to rip his stupid watch right off of his wrist. “The manager is busy running some errands right now, I’m afraid. However, I’ll offer to remake your product and give it to you free of charge as compensation for my mistake.”

His manager will probably hang, draw and quarter him if he finds out he’s been giving away free food, but there’s a queue beginning behind this customer and Phil needs to get rid of him as quickly as possible without causing a scene.

The man glares at him through his Ray-Bans. “I suppose that’ll have to do,” he sniffs, as if still trying to detect the odour of burning breadcrumbs in the air. “But I won’t be in a hurry to return here, you understand?”

Phil doesn’t really understand why customers say that – as if never seeing some self-righteous twat who thinks the world owes them something is the store’s loss.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Phil says flatly, shoving another uncooked toastie in the grill and vowing to keep an eye on it this time. He cranes his neck over the man’s shoulder to the next person, ignoring the green-eyed glare burning into the side of his face from Mr. Burnt-Lunch. “What can I get you, Madam?”

-

The street musician is playing a Passenger song this week, and Phil can’t help but stop to listen. He has a bit of spare time today – he’d ditched lunch altogether and headed towards Jubilee bridge the second his break began, and as soon as he’d seen the guitarist standing in the exact same spot as he was yesterday, he grins through his cigarette and waits for the other boy to notice him.

He throws him a quick glance from underneath his fringe of messy brown hair before returning to his song, and Phil grins when he spots a tiny twitch on the corner of the other boy’s mouth, a threat of a dimple appearing in the side of his left cheek.

He digs around in his pocket for another five-pound note, and grabs a biro tucked into his work shirt. He draws a little smiley face on the paper before folding it up and walking towards the open guitar case, dropping it in.

There isn’t a lot more money in there than there was the last time Phil checked. He feels a little invasive, like he’s looking into this guy’s bank account or something, but he really thinks he does deserve more than what he’s getting; spare copper from passers-by and nothing from tourists – they’re all ignoring him for some acrobatics trick here that’s been going on all day, and Phil can hear the crowd’s cheers and shouts from the café.

“Only hate the road when you’re missing home – thank you – only know you love her, when…“ the performer squeezes in a comment of gratitude upon seeing the folded paper flutter into the case amongst 2p and 5p coins, before continuing with the chorus. Phil glances up at him, and when his eyes travel down to the guy’s guitar, covered in worn-down stickers, he can’t hold back his grin.

There are six strings again.

He hangs around and actually lights up another cigarette when his first one goes out because he still has a bit of time and he could really get used to this guy’s singing voice. He’s the only one who seems to have actually paid attention to him for longer than five minutes and there’s a sea of people milling around the two of them, walking past the guitar case and the amplifiers without dropping a penny. Judging by the fact this performer’s singing is now interrupted by a couple of coughs and throat-clears every so often since Phil had begun listening, he realises he might not be used to having attention paid to him.

It’s cute, Phil decides. But more than anything, it’s actually really quite heartbreaking.

-

It’s evening, Phil’s shift has just finished, and he’s walking towards Jubilee Bridge despite the fact it isn’t the way home.

And there he is again.

Phil actually recognises this song – if memory serves him well, it’s called Stand By Me and it’s beginning to seem like this guy is quite a fan of Oasis.

Phil hums along, his voice soft and his eyes down to his shoes, before reaching the guitar case. He glances up and although the musician hasn’t missed a beat nor have his lips moved from the microphone, his eyes are boring into Phil’s, studying him almost curiously through his mess of hair.

Phil gives him half a smirk before dropping in a ten pound note in the case like a used tissue into a bin, quirking an eyebrow.

He misses a beat this time. His hands are still strumming on his strings, almost robotically but he coughs and stutters a little and forgets the words to the pre-chorus. No-one’s really paying attention to him except the look of mild disgust from a businessman on the phone, and Phil prays the musician hadn’t noticed it.

When the song finally finishes, Phil smiles at the performer and gives him a soft clap.

The other boy gives him a look that’s somewhere between a frown and a smile, and Phil kind-of wants to talk, wants to start up a conversation but this guy already seems pretty troubled and although he’s been giving him money every day, he doesn’t particularly want to bother him or anything.

The boy puts his guitar down and flexes his wrist a little, and Phil takes this as his cue to go – he’s clearly finished for the day. He leaves the brown-haired figure with a final half-smile before beginning to back away with a few short footsteps, then turning on his heel and-

“Wait,” he hears a voice behind him, to which he stops, grinning into the empty street before him.

Phil turns his head, raising an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“I-…” he swallows, his voice suddenly timid. “Can I- talk? To you?”

Phil feels his face warm into a smile. “You already are,” he retraces his steps, back to the guy’s busking spot next to the bridge staircase. “What’s up?”

He shakes his head, looking down at the guitar case. A ten pound note surrounded by a handful of copper pennies and a pound or two. “I-“

“-And for god’s sake, don’t say that that you can’t accept what I give you. A tenner’s nothing, mate. Really.”

“It’s something to me,” the boy says very quietly.

Yep, Phil thinks, feeling a knife of guilt twist in his chest. That was definitely a dick move on his part.

He sighs. “Sorry, I meant-“

“No, it’s fine,” the boy mutters and yep, he’s bitter now. “Money comes like running water to you Londoners, doesn’t it?” his voice cracks, and his eyes are glittering in the sunset light.

“Excuse me?” Phil widens his eyes, taken aback.

He shuts his eyes, instantly regretting snapping at him. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean-“

“It’s okay,” Phil sighs. He kind-of knows where this guy’s coming from – London is the home to some incredibly rich types, and with that usually comes a very selfish attitude.

“You’re not selfish,” the boy says, as if reading his mind. “You’re- god, you’re very much the opposite, I mean-“

“You deserve more than what I can give you,” Phil says. “I’m only on a barista’s wages, after all,” he shrugs.

The boy flashes him another apologetic look for his previous outburst. “Sorry.”

“Don’t keep apologising,” Phil says kindly. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

The musician shakes his head, kneeling down and counting up his day’s work, taking the note of money first and clasping it tightly in his hand.

“It’s just- I was just gonna thank you, really. For what you’ve given me this week. It’s very, very kind of you. Like, really kind.”

He’s nearly smiling now, staring at the open guitar case like it’s an open treasure chest.

“Yeah, well,” Phil shrugs. “Like I said. You’re probably the only street performer down here that I can actually stand, so,” he shrugs. “It’s money well spent.”

“Not everyone shares that view, though,” the boy says. “They’d rather watch someone pretend to be a statue, apparently.”

The bitterness is back in his voice, but this time it makes Phil laugh.

“God, I know,” Phil sighs. “What talent is there in painting yourself silver and standing still all day?”

“They do better than I do,” the boy shrugs. “Perhaps I should invest in some silver paint myself. Or learn how to digest knives, maybe?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Phil makes a face. “You’d ruin your voice with a knife down your throat.”

“You’d ruin yours if you carry on smoking,” he warns, raising his eyebrow. Phil pauses a little.

“I don’t sing, though.”

“Don’t start, then,” the boy sighs. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Phil can’t bear the sadness in his tone, so he racks his brains for a subject change.

“I’m Phil, by the way.”

The boy glances up through his fringe. He’s packed up his guitar now and the coins are jingling in his back pocket, but he still clutches Phil’s ten-pound note tightly in his hand.

“I know,” the other boy finally says.

Phil freezes. “Huh?”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re wearing a nametag, you idiot.”

“Oh,” he huffs out a giggle of relief, glancing down at the badge pinned to his pocket. “I forgot about that.”

There’s a silence, before the musician finally says, “Dan.”

“Dan?”

“That’s my name,” he says.

“Oh,” Phil gulps. “Cool.”

This time it’s Dan who talks before they can descend into another awkward silence.

“So where do you work, Phil?” he fiddles with the zip on his case before slinging it over his shoulder.

“A café.”

“I can see that,” Dan rolls his eyes, but Phil detects fondness in his tone. “I meant which café?”

“Oh,” Phil chuckles. “Amethyst Coffee House. Heard of it?”

The boy frowns, narrowing his eyes a little. “Definitely sounds familiar.”

“Pop in one day. Y’know, if you want. I can do a great latte.”

“I prefer Americano,” Dan says, but he’s nearly smiling again.

“Americano, latte, whatever,” Phil shrugs. “Just- don’t get a toastie. We have a new grill and it’s a bitch to work. I keep burning everyone’s food,” he chuckles.

“I’ll do my best not to,” he raises an eyebrow, but glances over to the direction in which Phil pointed, as if trying to see where it is. His eyes travel back to Phil, and he hitches his guitar further up his shoulder.

“I’ll see you there, then?” Phil offers, his voice a little unsure.

“I-… yeah,” he glances down at the ten pound note in his hand. “Sure. Whatever.”

As they’re turning away from each-other, Phil digs further into his pocket.

“Oh, Dan?”

Dan whirls around. “Yeah?”

Phil grins, and gives him the rest of his spare change. “It’s on me. Treat yourself.”

Before Dan can protest, Phil vanishes into the evening, his feet pattering up the stairs of Jubilee Bridge.

-

The next time Phil sees Dan, he seems a little bit drunk. He isn’t busking, counting his money or even packing away – all of his equipment is zipped up in cases and he’s slumped on the ground with his back against the railings, staring vacantly into space with a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand.

At first, Phil is apprehensive as to whether he should approach Dan or not – he doesn’t really look in the mood for small talk or a new string or money for coffee. But come on, he’s hardly going to leave him in this state on his own – the thought of leaving Dan alone and drunk in the city at night makes Phil’s stomach turn. God knows what would happen to him – London’s dangerous enough when you’re sober, let alone with a head full of wine.

“Hey,” he crafts his voice into something as soft and unthreatening as possible. Dan barely flinches.

“Hi,” he says coldly.

“You okay?”

“Been better,” Dan’s eyes remain fixed on the space of nothing in front of him.

Phil frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Dan huffs out a sigh like a thirteen year old, then his expression softens. “I’m wrong.”

“What are you on about?” Phil kneels down like he’s trying to comfort a crying toddler, despite the fact Dan’s issue probably goes a little beyond a grazed knee or a dropped ice cream. He takes the bottle, studying it intently. “And Pinot Grigio? Really?”

“Is that all you have to say?” Dan glares at him.

“That’s all you pick up on, is it?” Phil raises an eyebrow. “My wine criticism?”

Dan rolls his eyes, taking another clumsy swig.

“Come on,” Phil sighs. “What’s up? There’s clearly a reason you’re sat here drinking that.”

Dan actually looks at Phil for about half a second. He sighs, his shoulders sagging a little.

“Boyfriend just broke up with me,” he mumbles almost quiet enough for Phil not to catch it, and then his expression returns to the wooden, stoic gaze into space, terrified of any emotion leaking out. He takes another swig of wine, and although he’s clearly over eighteen, Phil’s questioning whether or not drinking in the street is actually legal at all. It’s not really something he’s ever thought about.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Phil swallows. He never knew Dan was seeing someone. “Do you- er, do you wanna talk about it?”

“I won’t bore you with the details,” he sighs. “But- it’s okay. I mean, I was kind-of expecting it, and- like, it just wasn’t really working between us. He was off doing stuff with his band, I was busking every day and-,” he gulps suddenly, “fuck, I don’t know,” he shuts his eyes. “I don’t know. Fuck.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Phil narrows his eyes suspiciously. “It sounds as if you have a lot to get off of your chest.”

“Didn’t know you were a therapist as well as a fucking barista.”

Phil tuts, rolling his eyes at Dan’s sarcasm. “Come on. Let’s walk and talk. Well, you can talk. I’ll listen. I’d go easy on that, too,” he nods towards the wine. Dan raises an eyebrow and hands him the bottle.

“Fancy any?”

“You must be mad,” Phil smirks. Dan doesn’t smirk back. He shrugs and tilts the bottle up again. Phil watches the liquid slosh against his lips.

“So what d’you say?” Phil prompts when Dan doesn’t immediately respond.

Dan looks at him again for a little longer this time, and only now does Phil notice the pink tint to his eyes. “Do you really not have anything better to do?”

“I’m not going to leave you out here like this,” Phil says firmly, and holds out a hand. Dan stares at it.

There’s a silence.

“You’re not going to leave until I agree, are you?” Dan finally mutters.

Phil shakes his head. “Nope. Come on.”

“Why do you even care, anyway?” Dan mumbles, his words tied together with a slur. “I mean, we’re practically strangers.”

“Even better,” Phil quickly says. “I have no reason to judge you.”

-

Phil’s hardly surprised they’d ended up going as far as Jubilee Bridge. Dan trips over every flat surface imaginable before stopping, clutching onto the railings for balance and getting distracted by the view of the city every five seconds, as if a new backdrop is appearing every time. It had certainly been a chore getting him up those stairs.

To begin with, his replies are nothing particularly polysyllabic, but it isn’t long before the wine begins talking and Dan loosens up a little.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?” Dan thrusts the bottle, now nearly empty, into his chest. Phil glances down at it.

“I get really drunk on wine,” he mumbles, his stomach turning at the memory of what had happened that time at the family dinner when he was fifteen. God, he still doesn’t think that restaurant will be quick to welcome the Lester family back in a hurry.

“And that’s a bad thing?” Dan

“It is if you’re me,” Phil smirks.

“Go on,” Dan nods at it. “There isn’t much left. That wouldn’t even get a baby drunk.”

Phil isn’t so sure about that, but he stares into the wine bottle, holding it at arms’ length as if the Loch Ness monster is hiding in there somewhere. He really doesn’t want a hangover or to end up horribly embarrassing himself somehow but-

Oh, fuck it.

He uncaps the wine and takes a big gulp, pushing any thoughts of how bad an idea this is out of his mind. It’s been a rough day today – perhaps he could do with getting a little bit drunk.

“That’s the spirit,” Dan grins, his eyes dark and half-lidded. “Sometimes-… sometimes, like, you just gotta be like-… drunk, you know?”

“I do know,” Phil says against the neck of the bottle. This is probably going to be a terrible idea and he doesn’t even want to think about the consequences, but- well, he can’t deny that getting drunk can be pretty fun sometimes.

-

After plenty of persuasion from Dan, Phil purchases his own bottle of wine from the nearest twenty-four hour Tesco express. They get drunker, and conversation gets easier. Phil discovers Dan writes his own songs as well as busks, and that he often comes up here, to the bridge, for inspiration. Sometimes he even brings wine with him, too. Phil asks how the hell he can write with a head full of alcohol and Dan hoots with laughter like Phil’s his favourite comedian and it’s the funniest joke he’s ever cracked, but doesn’t actually give him an answer. They study the city, side-by-side, until the lights blur in front of them.

“I love London,” Phil says quietly, leaning into the warm weight of Dan’s head on his shoulder. Dan doesn’t respond, and for a second Phil thinks he’s fallen asleep until he glances down and sees him staring out into the lights, brown eyes unblinking.

“The city scares me,” Dan admits quietly, and Phil stops.

“Huh?”

“The city,” Dan repeats. “It’s-… too-… big.”

“Well, it is London,” Phil giggles, but Dan doesn’t look as if he’s in the mood for humour.

“It’s too loud.”

“Of course it’s loud,” Phil frowns. “All cities are loud.”

“It’s too bright,” Dan tries again.

“But beautiful,” Phil says, gazing at the artificially illuminated buildings in front of him.

“The light blocks out the stars,” Dan mumbles miserably, tilting his head up to the dark orange sky.

Phil gulps. Being London born and bred, he’s never really seen the stars outside of books and films and the false twinkle of a planetarium.

“The city has its own stars,” he points to the cluster of building in the distance, all of them glittering with artificial twinkles. “See?”

Phil feels Dan gulp.  

“They’re not the same,” he mumbles.

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful,” Phil argues, Dan’s hair tickling his cheek.

“London- isn’t beautiful,” Dan mutters, pulling his head up from Phil’s shoulder. His stare is dark, only the distant lights giving his eyes a tiny glimmer. “It’s-… it’s not like home.”

It’s a little ambiguous a phrase. Phil doesn’t know whether Dan means ‘it’s not the same as back home’ or that ‘it doesn’t feel like home’, but he doesn’t really ask. Dan’s usually so cold and closed-up that even this, complaining about the city, feels like a confession from the depths of his heart. He doesn’t want to push his luck.

“Where did you live, then?” Phil asks in a voice so quiet it almost blends right in with the white noise of the traffic. “Where did you come from?”

Dan stops for a minute. He gulps, licks his lips, and takes both a deep breath and a swig of wine.

“Cornwall,” he says after a silence. “I grew up there. Penzance. Near the Edge of the Land, or whatever they call it.”

Phil assumes as a Cornish resident he should know it’s actually called Land’s End, but he remains silent, allowing Dan to continue.

“Er- yeah,” he sighs. “It was great, down there. I grew up in a village where everyone knew everyone, everyone liked everyone and- just, yeah. I’ve always had a thing for the country, I guess. It’s just so-… peaceful. So natural. And- well, being statistically safer than the city, walking home without the fear of getting stabbed or murdered or mugged or whatever was always pretty nice. I do miss that.”

Phil smirks at that. Being on guard all the time in public has always been kind-of a second nature to him, what with living in a city where gangs and murderers and criminals run wild.

“I miss a lot of things about the country. I miss being so close to the sea. There was this cliff-side I always used to go to. For like, an escape. Like, y’know when you’d have an argument with your parents or something and you’d storm out the house. That’s where I’d always go. It was really peaceful. I mean, it technically wasn’t; no-one ever used to go up there because it was so dangerous and I’m pretty sure areas of it were closed off, but in the evenings it was nice to catch the sunset and feel the sea air wash over you,” he sighs. “Whenever I felt worried, sad or I just had a problem of some kind, I’d always just go up to the cliff-side and stare out at the horizon and remember how huge the ocean is and how insignificant my problems were. It was even better when the stars were there, too,” he swallows, and Phil catches the crack in his voice. He glances up at the orange night sky and then down at the dirty water of the Thames. “It’s not the same here. It’s-… there’s nowhere to escape. Everything’s so polluted.”

Phil kind-of gets it. Well, he doesn’t, not really, but he nods and leans into Dan’s touch a little more. “When did you move?” he asks.

He feels Dan swallow. “I came to London when I was eighteen. Alone,” the thought of a smaller, younger, more vulnerable version of Dan completely swamped alone in a huge, unfamiliar city makes Phil’s heart twinge, “but, I mean, I’d never really been to a big city before. Y’know, I never saw a skyscraper till I was like, fifteen.

Phil looks at him, taking a sip from his own wine. “You’re joking.”

“Wish I was,” Dan shrugged, a soft smile playing on his lips. “I mean, I knew they existed. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what a city was. I just didn’t see one like, in ‘real life’ until then, y’know?”

“Must’ve been frightening,” Phil grins. He can’t imagine what these angular, intimidating glass and concrete shapes jutting out of the land must look like to someone who has no real concept of a city. It’d probably look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

“Well, I mean, does it work both ways?” Dan asks. “If you’ve never moved from London, I suppose you’ve never seen a good old thatched cottage, then?”

“I’ve had my fair share of family holidays to Devon, I’ll have you know,” Phil grins, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“It’s one thing staying in one of those for a week. Try living there for eighteen years.”

Phil tries to imagine it, but he doesn’t think he could cope. The place they stayed at still had an open fire and the DVD player had broken on the second day of the week. The cottage barely had electricity, let alone Wi-Fi.

Dan giggles, and it’s only then Phil realises he’d been making a face of mild disgust whilst reflecting on that memory.

Dan’s laughter dies down, and there’s a silence. Phil gulps, trying to muster up the courage to ask him something.

“Why did you leave?” He’s really treading on eggshells here, and it wouldn’t at all surprise him if Dan were to answer one of his questions with a slap to the face and a sprint off in the other direction. The other boy instead keeps his hands firmly by his side and smirks a little.

“It’s the done thing, isn’t it?” he sighs. “Us musicians. We want to ‘make it big’, so we ‘go to the city’. The city where ‘dreams come true’ and ‘anything is possible’ because apparently everyone has an equal chance of making it. Right.” He scoffs, before continuing, “but- I mean, that’s just the same logic as that ‘American Dream’ thing, isn’t it? Famous for never actually happening to us ordinary people. And, I mean-“ he gestures to the Houses of Parliament a couple of metres away from them both. “This is hardly America.”

Phil gulps. He’d studied the American Dream in English Literature, where the likings of Willy Loman talked about his imaginary success, Lenny and George dreamed about that stupid ten-acre house they were going to get and Curley’s Wife had that wacky idea about a false career as an actress. Right before her haystack-cushioned death at the hands of Lenny, if he recalls. God, he doesn’t miss having to study Of Mice & Men. He never really liked English that much.

“Yeah,” Phil blinks slowly, but London doesn’t really want to stop tilting. Maybe buying another bottle of wine was a bit of a mistake. “But that’s my point. We’re not in America,” he swallows again, feeling the embers of alcohol still burn a little in his chest. “I mean- this isn’t Death Of A Salesman. You’re only- what, late teens? It’s hardly as if you’ve wasted your life.”

“Have you ever read Remains Of The Day, then?” Dan quirks an eyebrow. “That’s about wasted life without including the American Dream. In fact, it’s very quintessentially English, I’ll have you know.”

“Stop being so difficult,” Phil rolls his eyes, but there’s a warmth of fondness behind his tone. There’s a smile that tugs at Dan’s lips for a couple of seconds, but it vanishes almost as quickly as it appears.

“I just,” Dan gulps, and there’s a crack in his voice. “I just-… I don’t know if moving here was the best decision for me. I- I don’t really think I’m a city person. Maybe I shouldn’t have moved from the country after all. Maybe I-“

“Don’t think about that right now,” Phil places a hand in the crook of Dan’s elbow. He knows it’s good that Dan’s venting to him, because it doesn’t really seem as if he has anyone else to talk to about all of this, but it’s not really offloading so much as bringing all the problems back into his head, eating away at his sanity until he’s unable to think of anything else. “Let’s talk about something else.”

-

He doesn’t really know why they’re stumbling into his hallway, giggling and falling into each-other’s arms, but then he doesn’t really care. He barely remembers the journey here, to be honest – all he knows is one minute they were swigging wine and talking about- well, whatever, and the next Dan was mumbling some bullshit about forgetting his key and Phil was offering him a place to stay for the night.

And now it’s all clumsy footsteps and sofa cushions as Phil tries to pull out his sofa bed in the living room for Dan. He felt a little too awkward asking whether or not Dan would be comfortable sharing with him, so he’d assumed making up a separate bed in here would be the safest option. After all, he’s only just broken up with his boyfriend.

The toilet flushes and the bathroom door swings open and Dan’s staggering into the living room. He flops down onto the bare mattress.

“Your- hand soap-…” he presses his hands up against his nose, inhaling deeply. “So fucking good. Smells like-… kind-of like- honey. Caramel-ish?”

Phil grins, tugging on another pillowcase. “Honey, I Washed the Kids.”

Dan stops sniffing, and looks up at Phil. “You did what?”

“It’s the name of the soap, you twat,” he chuckles, perching himself down on the edge of the mattress. “It’s from Lush.”

“Oh,” Dan sniffs again. “It’s nice. I’ll have to get myself some of it.”

“I’m glad you approve of my toiletries so much,” he chucks the pillow onto the mattress. It lands centimetres away from Dan’s head.

“You’re lucky that didn’t hit me,” he mutters.

“What would you have done if it did?” Phil quirks an eyebrow in Dan’s direction. There’s a flash of something in Dan’s eyes, but he responds by throwing the pillow in Phil’s direction. It’s a clumsy throw, but it manages to hit him square in the face.

“A pillow fight? What are we, twelve?”

Dan hoots with laughter, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, and Phil glares at him, biting back his own grin. He throws the pillow back and it hits Dan in the chest, and he stops laughing.

“Right,” he mutters, grabbing both pillows and jumping up from the mattress. He goes to whack Phil with both of them, but Phil’s too quick.

He springs into action, whipping around, and grabs them both, wrenching them out of Dan’s clasp. Dan tries to grab them back, leaning across the mattress and shuffling to the edge where Phil’s sat, but Phil holds them just out of reach, like a bully taking advantage of the shortest kid. Dan pouts.

“Don’t even try it,” he grins. “These are feather pillows. If they explode, I’m fucked.”

“Feather pillows?” Dan scoffs. “What are you, a millionaire?”

“I wish,” Phil smirks. “I mean, to be fair, they’re not actually much more comfortable than normal ones. They’re not even that squishy.”

Dan’s quiet for a handful of moments, staring at Phil. He giggles.

“What?” Phil frowns down at him.

“You’re so-…” he takes a deep breath. “You’re so- weird, Phil,” his tone is warm, but Phil’s frown doesn’t shift.

“Weird?” he repeats as if it’s an insult.. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s a good thing,” Dan’s eyes glitter. “Weird is good. It’s what makes you stand out from all the other people in the city.”

“Sure,” Phil scoffs, looking down at the stain on his ripped jeans. His supposed uniqueness hasn’t really got him anywhere so far.

He feels a warm, slightly hairy weight on his forearm, and he looks down to find Dan’s head half on his lap, his eyes having not shifted from his face.

“I mean it,” he says, his expression softer. “Like- god, it sounds so cheesy, but people like you are one of the few redeeming qualities this stupid city has,” he laughs, a short, breathy chuckle. “You-… I don’t know. You’re so creative and kind and caring and- I don’t know. You’re just, like- talented. You have that spark about you. Fuck if I know what you’re doing being a boring old barista.”

Phil doesn’t know which ‘spark’ Dan’s talking about unless he means the one in the toaster last week just before the entire thing had overheated and cut out, but his heart is thudding a little. That means a lot to hear, especially coming from someone like Dan.

“Yeah?” he furrows his brow, feeling Dan nod emphatically against his arm.

“Y’know-… before today I just assumed you were another stranger in the city. A nice one, don’t get me wrong, but-… still. A stranger.”

“And I’ve proven you wrong?” Phil raises an eyebrow, wanting to hear more. Dan nods again, his hair rubbing up against Phil’s skin.

“So wrong. You know something?”

“What?”

“You-…” Dan gulps, a humourless smirk playing at his lips. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only one out here who seems to understand me.”

Phil’s heart catches in his throat.

“You mean that?” his voice is a little hoarse.

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t,” Dan says, blinking slowly. “Like-… fuck, I don’t know. It just feels-…” he shakes his head. “I just feel-… comfortable. Talking to you. Because I can tell you pretty much anything and you would never judge me. You’d just listen to what I have to say and then go on about your fucking feather pillows as if you’d known me for years.”

Phil huffs out a chuckle, gazing down at Dan with fond eyes and a warm glow in his heart. Dan deserves to be understood.

“You already get enough judgement from strangers,” he says. “You don’t need any more.”

Dan grins, his eyes glimmering in the soft light of the lamp. There’s a silence, and Phil glances down to catch Dan staring again.

And neither of them look away.

And fuck, he’s beautiful. Not that his good looks are anything new to Phil, but his hair is swept out of his eyes and fanned out on the mattress around his head, his skin smooth in the soft light of the lamp and his eyes twinkling a little bit, his blinking slow and steady. His lips look soft and plump, his teeth nipping slightly on them every now and then and-

Fuck, he’s still staring.

“Right, well-“ Phil coughs, feeling his face go bright red. He stands up so quickly he gets a head rush, feeling grainy blackness border the edges of his vision. “I’d better get you some pyjamas, and-“

He feels a tug on his wrist, pulling him back to the mattress. He all but trips backwards, stumbling back onto the bed and Dan’s still holding his wrist, his eyes wide and his breathing heavy. They’re only a matter of inches away from each other, their noses practically touching.

Before Phil’s thoughts have caught up with him, there’s a tiny grunt from the boy next to him, and suddenly a pair of warm lips press up against his.

Phil freezes. Dan lets out a slow, shuddering breath, shuffling up closer to Phil and sliding an arm around his waist, and Phil feels an electric current of adrenaline bolt through him and fuck, is this really happening?

He breaks away after a couple of seconds, his heart racing. “Dan, I-“

“Don’t,” Dan murmurs against Phil’s lips between kisses. Phil gulps, trying to concentrate on the every nerve ending in his body that feels like a live wire and forget the tiny cell reminding him that this really isn’t a good idea. “Don’t talk.”

His lips crash into Phil’s again and yep, this is probably only due to the alcohol controlling him like a puppet on a string, but Phil doesn’t stop him this time. Dan parts his lips, slipping his tongue inside for a couple of seconds and Phil can taste him, mint toothpaste with the tiniest linger of wine. Dan’s hand slips back around his waist, his fingertips skimming across Phil’s bare torso underneath his t-shirt and Phil shivers under his touch and doesn’t protest when Dan breaks his lips away to pull the fabric right over his head.  

“C’mon,” he murmurs when Dan reaches for his belt. He’s so fucking hard he can barely think straight. “Bedroom.”

Dan doesn’t object. They both haul themselves up, still practically arm-in-arm and stumble across the hall until Phil pushes a random door open. It’s untidy and the bed is unmade, but Dan hardly has time to closely inspect it before he’s shoving Phil up against the wall and kissing him roughly, all tongue and open lips and denim-on-denim friction.

“Fuck-…” Phil breathes when Dan begins fiddling with his belt. “Dan-“

“You’re so hot,” Dan mumbles against Phil’s neck, biting and sucking and probably leaving a mark somewhere.

“You too,” Phil doesn’t think now is particularly a suitable time to be exchanging compliments, but it’s true. Dan’s teeth graze over a particularly sensitive spot and Phil gasps, bucking up into his crotch. “Fuck- Dan, I’m-“

“What?” Dan’s voice is velvety against his skin, and it makes his cock throb. “You’re what?”

Unable to articulate any polysyllabic sentences right now, Phil answers with a low, throaty growl and hauls himself off of the wall, his arms around Dan’s waist and his belt hanging off of his jeans, guiding them both towards the bed until there’s a thud and a flop and Phil’s hovering over Dan, hot breaths mixing.

“Fuck,” Dan breathes into Phil’s lips, his hand snaking around the back of his neck before he’s being pulled into another kiss and their tongues are tangling together, each tiny whine from Dan sending jolts of arousal straight to Phil’s cock.

They’re de-clothed in minutes, their boxers rubbing up against each-other, the crave for friction prickling at Phil’s hips as he grinds into Dan, relishing in the moan the other boy lets out. Dan’s fingertips trace light trails down Phil’s back, stopping just above the waistband and fiddling with the material.

“This is okay, right?” he mumbles against Phil’s neck, nipping absently every now and then. Phil throws his head back in a desperate gasp, nodding – he doesn’t have the composure to form any proper sentences right now. Dan grins against his skin, slipping cool, calloused fingers underneath the fabric of Phil’s boxers while Phil does his best to mirror his actions, relieving each other of the final barrier of fabric separating them and melting into each other’s touches.

-

The room is cold, the window gaping open and letting in a nightly breeze that dances with the curtains, but Phil feels like a burning flame.

They move easily, perfectly together and it reminds Phil of the way shards of glass falls together; how even the broken, most jagged edges can always fit back into each other again – shattered, yet beautiful.

Dan stutters out moans and whines underneath him, and Phil presses kisses all over Dan’s chest, feeling Dan grip and tug at his hair, a little damp from the sweat.

“You’re such a good fuck,” Dan gasps, each breath coming hard and heavy. Phil continues to kiss him, moving his lips up to Dan’s neck and sucking another mark there, loving the way even the slightest brush against his neck can make Dan can come undone like a loose thread.

Phil begins to feel the familiar sensation brewing in the pit of his stomach, warmth curling like wisps of smoke inside him with every thrust and he stutters against Dan’s skin.

“I’m close.”

Dan turns his head until they’re nose to nose and pulls Phil in for a messy kiss, rough and open-mouthed and hot.

“Me too,” he murmurs against Phil’s lips, a moan creeping into the last syllable of his sentence, before a sudden gasp, and “fuck- I’m gonna-“

He spills over his stomach in a flurry of whines, sighing Phil’s name in a stuttered breath as Phil fucks him through his orgasm. It’s enough to push himself over the edge, feeling the warmth inside him finally burst, waves of pleasure coursing through him, every single nerve ending in his body feeling like someone has just switched the lights on, as if he’s as alive and as bright as the city outside.

They collapse in a heap next to each other after cleaning up, feeling breathless and boneless. Phil opens his arms and Dan rolls into his embrace, snuggling into his neck he was sucking and biting no more than fifteen minutes ago.

They fall asleep easily, the hum of London outside a lullaby.

-

Phil still hasn’t seen Dan’s face in the café yet. He hasn’t seen him anywhere, really – he wasn’t in his usual spot beside Jubilee Bridge the last time Phil walked past, and he has no real way of getting into contact with him to find out where he is. Their night of fleeting bliss had hardly ended with a cheeky note on the pillow followed by eleven digits – the moment Phil had woken up, it had been to a hangover and an empty bed. It was almost as if Dan vanished along with the night – a phantom, slipping away through Phil’s fingertips as soon as the sunrise had melted the darkness away.

He finds himself jumping, snapping his neck up with fleeting hope every time the bell on the top of the door rings, but each time he’s disappointed and his shoulders sag a little further when another customer wanders into the shop, faceless and unfamiliar.

He draws on latte foam, swirling caramel into spirals and sprinkling chocolate stars against frothy milk. He’s still a clumsy little shit and drops the napkin basket after tripping over a spoon, but he hasn’t burnt a toastie for a while which is definitely something, he supposes. He’s finally getting the hang of that grill.

“Oi,” a voice and a soft punch on the upper arm breaks him out of his current daydream. He jumps and looks down at Vicky, his co-worker about half his size but with twice as much confidence. She flicks a purple lock of hair over her shoulders. “When’s your break?”

Phil shrugs. “I don’t know.”

She raises an eyebrow. “When did you last have one?”

“I haven’t, yet,” Phil sighs. They’re very good at dumping him on the café floor then forgetting about him for hours.

She smirks. “Do you want one?”

“Vic, we’ve been through this,” Phil rolls his eyes. “I can’t just take myself off whenever I feel like it.”

“Nick’s coming back in a bit,” she glances over her shoulder expectantly. “He’ll cover for us ‘till we’re back.”

Phil frowns. “Is this just a ploy to get one of my cigs?”

Vicky bites back a grin at that. “What makes you think that?”

Vicky’s only seventeen and if her parents found out she smokes there’s no doubt she’d probably be put up for adoption, so Phil often finds her sidling up to him for a puff on whatever it is he’d rolled on his break. Phil doesn’t actually mind sharing his cigarettes with her – she’s good enough company and small talk comes easy with her and it makes being stuck out in an alleyway surrounded by large bins and discarded coffee cups just that little bit more bearable

What he does have a problem with, however, is getting more into trouble with his manager than he already is if he finds out they’ve been sneaking off. He’s already been punished for the toastie incident and let off with a warning, but he doesn’t think “Oh, sorry Mark – Vicky and I just fancied a fag out the back. We left sixteen-year-old Nick in charge. Hope you don’t mind,” will go down frightfully well.

When Nick reappears, throwing on an apron and a false smile for the customers, Phil sighs, shutting his eyes.

“Fine, then,” he mutters. “We can’t be long. We’re going halves on the cig, I hope you know.”

“Nice,” Vicky flashes him a wicked grin, thanks Nick and promises they won’t be long and they disappear behind the ‘Staff Only’ door and out into the back of the café.

“You’re a bad influence, you are,” Phil mutters, his speech a little obscured by the cigarette in his mouth. Vicky flicks a lighter until the tip glows orange and Phil sighs out smoke, staring at the blue stretch of sky above them and following a cluster of birds soaring miles up in the air, above the city.

“Yeah, well,” Vicky shrugs, taking the cigarette from between Phil’s fingers and breathing in. “We’re never on breaks together. I need to get my nicotine fix somehow, don’t I?”

“You shouldn’t be smoking anyway,” Phil frowns, and Vicky stares at him with outraged hazel eyes.

“Says you,” she takes a longer drag this time. “Mr. ‘I-Can’t-Survive-A-Lunch-Break-Without-Ten-Fags.’ I’ve seen you disappear off round the front of the café, y’know.”

Phil gulps. He’s definitely in no position to tell her the real reason behind his disappearances; where he actually goes on his lunchbreaks as opposed to hanging around the front of the café, smoking one after the other and flicking the ash into the Thames, watching it flutter into the dirty water below. She can believe that if she wants to.

“Okay, fine,” he rolls his eyes. “But I’m twenty. You’re only seventeen.”

“Nick’s sixteen and I’ve seen him smoke now and again.”

“How on earth does that better the situation?” Phil frowns.

“I’m just saying,” she snatches the cigarette from Phil’s fingers. “I’m not the only one at it.”

“It’s just a shame,” Phil takes it back from her, flicking the ash. “I hate doing it. So should you.”

“Give up, then,” she says, and the simplicity of her tone makes Phil sigh.

“You make it sound so easy,” he mumbles. “I once read that nicotine is more addictive than heroin.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” she scoffs, screwing up her expression. “Where did you read that; Buzzfeed?”

“I think it was an article in The Guardian, actually,” Phil frowns, trying to remember where it was he found that out. “Like, something about Nicotine being the ‘most addictive drug’. More addictive than cannabis, cocaine, crack-“

“Cocaine and crack are the same thing, dumbass” Vicky rolls her eyes. “I’d expect you to be the first person to know that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phil frowns at her, taking a final drag from the cigarette before stubbing out on the brickwork behind them. The filter is scarred with deep red print from Vicky’s lipstick, and Phil wipes his mouth quickly. “I don’t do drugs.”

“Nicotine’s a drug,” she argues. “As is chocolate, apparently.”

“That’s a reach,” Phil says. “Putting chocolate-eaters on the same level as cocaine addicts.”

“Alcohol’s a drug, too.”

“Oh, paracetamol’s a drug,” Phil retaliates. “Everything’s a fucking drug these days.”

Vicky gives him a look, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow and answering with a lipsticked smirk. Before Phil can respond, she turns her back on him and pulls the door handle.

“Mark will be wondering where we are,” she says.

“Thanks for reminding me about the shit we’ll be in if he catches us out here,” Phil replies, sarcasm biting in his tone.

“Oh, calm down,” she says. Phil tries to do just that, but it’s hard to make returning back to the café with the taste of burnt tobacco on his tongue and the scent of it on the tips of his fingers as unsuspicious as possible. He throws on an apron, feeling Nick glare at the two of them from behind a counter whilst squirting cream on a latte.

“You owe me one,” he hisses when Vicky saunters off clutching a notebook and waiting tables.

“Sorry,” Phil winces, because he is. He heads over to the sink, assessing the queue that’s beginning to snake around the counter.

“It’s been busy as shit,” Nick mutters as if reading his thoughts. Phil swallows.

“Yeah,” there’s guiltiness in his tone, and Nick detects it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t fucking do that again, yeah?” he scolds. “I was supposed to have my break half an hour ago.”

“Take it now, then,” Phil says, before hesitating. “Tell you what – take ten minutes extra to make up for it. If Mark asks, I’ll cover for you. Make up some bullshit about you feeling ill, or something, okay? Go on – I’ll take care of this.”

Most of the irritation has drained from Nick’s expression, but he still hasn’t thawed completely.  

“You sure?”

“It’s the least I can do.”

Nick actually smiles then, going back to the coffee he’s preparing.

“Oh,” the red-haired boy says after a couple of moments. He grabs a spoon, the cutlery clattering as he rummages around, placing it on the saucer along with a Biscotto and giving the customer her change. “Someone came in looking for you, by the way.”

Phil stops washing his hands.

“What?”

“Someone came in about – I don’t know, ten minutes ago? Asked if you worked here.”

“What did he look like?” Phil asks, heart thudding.

“I can’t really remember,” Nick says truthfully. “Brown hair. A weird jacket with a load of badges on it. Carrying a guitar.”

Phil shuts his eyes, leaning on the metal worktop of the sink.

Oh, shit.

Nick glances at him, beginning to take his apron off. “D’you know him? Who was he?”

“Just- a friend,” Phil mumbles, and he’s really scrubbing at his hands now (he’s unsure as to whether he should class Dan as a ‘friend’. They seem to be getting on alright despite barely knowing each other, but-… he’s kind-of a friend, right?). But why the fuck did it have to be then? This is the third day he’s been here, waiting for any sign of Dan without much luck, and then as soon as he disappears for what can’t even have been ten minutes, the brown-haired bastard finally shows up. Fuck.

“It’s just annoying that I missed him.”

“Yeah, well,” Nick eyes him up and down. “That’ll teach you to smoke.”

Phil doesn’t even bother to point out to Nick how hypocritical that is; that only a couple of days ago did he see him puffing away in the morning light before his shift began, because it’s not a competition – none of them should be smoking.

Phil, with his regular cough and his thumbs calloused by every flick of the lighter and the disappointment of missing the street performer as soon as he disappeared, would be the first to emphasise that.

-

“Where were you?”

Phil hears the voice behind him before he’s even seen the face. He gulps, and turns around.

Dan doesn’t exactly look too torn up about Phil’s absence in the café. He’s leaning against the wall, guitar in one hand and plectrum in the other, and he’s already packed up his microphone and amplifiers for the day. His expression is soft, neutral, almost.

“Sorry,” Phil sighs. “I was on my break. Bad timing, I guess.”

“Oh,” Dan nods. “Right. Yeah. Bad timing,” he agrees.

“Sorry,” Phil apologises again.

“You don’t need to apologise for being on your break,” Dan says.

“No- you’re right,” he says. “I’m just- sorry that it was such awkward, y’know? It was so fucking typical,”

Dan frowns. “Are you okay?”

“Mm? Yeah, sure,” Phil plasters on a smile. “Just- my manager. Been a bit of a bitch today.”

It’s not a complete lie – Mark had definitely detected something was up when he’d come down to the shop floor and seen no sign of Nick and Phil taking on

“He isn’t feeling well,” Phil had said. “Said he was feeling faint, or something.”

He hopes to God Mark doesn’t think of going up to the staff room to instead find Nick munching on a muffin with his earphones in.

“Right,” Mark had narrowed his eyes, studying Phil for a couple of seconds. There’s a silence. “So; is there any particular reason you have lipstick on your mouth?”

Fuck, Phil blanched. His stomach felt like it was falling out of his feet, and he clamped his hand over his lips, panicking.

“Lipstick?” he tried laughing it off with a shaky giggle. He drew his hand back and fuck, there are red smudges all over his fingers. “Oh, I don’t-“

“Look, I don’t really care if you want to wear lipstick to work. It doesn’t defy the employee dress code- technically. But-…” he shakes his head. “If that’s a result of – let’s say, kissing – another employee or such-like, I’d advise you to perhaps have a look in the mirror before returning to the shop floor.”

Phil didn’t know what to react to first. His manager’s surprising tolerance towards male makeup-wearing or the fact he now probably thinks him and Vicky are fucking.

“I-…” he gulped. He’d so desperately wanted to explain himself, but the truth wasn’t going to get him anywhere, either – Yeah, this is Vicky’s lipstick, but on the contrary, we were actually sharing a smoke behind the café which is how it’s ended up all over my mouth. Messy stuff, lipstick, isn’t it? “Sorry,” is the mumble he finally delivers after an unbearable silence.

“I don’t want to see it again,” Mark had warned him in a cold voice. “I must say, Philip, your recent track record is not impressive. I’d advise you to get your act together.”

Dan fiddles with his plectrum, his thumb smoothing over the plastic. “I can’t really relate. I’ve- um, I’ve only ever had one job. Like, in retail.”

“Where did you work?” Phil asks.

“The- er, the Tesco Express down my road,” Dan smirks humourlessly. “I lasted a total of three weeks before getting fired.”

“What for?”

“Well-… er, If I recall correctly, I forgot to put the milk crates back in the fridge when I was putting stock out. Apparently I lost the store over, like, five hundred pounds because of it,” he chuckles, but Phil can see the glint in his eye.

“Oh, well,” Phil says quickly. “Retail’s shit, anyway. Managers are twats. Mine hates me.”

“Mine hated me too. Believe me,” he sighs, putting his guitar back. Phil doesn’t want to steal a glance at his earnings; he hasn’t the heart right now.

“So-…” Phil begins, watching Dan fiddle with zips “I guess we should probably sort out our timings if, y’know, you want me to serve you a latt- sorry, Americano.”

Dan bites back a chuckle. “That isn’t very spontaneous. Arranging a specific time.”

He secures the lock on his guitar case and stands up, leaving it leaning against the wall on the river bank.

“Right. No,” Phil frowns, trying to think of something. He doesn’t want to miss Dan again, but it’ll be stupid to assign him a particular ‘slot’ in which he’s allowed to enter the café. “The thing is; I don’t have, like, specific times for breaks. They’re just random, so-“

“-there’s a chance that it’ll happen again?”

“Yeah,” Phil swallows, trying to forget Vicky’s lipstick and smoke in the back alley. “Besides, the café’s always a bit busy. And expensive, so-“

“You’re suggesting we go somewhere else?”

“Er- yeah,” Phil stutters. “I mean- only if you want to. I get a discount in Costa if you- if you fancy it. I hear they do a good Americano, so-“

“So you wanna take me out to Costa?” Dan repeats, and Phil hates the way his words sound on his lips, blunt and sceptical.

“Er-“ he gulps. “I mean, only if you want. I don’t know.”

Dan studies him, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t really do ‘dates’. Sorry.”

“No!” Phil protests. “No, no. Not a ‘date’. No- well, not really. Not if you don’t want it to be.”

“Not a date?”

“No,” Phil agrees, and the knot of anxiety untwists a little. “Just- like, two guys. Getting a coffee together.”

“Like businessmen?” Dan’s tone is still stony.

“More like-… friends?” Phil suggests, the word teetering on the tip of his tongue like a leaf on a cliff edge. This is risky.

Dan pauses, Phil’s heart thuds, there’s a silence and oh fuck, this can’t be good. The anxiety tangles back up in his stomach, his intestines a Gordian knot, and the look in Dan’s eye is anything but promising. The almost-grin vanishes.

“I don’t really do ‘friends’,” he says, his voice blunt. He picks up his guitar, slinging it over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

And just like that, he’s gone. Phil calls after him, spouting bullshit about how it ‘doesn’t have to be like that’ and that ‘he’ll pay, he promises’ and even that ‘they don’t have to go at all it was a dumb idea anyway he’s sorry oh god can’t they properly talk about what happened or something’. He raises a few eyebrows from passers-by, but he doesn’t care.

But Dan doesn’t turn around. Dan doesn’t really do anything.

-

It’s been two weeks, and the space beside Jubilee Bridge has been empty every single day. As has the bridge itself.

Phil still walks past every day before, during and after work, of course he does, but every single time he’s disappointed and the spare change in his back pocket feels just that little bit heavier.

He’s gone, and Phil has no way of tracing him.

In the vast expanse of London, the tangle of roads and tube lines and a population tipping over the ten million mark, he really could be anywhere.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Vicky had said, drawing out the last of the smoke from something Phil had rolled with shaky hands. She stubbed it out on the brick she’d been leaning on. “He’ll be back. He’s your friend, right? Or that’s at least what Nick said.”

Friend. The word feels like a vice around Phil’s throat.

“I don’t know,” he tries to craft his tone into something airy and carefree, but his voice cracks on the last syllable.

“He doesn’t sound like a very good friend, then, if you ask me,” she mumbles, mainly to herself.

“He isn’t a friend!” he snaps. “Can’t you fucking understand that already?”

Phil had stormed out of the alley and back into the café, slamming the door open and making the metal rattle on his way. He really wasn’t being fair or rational in any sense of the manner and he’ll be preparing his apology to her the second he’s calmed down, but right now he doesn’t care. He really doesn’t give a shit, and Vicky’s been pissing him off all day and he’s probably going to get into more trouble with his manager even though it’s his assigned break and Vicky isn’t even wearing lipstick today, because Mark will no doubt find something to moan at him about.

-

It hasn’t been a good day.

Phil had dropped an entire tray of lunch on the stone floor, scattering china shards and glass everywhere and creating coffee puddles alongside messy sandwich mountains; lettuce and cheese spilling out of the bread.

He’d swept it up, tears blurring his vision and his grip on the dustpan handle had tightened as he’d tried to ignore every raised eyebrow from unimpressed customers. When he looks at his knuckles, they’d turned white.

He makes mistakes all day. He fucks up orders and burns toasties and cries in the staff toilet cubicle on his break.

It was a ridiculous idea of his to even suggest the two of them go out because- well, clearly Dan has issues with ‘friendship’, and Phil was too forward and-

Fuck, he breathes out a low, shaky breath. He just wants another chance. It’s too early to be mourning the death of their friendship because there never really was one and, to be honest, it’s not actually the reason for Phil’s distress. It’s just a very, very unhelpful addition to it. Like salt in the wound, really.

What he’s really scared of, he decides, is losing his job. He’s never exactly been employee of the month, granted, but if Mark finds out about today’s performance he’s certain his series of final warnings will come to an end. He’s had far too many second chances as it is, and oh god, his luck can’t last forever.

He certainly doesn’t mind earning nine pounds an hour. But, perhaps he was never really cut out to be a barista.

-

“Do you want to grab a coffee or something later?” Vicky offers, juggling napkins. Apologising to her was a little too easy for Phil’s liking – she was very quick to forgive.

Phil’s jaw tightens. Coffee is quite literally the last item on his list of current desires.

“I’ve already got loads here, thanks,” he jokes, holding up the spade full of coffee beans.

Vicky rolls her eyes. “Come on. Really. I’ll treat you. Tonight?”

Phil gulps. “Isn’t it usually the guy treating the girl?”

“That’s during a date,” she chuckles, her laughter ringing in the air and grating on Phil. “Or, well- I don’t know. We could switch up gender roles a bit, couldn’t we? If-“

“I don’t-…” he gulps. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on,” she urges, nudging his hip with hers. “Just a quick coffee. As friends?”

Phil doesn’t know what to say. He stares at the white writing against the dark canvas of the blackboard until it blurs. He would probably rather saw his leg off than set foot in another café; he’s sick of the sight of them.

But for some reason, he ends up saying yes.

-

It’s a highly underwhelming experience, all in all. Phil sips his latte and makes boring small talk with his co-worker. He doesn’t really listen to what she’s saying, he doesn’t participate much in the conversation, but he remembers to smile and nod and laugh along at appropriate intervals.  

The second there’s no more coffee in his mug, he pretends to check his phone.

“Oh, Christ,” he says. “I really must be off.”

“Where are you off to?” she asks. It’s not suspicious, she just seems genuinely interested.

“My mum’s visiting tonight,” is the first excuse that pops into his head. “I’d better start tidying the flat.”

He shouldn’t lie, he really shouldn’t, but being the day it’s been, he’s just so fucking drained and wants nothing more than his cat, his bed, probably a large bottle of wine and plenty of tissues. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

“If your place is as untidy as your locker, good luck,” she smirks, and Phil finds himself smirking along.

-

“Right,” Phil begins the second he steps outside of the door. “I’m gonna go and get the DLR.”

“Cool,” Vicky says. “I’m going this way,” she nods in the opposite direction before stopping, eyeing Phil’s face up and down. “I guess I’ll see you at work, then?”

“I guess you will,” Phil forces another smile. He lets himself be hugged, breathing in the Marc Jacobs perfume on her and suddenly they’re face-to-face and she’s got this smile tugging at her lips and there’s something about this that Phil really doesn’t like.

In the same split second Phil draws a breath to say his goodbye, she launches in and suddenly there are soft, scarlet lips on his.

Phil’s stomach fills with flutters, but they aren’t the good kind. They feel like moths rather than butterflies; intrusive and sickening and fuck. He pulls away almost as soon as she leans in, breathing hard. She’s searching his eyes, confusion written all over her face. They’re staring at each-other, and Phil can’t really move his expression; from the shock, it’s frozen into something stony.

“Fuck-…” she sighs after a silence, her own face melting into her hands. “Fuck, I’m sorry-“

“I’m-…” Phil gulps, trying to gather up the composure to talk again. “No. Sorry. Um, I just- I wasn’t really- expecting-…” he shrugs, “y’know…”

“No,” she shakes her head, keeping her eyes to her shoes. “I’m sorry, Phil. I-… fuck-…” she shakes her head, searching Phil’s eyes. “I just-… I thought you liked me, or something. I dunno,” she huffs out a humourless laugh, and Phil feels a stab of guilt.

“Vic-…”

“Misread signals, huh?” she swallows, staring intently at her thumbs as she tries to find another apology. “I-“

“Sorry,” Phil mumbles, not really knowing what else to say. He keeps his eyes to his shoes, not daring to look up. “I just-“

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m sorry,” she gulps. “I- well, yeah. So- I guess you have to go and I have to go and- yeah. Um. I’ll see you around,” she gabbles, stumbling over her words. She spins around and disappears off in the other direction before Phil can even return the goodbye and probably yet another apology along with it.

He watches after her until she turns the corner, walking out of sight completely. He tells himself not to feel bad – he genuinely just isn’t interested and it’s not like he led her on or anything. Misread signals, like she said. And another thing; sure, it’s only three years and seventeen isn’t exactly young by any means, but there’s something about the age gap he doesn’t really like.

On the journey home, Phil watches the city rush by out of the window, staring at Canary Wharf glittering in the night sky, and replays the kiss back in his mind, thinking of how little he felt with Vicky and how weird her lips had felt against his own.

He feels the kiss with Dan crawl back into his mind in comparison, and tries to ignore the sad twinge that appears in his heart as soon as he pictures brown eyes and slightly curled hair.

Fuck, that was something. That was a whole fucking farm of butterflies and more, despite how teenage-girl-esque and downright cheesy a metaphor that is. He thinks of Dan’s chapped lips and his calloused fingertips and white wine on his breath. He thinks of the flare of red passion in his chest the moment their lips had touched on the bridge, their heads full of alcohol and euphoria, too drunk to care. He thinks about being slammed up against his bedroom wall the moment Dan had decided not to take the sofa bed after all, the feeling of Dan’s thigh wedged up between Phil’s legs, their grinding desperate, only thin denim separating them. He thinks of late nights and Dan’s soft moans into Phil’s pillow and fingers tangled up in un-brushed hair and the way his skin had felt, hot against Phil’s and-

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels a solitary teardrop dampen his lap.

-

Weeks go by. Phil’s late for work. Phil drops things. Phil gets shouted at. Vicky’s still a little awkward but manages to talk him into sneaking off for a cigarette. Nick gets pissed off, Phil apologises, then does it again a few days later. There’s been no sign of Dan, in fact there’d been a time where Phil had nearly forgotten about him.

(Nearly).

That is, until, Phil sees something in the till. He’s giving a customer their six-pound-fifty-two when he freezes, a scribble of something on his five-pound note catching his eye.

It’s the smiley face. The same note he’d scrawled on, a smile on his face and Dan’s singing in the atmosphere. Phil feels his heart in his throat, but he swallows it with a smile and hands the customer their change, his heart thumping.

“Nick?” he grabs the boy’s attention as soon as he finishes with the espresso he’s working on.

“What?” the red-haired boy rolls his eyes. “And look, if you’re going to ask me to cover for you, I’m not fucking-“

“I’m not asking anything of you,” Phil says calmly. “I just- has that customer come in recently?”

“You might want to be a tad more specific,” Nick says, his tone sarcastic.

Phil shrugs off his bitterness. “The one carrying the guitar. You know- the one who asked to see me a couple of weeks ago?”

Nick looks blank for a few seconds. Then he nods.

“Oh, yeah, he’s been in,” he presses a button on the coffee machine. “He didn’t ask for you, though, so I didn’t think to mention it.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Oh god,” Phil sighs, shutting his eyes. His heart begins thudding again. “Right. Okay. Well, thank you for telling me.”

“How did you know he came in here, then?”

Phil swallows, not really knowing how to word Oh, I drew a stupid little doodle on a fiver and he must have used that to buy his fucking Americano without it sounding just a tad creepy.

Instead, he settles for “I was just curious. Wondering if he’s been around the area.”

-

Phil’s wandering around Covent Garden, weaving through market crowds and looking at ornamental maps and vintage posters of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and weird handmade candles that smell like stale soap, when he hears it.

He stops. He could recognise that voice anywhere.

He shouldn’t be doing this – he shouldn’t be retracing his steps out of the market and out toward the East Piazza. He shouldn’t be digging around in his back pockets, feeling for any token one or two pound coins he knows he has jingling about in there. And his heartbeat shouldn’t start to race the closer he gets toward the street performer and fuck, when he sees a glimpse of brown hair, he feels like he’s going to be sick.

He doesn’t stop to chat. He doesn’t make a single moment of eye contact – he’s not even sure as to whether Dan notices him, or not. But, of course, when he walks by the guitar case, he drops the contents of his pocket inside.

When he sees there’s a lot more change in there for his coins to clink against, he smiles and pretends not to hear Dan hesitate for a split second in the middle of his song.

-

Phil’s lost his job.

He kind-of saw it coming, to be honest. He was only one burnt toastie away from being called into the manager’s office and then one day when he’s sweeping the floors, it actually happens, and Phil’s heart drops to his feet the moment he hears the words “have a seat, Phil.”. He doesn’t listen to the speech, doesn’t pay attention to the long list of mistakes and fuck-ups he’s responsible for, but he catches the tail end – “…so I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go,” and the phrase echoes in his mind for the rest of the day.

Nick isn’t that sympathetic, but he tells Phil he’ll miss him and to take care of himself. Vicky’s a lot more opposed to the suggestion of Phil leaving and actually tries to protest, but Phil stops her.

“Mark’s made up his mind, Vic,” he sighs. Her eyes carry a sad twinkle, and it’s almost enough to make Phil feel sorry for her.

“It’s not fair, it’s-“

“No, it is,” Phil cuts her off, and she glances up at him sadly. “I kind-of saw it coming, to be honest.”

“We can stay in touch though, right?” she pulls out her phone from her back pocket. “What’s your number?”

Phil gives it to her, but doesn’t expect he’ll be texting her too often. He doesn’t particularly want to be with Vicky in that sense of the manner. He only tolerated her due to their common workplace and yeah, she’s nice, but Phil doesn’t fancy another ‘not-date’ with her despite the amount of Costa muffins she’s prepared to buy him.

“Take care of yourself,” he says to her, before pulling her into a hug. She still smells of the same perfume as she did last time they had their ‘coffee date’ and when they stand there, face-to-face again, she leans in and places a soft kiss on his cheek.

Phil’s kind of surprised she has the nerve, but endures it – it’s better than the lips, by all means, but he still doesn’t really want her getting the wrong idea. He pulls away and studies her for a couple of seconds.

“You stop smoking, yeah?” he smirks, trying to chuckle.

“I will if you will,” she says semi-seriously, and in hindsight that doesn’t actually seem like a bad idea. He grins, rolling his eyes.

“One day, Vic,” is what he responds with.

And he’s kind of semi-serious too.

-

Phil leaves the café smiling, but as soon as he gets to the bridge, as soon as he stops and leans on the railings, he feels his face crumple and his heart clench and he starts to cry. Two fat tears roll hotly down his cheeks and he knows people are probably staring but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t fucking care because now he’s unemployed and all the fears, everything he’d been repressing for hours suddenly begins attacking at once.

For one, his rent for the flat – living in London of all places, it wasn’t easy for him to bag a job substantial enough for him to keep up his own living space. And he loves his flat, he loves the high ceilings and the kitchen with the dining table far too big for only one person and the view of Greenwich Park from his window during sunset. He loves the walk home through the town and his neighbours and the balcony on which he sits and smokes and listens to the roar of the city every night.

He thinks about unpaid bills and the amount of red letters he’s going to have waiting at his door in only a matter of months. He thinks about curling up in a ball with his back against the front door, hiding from the loud thumps outside from his landlord. And fuck, Phil hated work, he hated being a barista as much as the next person, but he didn’t mind the money too much.

And he’s far from rich. He hardly got as far as dancing up the streets of London with a four thousand pound Chanel bracelet dangling from his wrist. He didn’t even know how to pronounce Givenchy until last week. He thought Alexander McQueen was a car from that Disney movie.

But he didn’t have to worry about any of this. Backed up by a substantial family inheritance and with a little disposable income left over after the monthly bills had been paid, he really didn’t do too badly.

But- well, a job may give you the world in material. It could give you diamonds, a wardrobe full of big names and a bank balance that makes you smile.

But is there really any point in pursuing it if it isn’t want you want to do?

-

When Phil hears the soft voice from behind him, he wishes he didn’t recognise it as well as he does. He wishes it didn’t flip his stomach and speed up his heartbeat in the way it does. Sometimes, he really wishes he hadn’t met Dan at all.

“What do you want?” Phil mutters

“A word,” Dan says.

“That’s two words. Limit is up,” Phil mumbles thickly. It isn’t the most mature approach he could take towards this, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. Dan is the least of his worries right now.

Dan doesn’t respond to that. He stands there, painfully silent.

“I want to apologise,” Dan says softly.

“Maybe it’s a little too late for that,” Phil’s voice turns cold, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Dan freeze.

“What’s wrong?” Dan frowns.

Phil turns his head and glares at him through tear-filled eyes. He shakes his head, choosing not to say anything. “Just leave me alone.”

“No- come on, Phil,” Dan urges. “What’s happened? Why aren’t you in your uniform?”

“Why do you care?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Phil can think of one million answers to that question. He glares at Dan, giving him a look that would send anyone else running for the hills. He draws a breath, ready to argue. Ready to make some sarcastic comment that only antagonises Dan further.

After a silence, he gives the night air a weak sigh. He can’t be bothered to argue.

“I lost my job today,” Phil tells him. There’s another silence, and he adds, before he can stop himself, “-but hey; money comes like running water to us Londoners, right?”

He doesn’t really mean to say it – he’s just too tired to stop himself.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says, and his voice is unusually soft. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Phil mutters, though really, it’s anything but.

“No it isn’t,” Dan sighs. There’s a long, drawn-out silence.

“Yeah, well,” Phil says to the city, his eyes unmoving. “Guess the damage has been done. Beyond repair.”

He’s done with being rejected, unwanted. Sometimes he even wonders whether the city wants him here at all. Maybe he should’ve taken the University of Manchester up on their offer and gone up there, up three-hundred miles north of the country to study-

“Don’t say that,” Dan pleads. “There’s always another way, I promise. Whatever seems like the end of the world today, just becomes another story for tomorrow.”

Phil laughs through his tears, a cold, humourless chuckle. Now isn’t really the time for Dan’s lyrical pretentiousness.

“It almost makes it sound like you understand.”

Dan stops. “What makes you think I don’t?”

Phil glances at him. His eyes are red-rimmed, like someone had come along and outlined them with pink eyeliner. “I appreciate your efforts to console me, but- like, this is just the cold reality of the working world, I guess,” there’s a silence. “You wouldn’t get it.”

Dan gulps, and the wind sweeps his fringe right off of his forehead. It stands up on his head, tousled brown locks in the city air.

“I understand, Phil,” he repeats slowly.

“No- you don’t, Dan,” Phil sighs shakily. “You don’t.”

“And you’re trying to tell me I don’t know what it’s like?” Dan’s voice is still alarmingly calm.

Phil glances at him, eyeing him up and down. “Well- what else do you expect me to believe? You said you never really worked in-“

“Do you think I don’t understand, Phil?!” Dan’s voice suddenly turns cold.

“But-“

“Do you think I don’t know what it feels like to get fired? To have manager-after-manager shout at you because you can’t do your fucking job properly? To be rejected from job-after-job, interview-after-interview, and to live in the richest fucking city in the world but struggle to pay the electricity bill every single month?

“But you said you didn’t-“

“I lied, Phil,” Dan spits. “I lied because I was ashamed of it. Yes, I’ve been in and out of a load of jobs. I’ve been rejected from interviews because of my track record of dismissal. Record companies don’t seem to take to me. I earn fuck all from street performing. The city’s a cruel place, and talent doesn’t get you anywhere in this world unless you come from a filthy rich background,” he pauses, breathless. Phil stays silent, his breathing shaky and furious. “Any more of my fucking life you feel entitled to know, then? Seeing as, y’know, you clearly see yourself as a good ‘friend’ of mine.”

“I don’t need this,” Phil snaps, and the wind’s picking up. It’s in his ears, ringing and clouding his hearing and Phil wishes there could be a gust of wind big enough to sweep him off of his feet and throw him into the Thames, sending him sinking miles below the water’s surface until he drowns in the city’s water, suffocated by murky pollution. “I don’t fucking need this. Fuck off.”

“You fuck off. You’re the one trying to throw money at me all the time. Trying to be a ‘help’. Thinking yourself a saint because you spared the ‘poor old busker’ a couple of quid, then acted like I fucking owed you something on account of that. I don’t owe anyone anything,” there’s a glint of fire in his eyes, the streetlights reflecting amber in the darkness of his stare. “Some problems take a little more than a five-pound-note to solve, Phil.”

“Fuck you!” Phil screams. “You kissed me! You were the one who launched in and then ran away as soon as you fucking felt something,” he pauses for breath, and the echo of the traffic around them and the train rushing past on the line next to the bridge rings in his ears. “Why, Dan? Why did you have to act like we were- I don’t know, fucking soulmates one minute, and strangers the next?”

Dan remains silent, his eyes glittering with tears, before he finally says something. It’s only five words, but it’s more effective than any bullshit Phil tries to inflict upon him whilst making a point. He doesn’t know how Dan does that, doesn’t know how he can say so much by saying so little.

“Because that’s all we are,” Dan simply says, before adding. “That’s all we’ll ever be.”

“Strangers don’t kiss each-other,” Phil says. “Strangers don’t get drunk on a city bridge and share their entire fucking life stories and thoughts and everything until fuck-knows-when in the morning. Strangers don’t go back to a flat and fuck until dawn. But, no- you’re right-” he sighs, feigning defeat. “Maybe we are strangers. Perhaps I should’ve gathered that when I woke up to an empty bed.”

“It was a one night stand,” Dan mumbles, but his voice cracks. “A mistake.”

“A mistake?” Phil repeats, eyebrows raised. “So that’s what I am to you, is it?” Dan avoids eye contact, “I’m not the ‘only one out here who seems to understand you’ anymore? Not ‘the only redeeming quality this city still has’? Not even a ‘good fuck’? No- no, right-“ he gulps, not bothering to stop the tears that fall. “A ‘mistake’. That works too, I guess.”

“Phil-“

“You’ve said enough,” Phil cuts him off. “I have to get back home. Y’know, while I still have one,” When Dan doesn’t respond, still staring at the city and shaking like he’s just been electrocuted, Phil clenches his jaw, Dan’s lack of response only serving to boil his anger up even further. “Why, Dan?” he whispers, his voice a hoarse croak. “Why did you do it? Fool me into thinking you gave a shit about me? I mean- I get it. If I was a rebound or anything, then-“

“You don’t get it, Phil,” Dan shuts his eyes. His hands are trembling.

“Oh, here we go,” Phil scoffs. “Honestly. Why can’t you ever just be straight up with me? Why do you always have to tell me I ‘don’t understand’ or that I ‘don’t ‘get it’, then refuse to tell me what it actually is I don’t understand?” Dan doesn’t respond, “I mean- I know you might like to think I was, but I wasn’t fucking born yesterd-“

“Because I’m in love with you, for fuck’s sake!” Dan explodes.

It’s as if, for a moment, everything stops.

Passers-by on the bridge pause. The hum of traffic in the air is no longer audible. The tubes halt beneath them, and the minute hand on Big Ben in front of them stops ticking.

Dan’s words are out, now. They fly around the polluted city air, stinging Phil harder and harder like wasps. They’re studying each-other, blinking back tears and fuck, what now?

Phil feels like he’s about to be sick. He swallows so hard he feels like he’s sprained his throat.

“What?” emotions scratch the surface of his voice like keys to a car bonnet, and the tears are really falling now.

“I-…” Dan’s breaths are shuddering, and he shakes his head, backing away. “I’ve said too much-”

“You haven’t said enough,” Phil grabs his wrist when Dan turns to go. Dan’s looking at him as if he’ll kill every single member of the Lester family if he doesn’t let him go, but Phil doesn’t care. He can’t leave it like this. “I just-… what?”

“I-…” Dan huffs out a sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“You-… love me?” Phil repeats, his voice barely a thin whisper.

Dan doesn’t respond with a sarcastic remark this time. His eyes are still shut, and when he eventually speaks, his voice trembles.

“For fuck’s sake-…” he shakes his head. “I told myself I wouldn’t fall for you. I fucking told myself. I promised myself I wouldn’t,” Dan glances up through his fringe, fixing a bloodshot stare on the other boy. “But-… fuck, you didn’t make it easy for me. All that advice you were giving me. All the money you gave me even though you were skint yourself. The way you’d talk to me as if I was more than some washed-up musician. Hell, you were pretty much the only person in my life who would give me the time of fucking day. I just- you genuinely made me believe you cared.”

“I do care,” Phil insists. “I thought I made that clear enough.”

“But-… no,” Dan sighs. “I mean- that’s the problem. No- don’t look at me like that; it obviously doesn’t mean I didn’t want you there. I mean- like, well-…” he looks up at Phil, brown meeting blue through matching tears. “There’s no easy way to say this, but-… like, oh god, you kind-of made me realise that- like, what I had with my ex wasn’t love, really. We were just together because it was, well, convenient, I guess. Toward the end, we were barely even meeting up, to be honest, and- well, I suppose that’s why it didn’t really come as a surprise when we broke up,” there’s a tear rolling down Dan’s cheek by this point, and Phil resists the urge to wipe it away. “It was already expected. Because we weren’t happy, and it wasn’t love. Definitely not. I fucking know what love feels like, now.”

“How did you break up with him?” he asks, his voice soft.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dan’s brown gaze pierces through his own.

It probably should be, but Phil’s expression remains blank. Dan sighs.

“I told him I was in love with someone else.”

Oh, shit.

The words come like a slap in the face. Phil’s chest feels as if it’s going to collapse in on itself.

“And you didn’t think to tell me this sooner…?” he says slowly, his heart thudding. Fuck.

Dan shakes his head. “I thought- I don’t know. I thought that- like- I don’t know. I thought I could get over it. But then you were so fucking nice and you took me in for the night and I couldn’t help-…“ he draws in a shuddering breath. “Fuck. I thought that if I distanced myself from you then the feelings might go away or something, but-…” he shuts his eyes, “the opposite happened.”

“I-…” Phil shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything” Dan mumbles flatly.

Phil gulps. “I just feel like if you told me sooner, it-“

“Yeah, well,” Dan cuts him off. “I didn’t, did I? I didn’t do anything I should’ve done,” his lower lip begins to tremble. “I should’ve fucking told you sooner. I shouldn’t have cut you out,” he pauses. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have fallen in love with you altogether, but-“

“Love is not a choice, Dan,” Phil interrupts him, his heart thudding. If it was, no way in hell would they have even ended up together. “As much as you can tell yourself it is, you can’t choose who you fall in love with. The only choice you have is whether you’re going to deny it or not.”

Dan scoffs, his eyes to the floor, and Phil steps towards him.

“So why bother punishing yourself for it?”

Dan doesn’t respond, his eyes still glued to his shoes as if a pair of scuffed Do Martens hold all the solutions to his problems.

“Running away from your feelings only ever ends in tears,” Phil tries again, reaching for Dan’s hand. It’s cold and rough, but the other boy doesn’t pull away from his touch. His eyes are still lowered, his stare slightly glassy.

“Look at me, Dan,” Phil commands.

Dan doesn’t.

Phil takes a finger and places it gently under Dan’s chin, lifting it up and aligning it with his own. Dan glares at him, but doesn’t protest or look away. There’s more weariness behind his stare than anger.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Phil whispers and fuck, they’ve probably accumulated a proper audience by now but he doesn’t care, he just doesn’t care about anyone in this entire city except for the shorter boy beside him with brown hair and a song no one would listen to. “I know you shut the world out. I know you think the crowds here have nothing else to offer you but a couple of pennies. I know you’re terrified of the city. I-… I know you, Dan. I know you more than you like to pretend I do.”

Upon the last syllable, Dan exhales a shaky sigh and finally says something.

“You can’t try to fix me, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Dan sighs, his breath a little shaky. “It’d take a lot more than a twenty pound note to do that.”

“I don’t want to fix you,” Phil says, but quickly shakes his head at his poor wording. “No- I don’t mean that. I do want you to- y’know, get better. But I don’t want to look after you; I just- I want to be there for you. But you have to let me in. You can’t keep shutting everyone out, Dan. Life isn’t a corridor.”

Dan laughs, then. A dimple appears in his tear-streaked cheeks and a chuckle rings out in the atmosphere. Phil frowns.

“What?” he mutters, a little irritated.

“I think we’ll leave the pretentious metaphors to up to me for now,” he says, and Phil shakes his head.

“Did you actually listen to anything I just said?”

“Of course I did,” Dan gulps, his voice steadying a little bit now. “I just- I’d go easy on the whole corridor thing. I think the expression you were looking for was the ‘when one door shuts, another opens’ one, or something.

It’s Dan who’s rambling now, it’s Dan who’s avoiding addressing the slightly more serious topics Phil had just covered, but he doesn’t really care.

“Fine,” Phil gives in, still holding Dan in close by the waist. “Life isn’t a corridor. But-… you don’t have to shut yourself away.”

Dan’s silent for a couple of minutes, not cracking another chuckle, but Phil can stay here forever, with Dan in his arms. They must look a sight to strangers right now, with Phil’s arms wrapped around Dan’s slim waist and Dan’s head buried into Phil’s chest, but he doesn’t care. Neither of them do.

“I’ll try,” Dan finally mumbles against Phil’s chest, hiding away from the city lights and the roar of the Thames and the traffic and the public eye. “For you.”

Phil smiles, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “Did I ever mention?”

Dan looks up, blinking away the tears that are still falling. “What?”

Phil leans in until his lips touch the shell of Dan’s ear. This isn’t something he wants the rest of the city to hear.

“I love you too.”

-

And it’s true. If it wasn’t obvious enough already, he does love Dan. It’s not until they’re at Phil’s flat a couple of days later after the feud between them had been properly talked through, that he realises. They’re cuddled up on the sofa together under the duvet because Dan couldn’t make it to bed without falling asleep in front of the TV, and Phil gazes down at the heads of brown hair on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing against his shirt.

He loves him. He really, really does.

Phil would do anything for him. He would give Dan so much more than a handful of coins, if he could. He would give him the moon, the streetlights, and every twinkle of city light when the sun goes down and lights appear like stars in the buildings. He would give him the stars, the real stars, if he could see them behind the soft orange sweep of pollution across the London sky, and he would give him the way the Thames looks at night from the bridge, stretching the light across the water’s surface, an asymmetrical reflection.

Phil would burn the city down for him. Even if Dan already looks at the city like it’s already been burnt down; nothing but a wasteland of destroyed buildings, sooty wood and charred dreams.

And yeah, things are pretty shit at the moment, but it’s not the end of the world or anything. Money is a definitely more than an issue right now, but Phil has enough in his family inheritance to prop him up for a couple of months yet, and being home to over ten million working people, there must be something out there the city can offer him. Perhaps it will be something he’ll enjoy a little more than tripping over his own feet and serving coffee to ungrateful customers. And maybe, just maybe he and Dan could pitch in and get a little place together someday, with a living room littered with guitars and DVDs and beanbags, a small bedroom where kisses and whispered confessions are exchanged at three a.m. and a kitchen that fills with the scent of pancakes in the morning.

Maybe he’s just wishful thinking now. But it’s a possibility.

Phil knows Dan is really going to be someone. It might not be for a while yet, it might not be in London and it might not be through busking, but when he sees the way he holds that guitar and sings into the microphone, singing his heart and soul out into the public streets, visions flash before his eyes. Visions of Dan singing in an arena to an audience of thousands, pouring his heart out to adoring fans instead of commuters and hearing screams of his name amidst the crowd, phone torches lighting up every venue like stars to the night sky.

Yeah, he’s tried a few times for a record deal. Sure, he’s suffered rejection. But hasn’t everyone? Isn’t failure just as important an element to success as the success itself? Phil once read something along the lines of that – about not being able to succeed if you don’t first fail, or something. And then there was one about success not being on a silver platter. Something to that effect, anyway. He can’t really remember, but it had stayed with him.

He’s not good at the inspirational metaphor thing. He’ll leave that to Dan.

-

A couple of months have gone by.

Phil’s found a new job; he’s working part-time in a Planetarium, fuelling his passion for Science and space and whatever the fuck else is going on up there, and life really couldn’t be better. He’s thinking about doing an Open University degree in Astronomy or something, and Dan had definitely approved of that possibility; whenever Phil even does so much as mention the subject, it’s as if Dan can see the stars in his eyes; they just glitter with enthusiasm.

Phil was never really a barista. He was an astronomer in a barista’s uniform.

A record deal have said they want to ‘watch’ Dan for a year, and they’re liking his stuff so far. His room is littered with notebooks, ripped out pages and crumpled paper full of biro scribbles and crossings-out. Whenever he has a lightning bolt of inspiration, he’ll shriek and grab his guitar and stop whatever it is Phil’s doing so he can listen and give his opinion on it. Phil loves it, he loves seeing Dan so passionate like this, with a happiness in his eyes that he could never quite see on the streets of London. Dan still busks, sure, but it’s in Covent Garden now – they’re nicer to him there. Phil’s just glad he’s finally beginning to be appreciated as much as he’d always deserved.

Phil hasn’t suggested the possibility of them moving in together, but with both of them currently getting a pretty comfortable income, he knows it’s only a matter of time. They practically live together anyway – if Phil isn’t at Dan’s flat, then Dan is at Phil’s, and it just works like that. They work like that.

Phil’s looking out at the city from Greenwich Park today, for a change. He spends enough time at Jubilee bridge for him to have learnt the view of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge and Southbank by heart, but it hasn’t really left him time to appreciate the other parts of the city. And, for the first time in a while, he can enjoy the view without feeling the itch to pull out a cigarette, and he uncaps his bottled water and takes another sip.

Maybe the best thing about London isn’t how it looks in the summer, or the evening, or even after all the tourists have gone home, leaving an air of peace in the streets. Maybe it isn’t even how it looks from Greenwich Park, despite the fact it really is quite beautiful up here.

Maybe the best thing about London, or any city in general, is how it’s a bit like the universe.

City life is clockwork, just like the universe; the swarm of traffic and the commuters, the multicolour tangle of the tube map and even the tourists are all individual cogs in the machine; everything fits and works together perfectly in the same way that the planets do in the solar system – with the earth orbiting around the sun in perfect geometric circles within a fixed number of days, every single movement up in space monitored closely with astronomers looking through telescopes bigger than they are.

The city harbours millions and millions of individual lives, seeing trillions of births and deaths of humans, just like the countless life cycles of stars; exploding either to create beautiful supernovas or to burn out without a spark, and that’s something Phil often thinks about. If he were to die tomorrow, the city would keep on breathing. The buildings would keep twinkling into the night. Commuters would still sit in their offices. The sun will keep on rising, and the stars, wherever they are up there, would keep on shining.

Because, most of all, similar to the universe, the city waits for no-one. The city, like the universe, doesn’t give a shit about what happens to you while you’re there, so it’s up to you to find your place in the city, not for the city to find a place for you.

And maybe it won’t work out the first time. Maybe it won’t work out the second, third, fourth, fourteenth time. But it’ll happen eventually; Dan, the same Dan who longed for the countryside and all but drowned in the overwhelming depth of the city, is living proof of that – the same boy who previously resented London and thought success only happened to the rich, famous or astronomically lucky, fell in love with Phil, and so eventually fell in love with the city too.

They don’t belong in the most expensive house in Kensington. They don’t need some sleek, glassy penthouse in the city centre. They don’t even need Phil’s little flat in Greenwich.

Because in the cold, unforgiving but really fucking beautiful expanse of the city, they both discovered their places are not of material matter, but instead simply with each other. As long as Dan has Phil and Phil has Dan, they’ll be okay.

And that, Phil thinks, is the best thing about London.

-

OH MY GOD ITS FINISHED WTF i literally spent weeks on this omg i can’t believe how long it is What a Journey

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