#crescendohowell

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It really shouldn’t have come as any surprise to Dan after so long into their relationship that Phil would one day come home with two large antlers on his head and the body of a goat – and yet it did.

The surprise of it was just a little too much for Dan, one step too far for the general strangeness of their relationship, and yet not really all that far at all. Dan couldn’t exactly say he’d seen stranger things, but it wasn’t as if he were new to Phil getting himself caught up in odd situations.

(Last time he’d managed to convince an old friend of his that he’d been blessed by Aphrodite and that’s how he’d gotten so lucky as to win over Dan. Needless to say, Aphrodite had been less than pleased – and Dan thought he was the expert at pissing off the God’s.)

“What have you done now?” Dan asked, as deadpan as he could manage, face schooled into an expression of irritation rather than horror at the sight of his boyfriend’s mangled body.

Phil stared back at him in chagrin as his new tail swished back and forth impatiently behind him and his front hoof beat at the ground.

Dan tried his best not to flinch, he really did, it was just… hard.

“Hera,” Phil replied meekly, shrugging decidedly human shoulders despite it all.

If there was any plus to any of this at all, it was the fact that Phil’s upper body was bare chested and still human so Dan could stare at his naked chest and pretend everything in their life was still normal.

“Hera?” Dan asked, horrified.

“Hera,” Phil repeated quickly.

**

If there was one thing Dan had learned in the last twenty-four years of his life, it was that you did your best not to piss off the Gods. Sometimes, it was inevitable and you walked around with a tail for a little while, or a missing limb, until you’d gained back their favor by begging their forgiveness for whatever strange, inane thing you’d done to piss them off in the first place, but you still did your best to avoid them at all costs.

Dan had had his fair share of incidents, having even come home one day with a penis so tiny Phil had laughed at him for three days straight – not that there was anything wrong with a small dick, but Dan’s curse had gone beyond micro-penis. Phil, on the other hand… Phil couldn’t go three days without getting cursed by the God’s, and Dan was honestly convinced at this point that they just liked to fuck with them.

“Hey guys! I hope you’re weekend’s been good. Me? Well, as you can clearly see, I’ve managed to get myself turned into a goat-man… thing. With Antlers and everything!”

Dan shoved his face into his hands from behind the camera he had pointed at Phil’s face.

His long-limbed idiot of a boyfriend had trampled on their tripod when he’d attempted to set up to film, and now he couldn’t be trusted to so much as prop the camera up to film for him.

“A Centaur, Phil. You’re a Centaur,” Dan sighed.

“But I’ve got antlers, how can I be a centaur?”

“I don’t know, Phil. How’d you manage to piss off Hera?”

Phil pointedly ignored him as he went back to speaking nervously in front of the camera.

**

“So…really. How did you manage it this time?” Dan asked again as he watched Phil type up a quick tweet on his phone to go along with his newly filmed, edited, and posted youtube video.

@AmazingPhil: new video! Cursed by the God’s again, can you believe I’m a centaur with antlers now?

Dan snorted as he automatically re-tweeted the video link.

“Mange what?” Phil asked, yawning as he tossed his phone down on the sofa next to Dan, where his laptop lay curiously abandoned – it was clear Phil had no intentions of accidentally stepping on that.

Dan glared at Phil.

“You know exactly what,” he deadpanned, arching a brow and gesturing vaguely to Phil’s new body.

“Oh. That. It’s nothing,” Phil replied easily, turning so his tail beat haphazardly against Dan’s drink and nearly sent it tumbling to the ground.

Dan just managed to catch it, but it was a near thing.

“I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning, Dan.”

**

Phil was avoiding him, that much was obvious, that much was clear. Phil was avoiding him and also tracking muddy hoofprints through the house every time he left without telling Dan.

Sighing, Dan grabbed the mop for the sixth time that day.

“Bloody idiot,” he complained. “Can’t even tell me what he’s done this time. And Hera, of all people.”

Dan had rarely heard of people being cursed by Hera, and when he did, they were newly married couples with a divorce on the table. Dan and Phil weren’t a newly married couple – hell, they weren’t even married in general. Dan was certain Hera was the God of something else as well, but those things usually paled in comparison to the marriage thing, so he couldn’t think - how had Phil managed to get himself cursed?

It hit him about twenty minutes later as Dan was doing the dishes, and he dropped the glass cup he was holding into the sink.

It shattered on impact, and Dan didn’t even care that he was bleeding.

**

Vengeance. Infidelity. Revenge.

Hera’s thing was definitely marriage, but she was not a stranger to cheating husbands. Or cheating partners in general, if you really wanted to get into the lore.

And since Dan and Phil weren’t married, there was really only one other reason that Hera might curse him.

Well, and family, but that was so far off Dan’s radar right then that he couldn’t even think straight enough to consider it.

Phil was cheating on him, and now he was a centaur with antlers because of it.

If Dan weren’t so terrified of offending the Gods again, he might have called on Hera for her guidance, but more often than not the God’s were spiteful and mean rather than helpful in anyway, so he refrained, choosing instead to walk a well-worn path into his carpet.

At least it explained why Phil was avoiding him then.

**

Dan wasn’t known for being dramatic – except he totally was.

All of Phil’s stuff had been haphazardly tossed into his bedroom, including his half of their mug collection and the movies and video games Dan was most willing to part with. Dan, meanwhile, was locked up in his own bedroom, wrapped up in his unused duvet as he soaked up the comfort of his aesthetically pleasing room.

Only it wasn’t so aesthetically pleasing or comforting when Dan was generally used to the brightness of Phil’s room, and the warmth of his boyfriend's arms around him. Dan’s bed was generally reserved for nothing more than video making, and the realization that Phil’s bedroom had become home was a little too much for Dan right then.

He hunkered down into his bed again anyway and tried to ignore the fact that it felt wrong.

Everything felt wrong without Phil, only the thought of Phil hurt all too much just then because Phil was a disgusting cheater and was now a disgusting half animal because of it.

(Not that real centaurs weren’t beautiful, because they were. Phil was just gross because Dan hated him now, that’s all.)

**

Dan heard it the moment that Phil got home, the loud sound of the front door closing behind him and his hooves clacking against their floorboards echoing throughout their home.

Dan huddled down further into his bedsheets and tried to pretend that he absolutely was not crying.

It took Phil a good five minutes or so (Five minutes and twelve seconds exactly, not that Dan was counting or anything) for him to apparently see his room, and then go looking for Dan. The knock at his door was tentative and confused.

“Dan?” Phil called.

Dan ignored him.

“Dan? Why – why is all that stuff in my room? Did something happen?”

Dan didn’t reply.

“Dan?”

Silence.

**

After a lot of research on his phone, Dan found that Hera was not a nice woman. She was not a nice woman at all. In fact, she was such a not-nice woman that Dan was surprised Phil had gotten off with nothing more than a goat’s body and a pair of antlers on his head.

It was almost enough to convince Dan that his conclusion had been wrong, that surely Phil hadn’t cheated on him after all, but there were so many odd signs - like the sheepish look on Phil’s face when he’d come home looking like that, and the way he kept distracting Dan from getting the proper full story out of him about what he’d done this time, and how when Dan did ask, he ignored Dan completely, avoiding him to the point where Dan hadn’t seen Phil’s face in… well, okay, less than twenty-four hours, but he was allowed to be dramatic.

In fact, Dan was so allowed to be dramatic, that after Phil had gone and ignored him for another three hours after he’d gotten home, Dan straightened himself up and stormed out of his bedroom and into the lounge.

Phil looked absolutely normal sat on his haunches watching daytime television.

“I hate you,” he announced quite venehmetely, if he did say so himself, and if his nose was too stuffy to get that notion across properly to Phil, well then, fuck him.

And then he walked away.

**

The note was slipped quite awkwardly under his door – and by awkwardly, Dan meant that he could hear Phil cursing and smacking his own errant limbs as he attempted to get his knees to bend enough to crouch to the bottom of Dan’s door.

Once it was through, there was the equally awkward sound of Phil scrambling to get his knees to unbend, and then silence.

Phil hadn’t left. In fact, Dan could still see his shadow from where he was peering out from under his duvet on the bed.

They were silent, and Dan refused to move, brow scrunched up in put-upon anger.

After a good three minutes (three minutes and fifty-seven seconds, to be exact) Phil heaved a heavy sigh, and left, the sound of his hooves clomping away filling the empty halls of their silent flat.

Can we talk? the note read.

Dan grabbed a pen and scribbled back his own answer quickly.

**

No, it said.

**

The flat was silent. Phil had long since retired to bed. Dan was more envious of his cheating boyfriend than he would have liked to say, but he was also hungry, and he’d been sitting in tense silence for the last two hours just to make sure that Phil was asleep so that he could finally leave his room and get a sandwich or something.

Of course, the second he did dare venture to leave his bedroom, a hand reached out to grab him, and because their flat was currently in complete darkness, Dan screamed.

“It’s just me!” Phil shouted.

Dan screamed louder.

**

They were in the kitchen. Phil had made Dan a hot chocolate.

Dan was flat out refusing to look at him – but the hot chocolate was good.

“Did you really have to scream that loud?”

Dan shrugged resolutely.

“Yes.”

**

“So are you going to tell me what today was about?” Phil asked sometime later, after he’d made Dan a sandwich and watched him eat it in silence.

Dan still wasn’t looking at Phil.

He shrugged again.

“No,” he said.

They were silent.

Phil heaved a large sigh.

“You know. I thought I was the one who got cursed,” he mused aloud, trying for humor.

Dan stood up and walked away.

**

“I hate you,” he muttered ten minutes later as he crawled into bed alongside Phil, who’d managed to get his lower half resting on the floor beside his bed so that he could rest his upper half against the mattress.

Phil looked up at him with sad, hurt eyes, and Dan sighed.

There was just no way that Phil had cheated on him. Dan thought he’d always known that.

“What did you do to Hera?” he asked once again. “Because the only thing I can think of is that she caught you cheating on me and now you’re going to be half goat for the rest of your life. Cheating I might be able to forgive – provided there’s a lot of groveling and like, ten months of no sex, but half goat for the rest of your life? I’ll pass.”

Phil’s jaw had dropped open, and his eyes were so wide it was comical.

Dan bit his bottom lip to repress a smile, and reached out to tangle his fingers with Phil’s.

“I’d never cheat on you, Dan. You know that.” Phil sounded so hurt, Dan’s chest ached with it.

“I know,” he replied, and leaned in to kiss his boyfriend on the top of his head.

**

They were sat on the floor together, because Phil couldn’t cuddle any other way.

“You smell,” Dan complained.

“I know,” Phil agreed easily. “It’s the legs.”

Dan snorted out a laugh and rolled his eyes, but reached over to caress his hand down Phil’s newly goat like fur anyway. It was softer than it looked, though it was coarse and thick, and Dan already missed Phil’s human legs.

Phil’s eyes slipped closed beside him.

“I really did think you hated me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

**

“So, I might have sort of… happened across Hera at exactly the wrong time, and I might have sort of… said some things I shouldn’t have,” Phil explained, looking sheepish and worried all over again.

Dan just stared at him patiently, beyond ready to hear this story.

Phil cleared his throat and hid his face in his hands.

“See, I was uhm. Shopping for something important, right? And I happened across Hera in the same shop as me, and she was arguing angrily with the shopkeeper – this meek little girl who didn’t seem to understand what was happening to her. Of course, you know, I kind of got involved because I didn’t realize it was Hera at first, and the next thing I knew, boom, centaur with antlers,” Phil explained in a rush, throwing his hands back from his face for the explosion on the word “boom,” before turning back to Dan.

He looked nervous all of a sudden, and Dan didn’t understand why. Did he think that Dan wouldn’t love him the same?

“You’re an idiot, but at least you were just trying to be kind,” Dan replied affectionately, reaching out to ruffle up Phil’s fringe.

The antlers got in the way of Dan touching Phil’s head properly.

“So how do we fix it? What did she say? Should we be finding a shrine to pray at every day?” Dan asked. “Not that I don’t still love you, but you really smell.”

Phil snorted and rolled his eyes, but the nervousness didn’t fade away.

“Not exactly,” he replied, and started to get up.

This time, Dan got to watch the way he tried to beat his knees into submission, because apparently his lower half was not completely obedient to Phil’s whims.

(At least that explained the tripod from the previous day, then.)

“Where are you going?” Dan asked, as Phil walked away.

“Shush. Just wait here.”

So Dan did.

**

Phil was down on one knee when Dan entered the lounge, having come at Phil’s call.

Some distracted part of Dan’s mind wished he’d been there to see Phil attempt to manage that position, but the rest of him was far too focused on the little black box in Phil’s still human hands.

“Daniel Howell. You are the love of my life. There is no one else in the world who would still accept me, half goat man as I am, but you, and I –“

“Wait, hold on,” Dan interrupted, and he was shaking from head to toe. “What’s this got to do with Hera at all?”

The obvious answer was buzzing away at the back of his mind, but Dan was having a hard enough time paying attention to what was in front of him as it was.

Phil deflated, frowning as his shoulders slumped and he struggled to keep his body in place.

“It doesn’t matter. Dan, listen,” Phil tried again. “You’re the love of my life, and –“

“Phil,” Dan interrupted again, and his eyes were beginning to prick with tears. “Phil, wouldn’t you rather, I don’t know, wait until we aren’t in the middle of a crisis situation to do something like this?”

Did Dan sound hysterical? God, he hoped not.

Phil’s mouth turned down at the corners, and he deflated so much that he actually let his arms drop down to his sides.

The wounded look on his face was enough to make the first set of giggles erupt from Dan’s mouth.

It wasn’t just his imagination that Phil looked confused.

“I – what?” he asked. “Of course not. Why would I want to wait? I’ve been waiting for six years as it is. Isn’t that long enough?” he asked.

Dan sputtered out another laugh, and reached up to shove his fist into his mouth.

“It’s just –“ he tried to say around a mouthful of giggles, a mouthful of skin. “Phil,” Dan managed, gasping as he pulled his fist away. His chest ached with the force of held back laughter, and Dan had to squeeze his eyes shut again to keep himself together.

“What, Dan, what!? Just spit it out already!” Phil demanded, sounding and looking hurt and angry.

“I just can’t take you seriously when you’re half goat!”

**

“I hate you,” Phil complained, twenty minutes later when Dan had calmed down enough to stop laughing at the mental image of his boyfriend proposing with half the body of a goat.

“I know,” Dan agreed easily, still giggling a little bit.

His stomach hurt from laughing, and there were tears on his cheeks.

Phil sighed, and reached up to wipe them away.

“I imagined this going a very different way.”

“I’m sure you did, Phil. Now let me see my ring.”

Phil didn’t give Dan a choice when he slipped it automatically onto his left ring finger, but that was okay.

**

“You have to say it,” Phil complained, voice all whiny and high pitched.

“Say what?” Dan teased back, lips curled up into the happiest of grins.

“Yes! You have to say yes!” he complained, pouting as he crossed his arms over his chest.

He was still half goat, though his antlers seemed to be shrinking.

Dan pretended to think about it for a moment.

“Nah, I don’t think I will. There’s no point, really, considering you’ve already given me your ring. I figure, regardless of my answer, you still have to marry me in the end.”

Phil let out a long wail-like moan of pain, and collapsed over sideways as best as he could.

His legs twitched uncomfortably.

Dan just grinned.

**

So it turned out Hera was not a very nice person. In fact, it turned out Hera was intensely jealous and a little bit insane.

It also turned out that Dan’s boyfriend was kind of an idiot who had far too many encounters with modern-day Gods for anyone’s well-being, but, well, it had all worked out in the end.