#myphanfic

It was the 3rd of January, and so not Phil’s actual birthday at all, which wouldn’t happen until January 30. But with all eyes on them every January 30, all their fans wondering what they would do, everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of them, they could never relax and celebrate comfortably. And so a few years ago they’d come up with the idea of a “Backwards Birthday”: the date on which they went out to celebrate their birthdays when fewer eyes were watching. They’d decided it should be the reverse of the actual date, and so—since Phil’s birthday was January 30—they went out every January 03, or, that is to say, January 3rd.

Dan had made his own “Backwards Birthday” far more complicated by having the temerity to be born on the 11th of June … and reversing 11 didn’t accomplish much. As a result, they’d decided that Dan’s “Backwards Birthday” was created by simply removing one of the identical digits. So they celebrated his birthday in privacy on the 1st of June each year.

“You ready to go?” Dan asked, holding Phil’s suit coat out for him to slip on. Phil did the same for Dan and they both buttoned their coats: two attractive young men dressed quite formally in fine, well-tailored suits, ready for an elegant night on the town.

Phil went to grab his overcoat, but Dan stopped him. “It’s cold, but we won’t need them. It’s not like we’ll be standing around outside—we’ll just be getting in and out of taxis … and overcoats would totally ruin the aesthetic of the suits.” He preened a bit, and cast an admiring glance Phil’s way as well. They both looked quite handsome and appreciated the fact about each other.

It was something they both loved about their relationship: this deep attraction that still hummed between them, even after nearly a decade. Both looked forward to the end of the evening, when the elegant suits would be removed and the more private part of the celebration would commence in the bedroom.

But, for now, they had restaurant reservations, and a taxi awaited them outside. They stood close together and held hands, leaning in for a last embrace with no joking or teasing. Just a gentle, loving kiss. And then they turned to go.

As they crossed the threshold, they unlinked their hands, ready to face the world.

—

It was just after sunset when the taxi dropped Dan and Phil off in a very exclusive neighborhood of London, where they proceeded to walk down a very tiny lane, so narrow that two cars could not have passed each other abreast. They soon came upon an ornate door and walked into a very posh antique shop. Not pretending any interest in the shop’s wares, they simply continued walking down a corridor in the back of the shop until they came to a plain black door and rang a bell.

When the door opened, they were greeted by a rather intimidating man in an expensive-looking gray suit, who quietly asked for their names. He consulted an electronic device in his hand before eventually smiling warmly—the expression quite dramatically altering every aspect of his face—and holding the door wide open to welcome them inside.

It was really quite clever. The narrow lane prevented patrons from being easily followed by paparazzi or other unwanted companions, and the expensive antique shop might attract any variety of wealthy patrons, making it a completely unremarkable destination for anyone in the upper echelons of London society.

The shop itself did indeed sell high-quality antiques, but few knew of the secret hidden behind its collection of extravagantly-priced vases and heirloom jewelry.

Dan and Phil walked along another short corridor to an elaborately decorated arch which proved to be the entrance to a small anteroom where they were met by a tuxedoed man who greeted them with a warm smile. “Welcome, gentlemen! Dan Howell and Phil Lester, table for two!” Gesturing for them to follow, he led them into a small, very exclusive restaurant called Tangier.

The grouping of small rooms were all decorated in the Moroccan style, with domed ceilings and colorful tiled mosaics on the walls, all in various shades of blue, green, and white. A small marble fountain burbled in the center of each room, serving not only to contribute to the themed atmosphere but also to enhance the privacy of diners’ conversations.

No windows looked in on the patrons’ privacy in the restaurant, so all light was provided by elaborately decorated glass lamps that dangled from the ceiling in strategic locations. It left the rooms slightly dim, which only contributed to the sense of intimacy and secrecy.

In truth, there was a beautiful courtyard in the center of the restaurant, open to the sky and providing wonderfully atmospheric dining in the warmer months. But this was January in London—and an especially cold night, at that. The courtyard would not be open for use until June, most likely.

The maitre d’ led Dan and Phil to a small booth that was an alcove sheltered by a horseshoe arch such as those most common in Moroccan architecture. As tall as they were, Dan and Phil both had to contort themselves a bit to get through the ornate entryway to the alcove, but they then settled themselves comfortably on the curved bench, sitting close together in what felt like their own little private, protected world. The ornate glass oil lamp on the table cast flickering shadows around the cozy space.

A waiter arrived to ask their pleasure, and Dan declared, “We’d like a bottle of your third finest champagne,” which made Phil laugh. “It’s your birthday, after all!” Dan teased. They grinned at each other like conspiratorial children who’d escaped the attention of especially vigilant parents. Only, in this case, they’d escaped the attention of especially vigilant fans.

They didn’t have nearly as high a social profile as most diners at Tangier, since the restaurant was frequented by celebrities far more famous than themselves, and they couldn’t afford to dine like this often, but it had become an extravagant tradition for Backwards Birthdays. And, among such illustrious company, they felt quite wonderfully unremarkable.

When the champagne arrived, Dan made a toast. “Here’s to your latest revolution around the sun. I’m glad we got to spend it together.” Phil leaned in for a kiss, but it was only a quick one, and they both looked around afterward. It was just habit after all these years. The privacy and discretion of Tangier were the precise reasons why they chose to come here for their special celebrations each year, so that they could have just a few hours outside the flat but away from prying eyes. They each saw the other glancing around and both laughed at themselves. “I don’t know why anybody’d be looking at us,” Dan remarked dryly. “Not when Ed Sheeran’s at the next table.”

“Is he really?” Phil asked, leaning over as if he wanted to peer outside their booth.

Dan grabbed his arm. “Don’t!” he laughed. “He’s here for the same reason as us. To get away from the staring. So don’t ruin it for him.”

Phil settled down with a bit of a pout. “Just a few feet away from Ed Sheeran. So near, and yet so far!”

“A fan of your fellow ginger?” Dan asked with a smirk, and Phil bopped him on the nose as punishment.

“Do you want to know something really exciting?” Dan asked, and Phil nodded. “I’m pretty sure I just saw Sue Perkins walking out of the ladies’.”

“We even know her!” Phil exclaimed excitedly. “Or, at least, she interviewed us. But I feel like we know her, after watching her on Bake-Off for so long.” But even Phil knew better than to approach Sue, even if they actually made eye contact, because that was one of the unspoken rules at Tangier. You stayed in your own little bubble.

Dan and Phil’s own little bubble tended to stay within their own flat, so being able to have that kind of comfort somewhere else was a great luxury. If they were publicly open about their relationship, things would be different. But, as things were, Tangier was one of the very few semi-public places where they could be themselves.

“It hasn’t been the same since she left,” Phil mourned.

“What?” asked Dan, puzzled.

“Bake-Off.”

“Oh,” Dan said, nodding. “You’re right about that! But anything’s better with Sue Perkins.”

Phil raised a mischievous eyebrow. “Anything?”

Dan laughed. “I don’t think we’re her type.”

They both dissolved into very undignified giggles just as the waiter returned. They straightened up, both clearing their throats, and tried to look like mature adults out for a formal evening in a fancy restaurant. The waiter professionally ignored any apparent oddness and simply provided them with their menus. The menu at Tangier changed constantly, depending on what fresh meats and produce the restaurant had been able to obtain, as well as the caprice of the chef. The waiter left them to peruse their options.

The food at Tangier tended to be an eclectic fusion of Moroccan flavors with other types of cuisine, so one never knew what might be on offer. Dan and Phil each had difficulty choosing between the same two entrées, and so they decided to just order them both and share them. Then, after a bit of palavering, they decided to order one additional entrée to share, splurging for Phil’s birthday. When the waiter reappeared, they told him their choices, along with two starters, and then he disappeared into the dimness again.

“I’ll have to eat vegan for a month to make up for all this!” Dan joked. They really had overdone it with their order, but it was a special occasion after all.

Phil leaned his head against Dan’s and sighed happily. “I love coming here. And not just because it’s my birthday. I love being able to canoodle with you in public without worrying who’s watching.”

Dan choked and leaned away to look into Phil’s face. “Did you … did you just use the word ‘canoodle’?” Phil laughed and nodded with a dismissive shrug. “Well, that’s it. This relationship is over. I may as well just leave now, if I can figure out how to climb out of this fucking booth, that is.” He made a mock attempt to extricate himself from the alcove.

Laughing, Phil grabbed his arm and pulled him back, Dan landing on him so that they rested against each other even more closely than they had before. “I just love coming here with you,” Phil explained. “I can actually kiss you and no one cares.” He did so, pressing his lips softly against Dan’s for a long moment. “I can wrap my arms around you and not worry that it’ll be all over Twitter tomorrow.” He wrapped his arms around Dan in demonstration. Dan leaned into the embrace, showing that he didn’t mind a bit of canoodling, despite his mock objections.

“Do you ever think about it? Going public?” Dan turned to press a whisper of a kiss against Phil’s throat. They were definitely canoodling now. As if suddenly realizing the fact, Dan sat up to take a sip of his champagne. He looked back at Phil’s face, waiting for an answer.

Phil was frowning as if in thought. “Well, we’ve talked about this.” He let Dan take another sip of champagne before pulling him back into his arms. “Oh, and by the way, we can sip champagne and cuddle at the same time.” They picked up their champagne flutes and proved him right.

“I know we’ve talked about it,” Dan agreed, then sipped his champagne again. Even Tangier’s third best was really quite good. “But don’t you ever wish we could?”

“Of course!” Phil replied immediately. “I mean … to be honest with you … I wish it every day. When we’re wandering around the flat and I steal a kiss, I think, ‘Couldn’t do that on the Tube,’ and I feel a little sad.”

Dan winced. “You would really want to be the kind of people who kiss on the Tube?”

“Just a little one!” Phil objected. “Just a peck. Like when you say something adorable and I just can’t help myself.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess if you just can’t help yourself. But I object to being called ‘adorable.’ I am edgy and depressing, sarcastic and ironic. And yes, I know the difference between the two, because I’m also a smart-ass.”

“That’s so adorable,” Phil cooed, and kissed Dan on the nose. Dan rubbed aggressively at his nose as if horribly offended. It made him spill some champagne on his suit coat. “Oops,” Phil said with an apologetic look.

“It’s like being in a relationship with a toddler sometimes,” Dan grouched, but he couldn’t quite hide his fond smile while he was saying it.

“You were the one who spilled,” Phil pointed out.

“But it was your fault,” Dan insisted.

“Now who sounds like a toddler?” Phil teased.

Dan leaned forward and kissed him thoroughly to shut him up. Then he heard ceramic quietly hitting the wood of the table and jerked away. Their starters had arrived, though the waiter disappeared without any comment.

They dug in to the appetizers: two vegetarian salads, one hot and one cold, both deliciously spiced. They repeatedly fed each other bits of food off their own forks because “You’ve got to taste this!”

“How about you?” Phil asked between tasty bites. He took a sip of champagne and savored it. “Do you think about it?”

“About going public?” Dan asked. Phil nodded. “Every day. Like you. But without the kissing on the Tube.” Phil snorted. “So why haven’t we?” Dan’s voice sounded wistful. He took another bite of one of the salads.

Phil didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he offered, “Because we wanted to keep this as something that was just ours, not something that millions of people would comment about.”

Dan turned to stare at Phil in disbelief. “You really think they don’t already comment about it? They’re writing epic novel-length fanfics about it. They’re making gifs of every time we glance at each other too long on the gaming channel. You’ve done the Tumblr Tag videos with me.”

“You know what I mean,” Phil said, looking a little hurt, and Dan regretted his sarcasm. “We wanted to have at least a little privacy.”

Dan nodded, taking another bite of food. “Yeah, privacy. Right. You need to eat more of these appetizers, or I’m not going to have any room left for dessert.”

Phil ran a hand down Dan’s back, wishing that the smooth black suit jacket wasn’t made of such thick material, because he felt far away from Dan right now and wanted to be closer. “Come here,” he requested, “please?”

Dan looked at him, then put down his fork and leaned in for a prolonged, Moroccan-spiced kiss. When they pulled apart, he asked, “What was that for?”

“Just because I love you,” Phil said quietly, habitually aware of possibly being overheard. “And you seemed unhappy.”

“Right. No being unhappy on the birthday boy’s special night!” Dan agreed, toasting him with his champagne and then taking a healthy swig of the stuff. He smiled at Phil, and it seemed mostly genuine.

Phil tilted his head and asked, “Have you changed your mind about that? About going public?”

Dan asked, “Have you?”

“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “There are so many factors involved. I mean, how our audiences would react, what it would mean to our branding, how much homophobia might impact us if we were openly out in the public eye…”

“And all of that stuff scares you?” Dan asked.

“Doesn’t it scare you?” Phil replied.

“Not as much as trees in the dark,” Dan quipped. “Nothing scares me as much as trees in the dark.” And then he changed the subject just as their main dishes arrived, and much of their continuing conversation revolved around the food and memories of past visits to the same restaurant.

They ended up lingering a long time over their extravagant dessert of honey almond cake with saffron gelato and a chocolate cinnamon tuile. There was a bit of a tussle over the tuile, since it didn’t seem large enough to share, but Dan eventually decided that Phil should have it, since it was his birthday. Phil broke it in half as carefully as he could and gave half to Dan, who gave him a kiss in exchange. They gazed into each other’s eyes and Dan stroked a finger along Phil’s cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered, as if it were more than just a bit of biscuit.

“I love you,” Phil replied, kissing Dan again, and this time it went on long enough that Phil nearly forgot they still had dessert to finish. It seemed unlikely they would finish it, anyway, as they were both quite full. He could certainly finish the chocolate part, though.

“Now we know how these are made,” Phil commented as he slowly pulled away from the embrace and took a delicate nibble of the crisp curved biscuit in his hand.

Dan gave him a questioning look, then understanding dawned in his eyes and he nodded. “Right. That episode of the Bake-Off! Definitely not something I ever want to try for Easter Baking!”

Phil shook his head vigorously. The contestants on the show had experienced disaster after disaster trying to make the delicate little tubular wafers. That was back when Sue Perkins was still on the show. He hoped that somewhere, wherever she was in the restaurant, if she hadn’t already left, she knew how much they mourned her departure from the show.

He looked at Dan and could tell, just by looking into his eyes, that he was thinking the same thing. “Maybe we’re sending her psychic messages from across the restaurant,” Dan grinned.

They kept taking tiny bites of the cake long past when the gelato had melted, because admitting the meal was over would mean returning to the real world, and they preferred to stay in this magic haven of privacy just a little longer. Each bite of cake was followed by a long gaze into each other’s eyes, almost always followed by an even longer kiss.

Finally, Dan remarked, “We should probably leave before we get thrown out for public indecency.” They both chuckled. They hadn’t done anything any other couple might get away with on a public park bench, but it felt decadent for them, accustomed as they were to extreme caution.

—

When Dan asked the maitre d’ to order them a taxi, the man replied, “An excellent idea. I’ve been told it just began snowing outside.” Dan sighed heavily, knowing what would come next.

“Can we walk, just for a little bit?” Phil begged. “It’s the first snow of the season, so we should go out and enjoy it!”

Well, hell, it was Phil’s birthday, after all.

It was very late and the streets were deserted, so they walked through an eerie silence. The snow wasn’t heavy, but Phil gazed up at it with rapt attention. “Think it’ll stick?” he asked Dan, a hopeful note in his voice.

“It’s cold enough,” Dan grumbled. “You’ll probably be able to build a proper snowman by tomorrow morning.”

“Remember the snowman we made that first year when you came to visit when I was still living at my parents’? Now that was a quality snowman!” Phil looped his arm through Dan’s and they both put their hands in their pockets against the cold. They walked arm in arm down the empty street, unafraid of unseen observers in such a complete absence of humanity.

“I remember a lot from that winter,” Dan replied with a smile, keeping pace with Phil’s relaxed, long-legged stride. “We had a lot of fun. Not all of it parent-approved.”

Phil laughed. “Well, there was that. But what I remember best is just kissing you in the snow. Your lips were cold, but we kissed until they were warm again.” He smiled a secret little smile and watched his feet in the light amount of snow on the ground as he walked. “Those are some of my favorite memories.”

“God, we were so young then! I was still a teenager, you cradle robber!” Dan reached around to poke Phil in the side to make him giggle. He managed it all without unlinking their arms … because he didn’t want to unlink their arms. Walking down a public street like this, so obviously a couple, was an unfamiliar experience. “We were so young,” he repeated, nostalgically. In the empty streets, his voice seemed to echo like those memories of times long past. “We didn’t care what anybody thought, and nobody really cared what we did.” They continued walking for a few minutes before he added, “Things have really changed for us.”

Phil seemed to be only half listening, though. He was gazing with wonder at the silently falling snow. “Remember when Jack first sees snow in The Nightmare Before Christmas?” he asked. Without waiting for Dan’s answer—which would obviously have been yes because they’d watched the movie at least a dozen times together—Phil continued, “That what the first snow of the year is always like for me.” His eyes were wide and beautiful in the light from the street lamps. “It’s like something I’ve never seen before, something completely new, every time.”

Phil started humming as they continued to walk arm in arm down the street, and Dan immediately recognized the tune. He knew any moment Phil would start to sing, despite the many people sleeping around them, and—just as he’d expected—Phil began very quietly singing “What’s This?” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, swaying a bit with the tune and letting go of Dan’s arm so that he could reenact Jack Skellington’s mannerisms from the film.

What's this? What's this? There's color everywhere What's this? There's white things in the air What's this? I can't believe my eyes I must be dreaming Wake up, Jack, this isn't fair What's this?

Dan joined him in singing the last “What’s this?” … while pulling a ring box out of his suit coat pocket and opening it for Phil to see inside. He’d planned to do this over dessert but had gotten too nervous and so had decided he would do it at home, or maybe another time they went out somewhere nice … but the snow and the nostalgia and Phil’s silliness with the song had ended up loosening him up and inspiring him to do it on the pavement of some random deserted street he didn’t even know the name of.

Phil was shocked. “What...”

Dan joked nervously, “What’s this? It’s a box of matching wedding rings.”

Phil just stared, which was not exactly the response Dan had been hoping for. Finally, Phil stammered, “You want to get married?”

Dan laughed awkwardly. “I thought the rings made that fairly obvious.”

Phil seemed absolutely dazed. “You want to marry me.” He sounded honestly baffled, as if this fact was incomprehensible.

Rolling his eyes, Dan sarcastically said, “No, I’m asking you if I can marry Tomska. Yes, of course I want to marry you!”

Phil frowned before saying slowly, “But then ... everyone would know…”

Impatient and growing increasingly hurt by Phil’s unenthusiastic reaction, Dan said, “Kind of the point. And then I could take you out on your actual birthday and kiss you over the fancy gelato without worrying that someone would see.”

Phil nodded slowly, looking deep in thought.

Dan sighed. “I know there are a lot of factors involved. You know, how our audience will react, and the homophobia problem, and the branding issue, and all of that…”

Phil interrupted him loudly, “Would you shut up long enough for me to say yes?”

“Yes?” Dan repeated through numb lips. “You’re saying yes?”

Phil goggled at him. “You actually thought I would say no? You went to the bother of buying rings and asking and everything, and you still thought I would say no?”

Dan looked dazed. “I just … I guess I didn’t … I didn’t get past the asking part when I was planning it out. And then you didn’t exactly act encouraging…”

Phil watched him expectantly.

Dan stared back, still looking stunned.

“So?” Phil asked.

“So what?” Dan asked, sounding bewildered.

“So, aren’t you going to kiss me or something? Act happy? Maybe hug me and spin me around like in the movies?”

That seemed to return Dan to himself a bit. “I am definitely not picking you up and spinning you around, you bloody giant.” And then he grinned. “Yes? You’re saying yes? You want to get married?”

“Yes!”

“Even though…”

Phil interrupted him. “Yes!”

Dan frowned. “But what about…”

Phil interrupted him more loudly. “Yes! I said yes, you idiot! This is where you’re supposed to be happy!” Then Phil’s expression changed. “Or … are you not happy? Were you hoping I would say no? Was this some kind of weird…”

This time it was Dan who interrupted. “No! I mean yes! I mean, of course I wanted you to say yes! This wasn’t any weird test or anything, whatever you were just about to say. It was an honest question. An honest proposal. I want to marry you. I want everyone to know we’re together, to know that you’re mine and I’m yours and yeah we fuck each other silly and we don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about it.”

“Well, I don’t think we should put that last bit in the marriage vows, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Phil grinned. “Even if we can’t get Sue Perkins to join in. Ooh! Do you think she would come if we invite her?”

“You’re already planning who to invite to the wedding when you haven’t even kissed me yet?”

Instinctively, they both glanced around to see if anyone was nearby, anyone who might have heard that, anyone who might see them kiss and snap creep shots to post on Instagram or Tumblr for definitive proof. Then Dan glanced at Phil with wide eyes and said, “It won’t matter anymore. We’ll be able to kiss any time we want, anywhere we want…”

“Even on the Tube,” Phil interjected with a smirk.

Dan rolled his eyes. “So it doesn’t matter anymore! We can do whatever we want!” Then his voice got impatient. “So why aren’t you kissing me already?”

Phil shrugged playfully. “You’re the one who asked, then I said yes, so I think tradition is that you would be the one to kiss me. Because you’re so happy. And we’ve established that you are, in fact, happy. So let the kissing commence.” Then Phil stood patiently with his eyes closed, arms extended, feeling the snow fall gently on his face as he waited.

Dan laughed, then stepped forward to crush Phil in his arms and kiss him soundly before picking him up and swinging him in a circle, making Phil clutch his arms around Dan’s neck and laugh the happiest laugh Dan had ever heard from him. Phil was really heavy, though, and Dan apparently needed to lift a few more weights, because he was seriously winded when he set Phil back on his feet.

Once they were both standing again, Phil’s arms still looped around his neck, Dan leaned in for another lingering kiss that tasted of cumin and ginger and turmeric and saffron and almonds and honey and cinnamon and just a hint of chocolate. All the foods they had shared. Everything they had shared.

“We’re getting married,” Dan whispered.

“We’re getting married,” Phil agreed just as quietly. “And you proposed to me in the first snow of the season. My favorite day of the year. And now I’ll always remember it that way, with the snowflakes in your hair and on your black suit, as you told me you loved me….” He paused. “Wait … did you even say that you love me? I want to remember you telling me you love me in the first snow of the season with snowflakes in your hair when we decided to get married.”

Dan stared at him in disbelief.

“Well, go on!” urged Phil, watching him impatiently.

“I love you, you incredibly insane twat. Why else would I want to marry you? I want to spend the rest of my fucking life with you, listening to you sing stupid songs and picking up the stupid socks you leave all over the floor! Of course I fucking love you, you twit.”

Phil was laughing now. “Not quite the romantic declaration I’d hoped for, but definitely a Dan version of romance … and that’s the version I want. Forever. Let’s get married.”

“I thought we’d established that part.”

Phil smiled. “I just wanted to say it again. It’s like a winter miracle. I think it was because of the snow.”

“No,” Dan objected, “it was because of me, with a box of rings in my pocket, asking you…”

“In the snow,” Phil interrupted. “You asked me in the snow. It couldn’t have been more perfect.” His face was pure bliss. Dan took his gloved hand and squeezed it. Phil squeezed back. They started walking again, still holding hands, both a little dazed with elation.

But after only a few minutes Dan grumbled, “It’s fucking cold out here. Why did we decide to walk again?” He pulled his hand from Phil’s and shoved both his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the freezing temperature as they continued to walk a few more yards. Then he stopped. “I’m calling an Uber.” He pulled out his phone and placed the order. “Now we just have to stand here in the fucking snow until they get here.”

Phil nodded in agreement, coquettishly complaining, “My lips are feeling especially cold.”

Dan saw through the obvious hint, but he went along with it anyway. “Well, then, I guess I’d better kiss you again or you might get frostbite before I can drag you to the altar.”

Marcus had a rather silly sense of humor and Kathleen found herself laughing several times almost against her will. Her own parents and grandparents had always been fairly serious, some of them also quite religious, and she herself had found that her husband George brought a welcome lightness to her life that she had never realized she needed until after she’d met him. She’d never noticed that humor was lacking from her life until she found it in George.

Nodding while chewing, Marcus gestured with his fork as if asking her to wait for him to speak. After he’d swallowed, he commented, “Uncle Dan often said the same thing about Uncle Phil. Though Uncle Dan had his own sense of humor, you know. Just not as … obvious as Uncle Phil’s. Uncle Phil was a little … unusual. He got a bit more eccentric with age, but Uncle Dan just always laughed and said he’d never known someone could make him so happy.” Marcus smiled and added, “I know Uncle Phil felt the same way, even though he didn’t say it as often, in front of other people anyway.”

Kathleen was curious. “Uncle Phil didn’t…”

Shaking his head, Marcus explained immediately, “He loved Uncle Dan with his whole heart. He just expressed himself more by reaching out to hold his hand, or to touch his shoulder. Uncle Phil was a very … private person. They both were. I don’t think anyone outside the family really knew they were in love. And even with us, Uncle Phil still loved … quietly. No less deeply, but less openly. Uncle Dan was more open with his emotions.”

Kathleen laughed. “Well, he didn’t get that from the rest of the family!”

“That the impression I always got,” Marcus admitted, with a less jovial tone.

Kathleen looked down at her biryani and took another contemplative bite.

******

While Marcus went to look for some sign of his great-uncle’s mementos among the jumble of belongings in a particularly disorganized closet, Kathleen continued working her way through Uncle Dan’s shoebox of memories.

There were a great many devoted love letters over the next few years, as both men had apparently served much of the length of the war. Kathleen began to feel a bit uncomfortable with this voyeuristic look at intimate words that had not been meant for anyone but the two men, but she continued to read, not wanting to miss any of the other information about their lives. Not when this was the only way she could know them.

There were even some worried, loving letters from Kathryn Lester, Phil’s mother, and it was one of these that made Kathleen stop with her hand pressed to her trembling lips.

-

2 July 1944

My dear boy,

The Red Cross located our address among your things and wrote to tell us that you have been injured and that you must spend some significant time recovering from a serious leg wound. Why did you not write to us yourself? Surely you know how much we care for you, how I, in particular, fret for your safety just as I worry for my own sons. In fact, you are truly one of my sons, and I demand that you come to me immediately so that I may nurse you myself, rather than leaving such an intimate task to strangers who do not love you as we do.

I beseech you to come home to us, dearest, and let us help you become whole again.

With the greatest affection, Kathryn Lester, whom I hope you will call Mother

-

Kathleen looked up from the letter in her hands when she heard Marcus’s footsteps. “Uncle Dan … he was seriously wounded in World War II?”

Marcus dusted himself off as if he’d been excavating an archaeological site rather than simply going through two old men’s junk closet. He sat down at the table with her and reached out a friendly hand. Kathleen set the letter down on the table and took Marcus’s hand, squeezing tightly.

“Why didn’t he come home?”

Marcus gave her hand a returning squeeze and said gently, “He did.”

Kathleen nodded in sad understanding. “Did they even … did he …” She cleared her throat and let go of Marcus’s hand with a grateful pat. “Did they even contact his parents first?”

“I’m not sure,” Marcus admitted. “No one ever talked about it, and I got the impression it was a difficult topic. I don’t know if he even had any ‘next of kin’ officially listed in his records. It might have just been chance that they found our family’s contact information with his things.”

He patted her hand gently and said, “I’m going to continue sorting through the closet. I’m gathering a pile of things to be thrown out, a pile of things to go to charity, and a smaller pile of things we can look through together when you’re done with the letters.”

Kathleen nodded wordlessly and carefully folded the letter, returning it to its envelope. Knowing he was giving her space to recover her composure, she gave him a watery smile and then returned her attention to the shoebox as he walked away.

-

15 August 1944

My true and only love,

Mother has written to me that you have been wounded and are to convalesce with her at our home. I wish with all my heart that I could race to your side to offer you whatever solace my presence might afford, but you know that my duty will not allow it. I trust that Mother will tend to you as lovingly as I myself would, for she knows how dear you are to me. Also, you must know by now how much my family esteems and cares for you for your own sake, and not only for mine. How could they not love you? How could anyone not?

I will return to you as soon as may be, and we shall be together once more and never again parted.

Most devotedly and forever yours, Philip

-

8 May 1945

My dearest love,

I write this letter in haste, for today victory has been declared in Europe and the War is truly over! My regiment leaves forthwith and my heart soars with the knowledge that I shall soon hold you in my arms again. If only I could fly directly to your side on eagle’s wings! But for now I must arrange my pack for our imminent departure for home. Home! You are my only true home, and I now return to you with the happiest, most grateful of hearts. I race against this letter to you and hope that I may be upon the doorstep even before its arrival.

Await me, dearest. I come to you!

In loving and most joyous haste, Yours always, Philip

-

Kathleen imagined the scene. Dan, perhaps in a wheelchair, sitting in front of the family home—which she imagined as being quite grand—when a car pulled up and that tall, slim young man emerged, still in his handsome uniform, his hair slicked back beneath his cap. She imagined their eyes meeting for the first time in years, years during which each had feared not only for his own life in battle but also for the life of the other. She imagined the smiles dawning on both their faces as Phil walked slowly toward the man he loved, and then more quickly until they were in each other’s arms. She wondered if they had wept.

She thought they probably had.

******

When she heard Marcus returning to the kitchen, Kathleen was sitting with her chin in her hand, gazing out the window at the garden.

“Is everything all right?” he asked with some apparent concern.

She turned to look at him and smiled softly. “I just read the letter when Philip was returning home, and I couldn’t help imagining how happy they must have been to see each other again after so long. It made me think of my own husband, how much I would miss him if we were apart for years, never knowing if we would see each other again.” She felt a bit choked up, but it wasn’t sadness she felt. “I’m so glad they made it back to each other safely.”

“They did,” Marcus affirmed.

She turned to look up at him and leaned to stretch her aching back. “I’m dead on my feet. These last few letters have left me wrung out like wet laundry, and I just want to go home and see my family. Would you mind if we leave the rest until tomorrow? Or later, if tomorrow doesn’t work for you.”

“I can come tomorrow in the evening,” Marcus replied. “Feel free to look through their other things if you finish with the letters before I arrive.”

Kathleen nodded, tidying up the papers on the table before sliding her bag onto her shoulder and saying goodbye to Marcus. She just wanted to get home to feel her husband’s arms around her.

******

20 March 2001

There weren’t any significant letters after that in the box, which made sense when Kathleen thought about it. Why would they need to write letters if they were always together? She found the deed to this house, bought in August of 1945, along with numerous birthday and holiday cards from various family members and, sadly, a black-bordered piece of elegant parchment announcing a commemorative gathering to celebrate the life of Kathryn Eleanor Lester.

The box also contained a great number of children’s drawings and scribbled household notes. One sticky note, the adhesive having long lost its ability to stick, said simply, “Don’t forget.” Kathleen wondered what the note had referred to and what had made it important enough to keep, but soon discovered that Uncle Dan had apparently kept a great many seemingly mundane notes and reminders written in Phil’s distinctive handwriting. Even grocery lists had apparently seemed important enough to save, if they were written by a beloved hand. Kathleen smiled at her great-uncle’s apparent sentimentality.

She also found a number of thank-you cards for gifts they’d given jointly, along with a few letters asking one or the other of them to be godfather to a child, some from members of the Lester family and some from names she did not recognize.

When Marcus arrived in the evening, she was still going through the shoebox, since she’d been with her children until late afternoon.

“You said they were very introverted and private,” she said to Marcus, forgetting to even greet him, so lost in thought was she.

Marcus nodded, “Oh, they were. Not very fond of crowds, those two.”

Kathleen gestured at the shoebox. “Then how did so many people care about them so deeply? It is obvious that a lot of people loved them very much.”

He smiled. “They just had that effect on people.”

Kathleen found herself once again wishing that she’d gotten the chance to know them both.

“I have a confession to make,” Marcus said hesitantly. “When I found Uncle Dan … he had something in his hands, and I took it. I was afraid that his family might … well … might throw it away … or otherwise not respect Uncle Dan’s wishes. When he knew he didn’t have much time left, he told me he wished to be buried with it.”

Kathleen gazed at Marcus with somber curiosity. What was this object that was so important to her great-uncle? “What did you take?” she asked, doing her best to make sure that no accusation sounded in her words.

Marcus reached into his bag and pulled out a battered, dirty envelope. He held it in his own hands for a moment before reluctantly handing it to Kathleen. She carefully opened the envelope and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper, smooth and worn from years of frequent handling. It was a letter in the familiar handwriting. Before she began reading, Marcus explained quietly, “He took it with him everywhere. It went with him to the war, and it went with him to the army hospital, and it never left his side for decades. I did not want his family to see it as … shameful … I did not want them to discard it as so much rubbish.” Kathleen nodded seriously and turned her eyes to the letter.

-

11 August 1939

My most beloved Daniel,

I do love you. I love you most ardently, and these feelings are not new. I, too, have gazed at you with longing in my heart and wished that I might hold you close, but I did not believe you would welcome such attentions, and so I hid my emotions as best I could.

I hide them no longer. I do love you. I love you with every beat of my heart, every breath of my lungs.

I love you. I love you. I love you. Never doubt it.

Most devotedly yours, Philip

-

Kathleen wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks, then glanced around in search of a tissue. In the end, she went into the kitchen and blew her nose inelegantly on a piece of kitchen roll. She came back to the dining room table and looked Marcus in the eye. “I absolutely promise that this will be buried with him,” she choked out with conviction. “If Grandpa Howell gives me any problems about it, I will tell him he’ll never see me or his great-grandchildren again. Uncle Dan will be buried with this letter. I swear it.”

Marcus nodded gratefully, eyeing the letter in her hands with obvious reluctance to part with something so important and personal.

Kathleen held it out to him. “Would you like to keep it. Perhaps … bring it to the funeral yourself?”

His face melancholy, he replied, “I don’t think I would be welcome there. We’ll hold our own service for their … their other family, and for their friends. That letter belongs to your uncle, and so you should keep it. Just … please do make sure that he has it close to his heart in death as he did so long in life.”

“He will,” Kathleen promised, tucking the letter carefully into her bag. “I’m almost done with the shoebox, so I can come help you with the rest soon. Any sign of a box of mementos belonging to your uncle?”

“Not yet,” Marcus admitted. “The open areas are all quite tidy, but the closets are another story altogether. Uncle Dan cared a great deal about what he called ‘aesthetics,’ so I’m guessing he was in charge of the attractively tidy main areas. Perhaps Uncle Phil took care of the closets.” He and Kathleen both laughed.

Kathleen gestured at the nearly empty shoebox and asked, “Mind if I finish up here before joining you in your more adventurous task?” Marcus just grinned and nodded, then headed back down the hallway.

Only a few papers remained, and Kathleen suddenly realized that she’d been reading the papers in chronological order. If items had been placed in the box as time went by, shouldn’t the most recent letters and papers have been on the top?

Then, she pictured her great-uncle sitting at this table where she’d found the shoebox, pictured his wrinkled hands carefully removing each precious memory from the box and reliving them one by one before returning everything to the box again, now in reverse order. So these last few papers would have been the most recent ones, giving her a glimpse into the man she had so narrowly missed getting to meet. If only she had known…

Nothing really caught her eye, mostly just more household notes and a letter or two from friends whose names she didn’t recognize, until she caught sight of a sticky note recent enough that it still adhered to the paper beneath it. “Don’t forget Kathleen’s birthday!” it read in that familiar handwriting.

Kathleen’s birthday had been only two months ago, and the thought that this man, this amazing Philip Lester, had known of her existence, had even known the date of her birthday and had cared enough about her that he did not want her forgotten … she burst into tears, sobbing more than she had at any other item in the box.

Philip Lester, the man she might once have been able to call Uncle Phil, had known her and loved her without ever even meeting her. He had probably known her children’s birthdays as well, had probably wished a thousand times that he could sign his name alongside Dan’s when cards were sent to her and her family.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, weeping quietly with her face in her hands, until she heard Marcus come back into the room and hesitate in the doorway. She quickly dried her face as best she could and turned to smile at him.

“You said that you would be holding a service for Uncle Dan yourselves?”

Marcus nodded. “A service for the both of them, really. We didn’t want to upset Uncle Dan with a service for Uncle Phil when he was so … broken. We were waiting for the right time.” He smiled sadly. “It seems like the right time now.”

“Would you…” Kathleen hesitated, not wanting to be presumptuous. “Do you think anyone would mind a few gate-crashers?”

Marcus tilted his head in confusion. “Gate-crashers?”

Kathleen cleared her throat and forged ahead. “If we would be welcome … I mean, if it wouldn’t seem inappropriate … do you think anyone would mind if my family and I came to the service? Just my husband and my children and me.”

Marcus looked stunned. “You would want to do that?”

Kathleen gestured down at the papers in front of her. “Well, I feel like I know them a bit now, you know? And … well … love them a bit, too, even if I was never lucky enough to meet them.” She hesitated. “It may be too late for that now, I may have missed my chance … but it isn’t too late for me, and my children, to get to know the family we never knew we had.”

Marcus shifted slightly, standing up a bit straighter. “I think we would all like that very much,” he said stiffly, as if holding in strong emotion. “Very much indeed.”

Kathleen carefully placed the letters back into the shoebox and replaced the lid, letting her hand rest reverently upon it. “If you’re sure we would be welcome…”

Phil sat on the sofa, not talking to anyone, with a paper plate of cake on his lap. It was white cake. Who likes white cake? Why did David buy white cake for Phil’s birthday? Didn’t he know Phil at all? They’d been flatmates for three years, but David bought him white cake. Didn’t he know red velvet was Phil’s favorite? Did he even care? David had taken the big rectangular white cake out of a Tesco box with a discount price tag on it, and it tasted a little stale.

David was hogging all the attention, too, telling some funny story that had everyone laughing, all gathered around him. No one noticed Phil, even though the party was supposed to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. A milestone, right? Thirty. It was a big deal. But Phil just sat there alone on the sofa. David had invited mostly his own friends, anyway. Phil didn’t have that many friends. Not enough to make a party, just maybe enough to go to a nice dinner or something, which was more Phil’s type of thing. He didn’t really like parties. He tended to hover in the corner near the snack table.

Everyone was enjoying David’s stories so much that no one even noticed when Phil got up and set his paper plate on the side table, grabbed his warmest coat, walked quietly to the front door of the flat, and left. Just got up and walked away from his own birthday party.

A few minutes later, he brushed some snow off a bench and sat down in the little park across the street from the flat. Well, not really a park, just a bit of greenery in the middle of their London neighborhood. He’d always liked snow, but tonight it didn’t make him happy like it usually did. He just sat on the snowy bench under a street lamp, shoulders hunched against the cold, hands shoved into his coat pockets to keep them warm.

—

It was just too much. Watching him suffer like that … it was too much.

—

A pair of black boots appeared in the snow some distance from where Phil was sitting. The boots had zips. He liked zips. Not Phil. Him. He liked black, and he liked zips. Zips on everything, even when they weren’t necessary. Unconventional, unnecessary zips. He didn’t wear them often, because he wasn’t often in a human body, but he enjoyed them. When humans invented zips, they’d really been onto something.

His coat had zips too. A black coat, of course. He watched Phil from afar, just sitting on that bench and staring at the ground, and then he started walking toward him. Two paper cups of coffee appeared in his hands. When he got to the bench, he offered one of the cups to Phil, who startled slightly, looking up into his face. “Sorry. I didn’t notice you there,” Phil said, then looked in confusion at the cup of coffee being offered.

“You looked cold. I thought you might like a cup of coffee.”

Thoughtfully, Phil first brushed the snow off the rest of the bench before taking the proffered cup. “Thank you. You can sit if you like.” Phil took a sip of the coffee he’d been given, and his eyebrows went up. “Exactly the way I like it!” He gazed in surprise at the man sitting beside him. “How did you know?”

“You just looked like a cream and sugar kind of guy.” They smiled at each other.

“I can’t believe I was so rude. You gave me coffee and I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Phil,” he said, holding out his hand with a guileless expression. They shook hands.

“Call me Dan.” They both sipped from their cups. Well, Phil sipped—Dan just let the liquid touch his lip and felt its warmth.

“It’s nice to meet you, Dan. And thank you very much for the coffee!”

“You’re welcome. I had to give you something for your birthday, didn’t I?”

Phil jumped, nearly falling off the bench, and turned to stare. “How did you know it’s my birthday?”

“Thirty, too. That’s a big one. Shouldn’t you be at some kind of party or something?”

Abruptly, Phil seemed to forget all about the mystery of how the stranger knew it was his birthday, and he just deflated. “Well, the party wasn’t that great, so I left.”

“That’s what you get for living with a dick of a flatmate.”

Phil really did fall off the bench this time, landing right on his butt in the snow. He didn’t even get up, just sat staring with his mouth hanging open, apparently unable to even find words. Eventually, he found his tongue. “Who … who are you? How do you know all of this?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Sitting there in the snow and staring up at a mysterious stranger, Phil set his jaw. “Try me,” he challenged.

“I’m your guardian angel.”

Phil frowned. Slowly, deep in thought, he picked himself up and dusted snow off his backside. “Okay,” Phil breathed. “There’s a lot to unpack there. But, first things first … guardian angels are real … and mine is named Dan? It’s not a very impressive, angel-type name, like Raphael or Galadriel.”

“You do realize that Galadriel is a character in The Lord of the Rings, don’t you?” Dan asked, amused.

“Of course I do!” Phil exclaimed in frustration. “I’ve seen the entire trilogy five times! But how does an angel know about The Lord of the Rings?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Who do you think was watching over you all five times you sat through that entire trilogy? And thank, you, by the way, for only making me watch The Hobbit once. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to turn a very short book into three excruciatingly long movies?”

They both shook their heads in disappointed disapproval. “I’m sorry I even put you through that at all,” Phil admitted. Then he stared at Dan in shock. “You said ‘fuck’! Angels say ‘fuck’? And how did you know about the book?” Then he smacked himself in the forehead. “Because you were there when I read it when I was a kid.”

“Nah. I only got assigned to you seven or eight years ago. You should have heard the previous guy complain! All about how he could barely keep you from walking off cliffs or lighting yourself on fire.”

Phil scowled. “Angels complain about me? You know, I’ve heard some insults before, but that one goes to the top of the list.”

Dan waved a hand dismissively. “Puriel is as big of a dick as your flatmate.”

“There’s an angel named Puriel? Sounds like a hand sanitizer.”

Dan actually laughed so hard that this time it was he who nearly fell off the bench. When he got control of himself, he gave Phil a long look. “You’re taking all of this much more calmly than I expected.”

Phil looked contemplative for a moment, then he said, “Well, why not? I mean, blobfish are weird as heck, and they’re real. So why not angels? I feel kind of flattered that I have a guardian angel.”

“Everybody’s got one.”

“Oh.” Phil blinked. “Well, I still think it seems nice, knowing that somebody’s been watching out for me.”

“Yeah, Puriel might be a dick, but you definitely do require a lot of attention. I thought the thing about lighting yourself on fire was a joke, but what the hell made you think you should operate the stove with your fucking foot?”

“Hey, that turned out fine!” Phil replied defensively. “Nothing caught on fire…”

Dan stared at him silently. And waited. And waited.

And waited.

“Oh,” Dan saw when Phil finally got it. “That was because of you?” Dan nodded. “Oh … well, thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome,” Dan chuckled.

“But there’s a question you still haven’t answered,” Phil insisted. Dan shrugged, welcoming whatever Phil wanted to ask. “My guardian angel is named Dan? It just seems sort of … boring. Not very fancy, as far as angel names go.”

“You want Puriel back?” Dan quipped. Phil laughed. “To be honest, our real names aren’t in a human language, so we just use these names as a sort of convenience when we actually need to have a conversation with a human, which doesn’t happen as often as you’d think. So I usually go by Daniel, but we’ve been hanging out together for years now, even if you didn’t know it … so I figured you could call me Dan.”

Phil held his hand out again and said, “Well, now that I know who you really are, it’s nice to finally meet you, Dan. And thanks for all the help you’ve apparently been giving me behind the scenes.” They shook hands warmly. “But, hey, why did you let that squirrel bite me? And…”

Dan held up his hands. “No way you’re pinning every bad thing that ever happened to you on me. First of all, I can’t control living creatures, so if you try to pet a goose, that goose has every right to bite you in the butt.” Phil tried to interrupt, but Dan kept talking. “But I also can’t fix everything. If you’re going to try to kill yourself every five seconds, I can only catch you 99 times out of 100. And I think those are pretty good odds. So every time you’ve tripped or knocked something over or fallen down the stairs or something … just imagine if I hadn’t been there to catch you the other 99 times.”

Phil tilted his head in confusion. “But I thought you couldn’t control living creatures, so how could you keep me from falling down the stairs?”

Dan grinned. “I can’t control you, but I can make the handrail suddenly sort of magnetic so that it draws your hand to it. Or I can shift the weight of whatever’s in the bag you’re carrying. Or I can make the step rise up to meet your foot…”

“You can do all that?” Phil marveled, gazing at Dan in wonder.

Dan shrugged modestly and buffed his fingernails against his coat, making Phil laugh again.

They sat there in silence for a little while—Phil just staring at Dan in wonder—when suddenly snow started falling softly around them. Phil held up a hand and smiled. “It’s snowing again. For my birthday.”

Dan just smiled at him.

“Is that you? Are you making it snow?” Dan shrugged again, but gave a mischievous smirk. Phil stood up and stared up at the sky with his arms spread wide. “Well, if you’re making it snow for my birthday, thank you, because I love the snow.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dan replied softly, watching Phil’s blissful expression as he gazed upward and let the snowflakes fall on his face. He looked like what most people would expect an angel to look like. Dan looked down at his black clothes with their random zips, then back at Phil with his arms wide and blissful expression. The contrast couldn’t have been more stark.

Phil began to twirl very slowly, still gazing upward, arms still extended. “You’re going to trip over something,” Dan warned him.

“I have a guardian angel watching out for me,” Phil replied with a little laugh.

Dan just watched Phil enjoy the falling snow for a while before offering another warning. “You’re going to end up drenched, you know. All that snow is melting as soon as it hits the warmth of your body, and it’s just turning to water. It’s like you’re standing in the rain.”

“Standing in the rain is good, too,” Phil said. “But snow is better. I don’t mind it melting. Watching it fall is just the best thing ever.”

After a few more minutes of watching Phil gaze up at the snow, even trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue once or twice, Dan reluctantly admitted, “You may be a pain in the ass to keep alive and safe, but you’re better at this than most people."

"Better at what?" Phil looked down from the sky to see Dan’s face.

"Living.”

Phil frowned. “How can somebody be better at living?”

Dan tried to think of how to explain. “You appreciate things more, like the snow. You smile more than most people, and you make other people smile. You love more, including all creatures, not just humans ... even plants! You reach out and try to offer love where you can. You're kind. You sing more often than most people. You laugh a lot, including at yourself, which most people can't do so well. You try new things instead of always staying with what's safe, and you don't mind if you fail. You do what makes you happy even if it isn't what everyone else is doing. You create beautiful things that no one else could have thought of. You're sensitive to how others are feeling and actively increase the happiness of the other people around you. You're just ... you're better at it. You're a better human than most. You're just ... better at living. You're good at it." He ended this long speech with a slight feeling of embarrassment. He didn’t usually give compliments. He didn’t usually talk much at all, actually. But he’d been watching Phil for a while now, and he’d noticed things.

Phil stared at him in apparent awe, his eyes wide, but he didn’t say anything in response. Dan wondered if he’d been struck dumb by a random string of compliments from a grumpy, black-clad guardian angel … and figured that was actually probably the case. “Come on,” Dan grumbled. “You’re getting soaked. Let’s get you into the coffee shop around the corner to dry off.” He took Phil’s arm and dragged him along, since Phil still seemed dazed.

“I’m better at living?” Phil whispered to him as they walked.

“Forget I said anything,” Dan said gruffly, increasingly embarrassed by his outpouring of emotion.

Phil smiled and seemed a bit less dazed. “I’m good at it. An angel said I’m good at it,” he murmured to himself in wonder.

“I said forget it!” Dan rumbled threateningly.

“No,” Phil said firmly. “I never will. Not my whole life. I will never forget it. Sometimes I really doubt myself … so … so thank you for saying it.”

Dan shrugged uncomfortably and opened the door of the coffee shop, practically shoving Phil inside ahead of him.

—

The coffee shop was deliciously warm after their time in the snow, but it caused the last remaining snowflakes to melt immediately. Water dripped along Dan’s scalp, but he was lucky enough to be wearing a scarf that caught most of the moisture before it could touch his neck.

Phil, however, gave a visible shudder as melted snow practically streamed from his soaking wet hair onto his bare skin. “Do you have a towel from the kitchen?” Dan brusquely asked the startled-looking girl behind the counter. “Or even just a bunch of paper napkins?” She ducked into the back room and emerged with a tea towel which she timidly offered. Dan snatched it from her hand and began vigorously rubbing Phil’s wet hair as Phil tried to bat him away.

Eventually, satisfied that Phil’s hair would at least no longer actually drip water, Dan gave his own hair a quick rub, then offered the wet tea towel back to the barista with an apologetic smile. He knew the dimples this human face had would charm most people into forgiving him almost any bad behavior. “I’m sorry I was so rude when we first came in. It’s freezing out there, and we’d gotten quite a bit of snow on us.”

The barista flushed and returned his smile, taking the tea towel from him. “Let me just put this in the back, and I’ll come take your order. Why don’t you take off your coats and things? It’s nice and toasty in here.” Dan and Phil took her advice and hung their outerwear on the provided rack. Phil rubbed his hands together, then ran his hands up and down his arms to stimulate the blood flow.

“Go on,” Dan told him, looking around at the empty room. “Go sit at the table by the window. I’ll order us some more coffee to warm us up.” He knew Phil would like to watch the snow from the window table, and Phil did indeed smile as he gazed out at the winter wonderland.

When the barista returned, Dan placed their order at the counter before going to join Phil at the table. “Warming up?” he asked. Phil nodded happily. The coffee shop was warm enough that their hair was already drying.

Phil had rested his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, and was gazing out the window. “It’s so beautiful,” he said dreamily. “I love snow. And I must admit it’s nice to watch it from someplace cozy.” He looked at Dan. “I loved standing in it, too, though. Thank you for that.”

Dan rolled his eyes and said, “I already told you you’re welcome. You don’t have to keep thanking me.”

“But what if I want to keep thanking you?” Phil asked impishly. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

Dan sighed heavily, trying to indicate the extreme patience he was showing in the face of Phil’s ridiculousness. He then said, slowly and firmly, “You. Are. Fucking. Welcome. Now shut the fuck up about it.”

Phil gazed at him curiously. “Do all angels swear as much as you do?”

Dan threw his head back in frustration, then raised it up again to look at Phil. “Would you rather have Puriel back? Get your hands all nice and sanitized?”

Phil laughed, then shrugged. “It was a legitimate question. I mean, you do swear a lot.”

“That’s just me,” Dan replied with a huff. “I’m not the sweet and sugary type. Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities.”

“I don’t mind,” Phil said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I like you just the way you are.” He smiled at Dan, and Dan felt a strange kind of fluttery nausea in his human stomach.

“Well, that’s good,” Dan said. “I don’t plan on handing the job off to anyone else, so you’re stuck with me. I don’t know why Puriel complained so much. You’re not that bad.”

Phil grinned. “Even if I do try to light myself on fire by working the stove with my feet?”

Dan laughed. “Even then. You just … keep me on my toes, you might say.”

They both giggled like schoolchildren as the barista approached the table. “The coffee will be ready in a minute, but … he said today was your birthday…” and she placed a red-frosted cupcake on the table, a single burning candle standing on top.

Phil sobered immediately. “For me?” he asked with wide eyes, looking between Dan and the barista and back again.

“For you,” Dan affirmed, then urged Phil, “You have to blow out the candle!”

Phil blew out the candle, then thanked the barista, who just smiled at him and walked away.

“Well,” Dan said impatiently before Phil could thank him again. “Go ahead and eat it!”

“Do you want to share?” Phil asked.

“It’s your birthday. It’s not a proper birthday cake, but it’ll have to do. Now go on!”

“The other cake, the one at the party, it didn’t even have any candles,” Phil said sadly as he began to peel the wrapper off the cupcake. And then he suddenly looked up at Dan with wide eyes. “Is this…” he looked at the revealed cupcake again. “Is this red velvet?”

Dan grinned. “I guess you’ll have to taste it and find out.”

Phil took a big bite of the cupcake and his eyes rolled back in ecstasy. “It is red velvet,” he moaned almost completely unintelligibly with his mouth still full. He swallowed and asked, “How did you know red velvet was my favorite?”

Dan just gave him that look again.

“Oh, right,” Phil giggled, then took another bite. He visibly savored it, then swallowed again. “Are you sure you don’t want a bite?” he asked Dan. Phil was always like that, preferring to share anything he found particularly wonderful, instead of wanting to hoard it for himself. It was one of the things Dan had always found especially admirable about him. Something he’d always found especially endearing. One of the things that had made Dan care about him so much and not mind the constant death-defying challenges.

He couldn’t understand how Puriel couldn’t love someone that generous and kind.

But Puriel was a dick who wouldn’t recognize a truly good person if they kicked him in the ass. Which a good person probably wouldn’t do, come to think of it. But Dan would.

The barista brought their two cups of coffee and showed them the sugar and small pitcher of milk sitting on the table, then told them to let her know if they needed anything else. Phil had his mouth full of cupcake, and Dan was afraid he might spew crumbs in his attempt to thank her, so Dan quickly said, “Thanks! I’m sure these will warm us up.” The barista turned to go, so all Phil did was nod vigorously, keeping his mouth closed as he chewed.

Dan sat, pretending to sip from his coffee, and simply watched Phil devour the cupcake with great relish while looking out the window at the snow. It was like watching happiness personified.

When he’d finally finished the cupcake and chased down most of the remaining crumbs with some coffee of his own, Phil toyed with the candle in his long, pale fingers. “Another year gone,” he said, sounding a little melancholy now.

Dan nodded. “Yup. Another year closer to your inevitable death and the probable doom of this entire universe.”

Phil blinked repeatedly. “You must be the weirdest angel ever.”

“Haven’t met many, have you?” Phil nodded at what was, obviously, a fair point. “There’s some weird ones, let me tell you.”

“But … my inevitable death? The doom of the entire universe?” Phil stared at him, still obviously thrown off balance.

Dan shrugged. “It’s the truth. Happy birthday!” He made ironic jazz hands. As intended, it made Phil laugh again.

“I don’t like to think of it that way,” Phil mused. “It’s more like … another year of working toward making my dreams come true. Maybe someday I’ll actually make it all happen.”

“I have faith in you,” Dan said, caught off guard by his own unintended honesty. At first, he didn’t understand why Phil started giggling, but then he caught on. “Oh, ha ha. Faith from an angel. I get it. It’s not that funny.”

“It is pretty funny,” Phil disagreed, “but thanks for the sentiment.”

Dan thought about the word. “Hmm. I don’t usually think of myself and sentiment having much relation to each other.”

“Maybe I bring out the best in you,” Phil joked with a sunny smile.

Dan tilted his head, giving the idea some consideration. “Well, it’s the case for a lot of other people, so why not me?” Phil looked confused. “You tend to bring out the best in people,” Dan explained.

“I do?” Phil seemed surprised.

Dan shook his head fondly at Phil’s utter incomprehension of his own effect on the world. “Yes, Phil, you do.”

Phil ducked his head, suddenly shy. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Dan didn’t know what to say to that, so they both just sat there for a while. Phil went back to watching the snow falling outside the window as he sipped his coffee. Dan held his coffee mug in his hands and enjoyed the aroma while he watched Phil watch the snow. The coffee wasn’t so hot anymore, but the mug still felt good in his hands. It was nice to get to feel and smell things, one of the benefits of being in a human body.

“So what else would you like to do on your birthday? I gave you snow. What else?”

“Dogs!” Phil replied immediately, looking extremely excited.

“Um, no.” Dan sighed to show he was displaying the utmost patience. “I told you already. I don’t have any control over living creatures. You do understand that dogs are living creatures, right?” he asked sarcastically.

Phil huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. Well, I mean, the fun ones are.”

Dan burst into raucous laughter. “Oh my god! That was the best joke I’ve ever heard you make! We’ll make an edgelord out of you yet!” Phil Lester, making a joke about dead dogs. Dan never would have thought he’d see the day.

Phil frowned in confusion a moment, then suddenly waved his arms in horror, exclaiming, “That’s not what I meant! I meant like, as opposed to plushies! Not … what you were thinking.” He made the cutest little disgusted face.

“Okay, okay,” Dan said, calming down from his fit of amused hysteria. “Aside from living dogs, what would make you happy on your birthday?”

Phil made his funny face where his lips moved to the side, the face he made when he was really thinking about something. “I don’t know. Maybe … sparklers?”

“Sparklers?”

“Yeah,” Phil enthused, getting more excited by the idea as he explained it. “You know, like at Guy Fawkes. You hold the stick in your hand, and you light the other end, and it gives off sparks. Didn’t you ever watch over me on Bonfire Night, all those years?”

“Yes, of course, I know what sparklers are, you moron. I just … you want sparklers for your birthday?” Dan couldn’t believe it. He had almost infinite powers to give Phil whatever he wanted, and Phil wanted … sparklers?

“I like sparklers,” Phil sulked defensively, and took a big slurpy drink of his coffee, which must have gone disgustingly cold by now. He then proceeded to cross his arms and stare pointedly out at the snow, ignoring Dan, his feelings clearly hurt.

The snow stopped.

Phil snorted, annoyed. “You did that on purpose.”

“Well, obviously,” Dan replied. “Otherwise, the snow might put out the flames on the sparklers.”

—

Phil had always loved sparklers, always loved how they seemed to crackle with life and excitement, how they left trails of light behind them when you moved them through the air, but the sparklers Dan created were different.

“Here,” Dan said. “Let me light it for you.” And just as the sparkler had come out of nowhere, the flame seemed to light it with only a gesture from Dan’s hand. The sparks began to fly, and Phil gazed at the glittering, flickering light with fascination. It made that hissing, popping sound that was so familiar from all the Bonfire Nights of his childhood.

He swept the sparkler through the air, and it left a stream of light behind it, just as it always had, just as he’d always loved, but the sparkler Dan had made left a trail that lingered longer than  usual. Phil made loops and swirls, fascinated by the way the light remained in the sky for just a bit longer than he had seen before, long enough for him to create images. He drew a heart, then grinned at Dan. “Aren’t you going to do it, too?”

Dan lit a sparkler for himself and began drawing zigzags and rollercoasters of light. He wrote the name “Philip” in the sky, and then beamed at Phil.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile like that,” Phil said with awe.

Dan looked at him in confusion, the smile falling from his face. “Smile like what?”

“Like … you were happy,” Phil explained. “All your other smiles, they seemed a little sad. But this time, you really just … you just looked happy.” He looked down at the snow. “I’m sorry I ruined it by bringing it up. As soon as I said anything about it, it was gone.”

“It’s not gone,” Dan said quietly, honestly, feeling a soft smile return to his face as he gazed at Phil. “It’s still here.”

Phil returned the smile with a tender one of his own, and then turned to write “Daniel” in the sky with a flourish. Then he drew a happy face afterward and turned to grin at Dan.

Dan snickered and drew an angry face with a “v” over the eyes as furious eyebrows. But Phil just laughed and drew loops around the unhappy face until suddenly Dan saw that it was a series of gracefully shaped hearts. Something inside him stirred again, and he pressed his free hand to his chest to hold it there, that feeling.

And suddenly he knew what it was.

He didn’t want to admit it—it was against all the rules—but it was true. And he wasn’t going to lie.

Not giving himself a chance to hesitate, he turned and wrote with his sparkler, “I love you,” against the darkness of the sky. He kept staring at the trail of glowing words until they had faded completely back into darkness.

He couldn’t look at Phil.

Dan might have been developing these feelings over years of watching and knowing him, but Phil had only met him tonight. To Phil, he was a virtual stranger. There was no way Phil could understand or return his feelings. And yet he hadn’t been able to hold it in, hadn’t been able to hide it, not from Phil. And so he’d written those words in light, and their effect would endure inside him forever, even though their illumination had faded from the night.

He couldn’t look at Phil. Couldn’t stand to see his expression. The pity.

He felt a warmth, a presence by his side, and he knew it was him, it was Phil, but Dan just couldn’t look up, the sparkler still absurdly in his hand, unmoving after writing those damning words in the sky.

But Phil moved to stand in front of him, close, so close, so warm and perfect and everything Dan hadn’t known he wanted, because he wasn’t allowed to want it, wasn’t supposed to want it, and finally Dan hesitantly raised his head to see an exquisitely gentle expression on Phil’s face.

“I love you, too,” Phil whispered, but the quiet words rang in Dan’s ears like a clarion bell. Words he’d never expected to hear, never never never, and then Phil leaned forward and pressed his lips to Dan’s and everything else disappeared. Dan’s entire world was those soft lips against his in a kiss that was everything he’d wanted, everything he wasn’t supposed to have, everything he’d dreamed of, and he realized now that he’d been wanting it for years, that he’d fallen in love with Phil long ago. Phil with his sunshine smile and his kindness and his love for the world. Phil who was like nothing Dan had ever seen before. Phil who was kissing him, kissing him, there in the snowy darkness with sparklers crackling in their hands. He finally began to register all this as Phil slowly, lingeringly pulled away and looked into Dan’s eyes.

Dan didn’t know what Phil saw there, but he knew what he saw in Phil’s eyes, and it was sweet and gentle and fierce all at once. “I love you, too,” Phil repeated. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. I know I only met you a few hours ago. But … I feel like I’ve known you for years. Maybe because you’ve been there for years, and somehow some part of me knew that and felt you there. I can’t explain it, but it’s true.” He raised a chilly hand to Dan’s cheek, where it warmed quickly against his skin. “I feel connected to you like I’ve never felt with anyone else. When you sat beside me on that bench, it was like finding another part of myself.”

Suddenly, Phil lowered his hand and looked away, biting his lip. “Does that sound stupid? You just … you wrote that with the sparkler … and then I just … maybe you didn’t even mean it. You were just messing around…”

Dan stopped those stupid words, pressing forward for another kiss, this time a little less gentle, and he let his sparkler fall to the snowy ground, where it hissed and spat before the flame died out. He wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist in his thick winter coat and pulled him nearer, wanting him as near as possible, wanting nothing more than Phil in this entire universe and beyond. He heard another hissing sound as Phil’s sparkler dropped beside his own, and then felt Phil’s arms around his neck as Phil tilted his head slightly to deepen the kiss, and it was heaven. Dan had never been to any heaven as an angel, only taken orders like a good foot soldier in the supernatural bureaucracy, only watched over people on earth as they lived and loved in ways he never thought he could ever experience, but now he felt what he thought all those people had meant when they said something felt like heaven, because this was it.

When Phil finally pulled away—because Dan would never have pulled away, never never never, he would have continued kissing Phil until the end of time—they gazed at each other in the darkness. Without the sparklers, the night around them was lit only by the windows from the coffee shop a little distance away.

“I think I’ve been in love with you a long time,” Dan admitted hesitantly, looking into Phil’s eyes as they gleamed in the dim light. “I just didn’t know what it was, because I’d never felt that way before. I only knew that I cared what happened to you, a lot more than I’d ever cared about any of the other humans I’d protected. In hundreds of years of watching over people, I’d never felt this way. But until tonight … I didn’t know what it was.”

Phil slid his hands down from around Dan’s neck until he could entwine his fingers with Dan’s, both their hands linked together by their sides as they stood so close that their visible breaths mingled in the cold air.

“So what happens now?” Phil asked hesitantly.

And with that simple question, Phil shattered Dan’s heart and his world.

—

Dan had brushed the snow off the bench with the sleeve of his coat, and they both sat there under the streetlamp. Dan had pulled his feet up and wrapped his arms around his knees, clasping his hands and huddling there for warmth. This human body felt the cold. Not earlier, not when they played with the sparklers, when Phil smiled at him, when Phil stood close and they had … but now, now his body felt the cold.

He rested his cheek on his knees, face turned toward Phil, who sat on the bench beside him.

“So you’re just going to leave,” Phil said, his voice stiff and angry. “After all that, you’re just going to leave.”

“I’m not leaving, Phil. You know that. I’ll still be here.” Dan knew his words weren’t going to help, but he didn’t know anything that would, so all he could do was tell the truth.

Phil huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, right. My invisible friend. And you don’t even seem to care. You’re just sitting there, like … like it doesn’t even matter.” Phil turned his back on Dan, looking toward the warmly lit coffee shop where they’d been so happy an hour ago.

“Of course it matters,” Dan rasped out. His throat felt choked, so he cleared it, but it didn’t help. Maybe it was a human thing. “It always matters. But I can’t stay. Even now, I’m breaking the rules, just by being here, by being with you.” Phil didn’t say anything, the line of his back rigid in the lamplight. “I shouldn’t take human form and interact with you in the human world at all. But … tonight, on this bench … you seemed so sad … so lonely … I couldn’t leave you here alone. And so I came again…”

“Again?” Phil almost roared, and the sound echoed in the quiet of the late night in the little park. Dan realized that he had underestimated how upset Phil was. No, not upset—angry. Hurt and angry. Because of Dan. The opposite of what he would ever have wanted. But soon that would all be erased … along with everything else. The thought brought Dan little comfort. Phil turned to look at him again, his face contorted with anguish, his voice quiet now, rigidly controlled. “You’ve been here before? Did I not see you … or did you look different…?”

“I’ve come twice before,” Dan admitted. “Only two times … times when you seemed most lonely and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I’d never taken human shape before with any of my charges, but twice before tonight I did, I came to you … but it wasn’t the same. I just … you needed to talk, needed someone to listen … needed to know that someone cared. And so I came, and I listened to you, and I let you know that I am always here, always with you, always caring … and it seemed to help. And then I erased your memories of my visit, but the comfort lingered and your smile returned … and I felt better, that I had helped you, even if you wouldn’t remember me. I would remember for both of us.” He sniffed, and told himself it was the cold, not oncoming tears, and said, “Just like I’ll remember for both of us this time, too.”

Dan, tightened his arms around his knees and turned his face as soon as he felt the tears begin to sting his eyes, turned his face away from Phil and rested his other cheek on his knees, looking away into the darkness beyond the street lamp.

“Wait a minute,” Phil said haltingly. “You’re going to erase my memories?” Dan didn’t reply, because he knew it wasn’t really a question, not after what he’d just said.

“This whole night?” Phil continued. “Everything? You’re going to wipe it all from my brain like none of it ever happened? Does it mean that little to you?” Phil sounded absolutely destroyed by the final few words, his voice shredded almost to nothing.

“I don’t have a choice,” Dan cried, still looking away, unable to look at Phil and see the expression on his face right now. “There are rules! I don’t get to just do whatever I want, Phil. I’m not like you! I’m a guardian angel, and we have rules we have to follow or the entire structure would collapse.”

After a long silence, Dan finally turned to look back at Phil, and he looked angrier than Dan had ever seen him before. An anger that roiled beneath the surface, while Phil’s face looked perfectly still. When their eyes met, Phil said slowly, carefully, “So why did you say you loved me? Why did you kiss me? Why did you do any of that, when all the time you were planning to take it back?”

Dan didn’t know what to say.

Phil nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Just getting your jollies, huh?” Then he laughed with no humor in the sound. “Christmas was a month ago, you moron.” He froze, then said, “Hell, you could have been here, then, too, and I would never know it. You could just keep playing with my brain over and over again.” Dan could see his anger grow with every sentence now, with every word. “Did we ever have sex? Because I suppose it wouldn’t count as rape if I was willing at the time, but I’m not sure if you erased my memory of it afterward…”

Dan shouted, “Stop! I told you! I was only here those other two times, and all I did was listen. This was the first time I ever … I never even realized how I felt about you until tonight.”

“And so you thought you’d take advantage of that nifty memory erasure power…” Phil began, but Dan interrupted him.

“I didn’t plan any of this!” Dan sobbed, and tears were streaking down his face now, hot against the cold of his skin. “I just … it took me by surprise. I’d never felt this way, never … never sat in a cozy window seat with a handsome man I loved … never played. I was never a child, Phil, so I’d never played before, never laughed with a friend and felt a sparkler in my hand and swung it through the air.” He wiped at his cheeks then dropped his chin to his knees again. “I … I lost control, Phil. I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to have any of this. It’s against the rules, and this must be the reason, because I should never lose control like that. I’m sorry. I should have just … I should have just listened to you like I did before and then gone. Even that would have broken the rules, but it wouldn’t have been so selfish. I should never have let the rest of that happen. It was very wrong of me. I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes, because he could feel more tears gathering, threatening to fall.

Phil’s voice was soft when he said, “You were never a child? And you think it was wrong to play?”

Dan opened his eyes, and he gazed at Phil through eyelashes covered in teardrops that glistened like crystals in the lamplight. As Dan looked at him, they framed Phil’s face like some kind of ironic halo. “I’m not human, Phil. I don’t have a life. I just have an eternity of watching from the outside, an eternity of guarding the human world, keeping people safe. That’s all I’ll ever have. Except … tonight.”

“You said you weren’t supposed to have any of this. I thought you meant love, kissing, all of that. But you mean the rest, too? Even just … even just the coffee? I noticed you only pretended to sip at yours. Was that why you wouldn’t take a bite of my cupcake? Because someone told you it wasn’t allowed?”

Dan sighed. Phil just didn’t understand. Dan gazed at him through the scattered stars of his own tears. “We don’t have anything for ourselves, Phil. We aren’t supposed to. We don’t get to have guardian angel parties, even with white cake, let alone red velvet cupcakes. We don’t have anything for ourselves. We only exist to serve. I only watch. I watch your Bonfire Nights, with the sparklers. I watch you walk through crowded streets and bump elbows with strangers and apologize to them because you’re always too nice. I watch you laugh with your family and friends, watch how you love them, how they smile at you with such affection. I watch you play video games and drink pumpkin spice lattes and take the Tube. I watch you curl up by warm fires with a blanket over your lap and a cup of hot chocolate. I watch you live a life, but I don’t live, Phil. I don’t get to have that. I was created to watch over you, to keep you safe, to make your life as healthy and happy as possible. And that’s what I do. It’s my place in the world. And I treasure it. I treasure my ability to help you, even though it is from afar. It’s my reason for existence.”

Neither of them said anything for a long beat, and then Dan whispered, “I don’t get to have a life, Phil. And, no matter what happened tonight, no matter how I feel about you, I can’t let you keep the memories, and I don’t get to stay. I just … can’t. I have no right. I just … I’m not human.”

This time the silence stretched on so long that Dan wondered if Phil was going to just get up and walk away. But then Phil asked, “So … if you don’t have guardian angel parties … does that mean you’ve never had a cupcake?”

Dan laughed on a sob. “No, Phil,” he laughed at the absurdity and his own grief. “I’ve never had a cupcake.” His cheeks were wet again now, the tears rapidly cooling in the wintery air.

And then suddenly his left wrist was grabbed forcefully, causing his other arm to fall loose and his legs to slide off the bench. He turned his head to gaze up at Phil, who stood beside him, holding Dan’s wrist in a tight grip. “Then come on,” Phil said in the most determined voice Dan had ever heard from him. “Because I’m buying you a fucking cupcake.”

Dan hadn’t heard Phil use that particular swear word often, aside from when he played video games, so he knew Phil was serious about this ridiculous idea. But this was neither the time nor the place. In fact, there was no time or place in which it would ever be appropriate for Phil Lester to buy him a fucking cupcake.

“Are you going to make me drag you there?” Phil asked through gritted teeth. “Because that might traumatize the girl who was so nice to us.”

Dan sighed. “Why would you want to buy me a cupcake, Phil? After everything I’ve just told you?”

“If you don’t get to stay…” Phil looked away and his throat worked for a moment before he continued. “If you don’t get to stay, if you have to go back to that, then I want to at least give you a cupcake to remember.”

“That sounds like a terrible Hallmark movie,” Dan laughed through his tears. “A Cupcake to Remember.”

—

The cupcake had come with three candles on it. Dan looked at Phil in question as the barista walked back behind the counter, well away from their window table.

“One candle for each time you’ve come to see me,” Phil explained with a grin. “Like your three birthdays.”

Dan would never understand how Phil could take such absolutely absurd situations and simply adjust to them, simply accept them and move on. Now he had accepted that Dan had been here before, and he didn’t hold on to any anger or recriminations. Instead, he just got Dan a cupcake with three candles.

Dan blew the candles out. Like he’d seen a million times. Like a real person having a real birthday.

“So what do you think?” Phil asked when Dan took the first bite, his voice eager as he watched Dan’s face.

A bit uncomfortable under the scrutiny—not accustomed to being the one observed—Dan chewed and swallowed, which in itself was an odd sensation. “It’s … interesting.”

“Just interesting?” Phil sounded disappointed. “It’s a red velvet cupcake! You don’t like it?”

Dan considered how to explain. “Well, to be honest, I’ve never eaten anything before, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to.” He took another bite. The cake felt spongey in his mouth, with a rather pleasing texture. He liked it better than the sweeter icing.

Phil’s jaw dropped, literally. The gaping mouth was not his most attractive look. “You’ve … you’ve never eaten anything before?”

Dan looked around, making sure the barista was not within hearing distance. “Phil … I’m not human. Guardian angels don’t eat. We just … watch. I just watch over you. I see you eat every day, see you enjoy food, but I don’t get to enjoy it myself. I’m glad when I see you enjoy it, though. I like to see you happy. If all I can do is watch, I like to watch you be happy.” He chuckled a bit to himself. “Food seems to make you very happy. Especially popcorn and sweets.” He took another bite of the cupcake. Eating really was a very strange experience.

Phil shook his head in wonder. “You really … wait! Here! Drink some of my coffee!” He pushed his mug into Dan’s hand. This time they hadn’t ordered two, just a coffee for Phil and the cupcake for Dan. Dan looked at Phil in confusion. “A cupcake is much better with coffee! And I’ll bet you’ve never drunk coffee before, either, even though I’ve seen you hold it in your hands.”

Obediently, not sure why he felt compelled to humor Phil’s whims, Dan took a sip of the coffee. It was warm and sweet and smooth in his mouth, and it washed cupcake crumbs with it as it flowed down his throat. He imagined he could even feel its warmth in his belly. He nodded to Phil. “It’s good.” He smiled.

In the end, the cupcake defeated him, and Phil had to finish it, which he did with great enjoyment, despite having eaten an entire cupcake of his own not long before. Dan, in turn, finished the coffee. He decided that he preferred coffee to cupcakes, but opted to keep that thought to himself, lest he hurt Phil’s feelings. Phil had been so excited about the cupcake, after all.

They sat silently together at the table, an empty plate in front of Phil, an empty mug in Dan’s hands, both of them watching the snow which had begun falling again outside. This time, Dan hadn’t needed to prompt it.

“So,” Phil began softly, “you can’t stay.” Dan shook his head. They met each other’s eyes, sharing their regret. “Do you need to leave right away? Could you stay until tomorrow?” Phil looked hopeful, but Dan silently shook his head again.

Dan looked down into his empty mug. He’d tasted food and drink for the first time tonight. He’d played in the snow. He’d kissed someone he loved. He couldn’t ask for more. He’d already taken too much, far more than he should.

“This is all…” he began, but Phil interrupted him.

“Against the rules. I know.” Phil sounded bitter now. “You know, these rules really suck.”

That surprised a laugh out of Dan, but then he nodded in reluctant agreement. “They really really do.”

“Are you going to erase my memory now? Leave me sitting in a coffee shop wondering why there are three candles on my empty plate?” Phil’s quiet voice held pain and acceptance.

How could Phil accept even this?

How could he accept it when even Dan could not?

Because Dan found that he couldn’t. He must be the worst fucking guardian angel in the history of existence, because these rules made no fucking sense to him, and he absolutely could not accept that he had to erase himself and this wonderful, beautiful night from Phil’s memory.

“What if…” Dan began hesitantly. Could he really do this? Visiting Phil was one thing, but this … this would be a much more serious breach of the rules. He’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing. “What if I didn’t erase your memory?” he finished in a quiet rush.

Phil’s head came up and he stared at Dan, shocked. “I thought that was…” but Dan interrupted him.

“Against the rules. Yeah. It is. But what if I didn’t?” Dan gazed anxiously at Phil.

Phil shrugged in confusion. “Then I would remember everything we did tonight.” He smiled. “Everything.” His gaze flicked down to Dan’s lips, then back up to his eyes.

“But, that isn’t everything that would change,” Dan insisted, frustrated with Phil’s lack of understanding. “You would always know, from now on. You would always know about me. That I’m watching. That I’m there. That’s what’s not permitted. Humans can’t know about us or it might change their behavior, and we’re merely observers. We’re not supposed to change your lives except in the small ways we help to keep you safe.”

Phil put his hand on Dan’s underneath the table and met his eyes with steely determination. “So I would know for the rest of my life that I wasn’t alone, that you were always with me, that someone was always on my side and watching out for me. I don’t see how that could be a bad thing.”

“I’m not going to do it,” Dan said, making the sudden decision at the same time as the words erupted from his mouth. “I’m not going to erase your memory.”

“But what about the rules?” Phil asked, suddenly anxious. “Will something happen to you if you don’t?”

“I don’t know,” Dan admitted. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before. But I’m not erasing this night, not for anything. I don’t want to hold the memory for both of us … I want us to hold it together.” They smiled at each other like shy co-conspirators.

They held hands tightly, and Dan never wanted to let go. He’d heard it so many times, but he’d never understood it when humans said that, when they said, “I never want to let go,” but now he knew. Because now he felt it.

“Are you sure you can’t stay? Absolutely sure?” Phil sounded despondent.

Dan felt pain in his chest and wondered if this was what humans meant when they talked about “heartbreak.” How could he learn so much in one night? And all by breaking the rules! Was this why the rules existed, to prevent guardian angels from learning about humans, instead of preventing humans from learning about guardian angels? Or both?

He spoke firmly, despite his own agonized feelings. “There are rules, Phil, and I might be breaking a lot of them tonight, but this is the biggest one. It’s impossible. No one has ever done it.”

“Just because no one has ever done it doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Phil replied with just the slightest amount of hope in his voice, but Dan just shook his head and gazed morosely into the empty coffee cup.

“I can’t stay, Phil. I have to go. But you know I’m not actually going anywhere. I’ll still be here.” He looked up to meet Phil’s beautiful, gentle, loving eyes. So sad, but so beautiful. “Will you promise me something?”

“Anything,” Phil replied without hesitation.

“Promise me you’ll move out of that miserable flat,” Dan insisted, fighting off his own despair with bravado. “Away from that terrible cunt of a flatmate. Find someplace of your own, someplace you can be happy.”

Tears gathered in those beautiful eyes. “I promise.”

“You know I’ll see if you break your word.” Dan tried to smile, but felt he probably did a poor job of it.

Phil gave a wobbly smile of his own. “I won’t. I’ll give David my notice tonight and find another place. I’ll be out by the end of next month.”

“Just … be happy, Phil. Nobody deserves it more than you do.”

Phil didn’t say anything, just gazed wordlessly at Dan.

“And … just know … I’m always here,” Dan added at last.

They both sat there a moment before Dan gave into his impulse, winding his hands into Phil’s hair and pulling him into a quick, fierce kiss which immediately gentled into something achingly sweet before he let their lips part. He looked into Phil’s pale eyes for a long moment, enjoying the warmness of him, the realness of him, the realness of them both, their last moment of togetherness. And then he let go and stood up from the table.

Dan walked away from Phil and past the wide-eyed barista, opening the shop door and hearing the chime as he walked through. He would not let himself look back as the door swung shut behind him. He stepped into the falling snow and relished its cold on his skin as he walked away from the coffee shop and into the darkness beyond its windows, beyond the lamplights. He walked into the dark until all he left behind was the imprint of two zippered boots on pristine white snow.

—

He saw Phil sit alone in the coffee shop for a long time, holding the empty mug in his hands and looking at the three candles on the empty plate in front of him, occasionally gazing out at the snow with a melancholy smile and eyes shining with tears.

And then he got to watch Phil walk home to tell his shocked fucking fuckwad of a flatmate that he was moving out.

—

Phil and his friend Chris packed kitchenware together into a large box.

“How long have you been flatmates with this bloke?” Chris asked.

Phil shrugged. “About three years, I think.”

“And you still keep all your plates and mugs and things in separate cabinets? After all this time?” Chris seemed offended on Phil’s behalf. Dan could tell he thought David must be a real twat.

He was absolutely correct on that score, of course.

“David didn’t want me using his things,” Phil replied, and Dan wanted to strangle the selfish little twat with his inconveniently incorporeal hands. But the all-important rules said he mustn’t affect the lives of anyone other than his assigned charge, which was Phil, so he couldn’t even cause any kind of accidental mishaps that might send Phil’s soon-to-be-former flatmate slipping on some conveniently located ice or anything. Phil added, “He says I break things.”

Well, okay, Dan had to admit that was fair.

Chris nodded. “Well, that’s fair,” he said, echoing Dan’s thoughts. Dan liked Chris. In fact, Dan liked all of Phil’s small collection of friends. Phil had good taste in people, in general, because he looked for humor and kindness above all, and those were excellent qualities, in Dan’s opinion. Dan had to admit that he even considered himself to display those qualities. He might not be the most cheerful entity in the universe, but he did think of himself as kind—to those who deserved it—and he certainly saw the humor in things—probably even in many things he shouldn’t. He liked irony, sarcasm, and dark humor. He wasn’t sure if those above him in the power structure would approve, but he didn’t really care.

He cared less about them, and about the rules, than he used to, even if he’d never been the most obedient and obliging of employees. He’d always tried, and he still tried today … but he just cared more about something else now. Or, rather, someone.

Half an hour later, Phil and Chris began carrying boxes down the steps to the small lorry Phil had rented. Phil misstepped and very nearly fell all the way down the stairway and broke his damned neck, but Dan made the stair quickly rise up to meet his gigantic clumsy foot, and Phil instead only came dangerously close to dropping a box full of mismatched crockery.

“Watch it there, mate!” Chris called out in surprised concern. “You’ll crack your head open falling down these concrete stairs!”

But Phil only took a few more careful steps before replying with a slight smile, “My guardian angel must be watching over me.”

In his incorporeal heart Dan smiled, too, even though Phil couldn’t see him.

—

On Valentine’s Day, Phil refused his friends’ invitation to go out together. Phil often refused invitations to go out, as he preferred to stay in, so this was nothing unusual, but instead of video games or his other usual pastimes, Phil sat on his new sofa in his new flat, surrounded by cardboard moving boxes, and watched The Notebook on Netflix, sobbing as if his heart was breaking.

Perhaps it was.

Or perhaps it already had.

Had Dan done that to him? Had he betrayed his only reason for existence by actually hurting the one person he was meant to protect from harm?

In the evening, Phil took a bus to the coffee house near his old flat and ordered a red velvet cupcake. The young man at the counter told him that they didn’t sell red velvet cupcakes. When Phil argued that he’d bought one only two weeks prior, the employee assured him that the bakery did not provide them with red velvet cupcakes, and so they’d never been available at this location.

Phil nodded slowly, giving a secret little wry smile as if he understood that Dan had made those particular cupcakes happen on that particular evening just for him, and Dan again felt a smile burgeon within his angelic heart. It was a slightly sad incorporeal smile, though, because it hurt to see Phil back in that coffee house alone, remembering him.

Phil ordered a plain chocolate cupcake with a cup of coffee and went to sit down. Half the tables were full, including the one at the window, so Phil sat at another table nearby to wait for his name to be called. With more than one table occupied, the employee working the counter certainly wouldn’t bring orders to the patrons’ tables as the friendly barista had on the night Dan and Phil had been there together.

When Phil’s name was called, he fetched his order and sat at a table not too far from the window, discreetly watching the couple sitting there. When they moved to stand up, Phil moved as quickly as was politely possible to claim the table before anyone else could.

He sat a long time at the table—their table—gazing out the window at the falling snow. He nursed his coffee, drinking the entire thing as slowly as possible, but he only ate half his cupcake, and there were no candles on the plate beside it when he left it behind.

Afterward, Phil sat on the bench in the little park until he was shivering with cold. His dark hair drenched with melted snow, he walked slowly back to the bus stop, where he sat with his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground, until the bus eventually came to take him back to his new flat.

—

“You’re listening to the Internet Takeover with AmazingPhil, and that was Lion Babe! Did you like it? If so, shoot me a message to tell me what you think. And now I have a special dedication. It’s a belated Valentine’s Day dedication to everyone out there who spent this particular holiday alone. Don’t give up, because there may still be someone out there for you! This is an oldie but a goodie, and it’s called ’Someone to Watch Over Me’…”

—

Phil visited Florida with his family, and Martyn commented that his little brother seemed more subdued than usual.

“I’m just … missing someone,” Phil replied, obviously so relaxed in the company of loved ones that he wasn’t thinking to be circumspect about his words.

Martyn heartily clapped him on the back. “I didn’t even know you were dating anybody!” he said with obvious happiness.

Phil blinked. He looked at Martyn. “Oh,” he stammered, “I’m not.”

Martyn looked confused, but said in a more subdued voice, “Well, then, if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Dan knew Phil wouldn’t talk about it.

—

Phil attended a major YouTube convention, where he met a great many people—both members of his audience and fellow content creators—who hugged him, and Dan wanted to cut all their arms off, because these strangers shouldn’t get to hug Phil when Dan couldn’t.

The desire to dismember people wasn’t a very appropriate thought for a guardian angel, but since when had Dan confined himself to appropriate thoughts?

One fan after another told Phil that watching him had changed their lives, and Dan just kept thinking, “I’m not alive, I don’t have a life, I don’t get to have a life, but … same.”

—

“You’re listening to the Internet Takeover with AmazingPhil! I’ve got a request here from @snow-dude, so we’re going to play Evanescence’s ‘My Immortal’...”

—

Phil looked more uncomfortable at this particular party than Dan had perhaps ever seen him before. He’d been told to expect just a few friends, but the few friends had brought another few friends, and Phil’s mate’s flat ended up filled with more people than Phil usually socialized with in a month. Or even two.

Wearing his minimal Halloween costume of cat ears on his head and whiskers drawn on his face, Phil sat on a sofa in the lounge, looking at his phone, obviously hoping no one would talk to him.

A rather handsome fellow dressed as Thor—lacking somewhat in the muscles department, despite the fact that he obviously did work out a bit—joined Phil on the sofa and said hello. Dan would have gnashed his teeth if he had any.

“Hi,” Thor said, smiling in a very friendly way. Not too friendly, not edging into creepy, but just friendly enough to put a nerd like Phil at ease.

“Hi,” Phil replied, putting his phone down like any polite Englishman would when confronting a blatant social assault.

“A cat, huh?” Thor commented. Dan decided that the guy must be a moron.

“A cat/human hybrid,” Phil replied, then held up his hands like claws and showed his teeth before laughing awkwardly.

Thor laughed along with him. “So … um … Bryony tells me you do YouTube. I know she used to be into that, but I don’t know much about it. What sort of videos do you make?”

Phil looked physically pained at his complete inability to escape this conversation. And then Thor slid his hand down onto Phil’s shoulder and squeezed slightly. Dan didn’t have fists, but in his mind he clenched them anyway. He clenched his nonexistent fists in an overwhelming desire to punch this Thor fucker in the fucking face.

But Phil just scooted away slightly, avoiding Thor’s hand, and looked away. “Um … I’m sort of … I’m sort of hung up on someone…”

Thor looked mortified. “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry! Bryony didn’t tell me, or I wouldn’t have…”

Phil smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I haven’t really told anybody about it. But I just can’t move on, you know?”

Thor looked extremely uncomfortable when faced with a complete stranger’s romantic sob story—he, too, was English, after all—and so he removed himself from the situation pretty speedily.

“That’s right!” Dan thought. “You just keep moving! And you don’t look anything like Thor, anyway! Just so you know!”

But Dan had watched every moment of Phil’s life this past year, so he knew Phil hadn’t dated anyone in the past several months, and so if he was hung up on someone … it was still Dan. And that really shouldn’t make him happy, because it was making Phil miserable, and Dan’s job was to try to keep Phil happy and healthy.

But it still made him happy.

Not that Phil was sad. He wasn’t happy about that, of course not.

But the fact that Phil still thought about him, about that night in the snow together … he couldn’t help but feel happy about that, because Dan hadn’t forgotten it for a single second since it happened.

—

Phil scrubbed the stovetop from where he’d spilled some pasta and it had burned into a crusted-on mess. He had to exert quite a bit of effort, but he got into a sort of rhythm with his scrubbing as he hummed in time with his movements.

Then Dan recognized the song Phil was humming.

Knowing Phil, it wouldn’t be long before he started to sing, and sure enough a moment later Phil started belting out Betty Who’s “Somebody Loves You.”

Who’s around when the days feel long Who’s around when you can’t be strong Who’s around when you’re losing your mind Who cares that you get home safe Who knows you can’t be replaced Who thinks that you’re one of a kind

Dan tried to contain an inward chuckle at Phil singing alone there in his kitchen, scrubbing at his disgusting stovetop, but he didn’t have to try very hard. He actually didn’t find it all that funny, because he really hoped that Phil thought of him when he sang this song.

Dan suddenly realized he’d been hearing Phil humming this tune for days, but just hadn’t identified it until now.

Phil continued singing.

I’m around when your head is heavy I’m around when your hands aren’t steady I’m around when your day’s gone all wrong

Dan listened until he finally couldn’t help it and in his mind he chimed in unison with Phil, “Ooh somebody loves you…” even though Phil, of course, couldn’t hear him.

—

“Phil? Martyn? Will one of you come help your poor mother?” Phil’s mum called out to her sons. Most of the decorations already adorned the tree, but only the pinnacle remained.

Phil looked up from where he had been placing one of the final baubles on a lower branch and asked, “What is it, Mum?”

“It’s the angel,” she replied, and Phil blanched. “We need to put it on the top of the tree, and I’m not tall enough, even with the stool.”

“Ask Martyn,” Phil choked, and he raced out of the room.

Phil fled to the guest room containing his things and closed the door, sliding down to sit with his back against it, making sure that no one would follow him in to ask what was wrong.

And then Phil cried. Silently into his hands, not wanting any of his family to hear. He cried for a long time.

And if Dan could have, he would have cried, too.

—

Phil was eating dinner with four good friends at a rather nice Thai restaurant. Nothing uncomfortably fancy, but not a place he would casually frequent. Dressed much more nicely than usual, he seemed quite at ease and happy with his companions, who laughed perhaps a bit more loudly than he did, but Phil was rarely a loud person, except occasionally when playing video games.

Phil smiled with contentment, and Dan couldn’t help feeling as if he’d played a role in getting Phil to this place in his life, that he’d set Phil on this better path even if it had only been by encouraging him to leave that wretched flatmate behind last year.

Dan could barely believe the change in Phil’s circumstances. He was thriving now: living in his own flat which he’d furnished with his own things exactly to his own tastes, succeeding admirably both on YouTube and on his radio show at the BBC, closer than ever to both friends and family.

But there was one fly in the ointment. That lingering bit of sadness behind his eyes. That sense that he longed for something—someone—he’d lost forever. Those song dedications. His refusal to date.

—

It was just too much. Watching him suffer like that … it was too much.

—

A pair of black zippered boots appeared, attached to a black-clad form slightly hidden in the grass some distance from the door to the restaurant. It had been a warm January and so the snow had not settled in the warmer areas, but a bit lingered at Dan’s feet in the shadows.

He stepped onto the pavement and walked to the restaurant’s door, opening it and going inside, where a rather officious-looking little man at a podium asked him if he had a reservation. Dan hesitated a moment, then told the host that he was with the Lester party.

As the man led him through the restaurant, Dan began to feel increasingly nervous. How would Phil react? Were people staring at him? Could they tell that something was not quite right about Dan? Would Phil’s friends find him odd? Would he make Phil uncomfortable at his own birthday celebration? Perhaps this had been a bad idea.

But it was too late to turn back now, because Phil had seen him.

Phil’s friends continued their conversation, but Phil simply stared at Dan, his mouth slightly open in shock. When Dan arrived at the table, Phil didn’t say anything, though his friends all fell silent, turning to look at Dan with open curiosity. The host glanced uncertainly at Dan, obviously wondering now whether Dan had lied about being a member of the party at the table, wondering whether he’d be forced to somehow eject Dan from the premises despite Dan’s comparatively impressive size.

Dan glanced at the floor, then back to meet Phil’s eyes again. “Surprise?” he offered lamely. “May I … I thought perhaps I might join you. If … if you like.”

The restaurant’s host glanced between Phil and Dan, clearly uncertain. “Sir, this gentleman said he was a member of your party. But if he is bothering you…”

“No!” Phil replied quickly. “No! He’s not bothering me … us. I mean … yes … I know him … he is with us.”

With their odd-numbered party of five, there was, in fact, a spare place setting at the table. It was at the opposite end from where Phil sat, and Dan hesitated, nervous about joining the group and sitting so alone. Phil’s friends looked from Phil to Dan, clearly waiting for some explanation of the situation.

Phil stammered in obvious disbelief, “This is my … friend … Dan. I … I haven’t … I haven’t seen him … in a really long time. I had no idea he might be coming.” His friends seemed a bit confused, and Phil noticed their reactions. “He’s a very dear friend,” he hurried to explain, and Dan felt a surge of emotion at the description. “Would you … would you mind changing seats so that we can sit together? It’s been far too long since I’ve seen him and … I just…” Phil trailed off in wordless shock. But his friends just smiled and rearranged themselves, moving their plates and things with them as they scooted along to make room for Dan to sit at Phil’s right side.

“Hi,” Dan said quietly, with a bit of a shy smile.

“Hi,” Phil replied with more happiness in his eyes than Dan had seen in a very long time. In a year, perhaps, since that night in the snow. That tiny lingering sadness had completely disappeared.

“I’m Bryony,” one of Phil’s friends introduced herself when it became apparent that Phil was not going to do the honors. Dan already knew her name, of course. She was one of Phil’s closest friends, and Dan already liked her immensely. He gave her a warm smile.

Phil jolted out of his daze and quickly introduced everyone else. They all welcomed Dan with open friendliness, as kind and generous as Phil himself. Phil had such excellent friends. Dan felt honored to finally meet them. He said as much, and they looked at him oddly. “Phil has … spoken of you often,” he said awkwardly, because that wasn’t quite a lie. Phil had spoken of them often, just not directly to Dan. “I feel as if I know you already.”

“That’s odd,” Phil’s friend Thomas commented, glancing at Phil. “He’s never mentioned you.”

“I asked him not to,” Dan explained quickly, uncertain if perhaps he was just making things worse. “Our relationship has been … an odd one.” Thomas’s eyebrows went up, and Phil’s friends exchanged knowing looks. “Not the way that sounds…” Dan stuttered, realizing that he’d just implied a secret romantic relationship and may have made Phil uncomfortable.

“Exactly the way that sounds,” Phil said firmly, smiling at Dan. He looked at his friends. “I’m glad you finally get to meet him. Dan and I have been very close for a long time, but I never thought I’d get this chance for you all to know each other.” He reached out and took Dan’s hand with a smile so full of bliss that all Dan’s doubts fell away.

“How long are you staying?” Phil asked. “I mean … how long will you be in town?” He glanced uncertainly at his friends, clearly trying to behave and sound as normal as possible in this ridiculously abnormal situation.

“I thought I’d stick around this time,” Dan offered tentatively. “Move here. We could see each other all the time, you know? So I’m looking for a flat.” Dan floundered. “And … er … a job, I suppose. I’ll need one of those.”

Phil’s face went pale, then flushed. “You’re … you’re staying?” he asked, wonder in his voice.

Dan nodded. “If that’s … what you want.”

“Yes!” Phil exclaimed without hesitation. “Yes, that’s what I want! Of course that’s what I want! I can’t believe … you’re really staying? Permanently?”

“Permanently,” Dan affirmed, reassured by Phil’s excited response.

“Well, if you’re staying,” Phil’s friend Thomas interrupted with good cheer, “then you may as well break bread with us. We’re sharing everything family-style, so help yourself!”

Dan looked at the various dishes on the table with some trepidation. He knew what all the foods were, as he’d watched Phil eat and discuss them on previous occasions, but he had no idea how they would actually taste. He reached out toward a green curry, which he knew Phil liked quite a bit, but Phil put a hand on his arm to stop him. “That one’s a bit spicy,” Phil warned. “You might want to start with something milder. Maybe the pad thai.”

Phil’s friends had resumed their eating, but now paused again to glance in confusion at this exchange.

“This is my first time…” Dan began, uncertain how to explain.

“His first time having Thai food,” Phil finished for him, saving him. Dan nodded. It was true, after all.

Everyone else at the table expressed their surprise that Dan had never had Thai food before and all made suggestions regarding which dishes he should try first. Dan followed Phil’s suggestions and ended up with a modest amount of food on his plate.

Dan had heard people talk about food millions of times. He’d watched people eat millions of times. But that red velvet cupcake last year was the only food he’d ever tasted, and now ... he tasted all kinds of flavors. Like a real person, he was just … eating, which was completely different from observing it from the outside, from an immeasurable distance.

It was an overwhelming experience. So many sensations all at once.

He glanced at Phil and saw him watching Dan with concern. And suddenly everything was all right. He was with Phil. He took another bite of pad thai, and he tasted noodles, and he heard Phil’s friends talk to him as if he were real, because he was real, he was finally real, and he was human, and he was with Phil.

He chewed his noodles and swallowed, and gave Phil a smile. He wasn’t just an invisible guardian anymore—he was part of this world. With Phil.

In the end, he decided that his favorite dish was the fresh spring roll with shrimp, dipped in a peanut sauce that left a slight burning sensation on his tongue. That must be what “spicy” tasted like.

When they’d all finished and the plates had been cleared from the table, a member of the waitstaff arrived with a white-frosted cake topped with four flaming candles. “Three candles for the decades, and one for the additional year,” Bryony explained, and everyone laughed. Phil blew out the candles, and the cake was placed on the table where they could all see it in greater detail.

On the white surface, a forest scene had been hand drawn in primarily red piping. Squirrels, rabbits, foxes, and hedgehogs cavorted among plants and trees piped in green, with blue-piped stars scattered above their heads. The candles had been planted among the stars.

Dan immediately recognized the style, and along with everyone else he turned to look at Phil’s friend Will, a well-known artist. Tears gleamed in Phil’s eyes as he whispered, “It’s so beautiful.” Dan couldn’t help remembering the horribly disappointing cake from the previous year, and he felt proud that he had encouraged Phil to grow closer to his true friends instead of relying so much on a flatmate who didn’t care for him at all.

Dan gave Will a warm smile and said quite honestly, “I recognize your art style. It was wonderful of you to do this for Phil.” Will returned Dan’s smile and looked down at the table shyly, nodding his silent thanks for the compliment.

“But we can’t cut this up!” Phil insisted. “It’s too pretty to eat!” Bryony took several photos of Phil with the cake, then several of the cake itself, then encouraged him to cut a slice, because the beauty would be well preserved in photos. Still, Phil flinched slightly when he sliced into the cake for the first time. “Who wants some stars?” he asked, then he glanced at Dan.

“I want the hedgehog,” Dan requested in an effort to sound normal and divert attention away from himself.

“Take the stars for yourself,” Bryony suggested. “You certainly deserve them, and more.” She leaned in to give Phil a kiss on the cheek. Dan decided he rather loved Bryony. He hoped they would become good friends.

The idea of having friends felt strange, but good. Something fluttered in his stomach, and he thought it might be happiness. He would have to identify all these feelings as time went on.

He had so much to learn.

“It’s red velvet!” Phil cried as he pulled the first slice out of the cake. Everyone laughed at his surprise. Because of course these people would know he loved red velvet, that it was his favorite, and they would go out of their way to get him what he wanted most, and they would spend hours decorating it, and they would give him the quiet sort of party he enjoyed. Dan doubted that anyone had purchased this cake at any Tesco, and he looked at Bryony, guessing that she had probably baked it herself.

This was friendship, and this was love. This was the very best of what it meant to be human.

This was what Dan had chosen, and he doubted he would ever regret it for a moment.

—

When they emerged from the restaurant, everyone began discussing who should share taxis, all in a noisy, happy jumble of conversation.

Dan looked at Phil. “Want to go for a walk?” It wasn’t only food he would need to get used to. Five different people talking to him across the dinner table had been rather a lot to follow. He just longed for a moment alone with Phil.

“But it’s started snowing again!” Thomas objected, sounding concerned.

“That’s perfect,” Phil said, smiling at Dan.

—

“So you just quit?”

“So I just quit,” Dan affirmed as they walked side by side along the pavement and the snow fell lightly around them, landing on their hair and coats.

“How do you ‘quit’ being a guardian angel? Do you submit your letter of resignation to heaven or something?” Phil sounded amazed and baffled.

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know anything about heaven. I always just got orders to watch over someone, and so I did it. And today I decided I wasn’t going to do it anymore. That I was going to be with you for real, instead.”

“So you quit?” Phil was repeating himself now, still sounding dazed. “You just walked away?”

“So I quit. I just took human form again and decided I’m going to stay here.” Dan didn’t say anything else for a moment, but he stared intently down at his feet as he took each step. Finally, he burst out, “I couldn’t stand to be with you, but have you not able to see me.” Dan clenched his fists as they walked. It had been horrible. “I couldn’t stand to not be able to talk to you, or drink coffee with you, or … I couldn’t stand to not be with you, really with you, not even for one more day.”

Phil put a hand on Dan’s arm to stop him, to turn him and meet his eyes. They stood in the falling snow and looked at each other. “I thought you said it was impossible,” Phil reminded him in hushed tones, as if he couldn’t believe this was real.

Dan reached up to take Phil’s hand in his, smiling at him. “And you said I couldn’t know if it was impossible, just because no one had ever done it.” He leaned in to kiss Phil softly, then whispered, “I did the impossible for you, Phil Lester.”

And then Phil gave him a real kiss.

—

“You know, if you’re going to be a proper human person, you’ll need a last name,” Phil teased as they continued their walk, hands linked and swinging idly between them.

Dan hadn’t thought of that. He considered. “Well, I’m sort of being born in winter, right? ‘Winter is coming,’ and all that. Perhaps something from ‘Game of Thrones,’” he mused.

Phil chuckled. “Daniel Stark?”

Dan shook his head, laughing. “I’d feel too much like the son of Iron Man or something.”

“Dan Lannister?” Phil suggested, clearly joking now. “Daniel Greyjoy?” He snorted, he was laughing so hard.

Dan tilted his head, thinking. “I see myself more as the silent protector type,” he mused. “Lurking unseen until finally I make myself known at just the right moment.” It sounded perfect.

Phil looked confused. “What character is that?”

“A direwolf,” Dan said smugly, referring to the powerful animals that had protected the Stark children.

Phil raised his eyebrows. “Those names might call a bit of attention. Dan Ghost? Daniel Nymeria?”

“I was thinking of something less literal. Maybe something related to wolves in general. Daniel Wolfe? Is it too obvious?”

Phil shrugged. “That could work. Or maybe something about howling?”

Dan nodded, pleased. “I kind of like that one, but the spelling needs work, because the word ‘howl’ wouldn’t look like a proper last name.”

Phil suggested, “What about ‘Howell’?” and he spelled it to show what he meant.

Dan grinned. “I love it. Daniel Howell. The direwolf who’s been protecting you silently from the shadows all these years.”

“I love it, too.” Phil stopped and gave him a serious look. “I love you, Daniel Howell.” And then Phil reeled him in for another kiss.

“Daniel Howell loves you back. More than you know.” Dan wrapped his arms around Phil and just held him tight, feeling how real he was, how real they both were, together.

—

“What happens now?” Phil asked eventually.

Dan continued walking beside him. “Well, I hoped I could stay at yours, just until I figure things out … if that’s okay with you.” He glanced at Phil’s face, then back down at the pavement, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“No,” Phil said, and Dan’s stomach dropped. He’d always wondered what that expression meant, and now he knew. It was horrid. “I mean, yes, of course,” Phil continued, squeezing Dan’s hand in his. “Of course you can stay with me, but I meant … in the larger scheme of things.” Dan looked at him and waited, not sure what Phil was trying to ask.

Phil frowned, trying to find words, then asked hesitantly, “Are you still an angel? Or are you human?”

Dan shook his head, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I think I could go back to just observing from the outside if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. Right now I’m human, and I plan to stay that way. To stay with you.”

“Will you always look like this, while I get old and wrinkly and gray?”

Dan laughed. Phil honestly seemed worried about this. “I don’t know, Phil, but I doubt it. I expect this human body will age like any other human body does. So I assume I’ll age with you. We’ll get old and wrinkly and gray together.”

“Forever?” Phil asked. “Do you promise?” His eyebrows were drawn together in a little pinch above his nose as if this was the most important question he’d ever asked.

“I promise you,” Dan replied seriously, trying to calm his love’s fears. “Philip Lester, until your very last breath. I’ll always be with you.”

“And after that? After my last breath? What happens then?”

Dan hadn’t really thought about that. The important thing was to be with Phil. The rest would work itself out. Phil was the important thing.

“To be honest,” Dan said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen past this, past what you humans do here on earth. But whatever it is, whatever happens next, we’ll do it together. Nothing’s going to make me let go of your hand. Not ever.”

Phil squeezed Dan’s hand, then pulled Dan into his arms and kissed him. His lips were cold but fantastic. “Together,” Phil affirmed. “Forever.”

Dan nodded his head and then leaned back slightly, just enough that he could see Phil’s pale eyes in the light from the street lamps. Dan smiled. The snow fell soft and quiet around them as they gazed into each other’s eyes, and it was the first day of Dan’s life.

The very first day.

******

Dan walked through Tesco, pushing the cart full of vegetables with one hand and holding his phone to his ear with the other. “Do I really need an entire chicken? I mean, there are only two of us.”

“You can freeze the leftovers,” Kath replied pragmatically.

“And it has to cook … does it really have to cook for two hours?”

“Well, more or less. Until the chicken falls off the bone.”

“So … I have to just keep picking up the chicken every once in a while to see if the meat falls off?” Dan asked in frustration.

“My chicken soup is more of an art than a science, Dan. You’ll know when the time is right,” she reassured him. Then she added with amusement in her tone, “But, yes, if you have to, then pick up the chicken every twenty minutes or so to see if the meat falls off.”

“How am I supposed to lift the chicken without boiling my hands?” Dan protested in horror.

He could practically hear her rolling her eyes at him.

******

Dan stared at the disaster their kitchen had become. Normally, he would clear things as he went along, but he’d had Kathryn on speaker the entire time, and so he’d been following her directions as fast as he could, and he didn’t want to wash dishes and not be able to hear her over the sound of running water.

It seemed like he’d been doing nothing but sweating over the stove all day, except for the morning’s marathon trip to Tesco. He had no idea how they were ever going to eat this much chicken soup, but if Phil wanted his mum’s chicken soup then Dan would make it happen.

“Could you wait a minute, Kath?” Dan asked. “I want to go check on Phil again.”

“Go right ahead, Dan, dear. Let me know how he’s doing.”

So while the mass of soup was simmering on the stove, Dan ran down the hallway to the bedroom and quietly pried open the door to look in on Phil. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and he was tossing restlessly in the bed. Dan ran back to the kitchen, told Kath quickly, “I’m getting him a glass of water,” and then filled a glass to take back to the bedroom. He went inside this time and sat on the edge of the bed. “Phil?” he said softly, setting the glass of water on the bedside table. He rested a hand on Phil’s bare shoulder and was concerned at the heat. He looked at his watch and decided that it was time Phil could take some more paracetamol, so he opened the bottle he had sitting there by the bed and shook two tablets into his hand.

“Phil, can you sit up a bit to take a couple tablets? They might make you feel better.”

Phil just groaned and turned away, mumbling something about his mum and paracetamol, then Dan thought he heard the words “chicken soup” again. “I’m going to get you some chicken soup,” Dan assured him gently. “But right now you need to take these tablets to try to bring down your fever.”

Phil raised up slightly to take the tablets, then drank thirstily at the water. Dan wiped Phil’s hair away from his face and kissed his cheek lightly. It was kind of sweaty and gross, but he loved him anyway.

“It has to be my mum’s chicken soup,” Phil grumbled hazily and then turned away again, throwing the blankets off his legs but wrapping his arms and chest into the duvet. Chills. Dan hated having the chills, feeling like his body was hot and cold at the same time.

Poor Phil.

“It’ll be your mum’s chicken soup,” Dan promised, then patted Phil’s bundled up shoulder tenderly before heading back out to the kitchen.

“He’s got chills,” Dan told Kathryn over the phone propped up on the counter, “but it still doesn’t seem too bad. He needs to sleep, and I gave him some paracetamol. He complained that he wants your soup again.”

“Well, then, let’s get back to work,” Kath replied.

******

An hour later, Dan brought a bowl into the bedroom where Phil lay sleeping fitfully. At first, Dan considered letting him sleep, but then he remembered that Phil hadn’t eaten anything all day, and so decided it would be worth waking him up to give him a bit of nutrition.

“Phil,” he whispered, setting the bowl and spoon on the bedside table with the paracetamol bottle, a box of tissues, and the empty glass of water—he’d go refill that as soon as Phil had some soup. “Phil,” he coaxed, “I brought you some soup.”

“Don’t want your soup,” Phil fretted sleepily. “Want my mum’s chicken soup.” He turned away again.

“This is your mum’s chicken soup,” Dan insisted. “Just have a taste and see. Just one taste.”

Phil glared at him in mistrust, his eyes glassy with fever, but he did sit up and let Dan spoon some soup into his mouth. He closed his eyes and relaxed more than Dan had seen him do in two days. “It’s my mum’s soup,” Phil marveled, opening his eyes to gaze gratefully at Dan. “Is she here?”

Dan shook his head, but before Phil could look disappointed he added, “But I’m here. I’m always here for you, sweetheart. And your mum helped me make the soup for you, because we both love you so much. Will you have another spoonful?” Phil nodded, and then continued to eat until the bowl was empty, after which he cuddled into his blankets, looking less miserable and a bit comforted by the taste of the familiar family recipe.

Dan returned to the kitchen with the empty bowl and water glass, and Kath was still on the phone. They’d been on the phone together for hours now. “He ate the bowl of soup,” Dan told her, and they both sighed together in relief. “Apparently you helped me make it right.”

“You did wonderfully, Dan. Now, let me know if things get any worse, but I know you’ll take lovely care of my boy. You always do.”

Tears sprang to Dan’s eyes at her trust in him. “Thank you, Kath. That means a lot to me. And thank you for all your help today. I could never have done it without you.”

“Of course not,” Kath replied pertly. “It’s my chicken soup!” And they both chuckled.

“Okay,” Dan said. “I’m going to take him some water and sit with him for a while. Maybe get a cool cloth to wipe his face.”

“He’ll like that,” Kath said softly. After a moment she added, “Thank you, Dan.”

Dan smiled at the phone on the counter and said softly, “You’re welcome. I love you all—you know that.”

“We do,” Kath replied. “And we love you, too, Dan. Take good care of yourself while you taking care of our boy. Because you’re our boy, too.”

Dan felt a wave of gratitude and affection that nearly brought tears to his eyes. “Thank you for that.” And before she could say anything else sappy enough to make him actually cry, he ended the call by saying, “I’ll phone you if anything changes—whether he gets better or worse—but right now I want to go take him some water. Talk to you soon, and thanks for the help with the soup.”

“You’re welcome, Dan,” she replied, and they both hung up. They’d been on the phone together longer than Dan’s longest Skype calls with Phil back in 2009.