Sanctuary (A Dan Smith/ Bastille fanfic)

73. Dan

I pull the hood of my jumper up to cover my face and wrap a protective arm around Chloe's shoulder. I lead her outside to the car and hold the door open for her before anyone notices us. We both climb into the luxurious car and I tell the driver our destination.

"This is so weird." Chloe smiles as we settle down into the car.

"What is? The car or..." I pull my hood down and run my hand through my hair to sort it out.

"Everything. The car and.. This." Chloe looks around at the car and presses various buttons, making windows go up and down, making lights switch on and even making the music change. "You sell out." She teases me and then snorts at her own joke.

I sigh and look around at my surroundings. I'm sat in a flash car and the love of my life is sat smiling next to me. "I'll never get used to it."

"What? The car or..." Chloe steals my line and smiles some more.

"Everything. The car and..." Chloe bats my arm as I begin to mimic her line. "Seriously though the car, the lifestyle, you." I admit honestly as I lean towards her and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Well you are one lucky son of a bitch, I'll tell you that for free." She jokes as she gets closer and pecks my cheek.

"I'm not used to speaking about my feelings, you know that. But honestly Chloe, I want you to know that even if this is strange, me and you as us, I'm happy."

"I'm happy too." She leans down to grasp my hand. "I can't imagine being with anyone else."

"Just know that anything you want to speak to me about, I'm here." I press for her to admit her insecurities that she spoke so freely about to Woody this morning, but I'm wary that I don't want her to know that I listened in on them. I've been at the brunt of Chloe's anger many times in the past and it is not a place that I want to be in right now.

"I know." She links our arms and leans her head on my shoulder and I hear her take a deep, content sigh.

"Good." I rest my head on hers and stay there for the rest of our journey.

We arrive at the restaurant soon after and I'm glad that I've got this time to share with Chloe on my own. I try not to pry too far into finding out about her and Woody's discussion, as I don't want her to know I was listening.

Instead I simply enjoy her company and after a bottle of wine we end up reminiscing about our own past, back when we were teens.

"I thought you were such a tosser when we first met!" She laughs as she admits her first impression of me. I winced at the thought of my 18-year-old self. I wasn't the same person that I am now. I've grown more than I ever knew possible. She's completely correct, I was a horrible person.

"I'm not surprised! I was a tosser!" I smile as I take another long swig of wine.

"You had this attitude and looked like you wanted to murder everyone around you!" She cackles on and shakes her head at the memory.

"That's because I pretty much did want to murder everyone around me. I bloody hated college." I go to take another sip of wine and then realise my glass is full so top it up with more from our second bottle.

"You terrified me at first. But then it was kind of.. endearing." She smiles as a thank whilst I fill her glass to the top. "I guess I just wanted to piss you off at first cause I knew that my presence annoyed you." She giggles quietly.

"No it didn't, I just wasn't used to having to socialise." I think back again. I was pretty much invisible as a teenager. I'm sure that if I would have had the super power to be invisible then it would have been the most pointless power in the world because apart from when people wanted someone to hate, they didn't notice me. I hated my life. I hated it so much.

"Yeah you were shit at that before me." Chloe snaps me out of my thoughts and then grins at her own sarcastic comment. "My mum went crazy when she found out we were together."

"What? Really?!" I place my glass down after drinking nearly half the glass in one go.

"A good crazy though. She always bloody loved you, she thought you were some saint for getting me to actually stay in London. And of course our mums had that fake and boring friendship where they just tried to show off in front of each other. So my mum thought you were one of those shitty types."

"Like Fran was." I groan at the thought of my sister. As we've aged, we get on better but only very slightly better. I mean, we put up with each other on Christmas day and our parent's birthdays and that's about it, but at least we're not constantly out for each other like we were when we were younger. She toned down her bitchyness and somehow became a slightly better person after moving away from London, which did her the world of good.

"And her bitchy friends.. What was that one called?"

"Claudia." I groan again. Now that's one person who has somehow remained the same stuck up bitch during her twenties.

"Yeah that's the one, right cow." She sips her wine and gently wipes the side of her mouth after.

"It's a shame.. She was so pleasant about you." I smile sarcastically and Chloe shakes her head in laughter.

"I'm not surprised she was horrible; I was a pretty horrendous person too!"

"You were okay." I joke and Chloe leans over and smacks me playfully on my arm. "Do you remember all the places we used to go?"

"Of course." She smiles shyly at the thought. "My little spots I used to go to for sanctuary. I still remember that first time sitting on the roof and turning around and there you were."

"Ah when you admitted to stalking me."

"Shut up." I get another well-deserved smack on my arm. "Strange hey, how things change?"

"Very strange." I nod in agreement.

"I can't believe you remember all that stuff from when we were younger. I thought you didn't care." She admits shyly.

"Quite the opposite." I take another sip of wine and feel my head turning slightly fuzzy from the alcohol. Suddenly I'm given the confidence to approach the subject that I've tried to avoid all day. "So I have a question." I pause and Chloe nods for me to continue. "Are you happy at the moment?"

"I said this earlier on.. Of course I'm happy with you-"

"No." I quickly cut her off. "Not just with me, with everything. We're in a relationship Chloe, I want to know everything that's going on. We don't have to just talk about our own relationship the whole time."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath in and I can see that she is about to open up to me. "I'm so sick of my job and I've been thinking about moving back to London soon."

I smile to reassure her but I don't want to put her off of her idea which I believe to be an absolutely fantastic idea. "If you decide that it's right for you then I can help you look for your own place if you want?" I suggest to show her that I'm not going to push her into anything.

She looks up with a slightly shocked expression and I'm not sure whether it's because she's happy or upset that I've taken a step back. "I would really like that, thank you."

I grip her hand firmly and she leans across the table to kiss me. "Love you."

"Love you more Dan."