We are the ghouls of London // PHAN

•CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO•

So I'm gonna do a little thing where I (try) to upload every day on this book up until christmas, and I'm calling it... WATCOAmas!!

(Get it... WATGOL (We Are The Ghouls Of London) mad??)

anyway...lets gooo

•••

Sitting one floor in front of Dan's legs was Adrian. He had a plastic bowl in his small lap where he was eating popcorn from as he watched Finding Dory off of the Amazon FireStick plugged into their crappy TV Dan could remember watching his mom order off of eBay that one year. Dan would occasionally lean forward and take a piece of popcorn away from his brother's bowl and let its buttery goodness dissolve in his mouth.

His mom was upstairs, probably working on some sort of project at her old and slowly rotting desk. Richard was at his everyday job; in a office in the centre of London. Dan knew nothing at all about Richards job, other than the fact that it was very high paying, something Dan's mom enjoyed living with - wealth.

"Have you see my parents?" Dan looked up to the TV where he recognised Ellen DeGeneres' voice sounding from the speakers around the TV as her character spoke. Dan smiled as he watched his brother become engrossed into the movie and popped a piece of popcorn into his mouth every minute or two as he followed the simple Disney Pixar storyline.

Who knew a cartoon fish with memory loss could make his little brother shut up for so long and for such a long period of time?

It was, honestly, a miracle.

Dan looked back down at his phone screen where he had had his main focus on before glancing up at the blue fish now swimming through America or wherever the fuck the fish was in its adventure in the ocean (Dan had no interest anyway). He had been just scrolling through his Instagram feed, laughing at Alfie's newest post with him wearing the snapchat dog filter looking like a right fuckboy.

"What's so funny Dan?"

His brother had paused the movie and was looking at Dan with confusion in his eyes. Dan weakly laughed, " Nothing you need to worry about."

His brother shrugged before playing the movie once again and instantly getting back with the plot.

There was a creaking sound coming from the stairs and then his mom appeared in the living room. She looked a mess, her eyes had bags under them from the lack of sleep and her skin was pale.

"You ok mum?" Dan asked and she just nodded in response.

"Yeah... I'm- I'm doing ok."

Even though Dan didn't often see eye to eye with his mom due to how much she had changed with her new relationship with Richard, Dan could still tell when his mom was or wasn't feeling depressed and therefore, felt the urge to feel sorry for her.

"You're not."

"I am Dan... honestly..."

"I'm not stupid mom. I know when you're stressed out and when you're not."

His mom looked at Dan and sighed in defeat, "This new project I'm doing for Karen. It's... i don't know... it's just really pushing me to the best of my abilities, testing every skill I thought I was actually decent at and actually making it look like utter and complete rubbish."

Dan pulled his mom into a sympathetic hug and she held onto him.

"It'll be ok mom..."