We are the ghouls of London // PHAN

•CHAPTER FOURTY-FOUR•

Dan sat in Business, impatiently waiting for the bell to ring to let him go home... well, PJ and (now) Phil's home. He'd already texted his mom to tell her to pick up Adrian from his primary school since he'd be late home because of his visit.

"You alright Dan? You look... out of it..." Joe commented from the seat next to him.

Dan snapped back into the Business lesson where Mr Pickering was writing a whole load of financial equations onto the whiteboard, which 'were essential to pass your business GCSE exam in the summer'.

"Sorry..." Dan mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, "I'm just... just thinking..."

"Thinking? About what?" Joe questioned, looking towards Dan in wonder, him too now ignoring Mr Pickering going on to a group of the nerds at the front of the class about his grandchildren and how one of them over the weekend managed to bite him on his leg.

"Just... general things really..." Joe could obviously see through Dan's purposely vague answers as he raised his eye brows at him, almost knowingly.

"You know, you're quite a terrible lier when you want to be," Joe pointed out.

Dan groaned and rested his head in his arms on the desk, "Trust you to know when i am lying-"

"Ha! So you admit it! You were lying!" Joe exclaimed, getting sirs attention as well as Dan's who bolted upright all of a sudden out of pure shock.

"Joesph Sugg, I am going to have to ask you to please quieten your voice and get on with the paper 1 task I have put in front of you and Daniel," Mr Pickering spoke in a calm manner, pointing at the blue coloured paper in front whilst simultaneously removing his glasses and placing then on top of his head.

"Yes sir," Joe mumbled before turning back to Dan, "So. What were you really thinking about."

"Oh... yeah... right... I was... well... thinking about-"

He was interrupted by his phone buzzing to indicate he had a text message from his rucksack. Dan immediately grabbed it and looked at the screen, intrigued.

Phil:
Can't wait to see you tonight.

Joe, being the nosey person he was, looked over Dan's shoulder and at his phone, "You're seeing Phil tonight?". His voice sounded confused as Dan locked his phone and ignored Phil's text to turn to Joe, a blush spreading rapidly across both Dan's cheeks.

"Y-yeah... I just want to see if he's ok after what... happened... to him..."

"Tell him I send him my love cos' of his loss and all that shit people say when someones relatives died," Joe blabbered on.

"Ok..." Dan giggled as he received another text from Phil.

He didn't get a chance to hide it, since Joe saw it at exactly the same time Dan did...

Sorry babe, forgot to put the kisses at the end xx ♥️

"Oh... my... god..." Joe spoke as Dan tried to hide his phone away from Joe, the blush he had before deepening in colour and surface area, "He... a-and you... your..."

"Yes," Dan sighed, accepting the fact now that Joe now knew about his and Phil's relationship, "Yes... we're a... thing..."

"Dan!! This is amazing!!" Joey exclaimed looking at Dan with a bright and wide smile.

"Please don't tell anyone..." Dan pleaded, "Only you and Connor know..."

"Connor? Our Connor? Connor Franta?"

Once again, Dan nodded, "Yes. Connor Franta."

Joe gasped, "When are you going to tell everyone? You have to tell everyone! You can't just hide it from us!"

"I... i mean we... we're not too sure yet..." Dan shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck..

"The party!" Joe exclaimed a wide grin upon his face, "You should tell everyone at Joey's party!"

"The party?! But that is such a huge event-"

"But imagine! You and Phil could join in with a game of spin the bottle or something. You spin said bottle and make it to land on Phil and then when you kiss him, make it obvious you've done it before and you love him!" Joe says, obviously proud of the plan he had created for the situation.

"I... I guess..." Dan awkwardly agreed, just to make Joe still feel proud of himself. Wether him and Phil actually would do that was yet to be discussed.

"Great! But right now, lets get back to the paper, I can see sir heading towards us."

•••

The second the bell sounded, Dan was out of that classroom. He jogged down the steps to get to the ground floor of the school before pacing across the school playground to get to the front gates, ready to make his journey to PJ's home, which now also housed Phil too.

There was a stride in every step Dan took as he walked. He was happy that he was off to go see his boyfriend. The happiness almost overtook his feelings of guilt over the fact that it was him who was considered the 'murderer' of  Phil's dad.

Up ahead, in the distance, Dan could spot PJ walking. It felt wrong, and like Dan was stalking PJ with every move he made on his usual journey home. For Dan however, this journey was rather foreign to him, since he was more use to walking round the dodgier areas of town where there were cracks in the pavement and rotting wooden fences, where as here in the luxury of the town, was where the hedges were trimmed perfectly, there was a perfect line of trees lining either side of the road and weirdly, Dan could almost smell a difference in the air; it was a lot more filtered and clean.

Turning into PJ's street, despite being quite far behind him, Dan began to slow his pace down. He didn't want to seem too suspicious and look like a creep who had followed PJ all the way home. Sure, he was PJ's friend (hopefully), but looking like he had been following him home could really freak him out, as if Dan had been stalking him home.

Thinking about it now, Dan questioned why he didn't just ask PJ to walk with him home since Phil had invited him over. PJ didn't need to know him and Phil were going out. It would have seem a lot less stalker-ish of him if he had done so. And maybe that would cause PJ to be a lot more appreciative of Dan's sudden appearance on his doorstep.

Damn his social anxiety.