Summary:  Getting under Dan's skin is like suicide. He doesn't want anyone in his life, and he's made sure not to find them. He is especially not letting that piece of shit Phil from down the hall go anywhere near his lips. Not twice, at least.

Genre: wow um soulmate au! and some angst and some general niceness but I wouldn't call it fluff lmao that's for the next chapter of this.

Warnings: hahhahahhahahahhahah why did I write this okay we have 1) swearing, 2) homophobia to the max, man they live in the 1910's ish 3) mentions/ descriptions of death wow nice 4)hahahhahahahahhahahahhah w h y d i d i w r i t e t h i s

The first time he'd taken someone's life, he was eighteen years old. The stench of blood clogged his nostrils, and the slick of it coated his fingers, so that his brain went fuzzy. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't think. He knew the stairs were just around the corner, but his feet didn't, and he found himself running on the roof, not sure how he'd gotten there, but vaguely aware of the sharp pain in his shoulder and the crunch of glass under his feet.

The second time he killed a man, his face had gained no more than another single wrinkle, but he was some years older, more than he cared to admit. It'd been a decisive slash of a knife that killed him, but Dan's hand shook, and it was messier than he would have liked. He fled.

The third time was quick and simple, a deadly pill switched for a sleeping one. It was child's play. Dan kissed two fingers and pressed them to the man's forehead, and with the swish of his navy coat, he was gone.

Dan wished he could say that he never left any evidence. His first works had been sloppy, and though few of the neighbors had known of the extent of Dan's relationships, they had seen him with these men on multiple occasions, popping in and out of coffee shops, taking in each other's shoes for polish, laughing as they fed each other food. His name was written over everything at the crime scene, so he changed it.

He was born James Timothy Warner; his father had been a cooper, and his mother, absent. After his first kill, he became known to all surrounding, which was, consequently, a different town, as Richard Bucannan, the reclusive shoemaker with the mysteriously close friendship with Steven, the hatmaker down the road. They were right fun when by each other's sides, smiling until they both got laughter lines. Richard never seemed to appreciate it when anyone pointed this out. It was brushed off. Young men didn't want to age, it was natural. After the mysterious death of Steven Wheyer, and absence of Richard soon after, it was assumed by all that he had fled, overcome with grief about his deceased best friend.

Little did they know, it was Dan's unfortunate fate that he had none such people.

After his second kill, he went by Colin Fitz, a bit of a scrawny name for his liking, and a bit Irish, but then again, he was a bit scrawny for his liking as well. Mrs. Darbyshire, the flustery old lady across the street, told everyone of Dan's supposed young age, and how she kept her eye on him, and how they should all admire her for it. She passed on information that Dan was in his late teens, which was right well for him, being over thirty at the time.

The man in question went by the name of William Simmons , and Dan had long considered him a close friend. They grew close over a span of two years, when, much to Dan's dismay, one day, he'd found stubble on his chin.

The man was found dead the next day. It was the early nineteen hundreds on the morning we begin, and James, newly christened Dan Howell, was drumming up a beat between the tap of his freshly polished shoe on the concrete, and his beringed fingers on the metal arms of the bench he had seated himself on.

His ears registered the call of "Steve!" from further down the sidewalk, and his head shot up. Who'd said that? Did they recognize him? Had they connected him to Steven's murder? It'd been so long! How had they even found him?

He took in a deep breath. Loads of people were called Steve. But then, the black haired man down the road was definitely looking at him. He started to sweat.

"Steve, oh my, the oddest thing just happened to me! I was packing up in the lab, you know how Howard never pays me overtime, so no need to stay, and he just walks up to me, and he says 'Philip! you've-'" Dan cut him off with a hand waving in front of the man's face.

"I'm sorry, can I help you?" he asked, turning to face the man full-on, and his pale cheeks turned bright red when he caught sight of Dan's face.

"You're... not... Steve..."

Dan bit back a laugh. "No, apparently not."

The man turned away to study his shoelaces. "You look terribly like him."

Dan did laugh this time, which only made the man beside him flush a deeper shade of scarlet and begin squeezing his hands tightly together. "Steven must be devastatingly handsome to look so like me," Dan smiled, leaning back on the bench and stretching his arms behind his head.

"Most Stevens are," replied the man, chancing a glance up at the beaming brunette beside him and chewing on his lip.

Dan contemplated this statement for a moment. "That's very true, actually. Then again, I've only known one Steven in my life, and he was my best friend, so I may be a bit biased." The lie rolled off of his tongue easily, but the name did not. He was used to pretending that the relationship he'd had with the handsome hatmaker had been purely one of friendship, but what he had not yet mastered, was speaking of him at all. He hadn't done so in ten years, when he fled the sight of his slashed neck. He shook away the memory.

"Ah, I fear I may be less biased than you," said the man, finally fixing his gaze on Dan's face, "the Steven I know is only a coworker. Nice bloke mind you, but a bit stupid if I'm honest. Still, more handsome than I, I'm sad to say."

Dan smirked. "Are you implying, by extension, since I apparently look so like him, that I am more handsome than you?"

The man shrugged and sat back against the wooden slats of the bench, smiling slightly.

"I disagree," said Dan, and with the swish of his long coat, he had finished his coffee and left.

~

It was nearly a week later, and Dan was in a bakery, loading up on anything containing cinnamon. The tiny bell above the door tinkled merrily, and Dan paid it little mind as his eyes perused the display for the sight of a good cinnamon bun.

"Steven?" came the voice from beside him, and Dan turned his head slightly, amused.

Blue eyes inspected him carefully, and Dan said nothing. Hearing this man divulge his life to him believing him Steven would be the highlight of his sugar-filled day.

"Oh good," the sigh came from the bottom of the man's lungs. "Steven, you're going to have to wear a bell or something. You know that man that I told you about? Well, I keep seeing either him or you everywhere, and I never know whether or not to approach, because I can never tell the difference." The smile on Dan's face grew wider and wider as the man spoke. "Steven?"

"Guess again," Dan smirked, leaning against the shelf of baked goods, and the man went scarlet.

"Can I help you?" Asked the portly man behind the counter, his black stubble and blotchy face throwing Dan out of his flirtatious mood quite effectively.

Dan ordered his Donuts and left the place, bowing at the pink-cheeked man on his way out.

~

Newspapers on his couch. Dan readjusted himself on its scratchy green surface so that the springs dug slightly less into the bones in his butt. A murder, another drunken parliament man. An atmospheric disturbance. Boring, boring, boring.

He went to turn the page and knocked over the tin of dry oatmeal still sitting on his couch-side table from his morning's breakfast. The contents of it spread explosively across his already dusty wooden floor. Damn his pokey elbows. Damn it all.

Not to mention he didn't have a broom.

He sighed. Socializing was not an advisable activity for a murderer. Drat.

He knocked quickly on the first door, his knuckles barely hitting the wood. He could hardly hear the sound they were meant to be making, and his ears were situated centimetres from his suspended fist.

When no one answered the door, he shrugged and started back towards his apartment's door. "No one answered," he mumbled to himself, "Ah, well. Nothing I can do." He was so wrapped up in his own accomplishments of not socializing that he nearly ran into the thing- was that a person?- blocking the middle of the hallway.

"Oh, I'm sorry, dear, do watch where you're going next time," came the voice from below him, and he stopped staring at the floor to look into the face of a woman who clearly had no husband. Her face was in the kind of wrinkled disrepair that no fit man should let his woman get into, Dan thought. Clearly, though, this woman had found her soulmate at one point, because she shouldn't have aged past eighteen had she not.

Dan shook his head as she began walking away. Why would anyone intentionally age? It seemed such a waste of youth.

It was only when he noticed which door she was going to out of his peripheral vision that he was pulled sharply out of his musings. "Wait!" the woman gave a start. "I'm sorry for startling you, I only mean to ask, do you have a broom? I've spilt something and I've nothing to clean it up with."

The woman gave a watery smile. "With this old back of mine? I don't think so, dear. Have a nice day." And she continued to hobble with both her seemingly unused walking stick and her large bag of kitty litter into her apartment. Dan eyed her warily. Selfish old bat. She could walk just fine.

Two more doors, two more no's. Life was a lie. Some way down the hallway, Dan noticed the blue-eyed man from before staggering under three brown paper bags of groceries. Dan smirked.

Skipping all the doors between him and the one he'd seen Blush Guy go into, Dan stopped outside the door. He waited a few moments, picking at his nails, but the burly man at the top of the stairs stared at him strangely, so he stopped acting like a stalker and knocked on the door.

He heard shuffling and a muffled yelp before the door swung open.

The man let out a huff. "Are you... not? Steve then?"

Dan nodded. "Yep. That's me. 'Not Steve' at your service." He gave the man an exaggerated salute.

The man let out a low laugh. "I suppose I can't keep calling you 'Not Steve' then can I?" Dan shook his head. "Well, I'll need to get your actual name then won't I? I'm Phil, by the way, but people who try to sound fancy call me Philip. Like Steven, the prat."

Dan just leaned against the wall looking amused. "They call me Dan," he said, with a smile playing at his lips.

"Nice to officially meet you," said Phil, offering a hand. Dan shook it.

The prospect of staying here and chatting with Phil for as long as the dwindling light would let him was far more compelling than that of sweeping up dry cereal, but he knew that the longer he was away, the more spread around the room the oatmeal would get by the wind from the open window.

"I'd love to stay and chat," he sighed, "but I have come for good reason. I've spilled just about all of my large container of oats on the floor because I'm a clumsy bastard, and I was wondering if you have a broom. No one else seems to have one."

Phil's eyebrow shot up. "I thought David had one?" he asked, inclining his head to one of the several doors Dan had skipped in his hurry to reach Phil's.

Dan's face flushed pink. "Yes, well, he wasn't in, you know..." Phil narrowed his eyes when I sound from behind that very same door was heard, and Dan smiled charmingly, hoping that maybe his pale skin would somehow conceal the rush of blood he could feel creeping up onto his features.

"I have one, anyways," said Phil, stepping away from the door and disappearing around the corner into his home, "please, come in." Dan would pretend later that he didn't blush harder upon stepping into the vanilla-scented flat. Pretend being the key word.

Phil bent over to shuffle through a cupboard and Dan took a very keen interest in the peeling wallpaper, which was, conveniently, on the opposite side of the room from Phil's protruding ass. He was not one to be indecent in someone else's home. Except, of course, if he'd been invited to be indecent, in which case he'd do whatever the hell he wanted.

He continued to stare at the tattered paper. Surely, if this man had had a woman, she'd have fixed that by now? Women were, after all, extremely aesthetically oriented, and loved to tidy. Of course, he wouldn't know, as he'd never been with one, but his mum had always done the dishes late into the night when she'd been alive, and that must mean she loved it, surely? Phil stood upright, and Dan tore both his thoughts and his gaze away from the wall.

"Here you are," he said, proudly presenting the broom, as if he held in his hand something Dan had coveted for centuries.

Dan thanked him and left, the broom bobbing up and down next to his half-skipping legs.

~

Sunday mornings were worse than most. Sundays were God days, and being both the gayest man on the block, and the most likely to murder was a hard job when he felt like God was watching, but someone had to do it.

It wasn't even as if he liked killing people. In fact, it was probably his least favorite thing to do, save eating brussel sprouts. It's not that he was a bloodthirsty criminal or anything, but he also wasn't some old grandpa ready to shrivel up and die just because he'd found someone who "completed his soul" or whatever. There was no way in Hell he was going to live only in an age where they had to make animals cart them around and he couldn't make out with anyone worthwhile in public. Nah, he was in it for the long run, maybe 2010, when they'd have carts without wheels that were powered by rockets or something.

So, maybe he had taken it a bit literally when he'd told his mum at eighteen and seven months that he'd kill for cooler transportation. Society's fault, really, for making that a saying. He held no blame.

He rubbed a lazy circle around his abs or lack thereof and stood up, stretching with his hands locked high over his head. His neighbor, Kevin, had told him it was indecent to go waltzing around his flat without a shirt on, but who was going to see? His potted plants? It wasn't as if he had a woman, and even if he had, he wouldn't want to keep it.

He poured himself a bowl of oats and added water, stirring his thoughts in with the sugar. His eyes wandered to the broom still leaning up against his cupboard and his mind blared EXCUSE, EXCUSE, GO SEE THE HOT MAN NEXT DOOR, but then, there wasn't a single reason on this planet that he should want to do that. The fact that he was even interested set off red alerts in his mind, and he knew that under no circumstances should he pursue this man. If he was interested, he'd date him, and if he dated him, he'd fall in love, and if he was unlucky, as he had been with his past three love interests, this man would prove to be his soul mate, supposedly pieces of the same star, or tree, or whatever, that had found each other, and then he'd age, and he'd be forced to kill him, and the cycle would start all over again. Or, it could turn out as it had done with his first and only girlfriend, that they were not soulmates at all, and Phil would leave him the second he found out that neither of them were aging. Either way, he was doomed to Hell, but not killing seemed like a preferable outcome. Dan had watched from his window, so he knew how many turtles would not make it across the road if Phil wasn't in this world to help them.

Nevertheless, there was still the broom, and the problem that that broom was not, in fact, his, but Phil's. He let out a huff, shoveled another spoonful of oats into his trap, and went to his closet to pull on a shirt.

The broom handle was rough in his hands as he tossed it back and forth.

He knocked on the door twice, and then waited, and then twice again. A low "I'm comin'" was muffled slightly by the door, and Dan was struck suddenly with the view of a very shirtless Phil and a very messy flat.

"Thanks for letting me use your-" Lips on his lips, rough and stubbly and not the most pleasurable. Dan pulled away.

"Phil, what the Hell? Do you have any idea where we are? This isn't the netherlands, for God sakes, you can't do that here!"

Phil laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm just a bit.. um... drunk."

"Who in the ruddy hell drinks at ten in the morning?" A harsh whisper.

"People who drank hard liquor at eleven at night and woke up with a horrible hangover do." Phil leaned in closer, "Alcohol makes me forget I have the headache from last night's hangover. Makes me horny as Hell though."

Dan flushed pink. "I don't think this is the place to talk about it, Phil," he whispered, this time softer. He wanted to say something along the lines of "I think your bedroom may be a more appropriate place," but Dan, a master of self control, refrained.

"Goodbye, Phil," sighed Dan, shoving the broom in Phil's unsuspecting hand and turning tail to leave.

"Wait, Dan, can I come over some time, like, if you're available?"

Dan smiled slyly, and turned his head so that Phil could just see it. "No," and with a strut to the side, he was gone.

~

The best thing about Saturday mornings were that they weren't Sunday mornings. His vest and trenchcoat were hanging over his least favorite wicker chair, still drying from that morning's impromptu rain shower. Dan wasn't sure he could remember a time when he hadn't gone to the market in February, only to be soaked through with rain by the time he was back. On the bright side, though, he was sure he'd caught Phil staring at the place where his undershirt had clung to his stomach. Not altogether a horrible day, but he was chilled to the bone. If it was possible for internal organs to be soaked, his were.

He greatly wished he had a telephone, like he'd heard the Postal offices had. He didn't even really need it to reach as far as the long distance once that could call Liverpool all the way from London, just a nice one wired to his colleague's house. But then again, Dan wasn't a multibillionaire, and he most definitely wasn't a post office. Suddenly, the thought of quitting the police force to be a postman didn't seem so horrid.

He sighed as he pushed himself up from his scratchy tweed sitting place and took a look out the window. The sun was forcing its way through whatever patches there were of cloudless sky, and the air looked damp.

He padded to his room, his grey woolen socks leaving slight wet patches on the wooden floor as he did so. He tugged on a dryer shirt and vest, pulled on some slightly crumpled trousers, switched his soggy socks for some dry white ones, tugged on his hideously uncomfortable leather shoes, and marched out the door for the second time that morning, slinging a fresh suit jacket over his shoulder on the way out.

Ah the wonderful fresh air of a london apartment complex hallway.

He'd arranged to meet with Steven, the man from Phil's work, that day, as neither of them really wanted to go their whole lives (which, in Dan's case, should be notably longer than Steven's) without meeting the man who was his apparent clone.

Upon walking in to the little coffee shop at which they'd arranged to meet, Dan already felt that something was slightly off. It wasn't until the next man walked in that he realized that the door was completely soundless, marking both the lack of a merry bell, and a lack of that nice homey feeling that the other shops on the square gave off. Dan sat at one of the small square tables, unsettled.

"Ah," Dan looked up at the sound of a voice from in front of him, "you must be Dan! I'm Steven, Phil's coworker?"

Dan stood up to shake the man's hand, smiling as they both settled down in the little green chairs situated at either end of the table.

"I must say, you do look remarkably like me," said Steven, and Dan's mind immediately pegged him as the kind of man who liked to seem smart, but probably got very low marks in all of his schooling.

Dan had to disagree with Steven's statement; he rather fancied himself quite a bit more handsome than this disgustingly clean-shaven man, but he did not voice these thoughts aloud. "Indeed, to the untrained eye of a stranger, I could certainly see how one could mix a man like yourself up with a man such as me." Dan thought that sounded like the kind of cocky classist statement that Steven would make. Something about him was putting Dan off. Maybe it was his extensive upper lip, which Dan thought aught to be covered thoroughly with a mustache purely to keep the human race from dying out of disgust.

Steven nodded his agreement to Dan's observation, and threw his hand up suddenly, snapping it a couple of times to catch the attention of the petite man running the shop. He hustled over with an exasperated look on his face.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Yes, get this fine man and I here some coffees, black." Dan looked the other way.

"Right away sir," he squeaked, and hustled back behind the counter.

Steven made no effort to lower his voice when he spoke, "Poor lad. Not an ounce of schooling in his life, I'd bet."

Dan tried to chuckle along.

"So, Phil's a nice bloke, don't you think?" asked Dan, picking at his cloth napkin.

"Nice sure," chuckled Steven, leaning forward in his chair, "but I hear he's a bit of a fag." Dan dragged his eyes up from his fiddling fingers to look this man straight in the eyes. He knew he'd have a way of telling he and Steven apart to tell Phil. The man sitting across from him had hard, judging eyes, layered over again and again with an ice sheet for each person he hated. Dan would like to think his eyes didn't reek of malice as Steven's did.

"Is he now?" asked Dan, leaning back in his chair all nonchalant, tossing his ring up in the air and catching it. "Better for you, eh? Less competition for women." Throw, catch, throw catch, look at the ring, not in the eyes. Throw, catch, throw, catch.

"But who knows what kind of diseases the guy has? Spreading his indecency all over the place. The man's a right good worker, but I've got to hope he's not one of those gays." He dropped his voice at the last word, as if God might not hear him say it if he was quiet, and therefore spare him the punishment.

"Animals, truly. Every one of them," said Dan, trying very hard to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Can you imagine of one of them touched something you were to eat? It'd make you sick."

He grabbed both of the coffees from the short boy with pimples. "Here's your coffee, Steve, my good man. Drink up." Steven raised his cup in the air as a little toast to Dan's impeccable values, and took a sip. Dan almost shot coffee out of his nose trying not to laugh.

Dan made sure to handle every one of the things Steven ate in the few minutes they spent together in that coffee shop, on the off chance that maybe his gayness could make this man sick, and Phil wouldn't have to deal with him at work anymore. Not that he cared about how Phil in particular felt, of course, just how humans felt in general.

Obviously.

Forty-five minutes and six comments about women's butts later, Dan kicked his chair back and brushed the crumbs from his pants. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I do have a train to catch." Said Dan, and this was met with an "of course, of course" from Steven.

He made sure to walk in the direction of the station until he was out of sight, and then he walked swiftly in the other direction to his flat.

Men, he decided, were too annoying to be part of his life.

His resolve had dissolved by the next day.

On said day, the very man he wanted to see both most and least showed up at Dan's door with a single yellow flower, a stubbly chin, and his lip dragging through his teeth, and for a Sunday, Dan was thinking some pretty sinful thoughts.

Phil's eyes were wide, and fidgeted like his fingers.

"Can I come in?" Eyes at the end of the hallway, the other end, the stairs.

He sat Phil on the couch and then all but ran to his room to throw on a shirt, not that his room was more than about two steps from the rest of his house. When he reemerged, Phil was staring out the window, picking at the hems of his suit jacket.

"Do you want tea, oats, air? That's mostly all I have."

Phil let out a small chuckle and went back to picking at his sleeves.

"Daniel--"

"Dan."

"Dan, then. I... A man does stupid things when he's drunk, and at the top of the list of stupid things are participating in actions with a man that are explicitly reserved for women."

Dan scoffed. "You sound like Steven."

Phil blushed. "anyways, I want you to know that alcohol got the better of me, but I am a man of values and thus one that has spent his whole life devoted to women and intends to keep down that path. I fear I may have offended you or the neighbors with my--"

"Dear God, Phil, what is with the formalities? I've stolen your broom, you put your face on my face, and you talk to me like I'm Steven. We're well past that."

Phil flushed again, but tried to hide it by turning away and fixing his gaze on a painting of a tulip that Dan had picked up from a church yardsale before he'd even done anything that would bar him from church. "Well, yes, but as I said, I was under the influence of the devil's tonic, and I really am a lady's man, or, rather, the ladies are mine, and..."

Dan was staring at the ceiling, halfway between a laugh and a shout. "Jesus, Phil, you talk about women in the way boys talk about a sexual encounter. They've never had one, but they feel like if the assert their dominance enough, people will believe they have."

Phil stood up from the couch, the hand holding the flower shaking slightly. "This is outrageous. I have no idea why I came here. Good day." He dropped the flower in huff and stormed towards the door.

He was almost out of the flat when Dan waved two fingers and said, "Feel free to come back when you've got yourself straight," and he could almost feel the heat of Phil blush on the back of his head.

~

Every day at precisely seven thirty-five, Phil would emerge from his flat and walk briskly towards the stairs. Every day he threw cautious looks at the red wood of Dan's door, and every day, Dan watched from his peep hole, somewhere between amused and guilty. That morning, Phil was nearly to the stairs, his shoulders drawn up so high, it was almost as if his head was attached directly to his shoulders, when Dan emerged from his flat.

"Good morning, Phil!" He called, leaning against his doorframe with his ankles crossed. "Fancy an early morning snog?"

Phil let out a high "oh!" and shuffled down the cement stairs, throwing scared-looking glances back at Dan every so often, and dropping at least one of this belongings every step or two.

Dan chuckled and went back into his flat. Ah, how fun boys like this were to toy with. All doe-eyed and flower-like. He picked up a pepper shaker and began tossing it between his two hands.

Dan didn't see Phil out of his peep hole after that morning, and each day that week, he'd taken to staring out at the landing a half hour before and after Phil used to, but to no avail. He was sat at his table, contemplating the idea that Phil had been sneaking in through the window, when there was a knock at his door. He scooted away from the table so fast that a jug of orange juice wobbled precariously on the edge, and by the time Dan had steadied it and gotten to the door, the only thing left of his visitor was the shiny heel of a dress shoe disappearing down the hallway.

Dan smiled, and reentered his flat.

That night, the cogs of his brain kept turning well past midnight. The heat of their whirring was killing him. He tossed and turned, and within minutes, his burgundy sheets were pooled by his pale feet. He tried to calm himself with the glow of the moonlight (or city lights, he couldn't be sure) on his arm, but no, the light just made his mind turn harder.

Why was Phil not showing up on the landing? Was he not going to work? If not, why? Was it because of him? Had Dan scared him so much that he'd turned into a recluse? Images of squashed turtles and small bunnies flashed across his mind. Was he really that big of an asshole? If he wasn't an asshole, then why had Phil run away when Dan got to the door? Was he doing it to annoy Dan, or was he legitimately afraid of talking to him? Either way, it meant Dan was about the worst person on the face of the Earth. Why did he always have to take things too far?

The gears in his brain traveled further down through his throat, powering instead his arm and his torso. He sat up without knowing what he was doing. The city rippled its light blue against the dark of his sheets, and Dan moved mechanically towards his desk. Thunder boomed in the distance, and the rain pounded against his window. Blankly, he registered a bright light behind his eyelids, and a peal of thunder shook the floor on which he stood, and he smiled.

Nature knew he was an asshole, too, and that was somehow reassuring. He scribbled out a quick note, and doodled a single yellow flower to the sound of water striking against glass.

The next day, Phil hustled out of his flat to the crunch of paper underfoot. He picked it up, quickly stuffing it in the pocket of the coat draped over the arm that was carrying his briefcase, and he shuffled down the hallway, circling around the back of the building and using the staircase there. It added a good three minutes to his early morning travels, and this unwelcome break in routine did nothing to make him any happier about the early hours at which he had to wake, but it meant he didn't have to go past Dan's door, so that was something.

He arrived in the office and received a cheery hello to the front desk man, a man with a proboscis the size of china, and hair that was so white, it was almost clear, by the name of Pauly. Phil waved in response and made a beeline for the staircase that lead to his floor.

It wasn't until lunch break that Phil even thought about the paper he'd picked up, and it wasn't until the end of said recess that he actually took the time to examine it.

The yellow flower on the front was beautifully drawn, and he couldn't believe someone would drop a piece like this; he knew he would have kept better watch over it. Not once did it cross his mind that this note could be for him. He hesitated and unfolded it, deciding it was best to know whose it was so that he could return it; he was friendly with just about everyone in the building. He read the scrawling note inside.

Dinner at mine tonight? Around eight? I'm making spaghetti (it's the only pasta that doesn't cost an arm and a leg). I'd appreciate being granted the time to apologize.

kisses, your friendly, if not slightly assholeish neighbor

(aka the one you call Steven if you didn't get that)

((Aka Dan.))

((I'm going to go now; it's past one and my eyes are falling out)))

Phil stuffed the note very quickly into the pocket of his trousers, and his eyes darted all around the office as he went back to writing, feeling with every passing work man that the note was burning a hole in his pocket, and God himself would strike the building for even having it.

The clock seemed to move about as fast as the bowels of a man with constipation, and by the time Phil was finally scooting towards his door, his palms were sweating. He was pathetic.

After thirty minutes of being home, though, Phil was starting to wish that the work day lasted longer for the first time in his life. With this much time on his hands, his brain was allotted plenty of thinking space to work with, and thus it played every bad situation humanly imaginable that could result from going over to Dan's place.

Some of these nightmares included arriving only to find that the dinner was made entirely of Brussels Sprouts, another, of snails. One where he was fiddling with Dan's hair, and Dan turned around and bit Phil's hand off. Another where Phil forgot to put on his trousers, and Dan called the cops on Phil for "trying to initiate indecency." There was one in which Dan greeted him at the door, flanked by an army of reporters shoving their notebooks in his face and asking why he'd chosen Dan over women.

He shook his head as he shook out his newspaper, and he began scanning the lines, only to find halfway down the page that he couldn't remember a single word he'd read. He gave up and stared at the ceiling, remembering how pretty Dan had been when he was mad. Phil quickly rid his brain of that thought, and then, for good measure, tried to clear his head entirely. All he could hear was breathing, slowly in and out, shaky, but constant. He focused his mind on it, letting the sound of it create a picture in his head, a blue cloud of color expanding and contracting, up, down, in, out. He stopped registering the silk on his back after a while, and instead focused on the fluctuating cloud. In, out, in, out.

He opened his eyes, and they immediately fell on the pocket watch he hadn't realized was in his hand.

Eight-o-five.

Shit.

He scrambled off of the couch, and almost fell to the floor. He ran the few steps to his bedroom, threw on a more casual pair of trousers, this time less scratchy, and with much less tweed. He checked his hair in the mirror, which was slightly wavy, and mussed up in the back. He tugged on it, hoping to lay it straight, and rushed out of his flat.

He knocked on Dan's door at 8:08, tossing his weight from foot to foot.

Dan scrambled up from his couch and unlatched the door.

"Phil, I'm... you're... I didn't expect you to come. I was kind of an asshole- here, sorry, let me take that- and... well, I'm glad you're here." He finished hanging Phil's coat on the peg beside the door and flashed a smile.

"I didn't expect to come either," mumbled Phil, trying to shuffle around Dan in the small hallway.

Dan pulled out a chair, and he waited until Phil had settled himself in it to circle around to the other side of the small wooden table and take a seat himself.

The spaghetti steaming between the two of them made more sound than either of their mouths. Dan nodded towards it and Phil scooped himself a small serving. He ladled a minescule amount of sauce onto it, piled cheese on top, and picked up his fork, twirling it in his fingers as he stared at Dan across the table.

"Did you invite me here for a reason or are you just going to stare at the table leg all night?" Phil averted his eyes and quickly took a large forkful of spaghetti. He looked up briefly to see Dan crack a smile.

"I did," said Dan, scooping himself a larger portion of noodles than Phil had, "I mean to apologize. I know you were knackered and didn't mean it, and I didn't mean to scare you off by being so forward. I didn't mean anything by my comment a week ago."

Phil took a few more forkfuls of spaghetti before responding. "So you... you're a heterosexual- like me, I mean." He looked down at his noodles which suddenly strongly resembled worms.

Dan didn't answer, but dragged the outer tine of his fork against the spiral patterns of his plate.

"So," Phil coughed, "when did you move into the building?"

Dan smiled against the unpleasant feeling settled in his stomach. "I moved here around three years ago now. The last place I lived in was a cottage by the sea, so I can't say the fog of London has been extremely welcoming, but I've been dealing." Phil cracked a small smile. "And what about you? How long have you been living here?"

"Oh, I've been living here near my whole life. My mother lives about twenty minutes away in an old stone place on the outskirts. I moved into my flat when I got my job at the firm, when I was about twenty-one. Been here for the past nine years. Not that you could tell." He gestured to his face, which hadn't aged a minute since Phil had turned eighteen.

"Ah. Still haven't found that special someone?"

Phil shook his head. "But it seems, I mean, I don't mean to sound rude, but, have you? Found your soulmate, I mean."

Dan leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. "Are you implying that I look old, Philip?"

Phil blushed and poked at a shred of parmesan. "Not at all, not at all, just a question."

Dan sighed and lowered the front legs of his chair back to the floor. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. "I prefer not to talk about my soul mates or," he spoke quickly after seeing the look on Phil's face, "lack thereof. Especially in the presence of handsome men."

Phil nearly choked on his spaghetti trying to respond. "I'm a-"

"Purely heterosexual ladies' man, I know; you've told me. Can one man not simply appreciate the face of another from an objective standpoint? Without it being a matter of attraction?" He didn't know whether the question was aimed more at Phil or himself.

Phil looked to the right of Dan's face. "Right, well, thank you, then."

Dan spoke through a mouth of spaghetti. "You're welcome."

More silence, the scraping of metal on porcelain.

"So, Phil, what do you do?"

"Mostly sit on my couch and pretend that reading means I'm doing something productive with my life."

Dan chuckled. "I meant for a living."

"Oh! Right, yes, that. Contrary to popular belief, I do not make a living sitting on my couch and reading Doyle. Yes, well, I work in a newsprinting office. Not the wealthiest title, but it's enough."

"And what do you do there? Not the sport column, I presume? Judging from the fact that you apparently, what was it? 'Sit on your couch and pretend reading means you're doing something productive with your life.'"

Phil scooped himself a heaping scoop of noodles. "Well, I'm somewhat of an economic expert, so mostly, I write articles on how we're doing money wise. My coworkers insist it's an important job, but I'm fairly certain the turtles on the road are more likely to read it than any resident of London."

Dan would have liked to disagree, but he hadn't read the economic section in his life. "Speaking of turtles on the road," said Dan, sincerely hoping Phil didn't notice his obvious change in subject, "what are you out there doing all the time when you pick them up?"

"What would I be doing with turtles? Like are you suggesting I'm starting a turtle petting zoo or that my dad was a turtle and now it's my noble duty to save them all from car crashes?"

Dan stared at Phil for a second before bursting out laughing. "Your 'noble duty?' to save turtles? I feel I can rest assured that your dad was, in fact, a human being."

Phil felt as if he'd never stop blushing. "So I'm not a secret superturtle then?"

"No, not a secret superturtle. Though I would read a book like that."

"The 'teenage-looking super turtle.' It'd be a real hit." joked Phil, trying to pretend he hadn't just sounded like an actual five-year-old.

"I'll make sure to write it down," Dan chuckled.

Phil smiled to himself, looking down at his hands on the edge of the table. "So what do you do? For a living; I'm not sure I'm ready to know what you do all on your lonesome."

Dan cocked an eyebrow at Phil, but responded without mentioning the connotation. "I work with the police force."

Phil nodded. "So I don't have to worry about you being an axe murderer then? That's good to know."

Dan tried to smile at Phil's smile. "Nah."

"It's been an evening, but I should get going. I've got a long night ahead of me," proclaimed Phil, slapping both hands on the table and scooting his chair back as he stood.

He went to pick up his plate, but Dan waved him away. "It's fine, I'll get it. A long night of what? Reading and pretending it means you're doing something?"

Phil smiled as he grabbed his coat from the peg. "Something like that." He was almost out the door before he stopped, nearly knocking into Dan. "Hey. Steven and I are going down to the market on Saturday, you know, if you want to come."

Dan smiled at him. "I'll try my best."

~

Half an hour before the market opened and what was his problem? He mulled over his plans while staring at the ceiling. The clock ticked out its rythmic din and Dan's resolve trickled out from its previous den. He was actually mental for making plans with Phil. He had had a good day of sitting around being lonely planned for that day, followed by a good few hours of self pity. He had no time for socializing. That was it, he just wouldn't show up. His flat was solid, fool-proof, and unjudging. People were... wavering. Plus, they talked.

In his room, four minutes before the market opened, he sat on his bed.

Why was society like this? How could they expect him to stay happy with some oldie if he was also meant to stay young? It was so hypocritical. He was pressured to look good always, and show interest in everything, yet he was also expected to find someone he loved and grow old with them. If he got old, he wouldn't look good, and he would become slowly uninterested, and then he'd be frowned upon. How, though, was he supposed to stay young if he apparently had so goddamn many soulmates? Honestly, he thought, out of the someod billion people in the world, how was it that so many of the people he met seemed to make him age? The speculation in his family was that each partnered person was the branch of a tree. His dad had told him the stories of how no matter could be created nor destroyed, and how that meant that he was made of the same atoms that used to make up something else. If you were lucky, he'd told him, you'd find the person that was a branch from the same tree as you, back when you weren't a person, or another petal off a flower, another fiber on a petal, and so on. As far as Dan could tell, his atoms must have come from a tree as well, but all his soulmates were all the hundreds of fucking leaves hanging from it. He had an uncle, Bartholomew, who told him stories of the revolutionary war, not because he heard stories of it from his parents, but because he'd lived through it. And he didn't look over thirty-five.

Dan had always been mesmerized by his uncle (well, technically great-great- uncle) and all the fantastic stories he had told about going from walking on foot, to riding horses, to riding in wagons pulled by horses. His uncle spoke of the horse-drawn buggy like it was the end-all be-all of vehicular movement, and he told it like walking used to be harder because humans back then had softer feet. Under the disapproving eye of Dan's father, Bartholomew had told him stories, fables from when he was a kid. It was one of Barth's impromptu travels in that Dan had heard the story that captivated him most. "Legend has it," his uncle had told him, "that if you, accidentally of course, were to kill your soul mate, then you stop aging. Seems a bit outlandish, I know, but it's what happened to me, you see. I'd met a nice young lass at a tavern, American, you know, before the war. Was firing one day, and I didn't notice at the time, but she was a nurse, see, on the other side, and, 'cordin' to Jesse who sworn he saw 'er on the other side, dead, I shot 'er right between the eyes." It was at that point that his mom had let out a cough, and his uncle had started heading off to his room, but eight-year-old Dan still had questions.

He snuck into Barth's room later that night. "Barthy," he'd whispered, crawling onto the bed to shake his uncle awake, "Psst. Barthy."

His uncle had emerged from the sheets slicing the air with his hands before he saw Dan's small form kneeling at his ankles. "Oh, hey, sport."

Dan had crawled up so he was seated next to Barth's elbows. "Can you tell me more about your soul mate? And what happened when she died? How does that happen?"

His uncle had sat up in his bed, running a hand through his military-cut hair as if he still had the shoulder-length strawberry blonde locks that he'd had in his youth.

"You won't go squealin' to your papa?" he'd whispered, and Dan shook his head. "Okay. The deal is--and this ain't science but I know some high-up guys who say they heard this--that you kill your soul mate, like you specifically, can't be no truck 'r bear 'r nothin', you kill 'em, and you stop agin'. Boom, end, done deal, kapoosh, badda bing, badda bang, stopped. Now, I ain't believed 'em before, but look at me! Aged fifteen years up 'ntil the day I shot li'l Becky, an' haven't aged a day since. It's either a real big coinkidink or them guys were right."

"But," Dan had stammered, grabbing a handful of sheet in his little fist, "why would nature do that? If you're not supposed to kill people, why make it so you live if you do?"

"Now, I ain't know, and I ain't sayin' you should go around killin' people in the hopes you go on livin', but them's the facts."

Dan had gone to bed that night with wide eyes and a racing heart. Who would kill their soul mate?

Turns out, he had been listening his whole life to the thoughts of a man who did just that. Three times.

~to be cot'd~ (bc it was getting super long and I wanted to give you guys something to read) ((also, for it to qualify as a short story it has to be <7500 words and this is already over 8,000 and it's not near over so lmao))