Dan opens his eyes and immediately winces, his body aching and stinging from his head to his feet. He stares up at the ceiling, blinking as he tries to process the wooden breams above him. Where the hell is he? This isn't his ship. This definitely isn't his planet. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to remember the events of the past 24 hours.

He was in his ship.

Something hit his ship and damaged it.

His broken ship sunk too close to this planet's gravitational pull.

And... crash.

He stumbled from the wreck and collapsed, and that's about all he remembers.

Dan sits up, sending pain coursing through his entire chest and causing a fierce coughing fit. Trying desperately to breathe, he looks around the room and tries to calm his racing heart.

A man appears in the doorway and he yelps, back hitting the wall and fingers digging into the mattress beneath him. He stares with wide eyes at this strange person and gasps for air despite the ache in his lungs. The man raises his hands in surrender, blue eyes trained on Dan.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Philip, but you can call me Phil."

Dan nods and coughs again, his entire body screaming at him to stop moving. "D-Daniel. D-Dan. Where a-am I?"

"Earth. Specifically, England." He smiles awkwardly and shifts, his fingers fiddling with the ties on his trousers. "Where are you from?"

"I'm... uh... it's..." Dan sputters and falls into silence, staring wide-eyed at Phil. When Phil just looks at him, he bites his lip and tries again. "Ah, I'm from... Scara. It's a p-planet... uh... in the Librae N-Nebula."

"You're pretty far from home, aren't you?"

Dan inclines his head and shies away from Phil even more. He twists his blanket in his fingers, wanting to hide but having nowhere to go. Phil continues to watch him, concern growing on his face.

"Are you okay, Dan?" he asks.

Dan nods for a second before shaking his head. He's not okay. Nothing abut this is okay. He's far from home on a planet he's never seen before and he's terrified. Every part of his body hurts. His lungs ache when he breathes. His arms are bruised and he's positive that other places on his body are bruised as well. A choked sob escapes his lips and he claps his hands over his mouth, curling into a ball as his chest heaves with cries that he does his best to keep silent. Phil stands there, looking lost and helpless, before folding his hands behind his back.

"I'm going to make tea. You... stay here and calm down. I'll be right back."

Phil retreats from the room and Dan scrubs the tears from his face, exhaling shakily. His hand brushes over the bandage on his cheek and he prods it carefully, feeling more disoriented than ever. Phil must have brought him here after the crash and taken care of him, and somehow that feels strange. A stranger on Scara would have never shown such compassion.

Somewhere else in the house, a shrill whistle pierces the air. Dan jumps and groans as his body protests his movements, his heart rate picking up again. Even after the whistle dies down, he still finds himself frozen in place, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing does. Mere moments later, Phil reenters the room with two cups of something hot, and Dan only picks his up once Phil has placed it on the side table. The guardian takes a seat in the chair beside the bed, his posture stiff and calculated.

"I, uh, bandaged you up," Phil comments, glancing at Dan. Dan realizes that he was absentmindedly touching the bandage on his cheek with his fingers and lets his hand drop. "You already realized that, though."

Dan nods and sips his drink. It's sweet and strange, unlike anything that he's ever tried before, and he looks at Phil with slightly furrowed eyebrows. Phil looks back at him, and when Dan doesn't say anything the guardian finally speaks.

"It's called tea. It's, uh... dried fruit and herbs and stuff like that."

Dan hums and takes another sip. Phil watches him, not bothering to hide his curiosity. His silence, while not unwelcome, is strange. All of the villagers that Phil has interacted with always talk far too much and never know when to stop. Dan, on the other hand, has only said maybe fifteen words since he woke up. It's kind of... nice to not worry about making conversation.

"Are you... human?" Dan asks after several minutes of peaceful silence.

Phil sips his drink, thinking for a moment before replying. "Not exactly. Some call me a faerie, others call me a sprite. I'm more of a guardian of the forest that doesn't fit into any of those labels." He smiles a little. "My father was a human who wandered into the woods and got lost. He met a woodland spirit disguised as a human, and they fell in love and had me. Now, my duty is to protect this forest."

Dan's lips quirk into the smallest of smiles, his gaze trained on his cup. "Earth has very strange fairytales."

Phil grins. "I suppose so."

The two lapse into silence once again. Dan finishes his cup of tea and sets in on the side table, his eyes travelling to the window by his bed. It looks out over Phil's garden, which intrigues him immediately. He shifts to get a better look, gritting his teeth and coughing as he does.

"Be careful. You need to recover," Phil insists.

He nods, coughing violently into his elbow. He doesn't look over at Phil, focused on soaking in the garden. The guardian watches him, gaze dancing over the line of his jaw, before shaking himself and taking Dan's empty cup from the side table.

"Get some sleep, okay? You'll need your rest if you're going to recover," Phil says.

Dan simply nods and leans on the windowsill, his head resting on his crossed, bruised arms. Phil leaves the room and closes the door behind him, leaving the space boy alone.