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Phil is fine, is the thing. He always is. It’s just a fact of the universe, like grass being green, or England being rainy. Bad things don’t happen to Phil, nothing really bad anyways, like the universe just couldn’t bring itself to mess with its golden child.
The thing is Dan’s gotten used to it. He’s used to being the mess, to being the one that needs help, that needs more time, that needs to be put back together. It’s just how things are. It felt like cognitive dissonance to hear the crash of the plant pot as Phil flung out an arm to steady himself, to grab uselessly at Phil’s keeling form as it pitched sideways, to say are you okay are you okay are you okay when the two of them were huddled in a pile on the floor, Dan’s arms around him, Phil’s head pillowed safely against his stomach. It had taken thirty seconds of ragged breathing from Phil and slamming heartbeats from Dan before he had said, very softly, I’m fine. It had taken less than ten more for Phil to hiccup and wheeze, for his breath to hitch and his face to twist.
“I can’t do this again,” Phil choked out through almost-sobs, “I don’t want- it’s not happening again.”
“Phil,” Dan had said, useless, useless, running fingers through his hair on instinct. This isn’t supposed to happen, was what he had been thinking. Bad things shouldn’t happen to him, not ever. Just to me, just to everything else in the world.
On second thought, maybe it was just selective memory. Phil hadn’t been fine when Dan was on tour. There were months and months of tests, of doctors, of all the joy and color bleached from Phil’s face. From everything that had happened in his life, all the bullshit and misery, this was the thing that Dan wished he could erase forever, just block from his mind like it had never happened. That’s what he tries to do, anyway. It’s almost easy, since he hadn’t been there for some of it.
There aren’t many fundamental truths to the universe that Dan recognizes, but this one he knows for certain: If things had been different, if they’d never met, Phil would have been fine without him. Dan most certainly wouldn’t have been.
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a fact, like the sky being blue, or England being perpetually bleak.
Phil isn’t fine. Dan feels a bit like his whole world has pitched sideways. The worst part is Phil hasn’t seemed to notice.
“Don’t say the T word,” Phil grimaces, reaching to open the fridge door. “You know I’m nearly positive it’s a migraine trigger.”
“You’re such a bitch,” Dan says, unwrapping a sleeve of crackers with one hand and angrily gesticulating with the other. “What a fucking supportive partner you are, banning the word therapy. That’s got to be some incredibly advanced red flag.”
Phil pauses, fingers still gripping the fridge handle. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, glancing towards Dan. “You know that, obviously. You can talk about your therapy all you want.”
“You’re just too good for it then?” It comes out harsher than he’d meant. Phil just chuckles, shutting the fridge with his shoulder. He didn’t even grab anything from it.
“Film starts at half one,” Phil says instead, and Dan huffs at the immediate pivot. “Though this isn’t that nice cinema in Covent Garden so maybe we should go a bit earlier. Be ready in twenty?”
“Phil,” Dan says, pausing with a knife halfway to the jar of peanut butter in front of him. “It would be- it would be good for you, is all I’m saying. I know you haven’t had dizziness issues for a few days, but-”
“I told you that was nothing,” Phil insists, leaning over the counter. “I was just being a baby about it, it was- it was just a fluke, I dunno. It hasn’t been like that for years. Stop worrying.”
I’ll stop when you stop, Dan thought, but didn’t say. I’ll stop pushing it when you stop staring at nothing and having nightmares about fainting and gripping onto handrails for dear life.
“I hate when you do this,” Dan grumbles instead, in a low voice, almost too low to hear. “I hate when you just shut down.”
“I’m not shutting down,” Phil protests, absently, lightly. “I’m fully powered on. Ready for whatever the sketchy cinema throws at us.”
He wanders out of the kitchen after that, wanders out of the conversation, like he always does. Dan screws the peanut butter lid back on with more force than he probably needs to.
***
“Everyone feels like that in the beginning,” Dan says, trying to sound comforting. He’s not entirely sure why he’s chosen to talk about this in the middle of watching Phil play a video game on the couch, but he just…says it. “It sucks, yeah, but not for that long. It’s really not this big thing that people think of it as. It’s just…a tool. You know.”
Phil sighs, heavily. “Your sales pitch is getting better,” he says, like it’s a joke, a long-running bit.
“Perfect. I’ll sign you up for a session next week then.”
“Thought you weren’t supposed to pressure people into it,” Phil mumbles, watching the TV screen intently.
“Well, no,” Dan huffs, propping his legs up on the coffee table. “It’s not perfect, and it’s not for everyone. I’m just saying. If you’re tired of going to doctors and you won’t talk to me which means you aren’t talking to anyone else either and you still think it’ll all go away if you just pretend nothing’s wrong-”
Phil’s whole body freezes. He actually reaches over to pause the game. “Dan.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, stop saying,” Phil says, a bit harshly. He grimaces in Dan’s direction. “It hasn’t been bad in ages, Dan, you know that. Nothing’s wrong right now. I don’t know why you’re pushing it.”
“Because I want you to feel better. How utterly fucking selfish of me.”
“Dan.”
“It helps,” Dan insists, pushing two fingers against Phil’s thigh. “It helped me. God, how many times did I- you were fucking there, Phil, you know how much it helped. You were the one pushing me to-”
“That’s different,” Phil says, and Dan is surprised at how serious he sounds. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“Yeah?” Dan blinks at him. Was it, really? One person needing help and the other trying desperately to give it, despite as much resistance as possible. Story of their fucking lives. “I don’t think it is.”
“It was different with you,” Phil insists, and his eyes are shut now, and he’s covering most of his face with one hand like he can’t say it without hiding. “You would disappear, Dan, I couldn’t find you, you’d just leave and wouldn’t answer your phone and sometimes you’d be in the house somewhere but sometimes you’d just be gone. I couldn't- I wasn’t-”
“Phil,” Dan says softly, suddenly at a loss, line of inquiry forgotten. It twisted something, deep in his gut. They didn’t talk about this. Phil didn’t talk about this, not ever, not in any kind of emotional, sincere way. Not in any kind of way that didn’t preclude the sentiment of but it’s over now, it’s over, I’m so sorry it got that bad, I’m so happy you made it through, I hope it never gets that bad again. Always simple, succinct, hopeful, shoving it all firmly in the past. Certainly not anything about himself.
They didn’t talk about it. Not because they were ashamed, or avoiding the subject altogether- Dan had made it his whole life, for months and years after, had written thousands and thousands of words about nothing but it- but because it was just too much, sometimes. There was no need to relive something that had been so resolutely awful. So it feels a bit like all the air has been punched out of his lungs, to hear it, to hear Phil saying the words. You scared him, you scared him, you were hurting and you pulled him down with you.
It was so strange, to see it now, on Phil’s face. Not that Dan hadn’t seen it before, but he hadn’t been aware of it. He hadn’t been aware of much of anything, back then. He’d been completely useless, unable to do most things, certainly unable to carefully judge Phil’s emotional state when he himself had been so deep into drowning he could barely remember he existed at all. And after- well, they hadn’t talked about it, had they? So seeing it…so clear, so plain in the way a shadow fell over his eyes, in how much paler he’d gotten. It made something cool and shivery flood through him- not guilt, really, not shock, but a little revelation, a fact, settling somewhere in between ribs. Of course it had been hard for him. Of course. But most things seemed easy, to Phil. It was always hard for Dan to remember that most of his worries he kept shrouded in silence.
That was why it had struck lightning through his bones when he’d heard the words Dan, I don't think I’ll be able to come, in a voice so small and tired it hardly sounded like Phil at all. Why he’d booked a flight immediately. It hurt him, it hurt him so bad to think about Phil slumped on the bathroom floor, crouched over the toilet seat, gaunt, nauseous, pale, arms shaking, closing his eyes to prepare every time he had to stand up. It hurt Dan, like a fist in his chest, to think of Phil so sick, and to think that he hadn’t even been there-
Phil’s just shaking his head, swallowing thickly. “It was different,” he repeats, whispering, and Dan blinks his way out of his thoughts. “You…I kept losing you. You needed help. It’s not like that with me. I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” Dan says weakly, but doesn’t press it, because he’s lost the heart to have this conversation right now. Instead, he leans over ever so slightly, nudging his head against Phil’s shoulder, because Phil appreciated contact when he was upset in a way Dan hated. Phil sighs, leaning into it, opening his mouth to say something but apparently thinking better of it. Dan watches him play his game and says nothing more about it.
***
He cancels plans with a couple they’re friends with, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary except it’s last minute and all he says is he’s ‘not up to it.’ Dan and Phil are no stranger to being antisocial, to apologetically cancelling dinners and parties when they’re exhausted, but it’s always a joint operation. Today, Phil just says “I’m really tired, sorry, you can go if you want, can you tell them sorry for me?”
He disappears into the bedroom after that, barely waiting for Dan’s response. Dan goes to dinner, and apologizes on Phil’s behalf, and enjoys himself. There’s a nagging worry in the back of his head, though, that he can’t shake all night.
He heads straight to the bedroom when he gets home, not even bothering to knock. Phil’s in bed, bundled in possibly every blanket they have, wide awake but doing nothing but staring at the ceiling.
“Okay?” Dan asks, wary, tossing his coat into the closet without bothering to hang it up. “Phil?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Phil says, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “I was just…really tired. Like I said.”
“From sitting on your lazy ass all day,” Dan quips, going to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. “You’re…really okay? You’re sweating.”
“Yeah, ‘m fine. Felt a bit queasy earlier but I think it was just our lunch takeaway not agreeing with me.”
Dan grunts. That was a different story from ‘tired.’ “You could’ve just said that, you bitch,” he says lightly. “I could have stayed. Made you some lovely soup.”
Phil grimaces loudly at him. “Yeah, right. I was fine.”
Dan gives him a look, that says okay, that says if you say so, that says you’re fucking stupid. There was no reason for Phil to not say ‘Lunch made me queasy’. There was no reason for Phil to look like he does now, almost nervous. Dan knows what it means. He wishes he didn’t.
“You’re fine,” he says, tapping gently at Phil’s cheek. “Just some greasy takeaway, bub. Happens to the best of us.”
“Just said that,” Phil protests, batting his hand away.
“So stop being scared.”
“Hm? I’m not scared.”
“Sure,” Dan says, feeling just a bit uneasy, just a bit useless.
***
“You know what it makes me think, right,” Dan mumbles, hands folded over his chest, eyes trained on the ceiling. “You have to.”
“What what makes you think,” Phil asks sleepily, pointer finger absently scrolling through his phone.
“You just-” Dan sighs, presses his thumbs into his eyelids. If they’re going to talk about it it’s going to have to be him, saying the words, spelling it out. He’s done fighting this. “Nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Phil says, surprisingly. Dan glances over to see he’s laid his phone on his nightstand, and is squinting at Dan through his glasses like they aren’t helping him see any better. “C’mon, you’re mad with me.”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been having half a conversation all week,” Phil says, and now it’s his turn to sound grumbly. “A conversation with yourself, really. Like you’re mad I’m not saying what you want me to but forgot you never gave me the script.”
Dan stares at him. “You’re the one who won’t talk to me,” and it’s defensive, he knows it is.
“How am I supposed to if I don’t know what we’re talking about? Just- vague questions and passive aggression. I can’t actually read your mind, Dan.”
This last part is said with a bit more gentleness, because Phil knows, as Dan does, that sometimes Dan forgets. Sometimes they can read each other’s minds, like it's nothing, like it’s natural, like it’s something they were born with. But Dan talks to Phil when he’s not there and gets annoyed when Phil forgets things that it turns out he never actually told him and confidently mentions memories that Phil had been halfway across the world for. It’s just- he forgets sometimes. That years of living in each other’s skin doesn’t always mean Phil can hear all the unspoken things.
“Dan,” Phil says again, prompting. Dan realizes he’s been quiet for a while. “Dan. What what makes you think…what?”
“Too many whats to be a real sentence,” Dan sighs, but turns over and buries the side of his face in his pillow. “You know…how it sounds. When you say therapy’s stupid.”
As usual, the T word makes something ugly and defensive flash across Phil’s face. Just for a second, but. It’s there.
“I didn’t,” Phil says, much more awake now, “I never, I- what are you saying?”
“Nothing,” he starts to say, but he’s dug a well too deep now. He has to follow through. “You just won’t shut up about how it doesn’t work. And, well. Guess whose fucking life it saved. It makes me feel like…like, I dunno. Like you think I’m stupid.”
“Dan,” Phil says, and his voice is thin and high and panicked but not in the run away avoid kind of way but the quick fix this before something in Dan breaks way. (Dan hates that voice.) “I never said that! I never said any of that. Of course I don’t- how could you think-”
“I don’t really think that,” Dan mumbles for clarification, tosses a leg over Phil’s, a peace offering. “Slow your roll. Just…y’know. Makes me feel a bit shit.”
“Dan,” Phil says again, helpless, like it’s all he knows how to say. He’s sitting up now, leaning back against the headboard, one hand cupping his forehead like he does when he can feel the stirrings of a migraine.
“Did you think I was stupid for needing it?” Dan asks, because sometimes a direct question is the best way to cut to the heart of it.
This forces a strangled little noise from Phil’s lungs. “No,” he cries, flabbergasted, “Dan, stop, you know-”
“Then how come,” Dan interrupts, pushing himself up to lean on one elbow, “it’s only stupid when it’s you needing it?”
“It’s completely different,” Phil insists, voice hushed, like he’s trying not to wake someone in the next room. “You know it is.”
“I really don’t.”
Phil thunks his skull back against the headboard. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Then we’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Dan said, a bit cruelly.
Phil says nothing. Just grimaces, squeezing his eyes shut.
It’s quiet. They sit there, in the hurt and the distance. It’s- ugh. Dan hates doing this. He hates avoiding things, letting them fester, pushing them to the side to mold and rot. More than that he hates how much this is clearly affecting Phil. Hates how he seems scared. Dan blows out a breath, rubbing idly at his left eye.
He doesn’t sit up. He doesn’t put himself on Phil’s level, meet his eyes, force the conversation. Instead he reaches out his pointer finger and lays it against Phil’s palm. To Dan’s immense relief, Phil wraps the rest of his hand around it and squeezes. Another little truce.
“I just don’t understand it,” Dan says, like a dam broken, trying to be honest, trying not to let frustration seep into the words. “I don’t understand why you have to hide from me.”
“I’m not hiding from you,” Phil insists, a little fearfully, like he’s lightheaded.
Dan grimaces. He rubs his thumb against Phil’s knuckles.
“I don’t mean to push,” he says. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not- perfect, obviously, or simple. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I just hate seeing you scared and unhappy. You don’t deserve to feel like that.”
It feels like too much, almost. Too honest. Phil doesn’t say anything right away, just staring ahead, looking at nothing.
Eventually, something in his face crumples. He glances down at Dan, and his eyes have the sudden look that all his walls have evaporated.
“You’ve always been the brave one,” Phil says, almost breathless, so vulnerable it makes Dan’s heart squeeze painfully. “I don’t think I could stand it if I- if I got scared and quit after the first one, not after everything you fought through to- you know.”
This hits Dan, like something physical. His eyebrows shoot up, a visceral recoil.
“It’s not about me,” Dan insists, more intensely than he’d meant it. He swallows, reining himself in. “It’s not a contest, babe. You can quit if you need.”
Phil stares at him mournfully.
God, it makes Dan- sad. “Why are you so sure you’d quit anyways? Maybe you’d even like it.”
Phil scrubs a hand over his face.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says, a bit harshly. “That’s what they’ll say. There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing real, I don’t have- an excuse. It’s just me being ridiculous.”
Oh. If you don’t have some kind of clinical anxiety I’ll eat a fucking shoe, Dan thinks, rather loudly, but does not say. Phil isn’t ready for that, has explicitly not been ready for that, as evidenced by all the times Dan has tried to bring it up and Phil has suddenly had important work to do on the other side of the house.
“Phil,” he says instead, small and sad. “I’ll just- I’ll just skip past the part where I tell you that’s stupid. And that you don’t have to have a diagnosis to qualify for therapy. Even if we- let’s just say that there is some kind of gauge to judge whether or not you deserve to go to therapy. I’m pretty fucking sure you make the list.”
“Dan,” Phil protests weakly.
“We lead strange lives, Phil,” Dan presses on. “You take into account the semi-famous status, the years of harassment, being closeted, and then all your health issues…forget therapists, what person on this earth is going to look you in the face and say you’re not fucked up enough for a few sessions?”
Phil makes an incredulous scoffing noise. Dan smirks.
“Plus you have to deal with this fucking guy all the time, so. That definitely qualifies you for professional help.”
“Dan,” Phil says, spluttering, shoving a pointer finger towards Dan’s mouth. Dan leans forward and mimes biting it. Phil laughs, absurdly, and Dan feels a glowing sense of triumph.
They look at each other for a minute. Phil shrinks down, wriggling back under the covers and flopping over until his face is pressed into Dan’s neck. Surprised, Dan lifts an arm on instinct and wraps it around his shoulderblades.
Phil hums softly against his skin. “I’m really not good at talking about my problems,” he mumbles. “I much prefer ignoring them until they go away.”
“Yeah,” Dan says, grimacing. “I know.”
Phil chuckles. They’re both quiet, for a few minutes. Dan stares up at the ceiling. He wonders if the conversation is over. He wonders if Phil is falling asleep. They don’t really cuddle at night like this, not since they were young and clingy and convinced the other would disappear any minute, but Dan can tolerate a stiff shoulder after such a weighty topic.
It catches him off guard when Phil suddenly inhales sharply. Not asleep, then.
“Phil?” he asks.
“You know,” Phil murmurs, low in his throat, lips brushing against Dan’s neck. “I’m always scared. I’ve been scared my whole life. And I just- what if they say I could’ve fixed it? What if I could have gotten better years and years ago and it turns out I’ve just been doing life wrong the whole time?”
“You haven’t,” Dan says, wrapping a second arm around Phil, squeezing him close. It cuts him, down the middle, messy, jagged. “Don’t- you can’t think like that.”
“I just worry,” Phil whispers, small, so small.
“Therapy’s for helping you deal with your life right now, not- creating more spirals for yourself. Dwelling on what could have been. Besides,” Dan says around the lump in his throat, “I think you've done alright. I rather like the life you’ve had so far.”
“Oh,” Phil says. His fingers wander up Dan’s side, bunch idly in the fabric of his shirt. “Oh. If you think so, then.”
Dan leans down to kiss his forehead wordlessly. Phil makes a contented noise.
They lay there. Minutes go by accompanied by nothing but soft breathing. This time, Dan is moderately sure Phil is halfway asleep, or at least that they’re putting the conversation to rest for now.
Dan is half asleep himself when Phil swallows thickly.
“Dan,” he says, barely audible. “I’ll think about it.”
He blinks awake. At first he isn’t quite sure what Phil means. And then pride bursts through his chest, followed by relief, all wrapped up in love.
“Good,” Dan says back, yawning. “That’s good.”
They fall asleep, arms around each other, like teenagers again.