Work Text:
When Phil wakes up that morning, the world around him is still the same.
The walls of his room are painted the same color as yesterday, there’s still a lion plushie on the shelf and an array of empty mugs and glasses from last night on the bedside table. Even the weather didn’t change much.
The only thing that’s different is this boy sleeping next to Phil, the smell of his chocolate brown hair filling Phil’s nostrils. The boy is a brand new presence, his eyes (now closed) almost overflowing with youth and fire and nervous energy, this boy who wrapped his arms around Phil at the train station yesterday so hard Phil felt his own lungs in his throat, but didn’t really mind.
Meeting Dan for the first time was everything he expected, everything he didn’t expect, and then some more.
Sometime during the night Phil must’ve thrown one of his arms around Dan’s waist and now it’s firmly secured there, Dan having laced their fingers together and then pressing their hands against his chest. It’s okay, Phil wouldn’t need that hand for anything else anyway.
Slowly, carefully, because this entire thing is still in its beta phase, Phil scoots closer to Dan, assuming the position of the bigger spoon. Phil’s t-shirt has ridden up in the front a little and, coincidentally, Dan’s t-shirt has ridden up slightly in the back, so there’s warm skin against warm skin and Phil experiences an entirely new feeling: a sinking sensation of a heavy stomach and a completely weightless heart.
Phil buries his face in the back of Dan’s neck and adjusts to this new reality of waking up next to the boy he cares about very, very much.
So the world is still the same as it was the morning before. Only now it contains a Dan.
*
The life has been turned upside down and inside out, a bit.
Phil’s weekdays and weekends, consumed with thoughts of making videos, plans for making videos and then actually making the videos now have an added component of obsessively thinking about Dan. Waiting for evening Skype sessions elongates into forever and sometimes Phil catches himself just doing something mundane and his heart is trying to leap out of his chest for no good reason at all.
Meticulously, he saves every text message, screenshots every comment Dan writes and gets a shoebox where he puts all the tickets and polaroids from Dan’s first visit to Manchester. The second visit is coming, it is going to happen soon enough, but life is too slow for Phil now, too slow to keep up with his racing heart.
“I spooked myself so hard watching The Collector, you have no idea. I sorta want to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, sorta want to die here from dehydration because I’m not setting foot outside the bedroom until the sun shines.”
“Do you need cuddles?”
Dan chuckles, hand drifting to his hair automatically, adjusting the fringe mindlessly. “Yeah, well, shame the only person I want them from is a whole train journey away.”
There’s silence following, the two of them just looking at each other’s faces and Dan blushes slightly in the dim lights of his room. Phil breathes out and places his hand on the screen where Dan’s heart is, even though Dan can’t see it. “I’m sure if you try hard enough, you can imagine I’m cuddling you. Because there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing right now.”
They go to sleep like that, Skype still on, each minding their own night time business while talking from time to time, and it ends with both of them lying in their respective beds, with laptops acting as their significant others.
“How’s that imagination working out for you?” Phil asks, his heart filling out when Dan bursts into his melodic, dorky laughter.
“Not half as good as the real thing.”
When they meet at the train station again two and a half weeks later, Dan goes straight for a kiss, and Phil catches on in a second.
It’s awfully cliché and terribly romantic and extremely beautiful. Dan presses himself into Phil like he’s the only part of the world that ever mattered, and it seems as if Dan chewed twenty chewing gums just in preparation for this very moment. He holds onto the back of Phil’s denim jacket with his fists and can’t quite control his breathing when Phil buries one hand in Dan’s hair, forgetting to move the other one and just resting it on top of Dan’s hip. The rhythm of their mouths is intoxicating and just perfect.
The train leaves the station, their noses knock together and Phil runs his tongue against the roof of Dan’s mouth just for the hell of it. Somebody elbows Phil in the shoulder painfully and they break apart, Dan hiding his face until Phil tips his chin up, admiring the rainbow of colors on Dan’s face, in his eyes.
“I missed you, Danny,” Phil says, causing Dan to make a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh and proceed to strangle him again.
They forget all about YouTube that night, too busy making out in every corner of Phil’s bed and his room, shamelessly exploring each other’s bodies and learning reactions, and Phil feels like he is the one who is really on fire, that everything is on fire, all the time.
*
“So, Phil.”
“Yeah?”
“This is real now. We’ve actually had sex. This is an actual thing that has happened.”
“I guess it is, yeah.”
“And when we wake up in the morning, it will still be a real thing that happened.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to wake up in a world where it didn’t happen, Dan.”
“Oh my God, you’re so fucking cheesy, Phil.”
“You still like it though.”
*
PHIL, 1:14 AM: Ready for moving day tomorrow?
DAN, 1:16 AM: I guess… although I’m slightly terrified
PHIL, 1:19 AM: Don’t be! I think it will all be good :D
I think it will be good. I think we’ll be good, and happy, and successful, and many other things I won’t name yet. I think we, Dan and I, are an unstoppable machine when we are together, so becoming flatmates is definitely the right call.
DAN, 1:22 AM: We need to decide on the first show to properly watch together. And the first game to play
PHIL, 1:24 AM: No worries, I have a whole list <3
*
In 2012, Dan doesn’t kiss innocently. He is a ball of anger charging through the world and he’s so charged with energy Phil doesn’t really recognize and doesn’t even try to tame. His smiles get wider, but he’s a little dead behind the eyes, like he’s faking everything. When Dan kisses Phil, the only purpose behind it is sex.
Dan doesn’t do anything innocently anymore. He’s aggressively rebranding himself. He either seems mad at Phil or the entire world, Phil isn’t sure. He doesn’t want to cuddle or watch movies together anymore; if anything, he just wants to fuck. He becomes louder and even more obnoxious and the nail marks on Phil’s back hurt when soap gets into them.
He’s trying to sleep one night when Dan walks into his room unceremoniously, sits cross-legged on the floor across from Phil’s bed and just starts talking. “Phil. If we’re alone in the universe, why? Why have we been chosen? Why did a mixture of atoms and chemical reactions create a being like me and why did they make my soul fucked up in that particular way, and not the other? I can’t sleep.”
Phil wills his own sleepiness away and answers, slowly, one question after another. The ones he doesn’t have a positive or at least a neutral answer to, he omits, even though he knows Dan will notice. Dan asks more questions and an hour flies by in what feels like a blink. Phil never felt that tired after a blink. Dan straightens his legs, looks at his feet for a second and then stands up to leave, not saying a word, closing Phil’s door behind himself just a tad too loud.
Fifteen minutes later Phil’s trying to sleep yet again when Dan walks in, second time’s the charm apparently, and in the faint glow of the hallway lights Phil can see that Dan is completely naked.
“I still can’t sleep. I need you.”
When confronted with a phrase like that, can Phil refuse? How could he ever? Falling into each other and helping Dan forget is too easy, so easy when Dan rips away Phil’s duvet and climbs into his lap and he’s not even wearing any clothes for Phil to take off, everything way too easy and not at all earned by any of them.
See, Phil has learned a long time ago that sex, even with the person you love, is not by any means the greatest thing in the world. It can be awesome, sure, it can make your toes curl and your breath go away and there’s always the realization of being as close as possible to the other person. It’s sort of a pause of reality, but there’s always that longing feeling of still wanting more. Of never quite getting there, wherever there is.
Phil, as much as he enjoys sex, doesn’t really understand it.
Dan’s lips are burning, leaving mark after mark on Phil’s neck and when Phil grips Dan’s cock, the boy looks into Phil’s eyes like it’s a challenge.
Phil grips harder.
Dan moans and almost melts.
He wants to be violated, used and treated roughly, so that’s exactly what Phil isn’t going to do. Dan’s self-destructive tendencies were never cute and should’ve been cut short ages ago. With no effort at all, because Dan is soft like butter, Phil turns them around so he hovers over Dan, pressing him into the pillows, slowly exploring his mouth and jerking him off in the most languid movements. When Dan tries to writhe and grind, Phil presses him down with a hand on his hip. Dan bites Phil’s lip painfully in return.
The worst thing to do at that moment is thinking back to how it used to be. How Dan used to laugh and joke at their awkwardness. How they could mess certain things up, but still move on and not let them ruin the mood. How they were best friends in the first place, lovers in the second. How Dan would grip tighter onto Phil’s skin when being told endearments and how his pupils would grow wide. Phil tries not to think about these things, even though it’s difficult when he needs to satisfy this needy beast growling beneath him and begging for more, more than Phil can give these days apparently.
He finally gives up, lets go of all control and starts grinding on Dan’s hard-on, Dan picking up their pace as soon as he gets the chance. He spits into his palm and surrounds both their dicks with his fingers, biting down on Phil’s earlobe and then releasing an array of quiet curses when he comes with a violent shudder, Phil following him seconds later.
All the stars in the sky went down and there’s only Dan, the only point of reference left, a very unreliable one, too. They catch eye contact for the shortest second before Dan looks away, sliding down to lay his head on Phil’s shoulder and mindlessly caress his chest.
Time is ticking away. Here’s to hoping maybe Phil can fix this.
There’s one thing Phil’s not supposed to say, but he knows that it’s exactly what Dan should hear right now. So he says it, like he did tons of times already, with varied results.
“I love you.”
Dan’s fingers linger on Phil’s chest for one more moment. He draws one more imaginary circle and then the contact is broken, Dan bouncing off the bed and heading off.
“Right. Goodnight.”
The shower’s running for so long Phil wonders whether or not Dan’s attempting to drown himself.
*
Drip, drip, drip.
The annoying sound of the leaking kitchen faucet is infuriating in the silence of the night. Phil tries to ignore it, but it’s keeping him sleepless for long enough; he finally decides to get up and see if he can help it. Maybe he should put a rag in the sink, that would soak up all the water and stop the freaking sound.
Phil almost lands face first on the floor as he nearly trips over Dan, sitting on the kitchen floor, back against the cupboards, wearing just pajama bottoms, biting into his own arm and drowning in tears.
So Phil has heard a dripping faucet, but somehow missed the fact that his flatmate had a full-on nervous breakdown?
Nice one, Phil Lester.
Mentally crossing his fingers, Phil turns on the light and then drops to the floor right in front of Dan, pulling him into his arms.
There’s a whole terrifying second of nothing at all, just tears soaking quickly through the fabric of Phil’s t-shirt, and then Dan clings onto Phil, gripping on skin, holding onto anything that’s available, Phil’s heart ripping itself apart at the sound of the wail that leaves Dan’s mouth.
It’s been so long since he cried. It’s been forever. But it’s also been forever since Dan seemed that genuine, that close, that human.
It feels as though a disguise is falling off and apart before Phil’s very eyes, the mask of toughness and distance and faked, pretend self-sufficiency and adulthood leaving Dan with every tear that his eyes shed. Phil anchors himself in the moment, his heart desperately asking “What’s happening, Phil, why am I beating so fast? What are you subjecting me to again? I’m too young to die.” Phil decides that his heart needs to just brace itself and take it, because what matters right now is Dan, only Dan, crying loud enough that he’ll bother the neighbours, if they ever gave a freaking flying squirrel about Dan and Phil at all.
“Did I gfhfkdfk, Phll?”
Phil unglues Dan from the crook of his neck, gently, to make sure he’s still holding Dan in his arms. It’s not a good moment to lose contact, but he also needs to understand what Dan’s saying.
"What? What did you say?"
“Did I fuck everything up? Did I fuck us up, did I ruin everything by being such an asshole? How do you even keep up with me? Are you still here? Is it still the real you, or have you replaced yourself with an avatar so you don’t have to suffer through my shit
behaviour?” Dan reaches out to touch Phil’s face, running his fingers over Phil’s forehead, eyebrow arches, cheeks, nose, finally lips to check his theory.
Everything is wet from Dan’s tears. His eyes are puffy and red and it almost hurts to look into them. His fingers rest on Phil’s bottom lip for a long moment before he leans in for a kiss.
Phil is sitting back on his feet while Dan kneels, his movements becoming sloppy and desperate as he buries his fingers in Phil’s hair, messy from sleep he couldn’t get, a long exhale of breath into Phil’s mouth like Dan’s trying to tell him everything he missed out on telling. Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s waist to keep them both from tumbling down and the kitchen floor is cold while their mouths keep coming back to each other again and again. Phil’s heart bursts into a song.
“Let’s get you into bed, okay? You must be cold.”
“Phil, no, I’m-”
“We’re going to bed. Now.” Phil uses all the strength he’s got to pull them both up. Dan clings to his hand as they walk to Phil’s bedroom and stays relatively quiet when Phil wraps him in a duvet, hands him a pack of tissues and a glass filled with water.
There’s silence and calmness as Dan gets himself together and Phil waits, just waits, much like he’s been waiting in Dan’s shadow this entire bloody year, January having rolled around merciless and heavy, Phil still hoping Dan doesn't run so far that when he looks back, he won't even see Phil anymore.
It feels as though nothing has ever changed when Dan places his head in the crook between Phil’s neck and shoulder and Phil can drop kisses to his hair, the smell of shampoo still fresh.
“It’s just that… I don’t know, Phil. We don’t know so many things.”
“Well, we can learn, right? I mean, I think that’s what we’ve been doing all our lives so far.”
Dan has a couple of things to unlearn, too, but it seems like he knows that when Phil can feel him nodding, skin rubbing against skin. “You know I love you, right?”
Phil does. He knows now, in this very moment, that this is true again, real again and his again. As he’s holding Dan tight and close, his throat is trying to devour back the words he’s attempting to say. “You almost made me forget.”
*
Japan is overwhelming, in a good way, though. It's almost just like Phil imagined, except louder, more crowded and even more vibrant somehow, and it smells of cherry blossom and car fumes.
The sole fact that they're here, having bought tickets on a whim, is crazy enough to be overwhelming, but the only emotion Phil feels is happy. Him and Dan are in a maid café, not really sure what to make of the place, drinking their drinks and taking in the surroundings until Phil notices Dan's nearly manic grin directed at him.
"What? What is it? Is my fringe ruined again? Do I have a foam mustache? What?"
"Nothing," Dan chuckles, spinning his phone on the table without looking at it, eyes firmly fixed on Phil. "It's just that when you're fascinated by something you get so wide-eyed. Like a fanboy in anime. It's cute." Dan shrugs, showing his teeth.
"I'm not sure if I should take it as a compliment or what."
"Whatever you make of it." Dan winks, but then straightens his back and quiets down when a maid approaches them to bring some fresh napkins. Phil's happy emotion intensifies.
This is Dan, just Dan, formerly the insecure, depressed teenager who grew into a successful adult enjoying his life. This is Dan, Phil's for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, currently sipping on his coffee and looking around, eyes revealing that he's still smiling.
"This place is insane. Come on, I'll take a pic of you."
Phil makes a face, posing with his coffee.
Dan's sunlight is blazing at him.
*
Dan has a large smudge of flour running along the left side of his face.
Phil’s t-shirt is dirty all over.
How did they end up here?
Oh yeah, the baking video. Phil almost forgets the purpose of what they’re doing and life itself because Dan is sitting on the kitchen countertop with his legs wrapped around Phil’s hips and the makeout session seems endless.
The oven timer beeps in a particularly exciting moment, because that’s just life, and Dan makes an exasperated sound as he breaks away, reaches blindly to turn off the timer and then goes back to kissing Phil, everything in the space of two seconds.
"Is that the rebranding you keep talking about? Because I'm not sure if we turned the camera off," Phil says as he feels Dan's fingers reaching beneath the hem of his t-shirt, fingertips almost burning against Phil's cool skin.
“Phil. A little less conversation and a little more touch my body.”
"I can't believe you just quoted Ariana Grande... Wait, actually, I can believe that."
"I think you're missing the point here." Dan clenches his thighs around Phil's middle and the sensation is strange, but familiar.
“Less bants, more tongue action. Got it.”
“Oh my God, Phil, you just ruined sex forever.”
They are two heartbeats away from disaster. They always were. Dan enjoys the thrill.
Phil has learned to enjoy it, too.
Momentarily, before Dan manages to catch on, Phil ignores the ban on hickeys that Dan put in place. ("I don't own enough turtlenecks to pull this off, seriously, man. And scarves are not really my style. Stick to below the collarbones, please.") Phil's teeth are sinking into Dan's neck and the other boy pants out a curse, a puff of warm air in Phil's ear. It takes them a long while to pull themselves back to reality, a blessing and a curse of being in love with someone who you also work with.
"Dan. Dan Dan Dan. How 'bouts we finish the video first? If we keep the batter in the fridge for too long, we'll ruin it."
Reluctantly, Dan pushes Phil away and slides off the counter. His face is still dirty in flour and there's a cheeky smile dancing in the corner of his lips, the skin of his face and neck flushed red. "Alright, let's finish the bloody video so we can bang on a surface more comfortable than the kitchen countertop."
Dan finishes the video with a "See you in the post-baking universe, people," but they edit that out.