Chapter Text
Dan shook his phone and the flashlight went automatically on, showing him a petrified Phil standing by the couch, completely drenched in cold coffee and a lot paler than usual.
‘I’m here’ he said in a soft voice, pulling the light to the side so that Phil could see him and walking as fast as he could to reach him.
‘I don’t like it, Dan.’
‘I know babe, I know. Hold my hand now, let’s go get clean clothes for starters.’
Outside, the storm seemed to be, finally, retreating, as if the lightning and thunder that caused the blackout had been its final act, and now she had nothing else to give to her audience.
They moved slowly through the now darkened and silent house. Dan could hear (or rather, not hear) the silence that erupted from the lack of that familiar buzzing the electricity made, the lights, the computers, the fridge, the coffee machine, damn, even the bin made a soft hum. All of that was gone now, intensifying the darkness they were drowning in.
What he could hear was Phil’s faltering breathing.
If there was one thing that they would most definitely never talk about in public, was Phil’s fear of the dark. Because it was a fear that went deep into the roots of humanity and there remained no rational explanation for it. Not while living in the middle of London at least.
It wasn’t like Dan’s fear of butterflies, which mostly is reduced to fear of things flying into his eyes and mouth; a fear that could totally be rationalized and managed, and therefore, transformed into a comic bit in a cozy little video of them walking around London.
Phil was terrified of uncontrolled darkness, such as the one they were experimenting right now. He could be in the dark by his own choice, it wasn’t as if they slept with the light on (they don’t), and they usually turned off the light of the gaming room to play creepy games. Those situations had no effect on him whatsoever, because he knew all the time that with a click on the light switch he’d be safe again.
But right now, with no power, no actual light but the cold streak of white that came from Dan’s phone, Phil was paralyzed. And Dan knew it.
‘Almost there’ he said in a murmur, trying not to be disruptive, but Phil flinched nonetheless, so he squished his hand a bit, reassuringly.
‘Okay, babe,’ Dan said when they went into their room, where Phil’s closet was. ‘I’m gonna need you to manage the flashlight now, can you do that? So I can go get the emergency lights?’
Phil nodded and took the phone, bathing Dan completely with the light and lowkey blinding him.
‘That’s great, you’re great, you know that?’ Phil’s response was less than a chuckle and no smile at all. ‘Don’t worry, I’m here, let me just go get those lights.’
He walked into the closet while Phil pointed the phone at him, and started rummaging through half empty boxes and crates. They haven’t had a blackout in a long time, and at some point during one of the many builders' incursions to the house, they had taken the emergency lights down and then completely forgot to put them back up. He cursed himself under his breath for his forgetfulness and lack of attention. He should be better than this.
Finally, he found one and with a triumphant exclamation he straightened up, immediately following with a gasp and a loud scream when he hit his head against one of the shelves.
‘D-Dan?’ Phil’s voice was shaking and he knew he needed to act promptly.
‘M’okay’ he said, trying to sound less in pain than he felt. ‘Your boyfriends here tried to kill me!’ and he clasped a bunch of hangers and threw them outside the door.
He heard Phil chuckle and considered it a victory, walking out of the closet rubbing his head with one hand and holding the emergency light with the other. But the feeling quickly dropped out of him when he realized what Phil put into weak words.
‘If it’s not plugged in… why’s it not shining?’
Dan let out a loud exhale and dropped in the bed right next to Phil.
‘We store them unplugged, the battery's dead.’
Dan felt Phil shivering right beside him, and the next step of his plan made its way up front, completely tackling the sense of defeat he was about to start to feel.
‘Okay, let’s get you out of the wet clothes.’
Dan took back the phone and placed it with the lantern up in the top shelf of the closet, which resulted in the light bouncing against the ceiling and therefore almost everywhere else in the tiny room, and making it clear enough for them to identify what they were looking at.
‘Don’t you get any wrong ideas, okay? But I will, against all my effort of being an actual gentleman tonight, have to strip you down.’ Phil actually laughed at that.
‘I can strip on my own, thank you.’
‘Oh, now the Princess can talk. Right, I will remember this.’ Dan retorted with an offended expression, but he was happy that his partner was slowly regaining his autonomy. ‘Stripping me out of the fun part, that’s what you're doing.’
‘I never said you couldn’t watch’ Phil laughed, but Dan was on his way out to get himself new clean clothes and simply waved back at him with disdain.
He stopped on the door, though, and looked back with a smile ‘I’ll be right back, okay? I just need to stop smelling like coffee.’
Phil nodded and resumed putting on a new t-shirt.
Dan rushed down the hall in complete darkness, stumbling a little, until he found the door to his room and his own closet. He took off all his clothes and blindly chose whatever form the drawers. He would find out later what he was wearing, he didn’t really had time to choose by textures.
When he returned to Phil, he found him sitting down on the closet, hugging his own knees and rocking back and forth.
‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Dan stumbled down to get to his side. ‘I’m back.’
Phil said nothing but leaned to the side, letting himself rest against Dan’s body. And Dan hugged him and kept rocking him, knowing that the movement helped Phil cope with the anxiety.
They sat there for a while in silence, Dan holding Phil as if his life depended on it, and Phil trusting him with his life, knowing too well that if Dan hadn’t been there, he would’ve freaked out and already be halfway to Rawttenstall, on foot.
At some point, Dan started humming “Everything is Fine” the intro song for one of his shows and Phil laughed.
‘Play it for me?’ He asked tentatively.
‘What?’ Dan blinked back to reality.
‘Would you play it for me? On the piano?’
‘What? Everything is Fine?’
‘Yes’
‘Phil, I haven't played that in over three years!’
‘I’m sure you remember it.’
Dan looked at him and was about to say no, when he realized that Phil was actively asking him to do something that implied getting up and walking back down to the living room.
‘Okay’ Dan agreed with a soft smile.
He took the phone and they walked back through the hallway, and when they reached the stairs Dan saw that outside the streetlights were on, when they weren’t before.
‘We’re gonna have to make a quick trip to the fuse box.’ He said, and grabbed Phil’s hand firmly.
The fuse box was not far away, the electrician had placed it in the laundry room, which was more or less in the epicentre of the house, making it really accessible in situations like this. Dan opened it and, as he had predicted in his mind, all the switches were in the “off” position.
One by one he pushed them back up, and in no time the whole house was alive again.
‘Oh, my hero’ Phil teased and placed a kiss on his cheek, quickly stepping back and looking at him up and down. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’
This was the moment Dan realized he must’ve been looking in the old archive drawers, because he had put on Phil’s old cookie monster’s pajama pants and a long sleeve red an black checkered shirt with a stamp on the front of an anime silhouette and a dobermann.
‘I think we need to reevaluate our policy of keeping shit just for sake of nostalgia.’
‘I-I think…’ Phil was holding his laughter and hiding his smile behind his hand ‘it looks nice…’
‘Oh, for fucks sake.’ Dan pushed him a bit and stormed off.
‘It’s just like having baby Dan back!’ Phil exclaimed.
‘Fuck off!’ he shouted back.
But Dan was having fun, so he went back to his room and, this time with actual lights which allowed him to see, he decided to keep the pajama bottoms, put on one of his classic eclipse shirts, the glittery black jacket and went down straight to the piano and started to play.
Phil came to him a couple minutes later, holding to glasses of iced ribena and smiled.
When Dan finished playing Phil clapped enthusiastically, and Dan bowed.
‘Thank you’ Dan said, grabbing his glass and stepping close to Phil. ‘I never got to say it today. Thank you for pulling me out of my own mind.’
‘I would say that you’d probably do the same for me, but you already did, so…’
‘Oi, I’m trying to have a moment here.’
‘We already had too many of those today, let’s burn some pizza and watch Buffy.’
‘Can we like… not burn the pizza?’
‘I’m not sure, can we?’