Chapter Text
In another world…
2026
“Dan, remember the band we talked about, Geese? You were right, I really do like their songs. And! They’re playing at Reading Festival this year!”
Dan gave his signature “mmmmm” in acknowledgment. “All roads lead back to Dan and Phil.”
“Right? Also, I stumbled across this recommended song ‘Bullseye’ by Lucy Dacus and Hozier. It’s so…familiar,” Phil said, offering out his phone to Dan.
“In what way?” Dan asked, reaching out to take Phil’s phone. He hit play and scanned the lyrics .
“‘Young love, dumb luck?’” Dan read out. “Phil, that’s just our brand.”
Phil laughed. “Right? I thought this song felt like a ‘What if Dan and Phil broke up’ scenario.”
“Phivorce.”
Dan handed Phil his phone back.
Phil pocketed it. “Thanks for not closing all my apps this time, Dan.”
“Yeah. It took a lot of self control.”
“Good thing you didn’t find my many open tabs of Tom Daley.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “See, I have trust issues because of you. What—”
“I’m joking!” Phil said immediately. “I love lying, remember?”
Dan continued to glare. “Maybe that song is about our future. After we break up.”
“Yeah? You’d be missing out, I’m really fun.”
Dan sighed and looked away, not even trying to deny it. He just settled into the sofa, arms crossed.
Phil scooted close to him and bumped his head against Dan’s. “I’d never leave you for Tom Daley, Dan.”
Dan snorted. “Even if he offered you his tip?”
“Stop it.”
Dan laughed. “You know, you love showing me compilations of me saying ‘hundred percent’ or whatever, but I’ve seen a compilation of you saying ‘stop it’, Phil. It’s, like, ten minutes long.”
“No, you’re joking!” Phil began, but then Dan took out his phone to show Phil the video. “Oh stop— piss!”
“That’s right, Phil, the compilation of you saying ‘piss’ is next!”
Phil shoved him, though the he fell into a fit of laughter alongside Dan.
They settled down and were quiet for a moment.
“I don’t think we’ve been this free in… forever, maybe,” Phil remarked, reaching over to stroke the hair at Dan’s nape absentmindedly.
Dan flinched away instinctively but then leant into his touch. “Yeah… I mean, we have lots of business ventures to stress over—”
“You know what I mean.”
“— But I do know what you mean. We made it.”
“Together,” Phil said, turning to look at him.
“Yeah.”
“I’m still not used to it, you know. Being hard launched.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Like, when I refer to you, I always instinctively say ‘friend’ instead of… you know.”
Dan cocked his head. And when Phil didn’t clarify what he meant, he rolled his eyes in mock frustration.
“Oh my god, Phil, you can’t even say it?” he exclaimed.
Phil half-jumped at the sheer volume, laughing at the expression Dan made every time he was successfully rage-baited. “Say what?”
“‘Boyfriends’! ‘Partners’! For fuck’s sake, Phil, it’s not Voldemort’s name!”
“You know what I mean! You do it all the time, too!”
“I was in the closet for 27 years of my life, what’s your fucking excuse?”
“I went back into a mini closet too!”
At this, Dan sobered slightly. “Well. Yeah, alright.”
“Yeah. Pardon me if I haven’t gotten used to Phan being legal.”
“It’s been 6 months.”
“Yeah. Which is nothing compared to 16 years.”
Dan groaned into his hands. “Why are we like this? Why can’t we be normal homosexuals?”
Phil rested his head on Dan’s shoulder. “We were never normal. I don’t think we’d be normal in any world.”
“First of all, you’re so right. Secondly, you think that across time and space, we’d always be together?”
“I do,” Phil asserted. “Did you not see how in that simulation we created for TIT, you’d be a lawyer and I’d be a forensic linguist? We would have met, no matter what!”
“Cyberstalking across realities.”
”We’d create multidimensional pinof.”
Dan chuckled. “I’d watch that. Shrimp Phil tackling shrimp Dan. With period accurate emo fringes.”
“And then they start a shrimp male podcast.”
“Hell yeah, brother.”
“Emo shrimps implies that there was shrimp 9/11,” Phil said as he returned Dan’s fist bump.
Dan’s jaw slacked, and he stared at Phil in incredulity and disbelief for a moment before doubling over from laughing.