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Panic crawls into Dan's throat but what comes out is a laugh, stiff but polite.
It's relative, he reminds himself.
Twenty people isn't a lot.
But twenty people with their hands out and their cameras out and their faces expectant.
Twenty people who each want a moment, to lay claim to something no one else can have. Twenty people inching in closer and closer as Dan fights harder and harder to reinforce the foundation of the mask that he's wearing right now.
He's so fucking tired, underneath it. There's a door at the end of the room. He could make it in about ten seconds. He's got long legs, a long stride, and motivation making his toes twitch to pound against the ground.
Would it be worth it? The social media explosion? Youtuber bolts from hotel lobby?
The only thing that stills him is the realization that Phil would have to explain his absence, and Phil's not really the best at thinking on the spot.
The next hug is so tight. It's a vice group, shoving in past the boundary that his arm provides. She whispers something against the side of his face and his stomach turns. It's not revulsion, not exactly - but it's making his skin feel tight and uncomfortable all the same.
"Hi there," he hears Phil's voice in very close, closer than it should be. He blinks fast and sees Phil's hand on the girl's arm, gentle but firm in pulling her back. "Did you want a selfie?"
She's beaming at them, overjoyed. He'll never understand how it is that people don't see how badly he wants gone from this. Not every time, but sometimes; like everything else in his head, it's unpredictable. One day he's fine and one he's not and right now, when he's just been on a plane for nine hours, is one of those times when he's not.
Phil understands, but sometimes even Phil understanding feels like a secret kind of shame. So he doesn't look at Phil and he doesn't look at the girls, he just looks somewhere off in the vicinity of the phone's camera and smiles a plastic kind of smile.
Only a few more to go.
*
"Dan," Phil says.
He's said it a few times now, Dan thinks. He should answer. He will, just as soon as his vocal chords remember how to work.
"You're worrying me." Phil is speaking quietly, as though the man driving their car actually gives a fuck.
The fact that he doesn't is a blessing.
Dan nods, and then shrugs, and it doesn't make much sense - except to Phil it does. Phil, who just sighs and keeps looking concerned, like Dan's going to shatter into a million pieces.
*
Unwinding just takes time.
Once they're at the hotel, Dan goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. He turns the water on and strips his clothes off and stands under the spray for far, far too long. His mind goes blank and all he hears is the rushing of water and all he sees is the stone tile of the stall and all he feels is heat beating down in a steady spray against his skin.
His neck already aches from how tensely he's been holding himself, and for how long.
When he comes out damp and naked, Phil's sat on the bed with his back against the headboard, on the phone to room service. He looks over his shoulder at Dan and gives him another one of those concerned smiles.
Dan crawls still naked across the bed and lays down, ignoring the pillows and putting his head right on the bed beside Phil. He curls up in fetal position and rests his head against Phil's hip, eyes closed.
He could sleep. He could sleep so easily, and for so long. And he will, but first: this.
Phil's hand sink into his damp hair as he listens to Phil finish up the order. It's too much food for just two of them, but Phil's never able to pick just one or two items off a room service menu and he's always starving when they get off a flight.
"Doing better?" Phil asks, and then laughs as Dan sits up and crawls onto his lap. It's ridiculous but he's allowed to be a bit ridiculous sometimes, especially when his words still aren't working quite right. "Oh, well then."
Phil kisses Dan's forehead and cuddles Dan up just the way only Phil can do. "Yeah," Dan says, something in him quieting even further. "I'll be okay."