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There's a sharp breeze blowing from the open balcony window, stirring the air and making Dan smack his lips in annoyance as he naps. When he wakes up he'll have the pattern of the sofa cushion etched in lines on his cheek, and he'll be annoyed Phil let him sleep at all.
Phil decides he doesn't care. It's been a series of nights with increasingly more unrest. They process stress differently; Phil sleeps but his brain is full of things big and scary and he wakes up with his heart pounding and his palms sweating. Dan just - doesn’t sleep, sometimes.
So if it’s only half two and Dan wants to have himself a nap, Phil will let him. He’s earned it.
Phil's earned something too, he thinks. He raises his arms above his head and feels the pop in his spine. They’ve been sat for so long, responding to emails and video chatting into a meeting and trying to hammer out some semblance of a schedule balance the unending arms of this weird thing they call a career. So yeah, he’s earned - something. A treat, maybe.
He looks Dan over again, eyes along Dan's profile to his soft lips and the bare thigh exposed by the shorts he stole off Phil to wear.
Dan looks good enough to eat. Phil catalogs that hunger alongside other sorts and decides that sex would be well and good, but he could use a chance to stretch his legs and a cupcake is the sort of treat that won't require disturbing Dan.
*
His mum rings while he's out.
"Mother," he says, a smile as he answers.
"Child," she says, with a voice that sounds like instant comfort even on a day when he doesn’t particularly need it.
They talk for the short walk to the bakery, and Phil lingers outside not wanting to interrupt her story about a neighbor's particularly vocal housecat that seemed to have intentions upon her life.
She’s just finishing explaining how it lurked on a tree branch just to hiss above her head and give her the fright of her life when he realizes the girl behind the till is staring at him, presumably for loitering in their doorway without coming in.
"I've got to go," he says.
"Brushing aside your own dear mum!" She scoffs, affronted. "Whatever for?"
"Cakes," he says.
"Oh, well." She's still sulking. "They won't be as good as mine, you know."
"No one's are," Phil reassures her. "But I'm picking up a treat for me and Dan."
"You've earned it," she says, though she's got absolutely no way of knowing the validity of the statement.
To her, any accomplishment deserves a treat. Phil does come by it honestly, at least.
*
He walks back home with a bakery bag in hand, laden with more calories than they should by any rights consume in a day. Dan will fuss and pick over them, demand Phil hide them out of sight, and then whine when within a day they're well and truly gone because Phil's eaten them all.
So Phil buys extra and he'll hide one thing away in a different place and he'll wait until Dan complains that Phil's eaten them all and he'll pull out that one extra hidden away biscuit and he'll delight in Dan's face going from exasperated to pleased but trying not to be too pleased and that'll be the best moment, the one worth all the self-restraint.
*
Dan's up when Phil walks back in. He's stretched out with those long legs across the cushions of the sofa and his laptop open in front of him. He still looks groggy but he sounds alert enough when he says, "Thought you'd done a runner without me."
It's that joke of theirs, that ongoing thread of promise - that one day they'll just leave it all.
Together, though. If life gets too much, they get to escape together. They only tease about the rest.
(And how funny is it, Phil thinks, that what they want to run toward is something so many people run from. A house and a dog and a life where every next day looks just like the last one. Would it even be the dream they think? Would it all just be a bit dull? Phil doesn’t really think so, but he can’t wait to find out one day.)
"I did," Phil says. "Got as far as the bakery and had a change of heart."
"Realized your phone battery was nearly dead?" Dan asks.
Phil nods. "Seven percent. Wouldn't get far on that."
"Best you came back then," Dan says, eyeing the bag in Phil's hand. "Please don’t tell me you got more fucking cakes."
"No fucking cakes," Phil says, voice full of prim emphasis on the curse word. "Just strawberry ones, pistachio ones, and one vanilla bean with chocolate glaze on top."
Dan shuts his laptop. "That was the worst of the dad jokes. I'm punishing you for that later."
"In bed?" Phil's voice rises with happy expectation.
"No," Dan says, snatching the bag from him. "You'd like that too much. I'm going to get you where it really hurts - in the baked goods."
*
"Curry for dinner?" Phil asks, stifling a yawn into the back of his hand. He’s not particularly hungry yet, but his next meal is always on the back of his mind and it feels like a curry sort of night. He wants to make something that’ll make the whole flat smell delicious.
"You're cooking?" Dan asks.
Phil pushes the blanket he'd coaxed Dan into sharing off his legs. "I suppose," he says, in an exaggerated put out tone. "You can go kill me some mighty beasts in Tyria."
"Best boyfriend," Dan says, tilting his head up now as Phil gets up.
Phil stands in front of Dan and puts his hands on the top of the sofa backing on either side of Dan's head. He smiles and nods and leans down, meeting Dan's mouth for a brief kiss that turns into two, then three. He only straightens when his back starts to twinge a bit. "And don't you forget it."
*
The temperature drops with a swiftness. The door to the balcony gets shut. The lights in the lounge go on.
Phil makes dinner standing in their kitchen, listening to the music Dan's playing and the sound of his fingers typing against his keyboard. With permission to fuck off work for the day granted, he’s taken a few hours to play his favorite game. They still have so many emails to get back to but he knows Dan won't be able to play for months and months and Phil just - he doesn't feel like rushing tonight.
He feels like taking his time. He feels like letting things be just as they are. Dan will play in his favorite pretend world and Phil will listen and stir the curry and this will be their life, right now.
Because in a few weeks it'll all be different. He's excited - he's so excited, he's so ready for a new adventure. But he knows from last time that when they're so far away from home nights like this will be all that he wants.