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Not a lot breaks up the monotony of the darkness beyond his window on nights like this. Just the headlights from passing cars illuminating white lines and green grass.
He doesn’t have enough room. His knees are pushing into the seat in front of him and his suitcase weighs down heavy on his thighs. He could probably fish out his pillow if he really wanted to, but it feels rather a wasted effort knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep either way.
He doesn’t sleep easily like Phil does— like Phil is, right now, zebra neck pillow cradling his bobbing head.
It’s good he’s asleep. When he’s not asleep he’s sick, and Dan gets a little weary being constantly concerned he’s going to have to watch Phil lose the battle with the sways and bumps of their traveling chariot. He wouldn’t care about the mess, he just hates seeing Phil in even the smallest amount of pain.
He’s not in pain right now, not at all. Dan can barely make him out in the shroud of blackness that is this English motorway at one o’clock in the morning, but every now and then a beam of light will travel over his face and Dan can see the silhouette of his boyfriend’s bird nose and he can just tell that he’s at peace. His eyes are closed and he’s floating in that hazy space of dreams and rest.
Dan’s still holding Phil’s hand on the seat between them, even though Phil’s grip had gone slack a long time ago. It’s a comfort Dan finds he needs on nights like this.
He’s never been fond of darkness. It holds too many possibilities, carries the potential for too many surprises. It covers the world in a blanket of ambiguity, hides from view all the things that would distract him from looking inward.
Years ago it would have been nearly unthinkable, him staring out the window with no music and no phone, letting himself travel the bends and dips of his own mind. Years ago it would have meant a crisis every night, an overwhelming fear or sadness between each city. Years ago it would have been a plummet.
Now it’s something else, still scary but somehow equally not.
Years ago he wouldn’t have had the courage to hold Phil’s hand. No one can see them right now and even if they could they wouldn’t care, but Dan knows it means something. It means a lot.
It means a lot, that loosening of boundaries. It means a lot for how they live their lives as partners and for how Dan lives his life as an individual. It means growth and acceptance and willingness to lean into the fear and know that they can come out the other other side intact.
Maybe sometimes with a few bruises, but they’re learning how to deal with those too.
Dan’s learning how to deal with the things that would bruise him. Like sitting in a quiet car, listening to the sounds of the road and watching broken white lines flash across the pavement. Like allowing himself to sit with the darkness and fight off the urge to erase it with artificial light.
Tonight’s not so bad. Tonight doesn’t feel like a night that would bruise him. Tonight he’s thinking about the show they just had and the one they’ll have tomorrow, and all the ones they’ll have after that.
He’s thinking about how big this thing is that they’re doing. Again. He’s thinking about all the people who’ll pay to come see them, all the people who helped them make the show a reality.
Really he’s thinking about just how bloody massive this life they’ve built together is. All the millions of people affected by the things they do, by what they put out into the world. It’s staggering and when he lets himself really think about it— it’s fucking terrifying.
It’s too big, too much. It still feels unreal, like it must be someone else’s life he’s slipped into. The matrix had glitched one day and he’d taken the place of someone important, someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing.
The car hits a bump and they lurch forward a bit. Nothing crazy, but enough that Phil stirs, his hand moving in Dan’s, tightening its grip on Dan’s fingers even though he hasn’t actually woken up.
Dan smiles to himself. Phil’s fingers are cold as they always are, and it’s nice. Dan gives a little squeeze, and strokes his thumb over the silky skin on the back of Phil’s hand. This isn’t someone else’s life. It’s his. It’s theirs.
Just theirs. Just the two of them, and they’d built it up from nothing. They’d built it up from nerves and a giddy kiss on a ferris wheel. They’d built it up from a spark between two lonely people on the internet desperate to find connection. They’d built it up from train rides across the country and videos filmed on a blue and green duvet with whiskers painted on their faces.
They built it up from nothing to what it is now. This legacy. This empire.
But that’s not really how it feels to Dan in moments like this, with Phil’s hand in his and their long legs folded into too small a space. It feels like what it always was— two people in love.
Just them against the world, safe in their own little bubble, Dan and his Phil.
It’s strange, Dan thinks as their car speeds past a lorry and the noise of it threatens to drown out every other thought in his head. It’s strange to feel scared and safe at the same time. To feel at once the comfort of Phil’s skin and the vast eerie unknown of the open road.
Maybe that fear will never really go away. Maybe Dan’s head will always reserve a space for fear of what the darkness may hold. He thinks he understands that now, that it’s simply a part of him, a fundamental piece in the puzzle that makes him who he is.
But Phil is a piece too. Phil is a big piece, and as long as Dan has that, every dark night will have a little bit of light.