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There's something about the summer sun and the warm moonlight that makes Dan feel strange and free. That thrum under his skin that never quite entirely leaves is still there, but it's quieted into background noise and easy to breathe through and past.
Phil's lips are red from a cherry ice lolly. His hair is windswept and there's a scatter of sand over his leg where he's been resting it off the towel. It'll be in the sheets tonight. It'll transfer from their clothes to the luggage. The sand will travel with them for days, maybe weeks.
Phil will just laugh and say he can't leave Florida behind. Right now, Dan's not sure he wants to leave Florida behind. He feels like he's standing on a precipice gulping air. It's refreshing, it's a relief. Sometimes it's hard for him to breathe like this. He wants to revel in the ease of the moment and remember it the next time things don't feel this easy.
"Good, yeah?" Phil asks, because he's caught Dan staring. There's red on his cheek, too.
Dan grins at him. The ice lollies were twenty minutes ago. "You're a fucking mess," he says fondly to Phil, and taps the corner of his own mouth.
Phil wipes it off with his arm like a kid, then sticks his tongue out at Dan.
Part of Dan wants to push Phil into the sand, to wrestle him and tickle him and make him laugh. But he doesn't, because there are people with cameras, because their team is littered around their little pocket of the beach, because they don't inhabit that alternate universe where touching in public is normal.
But that's alright. Because there's music blasting from a boombox, nineties pop sounds dotted with the snap and crack of fireworks exploding above them. Because Sugar Ray is singing about statues crumbling, and maybe he can't tackle Phil into the sand but Dan can absolutely catch Phil look and mouth along to the words like a giddy teenager.
Who knows how long I've loved you?
Phil's face lights up in that sheepish, sweet way. Maybe the answer is always, maybe it's forever. Maybe it's since Dan was seventeen and sitting lonely in his bedroom. Maybe it's since Dan was twenty and realized Phil wasn't just offering him something for now, Phil was offering him forever. Maybe love is intangible and fleeting and every good thing he has is just for the moment. Maybe his own internal monologue is just him laughing right now at things he might take seriously any other day.
But it's hard to overthink when Phil smiles like that and everyone around them can see that Dan made him do that, if they care to look.
Sometimes Dan forgets what spontaneous affection even feels like. He forgets how good it feels. He forgets how to make Phil smile that smile with teeth showing and not a hint of embarrassment, that pure reaction.
Home breeds complacency. Being out in the world makes him feel like the ground is shifting under his feet, and like he's so fucking grateful for having someone to steady to him.
But it's not all about that. It's not all about what they do for each other. Sometimes it's what they are to each other that Dan wants to lean in on. Sometimes it's just about this, muggy air and thighs pressed together while the sky explodes in colors, knowing the pictures will probably show up on the internet and making the choice to let it happen and let it pass if it does.
"Dan, stop looking at me!" Phil says, laughing and their shoulders together. "Look at the sky."
"You can't tell me what to do," Dan says, reaching out to poke a finger into Phil's side.
Phil just rolls his eyes at Dan. "Fine, then. Miss the show. See if I care."
Dan leans in and bites Phil's shoulder, teeth sinking in just for a moment. Phil laughs and shrugs him off.
Maybe someone got a picture of that. Maybe Dan doesn't care. But he doesn't linger, because he might care tomorrow.
He straightens his shoulders and braces his hands in the sand behind him, tilting his head back until all he can sees is the night sky and the brightness lighting it up.