Work Text:
The tour is Dan’s idea.
His laptop’s resting on his thighs and his head’s on Phil’s shoulder when he says: “We should go on tour,” and then, after a moment, “For real this time.”
They almost did it before. They wrote a book and told some of their story and in the darkness of their bedroom thought maybe they could do it, maybe it would be fun. They’d written out ideas and laughed at the stupid ones and somewhere along the line, they set the whole thing aside because it all seemed so out of reach.
Dan’s body had been too broken for half the ideas they had.
Today, Phil’s fingers fall from his keyboard to land on Dan’s knee, his whole body a little tense.
“The old one?”
“No,” says Dan. “A better one, a more authentic one, you know? A lot’s happened since then.”
Phil chuckles, so quiet it’s barely a breath. “Yeah,” he says. “A lot has.”
And that’s it. They don’t talk about it more, not then, not until daylight is back and they can hunch over a sheet of paper with markers and ideas and a better understanding of who they want to show the world, of how they can go about doing that.
Dan makes sure his body can handle it.
Phil makes sure both their minds can.
And somewhere along the way it goes from concept to plan to investment.
To Interactive Introverts.
---
They announce the UK leg first.
It exists on its own, for now, despite all the ideas they’ve discussed, the grandeur of what they want to create. In the privacy of their bedroom, they’ve talked about American cities they want to visit, about how cool it would be to bring the tour to Australia, about filming it so it can exist even after they return home.
In public, they talk about Manchester and London and Brighton with unspoken hope for more.
The announcement goes live over Twitter, then a livestream, then YouTube.
Around them, their team gushes about the response and makes note of questions being asked and offers, not for the first time, reassurance and congratulations.
Phil rolls his chair over next to Dan’s, dusting a barely-there kiss against the shell of his ear.
He doesn’t say: I’m proud of you.
Dan does say: “I’m proud of us.”
---
The first show’s in Brighton.
They spend the long minutes before it starts sitting backstage, wedged side by side onto a sofa, listening to the buzz of a playlist they created echoing through the walls. Phil’s phone is in his hand, resting against his knee. Dan stares at the screen, a Twitter feed Phil hasn’t bothered to refresh for at least three minutes, because his gaze is locked on the side of Dan’s head.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Dan cracks a smile. “Does it matter?”
Phil huffs. His phone screen goes black, but only Dan notices.
“I’m fine,” he says.
Outside the room, the song changes.
Dan’s fingers fall to rest against his thigh. His nails drag against the grit of his jeans, over the dip in the fabric just past the round of his kneecap.
The elastic beneath cuts into his skin, squeezes tightly around his joints. Once he’s standing, it’ll help, but for now it hurts, a barely-visible, too visceral reminder of aches he can never forget anyway.
“Do you think they’ll notice?”
Phil’s free hand reaches out, drifts along the tense line of Dan’s shoulders. “They didn’t seem to at the meet and greet,” he says. “Besides, they help, right?”
Dan nods.
Outside, someone knocks on the door and yells a reminder that they need to be ready in two minutes.
---
His bones are heavy when he sinks into the hotel bed afterwards.
Phil sits down next to him, wordless, fingers skimming the hem of Dan’s shirt. It gets pulled over Dan’s head, past the burn in his upper arms and the tense ache in his jaw. He talked a lot tonight, perhaps too much. A dry cough shudders through Dan’s chest, grates at his throat, and Phil reaches out to rest a hand on the round of his shoulder.
“Meds?”
Dan nods.
He swallows the paracetamol without a drink. Phil glares and hands him a glass of water.
It takes long moments for Dan to tug his jeans down his legs, denim too tight against his skin. His breaths heave too painfully in his chest when he bends to take off his socks. There’s a stab in the center of his back, another between his ribs. Phil reaches out to touch his shoulder, to draw Dan back against the pillows he’s piled against the headboard.
He doesn’t ask if Dan’s okay.
Dan’s not even sure of the answer himself.
Phil gets ice packs from the mini fridge. He rests one against the inside of Dan’s left knee, the other against the right side of his jaw. His careful, practiced fingers rub anti-inflammatory cream along Dan’s sternum, over his ribs and collarbones and the back of his neck.
He settles onto his pillow afterwards. Dan stares at the ceiling from his.
“Thank you.”
In his peripheral, Phil’s head rolls against the pillow, brows pinching together. “You know–”
“Not for the cream,” says Dan. “Or the ice packs or pills.”
He doesn’t say for the tour, for being here, for everything we’ve done together.
Phil reaches out to take his hand, and Dan knows he doesn’t have to.
---
They drive the next day.
The car rattles Dan’s bones until his joints seem to grind and his muscles go weak. He slides a hand between the seat belt and his chest, where skin burns at the slightest touch. His head falls against the window, glass cold, supporting his neck as it bobs with every bump.
Phil’s toes nudge his in the space between them.
Dan hums against the ache that rumbles in his chest.
Phil talks about everything and nothing the whole time they’re in the car, and no one asks why Dan doesn’t say a word.
---
There’s two shows in Milton Keynes, then one in Nottingham, and then they’re back in London.
It’s just for a couple days. They drive in on the third and plan to leave on the fifth and between that have what feels like the most important show of their tour.
And a doctor’s appointment Dan doesn’t want to go to.
Phil comes with him, sitting next to him in the waiting room and telling him about silly articles in boring magazines until Dan’s name is called. He helps Dan to his feet and makes small talk with the nurse as she weighs Dan and asks repetitive questions and wraps a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
Dan’s rubbing sensation back into his hand when the doctor comes in.
She smiles. Dan smiles back.
“How’s the tour going?” she asks, because Dan already cleared it with all of her. Already made sure all his prescriptions were set up for a couple months and had her approve joint supports and pain management tools and give her best advice for how to survive.
“Good,” he says. “Really good.”
He still leaves her office with a prescription for some medication to help him sleep and another to help when the pain is particularly bad.
But he leaves with a smile.
---
That night, he makes a joke about it.
A few hours later, curled up in his own bed, Dan can’t remember exactly what it was. Something about being on friendly terms with a pharmacist and fearing future international travel that blended perfectly into the show and made the theatre buzz with laughter.
His own words, the fragments he can remember, echo in his mind even as the haze of medication sets it.
“Phil?”
He hums.
“I’m glad I told them,” says Dan. “Glad I get to be honest.”
Phil hums again. Beneath them, the mattress dips, and Phil presses himself against the length of Dan’s back, arm draped carefully over the dip of his waist.
“Me too,” says Phil. “This okay?”
Dan nods. He can feel Phil’s sleepy smile against the back of his neck until he falls asleep.
---
They go from London to Glasgow, from Glasgow to Sheffield.
Dan stares at himself in the mirror of their dressing room after the meet and greet, at the slash of black jumper over his shoulders because he hasn’t managed to take it off yet, and the pale skin of his chest. His body’s gone narrow again, like when he was younger, from months of preparing for the tour. His ribs stick out under his skin.
He smoothes hand over one side of his chest, wincing against the burn that erupts beneath his touch.
In the mirror, his skin stays pale. Dan frowns at the sight.
The ache gets worse when he reaches back, tugs his jumper the rest of the way over his head and down his arms. It lands on the floor. He leaves it there. Someone will pick it up later.
When he turns around, Phil’s staring at him.
And Dan doesn’t need to ask if he knows. He’s as used to the worry that gleams in Phil’s eyes as Phil is to the way seat belts and hugs and the combination of the two can leave Dan’s body with invisible aches.
So he forces a grin and says: “It’s been seven years, mate. You think you’d be used to seeing me shirtless by now.”
Phil grins back.
---
They spend two days in Newcastle before heading to Edinburgh.
Dan stares at the scenery that blurs past his window as they drive in, at the beginnings of a city he’s just familiar enough with to know he loves it. The trees have pink flowers budding on the branches and the distance is cloudy with fading fog.
Phil reaches across the space between them, rests his hand over Dan’s.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Dan nods, turning to find Phil’s gaze staring past him, at the landscape beyond. “Don’t make yourself sick.”
“It’s worth it,” says Phil.
Dan huffs. “You won’t be saying that if we have to pull over.”
He watches Phil roll his eyes, continuing to stare out Dan’s window instead of his own, before turning to share the view. Today, his seat belt is wedged him, sparing his ribs some of the pain. His eyes burn from the bright lights of last night’s show, but tonight he’ll get to curl up in a hotel bed with Phil and no show tomorrow to worry about.
Outside his window, another flowering tree flashes by.
Dan smiles and wraps his hand tighter around Phil’s.
---
They’re tourists the first day in Edinburgh.
They get some work done the second day, in a public park where leaves rustle and people’s voices carry in the breeze. Phil has bags of his own merchandise and members of they’re crew there to take pictures and model. He hands Lauren a t-shirt and Dan a pair of socks before pulling a hoodie over his own head.
Dan sits on a bench for most of the afternoon, watching Phil wedge himself between bushes, watching his friends pose with Edinburgh as a backdrop.
He fidgets with the socks in his hands and stares. Phil shows off his designs and smiles at his ideas and bounces on his toes when he likes a shot.
And Dan’s chest still burns from too much driving and too many hugs but, beneath that, is a happy warmth. The kind that has him hobbling to his feet and reaching for Phil’s hand, hidden amongst the leaves, just to squeeze his fingers.
A few months ago, when it was Dan’s turn, Phil had held him in his arms and congratulated him.
Today, Dan says: “I’m proud of you.”
Phil’s smile goes soft. Lauren tiptoes out from between flowers.
“Ready for the socks?” says the photographer.
Phil bumps their shoulders together, his smile wide again, tongue sticking out from between his teeth. “You’re gonna model some, right?”
---
Their last free day in Edinburgh ends with baths.
There’s bath bombs and face masks and warm water that eases some of the aches rooted deep in Dan’s muscles. His curls go damp against his forehead and his head starts to spin because the water’s hot and his blood pressure can’t tolerate it, but he’s smiling when Phil helps him out of the tub.
He crawls onto the hotel bed, still dripping wet, wrapped in just a towel.
Phil settles next to him, wearing pyjama pants and nothing else.
“Feel better?” he asks.
Dan hums, voice muffled by the pillow. Phil’s hand lands against the middle of his back, where he knows Dan can tolerate touch, and rubs a gentle circle into his skin.
“Good enough for a massage?”
He hums again, smiling when Phil leans over a presses a gentle kiss to his shoulder blade.
---
After Edinburgh, things go by in a blur.
There’s two shows there, then two the next day in Liverpool. Dan barely sleeps between them, body restless and mind exhausted, and no amount of medication numbing the parts of him that wouldn’t rest. He sleeps a bit in the car between venues and wakes up to an ache in his chest so acute the driver needs to pull over so Phil can help him take medication.
Phil’s gaze follows his every move during both Liverpool meet and greets, during both shows that day.
And that night, Dan’s sure Phil’s watching him up until the moment the night’s dose of medication plunges his exhausted mind into darkness and forces his body numb.
---
Being back in Manchester is always strange.
The city always makes something in Dan’s chest go soft with memories of quiet days spent in a dark apartment, learning about himself and Phil and everything they wanted to become. Of Starbucks dates when he was well enough and the earliest steps into a career he managed to build and of trusting himself for the first time in years.
But with that comes memories of hospitals, of uni, of doubts swirling in his mind that maybe all the people who had hurt him were right.
Usually, when they’re here, they visit friends and go to familiar places where happy memories bubble beneath smiles.
Today, Dan tugs his comfiest hoodie over his head and only crawls out of bed when they need to go the venue. Phil posts a video from their dressing room, as Dan lays on an uncomfortable sofa, trying not to focus on where lumps in the cushion press against knots by his spine.
He drags himself to sit when the ache gets too bad, legs crossed, feet tingling with budding numbness. His head falls back against the cushions, eyes falling closed.
The cushion next to him dips a moment later, when Phil sits down. He reaches over to run his fingers through Dan’s curls.
“If I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well, I’d say you look cute,” he says.
Dan manages half a smile. “If you didn’t think I looked cute when I was sick, we wouldn’t be here, mate.”
Phil’s responding chuckle is soft, laced with familiar reluctance. “Can I take a picture?” he asks. “You can use it as your insta story for the day if you want.”
He hands over his phone in response, lilting his head forward so his chin is dipped towards his chest. A curl drifts over his forehead and makes the nerves there tingle. His eyes drift closed again, but he thinks it’ll look better that way, with less evidence of the exhaustion weighing him down.
Phil hands him back his phone, screen lit up with a picture that looks far softer than Dan feels.
He looks … comfy, even though every part of his body hurts. At his ankles, there’s the slash of black elastic wrapped around his foot to hold the joint steady. Dark fabric covers his knees, visible past the rips in jeans he only pulled on because they were at the top of his suitcase.
On a normal day, Dan probably wouldn’t post it.
Today, he types out a caption and adds it to his story before he can second guess it.
---
At the second Manchester show, Dan answers the first question related to his illness.
“Emily asks: how do I get doctors to listen to me?” Phil reads out loud.
The theatre goes silent. Because Dan doesn’t talk about it often. He told them and kind of let it go, let it fade back into dark humor and vague references to symptoms hidden in the details of anecdotes.
This is different. He forces a smile against the racing of his heart and says: “Hoo boy, isn’t that difficult, huh?”
The rest of his response is hazy, a ramble about doctors not actually being the experts people think they are, about needing to be persistent because, eventually, someone will believe you. He makes a comment about the emergency room and another about a support system and when he falls silent, his shoulders are tense, his stomach in knots.
Phil’s smiling up at him from the edge of the stage. Dan knows there will be tweets about it later, but he smiles back.
Beyond the stage, people burst out cheering, perhaps more than they should for a nonsensical ramble about doctors being assholes.
Dan smiles at them, too.
---
“I’m proud of you.”
They’re curled up in bed together when Phil says it. The hotel room’s dark and smells like the anti-inflammatory cream drying on Dan’s skin. There’s an ice pack resting on one of his knees, another on his ankle, and Phil’s face is pressed against the crook of his shoulder.
Dan’s head is spinning with the effects of medication, thoughts just blurry enough to have him thinking of days long before a tour was even a possibility.
Before YouTube. Before his diagnosis. Before falling in love.
His neck hurts, but Dan manages to lean down, to press a quick kiss to the top of Phil’s head. His whole body hurts, but he still smiles when Phil lifts himself to kiss Dan goodnight.
“Love you.”
---
The next three shows are hazy.
Dan sleeps until just before the meet and greet, and curls up in the dressing room until the show’s set to begin. The pre-show playlist rumbles through the walls and inside his skull so an ache wells in his temples, bleeds down his neck. His hands are shaky and knees weak, and at some point Marianne suggests postponing a show until after the rest of the tour is done.
They don’t. Dan drags himself onto the stage in Basingstoke, then Plymouth, then Leeds.
He sleeps in the car and wakes up to Phil’s hand running through his hair, to tears tacky on his cheeks.
The meet and greet in Birmingham goes okay. Dan’s arms ache when he lifts them, and his shirt drags painfully over his ribs when he leans forward to hug people. A girl wearing an eclipse shirt tells him about her struggles with doctors, and though Dan’s heard the story a dozen times, that time he almost cries.
He sleeps in the dressing room again, until someone’s waking him up for the show.
---
That night, Marianne sends a medic to their hotel room.
Phil’s forced Dan to lay down since he stumbled off stage, but Dan’s not sure he could move anyway. The back of his head is heavy, the edges of his vision spinning. His fingertips feel numb and his feet are cold, and Dan knows the symptoms well enough to know what the doctor’s gonna say.
He ends up in a Birmingham hospital, just for a few hours, with an IV in his arm.
Phil sits by the end of his bed, playing some game on his phone. A nurse walks in and checks on them every now and then, and Dan smiles and tells her he’s used to the chill IV fluids send through his body, to the dull ache of the bruise that will bloom where the needle rests.
He checks his own phone, scrolls through a Twitter feed full of concern.
“Someone tweeted that I looked sick.”
Phil looks up from his phone. “You looked like you were gonna faint.”
“Felt like it too.”
The IV machine clicks to fill the silence.
“Can you take a picture of me?”
Phil does. One where people can see the tape holding the IV to Dan’s arm and the hospital bracelet wrapped around his wrist. He’s still wearing the tour merch and his jeans, his hood pulled up over his head. His eyes look tired and his smile a little strained but Dan hopes it’ll be enough.
He captions it with: I’m okay lads just a little dehydrated. ty for the well wishes, and hopes it’s enough.
---
Two days later they do a liveshow.
Dan does his hair and pulls on his favourite jumper and smiles at the camera and tells everyone he’s okay and the Cardiff show will go according to plan. Phil makes up a story about something that happened in the hospital just to make everyone laugh.
“I’m used to it,” Dan tells them. “Trust me, it happens way more often than it should.”
Phil’s hand rests over his knee under the table, rubs circles against the jut of bone there.
“It’s just a thing that happens,” says Dan. “You know how I mentioned I have blood pressure problems? Well, because of that I’m a little more prone to symptoms of dehydration.”
His chest is tight, words grating in his throat. Phil squeezes his knee and smiles at the audience and Dan forces himself to exhale around every worry he has when sharing this.
In the back of his mind, doctors tell him there’s nothing from with him.
On screen, comments flit by telling him to get well soon and that they have blood pressure problems too and joke about how it’s important to stay hydrated.
Then someone asks about the next gaming video, and Phil starts talking, and everything feels normal again.
---
Cardiff goes perfectly.
Dan’s smiling when he walks off stage. Phil’s pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth the moment they’re hidden away in the tour car again. When he checks Twitter later that night, instead of an influx of questions and worry, he finds fan reassuring each other that he looked okay.
“They’re proud of you,” says Phil.
Dan knows it’s because he’s said I’m proud of you too many times since the tour began.
---
The last show’s in Dublin.
Dan wraps his elastic joint supports around his ankles and tugs the others over his knees. He chugs a glass of water before going on stage and bounces on his toes to the pre-show music, listening to the audience since along to Welcome to the Black Parade .
They joke around and laugh and smile.
Dan makes a joke about his broken body, and even Phil manages to chuckle with him.
When the show’s done, and everyone erupts in cheers, the happiness wells so fully in his chest it aches to breathe and his smile hurts his cheeks and tears sting behind his eyes.
And everything about it is perfect.
---
“I’m proud of you.”
Dan says it in a bar that night, sipping from Phil’s beer when his own, non-alcoholic drink seems dull for the occasion. Marianne led a toast and the merch team is sharing stories about their funniest fan encounters and Martyn’s retelling some of his favourite memories from the last month.
Phil looks up at him, eyes a little hazy and upper lip a little wet from his drink.
“Me?”
Dan nods. He doesn’t elaborate. He hopes he doesn’t need to.
None of this, he thinks, would have happened without Phil.
Without both of them.
---
A few weeks later, they’re sitting on the sofa again.
The Switch is on, blaring the Mario Kart theme on repeat. Dan’s tumblr feed is lit up with jokes to make him laugh and others to make him think too much. Phil’s laptop is twisted to show Dan a video of a dog he just found on Twitter.
It’s normal, their normal. Dan’s body still aches and his mind lingers too long on his worries and Phil’s still brimming with kindness and ideas and all of it turned out okay.
Turned out great.
“Hey, Phil,” says Dan, and then, “We should bring the tour to Europe.”