Archive of Our Own

The day started out normal. 

Dan left early for a morning therapy appointment, leaving Phil in bed to his lie-in. They had nothing else scheduled for the day, which is not particularly unusual; they like to keep the start of the year relatively light on workload. 

The turn of the year has always been a time for reflection and conversation about the coming months. This was partly why Dan had scheduled his therapy appointment in the first place; it was an attempt to get ahead of the oncoming crisis and mental health dip that this brings. 

Phil doesn’t stay in bed for much longer after Dan leaves. He showers, but puts his pyjamas back on after – why not dress for maximal comfort when the only person who’s going to see you is your boyfriend of ten years who’s frankly seen you in much worse, and far less? So he makes himself a too sweet coffee and settles down on the sofa to wait for Dan, ready to finish the TV series they’ve been binge watching since getting back from their respective family christmas holidays. 

He hopes Dan will pass their favourite bakery and bring back some goodies as he often does after therapy. 

Phil opens his emails on his laptop. There are already several sat there waiting. The first one is from their management company, titled: 

Happy New Year!

It starts with a short blurb, hoping they all had a good holiday, thanking them for their past year of hard work and pepping them for the next.

Phil scrolls past it all, sure that its only purpose is to soften them up before hitting them with those 9am meetings. And just as suspected:

To start off an amazing year, we hope to see you all Thursday 10th at 11am to discuss the plans for the coming year.

Phil breathes a sigh of relief; nearly a week away is better than he had been expecting. He’s not so lucky with the next one though, which is a meeting with the merch company Monday morning, three days from now. He groans and notes them both down in his phone calendar, which is also linked to Dan’s, not that he checks it. 

As much as Phil dislikes these meetings, he hates missing them even more. He’s only ever missed a couple, both due to illness and even then only when Dan had all but tied him down in bed to make him stay.

Despite the early time, he’s looking forward to this particular merch meeting. He and Dan are both hoping to expand their individual merch stores this year, and Phil has many ideas for new designs he’s excited about.

He replies to both emails to confirm their attendance and opens twitter. 

It’s a good hour later and Dan still hasn’t returned home. Phil usually expects him to be gone a good two hours, the first for the appointment itself and the second because Phil knows Dan likes to take his time and walk the entire way home afterwards, something about it helping to settle the already delicately balanced thoughts and emotions in his head. 

So, when it starts to push into the third hour, Phil starts to get agitated. He’s not worried about Dan – he can handle himself, but Phil’s beginning to get bored and lonely. He’s even got the TV show already up on the screen so all he has to do is press play as soon as Dan walks through the door.

The hands on the clock are nudging noon when Phil hears the door open and the rustle of coats as Dan takes his off winter layers. Phil picks up the remote and points it at the TV, ready to press play, but when Dan emerges at the top of the stairs there’s a look on his face that stops him.

“Hey,” Phil says, keeping his voice light and putting the remote back down.

Dan looks startled when Phil speaks, no doubt lost in his own world.

“Hey,” he replies. He turns his trajectory from the kitchen to towards Phil and moves slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. He has his eyes fixed on Phil’s, and there’s a tense look on his face, jaw clenched and brow furrowed. His hands are clenched into fists by his sides, the sleeves of his jumper engulfing them down to his knuckles.

Dan isn’t carrying any bags and Phil pretends to not be disappointed at the lack of tasty baked goods today but Dan’s whole demeanor right now is disconcerting. Phil smiles up at him as he stops just in front of Phil.

“Are you okay? How was therapy?” Phil tries to deflect some of the growing tension because it’s making him nervous and he doesn’t like when Dan makes him nervous. 

“I did something,” Dan says. There’s a gravity to his tone which does nothing for the anxiety in Phil’s stomach. A million possible scenarios flash through Phil’s head in half a second. Dan lifts up his left hand, still clenched into a fist. His sleeve falls down to his wrist, which is when Phil notices something small and black poking out from Dan’s curled fingers. Phil frowns.

Dan throws the thing into Phil’s lap and Phil feels it land before he sees it. It hits his legs with a jangle that makes his brain instantly supply him with the image of a set of keys from his childhood. 

Sure enough, when he looks down there’s a black car key lying inconspicuously in his lap. He picks it up and turns it over in his hand. He hasn’t held a car key of his own in his hands for so long that the object feels foreign to him. He turns it between his fingertips and looks up at Dan.

The possible scenarios have been narrowed down drastically, and the first and most intense thought that is screaming in his head is that Dan bought a car. Without Phil. Without even discussing it with him first.

One of their biggest personal goals for this year is to buy a house. Along with a house people usually have a car. It’s something Phil had assumed would happen for them at some point in their lives, when their family was bigger and travelling cross country by train was just not feasible, or even just for shorter journeys across town, perhaps to school or the shops. But right now they live in London, which has good public transport and zero need for them to have a car. 

Anger starts to build in his chest and he can feel the tips of his ears start to go red. But he keeps his composure as he looks up at Dan and asks, in the calmest voice he can muster, “You bought a car?”

Dan’s expression immediately relaxes and he sits down beside Phil.

“What? No. No!” He’s shaking his head vigorously. “I rented a car.”

Phil’s anger immediately dissipates but is quickly replaced by confusion. He wouldn’t have believed what Dan was telling him if not for the evidence resting right there in the palm of his hand.

“Why did you rent a car? We aren’t going anywhere; we don’t need a car.” Phil’s the one shaking his head now, and he looks up at Dan who’s sitting with one leg folded in front of him to face Phil straight on. He’s started chewing his lip and he has one hand resting on Phil’s thigh, the other fiddling with his sleeve. The leg still on the floor starts to bounce.

“Well… that’s what I was thinking,” he says, looking between Phil and the keys.

The TV is still paused across the room, but something tells Phil he won’t be getting to watch it right now. Maybe it’s because he knows Dan too well so he knows this look. It’s the look he gets when he comes to Phil with an idea, something big that will involve both of them. Phil also knows that there’s not much he can do when Dan has that look; he just has to ride the wave and occasionally nudge him back to land lest they end up in water too deep for either of them to handle. 

But that look has also led Phil to some of the best experiences of his life. 

He takes a deep breath.

“Thinking what?”

--

So that’s how they end up sat in the car, three streets away from their apartment because parking hadn’t exactly been either of their priorities when they chose this place. The car is black and has five doors and that’s the extent of Phil’s car knowledge, except that there’s a lot of buttons and a screen in front of him that Phil’s never been the one to have control of before. He’ll definitely be asking Dan how much this cost later on.

Dan’s sat in the driver’s seat, because he’ll be damned if he’s letting Phil write the thing off before they’ve even left the city.

“Do you still remember how to drive?” Phil asks cautiously. 

He remembers back to Florida with his family a few years ago, when Dan had profusely turned down the offer to be a named driver on the car Phil’s parents had rented for while they were out there. Though Dan does seem to have driven from the rental place to here in one piece at least.

Dan has his hands on the steering wheel, 10 and 2, and takes far too long before he answers yes. After positioning and repositioning all of his mirrors and his chair several times, he turns the key and the engine starts up. A jolt of adrenaline shoots through Phil’s veins, and reality sinks in that he’s really sat in a car that Dan’s about to drive, to god-knows-where for god-knows-how-long. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Be quiet, you’re making me nervous,” Dan mutters as he puts the gear stick into first and checks the road is clear. There’s cars dotted along both sides of this street but fortunately there’s room enough for them to pull out of this spot without reversing. Phil wonders how long it had taken Dan to parallel park into here, maybe he should be glad he hadn’t been around to see that. 

It seems like a fairly quiet street, only one car has passed them in the ten minutes they’ve been sat here, but Dan still checks the road both ways three times before he turns the wheel and they start to pull forward. There’s a jolt and Phil is pulled forward in his seat, seat belt pressing into his torso sharply despite the fact they were barely moving.

“Fuck,” Dan mutters.

Phil watches as Dan restarts the car, moving the gear stick a whole lot more aggressively than the first time ’round. Phil stays quiet but gently places his hand on Dan’s thigh for just a moment. He knows Dan’s penchant for getting frustrated when things don’t work for him the first time and right now that’s really not ideal.

“I just need to get used to this car, I did it getting here too,” Dan says. He turns around to check the road again and they move off, without stalling this time.

“I know, and you will.”

This is happening whether Phil likes it or not, so he may as well try and make this a pleasant experience for both of them.

Dan tells Phil to put on Google Maps as they head west out of London. And then to just turn on the voice commands when Phil gives him one too many wrong turns and they end up driving in circles. 

After about 20 minutes on a motorway, they approach a roundabout listing Reading as one of the exits – that’s what Phil had typed into Google to get them out of London. The Australian Man’s voice of Phil’s phone tells Dan to take the first exit. Dan takes the second. Phil’s isn’t too surprised; he doesn’t think Dan’s childhood is a destination Dan had in mind when they set out.

So they end up on the M1, heading North.

--

There’s plenty of cars on the road, not a surprise for a Friday afternoon, but traffic is flowing freely. Phil spends a good ten miles fiddling with the bluetooth system in the car before giving up and just playing a spotify road trip playlist from his phone’s speaker.

It isn’t raining, but it clearly had been not many hours ago. The roads are still wet thanks to a sun blocked by large fluffy clouds and mist spraying from all the surrounding cars’ wheels is putting their windscreen wipers to work every few minutes. 

Phil turns the heating up further and pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. He squeezes his eyes shut and pushes his head back against the headrest and tries his best to relax, not least to try and avoid the inevitable travel sickness (at least he remembered to pick up some medication on the way out the door). 

There’s a tension in the words they aren’t saying; he knows they need to talk about the reason for this spontaneous trip, and the sooner they do the better. But he also knows better than anyone that there’s no pushing Dan when he isn’t ready, and right now there’s more pressing things to worry about. Like where, exactly, they are going. 

Just as he opens his mouth to ask, Dan says, “We should stop for fuel soon.” His voice is quiet, making Phil think this is just a Dan procrastination method of putting off important conversations, until he leans across to look at the fuel gauge. The little red arm is alarmingly close to empty. “They gave you an empty car?” 

“It wasn’t empty when we left.” Dan gestures towards a road sign. “There’s a service station coming up, we can stop there.”

When they reach the station, they pull into one of the empty pumps and Dan gets out. Phil watches as Dan stands in front of the nozzles resting there. It seems to take him several moments before he decides on which one to use.

“Are you sure that’s the right one?” Phil asks, cracking the door open slightly so Dan will hear him.

Dan pauses. “Yeah,” he replies. “Mostly.”

“We can’t fuck up this car Dan...” He leans further out as Dan walks to the back of the car. “It’s a rental.”

“I know that.” Dan opens to the cap and puts in the nozzle. “I’m sure, don’t worry.”

Phil hears the pump start up and closes his door so he’s not letting in any more cold. 

They’re both watching the number steadily rise, £20… 30… 40… It finally stops at £52.93 and Phil breathes a sigh of relief. 

Dan goes inside to pay, leaving Phil alone with his thoughts. He’s still a bit on edge with the whole ‘no plans’ thing, and he already wishes they were still at home. But they’re together and they really could go anywhere, or wherever £52.93 worth of petrol will take them anyway. Maybe they’ll even have fun?

Dan comes back holding a packet of Haribos and some triangular sandwiches which he throws into Phil’s lap as he gets in the car. He’s also holding a map, the type of folded up paper map that Phil remembers always having in the back of the car as a kid. It had gotten his family out of many a difficult spot, pulled up at the side of some road in the middle of nowhere on the way home from a day in the country. A map full of spider-web-lines filled up the front while his parents tried their best to convince him they weren’t lost and his brother sat beside him playing on his gameboy and ignoring it all. They always got home safe and sound.

Phil takes the map from Dan. “Why do we need this? We have our phones.” 

“I think we should take a few days off from the internet,” Dan says, turning in his seat to face Phil more directly.

Phil frowns, his phone still clasped in his other hand. “Why?” 

“We should make the most of this trip, and just get away from everything,” Dan says. He starts chewing on his lip as he waits for Phil to reply.

Is that what this is about? Phil looks down at the map and back up at Dan. It’s still only a few days into the new year and neither of them have been very active on social media in those days anyway, so a few more days wouldn’t make much difference.

“Okay, no internet,” Phil agrees. “Except for emergencies.”

Dan nods and turns to sit properly in his seat. The car from the pump behind pulls around them to leave.

“Thank you,” Dan says quietly as he starts up the car. 

Phil had already taken some of the time with his family to take a break from the internet, except to skype with Dan every night. But he knows that time with family is only a holiday for him, so if this is the break Dan needs, then Phil isn’t going to stop that.

--

Phil’s in a world of his own, watching the grey tarmac pass in a blur beneath them. White line after white line, road light after road light, car after car passes him by. He first notices that dusk is starting to fall when headlights are being turned on, and then orange lights start illuminating the road from above. 

He sits up straighter in his seat, his body beginning to ache from being in the same position for so long. It’s almost 4pm, which isn’t all that late but for this time of year still means it will be getting dark soon. They passed the sign welcoming them to the North over an hour ago, at which point he’d taken some car sickness medication, all of his tricks having stopped working, but they still haven’t stopped since they filled up. 

He looks across at Dan. His eyes are fixed on the road in front but his arms are sagging from the effort of holding them in position for so many hours and his hands have made their way down to the bottom of the steering wheel.

“It’s going to get dark,” Phil states. It’s the first thing either of them have said in a while.

“Yeah,” Dan replies. His voice cracks and he shifts a bit in his seat.

“We should stop soon.” Phil’s stomach rumbles to emphasis his point. Dan had eaten his sandwich in the car park next to the service station and not wanting to tempt fate, Phil left his own sandwich in the backseat, instead just nibbling on a few Haribo. Now he’s beginning to feel the effects of skipping a proper lunch.

Dan nods. “We can pull off at the next slip road.”

They approach a sign for a roundabout before a slip road, however, and on it is a name that immediately brings back a slew of both good and bad memories for Phil. 

Phil had spent 4 years at York uni because he hadn’t wanted to leave. He had had friends there and a life and the thought of starting all of that again from scratch in a new city, even one as familiar as Manchester, had been far too daunting so he’d stayed a year longer. 

Phil follows the word with his eyes as it passes them. At every roundabout they’ve  encountered so far, Dan has taken whichever turn would keep them on the motorway, which in this case would be the second exit. He takes the third. For York.

Dan glances over at Phil. “You always said you’d show me around one day.”

Phil smiles. “Yeah, I did.”

--

The road narrows and the cars slow with rush hour as they approach the city, and Phil is beginning to get strangely nervous. It’s not like he knows anyone here they might run into because he hasn’t lived here in over ten years and, as far as he’s aware, everyone he knew has since moved on. He and Dan had driven past the city on tour and have taken a train through several times, but this will be the first time he’s actually visited since he graduated. He wonders how much will have changed.

They find a hotel fairly quickly, and check in for the night, and even the few minutes they spend walking from the car to the hotel feel like stepping back in time. 

Once in their room, they sling their backpacks off and onto the floor by the bed. Phil kicks off his shoes and flops back onto the crisp white sheets.

Before they’d left their apartment, Dan had told him to pack a bag so he’d changed out of his pyjamas and into the clothes he’d been wearing the day before while Dan had told him his plan. The plan mainly consisted of just getting in the car and driving it turns out, like a mini-road trip, Dan had explained. He’d seen Dan pack a change of clothes so Phil threw another shirt and some underwear into his backpack too, which was when he’d realised this wasn’t going to be a quick day trip. He’d gone to put in his laptop and collect its charger when Dan had stopped him.

“But what about Netflix?”

“We’ll manage,” Dan had said, coming back from the bathroom and handing Phil his toothbrush.

Phil hadn’t been exactly sure what else to pack because the several times he’d asked Dan where they were going, he’d just received an increasingly more frustrated “I don’t know.” So he had stopped asking and packed for everything, although it was winter so anywhere was going to be cold. He’d put in a couple pairs of extra socks, his good walking shoes, and a waterproof coat. They were out the door within 20 minutes, Dan bringing up the rear.

In their hotel room, Dan toes off his shoes and places them neatly by the door, then stretches his arms up above his head, popping his spine in several places. His jumper raises up with the action, revealing the stretch of skin below his belly button. Phil reaches his arms out to Dan.

“Come ‘ere,” he says. 

Dan obliges, crawling up the foot of the bed to lay beside Phil. Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s shoulders and holds him tight. Dan drops his head onto Phil’s chest and they lay together in silence. 

It’s fully dark by the time they’re finding a place to eat and having it delivered to the hotel. Dan goes down to collect the food while Phil changes back into pyjamas and then lets Dan change too while he sets out the food onto one of the large towels from their en suite on top of the bed to catch the crumbs.

Thanks to the no internet rule, they settle for watching actual TV and land on a double bill of some sitcom they’d started years ago but never finished. The characters on the screen are almost unrecognisable to those they had watched in series one; they’re older with hair and custom styles to match, living more grown up lives surrounded by new people and new places. The story line is more mature to anything the writers would have written back then, but there’s still plenty of laughs and a resolution that leaves the characters cheersing to each other and their everlasting friendship.

The show finishes and the food does too, but they don’t bother changing the channel. Dan has already fallen asleep with his head on Phil’s shoulder. Phil thinks he might be drooling a little, but he lets him sleep for a while; he has had a long day after all. 

When the credits are rolling on the second episode, Phil wakes Dan and they clear up the empty food containers and shake out the towel over the bath. 

They fall asleep together before midnight for the first time in a long long time.

--

The next morning, Phil wakes up early. Dan is still sound asleep beside him. He reaches out to grab his glasses from the table by the bed, then picks up his phone too. There are a couple social media notifications on the lock screen but just as he’s about to check them, he remembers the rule. 

Dan still hasn’t stirred and it was more his rule than Phil’s. Even so, Phil had agreed and he’s nothing if not true to his word, especially when it comes to Dan.

If he’d missed anything that important, he’d have missed calls or texts. He swipes away all the notifications and turns on ‘do not disturb,’ then places his phone back down and quietly gets out of bed. He walks up to the window and pulls back a corner of the curtain, flooding light into the room, but thankfully none of it falls directly on Dan. Phil leans against the windowsill, letting the curtain fall against his shoulder, and looks down at the street below. 

It takes a moment, but he thinks he recognises it. Of course, he recognises it as part of the city that had played background to some of the most important years of his life. But this street specifically, he thinks, yes, just around the corner, just out of sight, is the bus stop. 

The first time he’d taken the bus from the university was on his second day after moving in. He was alone and afraid in a brand new city but determined to not be overwhelmed, determined to find life and friends and a city to call a temporary home. But particularly determined to find food. The campus shop was all well and good, but if he was to be able to tell his mum he was eating well he’d have to find a proper shop that sold proper food that he could use to (try to) make proper meals.

Phil smiles at the memories of his younger, more naive self. He wonders if that person would be proud of the life he’s made. He’d been making videos even back then, of course, but that was just a fun hobby, something he and his friends did to take their minds off school and work. He never could have imagined the path on which that fun hobby has taken him, worlds away from the life he had planned out for himself.

He thinks he would be.

There’s shuffling behind him.

Dan groans. “Turn the light off,” he says, pulling the duvet up and over his head, completely covering himself. 

“Sorry,” Phil says and lets the curtain close fully again before he gets back into bed. He reckons there’s probably still another hour before they actually need to get up, so he lays back down and takes off his glasses again. Looking across at Dan, still cocooned in the duvet, he thinks of those videos he’d made back then. 

Filming those videos were some of his favourite memories from university and on particularly hard days, when he’s doubting the choices he’s made, the sacrifices that have led him here, he watches those videos and it renews his joy of the process. Although he’s not making the types of videos he used to, they still bring him such happiness that he finds it was all worth it.

He closes his eyes and listens to Dan’s breathing. He knows there was a time when making videos brought Dan the same joy, and he also knows that recreating that is a much more intense process for him. 

He can only hope that Dan can find that again. 

--

The next time Phil wakes up is to the ringing of his alarm and Dan groaning, “Five more minutes.”

Phil gets out of bed properly this time. He puts in his contacts, brushes his teeth, and puts on some clothes. By the time he’s finished, a good ten minutes has passed so he wakes Dan up as well.

They manage to check out with two minutes to spare, then head out the front door and towards the city centre. They pass the bus stop, and Phil sees that even that has changed with the times. A small departure screen now hangs from the roof, but when Phil looks harder he is delighted to see listed the same familiar bus number from all those years ago.

They stop once they reach the centre, and Phil turns to Dan and says, “Where do you want to go, Danny boy?” 

Dan hums. “Where was your favourite place to go when you lived here?” 

The walk takes twice the amount of time it normally would, both thanks to Phil’s general lack of direction and the fact he can’t just look it up, but eventually muscle memory takes over and they finally reach the Museum Gardens. 

It’s not nearly as pretty as it would be in the summer, and it’s freezing cold, but it’s still the place Phil had spent a fair amount of time as a student. He’d gone here both by himself as well as with friends, maybe even on a date or two. A couple laps around here would always help to clear his mind on a particularly stressful day.

He tells Dan stories of times spent here, both good and bad, as they walk. There are not many other people around, very few brave enough to freeze for the sake of bare trees and empty flower beds. 

Dan doesn’t complain though; he has his coat zipped up to his chin and his hat pushed down past his eyebrows, and he listens to every word Phil says. He carries on doing so as they walk back into the centre and Phil points out various hotspots from his youth: the dungeons he’d gone to four halloweens in a row with his mates and Fibbers music venue where he’d seen his fair share of bands and had been dragged to for nights out more times than he’d like to admit. He takes Dan down the Shambles, the inspiration for Diagon Alley, and Dan makes Phil stand in the middle of the narrow, cobbled street while he takes pictures. There’s still some remnants of the city’s seasonal celebrations left, banners and lights zig-zagging between roofs on every street narrow enough and here is no exception. 

They pass a Harry Potter shop on the same stretch and Dan’s eyes light up. Fifteen minutes later they finally make it inside the tiny shop because despite the cold weather, there’s still a line ’round the corner of eager fans. They both already have their fair share of merch at home, so they settle for some themed chocolate and a bag of ‘every flavour beans’ which they eat as they walk. 

Phil is delighted to see a very familiar shop a little further down. He takes Dan inside and as soon as he’s opened the door, they’re hit by the sickly sweet smell of handmade fudge. There’s blocks of it lining the glass case inside and as they wait for their turn to be served, he tells Dan how this was his Dad’s favourite shop whenever his parents came to visit. 

They’re given many free samples as they chat with the cashiers. He doesn’t remember what his Dad’s favourite flavour was, but he buys some for both of his parents as well as some for themselves. He turns around so Dan can put the purchases in his backpack. 

They stop for lunch at Betty’s tea room because a trip to this beautiful city would not be complete without it. Phil remembers the queues out the door he’d see at this cafe, but thankfully there’s only a few people waiting – maybe to do with the awful weather – so they’re seated fairly quickly. They order cups of coffee and cakes which come on a stand with very small plates and even smaller slices. 

Dan takes more pictures and Phil sends one to his mum. No doubt she’ll have questions, but that can wait.

Several hours later and they’re walking along the wall that surrounds the city, built back when people fought with bow and arrows. Up here, the air seems even colder and the wind even stronger. The path is narrow enough that every now and again they have to walk single file to let someone pass. The wall is built on earthen ramparts, giving the wall its extra height, which also means that at sections where there is no inside railing, there is a long drop down onto the grassy mounds to the roads below. The childlike part of Phil’s brain thinks these hills would be great for rolling down. That thought makes him smile and he turns to Dan to share, but there’s a look of great concentration on his face that stops him.

They’ve so far been walking in silence, so Phil nudges Dan with his shoulder.

“Hey, I smell burning.”

Dan blinks and turns to him, frowning in confusion.

“You’re thinking too hard.” Phil grins, too proud of his dad joke.

With what little of Dan’s face Phil can see, Dan’s disapproval is still very clear.

“What are you thinking about?” Phil asks gently.

Dan ducks his chin out from behind his coat. “That I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“About what?”

“About anything,” Dan replies. “About my videos, about life, about the damn car.”

Phil thinks for a moment and decides to tackle them one at a time.

“Okay, what about your videos?”

“I just… don’t like being a YouTuber.” Dan says slowly. That’s not new information; Phil’s heard that before. “I like making jokes on the internet and talking about things that are important to me, but I don’t like making videos on a schedule or having to please the algorithm. ”

Dan’s main channel schedule has been a problem for Dan right from the start.

“You’ve made content on a schedule before; we made the radio show on a schedule,” Phil says. 

“That’s different – we were doing that together and we had help from other people who were relying on us to get things done on time,” Dan explains. “And it was the same format every time. All we had to do was play games and talk for two minutes in between songs.” 

That’s definitely an oversimplification, Phil thinks. He remembers the nights staying up to 3am the night before a show to finish planning or record videos or making props. Dan’s definitely right that accountability is a great motivator for both of them, but it’s also not uncommon for them to work themselves to the bone to make it happen.

“I’ve been thinking recently,” Dan says after a pause. “I want to take a step away from YouTube for a while, officially, now that all the tour stuff is over.” 

“Okay, whatever you need.” 

They’ve stopped now at a wide opening in the path, a corner tower. Dan walks up to the edge of the wall and leans against it, hands in his pockets, chin tucked in his coat and looks down over the edge. Phil stands beside him.

Dan turns to look at him, as if surprised by this answer. “I mean all of YouTube, including the gaming channel.” 

That’s definitely new information. Phil thought they were both enjoying making gaming videos. Yes, it takes up a lot of time, and it can be very frustrating at times. But the gaming videos are some of his favourite videos they’ve ever made. 

Dan clearly senses Phil’s apprehension so he continues. “We were both just saying the end of the last year that it was getting difficult finding new and interesting games –” It’s true that their list of gaming ideas had been getting worryingly short, but new games were coming out all the time! “And if we take a break then we can both focus on other things, our own projects, maybe?” 

There has been a menagerie of ideas floating about in Phil’s brain for years, but they were just ideas, certainly nothing he was capable of doing any time soon… although it was definitely appealing to think about. 

“I don’t want to quit the gaming channel,” Phil says.

“Neither do I. We could just put it on pause for a few months. And anyway I think we’d be hunted down with pitchforks if we didn’t have a Devan wedding.”

Phil huffs a laugh. A strong gust of wind blows passed them, making them both shiver. Dan pulls his coat up over his mouth again.

“It’s too cold to be having this conversation,” Phil says. “Is it what you really want?”

Dan looks down at his feet, then back up at Phil, and nods. In the small strip of Dan’s face that visible, are the remains of Dan’s freckles splattered across the bridge of his nose, vibrant in the summer sun but now hibernating against the cold. His eyes are squinted against the chill of the wind. 

Phil nods back. It’s an acknowledgement of the end of the conversation, but only for now. This is a big decision on many counts and there’s still plenty they’d need to discuss. But that can wait for when they’re back in the comfort and familiarity of their home, not to mention the warmth. 

They turn around and carry on with the rest of their walk. Some of the heaviness in Dan’s face seems to have lifted. 

They reach the steps that mark the end of this stretch of wall. Phil reaches the bottom first and turns around to wait for Dan. But then he remembers something.

“Why did you rent the car?” 

Dan lets out a heavy sign that lifts his whole body up and down and he stops half way down the steps. “I was on my way home and I just saw the shop and decided to walk inside, just to see. I think it was something my therapist said, about breaking habits? Then a sales assistant started talking to me and she kept asking questions and I felt too awkward to leave and before I knew it I was signing papers and had the keys in my hand. It’s surprisingly easy to rent a car, did you know that? Then I started to panic because I realised what I had done and I panicked even more because I had to tell you and…” 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Phil says. Dan’s only a small step above Phil now so Phil reaches up to take hold of Dan’s shoulders. “It’s alright; I’m not mad. I wish you had talked to me about it first because then we could have prepared better, but we’re here and we’re having fun, yeah?” He strokes down Dan’s arms to squeezes his gloved hands.

Dan nods. “Yeah.” He looks down at Phil and his eyes are soft when he asks, “Where would we have gone if we’d had more time?” 

Phil lets his arms drop and smiles, taking a step back to let Dan meet him on the ground, and they carry on walking. 

--

They forfeit the rest of the walls in favour of going back to the car.

“Where now, Philly?” Dan asks as he slams his door.

In truth, Phil would really like to be back in their apartment, in pyjamas with a glass of wine each in their hands and their current favourite show on the TV like he had planned all along. In reality, they’re too many miles away from that, driving randomly around the country in a car becoming all too familiar to Phil. 

‘Random’ is the operative word for the next few hours, because, as neither of them really have a place in mind they choose each turn, each exit, each road, randomly.

At a particularly quiet stretch, Phil suggests they swap to give Dan a break. Dan agrees, but very quickly takes it back when he remembers how truly awful Phil’s driving is. Phil just says it’s because he hasn’t had practice in so long, but for Dan it brings back memories of leaving nail marks in the seats as Phil drove him to the train station in those early months of their relationship.

They swap back as Dan promises that will “Never. Happen. Again.” and despairs at the instructor that had ever given Phil license to get behind the wheel in the first place.

--

“Was that…?”

“I think it was.” 

Welcome to Wales

He thinks his brain is messing with him at first, until he sees the smaller words in English underneath the bigger ones on the road signs that confirm he wasn’t going crazy. They really are in Wales.

“I don’t suppose you’ve learnt a whole new language at some point without me knowing, have you?” Phil asks Dan.

“Mate,” is Dan’s reply.

The important words seem to be translated to English, but all the town names and cities are completely incomprehensible to him.

“What do we do?” 

“Pick one I guess.”

“Okay.” Phil points at a sign. “That one, the second one down.”

Almost immediately they forget which one they had chosen and end up following for somewhere completely different.

It’s promising, however, when they begin to see the sea on the horizon, so they head towards that instead. The roads start to become windy and more uneven, but it’s worth it when they approach a small town that before now could have only existed to them in photographs. 

“We should find a hotel again,” Dan says.

“I’ll find one,” Phil replies, grabbing his phone from where it’s resting on the dashboard. Dan immediately reaches across and bats it out of his hands. It lands on the floor by Phil’s feet with a thud. 

“Hey!” he exclaims.

“No internet, remember!” Dan says in that high pitched voice he does when Phil has done something dumb. “We’ll find one the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way? You mean ask someone?” Phil asks, sounding slightly horrified.

“No, I mean we’ll drive around for a bit until we see one and stay there.”

“Oh okay,” Phil says, only a bit relieved. “But what if it’s a really crappy one, Dan. We need to check the reviews: it might have bed bugs, or scratchy towels, or… or… mean staff!”

“I’m sure it will be fine, Phil. The last place was okay, wasn’t it? It’ll only be for one night.”

Phil pouts. “I blame you if I get eaten alive by bed bugs in the night.”

Dan sighs. “You’re not going to get eaten by bed bugs, and besides I’ll be in the same bed as you, so if you get eaten then so will I.”

Phil’s mostly joking about his fears, but even so he makes a sulky sound and flops his head back against the headrest with a thud.

They drive around for a good twenty minutes with little luck, so they follow a sign to a car park, although even that’s a generous term for whatever this is. It’s a single level underground car park with a little under half the spots already taken, which is really the only sign that this place is indeed habitable. Graffiti covers large expanses of the crumbling white paint on the walls and metal beams are dotted all over holding up the cracked ceiling. There seems to be no order to the placement of the parking spaces, and there are no arrows on the floor to direct cars in an orderly fashion. Not that that’s particularly a problem as they have yet to see any actual people down here. 

The contrast to the pretty, idyllic town above is startling.

“This looks a bit dodge,” Phil whispers, because the eeriness of this place seems to require it.

Dan hums in agreement. He’s leant forward in his seat almost clutching the wheel and they’re crawling along at snail's pace. “The other cars look okay.” Dan doesn’t whisper, but Phil definitely notices how low he speaks.

Phil hums this time, looking around.

They park between two metal beams.

“Is this even a space?” Phil asks.

“It is now,” Dan says.

They pay for a 24 hour parking ticket and walk back out into daylight. Phil turns around for one last look into the underground car park and prays that the car will still be there tomorrow. The parking ticket says they need to be back by 5:27pm tomorrow, though Phil isn’t sure there would even be anyone around to check if they weren’t.

A biting wind hits them as soon as they’re out in the open. Phil pulls the bobble hat his aunt had given him that Christmas further down over his ears and buries his gloved hands into his coat pockets. It’s definitely colder here than it had been in York. 

They walk onto a street lined with shops. It’s a fairly long street with a shallow incline, meaning that every other shop is built slightly higher up than the one before it, giving the mismatching roofs a step-like fashion. Phil thinks that this would be a very pretty street when the sun is high in the sky and one’s sole purpose isn’t just getting from one warm building to the next in as little time as possible. Not that that’s what they’re doing at the moment.

Phil is pulled from his thoughts by Dan pulling him by the elbow into a shop. The door opens with a tinkling bell, and once inside Dan lets go of Phil. The warmth immediately hits them, and Phil suddenly feels too stuffy in all his layers. He pulls off his gloves and pushes down his hood, then pulls off his hat too and stuffs it into a different pocket to his gloves. 

He looks up to take in the small shop stuffed to the brim with racks of clothes, the mismatched type that you would only find in a charity shop. He sees Dan now stood at the back and when Phil moves closer he can see Dan is stood in front of a rack of scarves. 

He stops beside him. “Hey.” 

Dan picks one up off the rack. It’s a blue one to match the grey one already in Dan’s hand. He folds it in half, then wraps it around Phil’s neck, threading the end through the loop. It’s made of very thick wool and Phil reaches up to to squeeze it in his hands, then rubs his chin against it before looking up at Dan.

“It’s so soft,” he says.

Dan tugs down on the ends and is about to reply when there’s a voice behind them.

“Hello, dears.” 

They both turn around, startled, as a woman who must be in her sixties drops a cardboard box behind the small counter in the corner of the shop. Dan drops his hands down as they both say hello back. “Is there anything I can help you with?” 

Dan says there isn’t, and she turns around to head back behind the sheer curtain that must lead into the back of the shop. “Well, you let me know if there is.”

“We will, thank you,” Dan says, and she disappears behind the curtain. 

“Do you like it?” Dan asks Phil, running his hands back down the scarf still hanging around Phil’s neck.

“Yeah, it’s cosy.” Phil nods and Dan unwraps the scarf and takes them both over to the counter. Phil follows behind and a few seconds later the woman comes back out carrying another box. Now that Phil’s closer, he notices the name on her badge which is hanging at an angle from her jumper: Kath, even spelt the same.

“Do you want to buy those, dear?” 

“Yes, please,” Dan says, placing both the scarves on the counter.

Phil turns away to hide his smile; it’s the same voice Dan uses around Phil’s parents when he wants to be extra sweet. Phil’s always made fun of him for sucking up to them, especially his Mum, but really he finds it incredibly endearing. This is exactly the kind of shop his Mum would drag him into when he was a boy.

“Would you like a bag?” she asks.

Dan shakes his head. “No, we’re going to wear them now,” he says proudly, handing over the cash. He drops the change into the charity box on the side while Kath folds up the scarves, then hands them back to Dan. 

“Are you from around here?” she asks as she does, clearly having picked up on Dan’s accent.

“No,” Dan says. “We’re from London, just doing some travelling.”

“That’s lovely,” she says. “These scarves will do well to keep you warm in this weather.”

There’s a pause, then Dan is saying, “Actually, we only just arrived here and we still don’t have anywhere to stay. I don’t suppose you would know of anywhere?”

Phil steps closer to join the conversation, surprised; Dan’s usually the first to exit a conversation as soon as possible and he already has the goods in his hand. Kath beams.

“As a matter of fact, my daughter came to visit last weekend with her family and they stayed in a very nice little B&B not far from here.”

Dan looks across at Phil, a smug look on his face.

“Would you be able to give us directions?” Phil asks. They both listen intently as she gives directions and when she’s finished Phil realises he’s forgotten already, but Dan is already noting them down in his phone.

They head back out into the cold after relayering, including their brand new scarves, and follow the directions to the hotel.

--

Their room is tiny, barely bigger than the double bed it holds, and the wallpaper is objectively ugly, but they have a view of the sea and a decent ensuite. It’s clearly been decorated to feel homely, except the kind of home his grandma would have had. There’s a dresser by the window on which Dan has neatly folded up his new scarf. Phil folds up his own much less neatly and lays it next to Dan’s.

He takes off his shoes and places them by the door because it feels rude to be messy in a place like this if he can help it. Dan does the same, then hangs their coats up on the pegs on the back of the door and lays their bags up against the wall. 

There’s a tray on the dresser with all the materials for tea and coffee as well as a few packs of biscuits. Phil picks up a pack and opens it. 

Dan is sat on the edge of the bed. His phone is in his hand but it’s off and he’s turning it over and over, round and round. Phi sits next to him. There are two biscuits in the packet and he offers one to Dan. Dan takes it and his phone stills. 

They eat their biscuits in silence but it does nothing to ease the hunger they’re both feeling by now. Phil rests his chin on Dan’s shoulder, who’s now clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. 

“Hey, why don’t you have a nap while I go get us some dinner?” 

Dan nods and turns his face into Phil’s so his nose is pressed into Phil’s cheek. Phil lifts Dan’s chin and presses a few gentle kisses to Dan’s lips. Dan places a hand on his chest, then tilts his head down to press his forehead to Phil’s.

There is a restaurant they saw only a short distance from the B&B so Phil heads there and asks if they’ll do take out. Twenty minutes later he’s back out in the cold with hot boxes of pasta under his arm. 

Phil doesn’t usually like being outside in the dark, but here he finds it oddly calming. Everything seems simpler here and the air is cleaner. He breathes in a lungful, though all he can smell now is their dinner. A car startles him as it drives past, and he realises as it drives away how quiet this town is. The only thing he can hear is the wind whistling past his ears and the crashing of waves in the distance. 

A break in the row of shops allows him a view of water and he stops for a moment to take it in. He turns and walks down to the end of the little street between the buildings, up to the barrier separating the road from the drop down to the beach. He’ll definitely have to take Dan down here tomorrow before they leave. 

He looks out to the horizon, though it’s dark enough that he’s not sure where the sea ends and the sky begins. But when he looks harder, he notices a very small, moving bright dot on which must be the horizon. He wonders what kind of boats would be out at a time like this.

He’s reminded of their conversation from yesterday. This year marks the first in a long time that they haven’t had any solid long term plans – no radio, no tours, no books. They’re free to do whatever they want. The thought is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Like Dan has said, there have been ideas, plans, potential for a number of things floating between the both of them for years, and now there’s nothing stopping them. 

Only a few weeks ago Dan had shared with him a script for a video he had been working on for quite some time, perhaps a year, Phil thinks. It was still in the beginning stages but it had brought him to tears nonetheless, at just how proud he was of Dan and how far he had come. They were both aware that its execution would bring a lot of change for them, change that Phil knows is a long time coming now. It makes sense to take a break to prepare for something like that.

This year would also bring their ten year anniversary. A whole decade. The top ten best years of his life. Perhaps this is going to be the year of change, even bigger changes, Phil thinks. The year of growth, both personal and professional.

Something like acceptance settles in his stomach. 

When he thinks he can no longer feel his face, he turns and heads back to the hotel.

--

Dan’s not in bed when he unlocks their bedroom door and enters the room. He puts the food down on the dresser.

“Dan!” he calls out as he unloads his heavy winter clothes and takes off his shoes. “I’ve got dinner!”

There’s no reply but the door to the ensuite is closed, so he goes over and knocks on the door.

“Dan?” he asks tentatively. “Is everything ok?”

Silence.

“Can I come in?”

This time he hears a muffled ‘yeah’ from the other side of the door.

He slowly turns the handle and peers his head around the door. He doesn’t see Dan at first, but when he steps into the room properly he sees him laid out in the empty bathtub, still fully clothed, though now in pyjamas. His head is leant back against the edge of the bath at one end and his too long legs are crossed with his socked feet resting against the wall at the tap end. His eyes are closed and his phone rests on the edge of the tub, playing something soft and twinkly.

Phil gingerly walks up to the bathtub and when Dan doesn’t move, kneels down beside it.

“Are you okay?” Phil whispers, resting his arms on the side then leaning his chin down on top of them. But it’s barely there for a few seconds before Dan is opening his eyes, leaning forward and attempting to stand. 

Phil watches, sitting back. It reminds him of a baby elephant attempting to stand for the first time. Dan grips the side of the bath and slips several times on the smooth surface in his socks before he manages to get a leg over the side. Once he’s out he immediately sits down on the floor right next to Phil. Phil turns to face him, crossing his legs in front of him.

Dan leans forward to grip the belt loops of Phil’s jeans and pulls Phil closer towards him. He hooks his legs over Phil’s so his feet are behind Phil’s back and drapes his arms over Phil’s shoulders, burrowing his face into his neck. 

Phil waits until he’s settled before looping his own arms around Dan’s waist. He hears Dan take a deep breath against the skin of his neck. It tickles Phil’s ear when he lets it go.

When neither of them have spoken for several minutes, Phil says, “I think putting a pause on the gaming channel would be a good idea.”

He feels Dan nod. 

“I thought this might actually work,” Dan says. “That it might break these thought spirals, but it hasn’t at all.” Phil squeezes tighter around Dan’s waist. “There are things I want to do this year and I thought I was ready, so why am I still so scared?” Dan’s voice starts to wobble and there’s wetness against Phil’s neck.

“It’s okay to be scared, Dan,” Phil says. “That doesn’t mean you’re not ready, and it doesn’t make you any less brave.”

The food is only lukewarm by the time they get to eating it, but Dan’s tears have dried. They put a random movie on the TV, pull the duvet over their legs, and tuck in. 

Coming out is always scary. With all the most important people in Phil’s life, coming out had been terrifying every time, and it had almost never been by choice. Now they both get to be ready, whenever that may be.

--

When they’ve finished, they set the boxes aside and finish the rest of the movie once again with Dan’s head on Phil chest. Phil wiggles an arm out from between them to wrap around Dan and pull him closer and despite the pillows piled up behind them, Phil knows he’ll have a crick in his neck come tomorrow morning. But he doesn’t try to move them, just presses his socked feet against Dan’s shins, Dan moving his legs to trap Phil’s foot between them.

By the end of the movie Phil knows he should wake Dan, who had fallen asleep barely half an hour in, to brush his teeth and lay down for some proper sleep for their long drive back to London tomorrow. But the wind has picked up so much outside it’s rattling the old windows in their room, and rain hammers against the glass. The light from the TV monitor is creating ghostly shadows of the folds of the curtains which move at a particularly heavy gust. Phil thinks they can spend a few more minutes in this safe little bubble wrapped up together with Dan’s warmth radiating into his side, making the cold air outside of this bed even more unappealing. 

Eventually though, when the voice over on the TV is announcing some weird late night reality show, Phil wakes Dan with a kiss to the temple and fingers running through his hair.

--

When they wake the next morning, the storm has passed and some winter sun even makes it through a break in the clouds. They still have an hour or so before check out and against Dan’s protests, Phil drags them outside. They step out onto the street and Phil has to shield his eyes for a moment from the way the sun reflects on the wet road surface, though the parts of the ground that the sun has been shining on the longest are already dry.

The town is deserted, a mixture of last night’s storm and the Sunday morning keeping everyone tucked up in their homes. The tide is still out, slowly making its journey back in, but they keep to the edge of the beach all the same. 

After a stretch, Phil stops and turns to look at the water, then plonks himself down. He doesn’t know why; the sand is still damp and it’s warmer to keep moving. Dan doesn’t notice immediately, and when he does it takes him more than a few steps to make it back, but when he does he sits down beside Phil with no question, though he leaves a space between them. 

The sun beats down on their faces and the wind is barely a breeze so Phil finds it warm enough to pull down his hood, and zip down his coat a little ways. He even takes off his hat and puts it on the sand next to him. He stretches out his legs and leans back against his hands. Dan, however, has his legs tucked up in front of him and his chin resting on his knees. 

“Hey,” Phil says. Dan turns his head sideways on his knees so he can face Phil. “It’s going to be a good year.” 

Dan just nods. 

“And I know these things because I’m psychic, remember.” That earns him a smile. “But whatever happens, we’ll get through it together, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And we can do whatever we need to do to get there.”

Dan shuffles a little closer, but still keeps a hold of his knees. 

“Hey,” Phil says again, this time nudging Dan with his shoulder. “Can we go home?”