Work Text:
Phil wakes up on a tiled floor, head pounding and tongue heavy, and he wishes he could say it was the first time. He doesn't even remember drinking last night, can't recognise any of the colours or blurry shapes when he squints his eyes open, feels a swell of nausea when he tries to sit up. It isn't the first time for any of that, either.
The migraine is clamping his temples and he's got a twinge in his lower back - falling asleep on the floor will do that to you, when you aren't fifteen anymore and can't bounce back from anything with a big grin - but eventually he feels okay enough to push himself into a sitting position and then, slowly, standing. He grips the marble counter tight and has to close his eyes to breathe deeply a couple times. He blinks around the light, open space, and tries to figure out where the hell he is.
It's a kitchen, a big one, but he can't make out any details without his glasses. He can barely make out shapes. The thing closest to his hand looks like the right size to be a coffeemaker, and he almost groans out loud at the need for caffeine. Maybe it'll reduce his migraine, help the obvious hangover.
He's careful with his movements, not wanting to make a lot of noise. It's for his own benefit, sure, but he also doesn't know who else might be lurking around, trying to sleep a party away. He has to get right up to the machine to confirm that it is, in fact, a coffeemaker that he's pressing his nose against, before he starts opening nearby cupboards at random to search for his fix. He's trying to be quiet, he is, but he's not very good at that even when he can see what he's doing.
The sound of someone plodding into the room and yawning gets his attention, and he gives an apologetic sort of grimace in the person's general direction.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
"Yeah," the guy says, but he doesn't sound very bothered. "Thought someone broke in, didn't think you'd be out of bed at this time."
Phil wishes he could see anything aside from a tall, blurry figure with a lot of pale skin on show, because the sleep-husky posh accent would really be doing it for him if he wasn't about to fall over.
He also wishes he could say that waking up in an unfamiliar man's home is unusual, but. He's got no reason to lie to himself.
"I feel like shit," Phil informs the guy, rubbing at his temples.
"Oh," says the voice, softer now. Even when he comes closer to Phil, it isn't any easier to make out his features. He's tall, taller than Phil, and his hands are huge when they come up to press gently against Phil's temples, but that's all Phil can really tell. He has brown hair, probably. He's mostly naked, unless he's wearing beige. "You got a migraine, huh?"
Phil leans into the gentle touch with a sigh. "Yeah."
"Okay, why don't you go sit down?" the guy suggests. He's still talking softly, like he doesn't want to hurt Phil's head any more. "I'll make you some coffee, grab your glasses and paracetamol, etc."
"Thanks," says Phil. He's vaguely surprised by the kindness of the stranger - he doesn't even remember going home with anyone, let alone this guy's name, but he really wishes he did.
"Stupid, don't need to thank me," says the soft Southern accent. His big, big hands are on Phil's arms now, guiding him to sit at a white table he hadn't even been able to see against the white tile. Phil nearly trips over his own feet, over the chair's leg, over nothing at all, but the stranger's hands are steady enough to keep him upright for the journey.
The room gets darker, like the light has been switched off or the curtains have been closed. It helps with Phil's brain clamping down on itself, but makes it harder to track the pale figure, so he gives up and closes his eyes, burying his face in his arms on the table and letting the smell of brewing coffee relax him. He'd probably drift back to sleep if his head didn't hurt so badly.
It doesn't take long before he hears the guy return to the table, setting several things down in front of Phil without speaking. The coffee smell gets stronger. It's unbelievably kind of him.
"Thanks again."
"Stupid, again."
Phil lifts his head and gives the best smile he can muster before he feels for his glasses.
"Oh," he says without meaning to, blinking owlishly at the man sat across from him. He's shirtless and blinking back at Phil with big, sleepy, very brown eyes. His hair is curly, frizzed up and soft over his forehead like he hasn't bothered to do anything to it yet. He smirks very slightly when Phil doesn't say anything else.
"Oh?"
"You're fit," Phil says, more than a little surprised at how well he'd apparently pulled while blackout drunk. He regrets more than ever that he can't remember a single thing about this man.
The man in question laughs - a short, bright, ha! of a noise that fills the whole kitchen - and his smirk widens into a grin. His dimples nearly make Phil miss his mouth when he pops the paracetamol. "It's barely eight in the morning and you've got a migraine. Keep it in your pants, Lester."
Phil smiles back, sheepish for more than one reason. God, why can't he remember anything?
They sit in a more or less comfortable silence for Phil's benefit while he drinks his coffee and waits for the painkillers to set in.
While he sips at the slightly-too-bitter coffee, Phil watches Dimples watch the birds outside. Dimples doesn't seem bothered by the staring, he just quirks an eyebrow at Phil when he turns back to him.
"Hungry?" Dimples asks, stretching his arms above his head. "Know you probably just want some toast."
Phil does want some toast. Like, very badly. He doesn't think he's ever craved something the way he craves toast right this second. Dimples may be a mindreader. He nods, wincing a little as it feels like his brain shakes around at the motion. The migraine is receding, slowly, but he doesn't want to antagonize it.
So, Dimples makes him toast. And another coffee, when Phil finishes the first. He hums quietly to himself while he putters around the kitchen, a tune Phil doesn't recognise, only turns on the light when Phil says he's feeling better, and Phil wonders if this is just what it's like to hook up with older guys. That's not something he's made a habit of, but this morning after has been so much more comfortable than the awkward 'you should get going', 'sure but where did you toss my pants' conversation that he's used to.
It's really nice, but it's also making something itch under Phil's skin. This is the longest he's ever hung around in the light of day, and he wouldn't have done that at all if he hadn't felt like death. So he watches Dimples put their plates and mugs in the dishwasher and says, "This was - nice. You're really nice. But I should go."
"Go where?" Dimples asks, levelling Phil with a look that he can't read.
"Home," says Phil. "I should go home."
He expects some relief or disappointment at the statement. He does not expect Dimples to throw his head back and cackle a laugh.
"Alright, if you're feeling good enough to joke, you're feeling good enough to go through emails for us," he says. He's giving Phil this soft, open smile that warms his eyes and deepens his dimples impossibly further.
Phil cocks his head to the side, glad that his brain doesn't rattle this time. "Uh. Okay. It's just that - I mean, like, I'm not joking, I really do need to go home, I've got shit to study for, and you've been great and all, but, um, yeah. I need to go."
He reaches up to fiddle with his fringe, a nervous habit he's had since he started growing it out, but it's pushed off his forehead and his fingers just brush skin.
Dimples is still smiling, but he's starting to look uncertain. "You... have shit to study for?"
"Yeah," says Phil. "Exams are soon."
"Exams?"
"Did I not tell you I'm in uni?" Dimples' eyebrows crumple in bewilderment, and Phil hastens to explain himself. "Sorry, if I didn't, but it's not like I'm - like, I'm not, like, seventeen or anything, y'know, you don't have to look at me like that."
"I know how old you are, Phil," says Dimples, snorting. "Seventeen, my ass. You're in a weird mood today."
Phil frowns. "I mean, I woke up on the floor, didn't I. You can't exactly expect me to not be weird."
That makes Dimples pause. Turn to face him fully. "You woke up where?"
"On the floor? Here? Like, in front of the coffeemaker. I must have blacked out at some point when we were drinking or whatever."
"You blacked out?" Dimples asks, tone wary like he isn't sure if he's supposed to believe Phil or not. Phil does his best to look trustworthy. "Phil, you didn't drink anything last night. You went to bed like you always do. Fell asleep with a book in your hand and your glasses on. This is a weird prank."
None of that makes any sense, but Phil holds his ground. "I woke up on the floor and my head felt like it was being squeezed by a juice press or something. Of course I got drunk last night."
Dimples comes around the island counter, the uncertain air making his movements stilted. "You - oh, Phil, I think you might've fainted again. Unless you're fucking with me."
"I'm not fucking with you," Phil says, and Dimples' eyebrows raise into his curls. "I've never fainted before, what are you on about?"
"You fainted last November," Dimples corrects him, slowly, and frowns deeper when Phil shakes his head.
"Think you might have me confused with someone, mate. I definitely didn't faint in November, and you wouldn't know even if I had, would you? I didn't know you."
Phil still doesn't know him, but that seems rude to say to a hot guy who made him coffee.
"You didn't..." Dimples trails off, looking between Phil's face and Phil's hands, which are twisted together on the table. "You - what?"
He sounds so helplessly confused, but that's not Phil's problem. He stands, glancing down at himself so he doesn't need to keep looking at Dimples. "Sorry. You really do seem nice. Thanks for the coffee - and the pyjamas, but I really should get going."
"Phil," says Dimples. "Where? Where would you even go?"
"Home," Phil says again. "York."
"York isn't your home," Dimples says dismissively, waving a hand as if to physically push the fact away. "And I'll take you to A&E if you keep this up."
"Sorry." It feels like Phil is repeating himself a lot. "Just point me to wherever I dropped my jeans and I'll get out of your hair."
"Get out of my," says Dimples, shaking his head. His curls bounce a bit. It's very cute. Phil really cannot stay without the itch under his skin getting worse. "Phil. I'm being so serious right now. If this is a joke, you're sleeping on the sofa for a week. I'll lock the guest room. It'll be the sofa. Your stupid back will hate it."
Honestly, Phil is a little bit freaked out now. He bites his lip and tries to think about how to phrase this without making things worse. He comes up blank.
"Sorry," he says for what feels like the dozenth time. "I just - I'm really sorry, mate, but you can't just keep me here."
"Phil, sit down." It's partially a plea and partially a demand, but Phil isn't interested in following either. That must show on his face, because Dimples shakes his head and starts patting down the pockets of his sweatpants. "I - fuck, okay, I'm calling your mum."
Phil was about to just walk out, head home in someone else's pyjamas, but that stops him before he even starts to move. He's flabbergasted.
"You know my mum?" he asks. Then he repeats it a couple of times, the emphasis on different words, like it'll make more sense that way. "You know my mum? You? Know my mum?"
"Course I fucking know your mum," Dimples mutters, pulling a slim rectangle out of his pocket that Phil doesn't recognise and tapping on it with his thumbs. "Sit down. I'm putting her on speaker and you're going to feel so fucking bad for this prank when I tell her, you'll feel - it's not even funny, you know, it's not even -"
Dimples is cut off by the sound of a tone, coming out of the rectangle. Oh, so it's a mobile phone. It doesn't seem like it has any buttons. Curiosity holds Phil in place, and he sits down hard when his mum's voice chimes in the suddenly quiet kitchen.
"Hello, dear, is everything alright? Something on fire? I only ask as it's before noon."
"Very funny, Kath," Dimples says with a level of familiarity that makes Phil's knees feel like jelly. "Hi, how are you?"
"Fine, fine. What can I do for you, Daniel?"
Dimples - Daniel - locks eyes with Phil, like he's calling Phil's bluff, like he really has no idea what Phil is talking about, and says, "Your son fainted sometime last night and now he's acting weird."
"Oh, dear, is he okay? You've got him there, don't you? Phil?"
"Mum," Phil responds, his voice cracking. Daniel brings the strange phone closer, sitting down across from Phil without breaking the intense eye contact.
"Hello there, child, are you feeling poorly?"
"Not so much anymore," Phil says honestly, his mum's concerned voice enough to make him feel like he's stepped into the Twilight Zone.
"Well," she says, then pauses. "Good. I know Daniel is taking care of you."
"He is," says Phil. Looking at Daniel is too much, suddenly, he has to look down at the phone. It's all flat and says 'mum 2' across the top of the screen. Phil can feel his migraine start to sneak back. "I just - sorry, mum, I'm really confused. I don't know where I am, or who - I'm sorry, Daniel, but I really don't remember meeting you at all, how do you and my mum even know each other?"
The silence that follows is loaded with something Phil doesn't understand. He refuses to look back up at Daniel, doesn't want to see whatever's happening in those big brown eyes.
"That's not funny, Phil," his mum admonishes in the same tone she uses when he and Martyn are too harsh with their banter.
"Daniel said that, too, but, I just - I don't even know what the joke would be. I don't know what's going on. I just want to go back to York before I miss another lecture."
"Please stop calling me that," Daniel says, quiet.
"I don't know what else to call you."
Quiet again. Phil is really starting to hate that. It feels like he's out of the loop of something important, big enough that even his mum knows, and nobody is explaining themselves. He's got a lump in his throat and his head is hurting again and he can feel Daniel's eyes burning into his face.
His mum is talking again, her voice a little more frantic, a little less comforting, and Daniel is responding to her, but Phil isn't listening anymore. He's staring at the phone, zoning out completely.
What the hell is going on?
--
Turns out the doctors don't know, either. Phil spends all day and half the night in A&E, Daniel at his elbow, while people talk about him like he's not in the room. The nurses and doctors ask him easy questions, like how old he is, who the Prime Minister is, where he lives, what his family's like - but each answer he gives seems to be the wrong one, leads to muttering just out of his earshot and harder questions being directed at Daniel instead.
"Has this happened before?"
"No. Not - not this, but similar. He's fainted twice before. Um, vaso-something. Fuck. Sorry, vasovagal attacks. He's prone."
"How has he been reacting to stimulus today?"
"I haven't given him anything. Coffee. He hasn't seen anything on the telly or. Nothing. So he's, like, confused, but he's not overwhelmed by the state of the world or anything."
"Have you told him?"
"I've got no idea how to do that, no."
"Tell me what?" Phil interrupts that one, tired of the back and forth happening over his head.
More quiet, but this one doesn't last long. The doctor looks Phil in the eyes and, rather gently, says, "You're experiencing quite a large gap in your memory. We're going to have to run some tests to figure out why this is happening."
Amnesia doesn't happen to real people, Phil wants to say. That's a soap opera trope, and not even a very good one.
But he catches Daniel's eye and sees the abject fear on his soft features, remembers the way he'd spoken to Phil's mum on a mobile that looked like it was from the future, and he holds his tongue. He thinks back to everything that happened since this morning and has to admit that the doctor makes a certain amount of sense.
Leaning into the trope of it all, Phil turns back to the doctor and asks, "What year is it, then?"
He almost faints again at the answer.
--
They let him go home while they schedule the MRI, which Phil doesn't fully understand until he hears Daniel arguing in whispers with one of the tired-looking nurses.
"He should be where he's comfortable," Daniel is insisting. "Something could - I don't fucking know, trigger his memories."
"He's in good health, this episode aside," the nurse says, not looking up from her clipboard until she's finished reading. She hands it to Daniel for him to look at, too. Phil wonders if those are his test results, wonders why they're being given to Daniel and not to Phil, wonders wonders wonders. "You can take him home. I strongly recommend keeping him away from news sources or anything else that might be overwhelming."
"He thinks it's 2007," says Daniel. His voice trembles a little. "I'm unplugging the fucking wifi."
Daniel is signing something on the clipboard, then, and Phil realises it's not his results at all. He doesn't know where home is, if home isn't York or Rawtenstall, but he's happy to follow Daniel out anyway. He hates hospitals.
The nurse gives him a sympathetic sort of smile on his way out. Phil doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't.
They're in a car that looks strange to Phil, the same way Daniel's mobile had looked strange, and he knows now that it's because he's used to seeing the same types of machines twelve years ago. A stranger is driving them, following a GPS on their own flat mobile, which is stuck to the dashboard. They don't try to talk to Phil or Daniel, which is a relief, but the soft music is unfamiliar and Phil is already so, so tired of being out of the loop.
"Tell me about yourself," he says to Daniel with no preamble. For a long moment, Daniel doesn't reply. He just keeps staring out the window, watching London alleys pass by.
Eventually, though, he looks back at Phil. His eyes are still very big, very sleepy, very brown, but there's too many emotions behind them for Phil to start interpreting. He pushes a stray curl off his face with a big hand, sighing.
"I wouldn't even know where to start."
"You don't have to tell me something that encompasses all of you, or anything," says Phil. "It can just be stuff. Anything."
"Okay," says Daniel. He does a small salute with two fingers against his forehead. "Hi. My name is. Dan."
Phil doesn't understand the pause before Dan says his name, feels like it's something else just outside of his grasp. He hitches a small smile onto his face. "See, that's not so hard. I'm Phil, but you know that. I like Buffy and making videos and I always thought I'd have a dog by now."
The noise that Dan makes is somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"Hi, Phil," he says, making the same noise again. "I'm gay, and depressed, and make videos sometimes too, and we can't get a dog yet because we're renting."
"How long?"
"To which thing?"
"Any of them."
"Ten years, some of it. Near enough for the others."
"We've lived together for ten years?" Phil asks. He needs the clarification on that one, because. Dan is a gorgeous man with very big hands and he can't imagine him not getting tired of Phil after that long.
"More like eight, but we've been... friends, for ten," says Dan. The hesitation on the word says so much with so little.
Phil wonders if he hasn't been clear enough that he knows. Dan had spoken to his mum with such familiarity, had filled out his forms at the hospital without thinking twice, was bringing him home to the place that they'd woken up more or less together (inasmuch as the kitchen floor and bed are together).
"And were we ever actually friends?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows so Dan knows that he doesn't have to downplay this thing, not for Phil's sake.
"Yeah, best friends," Dan says, clearly taken aback. His shoulders relax after a moment. "Still are. But we were only just friends for a few months. And barely 'just' about it, if you count the hours of torturous Skype flirting."
"Wow," Phil says, looking down at his own hands and half expecting there to be a ring he hadn't noticed earlier. "I haven't been with anyone for ten days before."
"I know," says Dan. He laughs then, quiet but genuine, no sob hidden inside. "Sorry, that'll get annoying fast. I know everything about you."
"So tell me about myself," says Phil.
The smile Dan gives him makes Phil feel warm to his bones.
"Well, you like Buffy, and making videos, and you beg me to smuggle a dog into our flat at least once a month."
"Not fair," Phil laughs, smacking Dan's knee lightly. "You gotta tell me stuff I don't know."
"Okay - when you laugh, you trap your tongue between your teeth and one of these days I'm convinced you're going to bite it off."
"I do not."
"You fully do, rat."
Phil shoves at him again, not surprised when Dan grabs his hand and links their fingers together as he does. The itch under Phil's skin is still there, his anxiety barely being kept at bay by pure exhaustion, but he presses his thumb against Dan's pulse point and lets the steady thrum of it keep him calm.
--
The flat seems bigger, now that Phil knows it belongs to him.
("Kind of," Dan reminds him on their way down the stairs, "we're just renting for now."
"For now?" Phil asks. Dan smiles.)
There's an unreasonable number of candles and houseplants on nearly every surface, making the whole place smell vaguely of nature, and Phil gets distracted by things in every room while Dan leans against the frames of doors and makes sarcastic comments.
("Why are so many of these plants dying?"
"You tell me, Phil. You're the one who keeps coming home with them and not watering them."
"I'm sure they'll bounce back.")
A photo on their fridge makes Phil's hands start to shake. He hasn't looked in a mirror yet, too scared of what he'll see, but without warning, there's a Polaroid of him and Dan crammed onto a too-small sofa with Martyn and a small woman with a shock of bright red hair. It's harder to look at Martyn than it is to look at himself, to see the lines around his eyes and mouth that he doesn't remember being there. Seeing himself, hair short and pushed off his forehead, giving the camera a wide eyed look, is almost secondary.
("Dan," says Phil, his fingers trembling. "Dan, I can't see my parents."
And he's prepared to explain, but he doesn't need to. He remembers Dan in the taxi, saying he knows everything about him, and so he isn't even surprised when Dan just says, "I'll go put their pictures away. Stay here."
Phil does, pressing the tips of his fingers to his brother's face like it'll do any good at all.)
They end up in a bedroom with a moon-shaped mirror on the wall and all sorts of clutter laying about. Lion is up on a windowsill with several other plushies, which makes Phil's stomach untwist a little bit.
(He doesn't know how to explain that one. How to say this feels like home when the truth is that it only kind of does. It feels like a stranger has placed his things, his photos and clothes and contact lens pot, into a space that's shared by another stranger, but it still somehow makes him feel better just to see Lion sat next to a Tonberry.)
He exhales. In this room, he can breathe.
--
"Do you want to sleep in the guest room or should I?" Dan asks later, leaning against the doorframe while Phil brushes his teeth.
Phil is altogether too busy looking at himself to pay the question much mind, cataloguing every change with chagrin. He looks so old, it isn't fair. He doesn't remember getting the laugh lines, so they shouldn't exist.
"Hm?" Phil prompts absently, his toothbrush hanging between his teeth as he rubs at a small patch of discoloration on his temple. He hears Dan snort.
"You look good, Phil," says Dan, in the confident tone of someone who has said it many times and, hopefully, will say it many more times. "I know you, I know the way your stupid brain works, but you look good. Being in your thirties suits you."
Phil wrinkles his nose at himself in the mirror and spits into the sink. "Oh, don't say thirties."
"It's what you are," Dan says unapologetically.
"Fuck off."
"You kiss your mother with that fucking mouth?"
"What did you want?" asks Phil, fighting a smile. It's so easy to talk to Dan, which makes this whole situation a lot more tolerable. "Something about a guest room?"
"Yeah," Dan says, looking down at his nails. "Which one of us is sleeping there? I dunno where you'd be more comfortable."
"I'm not fussed, to be honest."
"You'll probably be better off in your own bed," Dan says, more to himself than to Phil. He shrugs and stands up properly. "Better for your memory and, also like, your old man spine and shit. Snoop around to your heart's content, I guess, it's all your junk too." Dan pauses and shakes his head. "Well, okay, 'cept my nightstand. If you snoop in there, you deserve what you get."
"Now that's the first place I want to snoop," Phil whines slightly, dropping his toothbrush on the tap beside his contact lenses.
Dan rolls his eyes and comes over, picking up the mess Phil left and putting it away in the cabinet. "I'm only doing this for you because you don't know any better yet, nasty. Now go away, I need to shower hospital off me."
Even the clear dismissal somehow sounds fond, and Phil can't resist giving Dan's waist a quick squeeze before he scurries off to snoop.
He doesn't look in either bedside drawer, not sure which side is whose, but he's more drawn to the closet anyway. He expects a kind of organised chaos, the way the rest of the room is cobbled together with knick knacks and socks everywhere, but when he opens the doors the closet is just plain organized. Shirts are arranged in a rainbow of colour that somehow only takes up half the closet; the rest of the gradient is all black, a handful of white and grey, but mostly black.
Phil likes a bright colour that's likely to give someone a headache more than he likes neutrals, but he finds himself looking at the monochrome side more carefully. Everything is so soft to the touch. It makes him wonder if Dan, too, is soft to the touch, since these are clearly his clothes.
He's not really snooping so much as he's looking and feeling. When he reaches the end of shirts and finds the jackets, he tugs one of the softer tees off the hanger and changes into it. He leaves his other shirt on the floor, because. Whatever. He doesn't feel like finding the laundry hamper or figuring out if they, as functional adults, have some kind of hamper system.
The shirt pulls a little tight across his shoulders but it feels so nice and it smells faintly of deodorant, like it got hung up after half a wear. He can't be bothered to dig for anything else, just kicks his sweatpants off and flops into bed.
He tries every pillow before he makes a decision on a Side, curling up with the softest pillow in his arms and the firmest under his head. He buries his nose in the soft one and inhales the scent of citrusy shampoo.
This sucks. It sucks less with Dan around, though, and the pillow is a poor substitute.
By the time Phil wakes up, the sun is at the exact right angle to be in his eyes. He groans and rolls over, into the side of the sheets that smells like citrus and mint, and tries to block out the rays slanting through the windows. It doesn't really help unless he completely buries his face, which is a recipe for suffocation if he's ever heard one.
"Hey, stupid," a sleep-husky posh voice says from somewhere above Phil, "I made breakfast."
Phil was right. Now that he isn't about to pass out, that voice is really doing it for him. He groans again, dramatic, but sits up and feels around for his glasses anyway. "Time's'it?"
"Noonish."
Big hands are at Phil's face again. He freezes for a moment, not sure what's happening, but then his glasses are slid onto his nose.
"Oh, thanks," says Phil. He tries not to stare, but Dan doesn't make it easy.
Dan hums, standing there with his hands in his hoodie pockets and his long legs bare. He's far too comfortable walking around in his pants. Phil is going to have to get used to that. "Sure. It's what I'm here for. Dan Howell, maker of breakfast, finder of glasses."
"Howell," Phil repeats, trying the name in his mouth and smiling. "Hey, you know what I'd call a kid with your last name?"
"Wolf," says Dan, unimpressed.
"Yeah."
"You told me that one six years ago. It still isn't fucking funny."
"I think it's funny."
"You would." Dan's lips twitch, showing off just a hint of his dimples, and he lifts a leg to prod at Phil with one slippered foot. "Get up, you're so annoying."
"This is abuse," Phil protests, but he does stand and stretch.
"That's my shirt," Dan informs him.
Phil looks at himself and then looks at Dan, the university name spread across Dan's chest. "And that's my hoodie."
Dan dimples properly and shrugs. "Maybe so."
--
After a couple hours of idle banter and season four of Buffy, Dan gets up from the sofa and yawns. "I gotta go or I'm gonna be late. You can watch any of the DVDs or read a book or whatever, but the satellite and wifi are both off so you don't get too much information at once."
"Where are you going?" Phil asks, trying not to sound too disappointed. Judging by the smirk he gets, he fails at that.
"Therapy," says Dan, like it's just heading to the store, like it's something that happens every day. Maybe it is. Phil wouldn't know. "I've got a lot to talk about this week, y'know."
"You talk about me in therapy?"
"I talk about you in therapy," Dan confirms. He's smiling. "You're a pretty big part of my life, Lester."
"Oh, that makes sense," says Phil. It still unsettles him, just a bit, knowing that he's going to be discussed when he isn't in the room. He doesn't want to seem like he's weird because of the therapy thing, though, so he just shrugs. "So you'll be back in a couple hours?"
"Mhm. You'll be okay?"
"I'll be okay," Phil says, and he thinks he means it. The flat isn't exactly what he's used to, no, but all his favourite movies are under the tv and he's curled up with a colourful coffee mug, so. Life could be a lot worse.
At least, that's what he thinks. The reality settles in, twenty minutes after Dan has disappeared in a flurry of black clothes and creative curses: the flat is too empty without Dan in it. He's a huge presence, takes up so much room with his long limbs and his loud voice, and Phil feels very, very alone once that presence is gone.
Buffy is usually good at making Phil relax, but not even Sarah Michelle Gellar doing sick stunts distracts him from the lack of Dan.
The flat is too big, too empty, so Phil gets himself dressed and decides to go for a walk. He finds two drawers full of black skinny jeans in one of their dressers, and he can't even tell whose are whose. He pulls on a plain pair because the ripped ones can't possibly be his, finds some sneakers, tugs one of Dan's black hoodies on. Phil hasn't worn all black for anything but Halloween and funerals in ages, but he likes the way Dan's clothes fit. And the way they smell, which. That's probably creepy.
He doesn't bother putting his contacts in or doing anything with his hair, leaving it soft and pushed off his forehead like it usually is when he wakes up. Mostly he just doesn't want to look in the bathroom mirror again.
Phil is just planning on leaving the door unlocked and walking around the block, but there's a set of keys and forty pounds on the little table beside the front door. Dan has left him a short message on an anime-themed sticky note. sbux 2 blocks if u turn left. diff sbux 5 blocks if u turn right. i know u don't know which is which. don't go far, stupid.
--
He intends to go to the closer Starbucks. He ends up walking five blocks. He should have made the Ls with his hands. The walk isn't so bad - it's a chilly day for early September, but at least it isn't raining.
"Hey, Phil," the barista says with a tired smile when he reaches the front of the queue. "Coffee or macchiato today?"
"Macchiato, please," Phil decides, trying not to look surprised that someone knows his name.
He knows he doesn't completely cover the deer in headlights expression, but the barista seems used to him enough not to be offended by it. They also make his drink perfectly, and Dan did give him forty pounds for Starbucks alone, so Phil drops more money in the tip jar than he normally would.
It's just - it really does seem like he has money. He's in London, and it isn't a shit area, and he's got a huge flat with tons of electronics and miscellaneous junk in it. Dan gave him forty pounds to go to Starbucks. He's fairly certain they're well off.
Phil sits by the window and people-watches for a while, content to sip at his drink and watch this tiny piece of the world move past him. The cars and the street fashion take some getting used to, because they're all just slightly wrong to his active imagination, like an old film guessing at futuristic styles. The dogs that pass with their humans, at least, look like dogs.
Still renting, Dan had said. For now. Phil knows the itch is coming before it rears its head, and he does his best to logic it away.
It's been ten years, or near enough, so of course they've talked about getting a house and a dog and everything else that comes with intertwining your life with someone's. It only scares Phil because he feels twenty and his longest commitment was to a girl in year five who he didn't even like. He's sure he isn't still scared.
He hopes he isn't still scared. He thinks, absently, that Dan deserves better than that.
Someone says his name, interrupting his thoughts. Phil looks away from the window. He expects to see the barista, maybe offering to take his empty cup that he's just been sat here holding, but instead there's a teenager a couple steps from his table, their eyes wide and their flat phone clutched to their chest.
"Hello," Phil says politely, just in case this is someone else he's meant to know. He even manages a smile.
"Hi," the teenager breathes, blinking furiously. "Oh my god, hi, I'm so sorry to bother you, I never do this, I just saw you and I thought - I don't know, I thought you must not be AmazingPhil because that doesn't happen to me, I don't want to be a bother -"
They keep rambling, a bit, and Phil gets it now. "It's all right," he says softly. He stands up and extends a hand to his - fan, he has a fan? - with another smile. "What's your name?"
"Um, Alex," the fan says, shaking Phil's hand quickly. "He, him," they add, which doesn't make any sense to Phil until it does.
"Nice to meet you, Alex," says Phil.
"Nice to meet you, too," says Alex as if in a trance. He shakes his head and flushes deep enough for the red to show on his dark skin. "Can I - sorry, I know it's, like, annoying, but can I get a photo?"
Phil easily takes a couple selfies with him, pulling faces in them and making Alex laugh. The phone's camera is surprisingly good, far better than Phil's webcam. Alex is a lot more relaxed when he steps back from Phil, although his hands are still fiddling around with his phone.
"All good?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just," says Alex. Makes a vague hand gesture. "Can I take a picture of just you, like, front and back? Only, no one will believe you're wearing that."
Wearing what? Phil blinks down at his black hoodie, plain but for the silver circle over one breast. It's got letters on it, words encircling it, but he hadn't bothered reading them when he pulled it over his head earlier. When he looks over his shoulder and tugs at the fabric, he realises there's some kind of huge design across his back, too. Those photos take even less time, just him pulling faces and doing weird shit with his hands to make Alex laugh, and then Alex is thanking him and hugging him round the waist before running off to catch up with his friends outside.
Phil goes to get another coffee before he sits back down, putting far too much in the tip jar again, and tries to ignore his shaking hands.
--
"I probably should have warned you," Dan says when he finally finds his way back to the building. He's leaned over the stair railing like he heard Phil coming and came to greet him. He sounds amused.
"You could've done," says Phil. He kicks off his shoes and blinks up at Dan. "Am I, like, famous?"
Dan's nose wrinkles. "Ew. Don't say the F word."
Despite the anxiety still thrumming under Phil's skin, he laughs. It's easy to walk up the stairs and join Dan, watch the way his brown eyes crinkle happily. It would be too easy to lean into it. Phil doesn't think that would be very fair to Dan at this point, though. "Not famous? So how do you already know what happened?"
"You're wearing my merch," Dan says, sounding altogether too pleased with himself. He plucks at the silver circle on Phil's chest. "It has my initials on it, you didn't notice?"
"No, but if I had I wouldn't think it was merch. You said you make videos sometimes, you didn't say you were fucking Smosh."
Dan giggles but otherwise keeps speaking like Phil hasn't interrupted. "You're wearing my merch and fucking, like, posed for photos in it, so I've had people blowing up my phone for the past hour. I ought to pay you for the advertisement."
"You gave me forty pounds to go to Starbucks," Phil says. He's not quite over that.
"That was your own money, mate."
"So we're famous."
The face Dan pulls is ridiculous. It makes Phil want to kiss his dimple. "I really hate that word. We have an audience, yes. We get recognised sometimes, yes."
"How big of an audience do we have, Dan?" Phil asks shrewdly. He has a feeling Dan's protest is all semantics.
"Well, like, we have separate channels and a joint channel, and I can't say what the exact overlap is on all of them, and there are people who follow us on social media who don't subscribe to us, especially this year, and there's -"
Phil cuts him off. "Dan."
Dan makes a vague, helpless gesture. "A few - like, altogether ten million between us, but there's overlap, so. A few million."
The need to sit down hits Phil so suddenly that his knees almost buckle. He holds tight to the railing and lowers himself to sit on the top step rather than collapsing.
"That's not a real number," says Phil. "2019 is not a real year. Ten million is not a real subscriber count."
"There's overlap. It's probably more like five million."
"You're not actually helping," Phil informs him.
"Sorry," Dan says, his lips twitching. He sits down next to Phil with a dramatic exhale of a noise. "I know. I know that it's - a lot. It's part of why I'm not letting you go online yet. The other part is that the world is going to shit and you don't need to see twelve years of misery all at once."
Phil has no idea if that's a joke or not. Honestly, he doesn't want to ask.
"So this is, like, our job," says Phil. He gestures around them, indicating the flat as a whole. "YouTube pays for all this?"
"A combination of YouTube and opportunities we got from it," Dan confirms. "It's, like. It's a really long and weird story. But if you want to hear about it, I can make us some coffee."
"I've had three macchiatos this afternoon," Phil admits.
The smile he gets is warm and feels almost private, like Phil shouldn't be looking at it when he barely knows Dan, really. Dan shakes his head, still smiling, and stands up. "Alright. Hot chocolate, then. Let's go sit somewhere that doesn't hurt my ass."
--
Dan tells him a lot of things, that night and every night after, but Phil starts to notice patterns. He's open with any questions about their career or Phil's family, hesitant to talk about current events in the world, passionate about the media they apparently spent most of their twenties consuming. Most of Phil's questions get answered easily and his confusion is met with smiles and explanations, so it takes him a little while to realise.
Dan tells him a lot of things. Dan does not, however, talk about himself.
Once Phil notices that, it's like he can't stop noticing. Dan only talks about himself when it's wrapped up in Phil; he uses 'we' for things he really could use 'I' for. We like Indian food. We want to go back to Japan. We hate this character.
It's strange, especially since Phil finds himself caring much more about Dan's opinions on things than whatever his own used to be.
"You like this movie," Dan says to him one night, poking Phil in the cheek.
Phil notices the pronoun, so caught up on the 'we' of it all lately. "You don't, then?"
"Not really," says Dan. He's stealing handfuls of Phil's popcorn and contorted into a position on the sofa that doesn't look remotely comfortable. He's wearing one of Phil's shirts, but that's okay. Phil is wearing one of Dan's.
"Then why did you put it on?" Phil asks.
Mouth stuffed with popcorn, Dan can only shrug and turn back to the tv. Phil is tempted to turn the movie off, now, but he's gotten invested in the story. He waits until it's over, the empty popcorn bowl discarded on the coffee table as the credits roll, before he prods Dan's thigh with his toes.
"Oi, what?"
"You don't like the movie," says Phil. "Tell me why."
Dan gives him a sleepy, quizzical sort of look and shakes his head. "It's really not that big a deal."
"But I want to know." Phil casts around for the words, Dan's big brown eyes drawing him in and making him forgetful. "Like... I want to know stuff about you."
"I guess I'm not used to that," Dan admits. He looks down, picking at a rip in his jeans. The loss of eye contact makes Phil feel like he can breathe again. "You know - you knew everything there is to know about me. Like I do for you. Feels weird to talk about myself."
"I bet I'd talk about myself a lot if you were the one missing twelve years," says Phil.
"If I was the one missing twelve years, Phil," Dan says, a sad little smile playing around his lips, "then you'd be a little too distracted by Gay Panic 2: Electric Boogaloo."
"You didn't know, then?" Phil prompts.
Dan glances back up at him and smiles, warmer. "No. I knew I wasn't straight by then, but. It took me a long time to be okay with that. Took me even longer to settle on what I wanted to call myself - there's so many fucking labels now, y'know, and that's. That's all well and good for some people, but." He takes a steadying sort of breath. "Anyway. I'd never even met an out gay person until, well, you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, so the whole thing was kind of over my head. And then I met you, and it didn't seem to matter what I called myself, because there was you."
Phil feels the corners of his lips turning up, pleased by that. "Ten years," he says, because he still can't believe it.
"Ten years next month," Dan informs him. He's smiling back at Phil and it is so easy to reach over and link their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly. The smile widens to show off his dimples. "And, like. That's basically how long it took me to come out. Just did that in June."
"Well, that's fine," says Phil. "It's nobody else's business, really."
"Yeah," Dan says, squeezing Phil's hand again and again. "Yeah, you. You said that a lot. But it was important to me, so."
"Then I'm glad you did it."
The lounge is filled only with the sounds of the DVD menu looping and the rain pattering against the windows for a handful of minutes, but the quiet is a comfortable one. Dan is still all curled up in his jeans and Phil's shirt but he doesn't try to take his hand back from Phil's grip. He looks - cute. There isn't really any other word for it, and Phil has no reason to go searching for one. He sticks his tongue out to break the tension and Dan huffs a laugh, rolls his eyes.
They're smiling at each other, hands linked, and Phil pushes past the anxiety of being tied down by something like commitment and raises their joined hands to his mouth. He presses soft kisses to Dan's knuckles and laughs at the dumbstruck expression he gets for it.
"What?" he asks, his voice sounding too loud.
"You don't have to do that," says Dan.
"I know I don't have to. I just wanted to." Somehow that makes Dan look even more shocked, and Phil laughs again. "Why are you so surprised? I already told you, you're fit."
It's more than just that, really. It's Dan taking care of him and joking with him and watching movies he didn't even like so that Phil could experience a favourite for the first time again. Except he's terrified of expressing real emotion like that, so. Easier to stick with a less telling truth - Dan is hot. It's not exactly a hardship to be on the receiving end of his dimples.
"You did tell me that," says Dan. His face is softer, harder to read. "I just. I don't know."
"Spit it out," Phil suggests, not unkindly.
"I know you love me," says Dan. Phil isn't proud of the way he wants to climb out of his skin at the sound of the word. "Or did, I guess, but that makes it sound like you stopped loving me and never will again, and. I don't like that."
"I don't like that either," says Phil. Since Dan is being open with him, he looks down at their joined hands and admits, "I have no idea what I'm doing, here. You scare the hell out of me."
"You scare me, too. Fuck, Phil, that's why I'm so surprised. I never really felt like I was, whatever, good enough, and you'd always say I was being ridiculous, that you loved me forever and you'd love me no matter what." Dan takes a shaky breath. Phil squeezes his hand. "And I kind of believed you but kind of didn't? But here you are, you don't know me from fucking Adam and you - you still want to be with me? Well, I hope you still want to, because if you don't I need to excuse myself and jump out the window."
"It's scary," Phil says again. It's easier not to look at Dan for this hushed exchange. "Like, the whole world is scary right now but I feel sure about you, and that's. That's scary on its own."
Dan doesn't say anything for a long time, but Phil still can't bring himself to look up. He'd rather look at the way their hands fit together. Phil isn't exactly a small man, and he likes that Dan's hands are bigger than his, fingers longer, because it makes him feel somewhat protected in all this madness.
When Dan finally does speak, it's not what Phil is expecting. "I didn't know you had to put water in pasta. So I burned dry pasta in a pan when I was nineteen."
"What?" Phil grins, surprised into looking at Dan again. Dan grins right back at him.
"I almost blinded myself by spraying deodorant into my eye," he continues as if Phil hadn't spoken. "I got my head stuck between the doors on the Tube. We can't have sex in the shower anymore because of the time I almost broke my collarbone."
"That was a 'we' statement," Phil points out. His smile grows wider the more Dan tells him. It may all be silly things, right now, but Phil still feels like he knows Dan a bit better with every story.
"Fine. I can't have sex in the shower because I'm clumsy as fuck. You can't have sex in the shower because you're clumsier. And you only get to have sex with me, sorry."
Phil shrugs. "Sounds like all I'm missing out on is an awkward A&E trip."
"Probably more than one, knowing us," says Dan.
All the stuff Dan tells him that night is self-deprecating and the way he says it all has Phil in stitches before long. He bickers with Dan about the details of things, because Dan likes to exaggerate whiny panic when he's talking about Phil's roles in the stories. The DVD menu stays on a loop until the tv shuts itself off from lack of activity. Phil doesn't let go of Dan's hand the entire time.
At some point in the middle of a 'pants ripping on stage' story, Phil finds himself yawning.
Dan smiles, cutting himself off. "I'll tell you the rest later, you should really get some sleep. But. Yeah. That's me. I'm a giant fail and, also, the guy you hitched your wagon to."
"I'm glad," says Phil around another yawn. "You're funny and weird and cute. I like that in a guy."
"I like your mum in a guy," Dan says nonsensically.
"Mm. Think it's your bedtime, too."
"Yeah," says Dan. He doesn't seem like he's in a hurry to get off the sofa, though, and Phil knows how he feels.
Feeling brave with the good conversation and late hour, Phil rubs his thumb over the side of Dan's palm. "You should - you don't have to sleep in the guest room, y'know. It's your bed too, isn't it? I've been stealing it all week."
"I don't mind," Dan says.
"I mind," Phil says. "You should come to bed with me."
A little more forward than he'd meant to be, but whatever. Dan was his, even if it felt like he hadn't earned him, so there was no reason to feel weird about wanting him close.
Dan wiggles his eyebrows and Phil laughs, tugging them both to their feet. He almost falls over, but he refuses to let go of Dan's hand. They're giggling and stumbling and shushing each other on the stairs even though nobody else is around to hear them, and Phil feels lighter than air.
He can do this. If every moment is as easy as leading Dan to their bedroom by the hand, then he thinks he can finish what he'd started all those years ago.
"Gotta brush my teeth or I won't sleep," Dan says, squeezing Phil's hand apologetically before he lets go. Phil feels his hand flex in the absence of Dan's. "Why don't you pick us some pyjamas?"
So Phil digs around their drawers and closet again, not really minding the mess he leaves in his wake as he finds comfy bottoms and bright shirts. The look on Dan's face when he comes back is worth it. Phil brings his own pyjamas into the bathroom to change and takes his glasses off so that he doesn't have to look at himself brushing his teeth and washing his face.
That's one of the scariest parts still. Phil doesn't know the person looking back at him from the mirror.
He puts his glasses back on once he's turned away from the mirror, both so he can make his way back to bed uninjured and so that he can look at Dan a little more.
Dan is tidying up a little, just closing drawers and idly sorting Phil's dirty laundry on the floor, but he stops when he notices Phil's return.
"You're the worst person to live with," Dan informs him, tone soft. "You're so messy."
"Sorry," Phil says without any real heat.
"I don't have to stay here," says Dan. He's standing rather still, like he thinks that he's going to scare Phil off somehow. "Or I can stay til you fall asleep and then leave, whatever makes you comfortable."
"I'd be more comfortable with you here all night," Phil says, dropping onto his side of the bed and patting the other. "C'mere, Dimples."
"Dimples?" Dan repeats, showing them off.
"You've got them," says Phil. He's too tired to really explain himself. "Two of them."
"I know, I'm disformed on both sides of my face."
"You're pretty on both sides of your face," Phil argues, starting to feel lazy and a little grumpy from how close sleep is. He yawns and sets his glasses on his nightstand. "I'm too tired to flirt, just get over here and snuggle with me. You wanna be the big spoon or the little spoon?"
"Little, always," Dan scoffs. "Everybody knows little spoon is the best."
He turns off the lamps before he crawls under the soft duvet with Phil, and they sigh in harmony as their hands find each other again.
"Feels better with you here," Phil murmurs, fighting to keep his eyes open even though he can't see anything.
"Good," Dan says on a hum. He turns and gently pulls Phil into a cuddle, both of them on their sides and hands interlocked on Dan's chest. Phil can feel his heartbeat as he rests his nose in the curve of Dan's shoulder, and he inhales.
It's much better than curling up with Dan's pillow. The citrus scent comes straight from Dan's hair, makes Phil feel warm and cozy as he drifts off.
He could get used to this.
--
Every morning after that, they wake up tangled together. Phil expects there to be some awkwardness, because he's never slept beside someone without that stilted conversation in the light of day, but there isn't any.
("Your elbow is in my spleen," Dan informs him without opening his eyes. His voice is deep and inviting with sleep.
"Sorry," Phil grunts, pulling all his bony limbs away from Dan to sprawl on his back.
Dan makes a grumbling sort of noise and curls into Phil's side, arm flung over Phil's hips and cheek resting on Phil's collarbone. Every time he exhales, Phil feels it on his neck and smells his morning breath, but it's bearable. They don't get out of bed for a while.)
Sometimes Dan makes breakfast and sometimes Phil does. They follow each other around the kitchen, Phil making bad puns and Dan closing all the cupboards, and it's companionable. They take their food into the lounge every time and watch an episode or two of something Phil hasn't seen before. He absently wonders if their table is just for show, since they never seem to use it.
("We use it when we have guests," Dan insists.
"And how often do we have guests, Daniel?" Phil asks, poking Dan in the ribs.)
Dan is there for him when he has to deal with the harder things. He holds Phil's hand when he's on the phone with his parents, waits quietly with Phil after the MRI, doesn't laugh at him when Phil almost starts crying at the reflection he sees.
("You're still hot," says Dan, winding his arms around Phil's waist and hooking his chin over Phil's shoulder. They're both facing the mirror, and Phil thinks that he looks better with Dan next to him.
"I've got greys," says Phil. He runs his fingers through his hair like it'll change that fact.
"You dye it anyway," says Dan. "Want me to touch up your roots?")
He exhales. In Dan's arms, he can breathe.
--
"You don't have to do this," Dan reminds him for the hundredth time. He adjusts the light and camera anyway, because Phil has been insisting for a while now.
"I like making videos," says Phil. It's strange to just be sat in one place and talk to the camera, but Dan had let him watch a few of his more recent videos, and it seems like that's his whole deal now. Maybe he'll transition into more creative stuff again now that he's got the reins of this, but for now he's happy to do what his audience is familiar with.
"I know you do," Dan says fondly.
"You're so far away, though," Phil pouts, reaching for Dan. It makes something in his chest swoop when Dan comes easily, wrapping his arms around Phil's neck.
"Sorry," says Phil, nosing into Dan's curls. He's sitting in his office chair and it's easy to pull at Dan until his long limbs are tangled with Phil's and they're dangerously close to falling backwards. "I know none of this is easy for you."
"Could be worse," Dan says, settling on Phil's thighs properly and pulling back to dimple at him. "You're here, aren't you."
Maybe it's muscle memory or maybe Phil just wants to so badly that he doesn't even think about it, but he's leaning in and pressing his lips to Dan's before he can tell himself it's a bad idea.
Dan smiles against his mouth, thumb rubbing circles on the back of Phil's neck and knees on either side of Phil's hips. Phil wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
After what feels like an hour of just Dan's chapped lips on his own, Phil hums into the kiss. "Mm, don't think I can film with you in my lap."
"You could do," Dan teases, but he stands up anyway and flicks everything on. "Go on, then."
"Hi guys," Phil tells the camera, doing the wave he'd watched himself do over and over the previous day. He can't stop himself from glancing up at Dan, those warm brown eyes more of a draw than the camera lens. "Things have been a little weird lately. Like, weirder than usual. Strap yourselves in."