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Phil knows an empty road from the sound of rubber on tarmac. As he attempts to doze, Dan's hand slips through his hair and he can taste how far they have left to go in the high acidity swirling in his stomach, the sour spike at the back of his throat. The faint rock of the bus should soothe him, but it mixes him up on the inside and he's only comforted by the knowledge that if he can just get through this night, by morning it will all be over.
There is a lonely stretch of America before him, a distracted sickness within him, and the sound of Dan's other hand on the keyboard providing a pleasant background melody to all of it.
It might be just another lazy weekend evening under different circumstances. They could be in their cool, airy lounge, not in this small space, trapped by a confining sort of heat that covers you from head to toe in a sticky sheen, making clothes cling and palms slide.
Phil remembers the double bed they had last time. How he would extend his arms and legs to their very limits and rest his head in Dan's lap just like this. Dan would stroke his hair then too, blunt fingertips against his scalp like an afterthought to whatever he was doing, and Phil would nap fitfully, in and out of consciousness with every roll of his stomach.
He hums a small sigh and Dan's fingers stop.
"Why stopping?" He says, "no stopping." He moves his head, nudging at Dan, urging him to continue.
"I thought you were asleep."
"M'not."
"You nearly are."
Phil hums again and Dan's fingers flex against his hairline.
"Still feeling rough?"
"I hate the bus," Phil says.
He hears Dan nod but he can't see him in this position. They're in the shared room at the back of the bus with the mirrored ceiling and colourful lights, though they're not turned on right now. The room is dim save for the white-blue glow of Dan's screen, a provision for Phil's migraine. No one else comes in if they're back here usually, so Dan is a bit freer in this room than he is in the other spaces of the bus. It's not quite as cramped as their bunks, but Phil has to hold himself still in case he rolls off the seat he's laying on.
It's just fine, rather than comfortable, and Dan is still petting him without the fear of someone walking in, but it isn't their room on the last bus, and it certainly isn't the contained sanctuary of their flat thousand of miles away across an ocean.
"How much longer?"
"Three months," Dan says, answering the question about the entire tour rather than this particular drive, "if the final dates work out."
Phil sighs, he doesn't want to think about the dates that they haven't booked yet. The ones in almost all of his Twitter replies.
He rolls slightly to press his forehead against the firm muscle in Dan's thigh. Dan's fingers slide round to the nape of his neck and pinch at tender muscles. Phil pushes into it and huffs a hot breath against the skin near his mouth.
Dan is in his shorts because it's hot. It feels like it's been too hot for weeks, a constant rolling sweat on them both like a sticky film, but July on the way to Texas is stifling, and what little air con the bus provides is not enough.
Phil is thankful for the time together, for his skin touching Dan's without the need for a second unused room somewhere down a hall. He doesn't bring up how much that costs, because he knows that Dan had plans and promises made to himself he feels guilty for breaking. Phil remembers the days before the tour, the planning, under the shadow of the looming thing Dan hadn't done yet that meant Phil had to turn to him a few months out and say, "two rooms?" Like a casual question, one of many.
Dan didn't meet his eyes, the heavy expectations he put on himself weighing him down. He nodded, and Phil booked two rooms.
Dan has made those promises to himself again, for after this tour. He makes them over and over, whispering them into Phil's clavicle in the dark as Phil tells him - also over and over - that these aren't promises he needs to keep. Not if he doesn't want to.
"Three months," Phil repeats, his stomach rolls.
Dan runs his hand over Phil's neck and down between his shoulder blades. His wide palm flat, long fingers spread wide, the heat of him seeping through Phil's shirt.
It isn't that Phil doesn't want to be doing this, far from it. This is more adventure than he ever thought he'd get and he won't be ungrateful for it no matter the circumstances. It's just that it doesn't feel like home.
Dan is happy with one suitcase and the need for decisions about his days forfeited, he's comforted by the purpose, the obligation, but Phil sometimes feel trapped by it.
He longs for home like a pull in his gut. He misses the scent of it, the feel of their sheets. He misses his mum being only a phone call away in the same time zone instead of hours ahead and miles away.
He buries his nose in the fabric of Dan's shorts and inhales, hoping to catch the lingering notes of washing powder but finding only the sweet, heady scent of Dan in Texas heat.
That's good too. Dan feels like home as much as the place itself does, but Phil misses it all the same.
"You were like this last time," Dan says, ignoring the suggestion Phil's position is making because he is kinder to Phil's limits than Phil is.
Also, however safe Dan might feel here, there are still boundaries they daren't cross when there are people on the other side of a thin, rickety door.
"Fucking motion sickness," Phil agrees.
Dan shakes his head, and Phil rolls over to blink up at the underneath of his chin. Dan stops typing. He even graces Phil with putting the laptop down entirely but whether that's because it's running out of battery or because he wants to give Phil attention, Phil can't be sure.
"Home sickness," Dan corrects him.
His hands aren't touching Phil now. Instead they reach into his own hair and scratch at his scalp until his hair is fluffed up and wild. Then they fall onto the back of the couch, shoulder rolling to work out the knots.
Phil likes him like this. He likes the wide collar on his shirt showing the dip of his collar bone, he likes that he knows what Dan sounds like when Phil puts his mouth right there. Or that Dan would gently chide him if he tried that right now, with insistent words about Phil's health.
There isn't much, after all these years, that Phil doesn't know. In the same way that Dan knows Phil in return.
"Ring your mum tomorrow," Dan says.
Phil sighs, "I'm not a baby."
"You are a bit."
Phil sticks his tongue out, proving Dan's point, and then holds his middle finger up to counteract it.
"See," Dan says, "real mature."
"I'll ring her," Phil says.
He doesn't ask if Dan will ring home too, because he won't. He knows Dan texted his mum a few days ago about a dog they saw in Philadelphia, and that will be enough to tide them over a little longer.
Phil wonders if that will be different after. He wonders what his own life will be like if Dan's plans come to fruition. But it doesn't do to dwell on those things, not really. Even in his own head he doesn't want to add to the expectations Dan has for himself, he doesn't want to wonder what else will be different.
Not even if they'll save money on hotel rooms, or if Phil could spend his headaches in Dan's lap without relying on a flimsy door and uninterested travel companions.
Mostly, he just doesn't want any of that to show on his face, to add to the turmoil in Dan's brain he knows is there, just slightly out of sight. For now, Dan is content.
Dan has his routine, and a purpose, happy to let go of everything else without a care, and Phil grips tight to the remnants of his life back home with a promise to return to them as soon as he can.
Texas slips by outside, heat curling into the room like a humid sauna and sweat collects on the base of Phil's spine, sticky and slick.
"How's your head?"
"Better," Phil says, "sort of. Getting there."
Dan cocks an eyebrow.
"Okay, not really."
Dan resumes stroking Phil's head, his thumb gliding over the pulsing thud at Phil's temple where his headache still lingers. His stomach clenches around the dead space and the jostling of the bus does nothing to calm it. Phil breathes slowly, focussing on the textured pad of Dan's fingertip against his skin.
He just needs to get through tonight and this will be over. And then a few more after that.
Three months, Dan had said. Just three.
"You don't have to pretend to be okay," Dan says.
Dan's laptop screen powers down. The room is flooded with pitch black, the Texas night sky peeking around the blinds at the windows, and Phil blinks up at the ceiling to pick out his and Dan's dim reflections in the mirror overhead.
They make a funny pair. Phil is stretched out the length of one seat, feet hanging over the end where he's too tall for it. Dan is slumped down, his shirt pull askew at the collar, Phil's head in his lap. From above, they could be any two people. In that image, their entire lives could be different, like there's a whole world on the other side of the mirror where the demands of the day don't matter. Where Phil isn't here because his stomach is held in motion's vice-like grip, but because they are enjoying a moment of reprieve amongst the chaotic adventure of yet another tour.
A world where promises made are promises kept, where Dan lives up to even his lofty expectations.
A world unlike all those months ago at the kitchen table.
"I'm going to make the video this June," Dan had said.
They were mid-planning, mid-chaos, and Dan had been on the verge of a breakdown every few days because it was all just too much. There were too many things to do, and the start date of the whole thing was barreling down on them, so quick it might crush them underfoot if they weren't prepared.
"Huh," Phil said, not bothering to ask which video, because they both knew.
It hadn't been because he wanted to ignore it, but just that Dan had said it before, picking a date at random like it mattered.
And he knows Dan, is the thing. He knows the good intentions he has, and the way it all seems very very certain right at this moment, but that the hesitation will kick in soon enough, and the whole thing will fall apart.
"You don't believe me," Dan had accused him.
Phil had looked up over top of his laptop screen where emails about lighting and sponsorships and a million other concrete things that were actually going to happen were waiting for him. Things that needed his attention far more than this, yet again.
Only, he found that Dan's eyes were ringed with red, soft grey circles beneath each where he wasn't sleeping, the corners of his mouth pinched tight, shoulders drawn. He looked fragile, like one quick rebuff from Phil might be enough to make him snap.
"I believe you," Phil said, summoning it up even though he could feel the weight of this pile on top of everything else.
The guilt of his own silent betrayal twisted in his gut, tasted sour as he swallowed down other words he might say, just to preserve what was left of Dan's conviction. His head twinged at his temples, and he went back to his list of things that needed to be done.
When June came and went, Phil didn't mention it, and Dan had only watched him warily for a few days until breathing a sigh of relief.
Then, sometime later, Dan had told Phil again that it would be soon. After tour, he decided, that was when it would happen. Promise.
The vow had been made in the dark, onto the back of Phil's neck where they were pressed together on one hotel bed in a room that had two.
Phil had choked on his words and, like an echo of all the times that went before, whispered, "I believe you."
On the bus, Phil closes his eyes and pushes the memory of it away, feeling betrayed by his own thought process because he really is trying not to think about it too much. It might not happen, and contrary to the snarky way Phil's brain reacts in low moments, it's okay if it doesn't. They've been okay this far, they get world tours and book releases, they get a secure bank account and engagement on Twitter other people can only dream of, and so what if they need to exchange that for dark rooms and Dan only texting his mum once a fortnight for fear of revealing too much.
So what if this side of the mirror means it all comes at a price.
Headaches make Phil melancholy, and introspective, and a bit of a dick. This isn't stuff he thinks about usually, and definitely isn't the kind of thing he resents.
"You're grumpy about something," Dan says.
"Yeah," Phil tells him, "this fucking headache."
Dan tuts, but Phil doesn't give him the benefit of looking at him.
"No," Dan says.
"Fine." Phil clutches at his stomach and makes an exaggerated groaning sound like he might be sick at any minute. "You're right. I'm not okay."
Dan chuckles at him, thumb pausing for just a second, "You don't have to lay it on thick, either."
Phil pushes his head back into Dan's hand and Dan obediently resumes the soft, slow glide. It's lovely, really, the heat of his fingers is different to the cloying heat of the bus. It soothes, rather than suffocates.
Phil could be happy like this forever. Not with the heat of Texas, or the uncomfortable bunk to sleep in, but with Dan, even if it's only in dark sequestered rooms.
But maybe it won't always be like that. Maybe this time Dan will carry his fragile conviction through to the end, maybe this time next year they could be on the other side of the mirror.
Dan deserves the benefit of the doubt, he deserves a world where Phil says he believes him, and then actually does. And Phil can resolve to try, at least.
"If I'm okay you might stop," Phil says.
"No I won't."
"Promise?"
Dan pushes his fingers further into Phil's hair. Phil keeps his eyes closed, so he doesn't have to look at the reflection above them.
"I promise," Dan says.
"I believe you."