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This girl has been talking for what feels like forever. The story she’s telling must be hilarious because she keeps laughing. Dan can’t make sense of anything she’s saying, her voice is nothing more than a dull thrum in his ears, blending in with the background of laughter and chatter. Phil smiles thinly and nods every so often, humming to be totally clear that he’s definitely hanging on every word. Dan doesn’t even pretend to listen. His focus is split. Phil’s bottom lip is sucked into his mouth as he feigns interest. When Dan let’s his eyes move over Phil’s face, they land right on that lip. When he tears them away, they roam over the crowd of people, landing on a guy a few feet away. He’s got to be around Dan’s age, dressed almost exactly like Phil. Dan watches as he lifts his hand to graze pink hair framing the face of another boy. He’s wearing rouge, and red lipstick and soon he’s cupping the cheek of the first boy, their eyes locked. Dan is too far away to hear but he imagines what they might be saying, I like your hair. I like yours too. Your eyes are really pretty . The two of them move, beginning to close the space between them, and Dan’s stomach swoops. He swallows and watches intently as one of the boys tilts his head to one side. Just before their lips meet they both pull to the side and burst out into raucous laughter, making a show of shoving and punching each other in the shoulder.
These are people he’s been dying to know. Right now, he wishes they would all go away. He’s lost in thought when the boy in the pink wig turns and looks right at him. He fakes a laugh, winks and fans himself, nausea settling in as he does.
The girl is still talking. Maybe if one of them would actually contribute to the conversation, she wouldn’t feel the need to fill the empty spaces. Dan knows he was excited about today, but he can’t quite remember what that felt like.
“Dan,” Phil says but Dan only vaguely hears him. “Dan!” His voice is louder now, his fingers snapping in Dan’s face. He’s grinning and Dan wants to lean in and kiss it away, show these people that it’s not fucking funny. He doesn’t.
“Dan, the bus is here. Are we going?”
The crowd is moving around him, a bunch of cattle, just following until they’re all herded onto the bus. Why did he ever want to be accepted by these people? The’re all wrapped up in flannel and hair dye and septum piercings but it doesn’t mean a thing. They’re just as scared as anyone he knew at school, everyone he knows at uni. They’re no different at all.
Two girls walk past, faces painted like zombies, blood dripping from their lips. They’re holding hands. Girls can do that, just hold hands with a friend like it’s nothing. Phil starts to move with the throng and Dan shuffles his feet to keep up. Someone points a camera at them but he just stares as Phil growls and claws at the air. At least someone’s enjoying himself. Dan really doesn’t need any of these people when he has Phil. Phil isn’t afraid, at least not when they’re alone. When they're alone, Phil touches him and kisses him and tells him he’s sexy. He pulls himself over Dan, heavy and broad, holding him down, literally grounding him. Shame has been the one constant in Dan’s life but somehow, when he’s with Phil, in the dark, he can’t find it. He can’t even remember how it feels to be ashamed.
They’re about to board the bus. Dan’s hand finds its way to the small of Phil’s back. It’s instinctual. Phil will almost certainly trip on that first step without a reminder to pay attention. Dan guides him ahead, steering gently with the soft weight of his palm. Phil doesn’t flinch, he’s not ashamed. Dan can feel the tiniest bit of the weight around his heart slip away.
Trafalgar square is packed full of more people than they’ve seen all day. It’s exhausting even to look at and Dan immediately finds a place to sit down. He’s not sure the name of the guy that plops onto his lap or the girl that piles on top of him but it feels like the sort of thing he’s supposed to find funny so he smiles for the cameras. There are so many cameras.
Phil’s carrying on a conversation with someone unseen, just behind Dan’s head. He listens to that low northern song like it’s a symphony, and time slips by. How much time, he couldn’t say, but Phil is leaning in close to his ear now. He can’t see him but the warm breath that brushes his neck is unmistakable.
“Everyone here is boring,” Phil whispers.
“I thought you were having fun,” Dan says and he doesn’t even try to hide his smile.
“I thought you were,” Phil says, “I’m starving. It’s way past dinner. When do these people eat?”
“I don’t think they do,” Dan says, “they live on Strongbow and cigarettes.”
Dan shoves two maybe three people off his lap and stands, working his way through to Phil.
“Food?”
Before long, they’ve got mezza from the Greek place across the street. They’re sat on the edge of the fountain, across the water from the noise and the posturing and the cameras.
“Sorry for pulling you away from everyone,” Phil says, “sometimes I just want to be alone.”
“You aren’t alone.”
“You don’t count Dan. You’re different.”
They eat every last crumb and Phil gathers all the garbage into the bag the food came in and gets up to throw it all in the bin. Dan is looking up at the stars when he gets back. He feels his fingers slip between his own before he even knows he’s sat back down. It’s so easy to just lean over and rest against Phil. It’s almost normal. They don’t talk for a long while, just watch the stars and lean against one another. From far away, they just look like two drunk teenagers, or that’s what Dan tells himself.
“Are you hot in that costume, Bear?”
He’d totally forgotten about the scratchy polyester fur shirt he’s wearing. He shakes his head.
“Are you sleepy?”
He sighs. “Not really.”
Phil turns his head slightly and Dan lifts his head to meet him in a kiss. It’s a quick thing, a secret, soft press of the lips, but it’s heaven. Alone, under the stars, with a literal party behind them, they kissed. It’s too good to do once, so Dan does it again. Angling his body to get just a little more than before.
“I don’t want to go back to the lodge,” Dan says, resting his head back in the crook of Phil’s neck. A room full of YouTubers in bunk beds sounded great until he got there. The thought of being around anyone but Phil right now makes his stomach ache.
“Me neither.”
It’s quiet for a few minutes before Phil says, “We could get our own room.” It sounds like a question.
“In London? It’s too expensive.”
Phil let’s go of his hand and wraps his arm around his waist instead. His fingers curl around Dan’s hip and then release, resting there. “I have money.”
“People will say we slept together.” Dan’s voice sounds low and timid in his own ears.
“We’ll say we had to go home. We’ll say my mum wouldn’t let me stay and you came with, to be nice. They all think I’m a mummy’s boy anyway.” He squeezes Dan in closer. “We don’t have to say anything. Nobody cares.”
It’s way too nice a room. It’s just one night and it’s already late and Dan feels guilty that Phil is shelling out money for a hotel in this part of London. He feels guilty until Phil drops his bag and shrugs off his purple flannel. He pulls his t-shirt off too, kicking his shoes off at the same time.
Dan only watches. “We should wash the makeup off our faces.”
“Nope,” Phils says and his hands are pulling Dan’s ridiculous costume over his head. His bear ears fall off and hit the ground just as Phil’s lips find his.
Dan’s not sure when their jeans came off, or their pants. He can’t remember if that was before or after Phil pulled him into the lush white bed and pulled the duvet over them both. Somewhere along the line the two of them became nothing more than one shape in the dim glow of the street lights streaming through the window. This hotel is a fantasy, a place he’d never dream of, but here they are, and he couldn’t care less. When his voice pitches high and loud, Phil’s hand working over him with so much purpose, he doesn’t hold back. It’s just Phil and Dan and no one else. No shame, no cameras, no performance.
And he’ll never tell this part of the story. There will be no video, no photos, no confirmation. He decides right there with Phil’s body draped over his, that this will always be theirs. They won’t lie, they’re best friends and there is nothing more true than that. Still, this thing he’s found feels precious and rare. He won’t let anyone have it, not ever.
“Phil.”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t want to tell anyone about us.”
“I know babe.”
“No, I mean, I don’t ever want to tell anyone. It’s ours, okay? It too, too special. Or something. It’s just ours. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Phil says, kissing Dan on the collarbone, “it’s just ours.”