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Dan struggles to find a healthy medium between doing absolutely no self care and doing the absolute most he can fit into one sitting before he is at the point of being too cared for by himself. He doesn’t know how to allow himself to do little bits of self care activities here and there throughout the week because he’s clumsy and forgetful, so he ends up overwhelming himself with every single activity in the space of an evening.
He knows he needs to work on it but there is only so much you can force yourself to work on about your entire being until you get overwhelmed and eventually stop. That happens and he goes weeks without doing any ounce of self care and that brings him to now, in desperate need.
He decides this evening is one of those days where he will go a little bit of self care, not a lot to overwhelm himself but enough to feel cared for and loved. Phil’s busy working on a top secret project that Dan doesn’t even know much about so it gives Dan a few hours to himself, deciding to head to the bathroom and run a bath.
Dan puts the plug in the drain and turns the tap to allow the flow of the hot water, watching intently as the water begins to run and fill the large porcelain bathtub. He has a moment to think about what type of bath he wants – if he wants a bubble bath, he needs to act quick and crumble some of his all time favourite bubble bar from Lush into the running water and if he wants to use one of his bath bombs, he can wait.
He decides to crumble a small amount of a bubble bar into the water, compromising between the two and giving himself a mental reminder that he needs to add the bath bomb later when the tub is full.
He watches as the bubbles begin foaming up and rise to the surface, not enough as if he was having a bubble bath but enough to be noticeable.
Standing up, he turns to their windowsill, thanking the gods or whoever is above them that the person who built this apartment complex gave them a window but in fact, a glazed window so no one can see Dan’s ass whilst he’s in the shower. The windowsill gives him an easy opportunity to have candles whilst in the bath, because without it there’s no place to put them that doesn’t immediately mean danger for two clumsy men. A lit candle on the side of the bath is just calling for danger.
The steam from the hot water is already starting to fill the bathroom but Dan ignores it in favour of lighting some of the candles that he last used in the bathroom. He doesn’t have all that much energy to fiddle through the box of them that they have in the cupboards, so he just settles for these ones and because he knows they work. The perk of having your own candle is it’s one hundred per cent a scent you already love.
By the time he has lit the candles and places a large towel on the side of the sink, for when he has finished in the bath and needs it to dry himself off, he turns to check on the bath. Dan leans over and wraps one of his hands around the tap, forcing the flow of water to come to a stop before turning the cold water tap on to cool down the bathtub full of water.
He squats down to the box full of bath products and pulls out a random bath bomb, not really understanding how to gel and mix Lush smells to make the perfect scent but he knows he’s going to come out of the bath smelling delicious so that’s good enough.
He turns off the running water completely this time having noticed that the water is at the height of the tub that he finds most comfortable, enough to cover his body but not enough to accidentally flood the bathroom and hallway once his body is in it.
He quickly puts a random Spotify playlist on shuffle to drown out the silence of him undressing.
His fingers wrap around the hem of his pyjama shirt, pulling it up and over his head in a quick and fluid motion. He makes quick work of pulling off his lounge shorts and boxers in one movement, sliding them over his butt and down his legs before stepping out of the pile of fabric one foot at a time. He uses his feet to kick the pile of fabric to the corner of the bathroom by the door, deciding that he can worry about putting them in the washing bin later after he’s washed and ready.
Carefully, he puts his foot into the bath water in order to test the temperature. The water is nice and hot, hot enough for Dan’s body to feel it but cool enough for his skin not to go a bright red after a few seconds. He has spent years running his own bath to perfect just how he likes it. He’s also gone through the effort of converting Phil to love lukewarm baths when they happen to share. Dan would be damned if he stepped foot into a boiling hot bathtub, but he would if Phil had his own way.
Having decided that the water is the perfect temperature, he steps into the bath completely, squatting down to sit into the bath, the bubbles and heat wrapping his body like he is a caterpillar spinning itself a silky cocoon in order to become a beautiful butterfly.
Laying his head back, he closes his eyes and allows himself to feel for a moment. Feel the slow relaxation of each and every muscle that is being exposed to the warm bath water. Feel the soothing feel of the lavender that he assumes, is part of the bubble bar he used earlier, calm his nerves a little bit. He struggles to allow himself to flutter his eyes back open due to just how peaceful the bath is.
A few moments pass, Dan isn’t sure it could easily be an hour. He could have easily fallen asleep in the bathtub but he's aware that that isn’t completely the case because his skin isn’t wrinkled like he’s been in the tub for an hour, just enough for it to be ten or so minutes.
He eventually opens his eyes, knowing that this bath was as much equal parts for relaxation and for actually cleaning himself, reluctantly allowing the bright lights from a midday sun to burst into his eye sockets.
He raises his knees to stick up out of the water and the cool air hits him, a sigh escaping his throat as he feels the air soothe his skin. The water still warm around his thighs and it’s an almost perfect opposite to the cool air reaching his knees.
He’s always been lucky in the sense that he knows he is a good looking person, somewhere healthy in between extremely attractive and somewhat average. When he gets to look at his body, granted under the bath water which makes him look different than usual, he knows he is lucky to have a body that is deemed desirable by society.
He thinks about beauty as a whole genderless construct and it’s a whole blur and a mess that he doesn’t want to get into. Dan’s always had a blurred thought process when it comes to gender, always has and always will. He doesn’t think something is strictly “women only” or “men only” and if you want to do something, it shouldn’t matter.
And that’s why recently, since he learnt to accept his sexuality little by little over the years, he began opening himself up to his femininity and owning it.
He started with painting his nails a clear nail polish in 2013 so that no one would notice and just think he was taking really good care of his nails or something. He eventually moved into bigger and better things (not that staying with clear nail polish would be not enough but it wasn’t enough for Dan and that’s okay) in 2016 with black nail polish whilst touring in Australia for his tour with Phil.
Slowly but surely, he puts little stepping stones out there in embracing his sexuality and femininity in one and he's loving it. That’s why he brought disposable razors one day during an online food shop order. He doesn’t need a multipurpose reusable razor because his face is incapable of growing body hair so the thought of embracing the smooth legs, he so desperately craves needed a new purpose.
He had left them beside the bathtub for whenever he chose to shave his legs in the future, and he eyes them for a few seconds before grabbing the packet and sliding one out. Holding a razor in his hands with the purpose to shave suddenly causes very different thoughts and fear to run through his mind as opposed to before.
It’s not like he’s scared of shaving his legs because it’s only him and Phil who will see and he knows Phil will love him regardless of the state of his leg hairs, but it causes anxiety anyway. Taking a step in a direction to embrace his femininity is always scary but once he does it once he is no longer scared.
He decides fuck it because literally no one will see anyway and slides the safety cover off the razor head before bending in a way he doesn’t know he is capable of, to get better access of his ankles assuming that’s a good starting place. He isn’t completely uneducated on shaving so he makes quick work of the lower part of his calf before moving onto the next one, taking it slower than probably anyone else would so he doesn’t get overwhelmed.
He allows himself an opportunity to sing along to the new Lady Gaga album, Chromatica, whilst he runs the razor head along his leg time and time again to remove the hairs. It takes a while due to having never shaved his leg before today, not really knowing what to do and how to do it. He’s pretty sure he misses so many areas that he just can’t reach and wonders how people who shave their legs do it with such ease. Before he knows it, he has his entire two legs are completely shaven and smooth, almost overwhelming to look at. The music has given him a good distraction, allowing him to dance along safely to the beat of the songs without thinking too much about what he’s been doing.
He has the sudden urge to hop out of the bath and run into their lounge immediately to show his new smooth legs to Phil, but he realises that even though they are completely comfortable with each other that’s probably a little too comfortable, so he stops himself.
The bath water has gotten significantly cooler since the last time he checked, and the already minimal bubbles in the water have gone zero to none leaving Dan rather exposed. He knows it’s fine, because no one is going to walk in and accidentally see his dick, and the only person who that actually could be in that scenario has already seen his dick on many occasions.
But the bath water changing gives a signal for Dan to leap out of the bath. He wraps his hand onto the side of the bath, clinging in order to drag himself up out of the bath and onto the bathmat on the floor beside it and quickly turns around to unplug the bath to allow the now cold water to drain away.
He thanks the gods and whoever designed their bathroom that he has access to a body length mirror on one of the walls in front of him, allowing him to get a good view of his new shaven legs.
Dan doesn’t have to hesitate even a second before he realises how beautiful he feels. It’s easy, because Dan doesn’t need a lot in order to feel lovable as having Phil in his life, he is always made sure he is loved enough and for that, Dan is grateful. But Dan knows, if he didn’t have Phil right now, the shaved legs make him feel good enough and thus, make him feel so different.
He moves his legs slowly and watches as the water still drying on his legs glimmers in the light and makes his legs look paler than usual. The shine coming off his legs causes a small amount of excitement to grow through his entire being and he decides now and then that he loves the new look.
He doesn’t think he could ever go back to letting his leg hairs grow out to the state they were before, because it feels so much more beautiful and so much more Dan without them.
Before wrapping himself in the towel he had left out earlier, he grabs the tub of moisturiser off the side of the bath and runs a small amount of it across his legs, at least knowing that’s something he definitely needs to do after shaving to achieve optimum smoothness. After he’s done, he wraps the towel around himself, securing it under his armpit so it doesn’t fall and expose him to the flat population of him and his boyfriend, before leaving the bathroom and heading into his bedroom.
Turns out, that Phil isn’t actually in the lounge when he comes out of the bath, finding him in their bedroom instead. Not that it’s a surprise, because when Dan came out of the bath and turned off his playlist, he notices that it is quite late for them.
He doesn’t exactly hate finding Phil in their bedroom instead, glasses on his face instead of contact lenses in his eyes and only in Dan’s oversized kittens in space tee and boxers, sitting on top of the covers on his laptop. He doesn’t hate seeing the way Phil beams at him when he enters the room.
“You okay? You were in there a while?” Dan notes the worry in Phil’s tone. It’s not that stupid of Phil to think absolute worst case scenario when Dan has been known to spend hours on end in the bathtub losing consciousness in a depression pit and losing track of time.
“I’m fine,” Dan simply hums, heading over to his wardrobe to grab pyjamas – a plain white oversized tee, sadly not the kittens in space one because his boyfriend has, unfortunately, stole that from him, and a pair of black running shorts with the white stripe down the side, that Dan has never actually used for running.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I just had a pamper session in the bath,” Dan explains, as he grabs a fresh pair of boxers before putting them on, not looking at whether they are his or not. After ten years of dating, they’ve grown to not actually care about what’s theirs because everything is shared.
“Oh yeah?” Phil voice lightens at this and Dan is grateful. He’s also grateful that Phil cares enough to ask how he is doing and knows Dan almost in and out to know when Dan has an unhealthy habit. He knows a lot of people aren’t fortunate enough to have that in another person. Dan’s just glad he found his early on in life.
“Yeah,” Dan says as he pulls the pyjamas, he picked out moments ago over his body before climbing onto his side of their bed. He doesn’t hesitate when he leans over to place a gentle kiss on Phil’s lips as he gets comfortable in bed. “I used a bubble bar and a bath bomb.”
Phil chuckles at this, “Oh wow, you really were splashing out.”
“I told you it was a self care evening,” Dan laughs.
He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly so nervous to point out the lack of leg hair he now has. He knows Phil hasn’t noticed simply because it’s not every day you inspect the leg hair of your significant other, so he probably hasn’t even taken a look at Dan’s legs since he’s entered the room. If he has, he hasn’t been looking hard enough to notice no hair at the very least.
He decides to rip the metaphorical band-aid off and let Phil know anyway. Phil won’t judge him, and if he knows Phil well enough, he even thinks Phil will probably like it.
“I did something new,” Dan bites his lip, looking over at Phil to see raised eyebrows and a now closed laptop. It’s nothing that serious to Dan, but he knows ever since Dan has told Phil about embracing new things in his life, Phil has taken the absolute most care in being interested in whatever Dan does, so for that Dan appreciated the suddenly closed laptop.
“Oh?”
“Let me show you,” Dan says as he climbs out of his comfort spot in the bed and onto Phil’s lap, grabbing the laptop along the way and placing it on the bedside table.
Phil instinctively meets him to offer a small kiss, knowing not to deepen it because sex is not Dan’s intention right now, and placing his hands on Dan’s hipbones, “What did you do?”
Instead of responding, Dan trails his own hands down to meet Phil’s and drags them down to his thighs and stopping them there, before letting them ago again and letting them find peace on Phil’s legs underneath him, stroking circles in Phil’s exposed skin.
It takes Phil a few seconds to realise, it seems. Because Dan watches as a frown come smirk appears on Phil’s face, almost in confusion that Dan has placed his hands there and not explained anything more. And then it dawns upon him when he moves them up and down a little bit and notices something different, a little less friction.
“You shaved your legs?” Phil asks, still a little hesitation in his voice, almost like he isn’t completely sure if that’s the answer. Dan laughs at this, because it’s completely obvious, at least to him, and Phil not being sure is absolutely adorable to him.
“What do you think, Phil?” Dan can’t help the smile appear on his face when he’s looking at Phil. Phil has a small smile on his face and Dan has to stop himself from getting too overwhelmed, kind of like how humans get overwhelmed at small tiny animals and have the weird desire to squish them.
“I think you did?”
“Then you’d be right,” Dan chuckles.
“Dan, that’s huge.”
“It’s just shaving my legs,” Dan shrugs, accepting the kisses anyway. He says it’s not a big deal like he didn’t put off shaving his legs for weeks because he was too scared. This is exactly what he means by him being too scared to take steps in the right direction in embracing femininity but then as soon as he does it, he knows it’s nothing to worry about.
“Yeah, but I know you’ve wanted to do it for a while and been too nervous.”
Dan hates how vulnerable that makes him feel, because he hasn’t voiced that to Phil at all and Phil just knew that, but he decides to shake it off and accept how happy he feels right now instead.
“I guess.”
“I’m proud of you,” Phil continues, ignoring Dan’s hesitation and bringing his hands to either cheek on Dan’s face and pulling him into a kiss. It’s a deeper one this time and Dan can’t help but melt into it, allowing himself to feel every inch of Phil and allowing Phil to take control.
Dan’s left hand finds Phil’s hair, now droopy after a day of being hairsprayed up into a quiff. The hairspray is failing to do its job any longer and Dan runs his hand through it for good measure, tugging lightly at the ends of it to separate them both for a few moments.
“Thank you,” Dan breathes before placing his lips onto Phil’s mouth once more, pushing Phil to lie down properly and following him almost instantly.
He doesn’t miss how Phil pays particular attention to his legs that evening, not that he didn’t anyway but even more so now. It helps Dan realise it’s okay because the only other person other than him enjoys the step he made in embracing his femininity and that’s all that matters. Shaving his legs can't be that wrong of an idea when they both enjoy the end result so much.