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Phil shrieks, the first time.
Dan’s chasing him around, alternating between laughing and howling about how Phil cheated at the video game. Phil doesn’t even really think you can cheat at video games. If you can do it, the computer let you, so that’s part of the game, if you ask him.
Dan doesn’t agree. He finally catches up, and Phil gets caught around the middle, and then - the momentum has him hoisted off his feet, eyes suddenly even higher off the ground than they are normally, higher than he ever wants to be. His skull is a little dangerously close to the ceiling. The two of them can easily turn a straightforward situation into a catastrophe; Dan doesn’t need to be picking him up and swinging him around like a wrecking ball.
“Put me down!”
“Stop doing crime!”
“Put me down!”
“Pinky swear you’ll stop doing crime.”
“Put me down,” he repeats, wiggling and bumping his knee into Dan’s soft middle. He doesn’t think he knees him that hard, but Dan makes a little ugh sound and doubles over, dropping Phil unceremoniously back on the ground.
“Thanks.”
“You wounded me,” Dan whines, still bent in half like he’s been stabbed. Phil pats his head for a moment.
“Round five?” he says, once it seems safer. Dan howls.
—
Sometimes he’s lazy. Sometimes Phil can barely extricate him from bed to do anything, has to poke and prod and whine and say stupid shit about how the bathtub feels lonely and Dan should get in it. Dan leers for a minute and then that’s all of his energy for the next hour, wasted on pulling faces at Phil.
Sometimes, though – he gets in a mood. A weird one, Phil thinks, where it’s like he’s regressed into a toddler that wants to do everything himself. He bites off more than he can chew, makes baffling decisions and refuses any help just because – what. Phil doesn’t really get why.
Anyways. They’re staring for a minute at all the bags of packaging left after unboxing all their new furniture, plus the boxes from the random things they brought from Manchester, and the shit that Phil dug out of his parent’s attic because it just – seemed like it would get lonely, if he left it so far away.
They tried to pare down what they were bringing, but god, it doesn’t look like it.
Dan’s been methodical about sorting out the recyclable parts and shoving the rest into garbage bags, neat about it in a way Phil doesn’t understand but does kind of appreciate. Then they took a break for dinner, sitting on the floor with an ordered pizza because they couldn’t find the bowls and decided that pasta wasn’t worth it. Now – they’re just sort of sitting there, staring at the bags of trash.
“I guess we should take those down to the bins,” Phil says, experimentally. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know where the bins are, first of all. He never likes the whole – bumping around in a new building with his rubbish, looking like some kind of horrible garbage santa if anyone catches him in the wrong hallway. Maybe it’d be alright if he has Dan with him, but – he’s probably tired, and maybe he doesn’t even want to go.
He gets a little lost in that. Maybe they can just leave the bags for tonight.
He should stand up, but he doesn’t want to. He should go without Dan, but again – he doesn’t want to.
He’s shaken out by the rustling sound, Dan looping one bin bag handle – dangly thingy – over his hand, and then another, and then another. Phil stares at him, forehead scrunching.
“I can help?”
“No,” Dan says, shaking his head, waddling towards the door with a mountain of bags hanging off each hand. “I got it.”
“Yeah?”
Dan huffs, like somehow it’s offensive that Phil would doubt him, but then –
“Uh. You can get the door, I guess,” he mutters, only stepping aside for a moment when Phil scrambles to open it before he gets there.
If Phil gapes a little bit at his shoulders as he leaves – that’s no one’s business. Dan doesn’t look back and catch him, and no one else is around to see.
--
“Ow,” Phil whines, head lolling awkwardly. Maybe he could hold it up. It just seems like a lot of work.
“You asked for this.”
“Ow.”
“You – jesus, shut up – you literally just said – you asked,” Dan says, barely holding back from whining himself.
Phil can’t really blame him. Every step they’ve taken so far has felt like one of those three legged races from what he was a kid. Dan keeps tripping over Phil’s feet, and Phil’s tripping over his own feet, and every little stumble is jarring his brain. It feels like mush, now. But like – painful oatmeal, he thinks.
His shoulder aches, too, from the clumsy way Dan’s trying to tug him by the arm, mostly dragging the rest of Phil’s body through sheer luck.
“Ow,” Phil repeats, just in case the first two didn’t hit the mark.
“Fine,” Dan says. Phil’s calf bumps up against the bed frame, so apparently they made it where they were supposed to, but as he tries to free himself and flop on his own power, Dan sways hard and sends him faceplanting.
“Bitch,” Phil mumbles, muffled into their sheets.
He kind of regrets admitting that his head doesn’t hurt that bad. He’s just – drowsy, and tired of editing, and the milk in his cereal disgruntled him, and he just – he just doesn’t feel like it, today.
Dan sighs somewhere behind him. He’s been just as worn out as Phil. The two of them have been staggering from one thing to the next all week, propping each other up and taking cat naps at any random hour. Phil’s aching head was just the last straw in a long series of grievances.
Dan falls quiet. Phil dozes while he undresses. He listens to Dan carefully folding his sweatshirt and putting it away somewhere, freakishly neat. Then his careful hands are on Phil, peeling away his socks and bumping Phil’s hip with his knuckle until he rouses himself enough to let Dan tug his joggers off.
It’s nice, Phil thinks idly. Dan seems over his little strop about the hike to the bed. And it’s just – it’s soothing to know that his things are dealt with. That Dan’s left his joggers someplace orderly, and even if Phil doesn’t know where they are, at least one of them does. He can close his eyes and it doesn’t stop the world from turning.
Dan flops into bed next to him, landing heavier than he really needs to.
“Love you,” he says, after he’s put his phone on the charger.
“I know.”
Dan giggles. He pokes Phil’s cheek, but gently, holding back a bit. “You’re supposed to say it back to me, you fucker.”
“I know.”
--
There’s days where Dan can’t relax into anything, where he gives Phil a kiss in the morning and then flits away. It’s like he’s a balloon on the ceiling, bouncing around just inches out of Phil’s reach at all times.
Phil doesn’t understand it, but – sometimes he just antagonizes him, just to see what will happen. Sometimes it doesn’t do anything. Sometimes Dan deflates, and sometimes he admits in a stumbling mutter that he just can’t figure out how to stop, that he wants to be on the ground with Phil but he just can’t figure out how to stay there.
Phil’s favorite, though, is when it gets turned on him. When Dan skips out of reach when Phil tries to grab him, but then he’s rushing back, hooking his arms around Phil’s middle and hoisting him up and careening around the house, shrieking with laughter when Phil howls at him in mostly-mock fury.
It’s like – a spotlight, Phil thinks. When the full force of Dan’s attention is on him, and Phil’s begging just to be touched for a minute – the world goes blurry around the edges, and it’s like nothing else really matters except the howling cacophony that they can create together.
He blinks at Dan, breathless and collapsed across the bed from him.
“I hate you,” he whispers, even though he’s sore from laughing.
“No,” Dan beams, “you like it.”
--
Dan laughs, usually.
That’s his consolation prize. At least Dan thinks it’s funny.
Phil will come home with some story, the way he does. That he almost tripped over someone on the street because they were too short for him to see at first, and he’s not very good at controlling his legs. That his arms got away from him for a minute and he spilled some of his coffee on an old lady at the coffee shop and then dropped the muffins that he was bringing home for breakfast, so now Dan has to console him and also make breakfast at the same time.
“You look like a muppet,” Dan says, voice deep and soft like it is when Phil wakes him up too early.
Dan is the one that looks like a muppet, really, so it seems a bit unfair. Phil scowls at him. He’s definitely sulking at this point.
Dan blinks his puffy eyes, shoves idly at his mess of hair for a minute. Then he’s leaning back against the counter, gesturing vaguely for Phil to come over. Phil steps into the space between his legs, stooping so he can tuck his stupid massive head into the crook of Dan’s neck.
“What’s happened now?” Dan presses, when Phil just sort of stands there.
“Outside’s dumb.”
“Okay,” he agrees, easy enough.
“Dog barked at me because I was too tall,” Phil says, voice small and definitely a little muppet-y.
“What? Because you were too tall?”
“Yeah. Owner said. He’s scared of tall people.”
Dan snorts a little. He’s too sleepy for the usual shrieking laugh, Phil guesses. “Lots of dogs like you,” he tries.
“I don’t want to be godzilla to dogs.”
“I’ll get you with my shrink ray.”
“No. What if – no. What if it shrinks my spleen.”
“I’m not even really sure what a spleen does. Do you know? I don’t think either of us does.”
“I know things,” Phil whines, even though he doesn’t know that thing.
“Alright.”
“I’m enormous.”
“Is that right, linguini man?”
Phil huffs. “Not like – just – like – they made the pasta too long.”
Dan shifts a little. Phil thinks he’s trying to pull away to stare, but nevermind, because Phil’s determined to follow. He shoves his big head back into its safe spot, squeezing his eyes shut against the weak light that’s seeping around the edges.
Dan’s only joking, but it’s just – it’s too much, for a moment.
“What?” he hears Dan say, needling a bit at his ears. Ear holes. Ear drums? The one – whatever.
“Nevermind.”
“Can you look?” Dan says. He’s pressing a bit at something soft and weird that Phil doesn’t really know how to talk about.
Phil bites him.
Maybe he misjudged it. Dan yelps, swatting at Phil’s hip with one huge hand, landing a little too strong like he didn’t think it through either.
Phil clings to him, anyways, doesn’t even try to scoot away or wrestle or any of the things they’d usually get up to. Dan doesn’t say anything, but – Phil can feel him go a bit uncertain. Like he knows that Phil wants something from him, but he’s not sure what it is, doesn’t know the steps to the dance that Phil’s forced him into leading. He keeps shifting under Phil’s arms, squirming and fussing like he’s going to bust out of this trap if Phil doesn’t speak up.
It makes sense. It’s not like – not like he doesn’t see why Dan would fuss, when Phil’s hurtled into his space first thing in the morning and then refused to look at him or say more than that he doesn’t want to be Godzilla for dogs, which they both know is a nonsense series of words anyways.
“Sorry,” Phil mutters.
“It’s fine,” Dan says. He keeps wiggling.
“It’s just nice to not feel – huge,” he says.
Maybe it’s unfair to complain to Dan, of all people. Dan’s bigger than he is, and louder than Phil to boot. He’s – fragile, too, in a way that Phil can’t always put words to. Delicate and uncertain and self conscious of every little flaw and all the ways that everything about him sticks out when he’s looming around like some looming giant.
Phil half expects bickering and half expects agreement.
Dan only says “yeah,” though, soft like – like he actually gets it. Gets how much it frustrates Phil. Gets how silly and jealous he gets sometimes, watching a kid get a piggy back ride from a friend, wondering if he can even fucking remember what it was like to not feel like his whole body is a bit of an imposition on the world.
He misses that, he thinks. Like some weird phantom limb, except it’s not something physical that’s missing, it’s just – the lack of things. He misses being unobtrusive in a way that he barely remembers, now. He misses being able to tuck himself into the little space behind the couch in his childhood home, when things got to be too much, misses the way the noise would get muffled and the lights would dim. That house is long gone, but the longing keeps following him around.
It’s easier, like this. If he keeps his eyes closed he doesn’t have to worry about it. If he stays still then he can’t find out how ungainly he really is. Dan’s settled now that he knows what the deal is, and he’s warm and steady against Phil. Phil bumps his face in even closer, tries to focus on Dan’s solid arms more than anything.
“S’weird,” he finally mumbles, garbled into Dan’s soft skin.
“Yeah.”
He snorts at Dan calling him weird. Dan pokes at him, but then tugs him closer when Phil squirms.
“Not like you’re weird,” Dan says. “It feels weird, though.”
Phil nods. He tries pulling away for a moment, but – the second the light hits his eyes, he’s all tripped up. The ground is too far away, and his hands are too wide when he blinks at them, and Dan’s barely taller than him. It’s fucking disorienting, how alien and horrible it all feels. He cringes, squeezes his eyes closed and thunks his forehead back down on Dan’s shoulder.
Dan must get it, somehow. He huffs a little at the way Phil’s barging around, but then his palm is cradling the back of Phil’s head, wide and steadying. Phil tries to breathe through the little freak out that – just seeing the outside world has sent him into. Stupid.
“Y’alright?” Dan asks, after a minute.
“I mean it’s not like – you can’t get a haircut about it.”
Dan laughs. “What?”
“You can’t,” Phil tries. “You can’t just grow your hair a new way or get clothes or something and be less tall. Like you can’t – if you’re little – you can get high heels? But if you’re this, like – what do you do?”
“Cut your legs off,” Dan offers.
“Daniel.”
“If you measured right, you could be five foot eight.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Dan laughs again. Phil feels his anxiety loosen a notch. “No, guess you wouldn’t,” Dan agrees. “No feet to show off on the internet.”
Phil groans. Dan laughs. Phil pokes him under his ribs just to make sure he doesn’t start thinking he’s very funny.
“Nothing to be done about it,” Phil says, after a minute. He sounds like his fucking mum, but whatever.
“Yeah,” Dan says. “Sorry mate.”
He’s gone a bit – vague, or something. Probably thinking about something else, Phil guesses. He should extricate himself and let Dan go off to potter around on his laptop or whatever it is that he’s doing.
He can’t, though. His brain keeps yelling loosen at his arms, but nothing happens.
“My arms don’t work,” he mumbles, just to give Dan some kind of warning that he’s stuck here.
“Oh dear.”
“Oh dear,” Phil parrots, all sullen. Today is stupid.
“I’ve got edits to finish,” Dan says, after a while, once he’s realized that Phil is truly making zero progress. There’s no real heat behind it. They both know he’s not going to sit down and do them until after dinner.
“No you don’t,” Phil says.
Dan laughs. His chest vibrates against Phil’s. He still likes that so much, even after years.
“I do, actually.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nope. I don’t like it.”
Dan’s veering into those silly loud giggles, the ones that mean he’s given up on trying to hold back. “I don’t think that factors into it, mate.”
“I’m in charge now,” Phil says, betrayed by the way he’s mumbling.
“I’ve had enough of you,” is all Dan says as a warning. Suddenly he’s wiggling out of Phil’s grasp, stooping enough that he can hook a hand under each of his thighs. He hauls Phil up. Phil shrieks, and Dan laughs back, crowing something unintelligible as he starts waddling around as fast as his long legs and their joint clumsiness can take them.
All Phil can do is cling to him. He tries to wrap his legs around Dan’s middle, but – he’s just straight up and down, no real hips or ass or anything that Phil can stick to. He keeps sliding, and then hoisting himself back up by his arms, and then sliding down again. Dan adjusts sometimes, but mostly he’s just focused on speeding around.
“You’re slippery,” Phil informs him in a huff, about the tenth time his legs have ended up tangled around Dan’s thighs. “Like a banana peel.”
“Not a me problem,” Dan says, even though it very much is. Phil hauls himself back up and bites on Dan’s earlobe, ends up dangling wildly when Dan howls and starts trying to wrestle without actually putting Phil down.
“Evil!”
“Horrible vampire boy,” Dan retorts. He finally lets Phil stand on his own two feet for a minute. Phil squints into the light. His head doesn’t feel as rattled as it was a minute ago, but – everything’s weird, still. He doesn’t know if he’s going to shake it off today at all. Sometimes it just sticks to him, following him around and needling at his too-big limbs every time he looks away from his latest distraction.
“You like it,” Phil says.
“Cannibal,” Dan says. His eyes narrow a bit like he’s about to commit mischief. Phil can tell something’s coming, but – it’s hard to know what with Dan.
He lunges for Phil again, gets him around his hips this time and flops him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Phil yells, kicking his legs a few times to see if he can wiggle free. He’s not even really sure why, if he’s honest. He doesn’t want to be free. This morning is a bust anyways. Dan can steer the ship if he wants to.
His eyes are finally staying open, but the house is blurring past, a flash of barely-recognizable color and then walls and then color and then a room, then they’re whipping around the other direction, and then everything whizzes by in reverse.
He thinks he’s yelling that he wants to be put down, but Dan’s just laughing back, loud and echoing off the hallway as they speed around.
Phil’s bordering on dizzy. He’s definitely disoriented. His voice keeps cracking funny when he tries to yell and breathe and laugh all at once.
“Put me downnn,” he whines, thunking his fists against Dan’s back.
It doesn’t seem like it’s working, for a minute, but then – Dan’s pushing a door open with his shoulder, and he’s tipping forward so Phil topples off. He tries to cling for a second, until Dan says something that sounds like bed, and – oh. He drops, lands in their soft puffy duvet with a little thump. Dan stays looming over him for a minute, grinning down at Phil. Phil’s cheeks ache like he’s been smiling, even though he doesn’t remember when that switch was flipped.
“Idiot,” he says, reaching up to tap at Dan’s dimple.
Dan gnashes his teeth at Phil’s fingertip. He tugs at the duvet, though, hauling on the corners and folding it over until Phil’s swaddled into a little burrito. He turns down the lights, and then flops into bed, sprawling half his body over Phil’s so he’s pinned in by Dan’s heavy legs.
“I thought you had edits,” Phil whispers, voice gone a bit hoarse from all the commotion.
“Later,” Dan says. “We’re having a sleepover, you ‘n’ me.”