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It’s strange having Dan back in the house.
It shouldn’t be, Phil thinks as he sits on the sofa, morning mug of decaf coffee in hand. Dan returned home this morning, suitcases in hand, looking tired and smelling of airplane, but looking so damn wonderful that Phil couldn’t help but pull him into a hug for a good long minute.
He’s upstairs showering off the hours of air travel now, and Phil can hear the muffled sound of the water. The sound of someone else in the house after the stillness of the past few months is startling, and Phil can’t quite believe he’s really back.
Two and a half months is really a small sliver of time compared with the years they’ve spent together, and it’s not like they haven’t spoken in some way every single day. Even so, Phil has felt the lack of Dan in the house these past few months. It has felt so oddly still and quiet with him gone. He’s noticed it every day, the silence filling up the odd empty spaces in the house that he’s never noticed before, making the house seem far too big.
The silent mornings have been free of Dan’s blender churning out healthy kale-filled protein smoothies. The afternoons are quieter too, and he’s missed hearing the distant sounds of Dan’s laughter from across the house, a sure sign that he’s FaceTiming someone from his team, setting up last-minute tour details. And Phil’s had to fill the evenings with his own dinner decisions, his own choice of tv shows. He’s had to reach out and invite friends around himself.
It’s not been horrible though, being alone. He’s managed. He’s an introvert and has enjoyed the wide stretches of alone time. He’s gotten a lot of work done without having Dan there as a potential distraction. He’s even picked up some of his old hobbies again, like when he decided to reread some of his favourite Stephen King novels in October. And he’s spent lots of time with his brother, and with Bryony and PJ.
Still, there’s been little things he has missed:
Dan fondly huffing at him from his office when he hops down the stairs, calling out warnings to him (“Phiii-iil, you’re gonna fucking break the stairs or your neck one of these days!”)
Making weird animal sounds to fill the silence (and hearing Dan make an even more obnoxious sound back at him from wherever he was in the house).
Their little habits and routines: Friday Fry-day, getting overly invested in their favourite shows, doing yoga together every Tuesday morning, tidying up the house every Sunday.
And perhaps most importantly, he thinks, as he looks up to seeing Dan standing there at the entrance to the lounge: being able to see Dan in-person and not behind a glitchy international FaceTime call.
“What’re you smiling about?” Dan asks, his voice fond, moving forward. Dan’s curls are damp and unruly from his shower, his shirt is slightly crooked, and his skin is pink from the too-hot water he prefers to use. He’s right there, right within touching distance, not thousands of kilometres away in the US, and Phil can’t help but smile even wider. He stands up from the sofa and steps forward to close the distance, reaches out and takes Dan’s hand, letting their fingers curl together.
“Just thinking about you. How the universe would’ve probably torn itself apart if we’d been separated for any longer,” Phil says. “I’m really glad you’re home.”
“Obviously just for the sake of the universe,” Dan says.
“Just the universe. Of course. Save the bees and all that.“
Dan rolls his eyes, but smiles so that his dimples show and squeezes Phil’s hand. Phil squeezes back, and the dimples deepen. The two of them aren’t really hand-holders, but right now, it feels perfect.
— — —
Phil thought that they would fall right back into their usual routine once Dan returned home, that Dan would slot back into his life like nothing’s changed. That’s how it works when one of them is away visiting family for a few days. Once the luggage is unpacked, things return to normal, as if they’d never been gone.
It does in many ways: too many cups of coffee, ongoing banter, having lunch far too late for it to really be considered lunch.
But Phil is surprised at how unusual it all feels. How much he’s noticing Dan, all the little details about this man in front of him, as though he’s looking at him with fresh eyes. It’s a feeling he hasn’t had since they first got together. He feels this urge to stare at Dan whenever he can, to drink in every last detail about him.
His hair has grown out slightly, the curls flopping into his eyes, the sides of his hair longer than when he’d left.
His eyes look weary from all the travel, but there’s a fire behind them that Phil’s only seen him get when he’s on a tour or working on a big project. It’s the determined energy of feeling like he’s doing something that matters.
He’s a little sunkissed too, a faint pinkness like a blush just along the bridge of his nose, perhaps from his last week of the tour in California? If he’d gotten some sun earlier in the tour, then Phil hadn’t noticed it over their FaceTime calls. He’d first noticed it today, when he’d greeted Dan in the entryway of their home, and he gets a faint thrill in his belly at the thought of pressing his lips along that pink skin later tonight.
But it’s not just the way Dan looks that has Phil wanting to take a second look.
The thing he notices most that first day back is the sheer amount of energy Dan seems to have. He’s chattery in a way that he isn’t usually, telling Phil everything that comes into his head.
Phil’s heard some of these anecdotes before, but not all of them. He’s heard about all the decorations on the tour bus Christmas tree, and the subscriber whose gift almost made Dan cry, and the tour crew's ongoing prank war, and the time that Josh the sound guy almost got them in trouble with the guard at the Canadian border.
But there’s still loads to catch up on. Dan has been on the road and touring, after all, and he’s not always had cell service. Even when he did, he was busy with show stuff or touring the cities he visited with his tour crew. Besides, Phil didn’t want to be annoying partner back home who always needed to be reassured as to his whereabouts.
(Even so, a deep, dark part of Phil’s brain can’t help but feel that he missed out.)
This show has been Dan’s solo project from the start, a way for him to spread his wings and do his own thing. And Phil’s been more than happy for Dan to do his own brilliant show by himself. But on his loneliest nights, with Dan gone thousands of kilometres away, Phil has to admit that living vicariously through Dan’s photos and texts has made him feel a bit of a hollow pit in his stomach. His favourite thing in the world is having adventures with Dan, and he’s not getting to do that this time.
He was afraid that jealous feeling would intensify when Dan came back and turn into some horrible jealousy. But it hasn’t, for which he’s extremely thankful. Maybe, he thinks, listening to Dan rhapsodize about a life-changing food cart he’d eaten dinner from, it wasn’t the travel and adventure he missed so much as Dan himself.
— — —
“I thought I’d fucking crash when I got back,” Dan says, on his third lap around the house – checking on the plants and the garden outside, peeking inside all of their cupboards, digging through the box of Christmas decorations that Phil had pulled from storage earlier in the week. “But I’m not. I feel like I can’t sit down.”
“You’re used to being busy,” Phil says, watching him.
“I guess,” Dan says. “I saw you put a new cactus in your office. I like it.”
“Bryony and I went to the garden centre together. I thought it was cute,” Phil says. “It’s growing a little flower, did you see?”
Dan nods. “That must mean it’s happy.” He walks over to the window and gazes out. “And I’ve been trying to look out for Carl, but no luck yet.”
Phil smiles and stands up off the sofa to look out at their back garden too. Carl is the pigeon he’s been forming a bond with over the past month, this new home’s version of Steve and Scraggy. Carl is not a beautiful bird by any means: he’s on the small side for pigeons, and his feathers are a mottled grey. Still, Phil had taken an immediate liking to him and has taken to throwing out some seed for him every afternoon.
“Maybe he’s shy around new people. He doesn’t know you yet. He loves me, though.”
“That’s ‘cause you feed him. Once I start putting out seed, he’s gonna love me just as much as Steve did.”
They stand quietly for a while, looking at the currently pigeon-less back garden. They’ve got plans for improving their garden next year, but it looks rather unimpressive right now. The plants are mostly dormant, the trees and bushes bare, and the flowers gone, flooded under the amount of rain London’s received in the past week.
“I guess we both missed out on a few months of each other’s life,” Dan says, his voice quieter. “That’s weird, isn’t it? Coming back and realizing we don’t know absolutely everything going on in each other’s lives like we usually do?”
“I suppose,” Phil says. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”
“I think it hit me when I saw your new cactus, that you were busy having adventures too while I was gone.” He bites his lip and looks over. “That’s a weird feeling.”
Phil shrugs. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I mean, we’re both doing what we want. What we need. You need to be out on your tour, and I wanted to let you do that for yourself. And I have stuff I need to do at home. Even if that’s just buying a new houseplant and spending time with Bry.”
“I wish we could… I dunno, frickin’ split ourselves in two, so we could be in both places at once and not miss out on anything.”
Phil smiles into his mug of coffee. “Resorting to cloning? This is why people think we’re clingy.”
“Fuck,” Dan says, laughing. “We’re the worst.”
“C’mon,” Phil says. “If we’re talking about things I did while you were away, I want to show you something else.” He reaches out and takes Dan’s hand, just because it’s there, and leads him over to their front door. He flips on the lightswitch next to the door and heads outside.
“Look! I put up lights,” he says, gesturing to the front pillars, where he spent last weekend stapling strands of lights. “I mean, it’s nothing fancy. I picked the rainbow ones ‘cause they seemed gayer, and white lights are boring.” He turns and gestures to the front door. “I guess you probably saw it earlier when you first came in, but I also got a wreath, a fresh one ‘cause I know you like the scent of pine. Now you can smell our door every time you come home.”
Dan is giving him such a fond look, and he is soon pulling Phil into a tight hug. Phil feels warm, even though he doesn’t have a coat on.
“I love it,” Dan says. “See, I leave for two months and suddenly, you’re a frickin’ Property Brother, or whatever.”
“I don’t think the Property Brothers decorate houses for Christmas,” Phil says into Dan’s shoulder.
“See, you’re even better than them, then,” Dan says, pulling away. “It looks amazing, Phil.”
“Thanks,” Phil says. “I figured they’d make our home look festive, since we’re hosting Christmas this year. I always begged my parents growing up to put lights on our house, but they said no, that it was too much work.”
“I know they’ll be impressed,” Dan says. He tucks into Phil’s side for warmth, and they stand there, gazing out over their street, their breath fogging up the freezing air around them. Phil can see that the nice older couple across the street have recently put up pine garlands on their balcony.
“We should have a date night,” Phil says absently, because it’s Dan and he can say anything to him without fear of judgment. “Sometime before my parents get here. I’ve missed you. I want to just hang out with you.”
“You’re cute,” Dan says, his cheeks turning slightly pinker. He gives Phil a toothy smile, and Phil’s heart beats a little faster. “I missed you a lot too, you know. And I’d love to go on a date with you, you sap.”
“Great,” Phil says. “When?”
Dan considers. “How about tonight?”
“What?” Phil says, surprised. “I don’t want you to overdo your first day back—“
“Not like an official night out, I don’t think,” Dan clarifies quickly. “I mean, I don’t feel up to a movie night or venturing out into the city or anything. But we could have dinner and go for a walk once it gets dark tonight and look at the lights around the neighbourhood? I think I want to embrace being back in London.”
“That sounds perfect,” Phil says, and shivers, realizing now that he’s just in his socks. “But for now, I think we should go back in before our balls freeze off and we have to spend our date night in A&E.”
— — —
“Are you tired?” Phil asks mildly. “You’ve been active today.” It’s dark now, and they’ve dressed more practically for being outside: bundled up in their winter coats, scarves tucked under their chins and hats pulled down around their ears. It’s thankfully not raining – the perfect weather to go for an evening walk around their neighbourhood.
“I’m a little tired,” Dan says. “But it’s nice to be back. And I’m used to doing stuff every day. My body is used to moving.”
“Movement is good for you,” Phil says. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard doctors say.”
Dan elbows him. “Lazy.” They walk on for a bit. Their neighbourhood is quiet, full of older couples and families with fancy rich people jobs, the kind of people who love to decorate up their houses for the holidays. Phil is particularly taken by the house that’s managed to put a pair of light-up reindeer on their roof.
“We could do that on our house,” he says. “It would look cool, I bet.”
Dan lets out a loud laugh. “If you can find someone who’s not us to put a frickin’ reindeer on our roof, then be my guest. You did a great job on the front entryway, bub, but there’s no way I’m letting you get on the roof.”
“Maybe the kilted tree men now offer reindeer installation,” Phil says. “You know, buy one tree, get one rooftop installation free.”
Dan raises an eyebrow. “I dunno, seems like the start of a porno, making a guy with a kilt get up on a ladder. I’m into it.”
Phil grins. “See, I saved the tree delivery for your return for a reason. Danny loves the kilt men.”
“That’s you who’s obsessed with them, rat,” Dan says, which is entirely true. Phil had stuttered and blushed his way through his interaction with the hot kilted man who delivered their tree last year, and Dan’s never going to let him live it down. Nevertheless, they’re getting a tree from the company again this year, and Phil’s secretly hoping for the same hot guy.
They walk a few more blocks, pointing out nicely decorated houses to one another. Now that they’re walking, the night doesn’t seem so cold anymore.
“I feel like I’ve been scattered today,” Dan muses as they turn down another street. “Just like, forcing myself to find things to keep me busy. Is that bad?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it,” Phil says. “I was expecting more like, Pajama Week part three.”
“I know,” Dan says. “And it sounds so nice, it really does. I just feel like… like I have a fuckton to do. Like, my brain’s telling me that the tour’s not over, and I can’t rest properly until it is.”
Phil raises an eyebrow. “You know you’ve got like a month at home before your next tour date. You’re going to wear yourself out with that attitude, and then your first Australia show will just be you napping on stage for three hours.”
“Giving the people what they want,” Dan intones in his stage-voice, and sighs. “God. I know. And I’ve been trying to tell myself that I need to take this month to rest, but my asshole of a brain won’t listen.” He shakes his head and huddles into his scarf, looking contemplative, and Phil waits. “It’s nice being home, you know. Really nice. But I’ve also realized that there’s a lot to miss out on, not being at home with you. And I suppose that maybe, I’m worried I’m gonna miss you even more once I’m away again.” His eyes glimmer in the holiday lights, as he glances over at Phil, looking worried.
Phil’s heart hurts at the words. “Was it hard?” he asks quietly. “Being away? I mean, I feel like you were having a good time most of the time. And I didn’t want to push you into talking about feeling sad, you know, if you didn’t feel sad.”
Dan breathes out, his breath foggy even through his scarf. “Yeah. It was fucking hard sometimes. I mean, I loved it, you know that. I love touring and being on the road. It’s the best, and I’m so lucky to be able to do this. But…” He stuffs his hands into his pockets, his shoulders tensed. “I dunno. It’s also fucking hard living on a bus, you know that. And I think that maybe it was just easier to focus on all of the fun and exciting bits when I called and texted you. It’s easier to text you a picture of something funny than to say I’m feeling really fucking homesick, than having to have a hushed phone conversation at the back of the tour bus with you, while not wanting the crew to listen in. You know how it is on a tour bus.”
“Dan,” Phil says sadly. “You should’ve said.”
He glances over. “There were some hard days. The days I didn’t perform and didn’t have anything to do but stare out the window at fucking… I dunno, cornfields or some bullshit. It made me miss you and being home a lot. I didn’t tell you just how much, ‘cause I didn’t want you to think I was a sad, clingy dumbass.”
“If you’re a sad, clingy dumbass, then so am I,” Phil says defiantly. “Because I was missing you a ton.”
“Were you okay?” Dan says, his voice softening. “I mean, being home alone?”
Phil shrugs. “For the most part. I had Bryony and my brother to annoy into spending time with me. I may have guilt-tripped them by sending extra-sad texts a few times.”
Dan smiles, though he looks hesitant. “‘For the most part?’” he repeats.
“Yeah,” Phil says. “Sometimes I felt pretty lonely. I guess that maybe I just haven’t had much practice living alone. I’ve never really had to do it before.” He glances over. “My first Manchester flat doesn’t count, and you know it.
“What, my ‘laundry visits’ weren’t subtle?”
“Not particularly,” Phil says, feeling warm at the memory of a much younger Dan showing up on his doorstep just because he could, take-away in hand, hair straightened within an inch of its life. “But I’ve figured out that maybe I’m just not good at living alone. I dunno if it’s my personality or what. I guess I just like having someone else around to talk to and spend time with.”
“God, Phil. I feel like I should have asked more,” Dan says. “Now I feel like I was being too self-centered everytime we talked.”
Phil shakes his head adamantly. “No, I don’t want you feeling bad. I’ve loved hearing all about your adventures. And I definitely don’t want you to feel bad for leaving me home when you go to Australia. I’m a fully capable adult, I can handle being alone.” He pauses. “I just missed you, is all. I kinda like you, you know.”
Dan leans in and bumps Phil’s shoulder. “I missed you too. Even though I’ve been around all of my crew, touring isn’t the same without you. It’s been really different.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The crew are a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t trade them, but… they’re not you. They don’t know all of the little ways to get me out of my head when I’m feeling like shit. And they don’t know how to play all of our dumb travel games.”
Phil gives him a small smile. “You mean, you didn’t want to teach them The Story Game or Super Advanced I-Spy?”
“Bub, I don’t even understand half of your Super Advanced I-Spy rules.”
Phil reaches over and takes Dan’s hand. It’s an icy cold touch because neither of them are wearing gloves: Dan refuses because he thinks they’re ugly, and Phil always forgets. “What if we agree that we’ll both be more honest once you’re gone again?” he says. “That we won’t be too stubborn, or… I dunno, self-sacrificing, to tell each other that we’re feeling sad and lonely?”
“Deal,” Dan says, and squeezes Phil’s hand. They don’t let go for the rest of their walk.
— — —
Dan finally crashes around 9 that night, while they’re catching up on Bake-Off. It’s super early for Dan to be falling asleep, and Phil eventually takes pity on him, shaking him awake.
“I don’t want you to miss anything,” he says softly. “I know you’d be upset if you slept through the Showstopper round.”
Dan blinks sleepily up at him. “ ‘m tired.”
“I know,” Phil says. “You’ve had a long day.”
“I’m sorry.” He stretches and sits up. “I wanted to fuck tonight, ‘cause I’m back now, and we just had a mini date night, and I spent pretty much all of yesterday daydreaming about our reunion, but…” he trails off. “I feel like I’d just fall asleep three seconds in, and that’s not sexy at all.”
“We have loads of time for that,” Phil whispers. “Tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever you feel up to it. Honest. I don’t mind one bit.”
“I love you,” Dan says, pressing a lingering kiss to Phil’s lips. “And I missed you, a lot.”
Phil’s not exactly tired right now, but being away from Dan feels wrong, so he follows him upstairs to their room. They brush their teeth next to each other, catching each other’s eye in the mirror and trying to make each other laugh through their toothpaste foam. It’s completely unsexy and domestic and cheesy, and Phil feels his heart ache with love for this curly haired rat. He’s home.
Once they’ve crawled into bed, Dan’s out within a few minutes, something that only happens at the end of a long journey like this one. Sleep doesn’t usually come easy to Dan, and Phil is glad he’s getting some rest.
With their lamps out, Phil’s elected to settle in bed next to Dan and play Pokémon on his Switch for a while. He dims the light display, but somehow, he doesn’t think that the brightness will affect Dan, who has begun to snore softly. The noise is soft, even, and comforting. Phil’s been growing accustomed to a quiet bedroom, but Dan’s breathing is more familiar and soothing than the silence ever was.
Phil keeps on playing his game until his eyes can’t focus anymore and his Switch is complaining that it’s almost out of battery. He’s forgotten his charger downstairs but doesn’t want to get out of the warm bed to go and get it, so he turns off his game and sets it on his bedside table. Before he takes off his glasses, he can’t help but sneak one last look down at Dan’s sleeping face, shadowy but still visible from the glow of the streetlamp outside.
His hair is frizzy and unruly; he’d been too lazy to dig through his suitcase to find his frizz-taming curl spray this morning. The messiness of his hair makes Phil desperate to reach out and touch, but he doesn’t want to risk waking Dan, so he refrains.
Dan’s wearing a shirt to sleep, which is unusual for him. He usually runs warm and is more comfortable sleeping shirtless, even in the winter. But he’s spent all of today huddling under a blanket, whinging about England being cold compared to his last tour stops in California and Arizona, so it makes sense that he’s kept a shirt on to sleep.
Most unusually, he’s curled up tightly into a ball, his limbs tucked carefully into his body, keeping strictly to his side of the bed. He looks like a very large cat, Phil thinks fondly.
Dan has always been kind of a bed hog, which is equal parts endearing and annoying. He tends to starfish out and invade Phil’s personal space. It’s not so great when Phil wakes up almost pushed out of bed by Dan’s giraffe limbs, but it’s more than worth it when Dan gravitates towards him for sleepy cuddles.
But tonight, Dan is sticking to his own side of the bed. And it clicks for Phil as he watches him: Dan’s subconsciously still used to sleeping in the tour bus. Phil knows all too well the feeling of having to squish your too-lanky body into a tiny single bed not meant for giants like them. Dan’s clearly not used to being back in his own bed yet. He will be soon enough; Phil will be surprised if Dan hasn’t gravitated over to him by morning.
He settles back into bed, readjusting the blankets to make sure that Dan is warm enough. He scoots forward, facing Dan, not wanting to tear his eyes away. and Dan rolls over slightly in his sleep again, his knee touching Phil’s just slightly, the point of contact warm and real. Feeling so incredibly fond, Phil closes his eyes, letting Dan’s breathing lull him into his own dreams.
Dan’s back home.