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1.
They’d never really had boundaries the way other people seemed to.
They did have them - but they were more like those fabric retractable ones in queues, and Dan and Phil would dodge under or unhook them at their leisure.
Their relationship became blurry after a while, mostly like a best friendship, but through their Dan and Phil tailored filter, dense with history and devoid of personal space.
Between “platonic” kisses, sleeping pressed into each other (from hands in hair to nudging socked feet), and the beats of eye contact long enough to make their friends look away - no one was ever sure what they were.
And it was becoming a problem.
Not in an obvious, reevaluate yourselves kind of way - but in a personal crisis at 4 AM kind of way, Dan’s hand sliding under his own pyjama pants and Phil’s face floating on the edges of his vision.
People fantasized about their friends. Bros jerk off to bros, intimacy is slippery and confusing and applies to so many different kinds of relationships, after all.
His usual excuses whirred through his overactive mind, giving way to guilty pleasure as he wrapped a hand loosely around his dick and stroked.
Dan was just one of many people who had dreams and unfulfilled desires and twisted versions of relationships wandering through their subconsciousness. Reminders of soft lips pressed to his cheek just outside the corner of his mouth, choppy breath on his skin, heat pulling at his veins like guitar strings.
He wound his other hand down to press lower, eyes rolling back in his head and blanket moving rhythmically with his motions.
He opened his eyes halfway, lost in something between memory and fabrication, then yanked his hand back so hard he nearly slapped himself in the face.
Phil’s wide eyes met his from the door, half a second of hesitation and slack jaw, and then he disappeared from view.
Dan rolled his eyes skyward and gestated in his embarrassment for a long moment, wiping his palms off on his pants and breathing in dry air. He pushed back sweaty sheets and slipped out of bed, steadying himself through a bout of dizziness and wishing his irrational terror away.
He’s not 100% sure, but he thinks he’s broken a boundary.
“Phil?” He called into the darkness of his bedroom. There was no response, and he could see the even rise and fall of Phil’s shoulders, not quite slow enough to be natural. He rolled his eyes.
“I’ve heard you before, you know.” Dan’s not quite sure what possessed him to say it, but he was a little proud of the way Phil’s breath hitched.
“We live together, and we don’t have partners, it was bound to happen” he continued. Still nothing.
He exhaled, frustrated. “Fine, happy to not talk about it.”
He turned on his heel when he heard Phil speak lowly behind him - “You said my name. You were wanking off, and you said my name”.
Cold sinks down into Dan’s gut. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times before speeding down the hall, pulse throbbing all the way down his body.
They never speak of it again. Though sometimes Phil is all he can think about when he comes, and he’s stopped trying to fight it.
2.
“Ah, the best friend bubble.” Grace says as she’s walking by, pointing two fingers towards them and grinning.
Dan flashes his dimples, but his brow is furrowed. “Sorry?”
Grace falters for a second. “You know, the ‘stay away from me, me and my friends are busy being friends’ sort of vibe at public events. It’s my best and only trick,” she gestures back towards the table for three tucked into a corner, Hannah and Mamrie laughing raucously from one side.
Phil smiles genuinely at them, and Dan gestures back towards themselves, pressed together from shoulder to knee.
“We need to support each other in these times of social interaction” he says and Grace laughs.
“Don’t I know it. This conversation is already testing my limits” she jokes, but she’s backing away.
“Have fun, be safe. Use the bubble!” She sinks back into the throng, leaving Dan and Phil vaguely flustered.
“Huh. Do you think we spend too much time together?” Phil asks, squeezing Dan’s knee for half a second, conscious of the vloggers everywhere.
Dan shakes his head, “I think we spend all of our time together”.
Phil frowns. “It’s not like we don’t have other friends, it’s just. You’re. You know. My favourite one.”
“Ah yes, Phil’s just discovered the concept of a best friend!” Dan exclaims, showering him in faux applause before Phil gets a hold of one of his hands and tugs it away, unamused.
“Ha, ha. I meant, well. Who else would I want to hang out with. We’re Dan and Phil. Everyone else takes thought.” He says, tone curiously serious as he looks out over the glow lights and dancing bodies. Dan feels warmth rise in him like a tide, and his eyes are wet before he can stop them.
He remembers when no one felt that way about him, and now he has this best friend so established that no one thinks of one without the other. The internet is plastered with images of them, from fond eye contact and hugs to silly video game banter, captioned with friendship goals and other beautiful platitudes he never thought would apply to him. He wishes he could appear to 15 year old him and tell him that he would have have a best friend that would make him better every day.
He reaches for Phil’s hand just as Louise dances by on the tail end of a conga line.
“Come on lovebirds, socialize!” She calls, winking.
“In a minute” Dan shouts back, glancing at Phil and loving the way his eyes crinkle back at him.
They never do leave their bubble.
3.
“Phil dear, could you fix me a cuppa while you’re in there?” his mum calls from the living room. Phil breathes noisily out his nose.
“Fine” he replies shortly, then spills sugar all over the counter, spoons and china clattering and his patience going with them. He swears under his breath and his mum is abruptly at his side, expression open and worried more than reprimanding.
“What has got you all distracted this trip?” She asks, tugging a spotted tea towel from beside the sink.
“I’m always this rubbish at making drinks, mum, just ask Dan.”
“There’s you mentioning Dan again, are you missing your boy?” She asks, and nudges him out of the way as he splutters.
“I only mention him because he’s not here - I mean - we don’t spend much time apart? Not like we can’t without me missing him. No, wait. I do miss him, but in a friend way. Not that you were implying-”
“Philip I swear I don’t know how you talk for a living” she mutters, splashing milk into their coffees and pointedly ignoring Phil’s flushed neck.
“I just mean… Dan usually sorts out misunderstandings. I guess I have to remember how to talk without him again” Phil says sheepishly. She raises an eyebrow.
“That’s a bit codependent, don’t you think?”
“S'pose.”
“Well as long as you know that.”
Phil laughs a little and pats her shoulder warmly.
“I do. You don’t think we need to dial it back, do you? We’ve been mistaken for a couple by people that aren’t our subscribers lately, and I’ve started to realize that we’ve always been… affectionate.”
Images of their breathless first hug and late night hand holding dance through his head not for the first time that day.
“As long as you know where you stand, it shouldn’t matter how strangers interpret that standing. Everyone needs a little more affection in their lives in my opinion.” She stands on tip toe to press a kiss to Phil’s cheek, swiping a thumb over his cheekbone in parting.
Phil nods as she walks out of the room blowing on her coffee.
“Yeah. I know where we stand.”
Even he doesn’t believe it.
4.
Phil’s curled up on his side, freshly showered and shaved in his favourite pyjamas and he should be blissfully content. But he’s pushed up into one side of his bed like the other’s on fire, and his heart feels like a dull weight in his chest. He can hear Dan’s cadence of a laugh through the wall and he wishes he were braver.
He’s that kind of tired where he’s never sure if his eyes are open, head drooping into the pillow and body loose. He’s still waiting though, holding out on this silly hope left over from when he was 24 that Dan might knock on his door.
They’re so much more to each other now, but that buzzing feeling is still wedged into the back of his brain, and he feels it so acutely when he lets himself. He dreams of home alone in Manchester and 2 AM drunk at vidcon and wonders when those versions of himself will show their faces again.
“Knock knock” Dan says, and Phil starts, unaware of when he stopped listening for this very development.
Dan moves through the shafts of moonlight and kneels beside Phil, who moves uncooperative limbs to support his torso.
“What time is it,” he whispers.
“Late. Can I sleep with you?”
“Always.” Phil’s chest constricts in a warm kind of way as he lifts one corner of his comforter, watching Dan’s lanky limbs disappear under the mess of blue and green.
Dan presses in close, nudging his cold nose into Phil’s shoulder and shaking with laughter when Phil squeaks.
“Did you come from the Arctic?” Phil asks, grinning in spite of himself.
“Mmm. Only the coldest, most desolate corners of the internet” Dan replies.
Phil threads one arm around his back carefully, hyperaware of the way their thighs are pressed together. Dan’s skin is pale and constellation dotted and Phil wants so much.
“Hi” he says.
“Hello Phil.”
“Is it weird that we do this?”
“It’s weird that you keep asking me that every time.”
Phil pauses.
“Is it weird that I want to kiss you?”
It takes Dan a second to look up and Phil’s throat feels suddenly too small.
“It’s a little weird. But isn’t that sort of what you’re about?” Dan asks, and his eyes look too deep to be real.
“Being weird? Or loving you?”
They’re both breathing so hard, so close to each other that Phil thinks he’s swallowing Dan’s exhale.
Dan smiles a little. “Definitely both. Normalness leads to sadness, remember?”
Phil kisses him.
Dan’s lips part and Phil’s taking and taking from his mouth, sucking over his bottom lip and wondering over and over again why they would put up boundaries if it feels so perfect breaking them.