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Dan couldn’t sleep.
This wasn’t particularly unusual, some sleepless nights just tend to come with the internet famous existential crisis, but this time it felt different. Actually it was different, because this time the internal turmoil that kept his mind churning hours into the night wasn’t about him, it was about Phil.
Phil, who is his light in the world, who Dan had now wrapped securely in his arms and had been staring at the back of his ebony head the whole night, just in case he’d vanish, leaving him alone.
He had just found out Phil’s deepest, darkest secret. He had uncovered something he almost wishes he hadn’t. So that he could maybe continue living that bubble where the world couldn’t get to their relationship and everything was back to normal just for a little longer. Back when Dan had all he ever wanted. When everything was perfect.
But Dan’s precious bubble had exploded in his face and now his mind is racing at hundred miles per hour yet feeling strangely blank at the same time. There were too many thoughts swirling around his mind that were threatening to turn into a black hole and suck him in. A white hot urgency burned in his brain to get up and do something. To go take a walk, clear his head, punch a wall, something.
However getting up and doing something would mean he’d have to let go of Phil, and he couldn’t. Not yet. He felt like if he let go he’d just… disappear. So he stayed, curled around Phil, like a shield trying to protect him from the demons that plagued his past. The demons that he’d just uncovered.
The scene just kept replaying in his head, every detail of it. He hears the smash. He senses the fear. And worst of all, he sees the flinch that he caused.
Dan presses his face into the back of Phil’s neck at the base of his hairline and takes a deep breath, trying to calm down.
This was the flinch that brought it all crashing down, that ruined everything. But Dan realized now that he never had ‘everything’ in the first place. He had been living in a fantasy world of this perfect relationship with the man he’d been in love with for years. His dreams had finally come true and he let that blind him from what was happening right in front of him. Making him miss all the red flags that he should have noticed, but didn’t.
Like Phil becoming increasingly withdrawn at times. Obviously having setbacks from being in a relationship again, because the last one he’d been in was so terrible, idiot.
Or waking up alone in bed and finding Phil in the kitchen, sipping coffee. Dan would ask how long he’d been up. All he ever got back was a tired, “Didn’t sleep well.” Always followed by a fake smile that would distract Dan from the bags under his eyes. He was obviously having nightmares, you dumbass.
The flinching at loud noises, always apologizing for things that aren’t his fault, why didn’t you notice why didn’t you notice you fucking moron why why why
Phil never had this perfect relationship that Dan had concocted in his head. All he had gotten was someone that didn’t notice when he was in pain, didn’t notice when he was struggling, didn’t notice when he needed someone, didn’t notice when he was fucking sad.
Dan suddenly realized that tears were streaming down his face and that he was holding Phil so tightly that he was beginning to stir in his grip.
“Dan…? What-”
A loud sob ripped itself from Dan’s throat. “I’m so sorry! It was my fault, I never noticed-” Dan clutched Phil sobbing into the back of neck, wetting his hair and shirt with tears. “I’m so so so so so sorry-”
Phil, now extremely confused and extremely worried, struggled under Dan’s death grip attempting to break free. “Dan- you need to-” Phil struggled a moment longer and succeeded in prying himself away. “-calm down!”
Phil forced them both to sit up and he turned the lamp next to the bed on. Dan buried his face in his hands, repeating the apologies, his shoulders trembling from the sobs.
Phil wrapped his arms around him and Dan clinged to him desperately, sobbing into his shoulder. “Phil, please! Please, forgive me-” Phil gently hushed him and began stroking his hair, rocking back and forth.
Dan just kept his face pressed in his shoulder and inhaled the scent of Phil, but unable to stop thinking, you don’t deserve this. Dan pulled away from the embrace and wiped his eyes, sniffing to keep from crying again.
“Dan, what’s wrong?” Phil was looking at him with concern filling the depths of his beautiful eyes that made Dan’s insides twist. How could you not have appreciated him more, why did you take him for granted. “Please, tell me.”
“It’s just that…” Dan attempted swallowed the lump crawling up his throat. He tried to continue, but his voice broke and his throat seized up again. Phil then reached out and grabbed his hand supportively, holding it tightly. Dan knew this was meant to comfort him, but it only made him feel worse as he looked down at their hands. You should be the one comforting him, not the other way around.
“I don’t deserve you,” Dan managed to choke out, unsuccessfully trying to stop the tears that are welling up in his eyes to stop falling. Phil opened his mouth to argue, but Dan cut him off, “Please, just let me finish.”
Phil looked reluctant, but nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
“This whole time you’ve been struggling with this- I mean… your past, and I never noticed that anything was wrong.”
“Dan, that’s not your fault-”
“Don’t,” Dan interrupted sharply, wiping away his tears. “Don’t you dare make excuses for me. Phil, I may have only been your boyfriend for a few months now, but I’ve been your best friend for way longer. And I never even took a second glance at all the things that could have told me that something was wrong. Whenever you had those days where you were sad and quiet, I gave you space, focusing more on what I was doing, instead of asking you what was wrong. When you started getting bags under eyes and stopped sleeping well, I didn’t even take notice! I didn’t do anything about it!
“I haven’t been there for you when you needed me. It took you having a fucking flashback and breaking down in the kitchen for me to notice that anything was wrong! I’ve been the terrible boyfriend and honestly the worst best friend in the world and I am so sorry. I know there’s no excuse for any of this, and I hate myself for not being the best friend that you deserve.”
Dan looked down at their hands that are still intertwined, and smiled sadly. “And look, you’re the one that’s comforting me when I should be the one that’s taking care of you.” He looked up at Phil, who had tear tracks running down his pale face.
Another wave of remorse hit Dan and he hung his head. “And now I made you cry…”
“Hey, look at me,” Phil said softly and lifted Dan’s head. “You’re an amazing best friend, okay? Dan, you give me something everyday that I’ve never had before from any other person, true love. You taught me what it means to really love someone and to be loved by someone. Before I met you I was convinced that love didn’t exist. I thought it was something that people made up in order to pretend to be happy. I only thing I had ever learned from love it beats you down and drains the life out of you.” Phil’s voice broke on the last sentence. “I’m sorry,” he said, tears slipping down his cheeks. “It’s still is hard to talk about.”
He smiled brokenly at Dan, giving him a heartbreakingly apologetic look. Dan wanted to just wanted to grab his shoulders and yell at him that it’s not your fault, please stop apologizing, please. But Dan’s body felt like cement and his throat was filled with rocks, so he just held Phil’s hand tighter and listened.
“Dan, just because you didn’t know about him or what I’d been through, doesn’t mean that you didn’t help me. You’ve been there for me in ways you could never imagine.” Phil reached and brushed some of Dan’s fringe from his eyes and wiped away a tear that had started to trail down his cheek. “You want to know why I never told you?”
Dan has to swallow all the rocks and break the cement coating his bones before he forces a nod. Phil took a steadying breath before continuing. “I never told you because I was afraid that you would think it was too much to deal with and leave.”
“No, Phil, I wouldn’t have-”
“Well, now I know that.” Phil flashed him a bittersweet smile. “That’s what happened with the boyfriend that I had about a month before we had officially met. He left me because when I told him that I had been in an abusive relationship, he said it was ‘it was too much to deal with’,” Phil used his free hand to make air quotes.
“That’s why I never told you, and I’m sorry that you had to learn about it in such a bad way”
Dan looked at him in shock and the words that were previously jammed in his throat escaped. “Jesus Christ. Phil, please never apologize for having a flashback or anything like that. Ever. Understand?”
Phil nodded sheepishly and then gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Dan. And for the record you’re not a terrible boyfriend. I’ve had terrible boyfriends, so I would know.”
Dan slightly winced at Phil attempt at a joke to lighten the mood. “Phil, maybe it would be best to not joke about the abusive relationship thing.”
Phil ducked his head, slightly red. “Oh, yeah. That's probably good advice.”
Dan gave him a loving smile and they both sat there staring into eachothers eyes, relief flooding Dan’s veins that the air between them was clear and that they’d talked this out. He’d been wrong before, their situation may not be the ideal, but Dan still had a perfect life because he had a perfect person to share it with.
Unable to take it any longer, Dan blurted out, “Can kiss you now?”
Phil smiled and wrapped his arms around Dan’s neck, pulling him closer. He leaned in and whispered, “You, Dan Howell, have permission to kiss me whenever you want.”
Needing no other invitation, Dan leaned in and captured Phil’s mouth in his own. They moved together, Dan taking over the kiss and just getting lost in it and getting lost in Phil. He pushes him down against mattress, pinning the smaller man against the soft sheets while successfully keeping their mouths together.
He only pulls away when he thinks he might pass out from lack of oxygen, and he curses his lungs for needing so much air. He kisses away from his mouth and down his neck, sucking lightly on the place he knows drive Phil crazy. Phil quivers under the touch of his mouth and whimpers when teeth scrape across the side of his neck. Hands move across Dan’s back, fingernails scraping down against the thin fabric of his shirt.
Phil gasps his name and presses his face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, shuddering when Dan finds the sweet spot on the base of his neck that shoots lightning through his veins.
Dan presses his entire body against Phil’s, trying to show him that he’s here, that he’s going to stay. He stops teasing his neck and moves his mouth close to Phil’s ear. Softly, he whispers, “You will always be enough, and your past will never be too much. I’m here. For good.”
Phil makes a relieved sob into Dan’s neck, repeatedly whispering thank you thank you thank you.
They lay there wrapped in eachothers embrace till Dan tries to not-so sneakily maneuver them into a spooning position, but Phil pushes him away. “Oh no, I am not going to be nearly squeezed death again.”
Dan makes an indignant noise. “Oh come on, that was so not on purpose!”
Phil only snorts and pushes him over onto his back. He curls up next to him and uses his chest as a pillow. “Dan, come on,” Phil whines when Dan doesn’t wrap his arm around him, in some sort of passive protest.
“Phil, you know I love being the big spoon.”
“Oh my God, fine."