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“Dan? Dan?”
Dan blinked his eyes open slowly when the repetitive voice interrupting his sleep wouldn’t go away. He looked up from where he half-lay-half-sat on the sofa, his eyes dazed, to see Phil staring down at him with a smile.
“I- huh?” Dan said, once again demonstrating his impressive ability to articulate thoughts. His head felt sluggish.
“I said, do you want to get a Chinese or would you rather have pizza?”
Dan stared at Phil, uncomprehending. Phil rolled his eyes.
“For supper,” he clarified. “I’m going to order in if you want some.”
Dan sat up a bit more, rolling his head from side to side and wincing when his neck protested with a sharp crack.
“Have you even moved since I left?” Phil asked, cringing in unison at the sound.
“Um,” said Dan, rubbing his eyes and willing his brain to catch up. Phil went out? “When did you leave?”
“Around two.”
“Oh. Then no.”
Phil laughed.
“You do realize it’s almost seven, right?”
Dan groaned and dropped his head back against the sofa.
“I slept all afternoon so that I can stay up all night,” he grumbled loudly. “What is my life?” He drew out the vowels dramatically, and Phil laughed again, the way Dan knew he would.
“Your life right now is choosing pizza or Chinese so I can order.”
“I want sushi,” said Dan after a moment of thought, and Phil’s pause made him smile. He could hear the vague frustration in the silence.
“Okay,” Phil replied finally. Of course he did.
Phil wandered towards the kitchen, phone in hand, and Dan reluctantly slid off the couch. His joints popped with the sudden movement, and he made his way slowly to the kitchen, trailing behind his friend.
“Make sure you get a teriyaki roll,” he whispered loudly as he walked into the room, making Phil jump.
Phil waved a hand in Dan’s direction, and continued to speak into the phone, adding a teriyaki chicken roll to the end of his order. Dan grinned and stuck his thumbs up at him approvingly and Phil rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching.
When Phil hung up the phone he pointed at Dan.
“You owe me. I wanted pizza.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he responded. “Where’d you go today?”
Phil shrugged and looked at the table beside him.
“Just, you know, out.”
Dan crooked an eyebrow at him.
“Out where?”
Phil laughed and shrugged again.
“Out! I went out. I was bored so I took the underground to Piccadilly and got a coffee and walked around and watched all the tourists. Who cares? You didn’t even notice I was gone,” he said, his voice still pleasant.
Dan made a face.
“You went people watching at Piccadilly? Real, live people? By yourself?”
Phil nodded.
“You were being terrible company, what was I supposed to do?”
“You always go out and leave me alone these days, it’s so boring.”
Dan knew he was verging on whining, and urged himself to stop. He didn’t really care anyway.
They were both silent for a brief moment before Phil looked back up at Dan with a smile.
“Netflix?”
Dan nodded decisively, not sure why it suddenly felt awkward, but determined to banish the feeling.
“Netflix.”
They spent the next thirty minutes arguing over what to watch (Dan won, like he usually did. Phil was just so damn acquiescent when it came to… well, Dan) and by the time they were turning on Free!, the doorbell rang. Phil got up and stretched lazily before heading to the front door.
When he returned, bearing two plastic bags full of Styrofoam containers, Dan reached for his wallet.
“How much was it?”
Phil shrugged and placed the bags on the table.
“Fetch some plates and we’ll call it even.”
Dan looked at his friend sceptically.
“How much?” he repeated, but Phil shook his head obstinately. “Phil,” Dan said impatiently.
“Daniel.”
Phil stared at him pleasantly, eyebrows raised. Finally Dan rolled his eyes.
“I’ll pay next time,” he said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.
“Suit yourself,” said Phil cheerfully.
Dan frowned as he carried two plates back into the living room, not sure what to make of Phil’s impromptu generosity. He was always kind, but seeing as they usually shared about 99% of their meals, they had formed a rhythm of payment. And it didn’t involve Phil footing the entire bill himself. But then he was in the lounge and there was sushi and animé and it didn’t really matter anyway.
When they had devoured most of the food on the table, and Netflix was asking whether they were still watching and were not, in fact, dead, Phil stood up.
“Right, well, I’m heading to bed.”
Dan blinked up at him, his hand frozen in the air with the remote, about to press “next episode.”
“You’re going to bed,” he repeated blankly, and Phil nodded.
“Goodnight.”
Dan made a disbelieving face at him.
“When was the last time you went to bed before eleven?”
Phil just laughed.
“Far too long ago. I’m exhausted. I’ll clean up and then head off.”
“I can clean up,” Dan said quickly, still suspicious but not wanting Phil to clean up for him yet again.
Phil smiled.
“Okay. Goodnight, Dan.”
“Goodnight.”
Dan watched Phil walk towards his bedroom, one eyebrow raised. He caught himself and shook his head. Why did it matter what time Phil went to bed?
It was just that the apartment was quiet now, and Dan didn’t feel like watching animé by himself. He sat for another episode, trying to focus, before giving up and heading to his room with his laptop. It’s not quite as funny to laugh at something by yourself.
***
Phil could hear Dan moving around the apartment restlessly. It was nearing midnight now, and he knew the boy was bored. Phil looked down at the sheathes of paper strewn across his bed and sighed. He was tempted to go out into the hallway, interact with Dan, just so he could get his friend’s face firmly implanted in his mind. But that was silly, because he knew Dan’s face as well as he knew anyone in his family’s.
The problem wasn’t that he didn’t know Dan’s face well enough. The problem was that he was trying to draw it, and that was proving to be a much more difficult task than he had originally anticipated.
“Draw something underrated. Something so commonplace in your life that you don’t even notice its intricacies until you start to look for them. Draw something that inspires you to look for the beauty in every day life.”
The words of his art teacher had sparked his interest, but carrying out her instructions was starting to seem near impossible. He knew his artistic skills were far from impressive, but he had set himself a goal at the beginning of the summer. A goal to explore something new, and master it to the best of his abilities, no matter how long it took. Which was shaping up to be longer than he’d expected, as he was still taking art classes four months later. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try his hardest to master this fucking sketch. Phil smiled wryly to himself at the expletive. Even in his head it sounded wrong, but sometimes there was nothing else to say.
Phil turned his attention back to the paper under his fingers. It was the eyes, he decided. Dan’s eyes. He had drawn the rest of the face reasonably well; it was passable at least. But the eyes looked lifeless and boring, which were the last words he would ever use to describe his flatmate.
A knock on the bedroom door set his heart racing, and he was off the bed and gathering up the papers in a panic before he realized what he was doing.
Rationally, he knew there was no reason to worry about his new hobby. Sure, it might look a little strange to Dan were he to see, but as soon as Phil explained the assignment his friend would understand. Make fun of him, sure, but understand.
And yet… something that inspires you to look for the beauty in every day life.
Did he really want to admit that he found his best friend beautiful?
He hadn’t set about to draw Dan, hadn’t planned it. But as he had looked around the flat the night after the assignment was given, trying to find something commonplace yet intricate, he realized there was nothing that interested him more than Dan. Nothing worth drawing, at least. He was pretty certain his art teacher would be less than impressed if he showed up with sketches of comic books or his laptop.
And, according to the millions of fans he had, Dan was beautiful. Judging by the comments on every one of Dan’s videos, and a worrying majority of Phil’s, Dan had several hundred thousand prospective wives, and quite a few possible husbands too.
Of course Dan would never see it that way. "They’re so silly," he would laugh, shaking his head. "They’re blinded by my jokes and sarcasm. It’s just regular, boring old me behind it all."
Phil never knew how to respond to Dan when he was talking like that.
Draw something underrated.
Dan was underrated in his own mind. Maybe this sketch, this bloody, impossible sketch, would show him otherwise.
“Phil?”
Dan’s voice came softly through the door, and Phil stopped where he was, putting the papers back neatly on his bed in an attempt to calm himself down.
“Yeah?”
“Are you awake?”
Phil rolled his eyes.
“No.”
There was a pause.
“Oh. Well I was just wondering if you’ve heard about the water on Mars?”
Phil raised one eyebrow. This was clearly a pressing matter for midnight on a Tuesday.
“Uh, yeah. I heard about that. Amazing.”
“Yeah,” said Dan, his voice still quiet. “I thought that was pretty cool.”
“It is,” said Phil, moving to the door now and opening it a crack to peer out into the hallway. Dan jumped at his sudden appearance, inches away from his own face, and stepped back from the door. “Really cool,” continued Phil, smiling, “but couldn’t it have waited until morning?”
Dan grinned back and waved his hand dismissively. Clearly he was not concerned about disturbing Phil. He must be really bored.
“Yeah, probably, but I saw the light, and I just thought…”
“You’re bored,” finished Phil, and Dan made a face.
“So fucking bored. Come play Mario Kart with me, I’m in the mood to win something.”
Phil nearly gave in, but something about the shadows in the hallway made Dan’s eyes gleam at him with an almost impish light, and his hands itched to try and translate it onto paper.
Which was odd, he reflected, since until less than a minute ago he had been regarding this assignment as a bit of a chore.
“Nah,” he shook his head. “I’m tired.”
Dan frowned, almost pouted.
“You said that two hours ago and you’re still up.”
“Yeah well, I got busy,” Phil said vaguely, and Dan’s fact lit up with interest.
“Busy with what?”
“Stuff.”
Dan narrowed his eyes, and Phil kept his face blank.
“You’re being weirder than usual,” said Dan finally, and Phil tried not to squirm.
“I’m not!”
“You are,” Dan said, nodding emphatically and stabbing a finger towards Phil. “First you went out 'people watching' all day, by yourself, and then you went ‘to bed’ before eleven, and got busy with ‘stuff’.” Dan’s air quotation marks were hardly needed, what with the suspicion so heavily obvious in his voice, but Phil just laughed.
“You’re being paranoid. Leave me alone you nerd.”
“Fine,” Dan said, rolling his eyes. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Phil said pleasantly, closing his door firmly in his friend’s face. Dan’s affronted gasp made him laugh, but he didn’t move to open the door again.
He knew Dan was right, and he was being far too obvious about hiding something, a fact which was sure to turn the situation into something far bigger than it really was. But it was only because he didn’t want Dan to see anything until he was absolutely satisfied with the results.
Of course that was why. He wasn’t embarrassed about his project. He just didn’t want it to be seen until it was perfect.
He could still hear Dan pacing around somewhere, but he ignored it and went back to sketching. From an artistic point of view, Dan had a lovely face to draw. The contrast between his skin and hair, between his lips and eyes, was striking, and the dimple in his cheek added character. This was why Phil wanted to draw him, to capture his face as art, and to prove to his friend that he was wrong about himself. Not because of the way Dan’s mouth quirked up when Phil said something he found funny. Or the way his eyes grew even brighter when he was talking about something he loved.
It was purely for art.
Phil kept drawing until half-past three in the morning, when he finally felt almost satisfied with the direction this particular sketch was going. He fell asleep then, slouched against his pillow, with half-finished drawings of his best friend strewn about him.
***
Dan was surprised when he was up before Phil the next morning. He made himself a bowl of cereal, taking a mental note to pick up some more, because it was somehow nearly gone, and turned on the coffee maker.
He lazed around the flat until almost noon, when he finally heard Phil begin to move around.
“Jesus Christ, Phil, you slept late,” he said when Phil’s bedroom door opened.
Phil made an incoherent noise in response and headed straight to the kitchen.
Dan rolled his eyes, knowing Phil needed coffee before he was would be even slightly cognisant of his surroundings. Phil appeared in the lounge a few minutes later, eyes blinking sleepily behind his glasses, hands tightly grasping a giant mug.
Dan watched him sink down into the armchair, and shook his head.
“I thought you were so tired you needed to go to bed early.”
“I was,” Phil said, his voice still barely awake.
“Mhm,” Dan said, “sure.”
Phil put his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
“I think I’m hung-over.”
Dan laughed.
“Were you drunk?”
Phil shook his head, his eyes still closed.
“I feel like shit.”
“What a shame,” Dan said sarcastically. Phil frowned.
“You’re mean.”
Dan smiled and shook his head.
“You’re an idiot.”
Phil’s only response was to take a large gulp of his coffee, wincing slightly as the hot liquid slid down his throat.
They were both quiet for a few minutes. Dan watched Phil out of the corner of his eye. He looked exhausted. Dan wondered what the hell he had been doing all night. Phil was usually much more of a morning person than this. Maybe there was something wrong. Dan thought back to all of Phil’s meetings and outings and mysteriously unexplained absences over the past few months (‘people watching,’ my arse), and suddenly wondered if there was perhaps an overarching reason for them. Maybe something was wrong with Phil.
“Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly nervous. Phil opened his eyes and looked at Dan.
“I just told you, I feel like shit.”
Dan shook his head, licking his lips anxiously. Phil was avoiding the question.
“No but are you okay?” he repeated, and his mouth felt dry.
Phil was in trouble. Or sick. Or- or maybe sick of Dan.
Phil was regarding him with a puzzled expression.
“I’m okay,” he said slowly, taking in Dan’s face. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Dan was chewing the inside of his lip and didn’t answer, and Phil moved from the chair to the sofa beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
Dan tried to imagine Phil breaking the news of an illness, or maybe searching for a new flat, a flat by himself. It would make sense, then, why Phil kept leaving and wouldn’t tell Dan why, or where he went.
The thought made him feel ill.
“Dan. What’s wrong?” Phil’s voice was louder now, and Dan’s eyes snapped towards him. He looked worried. Dan swallowed, trying to wet his mouth.
“Is there something going on with you?” he asked finally. Phil frowned.
“No,” he said, drawing the word out slowly. “Honestly, I’m fine. Why do you keep-”
“You’re not sick?” Dan blurted out, interrupting him. Phil’s frowned deepened, and he shook his head.
“I’m not sick. I’m not even hung-over actually. I just didn’t get enough sleep. What’s going on?”
“Are you leaving?”
Dan told himself it wouldn’t matter, it would still be fine, they’d still be friends, and Dan would be okay.
“Leaving where? Dan what on earth are you on about?”
Phil’s obvious confusion calmed Dan down slightly, but he still had the niggling feeling that something wasn’t right.
“Leaving here, leaving the flat?”
“Not right now. Maybe later?”
Dan huffed in frustration.
“I mean for good. Are you moving out?”
Phil’s eyes widened, and the look of surprise on his face was so genuine that Dan almost laughed.
“Do you want me to move out?” Phil asked slowly.
“Of course not,” Dan answered quickly, shaking his head.
“Well then,” his friend responded, shrugging slightly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dan’s relief was so intense that he sank back against the back of the sofa.
“Okay,” he said after a pause.
Phil was still looking at him, a bemused expression on his face.
“What was that about?” he asked, and Dan shrugged, trying to belie the effect the conversation had had on him.
“You’re just acting so different. I thought something was wrong.”
Phil smiled. “Nothing is wrong. I told you last night, you’re being paranoid. There’s nothing going on. Stop worrying.”
Dan huffed out a laugh.
“I know. Sorry.”
Phil laughed too, looking relieved.
“It’s okay you spoon. Just try to chill for more than five minutes, alright?”
Dan nodded, rolling his eyes at himself and smiling back.
He was making light of it. He wasn’t going to betray the way his heart was still pounding, and his hands felt shaky. The way the thought of Phil leaving, in whatever capacity, made him feel literally sick to his stomach. He wasn’t going to let Phil see that, because he didn’t know what it meant himself.
Suddenly Phil’s presence on the sofa beside him felt far too noticeable, and Dan stood up quickly.
“I’m going to… you know, work on some video ideas or something.”
Phil nodded, turning his attention back to his coffee.
“Okay,” he answered mildly.
Dan left the room as quickly as he could, heart still thudding heavily in his chest.
What the hell was that? Why had he freaked out like that?
He decided he really would work on video ideas, to take his mind off whatever it was that had just flipped him into panic mode in two seconds flat.
When he got to his room and opened his computer he groaned, seeing nothing but a black screen. He reached over to grab his charger, before realizing he had left it in Phil’s room yesterday after a brainstorming session. He thought about yelling for Phil to get it for him, but he knew his friend would most likely comply, headache or no, and that would make him feel guilty. He groaned again and got off his bed, heading towards Phil’s room across the hall from his.
He walked in, opening the door as if it was his own room. And why not? They respected each other’s privacy, but neither of them had anything to hide from the other.
Dan walked over and grabbed his cord from where it lay beside Phil’s desk. As he straightened up, something on the desk caught his eye.
It was a drawing of him. More specifically, it was a beautiful drawing of him. Dan enjoyed a lot of the art their fans gave them and he hadn’t seen this one before, so he leaned closer to take a look.
In the drawing it was just Dan from the shoulders up, nothing else. He was staring at something out of the viewer’s line of sight, and his face was lit up into a smile. Dan frowned. He was quite sure his eyes were never that bright, his smile never that full of joy. Whoever had done this was talented to say the least, but they obviously had been indulging in some kind of crush to draw him looking like that. He wondered why Phil had it, why he hadn’t seen it before.
Shrugging, he turned to go, when he suddenly realized that there were more drawings beside Phil’s bed. He moved closer, and something in his throat stuck when he realized they were all variations of the same thing, in varying degree of completeness. Why would someone send Phil all their other drafts? Why would Phil keep them? Why did- Dan’s eyes caught on a sketch pad and a set of drawing pencils on Phil’s bedside table, and suddenly everything about him felt hot, burning, raw.
Phil had drawn this.
Phil had drawn him. This vibrant, strangely beautiful version of him.
Dan could feel his hands shaking again, and he had to swallow several times before he was able to speak.
“Phil?”
***
“Phil? What’s this?”
There was something strange in Dan’s voice, but Phil didn’t think anything of it.
“What’s what?” he called back, not bothering to move off the sofa.
Dan didn’t answer.
“What’s what Dan?” Phil said louder.
“Come here.”
Phil looked up from his phone. Something about the way Dan was speaking was definitely off. Phil yawned and got up, heading towards his friends’ voice. He froze when he saw his bedroom door open.
Shit.
Did he leave something out?
He rounded the corner so that he was standing in the doorframe, and felt his stomach lurch when he saw Dan bent over something on his desk.
Shit, shit, shit.
“You’re in my room,” he said, surprised when his voice came out calmly.
Dan hummed in affirmation without looking up.
“I am.”
Phil bit his lip. Dan was upset.
“So,” Phil said after a moment, “what’s what?”
“What’s this?” Dan said quietly, still not looking up, pointing towards what Phil could now see was his almost finished sketch.
“Oh,” Phil said, forcing out a laugh. “Yeah that. That’s just a project I’m doing for art class.”
Dan frowned, glancing briefly towards Phil.
“Art class?”
Oh. Right. Dan didn’t know about the art classes either.
“Yeah,” Phil said cheerfully, “I’ve been taking an art class. Just, you know, for fun.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Phil shrugged.
“I wanted to see if it was something I could actually do first. I didn’t want people asking to see what I did before I was satisfied with it.”
“People?”
Dan still wasn’t looking at him.
“Yeah, people. And you.”
“Because you were drawing me.”
Phil bit the insides of his cheeks. Why did everything about this feel so wrong?
“It was just one of the assignments.”
“What, to draw pictures of your flatmate?” Dan’s voice was sceptical, but Phil could hear something else there too, something anxious and small. His chest tightened at the sound. It gave him a flash of momentary courage.
“To draw something we see every day,” Phil said quietly, “that makes us appreciate the beauty in life that we take for granted.”
Dan’s eyes widened fractionally at that, still staring down at the paper in front of him.
“But I don’t look like this,” he said finally. Phil laughed, ignoring the sting he got from Dan’s words.
“Yeah, well, I never said I was good,” he forced himself to say cheerfully as he walked towards the desk to move the pictures.
Dan looked at him then, and Phil sucked in a breath of air as he met his friends’ eyes. They were blazing, burning, flaming, and Phil was drowning. He paused where he was, a few feet away from the desk.
“You made me look so- so-” Dan broke off and his hand fluttered vaguely in the air. “So bright.”
Phil wrenched his eyes away from Dan’s to look down at the sketch. He was reasonably proud of it, but he still wasn’t satisfied that he had captured the true essence of the younger boy. The eyes were almost there, but not quite. The smile was just a bit too crooked, and Phil still wanted to fix the way the hair fell.
“Bright?”
“Yeah. So, you know, happy. It’s like there’s a light coming from me.”
Phil glanced between Dan and the drawing, frowning slightly.
“I’m not that talented, but… that’s what you look like, Dan.”
“That’s better than I’ve ever looked in real life,” Dan said stubbornly, shaking his head, and Phil turned to meet his eyes again.
Dan’s expression was inscrutable, and Phil drew a deep breath. The whole reason he had drawn Dan in the first place was to show his friend what he was really like, so he might as well follow through with that.
“That doesn’t even do you justice. You are bright, Dan. Haven’t you read the comments on YouTube? You’re so much more than you think.”
“The comments don’t mean anything,” Dan said, his voice flat. Phil took a tiny step closer, wanting to shake the truth into his friend.
“Fine, ignore the comments then. But what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Does my opinion mean anything? Because I think you’re incredible. I think you’re full of light. I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me-” Phil stopped talking abruptly, immediately regretting his sudden burst of candour. He meant the words, every one, but he had never planned to say anything like that to Dan.
Dan’s eyes were wide, and something in his expression looked vaguely frantic.
“Stop Phil,” he said, shaking his head slightly, “you’re being ridiculous.”
Phil pressed his lips together, not trusting himself to speak anymore.
“I’m not,” he said finally, after several moments of silence.
Dan let out a breath of air, and laughed.
“You’re an idiot.”
His voice was falsely nonchalant, echoing his words from that morning, and the smile on his face was wavering as he took a step closer to Phil.
“I’m not,” Phil whispered. He held his breath. His heart was beating faster and he wasn’t sure why. Dan stared at him for several seconds, his face strangely blank.
“I have to go,” said Dan suddenly. “I’m meeting someone.”
Phil nodded wordlessly. He knew Dan was lying, but he also knew his friend well enough to understand when he needed space from a situation.
“I’ll see you later,” Dan said, and stepped around Phil.
Phil didn’t move until he heard the front door close, and the flat was achingly empty. He felt a pang of disappointment.
That definitely hadn’t gone the way he had hoped it would.
Maybe it had been a bad idea to draw Dan. Maybe it said things he didn’t mean it to say. Maybe it revealed something about himself that he didn’t want to see.
Phil looked back down at the drawing. Now that Dan was gone, now that he could look at it a little more objectively in the light of day, he realized he had done a pretty good job. Sure, it wasn’t finished, but it was so obviously Dan. Not Dan doing or saying anything special, just Dan being Dan. Smiling at something the audience couldn’t see. Lighting up the room like he always did. Phil suddenly realized his hand was on the drawing, his finger tapping gently against the little ‘v’ in the middle of Dan’s upper lip.
Phil swallowed, hard, and snatched his hand away from the paper.
Dan came back seven hours later. Phil was sitting in the lounge eating a pizza when he heart the front door open. He didn’t pause the tv, didn’t call out, didn’t do anything to draw attention to his friend’s return, but he let out a relieved breath of air.
Dan came into the room after a few minutes, and flung himself on the sofa beside Phil.
“Hey,” he said tiredly.
Phil smiled in his direction.
“Hello! Pizza?”
“Yeah, I’m starving, thanks.”
Phil handed him a plate, and Dan helped himself generously. They were both quiet for a few minutes. Phil chewed, staring blankly at the screen. He wasn’t paying attention at all, he had no idea what was happening on the TV, so when it suddenly stopped, it took him several seconds to notice. When he did, he turned to look at Dan, frowning.
Dan was holding the remote, and smiling sheepishly at him.
“So,” he began, looking down. “I just wanted to-” he broke off and cleared his throat awkwardly. “I just wanted to apologize. For freaking out.”
Phil shrugged.
“It’s okay. You’re allowed to do that.”
“Well yeah. But it was a little weird.”
Phil wasn’t sure whether to agree or not.
“It was a little weird of me to draw you without saying anything,” he said finally.
Dan flashed him a grin.
“Yes,” he said, “it was.”
Phil’s cheeks got hot, but he laughed.
“But it was also nice,” Dan continued, “it was nice of you to do that. And you’re really good. Like, really fucking good. So I guess I should be honoured.”
Phil looked down, but he couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across his face.
“Yeah?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” sad Dan firmly. “So thank-you for doing that. Now let’s watch some- Phil are you seriously watching Ouran again? You don’t think you’ve seen it enough?”
“It’s so cute!” Phil defended himself.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dan said, picking up the remote again and pressing play.
Phil smiled triumphantly and turned his attention back to the screen.
Dan took his plate from the table and settled himself back down against the sofa, hitting Phil’s knee with his own in the process.
“Oops, sorry,” he said, but he didn’t move. Phil frowned a little at his friend’s close proximity, but didn’t say anything.
As they continued to watch episode after episode, Dan stayed where he was, his knee pressing against Phil’s. Neither one of them commented, but Phil was acutely aware of it.
It was nearing midnight when something hit Phil’s shoulder, and he jumped, turning to see Dan slouched against the sofa, eyes closed, his forehead against Phil. He felt warm against his arm.
He stayed there for only a moment before his eyes flew open and he straightened up again.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
“It’s okay,” said Phil quietly. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Yeah,” said Dan after a few seconds. “I think I will.”
Phil switched the TV off.
“Me too. I’m exhausted.”
They both stood, simultaneously clearing the table without a word, and heading for their bedrooms. Phil reached his door first and he raised a hand towards Dan, somewhat awkwardly. They didn’t usually go to bed at the same time like this, and it felt odd.
“G’night.”
Dan glanced at him. Phil thought he saw something strange in his expression, and hoped that he would just go to bed and sleep, rather than stay up with his thoughts all night.
“Goodnight, Phil.”
Phil fell asleep quickly, and it felt like mere minutes later than he woke up with a start, heart racing. He looked around his dark bedroom, trying to determine why he was awake. There was a noise from somewhere in the flat, and he realized Dan must have done something that had startled him awake. He looked at the clock beside his bed. It read 3:12. There was another clatter from what sounded like the kitchen. Dan was obviously quite fully awake. Phil groaned and rubbed his face with both hands, turning to switch on his bedside lamp.
He pulled on a sweater and staggered to open the door. There was a light coming from the kitchen, and he walked towards it warily.
He could see Dan making what looked like a sandwich as he got closer, but his friend clearly wasn’t attempting to be quiet as he dropped a plate on the floor and swore loudly.
“Dan?” Phil’s voice cracked when he spoke, and Dan jumped, whirling around to face him.
“Jesus,” he said, a hand on his chest, “you scared me.”
“You woke me up,” retorted Phil, and Dan made a face.
“Oops. Sorry.”
He didn’t sound sorry. Phil blinked and looked more closely at his friend. Dan’s face was pale, his eyes wide. His lips looked ragged, as if he had been chewing them, and his hair was sticking up from having hands run through it repeatedly. Phil sighed. This was not just a midnight snack.
“What’s wrong?” Phil asked, and Dan blinked several times.
“Nothing,” he said, his voice flat.
“Dan.”
Dan held his gaze stubbornly for a few seconds, before sighing and looking away.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking.”
Phil nodded, sitting down on the nearest stool.
“Thinking about what?”
Dan’s eyes flashed to him and then away again.
“Stuff,” he said quietly.
Phil rolled his eyes and stood up.
“Right. I’m going back to bed then.”
“No,” said Dan quickly, “why?”
Phil leaned his head against the wall behind him and stuck his hands under his arms.
“I’m too tired to wrench this out of you Dan, so either you talk to me, or you don’t.”
Dan regarded him for a moment and then nodded.
“Okay, yeah. I was just thinking about- well about what you said, actually.”
“What did I say?”
Dan tugged at a strand of hair over his ear.
“About me. When I was looking at your drawing.”
Dan’s voice was quiet, but Phil could hear the embarrassment in it. He nodded, keeping his face calm despite the strange thudding sensation in his chest.
“Okay. Why were you thinking about that?”
“I was just wondering if it was true, what you said.”
“Of course it was,” said Phil. Sure, he was embarrassed he had said it so plainly, but every word had been the truth. “I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t.”
“I know,” Dan nodded, frowning. “I know you wouldn’t lie. So I-” he cut himself off and smiled sheepishly at Phil. “So I was watching some of my videos, to try and see what you said everyone else could see.”
Phil smiled. Dan was always more forthcoming after one a.m. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be hearing this were it the middle of the afternoon.
“And did you?”
Dan hesitated, before pulling out his phone.
“A couple of times, kind of. I looked a little bit like the way I did in the drawing.”
“Cool,” said Phil, nodding again.
Dan walked towards him, holding out his phone.
“See?”
Phil took the phone from Dan’s hand and looked at the screen. There was a screenshot from one of Dan’s videos, paused in a pose very similar to the one Phil had sketched. Phil hummed his agreement.
“Scroll through a bit,” said Dan, and Phil complied.
There were nearly ten screenshots, all from different videos, all showing Dan in the same way; happy, full of light, unscripted, grinning at something off camera.
“I look happy in those, right? I look kind of like I did in that drawing.”
Phil’s smile grew, and he nodded emphatically. Dan’s middle-of-the-night vulnerability was rather endearing.
“Yes,” he said firmly, “you look very happy. You look like you’re exactly where you want to be.”
Dan cleared his throat, and Phil looked back at him. His friend was closer than he thought, and his expression was still strange. Phil laughed awkwardly, determined to keep things normal.
“So why did this keep you up?” he said, his voice loud.
Dan shifted, and looked away for a moment.
“Do you remember these videos?” he asked, looking at the ground.
Phil shrugged.
“Yeah, sure, most of them.”
Dan nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Do you know what I’m talking about in them? Why I look so happy?”
Phil crooked one eyebrow.
“I mean, I don’t have your videos memorized…” he trailed off and coughed out a laugh. “So, no.”
Dan smiled briefly, still looking down, but didn’t respond straight away. What the hell was he so worked up about?
“What’s this about Dan?” Phil asked after the silence stretched just a little too long.
Dan cleared his throat again.
“It’s just something I noticed, when I was watching these. I noticed that they’re all about different things, but that I look that way for the same reason in all of them.”
“Yeah?” Phil asked, his thoughts churning as he tried to figure out what could possibly be the reason for the obvious internal struggle Dan was undergoing. “And why was that?”
Dan looked up at him then, suddenly, and Phil blinked in surprise.
“In all those moments- and there’s way more than what I took screen shots of- all those moments, whenever I look happy like that, whenever I look like I’m ‘exactly where I want to be,’ like you said… every single time that happened, it’s because I was looking at you.”
The air suddenly felt very close, and Dan’s gaze didn’t leave his face. Phil sucked in a breath, his heart thudding loudly in his ears.
“Oh,” he said, little more than an exhalation of air.
Dan nodded, and stepped a little bit closer, reaching out towards Phil. Phil’s stomach flipped, and he held his breath, but Dan was only reaching for his phone, which he plucked from Phil’s limp grasp with two fingers and slid back into his pocket.
“So,” said Dan quietly, “there’s that.”
Phil nodded wordlessly, his mind both chaotic and blank at the same time. What was he supposed to say? Or think?
“What does that mean?” he said finally, his voice still embarrassingly breathy.
Dan looked at him for a moment, and then placed a finger on Phil’s forearm, as if to steady himself. His finger was cold, and Phil shivered at the touch, goose flesh appearing on his skin.
“I think it means you make me happy, Phil.”
Phil had never heard the tone in Dan’s voice before. He shivered again.
“Yeah?” he said, unsure of what to say. The situation was rapidly slipping out of his control. Dan nodded and stepped minutely closer.
“Yes.”
Phil looked down at Dan’s finger on his arm, and was suddenly filled with an insatiable urge to touch it. He swallowed hard, and his hand twitched involuntarily.
“Why are you shaking?” Dan asked, his voice relatively normal again, but Phil didn’t look up from Dan’s hand.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” said Dan, moving his hand so that all four fingers were now pressed into Phil’s arm. “I can feel it.”
“I’m not,” Phil repeated, his voice a whisper. “I’m not shaking.” He could feel it though, could feel the trembling that was taking over his whole, treacherous body. His heartbeat was frantic, and the fluttering in his stomach was a savage beast. He couldn’t breath.
Dan, on the other hand, seemed entirely, eerily calm. As if getting his thoughts into the open had cured his turmoil, and given him more confidence than before. His thumb stroked the back of Phil’s wrist, just once, and Phil let out a shuddering breath of air.
“What about you?” Dan said after a moment of them both staring at Dan’s hand on Phil’s arm.
“Me?” Phil echoed, his voice hoarse.
“You,” repeated Dan, “are you happy too?”
Phil nodded slowly, understanding what Dan was asking. Dan’s thumb passed over his wrist again, and Phil’s skin was on fire from the touch.
“What are you doing?” Phil asked quietly. Dan’s hand stilled, but it didn’t move away from his arm.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Should I stop?”
Yes, yes, yes he should stop. This was dangerous, whatever it was, and Phil’s brain screamed at him to cut it off, move away, go to bed.
“No,” he said, before he realized he had, and Dan’s fingers moved to circle his wrist for a brief moment, before falling away completely. Phil’s wrist ached from the loss of contact. He looked up at Dan, and saw that his friend was already looking at him.
“I had to stop before-” Dan stopped talking quickly, biting his lip. Phil followed the movement with his eyes.
“Before what?”
“Before I did something I shouldn’t do,” Dan said, his eyes wide on Phil’s. The beast in Phil’s stomach made a lunge for his heart, and there was an almost painful burst of something in his chest.
Go to bed, Phil’s head screamed at him.
“Something like what?” He had to know. The pounding in his chest, the aching of his wrist demanded it.
Dan drew one long, shaky breath before his hand was on Phil’s wrist again. This time his fingers didn’t stop their movement, didn’t stay where they were. Dan trailed a path of burning fire up Phil’s arm, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. Dan never took his eyes off of Phil, and Phil didn’t breathe.
Dan paused when he reached Phil’s shoulder, reached to run one finger along his collarbone, and Phil bit his lip at the featherlike touch. Dan’s eyes darted down to Phil’s mouth. He swallowed.
Dan reached his hand up slowly, and Phil could see it shaking as he gently put it against Phil’s cheek.
“Dan,” Phil whispered, just to say something. Dan’s thumb stroked over Phil’s cheekbone, and all Phil’s coherent thoughts disappeared. This was fire, and ice, and beauty, and pain, and Phil never wanted it to end. He was wrecked.
“Phil,” Dan whispered back, “tell me to stop.”
Phil couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He shook his head.
“No?” Dan’s whisper was so quiet he could barely hear it.
Phil shook his head again.
“Don’t stop.”
Dan brought his other hand up to Phil’s cheek, cupping his face between them.
“You’re an idiot,” he whispered with a hint of a smile before he brought his lips to Phil’s, and nothing else mattered any more.
I am kissing Dan Howell, thought Phil, and somehow the thought didn’t seem as foreign as it should. It sounded okay- it sounded… Phil’s mind stopped as Dan’s lips moved gently against his. They were soft, softer than Phil would have imagined. Dan moved one hand to the back of Phil’s head, pulling him closer.
It was only a few moments later that Dan pulled away, but Phil was gasping for breath. They stared at each other, eyes wild, lips burning. Dan’s hand was still on Phil’s face, and his eyes were lit with something Phil had never seen before. Dan’s mouth curved slowly into a smile, and Phil couldn’t remember when he had last seen him look so happy.
“You’re kind of beautiful when you smile,” he whispered recklessly, and then wished he hadn’t. Dan blinked, still breathing hard, and then his thumb was moving over Phil’s cheek again, and Phil forgot to breathe.
“And you, Phil Lester, are kind of the reason that I smile.”
Phil’s eyes felt hot, and he didn’t know what he wanted to say, and he didn’t even know what all of this meant, but he couldn’t stop a small smile from curving over his mouth too.
“You do make me happy,” continued Dan, “you sav-” but his next words were cut off, because Phil didn’t need to hear any more, didn’t want to hear any more, so he leaned forward without a thought, and pressed his lips firmly against Dan’s.
Dan was surprised for only a brief moment, before his other hand was on Phil’s back, and Phil’s hands were in Dan’s hair.
This, this strange, terrifying, wonderful thing they were doing, this felt more right than Phil ever could have imagined. He wanted to feel Dan’s skin under his hands, wanted to watch Dan’s face as he felt his hands on him. He wondered why he had never realized this before.
The kiss grew deeper, and Dan pushed Phil gently against the wall. Phil couldn’t remember the last time he had been so scared, and so happy.
Phil pulled away and rested his forehead against Dan’s.
“Hey,” he said, and Dan’s eyes opened to meet his.
“Hey.” Dan’s voice was rough.
“We’re crazy,” said Phil after a moment. Dan nodded slightly.
“Very,” he murmured. “But I don’t want to stop.”
Phil licked his lips.
“I don’t either.”
“Good.”
Dan cupped the back of Phil’s neck with his hand, and pulled him in again.
Phil reached up to weave his fingers through Dan’s, desperate to feel his touch.
The kitchen was getting lighter, and soon they would have to face reality, but right now it didn’t matter because he had never felt happier.
Phil shivered.
He could feel Dan smiling against his lips. He hoped he never stopped.