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You'd think it would be difficult to be lonely in a house swarming with loud, burly men. It's like something out of Phil's teenage fantasies, really. Just him and the house and a half dozen suiters to pick from who could have balanced him over their shoulder like a plank of wood.
But he's had enough time, enough cold baths due to shoddy plumbing jobs, that he no longer romanticises the builders. They're doing their job (albeit extremely slowly) and while Phil likes the feeling of not being entirely alone in the house when they're around, he also knows he'll be glad to see the back of them when the time comes.
Because the house, as much as he's gotten used to living here now, still doesn't feel like a space that belongs to only him and Dan yet.
There's always some dude in a toolbelt knocking pieces of metal together, a neighbour at their door with a misdelivered parcel, or a giant chasm of empty space where Dan's presence used to be in the general vicinity of the piano. Or the back garden. Or the office. Or whichever one of their beds they decided to climb into that night.
Every space that should be distinctly his and Dan's has turned into No Man's Land, a placeholder for when Dan comes home from tour and they can fill them again. Collectively.
The house is only half his, after all. It's only natural that he'd feel half-deserving of existing within its walls.
And yet he feels pathetic. Truly, deeply pathetic that he doesn't feel like a fully functioning human being without Dan here beside him. That despite having survived two and a half months of doing his own shopping, making his own small talk with the neighbours and builders, and entertaining himself with all the games Dan has no interest in, Dan leaving for the final leg of his tour had made him feel just as listless as the first time he left.
It's not something he would ever admit, of course. Dan has put everything he could possibly have to give into this tour and Phil... well, Phil will be damned if he's the one to make him feel shitty for it. After how far he's come — how far they've come — Dan deserves something good that's just his, that's a testament to how he's grown in the ever-accumulating period of time Phil has known him.
Phil knows that much is true, but he also knows he misses Dan in an undeniably, childishly selfish way. Those two things can coexist without cancelling each other out.
A knock on the office door disrupts his funk, forgetting he had been staring at the same section of footage from his next upload for who knows how long at this point.
He turns around to see one of the builders — Rob, the one who takes five sugars in his coffee — standing in the doorway, peering in only enough to catch Phil's attention. He tells him that they're done for the day, that they'll be back in a few days to touch up the grout in the guest room's bathroom. Polite as always, Phil gives him a smile and thanks him for the day's work, and Rob ducks out of the room as quickly as he came in.
For a second, at least. Because a moment later, his head is poking back into the room and he's asking, "When's your man back, anyway?"
It's something that still makes the heat rush to his cheeks. Even at his big age. Even after being out to everyone in his life and beyond for a good three and a half years. Even when he knows Rob — a Northerner like Phil himself — uses the phrase 'your man' as casually as 'your mate' or 'your pal'.
He doesn't necessarily mean to suggest that Dan is his person, like the wife Rob himself has a photo of as his lock screen, but Phil's not stupid either way.
He knows the builders have had a sneak peek into the life they've fought so hard to keep private, even if they have a strict no-touching rule around them. He knows they must have googled them as soon as they realised their new weird clients were a big deal in a very specific niche of internet people. Hell, he had once overheard one of them talk about how his daughter flipped her shit when she figured out it was them her father was working for.
And, of course, it had become a given in their careers that the speculation around what they have would seep its way into every discussion, every compliment, every accomplishment no matter whether they wanted it to or not. It was just something they had had to accept a long time ago. So, yes, of course, the builders were aware that they were together, even if they had never introduced themselves to them as partners.
"Next week," Phil answered simply, biting back a smile at the thought of how Dan would be flying from the other side of the planet to spend his birthday with him. "Missing the piano playing, are we, Rob?"
Rob rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. "Remind me to bring my earplugs. Alright, I better get going. Have a good one, mate."
Before he has even heard the front door close, Phil has already pulled up Deliveroo on his phone and begins to scour the greater London area for something to eat. It's just another thing that feels emptier without Dan, him always having stronger opinions of food options and Phil never being able to make a decision for himself.
As if anyone still had their doubts that they balanced each other out like that.
He procrastinates for a while as he weighs his options, finding a picture on Twitter of a large, American-looking boulder that looks suspiciously similar to a hedgehog. He sends it to Dan without a second thought, mostly because it's a meme he knows would amuse him and partly because he's found himself constantly finding ways to remind Dan that he's only a text away even when they're on different continents.
In the end, he orders a salad that Dan would probably enjoy twice as much as he would and retreats to the safety of the screening room and an episode of Community while he waits for it to be delivered.
———
Dan's hazy, jet-lagged brain takes a second to make sense of the repetitive tone that fills his hotel room, finally rolling over onto his side somewhere around the culprit's second attempt at calling him. It's a London number, he notices, and immediately rolls his eyes in the fond way only Phil could get out of him after being woken up at four in the morning in a foreign time zone.
"Hello?" he breathes into the phone, voice groggy.
"I've got a delivery for Phil," the voice on the other end of the line says, and Dan can't help but think of how they probably have no idea they're paying for a long-distance call right now. After all, any normal person wouldn't be ordering food in Australia to eat in London. "I'm just pulling up to the driveway now."
"Great, we'll be right out," Dan replies and hangs up maybe a little too abruptly to be polite.
He ignores the accumulating mass of notifications on his lock screen, opening his messages with Phil. He's sent him something since he had fallen asleep, but Dan's in too much of a daze to make sense of it right now, so he focuses his energy on alerting him of his incoming delivery instead.
deliveroo calling you
It takes Phil less than a minute to respond, clearly prioritising his response over whatever the hell he ordered. Dan could probably check, attempt to sync up their eating habits again, but that seems like more hassle than it's worth right now.
IM SORRY !!!!
FORGOT IT WAS STILL YOUR NUMBER
Dan only half-believes him, knowing Phil's quirks like they're his own. While he is forgetful sometimes, he's even more so anxious about phone conversations.
it's okay
i'll only hold it against you for the rest of our lives
Phil's next reply takes a little bit longer than the first, no doubt a result of awkward small talk with the delivery person. By that time, Dan is already feeling ridiculously awake, curled up into his pillow from home and inhaling the familiar scent of the only fabric softener that doesn't make Phil break out in hives. It had taken him long enough to fall asleep in the first place, so despite the home comforts, he has little hope of falling back asleep before his seven am wake-up call.
pog
Effortlessly, Dan matches his energy. Their alien language comes too naturally to him at this point, almost concerningly.
bog 👎
He shuffles himself further up onto the pillows, pressing the little video camera icon in the top corner of the window and spending the next few moments staring at his own puffy, sleep-deprived eyes as the FaceTime attempts to connect despite the shitty hotel WI-FI.
"Shouldn't you be going back to sleep, rat?"
It's a classic Phil greeting — blunt, silly, a tad rude if Dan didn't know his form of showing affection any better.
Weirdly, it makes something pang in his chest. Being in a different place, different situation, different time zone than Phil always feels wrong these days.
Who is he kidding? It always has. Ever since the first time they had to say a painstaking goodbye in 2009.
Maybe he's just the right amount of tired to be extra sensitive right now, or maybe seeing Phil as something more than a few incoherent words on a tiny screen was a bad idea.
Seeing him in all his glory, shoving a forkful of salad into his mouth and lounging in a fraying hoodie he had claimed when Dan had once attempted to throw it out, is painful in a way he hadn't quite realised until now. He's sure Phil barely even remembers where the hoodie came from, but he silently wishes it's intentional and a result of Phil missing him as much as Dan pathetically misses him.
It's the Phil that's only ever been reserved for him all these years, unguarded and underthinking. Phil just... existing, for the lack of a better term.
As much fun as he's been having on this tour, he almost resents that Phil's life is still going on without him. He wishes he could've just paused time back home, not having to miss out on any Phil time in order to have this gratifying, life changing, needed Dan time.
"Can't," Dan responds, realising Phil had been patiently waiting for him to make sense of his thoughts. He had barely remembered a question had been asked in the first place. "What if you want to order dessert later, huh? Then who's gonna talk to the big, scary delivery driver on the phone?"
Phil rolls his eyes, and Dan knows he would've gotten an elbow to the ribs if they weren't thousands of miles apart right now. "You're actually not funny in the slightest."
"You don't think so?"
"Nope. Go get eaten by a wombat."
Dan shakes his head, flicking on the lamp on his bedside table and sitting up straight. Phil takes another bite of his salad, settling into Dan's company as Dan settles into his.
It's as natural as breathing, really. Always has been.
"I miss you, you know," Phil finally says after a few moments of silence, so casually and so simply that it's just so Phil.
He's never been one to complicate emotions like Dan is, so secure in what he feels in the simplest, most instinctive terms. It catches Dan off guard sometimes, how abrupt he can be with feelings sometimes when Dan has always had to work himself up to say certain things.
Phil has become his glaring exception over the years, of course — the desensitisation of being around Phil challenging the defences his mind has always clung to for dear life — but he still finds certain things difficult to say.
Especially since he was the one to leave Phil to his own devices in first place, therefore feeling like he can't be the one to approach the subject. Bitching and moaning about missing Phil after willingly leaving him for months on end feels hypocritical in a way Dan doesn't quite know how to express. And that isn't helped by the fact Dan has been having the time of his life on his tour while Phil has been at home dyeing just about every possession he owns a swampy shade of green.
Maybe their missing of each other shouldn't be comparable.
But, still. Feeling unworthy of those feelings doesn't make them any less true.
When he tells Phil he misses him an equal amount, it's easier than it would ever be with anyone else. And seeing the corners of Phil's mouth lift when he does so makes him realise why, because the micro expressions only Dan can pick up on have said more than words ever could have over the years.
They'd had to adopt a new, distinctively Dan and Phil language over the years — something that only they could decipher and couldn't be analysed within an inch of its life like everything else they ever did seemed to be.
It wasn't something they need so much anymore — after all, their relationship with their audience is a lot different than it was even five years ago — but it's still there in lingering traces, a habit they still can't quit.
"I'll be home soon," he reassures Phil, the word home never failing to make something warm spread in his chest. It was something he hadn't felt until the word meant their Manchester flat, and it had adapted to every place they'd ever existed together since. "Then you'll be praying to get rid of me again, just wait. I'll be like the builders but worse. At least you can stop paying them and they'll leave. You're stuck with me for life, bub, like herpes or something equally stubborn."
"Did you just compare yourself to herpes?"
Dan grins back at him. "What if I did? You gonna tell me I'm wrong?"
"No, but I will tell you to go back to sleep, you strange, strange man." He's smiling too, but trying not to enable Dan. He always does in the end, but he pretends not to first. It's part of their routine. "Clearly, the lack of—"
Dan cuts him off before he gets the chance to finish, always taking great pleasure in winding him up. "First, you order Deliveroo for the sole purpose of waking me up, and now you're—"
"Dan." Phil stares at him through the screen, eyes widening behind the frames of his glasses. "Bedtime. I will personally enlist the help of a koala to tuck you in myself."
Dan lets out a sigh, knowing whatever his dreams have in store for him would never be worth half as much as a real life conversation with Phil would, even through a poor connection screen and fuzzy audio.
"Fine. But only after you tell me about your day," he groans, getting comfortable by hugging his pillow to his chest. "Spare no details, Lester."
"You ignore my hedgehog rock and now you claim to care about my day?"