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“How’s your drink?”
Phil looked kind of beautiful in the purple-blue light of the club, but of course, Dan always thought Phil looked rather beautiful. The way the light played on his pale skin and newly blonde hair made him look almost magical, like some sort of futuristic techno-fairy. Dan wasn’t sure how to vocalize that.
“It’s pretty good. Solid, uh, eight point five out of ten?” Phil hummed. He took another sip of his drink, and Dan couldn’t help but watch his mouth as his lips curled around the straw. The drink was some complicated fruity cocktail that Phil had mispronounced the name of while ordering, and then got all flustered when the barman corrected him. It had been cute.
“You wanna try?” Phil offered, and Dan nodded. He took the drink when Phil slid it over to him, taking a sip out of the straw and wrinkling his nose.
“It's a bit sweet for me, bub,” Dan told him, sliding the drink back over to Phil. “Did they put what, a kilogram of sugar in there?”
“You know, I think a little extra sugar might be good for you, Danny,” Phil replied, shrugging. He took another long sip from his straw, and Dan laughed. He couldn’t help but be endeared. Phil had been ordering sugary monstrosities of drinks since Dan had met him, and at this point Dan would rather miss it if he stopped. “Might sweeten you up a bit.”
“Why are you talking about me like I’m a fucking pig you’re gonna roast?” Dan said, mock-offended as he took a sip of his own cocktail. His drink had a much stronger alcohol taste to it, which tasted even stronger after taking a sip from Phil’s. Phil giggled.
“My little golden pig,” Phil laughed, smiling and reaching out to ruffle Dan’s hair. Dan huffed and rolled his eyes, batting Phil’s hand away before reaching up to try and smooth his hair out a bit.
“You dick,” Dan told him, with no heat behind it. “If you ruined my hair I am leaving you here. I spent like fifteen minutes making sure it looked good.”
“It looks great! Very handsome,” Phil assured him, though he didn’t seem to be looking at Dan’s hair at all. He was looking out at the rest of the club now, where lights were flashing and people were dancing to music just on the right side of too loud.
“Come on,” Phil said suddenly, taking a quick sip of his drink before standing up. Dan stayed seated, raising his eyebrows. They never danced at clubs like this. They didn’t dance much at all anywhere, and certainly not in public, at least not when Dan was still this sober. Phil looked down at him impatiently. “Let's do something. It would be a little sad to come all this way to just sit around all night.”
“I am not dancing,” Dan told him, even as he stood up as well. He took his drink with him, so Phil would be less likely to try to pull him onto the dance floor. Though, he wasn’t really sure something like that would stop Phil from doing anything. “You’re gonna have to get me a lot more drunk to do that.”
“I didn’t mean dancing,” Phil said, his expression bright and a little bit secretive. Dan never knew what to make of that expression. He knew he liked it, though, even if it drove him a little bit mad.
They ended up at a pool table, of all places, where Phil immediately made friends with two women nearby. Phil was always able to do that, despite his insistence otherwise. He could make friends instantly if he let himself stop overthinking for a few seconds. Dan wasn’t sure he’d stopped overthinking for even half a second for the past twenty years of his life.
Dan could still manage, though, as they got a game started. He’d always been competitive, even in matters as silly and trivial as this, and it was easy being on a team with Phil, because being Phil’s hype man was basically second nature to him at this point. Although, Phil was uncoordinated on a good day, and this didn’t seem to be one of those days. Dan bitched about it, just because, but secretly felt kind of proud of carrying their team. It was the opposite way around so often that Dan always loved it when it felt like he was the one taking care of Phil, even in small ways.
Not that he was significantly better at pool. The girls seemed a lot more into it than they were, and won fairly easily. Phil was laughing and leaning against Dan’s side, so Dan was feeling like a good sport, and he paid for the girls’ drinks as a prize. They cheered happily, and Dan felt rather good about himself.
Dan always felt strange when he was out at a club like this. Like he needed to prove something, put on a sort of show to convince everyone that he was supposed to be there. It wasn’t quite the feeling that it used to be, where he’d feel compelled to try to present himself as masculine as possible, but it was still there, with a little bit gayer of a spin on it. He still felt the need to knock back a few more drinks to show that he could, to make the right jokes at the right time.
There was now the added urge to flirt with random guys who walked past them, not out of any genuine interest but just to show that he could. That he was attractive and charming and able to be slutty, if he wanted to be. Instead of doing that, he chanced putting an arm around Phil’s waist, which Phil completely ignored and Dan retracted after about twenty seconds, chickening out. He wished he could feel as unbothered by all the eyes around them as Phil looked to be, though he was sure Phil held at least some of the same discomfort on the inside. The thought made him relax slightly.
“Hey,” Phil said to him, as the girls walked away from the bar. Dan turned to look at him, and was once again caught off guard by how beautiful he was. He kind of wanted to keep staring at Phil forever. “I think I’m about ready to head out now.”
“Calling it a night already?” Dan asked, furrowing his eyebrows. He pulled out his phone to check the time, and frowned. “We’ve only been here a couple hours.”
“Yeah, and it’s been a really fun couple hours,” Phil agreed, nodding. He pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself, like he was cold, and Dan kind of wanted to tell him to just zip it up. “But I’d kind of like to keep it at a really fun couple of hours, instead of keep going and having a miserable five hours.”
“Oh, I get it,” Dan replied, his voice dropping pitch into something a bit more teasing. He bit his lip around a smile. “Old man can’t party all night anymore, is that what?”
“Your mum’s an old man,” Phil retorted easily, and Dan must’ve been drunker than he thought, because for whatever reason, that seemed like the funniest thing in the universe. He couldn’t stop laughing, and then Phil couldn’t stop laughing either, and Dan could kind of see the appeal of going somewhere just the two of them now.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was ever able to actually say no to Phil.
They ordered an Uber to take them home, and the driver didn’t try to make any sort of conversation, instead loudly playing several Kanye songs that Dan was a little embarrassed to know all the words to. He looked out the window, biting his lip so that he didn’t accidentally mouth along to the lyrics. A moment later he felt something nudge the side of his calf, and turned his head to see Phil grinning at him. Dan raised his eyebrows in question, and Phil shrugged before quickly sticking his tongue out at him. Dan rolled his eyes, but then quickly stuck his tongue out back at him, because of course he was going to.
When they got home, the first thing Dan did was flop down on the couch, spreading his limbs as much as he could without falling off. He sighed, suddenly feeling like his bones were way too heavy. “I’m tired.”
“I thought you were the one who wanted to party all night,” Phil reminded him. He sat down on the couch as well, half in Dan’s space and half in his own. Dan lifted one of his feet to hook his ankle over Phil’s lap. “Who’s the old man now?”
“Still you,” Dan muttered. He couldn’t think of something witty to follow that up with, so instead he just let out another long sigh. “I don’t think I ever realize how fucking exhausted I am until I slow down for a second.”
“Yeah,” Phil replied, nodding quickly. “I’ve noticed that.”
“Thanks for reminding me to leave before I overdid it,” Dan said, closing his eyes softly. He brought a hand up to brush his hair out of his face, not really caring if it was ruffled anymore. “‘Cause you know. I would’ve just kept going if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“I mean, I really mostly did that for myself,” Phil admitted, giggling quietly. Dan rolled his eyes without opening them. “But I’ll gladly take the credit.”
“You twat,” Dan said, lightly kicking his heel into Phil’s knee. Phil laughed, bright and sharp, and Dan smiled to himself.
“You seem a little off tonight,” Phil said after a few moments, in that light tone he used when he didn’t want Dan to think he was concerned. He’d never been particularly good at it.
“Yeah,” Dan sighed, and then shrugged. He opened his eyes, but didn’t look at Phil. “I don’t know why. I don’t think anything triggered it or anything, I just feel…”
Dan sighed again, because it was feeling kind of good to sigh, and he wondered how many he could get away with before it stopped being cathartic, and if when he got to that point, if it would become depressing or funny. He looked over to Phil just in time to see Phil’s expression set into something determined, and then he was crawling on top of Dan.
As was the case with many things Phil did, he didn’t seem to fully think it through and went a little too fast, and Dan had to hurriedly lift his hands to steady Phil’s hips so that they didn’t both fall off the couch. Phil either wasn’t aware of the nearly avoided disaster or (more likely) didn’t care, and just laid fully on top of Dan and grinned down at him. “Hi.”
Phil leaned in quickly to kiss the tip of Dan’s nose, in a way that felt kind of gross and made Dan’s nose itch afterwards, but made Dan’s chest flutter anyway. Dan craned his neck to nuzzle his nose against Phil’s cheek, mostly just to get it to stop itching, and then very quickly kissed Phil’s mouth. Just so they were even.
He leaned his head back then and just let himself stare at Phil’s face. The lighting in here definitely wasn’t the purple-blue of the club, and the combination of the slightly different shades of yellow-white from the overhead and the lamp weren’t the most flattering, but Phil still looked beautiful. He always looked rather beautiful.
“You look beautiful,” Dan told him, because he didn’t see a reason not to. Phil beamed, and Dan couldn’t help but smile back, bringing one hand up from Phil’s hip to trail lightly across his face.
“I know,” Phil replied, and Dan scoffed, but didn’t stop staring. He moved his hand up from Phil’s cheek to run his fingers through Phil’s hair, biting his lip.
“Why didn’t you go blond ages ago?” Dan asked, not really looking for an answer. He liked the way the platinum silver looked against his fingers. “Seriously. It’s sexy as fuck. You should’ve been doing this for years.”
“I was waiting for the right time,” Phil said, very primly, and Dan laughed before kissing him again. He could feel himself relaxing as they laid here like this, and as tired as he was, he found himself not wanting to go to bed quite yet.
“Do you reckon I should go blonde?” Dan asked when he pulled away a few seconds later. He was pretty sure he couldn’t pull off quite what Phil had going on, but maybe something a bit more yellow and a little less silver. “You think it would suit me?”
“Obviously I think it would suit you,” Phil said, and Dan grinned, because he hadn’t thought it was obvious at all. “But I don’t know if the world could handle us both being blonde at the same time. They wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“Maybe,” Dan agreed, shrugging his shoulders minutely. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, and Phil rested his head on Dan’s chest. Dan sighed for a fifth (or possibly sixth, he was losing count) time. “Do you think I’m bad at being a slut?”
“What?” Phil asked, picking his head back up from Dan’s chest. His eyebrows were drawn together, and he did that little half-laugh he did whenever he was genuinely confused.
“Tonight, I was going to, like…” Dan trailed off, trying to think of the right way to word this. “Ya know, pop open a few extra buttons, get all flirty. Be a little slutty, have a hot gay boy summer. But you mighta noticed I didn’t exactly do that. I think I’m kinda shit at being slutty.”
“You’ve dressed up as a sexy nun on YouTube twice now,” Phil pointed out. He sat up a little more, like he was taking this seriously. Dan scrunched up his mouth.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t count. That was a joke,” Dan said. It had started out as a joke, at least, if also a little bit because he knew Phil was into it, although it had kind of stopped being a joke after he started getting in character. But that was beside the point.
“And you did that catboy photoshoot, in the jumper. That was pretty slutty,” Phil continued, his expression focused like he was really thinking about it. “And there was that photoshoot with the lace, in front of the fire?”
“Yeah, but that was like, performative. For our audience,” Dan argued. He wasn’t really sure what he was saying anymore, and he kind of related to the way Phil squinted his eyes in confusion.
“Who do you want to be slutty for?” Phil asked. He said it like there was a certain correct answer he was looking for, and it was something Dan should know. Dan had no idea what he wanted to hear.
“Uh,” Dan said after a moment, shrugging, “I guess it’s for myself? I’ve been working a lot lately on being more unapologetically me and accepting of my sexuality, and I feel like really just putting myself out there in this flamboyant yet still vulnerable way would be good for helping me embrace the parts of myself that I still feel some underlying shame about, and—what the fuck are you doing?”
Phil had sat up so he was straddling Dan’s waist, and was reaching down to undo the buttons on Dan’s shirt. He shrugged. “Sorry, I got bored like, five words in. This is what you said you wanted to do, right? Pop a few buttons?”
“Yeah but-“ Dan cut himself off by laughing. Phil had his tongue sticking slightly out of the corner of his mouth as he kept undoing Dan’s buttons. Dan moved his hands to bat Phil’s away, but decided against it at the last moment, instead just shaking his head. “It kinda defeats the purpose to do it at home by myself.”
“You’re not by yourself. I’m right here,” Phil pointed out. He opened Dan’s shirt down to the bottom of his ribs, at which point he stopped, evidently satisfied and giving a quick pat to Dan’s exposed chest. Dan laughed and rolled his eyes.
“You don’t count,” Dan told him. He didn’t hate the position he’d found himself in, though, with his shirt half undone and Phil sitting on top of him. He moved his hands back to Phil’s waist.
“We could get some roleplay action on. Pretend I’m a random guy you met at the club,” Phil suggested. He was smiling wider now, clearly getting into the idea. “My name could be Luke… uh…”
Dan waited for a moment for Phil to go on, then burst out laughing. “Luke what? Are you telling me you don’t already have a whole character lined up for this?”
“Shut up, I’m trying to think of a cool last name,” Phil said, giving Dan a stern look that he ruined by giggling. Dan grinned. “Fuck, now I can only think of ‘Striker’ and that’s rather stupid.”
“I mean, you already started with the first name Luke, so I dunno if there’s much to work with,” Dan said, smirking, and Phil huffed indignantly.
“Luke is totally a cool name!” Phil insisted. Dan giggled, and Phil rolled his eyes, sitting up a little straighter and undoing another button of Dan’s shirt like he couldn’t help it. “Whatever. So, you’re at the club, and Luke walks up to you and that bar, and says ‘hey lad, what-‘“
Dan realized promptly that he did not give a shit about what ‘Luke’ had to say, and that he simultaneously hated the voice Phil was putting on for the character and absolutely loved Phil for doing it. So he grabbed Phil’s face in both of his hands and kissed him, hard, effectively shutting him up and communicating his affection all in one.
“That’s a bit forward for someone you just met at the club,” Phil murmured when Dan loosened his grip on his face. He didn’t pull away much more than an inch from Dan’s mouth to speak, and Dan could feel his breath on his lips.
“Don’t want a random guy I met at the club,” Dan mumbled, settling his hands on the back of Phil’s neck. “Changed my mind. I don’t wanna be slutty. Wanna have boring old man sex with you.”
Phil didn’t say anything more, just leaned in to kiss Dan again, and Dan let him, pulling him down so Phil was laying flush on top of him. It suddenly felt kind of ridiculous that he’d put so much weight into playing the persona of slutty when he actually got this, something so, so much better. Realizing how smitten Phil being stupid got him was always humbling, but also a great reminder of just how much he had already.
“I love you,” Dan said, pulling back from Phil’s mouth and taking a deep breath. He lightly dragged one of his thumbs across Phil’s face, just to commit how beautiful he was to memory with as many senses as possible. His thumb came to rest on the corner of Phil’s mouth, and Dan’s heart melted a little when Phil kissed it.
“I love you too.”