Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phil was pacing. He couldn’t help it, okay? He had nervous energy. 

He’d gotten to the airport before the sun even set, despite Dan’s plane not coming in until 7:30 in the evening, and paced around the garage tracking the flight on an app. He’d paced to baggage claim as soon as he’d seen Dan’s flight marked as ‘arrived’, then realized Dan would have to go through customs and told himself to sit and wait on a bench, which did not last long. Then, after he’d paced back to the car in short term parking to check he hadn’t overstayed the limit, he panicked halfway there thinking he’d miss Dan. What would Dan think if he wasn’t immediately at baggage claim? Shit, he’d probably be anxious. Phil took out his phone to text him and then stopped.

Messages:

Dan!

just landed no rush

Phil paused in the middle of the walkway and sighed. Two months without Dan and he’d lost his mind. Dan was a full adult, not that timid eighteen year old who pulled the sides of his furry hat when he felt awkward and stalked Phil on Twitter and looked at him with both adoration and fear in his eyes, as if he could see what was coming next and was helpless to stop it. 

Phil had felt a bit helpless too back then, but, well, that was love. A decade on, and Dan was returning from a 10 week leg of a tour performing the most honest, bravest thing he’d ever created. Phil was waiting to pick him up and bring him to the house they’d bought together, with the one big bed, unlike all the other places they’d lived, which were a front first and a home second. 

Phil pocketed his phone and realized he was still standing in the middle of the illuminated skybridge to short term parking, being all poetic whilst people with American accents jostled by him, complaining about the weather and the turbulence and the availability of cabbies - wait. American accents?

Phil did not run, rather strode at a sedate pace, (except when taking the escalator steps three at a time) back to baggage claim. He rounded the corner just in time to see Dan heave his holiday luggage off the carousel. Phil gave himself half a second to admire his rippling biceps (Dan would scoff if he ever called them rippling, but Phil was allowed his secret appreciation) and then jogged forward. By the time he got there Dan had seen him and was leaning casually on the handle of his luggage, eyebrows raised. Phil skidded up beside him and pinched him on the cheek, which Dan batted away.

“‘Allo mate,” Phil said, cheeks stretched with grinning. 

“Hello, mate?” Dan repeated incredulously, articulating the consonants with faux disgust even as his eyes twinkled with humour. 

“I just thought I should give you a dose of that true British culture you’ve been missing since you’ve been surrounded by Americans for so long,” Phil replied, grabbing Dan's luggage from his hand and wheeling it around toward the exit. 

“So you decided to ease me in with the most offensively British statement possible?” Dan followed behind him, swinging his leather carryall onto his shoulder and matching his loping stride. 

They walked in unison as they continued to bicker quietly, each step making Phil feel less off-kilter, like the world had been a few degrees off its axis but he hadn’t noticed until it corrected itself. 

“You know, the reason I asked you to meet me at baggage claim was to help me with my baggage, not stride up looking suave after I’ve done all the work.”

“Right, because your weak little arms couldn’t possibly lift this all by yourself. Did you get someone else to help?”

“Oh, yes actually!” Dan snapped his fingers, an evil grin on his face. “This really toned guy I was next to on the plane. His shirt rode up while he was lifting it, you should see his abs. He asked if anyone was coming to get me and I said ‘oh it's fine’,” he gave a mock sniffle, “He’ll be here, he’s just got higher priorities…”

“Alright twat,” Phil laughed, “I was early, for your information. How could I be late when you texted me four thousand times - don’t forget, the plane lands at 7:30 so you’ll have to be there by 7 to get a good spot, you know how hard it is to get into Heathrow, did you put petrol in the car? Ouch!”

Phil dodged to avoid Dan’s long finger poking him in the side and almost knocked into a woman with a stroller, who looked haggard and unimpressed. 

“You’re a menace Phil.” Dan whispered, pulling him back to front-facing. “A menace with no time management skills apparently because despite all of those texts- “

“No, listen,” Phil interrupted him, “I was here ages ago, I thought customs would take longer so I went back to check on the car, but apparently the British government did not perceive you”, he pokes Dan back, more gently, “as a threat this time, so…”

Dan snorted. “Well that’s optimistic,” He said wryly, “Bet MI5 has eyes on us right now. See that camera? They’ll wait until I’ve let my guard down to strike.”

“Mmhmm, or you’re a conspiracy theorist.”

They exited the skybridge into the garage as the crowds around them thinned out. The air was clear and cold. Phil felt rejuvenated. 

He rushed to get to the car first, suitcase banging along the pavement (‘Careful with my valuables!’ shrieked Dan) so he could ostentatiously open the passenger door for Dan and give a great scraping bow and a “Milord”. 

“Thank you, servant.” Dan plopped his carry-on atop the suitcase and slid into the car, smirking. 

Phil nudged the door shut and loaded the bags both into the boot as Dan started the engine. 

“It’s a bit bloody nippy”, Dan was saying as Phil got into the drivers, heat already blasting. “If I’d known jolly old England was going to be this fucking freezing when I got back I’d have protested the last show being in the middle of Arizona.”

“Well, it is winter, ergo it is cold. I know you may have forgotten how seasons work here because you left your homeland so many ages ago.” 

Dan snorted and started rubbing his hands together ferociously. Phil twisted, grabbing them to still him. 

“I could warm ya up a bit, laddie” he said with a wink. 

Dan finally laughed loudly ( YES , Phil thought), throwing his head back against the headrest and looking at Phil more fondly than he allowed himself to in the airport. 

“I bet you could,” he replied. Dan’s real flirting was almost identical to his joke flirting, but Phil could tell them apart. 

Phil gave a small smile. The car’s windows were slightly tinted and the garage was dark. He leaned imperceptibly closer to Dan’s tilted head. 

“You know, we probably don’t have to do that anymore,” he said, thoughts spilling aimlessly from his mouth like they always did when he was with Dan.

Dan raised an eyebrow in question, leaning in too. 

“Be all distant in the airport. Not touch or anything, just in case.” 

“Ah,” Dan said quietly, but his smile did not fade, nor slide into that fake version of his smile that he always used when faced with a subject he didn’t want to talk about. “Probably not.”

Buoyed by this, Phil continued. 

“We’re a bit out of the public eye now.”

“And isn’t it glorious,” Dan murmured. Their faces were quite close together now. Phil could see every dark eyelash. 

“Mmm,” he agreed, before moving in to drop a light kiss on Dan's lips. 

Phil was immediately suffused with warmth. He chased it, pushing further, and Dan gave way easily, bringing a familiar hand up to brush through the short cropped hair on the back of Phil’s neck. The kiss deepened to something more than was probably appropriate for an airport homecoming, but not enough to sate Phil's hunger. 

Mouths opened, hands grasped, and Phil felt the tip of Dan's tongue pass between his lips and groaned, pressing his fingertips proprietarily into Dan's thigh until the groan echoed around the small interior of the car. When they parted after many long seconds, the air was closer, the heat more intense, and Phil's heart was thudding. 

He pulled back, not too far, leaving Dan gasping for breath, hand at his forehead, as Phil nuzzled at his neck. Dan's hand came down softly into Phil's quiff, messily rearranging it, the pads of Dan's fingers pressing softly into his scalp until he could moan with the pleasure. 

“What,” Dan whispered, still a bit breathy, “Was that for?”

“Mmm I dunno,” Phil said, an idea taking form. He traced a finger along the collar of Dan’s shirt. “I figure, when you’re here, we normally snog about once a week -”

“Oi!” Dan laughed, pulling on Phil's hair slightly, “That is not true, you needy baby. I kiss you every day.”

“Oh sure, when you’ve got the time,” Phil mumbled, smiling into Dan’s collarbone as he teased him. “But recently I’ve been super-wotsit, supersteeded, by all these high and mighty life saving projects you’re doing - the book, the tour -”

“Oh I’m terribly sorry, is Philly feeling neglected because I’m living my truth and being a big boy?” The rumble of Dan's chest when he spoke was very lulling to Phil's ear, so he frowned when Dan tilted his head up to kiss him on the forehead and look into his eyes. 

“And the word is superseded, by the way.”

Phil rolled his eyes and shoved himself away from Dan's warmth, trying and failing to quench his grin at Dan's over-correcting.

“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat and reaching for the seatbelt. “My thinking is, you owe me the equivalent of one proper snog a week for the last, what, nine weeks?”

“Ten,” Dan says, a smile in his voice, “and fair enough. I suppose you’re going to spring them on me at random.”

Well why not, Phil thought selfishly, you’re all mine for the next month. 

He pulled the gear shift and started reversing out of the lot. “Now you’re getting it,” he said, “That one counted for at least two weeks, possibly three, so we’re getting there.”

“Only two?” Dan laughed. “I dread to think what you’ve got planned for the bedroom.”

Phil snorted, but his heartbeat began to quicken as they pulled onto the motorway. “Well that’s on another scale. The way I see it, you only give me a proper shagging about once a month. so I’m entitled to two -”

“Good lord Phil,” Dan gasped in mock bashfulness, “I’ve created a monster. A horny barbarian, a caveman -”

“That’s me,” Phil replied cheerfully. 

They hadn’t always joked about sex. In the beginning it was shyness, all fumbling fingers and red cheeks and naivety. The act was sacred, and was taken as seriously as two kids madly in love could take it, but afterwards it was all bluffing, trying to pretend that it was old news to them, just another fuck, crude and hollow. 

And in the middle, especially the dark years when they behaved like the camera was always on, they would bottle up their emotions until they cracked. Sex was all desperation and fear. Sneaking into each other’s rooms at night trembling with need but barely ever staying there afterwards, checking themselves frantically in the mirror for hickies at three am, hearing Dan's loud, gulping sobs through the wall and knowing Phil could do nothing to comfort him. 

So now, the joking was good. It felt adult. It felt like them. It had taken years and the interventions of therapists and friends and family, but they were here. 

Throughout the drive home, Dan alternated between filling him in on the plane ride and ruminating on what kinky things Phil would demand of him. 

Phil interrupted him a few times to ask if he would want food (“Ate on the plane”) and when the crew would be flying in (“This weekend, they’re packing up the set to ship”), but mostly he listened, happy to be hearing Dan’s familiar wit in person instead of over a small screen and a tinny speaker. 

They pulled into the drive and argued about who was unloading the luggage, which was typical. Phil had left a few soft lights on to illuminate the ground floor, and he saw Dan's face lose its last strains of tension as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. 

Phil tidied the bags and keys and jackets in the entryway, giving Dan a minute. When he approached, he draped himself over Dan's spine from behind, chastely drawing his fingers up his ribs and feeling the soft pattern of his breathing. Dan allowed this for a long moment, and then shifted slightly. Phil loosened his grip but did not let go. 

“Phil,” Dan's voice was slightly huskier than before. Was he crying? Phil let go and nudged him around, but there were no tears in Dan's eyes, just a dark look that Phil hesitated to call smoldering but couldn’t really be anything else. His pulse quickened again. 

“Are you going to let me go and wash months of tour bus and airplane off myself before I give you this life changing fuck you are apparently salivating for?”

Phil bit the inside of his lip in mock contemplation to stop himself from panting like a dog. 

“Must you?”

Dan laughed. “Trust me, you’ll want me to.” He grabbed Phil's arm to support himself as he took off his trainers, and gestured with his head so Phil would bring his ear closer. 

“Are you ready?” he murmured, “how much time do you need?”

Phil smiled cheekily. “I've done a bit already. Long day, yunno? Lots of hours to fill.” 

He was pleased to hear Dan curse under his breath and stumble a bit before tossing the shoe aside and straightening. 

“Alright.” Dan gave him a considering look. “Give me 15, then come to the shower. I wanna help.”

Chapter Text

Phil was pacing again. He tread as softly as he could on the carpet outside the bath as the sounds of Dan's shower filtered through. As soon as his phone read 15 minutes since they had arrived, he quietly eased the door open and slipped inside. Their shower was enclosed in glass, now slightly fogged, but Dan saw him right away through the mist. He smirked and beckoned. Phil dropped his towel unceremoniously to join him. 

Dan was washing conditioner out of his hair. Typically, this was only step three of a multilevel hair care regimen that could last up to an hour, to Phil’s constant irritation. but tonight, he figured, he could convince Dan to skip steps four through eight. Dan would be annoyed in the morning, but he would look all cute and mussed, with frizzy bits of his hair sticking out all over - Phil's favorite look for him. Well, Phil thought with a smirk as the shower door closed and his eyes raked over Dan's long and lanky form, one of his favorite looks for him. 

“That was fast.” Dan murmured, eyes closed and head tilted back under the shower head. “Such a needy puppy.”

“Ew,” Phil laughed, stepping under the spray to run his hands through Dan's hair. “Everyone hated that.”

Dan snorted. 

“Oh I’m sure that line is in a fic somewhere on the internet.”

“Well everyone in the room hated that,” Phil replied. 

The strands of Dan's hair slipped through his fingers like feathers, so he kept going even though all the conditioner was out. 

“By the way,” Dan began quietly. 

“Mmm?”

“That bath mat looks so much worse than it did on facetime.”

“Shhh” Phil grinned, “Don’t worry about it.”

His hands slid easily down Dan's bare sides. He nosed his way up Dan's neck from behind and breathed into his ear, “Why do you smell so good?”

“Because you’re part rat,” Dan said, “They have excellent senses of smell.”

Phil felt Dan swivel in his arms, his hands moving possesively over every inch of Phil’s body. 

As they fell into a lazy, open mouthed kiss, Dan's hands crept ever lower until they grasped Phil's ass. 

“Bubble butt,” Dan chuckled against his lips. 

“You love it,” Phil snarked back, letting out a tiny gasp as Dan's finger ran down along the seam of his cheeks. 

When his finger pressed insistently against Phil's perineum, Phil exhaled sharply and laid his head on Dan’s damp shoulder. He felt heavy and light at the same time, both dizzy with enthusiasm and content to stay here, sluggish and warm, in the safety of the shower spray, forever. 

Dan, apparently, had other plans. After a minute he stretched, nudged Phil’s head off him, and maneuvered him delicately so he was facing the wall of the shower. Dan squeezed his ass. 

“Give us a mo’.”

Phil leaned his forehead against the wall and waited for Dan to grab the lube out of the medicine cabinet. The only sound was the splashing of the shower. He could see curls of Dan's brown hair on the tile. The bathroom smelled like his shampoo. It was all blissfully domestic. 

By the time Dan's finger breached him, Phil was utterly relaxed. He had done most of the slow, tedious work to make himself ready earlier, and again while he was waiting for Dan, so he took two fingers quickly.

Dan bit lightly at his shoulder and then kissed the spot. It was such a Dan move that Phil couldn’t help but smile stupidly. 

Dan moved his fingers in a practiced, meticulous pattern, pressing and stretching and dancing around the sensitive bits, until Phil was panting. 

“Alr-” He cleared his throat, “Alright c’mon c’mon I’m bloody ready for another, christ.”

Dan huffed a laugh. “You sound like me. Have you picked up my vocabulary because you missed me so? Now I really do live rent free in your head.”

“You,” Phil gasped as Dan added a third finger, slick and slow, “wish. That's all you’ve ever wanted, to replace me with a Dan clone.”

“And why not? I'm an excellent roommate. I always water the plants. I cook, I clean. How are the plants, by the way?”

“Not - oh - the time, Daniel.”

Phil had loved the quiet, but he loved this too. That this act, with all its fussy elements, had become so natural for them they could do it without interrupting their normal flow of inane chatter. If bantering was how they showed they loved eachother, this was just an extension of that love. 

On the rare and precious occasions Dan let Phil take him, they were more silent. Those times felt almost holy to Phil, Dan's body the glorious subject of his worship, their bedroom dark and hushed as a catholic church. Whispered words like “faster” and “fuck me” felt like prayers of devotion.

But this ease was special too - it was what 13 years orbiting eachother had given them. Dan plastered himself to Phil's back and sucked a light bruise into the spot right behind his ear, a spot they’d found through trial and error, and that always made Phil feel like he was 24 again. 

He moaned and ground himself against the long, hard shape of Dan pressing at his lower back. 

“Want-”

“Yeah?” Dan's voice was softer than it was with anyone else. “C’mon then, let’s get you to the bed.”

The trip from the bath to the master passed in a daze for Phil. He felt higher than he ever had the few times he tried weed. Dan was handsy, groping Phil as he wiped him down with a towel and pulled him down the hall. Dan's eyes were dark and he kept tossing his damp hair out of his eyes with a motion that felt painfully nostalgic. 

They collapsed on the bed, kissing sloppily, their legs slotting together as Dan groped for the light switch and turned on the lamp, casting their room into a warm glow.

Dan sat up, breathing hard and looking down at Phil like he wanted to eat him whole. Phil knew the feeling. He couldn’t stop himself from grasping Dan's cock, shiny and dripping. Dan batted his hand away. 

“Too close” he gasped, “You fucker.”

Phil laughed, almost hysterically. How could they still want each other so much, after all this time?

“How do you - which way-“ Dan stumbled over his words, reaching for the lube again, which had rolled to the edge of the bed when they crash landed. 

“From behind first, please please can you-” Phil didn’t care that he was begging. 

Dan’s eyes were all pupil as they surveyed Phil. “Are you sure? It’s been a while, it might be a lot-”

“Dan,” Phil huffed, popping his lip into a pout. 

Dan laughed breathlessly, letting Phil up so he could turn onto his hands and knees. Phil heard the pop of the cap. 

“What a drama queen. Princess Phil.”

“The people’s princess, maybe,” Phil grinned into his shoulder, spreading his knees apart and pushing his ass out. He heard Dan's breath catch, which was satisfying.

Dan sat up behind him, their legs locked together, one hand on the small of Phil's back and the other around himself as he began to press in. 

“Pillow princess, more like.”

Phil's affronted gasp turned into a drawn out whine, shockingly loud in the quiet room. Dan felt like fire, surging into him and setting him alight from within. He struggled to catch his breath for a second, then motioned impatiently for Dan to continue. 

The next stroke knocked Phil from his hands to his elbows. Dan let out an appreciative moan at the change in position, pressing himself to Phil’s backside and running his hands along his torso. They were glued together. Nothing had ever felt more appropriate. 

“Never,” breathed Phil, “leave me again.”

Dan huffed, pulling out and pressing in again, agonizingly slow. 

“What about Australia.”

“ Fuck Australia,” Phil said, between tiny involuntary whimpers. 

“Problematic. E-even the koalas Phil?” Dan said haltingly as he started up a slow pace that had every nerve ending inside Phil singing. It seemed he did not require a reply, for which Phil was grateful, because that was way out of his current ability. 

The world narrowed down to the rhythmic motion between the two of them, the push and pull. Their speech was fragmented: 

“Here?” “Ye-es” 

“Please”  “God, you feel…”

“I lo-“ “Me too, me too fuck!”

After a time, Dan’s thrusts became more frantic. Phil was overcome with the need to see his eyes. He gathered himself enough to knock on the headboard twice, and Dan gasped, paused, slid out. 

Phil rolled over lazily and they notched back together like puzzle pieces, Dan lifting Phil's legs and fitting them over his hips, settling a pillow under him, then sliding home with an earthshaking moan. 

He collapsed onto Phil’s chest, hips pumping mindlessly, and Phil grabbed greedily at his hair until Dan lifted his head and looked at him. His eyes were huge and dark and rimmed with red. He looked glorious. 

“I’m- hic -close,” he croaked. Phil nodded.

He held Dan’s gaze until he finished and collapsed against Phil’s chest. Then Dan, still hard inside him, rolled them to their sides and reached around Phil, using both trembling hands to pull on his neglected cock, one fingernail teasing the rim, and whispered dirty sweet praises in his ear until Phil shook with ecstasy.

In the hushed aftermath, as Dan rose to get a cloth, Phil squirmed sleepily, enjoying the ebbing pleasure throughout his body, the dull and satisfying ache that would fade eventually, to his secret disappointment. 

A damp cloth landed on his chest and Dan knelt between his legs with the other one. Phil raised an eyebrow. 

“How chivalrous.” His voice was scratchy. 

“Don’t say I'm not good to you.”

Never , Phil thought dreamily but did not say aloud. Dan was still learning to take compliments without shutting down or reverting to sarcasm, and “no one’s ever been good to me as you” might just be pushing it.

They lay together in silence after cleaning up until Phil heard a vast rumble from the direction of Dan's stomach. He heaved a great sigh and halfheartedly swiped at Dan's arm.

“Ate on the plane my arse.” 

“It was shit food. And I wanted to ravish you first, ob viously.”

“Oh, ob viously.”

“Deliveroo?”

“Yeh. But, er, my phone is in the bathroom.”

“Of course it is.” Dan rolled sluggishly out of bed and Phil held back a compliment about how attractive the muscles bunching in his back were as he shrugged on Phil's silky red dressing gown. 

“Good look for you,” he said instead, smirking suggestively. 

Dan stopped in front of the mirror to look and frowned.

“This hair is going to be a nightmare in the morning.” 

Phil laughed, “but Daniel, it couldn’t be helped. I required ravishing.”

“Didn’t you just,” Dan winked and sashayed out of the room. 

“Burgers?” he called from the hall.

“Burgers,” called Phil back, madly in love.