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Dan is sitting in his room with his packed duffel bag zipped neatly on the bed beside him. His head is cocked, listening as closely as he can for sounds from downstairs.
There— the groan of wood on wood, followed by footsteps. He knows that noise exactly and can picture it in his mind’s eye: his mum sliding her chair and getting up from the kitchen table. He glances over at his alarm clock, which reads 16:32. He doesn’t have to be at the station for another hour. He can afford to wait.
His mum’s light footsteps grow softer, then slightly louder, and then are swallowed by the soft, carpeted creak of the stairs. She passes the door of his room without pausing—Dan holds his breath—and then, squeak, slam—the door to his parents’ bedroom shuts. He winces at how hard she closed the door, and lets out a soft, shaky breath. He gets up, hefting the duffel bag over his shoulder and treading carefully towards his door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, listening.
The thing is that he hates running into his mum after his parents fight and his dad storms out like that. He feels bad—like he should want to help, somehow, or at least talk to her—but he definitely can’t risk it today. He doesn’t have enough money to rebook the train ticket if he misses it, so there’s no time to deal with the conversation that he'd have to have if his mum saw him with his week’s worth of clothes in a duffel bag and demanded to know where he was going. It’s better this way. He still feels guilt, tangy and metallic on the back of his tongue like the smell of his hand from holding onto that doorknob for too long, hesitating.
The faintest cringe of bedsprings from down the hall lets him know that his mum has lain down on the bed—safe. Bracing himself, he turns the doorknob, pressing his other hand against the wood in a counterbalance so that it opens in perfect silence.
The rest is easy; he toes down the edges of the stairs where they won’t creak, skips the sagging step a quarter of the way down, and peers around the corner to make sure that the coast is clear, before slipping out the back door into the freezing cold twilight. The air wakes him up—he’s not drowsy, exactly, but he hasn’t been getting the best sleep of his life these last few weeks. It’s almost nice, being assaulted by the January wind, as he stands and waits at the bus stop. It’s making him shake a little, like exhaustion but also relief. Unfortunately, like an idiot, he’d packed his warmest coat up at the bottom of his duffel, and there's no way he’s going to open up his whole bag on the floor in public to dig it out.
He gets to the train station with twenty minutes to spare, and decides it's worth a few quid to get some warm Starbucks. He thinks of Phil as he orders a caramel macchiato, and tries to ignore the look that he’s pretty sure the barista is giving him. If she thinks a caramel macchiato isn’t manly enough for him, she can stuff it. Dan doesn’t feel up to pretending to be more of a man than he is, right now.
He holds the cup tightly with both hands, and it warms him a little bit. The coffee tastes like the barista burnt the espresso shot, he thinks. It’s a good thing its mostly sugar.
He stands a bit too close to the door of the train when it pulls in, on accident, and a lady gives him a dirty look as he ducks out of the way a second too late to be polite. Dan glances around the inside of the train nervously, hoping for an empty pair of seats he can take for himself, but of course there aren't any. Instead, he ends up folding himself into the aisle seat next to a middle-aged man with a permanent scowl on his face, who’s talking to someone on the phone and doesn’t so much as glance in Dan's direction when he sits.
Dan fumbles with his backpack and eventually manages to extract his earbuds. Matt Bellamy’s voice relaxes him a little bit. Boarded, c u soon :3, he texts Phil. He always listens to Muse when he's on his way to see Phil. Is three times enough to make something always? He’s not sure.
The businessman’s low, angry voice is almost completely drowned out. Almost. After a few minutes, he looks over at Dan sharply, and Dan realizes that he had mindlessly started humming. Mortified, he stiffens and cuts the noise off at the jugular. The businessman is shaking his head and saying something into the phone — on the fucking train, Dan catches.
He wants to evaporate and be somewhere, literally anywhere else, but he can’t move, can he? If he got up and moved, wouldn’t he just look rude? What if there aren’t other open seats and he had to just come crawling right back to this one after having gotten up with all his stuff like a weirdo? And so, he just sits, paralyzed, and Matt Bellamy crooning in his ear feels too loud, all of the sudden. Dan turns down the volume until it’s hardly even audible over the rumbling of the train.
Manchester Piccadilly, says the smooth announcer voice. Dan blinks. He can’t possibly be there already. He scrambles for his duffel, and nearly drops it, but not quite, pulling it close to his body as he stumbles towards the doors. He’d been waiting for this for so long that he’d not even properly let himself realize that it was today, it was now, he was going to get to see Phil again. It didn’t feel real, that he would get to have that. He was here, in Manchester, and so was Phil.
Phil, who was stood against the wall of the stairwell, hands shoved awkwardly in his pockets, silly bright scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, in his same black skinny jeans and converse, despite the near-foot of snow covering everything here.
“Phil,” Dan said, his voice catching in his throat stupidly. “Phil!”
Phil looked up from his phone and saw him, and a giddy smile spread across his face.
Dan’s doesn’t even have time to fall over his feet before Phil is there, wrapping him up in the tightest imaginable hug, his clenched fists digging into Dan’s back.
Dan lets out a breath and it's shaky. “Hi,” he says, pulling back.
“Hi you,” says Phil.
Dan feels something like a laugh bubbling up inside of him. It’s a strange feeling, but a good one, and Dan has quickly come to associate it with the overwhelming presence of Phil, Phil, Phil.
“Was the train okay?" Phil’s asking.
“Yeah, fine,” Dan breathes. "Did you finish the level of Sonic?”
“No, I kept dying on that one part with the wheel thingy…”
And they’re off, winding circuitously through the station to the bus. Dan stuffs his hands in his pockets too, so he doesn’t do something stupid like try to hold Phil’s hand.
“You’re quiet today, Danny,” Phil is saying, as they're on the tiny sofa in his apartment, after Dan's watched him die in Sonic for the millionth time.
“What? I'm not quiet, I'm normal,” Dan protests, automatically.
“No you’re usually talking my ear off. This is kind of quiet.” Phil pouts, and to Dan’s alarm, he actually looks kind of concerned.
“Uh… sorry? I can talk more? I guess I’m just kind of tired.”
“That’s okay. I just wanted to know if something was up?”
“Nothing’s up,” Dan insists. “I'm really glad to see you.”
Phil softens, and smiles. "I know. It’s been ages.”
“Ages,” Dan echoes. “It was literally a month.”
“I know, but it was a whole month without any bear cuddles." Phil’s pouting again, and Dan surges forward to kiss the pout, because he can. It’s magical, still, which kind of scares him. The longer it feels that way the more scared he is that it’s going to stop.
Dan pulls back, and lays his head on Phil’s shoulder, leaning into their drowsy pocket of shared warmth. “Give it another go, I have a good feeling about this one.”
Phil opens the start menu again but his mind is wandering and he dies almost immediately. He's waiting for Dan’s flailing reaction, but all that comes is a small scoff and a shake from the head laying his shoulder. He goes back again, and makes a little further this time, before dying in a spectacularly stupid way and groaning at his own failure. From Dan, though, nothing but a tiny snuffle.
He puts down the controller and tucks his chin awkwardly, trying to see Dan's face. One long, limp arm is slung carelessly across Phil’s lap, and another snuffle emits from below the mussed brown fringe. It’s a snore, Phil realizes. Dan's fallen asleep. His heart swells, though it pains him a little to think that Dan was this tired and he hadn’t even said anything. It’s late, anyway, they probably should have gone to bed ages ago.
“Dan,” he says, softly. “Hey. Danny-o.” He laces his fingers into Dan’s where they lie on his lap and squeezes a little. Dan’s fingers curl into his reflexively, and then his whole body starts, his head jerking up and nearly knocking Phil in the skull.
“Wha— shit, sorry. I um. Dozed off.”
“’S okay, I reckon we should go to bed. It’s like, half two.”
“Didn’t mean to… did you beat it?”
“No,” Phil stretches his arms and gets up, tugging Dan with him. “C’mon, bedtime.”
“We can stay up—“
“Dan, you look like you’re gonna pass out. Let’s go to bed.”
Dan pulls his hand away and tucks his arms against his chest. “Wanna spend time with you.”
Phil looks back at him quizzically. “Well, I have great news then.” He leans in for dramatic effect, drops his voice. “I will also be with you. In the bed.”
That gets him a laugh, and Dan bumps their shoulders together. “You’re such a creep.” He rubs his eyes and shifts away. “Gonna piss.”
Phil swoops in to kiss his forehead and lets him go, heading off to the bedroom.
When Dan joins him he walks in and falls face-first onto the bed with a muted “oof.” The bed is a bit too small for those kinds of dramatics, really, and he sort of whacks Phil in the stomach.
“Sleepy bear,” Phil says sympathetically. “Come snuggle.”
And Dan gets under the covers and he’s out like a light—usually he squirms more. Phil feels like his heart is going to burst. He wraps Dan up in his arms and holds him close, lingering awake for a little while just to enjoy what this feels like, quiet and alone together. He never liked falling asleep alone, and now he hates it extra, because it’s not just him that’s alone it’s Dan, too, somewhere far away in Wokingham with no one to be by his side.
Not now, though. He has Phil. Phil squeezes him just to prove it.
By lunch the next day, Phil is delighted, because his Dan is properly back. He’s leaned back in his chair, seesawing it on two legs, waving his arms around, telling some story about a shitty boss he'd had back in Reading. Phil is sitting cross legged on the floor, laughing along.
“And— oh, Phil, one time, it was so horrible, I was supposed to be at work at 5am, right? And on the weekend as well.”
“5am on weekends?” Phil parrots, incredulous.
“I know! It was the worst. And I went out on the Saturday after my shift because it was my mate’s birthday, and I was going to go home early I swear but then we were just drinking and— bam, before I knew it, four in the morning, I have to go straight to work.”
“Oh my god.”
“So I’m walking around all — urgh, like a zombie—" Dan gets up and walks like a zombie with his arms stiff, tongue lolling out. “Like, trying to find the fucking organic potatoes or whatever, but I’m falling asleep standing up.”
“Horses can do that, you know,” Phil says. “They lock their knees.”
“Well I don’t know how to lock my knees, so. I was just falling over, like, in the middle of the store.”
“Couldn’t you have called off or something? Told the manager you were ill?”
Dan catches himself, chews his lip. “I could’ve, I guess. Oh god, I could’ve,” horror dawns on his face. “Phil. This is why I shouldn’t be allowed to do anything on my own.” He groans and collapses back into his chair. “Of course I should have just told my manager and gone home. D’you know what I did instead?"
Phil’s mildly alarmed now. “What?”
Dan tilts back in the chair again. “I went upstairs and found some random dark room, and I just, curled up under the table and took a nap.”
“Dan!” Phil crows.
“I know, I know,” Dan’s scrubbing at his face, flushed completely red. "I'm such a fucking moron. Can you believe I actually did that.”
“… and what, you just had a nap?”
“Yeah. Well, until someone found me there.”
“Oh god, they didn’t.”
“Yeah, some bloke like walked in and found me lying there and he was like, what the fuck is going on. And I just—" Dan gestures flatly with his hand, “lay there still, like if I didn't move he wasn’t going to see me.”
“Did he?”
“Did he— of course he fucking, did, Phil, I don’t have the power of invisibility. And then he was like Chris, get in here some kid is sleeping in here.”
Phil’s laughing at Dan's voice but the humor of the story has this edge of sadness to it, like a lot of Dan’s stories do, that he doesn’t know what to do with. It’s all very silly, but his heart goes out to Dan-sleeping-under-the-desk, exhausted, startled rudely awake by an unkind stranger.
“That’s awful, Dan, I’m so sorry.”
Dan’s still trying to laugh, and he gives Phil an odd look. “It was my own fault, wasn’t it?”
“You just needed to sleep!” Phil insists.
Dan gets a grumpy look on his face and his legs kick aimlessly under the table, connecting with a leg and jostling it. “I dunno, it was dumb. I guess I was scared he’d fire me. I mean, I basically showed up drunk."
Phil shakes his head. “I can’t imagine if I found someone just like, sleeping on the floor. I wouldn’t yell at them, though.”
Dan’s foot scuffs the carpet. “That guy had probably seen enough stupid teenager shit. And then he had to put up with me.” It’s meant to be a joke, but this time Phil doesn’t really find it funny.
“Want to go to the shops today?” he asks, instead.
“Sure.”
They drop it.
That evening, after gorging themselves on Dominoes until Phil proclaimed them beached whales, they're piled on Phil’s bed, watching Lost.
Dan is trailing his fingers lightly along Phil’s arm, thinking about how soft his skin is and vaguely about having sex maybe, sometime later, after they finish the episode and Dan doesn’t feel so full of pizza he might be sick. He feels weirdly hazy, he thinks. It’s not a bad feeling, just—his thoughts meander slowly and trail off, and the warmth of Phil next to him is like when you’re snug in bed on a winter morning, only concentrated, thick and syrupy. The undiluted Ribena of coziness. It’s almost too much.
This whole room and this whole apartment smells of Phil, and a little bit like Dan, too, from when they fucked in here in the morning. He’s wearing a pair of Phil’s pants and Phil— Phil moves his hand to Dan’s head and starts rubbing the pads of his fingers along Dan's scalp, combing through Dan’s horrible curly hair that he finally had to wash and Phil had cooed at his hobbit hair enough that he thought maybe he wouldn’t bother with straightening it until morning.
He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, really. It’s like Phil has cast a spell on him.
“…Dan. Earth to Dan.”
“Hmm?” Dan resurfaces. “What?”
“Aww, someone’s sleepy.”
“No,” Dan says, and pouts. “’S just, I feel kind of strange.”
“Strange?” Phil turns to look at him, and the hand in his hair pauses.
“Not bad,” Dan clarifies, which is thankfully enough to make the hair petting start up again. “I dunno. It’s like you make me feel tired? But not tired,” he rushes to correct. Phil waits patiently for him to finish. “I don’t know how to describe it. Like for some reason now being around you makes me get all fuzzy and warm.” He blushes in spite of himself.
Phil’s hand starts up again in his hair, and it’s really nice. “Like, relaxed?” he suggests.
“… yeah, I guess.”
“Danny,” Phil says warmly. “I’m glad that I make you relaxed. That's a good thing.”
“I dunno,” Dan says again. “Isn’t it... like, shouldn’t I be paying more attention or something?"
“To what? The show?”
“I guess just— in general. Like, I feel stupid.”
“You could always pay more attention to me,” Phil says, blinking his pretty eyelashes innocently down at Dan, and giggles as Dan rolls on top of him in retaliation and kisses him.
“Am I not paying you enough attention, Philip?” Dan grouses.
“Never,” Phil whisper-shouts.
They kiss for a while, and Dan’s mind is blissfully blank, but he pulls back again and frowns and says, “d’you think it’s weird, though? Like should I go see a doctor?”
“What? The thing where you feel relaxed?” Phil has that adorable crinkle on his forehead.
“Yeah, like is my brain melting and falling out of my ears or something, d’you think?”
Phil smiles a little. “I think you’re fine. I’m just glad that you feel safe here, with me.”
Safe. Dan scoffs a little, reflexively, because he’s a bit terrified of how casually Phil just said that one little simple word and now he’s reeling. Is that what it is, the warm laughing feeling? The lazy, stupid tiredness? The temptation to just rest his head on Phil’s shoulder and stay there forever because nothing bad could ever happen like that?
“That’s not—“ Dan starts, but he stops, because it is.
Phil gives him a slightly concerned look, and rolls them over so he’s pressing down on top of Dan, hugging him tightly around the middle. “You make me feel safe too,” he says. “I wish you didn’t have to go home. I hate being all alone here.”
“Yeah, let’s not think about that yet,” Dan says, pressing his nose into Phil’s hair.
“You should get to be relaxed all the time,” Phil says, muffled in Dan’s chest. “You shouldn't have to go back and worry about your family and work and shit.”
Dan is busy sorting through the overwhelm of new thoughts that are sliding into place. He knows what it will be like when he goes back home, his muscle memory can communicate it to him with perfect clarity. A clench in his stomach, in his jaw. Arms tucked firmly together so they won’t wander outwards. Tight shoulders, bent in, hunched in a pathetic attempt to make him smaller. He’d never thought about it before, but now it’s been made conspicuous in its absence. His whole body is just there when he’s around Phil. It doesn’t wander off or get the better of him. Or— if it does, Phil doesn’t mind, and they have a laugh about it.
He buries his nose in Phi’s hair and sighs. “I think I’m scared,” he admits.
“Scared? Why?” Phil’s pouting.
“I dunno. Scared of… being too relaxed? Like something’s gonna happen and I won’t be ready?”
“Something— like what?”
“I dunno. An axe murderer. A— a rhinoceros attack.”
Phil looks at him with enormous sad eyes. Dan hates when he does sad eyes. “I don’t think you’re gonna get gored by a rhinoceros in my flat, Dan,” Phil says.
Dan rolls his eyes and shoves him. “I know that, you idiot.”
“If a rhinoceros got in here, I’d keep you safe." Phil puffs up his chest, and Dan laughs.
“Yes Phil, you’re very big and strong.” Dan pats his cheek.
“I would—I’d take all my clothes off and distract it so you could get away—“
“Phil!” Dan cackles.
“I’d cover myself in milk and shreddies! So it would want to eat the shreddies. And then it would leave you alone. And you could get away.”
Dan shakes him by the shoulders. “You idiot, rhinoceroses don't eat cereal.”
“Shreddies are delicious and they transcend the species barrier. If I were a rhinoceros, I would love shreddies.”
“Your mum loves shreddies.”
“Y’know, she does, actually.”
“Oh my god.”
Phil starts tickling him, and Dan shrieks when he gets to the side of his neck, and they wrestle. Some of the nervous energy that had calcified in Dan from the previous topic of conversation dissolves away. Phil catches him in a kiss, and it’s impossibly warm, softer than the wrestling match would really have led him to expect. Dan melts into it.
That night they do stay up pretty late. And the next couple nights. And before Dan knows it they’re at the train platform again, and it’s been no time at all since he arrived there. Already the stiff, tired feeling of going home is settling into his bones. Like someone’s pouring concrete in there.
Dan’s certain now—and he’d thought this before, but it was early, and frightening, and new—that he’ll be coming to Uni up here. He’s going to do everything in his power to be with Phil, and he can’t believe he just gets to. He’s old enough to move out, he can just pick up and fly away to his own personal heaven, which is about six foot two and has two long legs and the most gorgeous blue eyes on Earth.
Someday, he thinks. Someday soon.