Archive of Our Own

Phil’s staring again.

Not his zoned-out, mind a million miles away stare that he got when Dan started talking too long. Or his meerkat-deer in the headlights stare that he got when someone bumps into him in Tesco.

This stare is different. Harder.

“What’s up?” Dan asked, averting his eyes from Sonic for a moment to look over at his boyfriend.

“Nothing.” Phil insisted, gently rubbing his socked feet against the hardwood floor for the millionth time this hour. “Nothing.”

But then, a few seconds later-

“It’s three in the morning.”

Dan nodded. “Lots of coffee today so we could finish unpacking. You should have stopped me.” He meant it as a joke, but Phil didn’t smile, didn’t even seem to register it.

“You can head to bed, if you’d like? I can join you in a bit.” Dan paused the game properly now, looking over at his boyfriend with a sympathetic look. “It’s okay, really. It’s not realistic that we’ll sleep at the same time every night, right?”

It really wasn’t-a week into moving in together properly, and Dan was realizing that their sleep schedules might not align perfectly, which was no big deal. To him, at least.

Phil’s face stayed cold for a few moments before slowly shifting into what someone might call a smile, some sort of weird grimace. 

“It’s fine!” He got out, a little too perky for that hour of the night. “Stay up till three thirty. Stay up till four. Beat Eggman!”

Now it was time for Dan to furrow his brows. “I can-”

“Stay up late. I’ll watch.” Phil insisted, pulling a blanket further over him. “Go on.”

Dan nodded slowly. “Right. Yeah. Maybe just a bit longer.”

Within minutes, Phil was fast asleep on the couch, snoring as his head tipped back. Dan couldn’t help but smile at him, turning the volume down. He must have just been sleepy, after all. 

-

Except that, two days later, it happened again.

“You’re doing laundry.” Phil seemed to materialize next to Dan as he shoved his dirty clothes into the washer, cramming them down as hard as he could.

“Yeah, I’m out of clean pants, and I don’t want to keep stealing yours.” Dan grunted as he pushed them down a bit harder before slamming the lid down.

Phil flinched at the noise, but then turned to Dan, eyebrows furrowed. “I mean-you’re doing laundry today .”

“...Yeah. No clean pants. I’m commando under these sweats right now.” Dan teased, expecting at the very least some sort of flirty comment back.

“It’s Monday .” Phil just shook his head a little, stopping Dan from button-mashing the machine and swiftly getting the load started for him. “And you’re doing laundry.”

Dan looked at the other man with confusion. “...Do you want me to not have clean pants?”

Whatever was puzzling his boyfriend seemed to linger for a few extra moments before he shook it out of his head. “Clean pants are good.” He said stiffly, that same smile as before stretched uncomfortably on his face. “Don’t pour the detergent in the dryer this time, right?”

Dan opened his mouth to say something else, but Phil had already ducked away, speed-walking back to his room.

Weirdo.

-

It all finally hit the fan a few mornings from now, when Phil was sitting on the couch, like he was every morning at that time. He was tapping away at his laptop, eyes glued to the screen, when Dan flopped down in front of him.

“Can we go to Shakeaway yet?” He groaned, sprawling his legs across Phil’s the way he knew he liked to. “They have cereal they can add to their shakes. That makes it kind of a breakfast, right?”

Instead of indulging him, though, Phil just shook his head. “It’s work time, Dan.” He chided, as if Dan was supposed to know that. “Maybe during our break.”

“Our break?” Dan snorted. “We don’t work retail anymore. Any time could be our break, Phil.”

For whatever reason, though, Phil didn’t seem to like that, letting out an odd noise in the back of his throat. 

“You realize that, yeah?” He prodded. “Don’t be tied down, Philly. We could take a whole week off and just screw around-”

“You know what would be really fun? ” Phil’s voice came out high and squeaky, and Dan watched as he clenched his fists, then unclenched, then clenched again. “We could set aside certain times for working! And doing laundry! And bedtimes, and times to eat meals, and a nice to-do list of everything that needs to get done-so fun! ”

Phil’s got that weird smile on again, so tight that he can practically hear his teeth grinding together, and a slightly crazed look in his eyes.

“...Fun!” He repeats again, voice strained. “Really, really fun .”

Dan stares at him, blinks once, twice, before nudging him. “You look insane.”

Phil’s smile shrinks by a fraction of a centimeter. “I just…”

“Say what’s on your mind.”

“It would be-”

“No sugar coating. No trying to be nice.” Dan insists, and the other’s smile vanishes.

“You’re driving me crazy .” The words leave Phil in a rush, and the relief of being able to is clear on his face. “It was one thing when you were staying with me a few nights a week and I had my Dan-Days, and the schedule could go a bit wonk, but now you sleep at weird hours and you work whenever you want and you do laundry on Mondays , which is bizarre , and I really, really can’t keep going like this or I think I might have an actual heart attack…” 

He’s fighting to catch his breath now, hands shoved under the couch cushions as he watches him closely.

“So, what, you want to come up with a whole schedule and list of rules for us to follow?” He jokes gently, but the silence that follows answers his rhetorical question. “You do? ”

Phil’s hands move under the cushions, just slightly. “Maybe? Well-yes. But you can make them, so they’re not just my rules.”

Dan frowns at that, deeply. He didn’t move out of Winnersh to be tied down by more rules .

But also…

He went to bed at four in the morning again last night, and he hasn’t got the foggiest idea for a new video, and it’s been a good couple weeks. Plus, he’s commando again, and it’s getting kind of itchy in these sweatpants.

“Will you get mad if I don’t follow them?” He asks after a long enough pause, Phil still watching him closely. “Like-will I get in trouble?”

It’s a silly question, but a lifetime of being shouted at makes him wary of what repercussions could come.

Phil raises an eyebrow. “Like…Grounding you? Could I even do that legally, or is that just kidnapping? I mean, if you consented-”

“Phil.”

“Right. No, no punishments, just-things we try to follow. For the sake of our relationship.”

Dan thought about it again before nodding slightly. “Right.” He said, voice soft. “Yeah. Alright. For our relationship.”

-

It’s three in the morning, and Dan’s in bed, but he’s not asleep. 

They never said he had to be asleep, to be fair, as he looks from his laptop screen over at the whiteboard he signed earlier that day.

It still feels wrong. Why does it matter what day he does laundry, or the to-do list “rollover” day, or any of that?

But then Phil snuffles in his sleep, burying his face in the other’s shoulder, and Dan smiles in spite of himself.

For once, following rules didn’t feel like being tied down. It felt oddly freeing.