Work Text:
“boop,” Phil texts, out into the ether.
It’s barely a second before his phone buzzes in his hand, “doop,” Dan texts back, probably lightning quick because he’s basically surgically attached himself to his laptop for full, flat on his back, computer on his chest, not a thought in his head internet time. It was either that or napping, with napping getting longer odds.
This is stage one of their return home from tour, the first step on the long road back to rejoining human society (or as close to human society as they ever get).
(They’re past stage zero: they get in their front door, lock it behind them, drop their bags - Dan’s neatly against the wall, Phil’s backpack somehow knocking his roller and sending it sliding off down the hall. In the deafening quiet of their cool, clean entryway they turn to each other and hug for a long, long time. Just breathing together.)
They were never kidding when they called themselves introverts, and if there’s one thing that’s, at least in Phil’s book, the polar opposite of an introvert activity, it’s having a tour.
He loves it, both of them do, really. The people, the adrenaline, the sights, the energy - it’s go go go constantly, though, and people everywhere, the whole time.
Crew on the bus, crew back stage, and Phil has never found the trick to feeling fully alone in a hotel room. Not like when they’re at home.
Still, Phil even loves this part, kind of. There’s something to being so exhausted, beyond exhausted, hurtling along and then suddenly slamming to a stop. That crest of a final show, the drawn out tail of the trek back home which somehow always feels like the longest travel leg, and then through the door and… silence.
It’s kind of like a weight suddenly coming off, like when you get X-Rays and they take the blanket off of you and for a second you feel all light and floaty. Or at least, how he remembers it, the one time he got X-Rays when he was little (tree incident).
Stage one is just basics.
“Covered in plane,” Dan grumbles, shucking his jumper and throwing it at the couch as he heads straight for the first floor en suite. Phil sees him already undoing his trousers before he rounds the corner into the bedroom.
Phil would laugh at him, except he’s also so incredibly desperate for a shower. He feels grimy, like he’s getting outside-germs everywhere, eurgh. When they’d done the bathrooms he’d thought of this moment and insisted that both en suites have equally deluxe set-ups, so that neither of them had to be self-sacrificing in their moment of need.
After Phil gets out of the shower, he doesn’t bother to dress, just crashes into bed. This is ‘their’ bed, but the bedrooms too are equally nice and both see a good amount of use.
They’re big beds, but they’re both long men - it’s luxurious to sleep alone and spread out across the whole mattress, that beyond exhausted sleep that’s almost outside of time. Phil can almost sense that Dan is doing the same thing the floor below, and that makes him feel even more relaxed. He’s boneless, cocooned in the bed, in their home.
When Phil wakes up, either minutes or hours later, he goes straight to the kitchen. He feels less hungry and more hollow, like he’s drifting down the stairs.
Dan is stood at the island. On the counter is a rotisserie chicken, still in the container. Dan is having at it with a fork.
Phil can’t pull together words to speak, kind of waving as he comes in. Dan grunts at him.
Phil pulls out a loaf of bread (part of their stock-up grocery list, which the cleaner will have been tipped to put away. The chicken isn’t, Dan must have ordered it.) He puts four slices of bread in the toaster and goes to pull out the butter.
Dan is humming their dumb stage song, as he eats, but at a silly, dirge-slow tempo. Probably hasn’t even noticed he’s doing it.
Phil hums along for a phrase, then laughs at him. Dan looks almost surprised for a beat, catching himself, then he laughs too.
As Phil’s stacking his toast up on a plate and considering if he needs an additional two slices, Dan quietly nudges past him with his hip to put his half-stripped chicken back in the fridge. He busses an approximate kiss to Phil’s cheek, closer to rubbing their faces together, stubble rasping, then waves as he goes off into the house.
Phil settles into the lounge with his phone, throws on a nearly random episode of Buffy (he’s got good Buffy radar, so it’s a favorite even though he’d scrolled randomly). He flips through tiktoks on mute - big screen-little screen time.
Based on his Dan radar, his little Dan sensing psychic tendrils - either he’s doing much the same but with a video game or his laptop, or he’s doing something weird and productive-ish like alphabetizing their neglected spice rack.
That’s when Phil texts. He’s got nothing to say, he’s just thinking about him. Boop, doop.
Some indeterminate amount of time later - long enough that Phil’s a bit hungry and is considering how much trouble he’ll be in if he has another toast-meal - Dan comes into the room and beelines for the sink, wordlessly gulps down a glass of water, fills it again, and drains that too.
When he glances over he catches Dan looking at him in that heavy, quiet way he has. His eyes are so warm they look almost liquid.
“Alright?” Phil asks, voice a bit hoarse from disuse. He’s slouched into an impossible position on the couch, knees up higher than his head and looking almost upside down to peer at Dan across the room.
“Your hair looks ridiculous,” Dan tells him, soft and fond, like he’s giving him such a sweet compliment. Then, in the same tone, “I’m gonna fuck you through the mattress.”
“Yeah?” Phil says, then with a tired hint of skepticism, “Now?”
“Nah,” Dan says, “Tomorrow, probably.”
“Cool,” Phil says.
Dan comes over and drops down nearly on top of him, wiggles his way in between Phil and the back of the couch - Stage 2, fit for at least each other's company. Phil sighs in contentment.
"What d'you want for dinner?" Dan mumbles into Phil's shoulder, barely words.
"Toast?" Phil says, joking but not fully. He would. It's like three or so, not really dinner time, but handy that they're at least near in-sync to each other. That's not always the case.
Dan scoffs. He snags the remote and flips over to something they'll actually watch - just Top Chef, nothing serious - then drapes his arm over Phil's hip. "Nah, your mum'd kill me, toast-boy - order us an Indian, will you?"
It's two clicks, they literally never change their order. The tricky part is one of them will need to be awake to get the door.
Between the warm weight of Dan behind him, the soothing narration of the tv, the details of being home from the smell of their detergent to the texture of the couch to the exact slant of the light through the blinds - Phil feels like an egg in a nest. Perfect, perfect, perfect. He's asleep between one breath and the next, barely feels it as Dan leans over to kiss his forehead, then snuggles closer still like he's cuddling a teddy bear (not before hitting the volume on his phone so he'll wake up for the food.)