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They went to bed angry, Phil recalled, shifting in his sleep. A warm glow cast on his face made him scrunch his eyes in frustration. He moved his head just slightly, and suddenly a harsh light bit into his eyelids. Reluctantly, he tried opening them. It felt as though it took an unimaginable amount of effort; his eyes were almost glued shut with weight. He thought about how rarely that happened, only when he fell into a slumber so deep even Dan’s 3 am YouTube escapades couldn’t shake him from his rest.
His mouth was dry, maybe drier than it had ever been. Although he knew that wasn’t really true, because once when he was a kid, he had been dared by Martyn to go a whole day without drinking, and he had even very nearly managed to do it.
He was palpably numb in all the right places, and that was when he noticed it, the unignorable weight that lay atop his right shoulder and extended all the way down his arm. He knew better than to try moving it.
The weight was noticeably grounding, allowing Phil to shift the room — their bedroom — back into focus. Last night’s memories washed back over him in waves, returning with the view of the room. A stranger sensation than being newly awake overtook him. It was odd that, even after arguing, he and Dan had gone to sleep together, without making up. It was even stranger how Dan clung to him still, as though he might disappear. It had been fry-day, as usual on a Saturday, and it had been an excruciating week. Between late merch samples, issues in the Phasement heating, his own migraines flaring up, and Dan’s proneness to good old burnout rearing its ugly head, they’d both been simmering under the surface. By Friday, irritation bled through their every conversation. By fry-day, it all came to a boil.
Quite frankly, Phil could not tell you what the actual fight had been about, because it wasn’t about whatever they were physically talking about at all. They just desperately needed that vacation. That wasn’t to say that life after their hard launch wasn’t leagues better than the old days. Phil loved the good-now-days, thank you very much, and he wasn’t about to let one bad week ruin how much true, sincere fun they’d been having. How much fun Dan had been having.
Dan. Dan, who, for the first time in a long time, had been free again to be his truest self and actually enjoy the content that they made together. Who could finally stop hiding this last, most intimate thing about himself, or rather, stop pretending it wasn’t there. Dan, who was currently wrapped around his arm like a koala.
Phil finally turned his head to the weight on his shoulder, where Dan’s head lay. Soft brown curls and a softer scent of coconut shampoo tickled his nose. He took a deep breath, trying to trap the sensations of this moment deep in his mind, and burrowed his face deeper into the hair. Dan’s position was awkward: right arm wrapped around him, the other fisted into his shirt, clutching so tightly his fingers were slightly pale. Dan’s cheek lay atop Phil’s collarbone, and he was almost burying himself in that too, and his knees were both curled up, bumping slightly into Phil’s thighs, and his middle was all pressed up against Phil’s side and—
And it was strange. Dan was not the type to apologise first, Phil being the only exception, of course. Every time they had fought in the past sixteen years — and Phil could count those on his hand — Dan would come back first, no matter how wrong Phil had been with his tail between his legs. However, even after all this time, he’d always be shy about actually reinitiating affection. He would not come up to Phil on the couch and throw his legs on top of his, not unless Phil explicitly asked. He would not massage his headaches away, not without carefully preparing him a snack as an apology and not until Phil smiled and told him to quit pawing for his approval again. He would not turn over to Phil in bed for their cuddle-and-roll ritual if Phil didn’t do it first, to prove he was not still unwanted.
And Phil, sappy idiot who loved the attention and loved the unspoken affection and loved Dan, still found it all unreasonably endearing. It’s exactly why this was odd, unexpected, although not in an unwelcome way. They hadn’t exactly made up last night, but they’d still gone to bed together, mostly because their other bedroom was still out of commission. That helped too, to mellow out that frustration that had built up, to fight a bit and still go on with their nightly rituals. Phil read on his e-book as usual, and then scrolled on TikTok for far too long. Dan put on his headphones and watched videos on his computer late into the night. Simply, half-a-pillow away from each other, as opposed to half-on-top of each other like they usually did. Phil fell asleep first, he thinks so anyway, and wondered then what Dan had done afterwards, if he’d brushed his hair from his forehead, if he’d put away his phone and his Airpods on his nightstand, if he’d bored holes into him by his gaze alone.
Dan whined, burying his face into his collarbone further. Phil winced, realising he’d clearly moved too much, lost in his musings on last night’s events. No matter, he just had to make it up to Dan, both his shifting and the ricochet effects of the past week.
Carefully, he started pressing muted, featherlight kisses into his hair, lips barely brushing against curls. He breathed it all in again, pressing deeper, wanting. His mouth eventually found the other’s forehead, and he lingered there, feeling the bumps and ridges of skin against his dry lips. He felt Dan’s face shift into a smile, and he emitted a pleasant hum that Phil felt reverberate deep in his bones. Content, yet still unsatisfied, he continued his services, shifting his attention to the rest of his face. One to his nose, one for each cheek, one atop his eyelid, and one to the corner of his mouth. Phil could spend a lifetime doing this, a thousand kisses to a resting Dan Howell, one for every day they had spent together. He thought, though, surely, sixteen years was surely far more than just a thousand days, and so Phil would surely have to spend even longer applying his ministrations efficiently.
He moved his arm, the one that wasn’t still trapped under Dan’s vice-grip, to hold his face better, shifting it to a better angle, and that was what finally fully roused Dan from his sleep. He’d been fluttering his eyes for a while now, thanks to Phil’s gentle duress and his lips pursing, demanding and waiting. “What’reyoudoin,” he slurred, voice still heavy with sleep. Phil paused at that, not because he sounded upset still, but because suddenly tenderness was caught in the back of his throat. A beat passed, and now Dan’s eyes were nearly open, and Phil replied, “Well, good morning to you too, rat.”
Dan squinted at him, confused, and then said, questioning, “Since when do you wake up first?”
“Since when do we go to bed angry?”
Dan hummed, squinting as he recalled the evening prior, and then, “M’sorry,” he said, “It wasn’t fair of me to blow up on you like that, you know.”
Phil grinned down at Dan, hand still resting on the other’s cheek, and he swiftly pulled him up by the shirt, catching his lips in a proper kiss. “S’okay,” he mouthed into the kiss, “I’m sorry too.” He pulled away for a second, only to dive back in after a quick breath. Another kiss, as he pressed Dan deeper into the mattress, shifting his weight so he was fully on top of him. He slid Dan’s head off of himself and onto the mattress, finally freeing his trapped arm.
Dan let himself be kissed most ardently, one hand tangling into his grown-out roots as the other snaked around his waist, and pulled down, and down, and down, until their bodies lay flush against each other. When Phil finally pulled away, he felt Dan still trying to chase his lips. Like magnets, he thought to himself, giggling. Phil was proud of his work, felt as though Dan’s face looked sufficiently kissed-stupid, flushed and blooming red. His pupils, blown out, stared back up at him, eyes wide as the moon and ridiculously, Dan managed to turn even redder in the dim glow of the early morning. Cheeks rosy, and lips still slick and raw, he looked adorable.
“What’s up with you today?” Phil laughed quietly, “You’re acting exactly like you used to when we’d just met.”
Dan frowned, but it was that pouty thing he always did when he wasn’t really upset, just miffed and mildly embarrassed. He started, “It’s not on purpose,” and then he pulled their foreheads together. That’s when Phil realised how much everything truly had changed. He was not a jealous person by any means, not when he had Dan always next to him, but he did feel like their relationship was like the last errant bites of a spectacular meal, something that you covet and keep and savour slowly, privately. Something so priceless being put in the spotlight, spun towards the hungry mouths of many, came with a natural pride, a feeling of “look what I have and get to relish”, as much as the natural unpleasantness of this is mine and nobody else’s for the taking. But with Dan underneath him like this, still flushing like a teenager, now bold enough to hold him even if they were cross at each other, he realised there are certain things nobody else but him will ever have the pleasure of seeing.
“You know I just get melancholic at night, and it’s not like this week has helped very much.” With that, Dan promptly moved both his arms to the small of his back and flipped them over again, on their sides and noses pressed to each other. Phil saw an idea pop into Dan’s mind in real time, and before he could even ask, Dan was planting kisses all over him, just as he himself had been doing moments prior. Cracked lips moved from his nose to behind his ear to the crook of his neck, and down his collarbone, with such speed and accuracy that Phil could not keep up with them.
“Dan.” A kiss to his temple. “Dan,” he laughed, fully now. A kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Dan!” The other pressed hard into the inside of his hand.
“Wot?” he finally relented, “Can’t you see I’m busy,” he finished with another kiss on top of his shirt, directly aimed for his nipple. “What, ha, what’re you doing?”
“You kissed me all over before,” he stated simply.
“Hm, returning the favour, are we?” Phil teased. Dan scoffed, faux-offence dripping off him as he shoved the blonde a little, “Hardly, we’re just not even, I’m just balancing the scales.”
“Balancing the scales?” he repeated incredulously, “I don’t follow, what’re you talking about?”
Dan sighed dramatically, the guise of indignation heavy in his voice, “You kissed me in my sleep a lot, so we’re not even. You’ve kissed me more times than I have kissed you.”
Phil started cackling at that, bringing their faces closer still together. He was just so lucky. Lucky to have found this precious boy, and to have been able to keep by his side and to have him still, and to be able to have this forever. He didn’t find himself lingering on hypotheticals the way Dan did, the what-ifs and what-thens of a life he would never get to live. He didn’t want to live those lives, a world where he never got Dan, or one where he got away, or one where he was the one to leave. He had now, and he had a thousand kisses owed to him. “Oh, yeah, I see,” he acquiesced, “We absolutely have to fix that.”
“One hundred per cent,” Dan said, slapping his own hand to his mouth before he’d even finished speaking, “I mean, uh, indubitably.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Phil howled, pulling their lips back together, slotting together like puzzle pieces.
“I hate you,” Dan mumbled against him, and Phil just pulled him closer, whispering, “I know.”