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Dan’s been ready to go to sleep for hours now. It doesn’t blend well with his necessity to be hyperaware of both his and Phil’s every movement. At this point, he feels less human, more overheated machine, sputtering oil and smoke, the motor pushing through even though it should have been retired long ago, exchanged by a newer, more efficient model.
“Where’s your other half?” Someone asks him. He doesn’t have space in his brain to connect the face to a name he definitely should know by now. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s having a hard time even making out the features in front of him. It could be anyone.
Briefly, Dan wonders if he could get away with not answering. It’s loud, most people are drunk, he could pretend he’s a little too gone to process questions. But then, maybe they could see that in his face. They could see his reticence, and make up their own conclusions as to why it’s there. He needs to be in control of their perception of him—or to try to, at least.
“I don’t know.” It’s a lie. Phil is by the bar with people he’d maybe consider friends, if friends didn’t know anything significant about each other.
Dan had been there too, comfortable as he could be in a situation like this. But then his hip bumped Phil’s on accident, and it sent a shock through his whole body. He recoiled, afraid that anyone might have seen the touch, or the cartoon-ish blue electricity on the surface of his skin, all around him. The zap too made him aware that he’d been talking to Phil, and about Phil, too much. It’s hard not to, when Dan thinks he’s brilliant and everyone should be conscious of that.
So he made up some excuse about networking and left. He tried to do so without looking at Phil’s face, but that’s always difficult, when often it’s the only thing he wants to see. The smile had dropped from his face, and then it quickly returned. Dan has a hard time bearing the thought that it’s not aimed at him.
Whatever. It didn’t even reach his eyes anyway. (Not like that’s any better. It also sucks that he’s the reason for the change.)
“We’re not attached at the hip.” He adds for good measure, after maybe a bit too long, with a chuckle. Not passive-aggressive, he tries to aim for laid-back—maybe slightly incredulous, like it’s odd that anyone would think he knows where Phil is at all times.
He catches Phil’s gaze then, watching him, looking sad—disappointed. He couldn’t have possibly heard Dan. It’s almost worse to think that that’s just how he looks at him, sometimes. Dan looks away but keeps him in the corner of his eye. It’s a pretty sight regardless, the only thing in clear focus, always.
He forces himself to act normal, sip and smile and nod, interject at the right times. It’s an easy script, it shouldn’t feel so painful to follow.
He breaks it when he sees Phil move, out of the corner of his eye, to the door. Two other people of the little group he was in go with him. Dan barely excuses himself before leaving too. He tries not to think of how that looks—if they followed his gaze, or his movements, and tracked them to Phil. He’s moderately successful. Right now he’s mostly concerned that Phil was leaving without him, without a word, a gesture.
When he makes it outside Phil is already on the back of a golf-cart. It’s one of the larger ones, with continuous seats and an extra row before the reversed ones. Phil is behind the driver. It’s slightly odd that there’s a driver at all, but he guesses it wouldn’t be great to have a bunch on inebriated people try to drive golf-carts.
There’s another guy next to the driver, fully turned out so he can talk to Phil. At Phil, really, but he is smiling and nodding and interjecting. The guy’s voice is so American it sounds almost put-on. A woman is standing next to car, holding on to the railing while she takes off her heels.
“Hey Dan!” She calls, when she sees him. Both Phil and the guy look at him, the driver stares ahead. “Are you leaving now, too?”
“Yeah.” He says, and decides it’s not enough. “Yeah. I think I’m still jetlagged.”
“Come on up, then, we can squeeze in.” She continues, still struggling with the strap on her shoe. Her foot keeps falling before she can unbuckle it all the way.
“Oh, I can go on the back, I don’t mind.”
“Nonsense.” She waves him off and her foot slips back down, once again. “We’ve made it this far without anyone throwing up.”
Dan thinks to argue that he’s not that drunk, or that he doesn't get motion-sickness, but someone is offering him plausible deniability to sit next to Phil and he takes it.
He’s climbing in, and then the woman finally figures out her shoes and climbs in too, forcing him to squish next to him. He’s squished between the two of them, really, but he’s only thinking of Phil’s thigh pressed against his, his shoulder just behind Dan’s.
The cart starts moving. They’re in a large hotel. Everything in America seems large, like the country is a caricature of itself. Paired with their peers’ accents, Dan feels as though he is stuck on a sketch show.
The building is large enough to have multiple entrances. The cart stops by the one nearer the pool. Their company gets out, and Dan moves farther to the right, so he and Phil aren’t touching anymore. The railing presses against his hip.
“Oh, your rooms are on the other side?” The woman asks.
“Yeah, both of our rooms are closer to the entrance by the parking lot.” He overexplains, as if that fact is a coincidence. “I figured it would be less noisy. I guess Phil did too.”
He laughs. It’s barely a quick exhale but it still sounds too loud.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” The guy exclaims, much louder than Dan’s poor excuse of a chuckle. It moves the moment along.
“We’re all in the same panel, right?” The woman adds, lightly swaying from side to side. “In the morning, unfortunately.”
“Yeah.” Phil says, and Dan jumps. He had been mostly quiet through the short trip. He sounds tired. “It’s not too early though. Could be worse.”
They bid their farewells and then they’re off. The cart is going around the hotel, and the side paths are much quieter, darker. Dan allows himself to look at Phil, and almost regrets it. He’s biting his lower lip, and if Dan squints, he can see the faintest glimmer in his eye, staring off to his left side, away from Dan.
Dan looks at the space between them. They each have a hand of the seat, steadying themselves in this poor excuse of a mode of transportation. Dan has long fingers—he would only need to shift his hand a bit to the left, stretch his pinkie out, and he’d be touching Phil. He looks so sad. The driver is staring right ahead, hasn’t as much as spared them a glance the whole time. In addition, the only word he said was his own name when prompted, and even that he managed to make it close to monosyllabic.
Dan decides to take the risk. It’s not like they’re going to hold hands, he’s just going to rest his hand closer. No one would notice. No one is here.
The second his pinkie touches the side of Phil’s, Phil gasps, and recoils his hand. Dan hates that his first reaction is to glance to the driver, see if he noticed. He’s still staring ahead, the same expression in his features.
Then, both guilt and worry swirling acid in his stomach, he does what he should’ve done first—checked on his partner. There seems to be a tear falling down his face, but Phil quickly wipes it with the hand he took back from Dan. He keeps both of them in his lap now. He’s breathing unevenly and has his eyes shut tight. He might be getting nauseous too, on top of everything else clearly going on with him.
If they were alone, between familiar walls, he likes to think he would pull Phil’s hand back to him, interlock their fingers. Make Phil look at him, tell him what’s going on. Instead, Dan pulls his hand into his own lap too, and turns to stare ahead. They’re almost at their entrance, anyway.
Dan should wait until they’re in either of their rooms, but Phil still isn’t saying much, still isn’t looking at him, and so he falters as soon as the doors of the lift close.
“You left without me.” He says. If it sounds confrontational, Phil doesn’t take the bait. Dan is glad—it’s not how he meant it to sound, not really.
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Dan presses. His gaze flickers from Phil’s face to the door and back, again and again and again.
“Anna asked if I was okay. I said I just had a bit of a headache and they said we should leave. It was getting late anyway.”
Dan should ask if he had a headache, if he had taken anything, if he had brought anything to take. Instead, he’s nothing if not provocative, self-sabotaging.
“Yeah but why didn’t you tell me? You just left without saying anything.”
“I figured you were busy.” We aren’t attached at the hip. He doesn’t say. He didn’t even hear Dan say that. Still, Dan adds it in his mind, enhances it with a petty tone in Phil’s voice, that wasn’t actually there.
“You figured I was busy? Why’d—” The elevator dings and Dan snaps his mouth shut so fast he’s scared he chipped a tooth.
Phil goes to his room and Dan follows, also in silence. He struggles with the keycard and Dan is itching to take it from him and open the door himself, but he doesn’t want to brush against Phil’s hand. Egoistically, he doesn't think he can handle another rejection.
Phil finally, mercifully, manages to open the door, and doesn’t even close it in Dan’s face. He goes to the bathroom and Dan sits on the foot of the bed. He shouldn’t be here too long.
When Phil leaves the bathroom, he’s wearing his glasses and pyjama bottoms. He seems surprised to see Dan still there. Dan hates that. And then he hates himself for having the gall to hate it. After all, wasn’t that the point of what he had being doing, how he had been acting the past few days, months? Distancing himself from Phil publicly, making it seem like whatever association they had was just opportune, temporary?
Phil wasn’t supposed to think that, though. He should never be surprised to see Dan next to him. The fact that he was makes Dan’s heart clench painfully in his chest.
There’s no fight left in him. He doesn’t want to argue with Phil. Leaving without him had hurt, but it’s nowhere near what Dan has put him through, is putting him through, so Dan feels as though he should just take it in stride. Besides, he hasn’t checked if there are people on either side of Phil’s room. It’d be dangerous to raise his voice to have this type of discussion. He also hates that that feeling is the one front and centre.
“Are you staying here?” Phil asks. He sounds more tired than curious. More exhausted than hopeful.
Dan doesn’t give an answer. It’s not like they don’t know what it would be. Phil turns away to fidget with some chargers and batteries left on the desk. He’s pretending to look busy until Dan leaves. There are crescents carved onto the meaty part of Dan’s palms.
He wonders if this is what Phil had envisioned back when they first met. If he would have stuck with him anyway if he knew.
It’s not like he didn’t have a plethora of choices. Maybe one of them would be able to love him as loudly as he deserves to be loved. Maybe one of them wouldn’t have such a hard time with even calling Phil his best friend. Maybe not immediately—Dan is not self-centred enough to believe he is the only queer man with internalized homophobia, but maybe someone else would’ve gotten over it by now, after so many years.
Especially next to Phil. He shines so brightly, anyone would be lucky to stand glowing beside. Instead, Dan is dimming his light so he himself is not found out, whatever that means. Does Phil regret trusting him with his heart?
Dan cannot let himself think like that. He has to believe that what they had, what they still have, is special, a once-in-several-lifetimes type of love, rare and beautiful and theirs. He has to believe that other people aren’t loving this deeply, this truly, that they’d search in vain their whole lives for the connection they have so effortlessly. He has to believe that Phil believes all of those things too.
Phil is still messing with the chargers. Dan stands up and Phil doesn’t turn to look at him. His movements are slow and sluggish, like he’ll drop asleep right where he’s standing the second Dan leaves.
If they were at home, Dan would come up behind him, wrap his arms around Phil’s body, whisper sweet nothing in his ear, mix some non-consequential apologies in between them. He’d lead them to bed, and let them work out their feelings that way, because he’s a coward. He’s a coward, regardless.
“Phil.” He calls. Phil doesn’t even jump, he seems like he was expecting it. He turns to Dan. He just looks tired; when Dan doesn’t do anything else, he leans back on the desk. Dan feels cruel for dragging this on but he can’t leave yet.
“Phil.” He repeats, just to hear the word again, in his own voice.
Dan moves towards him, and thinks maybe he would take some steps back if he wasn’t already against the table. Dan hugs him.
It’s clumsy and slightly unnatural—his arms are wrapped tightly around Phil’s body, over his upper arms, so he couldn’t really hug back even if wanted to. He doesn’t seem to want to. Dan burrows his face in his neck, because as established, he’s a coward. They stay like that for a few moments.
Eventually, Dan feels Phil shift and holds on to him tighter, because what would he be doing if not leaving? But he doesn’t try to leave. There’s a sigh and then are hands on Dan’s hips and a face on his neck. Phil adjusts his head and as his lips graze Dan’s shoulder it feels almost like a kiss.
He pulls his own head back. He can’t be enough of a coward to let Phil once again be the one to not stand his ground, to just accept what he’s dealt because he loves Dan and might think it’s easier to keep him that way. Dan knows he’s not going anywhere. Phil has every reason to doubt that, and to want to leave on his own. Dan cannot let that happen.
He can’t do any big gestures. He can’t take back anything he’s done—can’t even promise to not do it again. He can however hold Phil’s face between his hands, his thumbs on Phil’s cheeks and the pointers petting the hair behind Phil’s ears. His eyes flutter shut.
“Are you okay?” He asks. Phil sighs in response. It’s too open of a question for him to answer. “I’m sorry I left like that. I’m sorry that I touched you in the cart after acting like a dick. I’m sorry that I tried to pick a fight.”
Phil sighs again and rubs his eyes under his glasses, arms squeezed behind Dan’s elbows. His hands don’t return to Dan’s hip, laying instead limply by his sides. It’s as though Dan’s grip on his head and the desk pressing against his upper thighs are the only reason he’s still upright.
“It isn’t that you left.” He starts. “It’s just—I don’t know. I’m just tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“It’s okay.” Dan assures, rubbing his thumbs near Phil’s eyes. He’s scared he’ll start crying again.
“We should sleep.” Phil says. The conversation is over, then. It barely even started. But it’s late and he’s tired and it’s unfair to made him talk, when Dan himself has refused to so many times before. It’s not like the deserves closure, anyway.
“Okay. Have you taken anything for your head?”
Phil replies in the negative, and Dan has a steady hand his waist, leads to his side of the bed. All sides are his side, this bed is just Phil’s. Still, Dan sits him on his side, and pulls his glasses from his face, sets them down on the bedside table.
He goes to the bathroom and shuffles through Phil’s disorganized toiletries until he finds the little blister pack. He takes a tablet and fills a glass of water in the sink. He can do this part.
He watches Phil take the medication, and follows a water droplet from the corner of this mouth to his bare chest.
“I’m going to my room now.” Dan says, and hates himself a little bit. Phil just nods, eyes already fluttering shut again.
Dan takes a single step towards the door before he moves to stand closer in front of Phil. He holds his head again, tilting it up. He widens his legs so he’s nearer to Phil’s level. His foot hits the bedside table and the whole thing would be a silly stance in other circumstances.
He combs Phil’s hair up with his fingers, and presses his lips to his forehead. There’s an attempt at a sharp exhale, but Phil is not alert enough to complete it.
“You know I love you, right?”
Phil nods, slowly. He has his eyes closed.
Dan presses his lips against Phil’s, this time. He tries to pour into it everything he’s feeling, everything he can’t find the guts to say.
“I love you.” He declares when he pulls away. It’s barely above a whisper. Again, he’s a coward, and he still hasn’t checked for neighbours.
Phil opens his eyes for just a moment. He looks at Dan and nods again.
“Yeah. I love you too.” He lets his eyelids fall down again, lets his head slump in Dan’s grip.
Dan helps him get into bed, under the covers. The day is wearing on Dan too, and he wants to climb in, press himself behind Phil, kiss the back of his neck and fall asleep next to him. He won’t do that.
He does, however, pull the covers up to Phil’s chin. He kisses him again, and then again on the forehead. He turns off the lamp by the bedside.
“Goodnight. Sleep well.”
Lighting the way to the door with his phone screen, Dan hesitates there, with his hand on the handle—but then he’s on the much more brightly lit corridor, and he makes the way to his room, alone. It’s okay. They’ll be back home soon enough.