Work Text:
Dan understands, in theory, that taking notes for this specific video over a shared Google Doc while he and Phil sit silently at the dining room table is, to put it lightly, fucking insane. In their defense, they have talked about their decision to come out as a couple to their audience in person. At length, and for years. But at the end of the day, a video is a video, and for Dan and Phil, a video requires some form of outline.
Dan and Phil don’t do scripted content, partially because they find entirely scripted videos to be generally disingenuous and partially because Phil couldn’t work with a script if he was actually being held at gunpoint. Silly, perfect man.
Some videos are more scripted than others, especially Dan’s; he essentially wrote out Basically, I’m Gay like an essay before putting it into video format. The words just poured out of him, and with that one, he wanted to make sure that he had a clear, distinct plan before pouring his heart out for the world to see.
They’re doing things differently this time. What Dan has in front of him is less a script and more a collection of bullet points, things that they want to make sure that they say. And that’s good, he likes that it’s different. Now that he’s already done this once, in a video that’s, just factually, much more emotional and vulnerable than this one will probably end up being, he doesn’t feel the need to know exactly what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it. Besides, this video is different because it doesn’t belong just to him. Even if he did want a perfect script, he wouldn’t end up using one if Phil wasn’t comfortable with it.
Dan scrolls back up to the top of their document, aptly titled the video big by Phil. They haven’t quite decided what it’s actually going to be called. That’s usually the last step, which is fine up until the moment when everything is done and they’re chomping at the bit to post, only to realize that the video isn’t named yet. They won’t make that mistake this time, but for the moment, they don’t have a title.
They’ve color-coded the document, with Dan’s notes in black and Phil’s notes in blue, which is how they often start work on joint videos before combining their inspiration into one coherent brain child. As well as they work together, they like to define whose ideas are whose in the early stages, just to make sure that one of their voices doesn’t get drowned out.
Dan’s screen reminds him of a cloudy sky or a loom, threads of blue and black complementing each other in a way that he thinks is genuinely lovely.
Phil has written themes of patience – having trouble being closeted but also being willing to wait. Halfway down the page, he’s written a short paragraph about why so many people care about their relationship in the first place. At the very bottom of the page, highlighted in bold, he’s written nothing matters as long as I have you.
Dan feels his eyes sting with the weight of tears every time he scrolls past it. Ten years ago, which feels like another life, he would have pretended that the glare of the computer screen was what was causing him to tear up. He doesn’t feel the need to do that now.
There’s a question that sits heavy in Dan’s throat, one that he doesn’t really feel the need to find an answer to, at least not for his own sake. Still, if they’re going to make this video, it seems like they should try.
He scrolls to the top of the page and types what exactly are we?
Phil’s gaze flits from his screen to Dan, peering at him from over his computer. The light makes his eyes glitter, little kaleidoscopes of blue and green. Phil has this intensity with which he looks at Dan. It’s wide eyed, uncompromising, and overflowing with love. Phil just stares right through him like a thin pane of glass.
He thinks that all the Heart-Eyes Howell enthusiasts might just die if they got to see Phil’s eyes from Dan’s perspective.
“Feels like kind of a crazy question to ask after sixteen years,” Phil says aloud.
“They’re going to want an answer,” says Dan, “The fans, I mean.”
Phil frowns slightly, his brow furrowing. Dan resists the urge to get out of his seat and kiss Phil right on the forehead. “Will they?” Phil asks, “I mean, you didn’t really solidly label your sexuality, and aside from a few crazy people with no understanding of boundaries, you were mostly left alone.”
Dan considers this. Phil is right. The response to his first big video was kinder and more respectful than he ever could have dared to hope for. The response to his book, to Doomed, and to the return of DanandPhilGAMES was the same way. So why is he still pretending like this is about the fans? And what exactly does he want?
Phil doesn’t take his eyes off of Dan. Dan’s face is starting to feel hot, but he holds Phil’s gaze anyway.
“We don’t have to call it anything,” he says softly, almost delicately, like he’s brushing his thumb across Dan’s cheek, “But if we did, what would you want to call it?”
Dan’s lips part slightly, his mouth hangs slightly ajar. He looks back down at his computer screen.
what exactly are we?
They really have never labeled it. Contrary to the jokes and the lies they’ve told, it’s not because Dan is afraid of commitment. It’s not because they’re doing some weird avant-garde millennial thing and it’s not because they’re relationship feels less real because it’s secret. It’s the opposite, really, the opposite of all of those things.
One might think that it’s felt like a betrayal all of these years to refer to Phil as his friend. But it hasn’t. Maybe it should have, maybe the only reason it doesn’t feel that way is because Dan didn’t really expect to be able to fully come out until recently, but he and Phil have talked about it, and he knows that it doesn’t feel like a betrayal for Phil, either.
Dan has told a lot of lies on the internet since he was a teenager. But that’s not one of them. Phil is his best friend, his soulmate. Phil understands him better than anyone ever has, better, often, than Dan understands himself. And he knows that Phil feels the same way.
Dan and Phil have never put a label on their relationship because there isn’t a single word in any human language that could ever do them justice.
Boyfriends feels too light-hearted, the silly, casual couple who go on low-stakes adventures together, and while Dan and Phil are perfectly capable of being like that, it’s only a fraction of the story.
Husbands is factually incorrect and will stay that way. Probably.
Significant other sounds more like a diagnosis than anything else. Although, it might just be the closest thing. Whatever they are, it sure is significant.
Dan leans back in his chair with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s wearing the Dan and Phil and a Tiny Horse T-Shirt, though he grabbed it haphazardly out of Phil’s drawer and didn’t realize what shirt it was until he put it on.
He looks at Phil, squinting slightly, as if he’s looking for something that he hasn’t seen before. But he can’t find anything. It’s all familiar. His pretty eyes, the slight stubble that he gets at the end of a long day, the curve of his neck, the shirt that he stretched out, exposing his slender shoulders and the hollow of his throat. Seeing Phil feels like coming home.
He thinks about how his key sounds when it turns in the lock of their front door, how quick he is to exhale and let the tension drain from his shoulders. He remembers the feeling of wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist this morning as Phil lightly stirred scrambled eggs. They came out burnt, but it didn’t matter, because Phil made them for him, so he thought they were delicious.
And all of those late night calls while Dan was away on tour. They’ve been revisiting it, their separation, in preparation to officially and publicly never do it again. As painful as it was to be so far apart, there was something so romantic about it, too. Making promises to each other through computer screens just like they had in 2009, like their relationship was one big boomerang that they somehow managed to catch on its way back. How fast Phil picked up, how he could practically feel their hearts beating in sync even from an ocean away.
He thinks about how long he’s been silent, staring at Phil with his mouth slightly open like an idiot, and how despite the fact that it really should, it doesn’t feel like an uncomfortable silence at all. Who cares how it should feel? They’re Dan and Phil. They’ve never been bothered by shoulds.
Phil smiles at him, the corners of his mouth bending up. “Situationship,” Phil says, “One really long game of gay chicken.”
Dan laughs, and wants to kiss him right there, the spot where his smile ends and his cheek begins.
He thinks about how in French, the word for love at first sight is the same word for being shot, and he thinks about just how wrong that is. He thinks that all the people drawing false equivalences between love and violence need to take up meditation. Dan has experienced both, in abundance, and he can’t find a single parallel between the two.
There isn’t a good word. Dan realizes that that’s a good thing.
“Partners?” he tries. The word feels clunky on his tongue, but he could get used to it, if he chose to. “I think if I had to call you anything, I would call you my partner.”
Close enough, he thinks, close enough.
To anyone who doesn’t know them, it might sound unemotional, as if Dan were talking about his business partner, which, to be fair, is also true. But he doesn’t mean it like that.
Partners, not as in business partners, but as in you’re beside me in life.
Phil reaches across the table to where Dan’s hand is laying, and he turns it so his palm is up. Their hands meet.
“Partners,” Phil whispers, “Perfect.”
How nice it is to whisper, not because no one else is allowed to hear, but because no one else has to.