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Phil understands why he and Dan have to wait before they sign a lease for a place together.
He does, but he still wishes it could be sooner. He can't wait for term to end.
“Someone fucking went in my room again,” Dan is saying, scowling at his webcam and fidgeting with the collar of his tshirt. “I left a book in a specific place and it was, like, several centimetres over.”
Phil tilts his head and grins like he's joking. “Just come move in with me early then, they can't look at your stuff if it's here.”
Dan looks up at him from beneath his eyelashes - Phil’s stomach goes all warm at the pixelated view and that is just absurd, he's an adult - and pouts.
“I can't,” he sighs, propping his head on his hand and tugging his collar past his clavicle absentmindedly. His collarbone stands out in sharp relief and Phil’s not even particularly into collarbones but he still can't quite drag his gaze back up to Dan’s face. It's been too long since they've seen each other. It's been days. “Got exams or whatever. Essays. I dunno. Memorising more useless shit I won't even remember in a month.”
“Dan.”
“Right, anyway, so,” Dan interrupts loudly. Phil considers sighing, maybe pushing Dan back a little for once, but ends up just settling quietly into the corner of his loveseat. It's not his favourite place in the flat to hang out - his bed is more comfortable, but the mattress is bare. He needs to wash his sheets before the weekend, so he’d pulled them off the bed and everything, he just hasn't gotten round to actually putting them in the machine. It's only Thursday afternoon anyway, he's still got time.
“What?” Phil says, realising he's gone on a laundry tangent in his head and missed everything Dan has said in the last minute. Dan raises his eyebrows, then snorts and shakes his head.
“Never mind,” he says, fondly exasperated in a way that makes Phil feel weirdly young. “It's fine. Are you doing anything tonight?”
Phil frowns.
“A date with a pizza and Sarah Michelle Gellar, probably,” he says. Dan bites his lip and looks away. “What's going on in your skull, Danno.”
“Danno ,” Dan echoes incredulously. A grin starts to grow in the corner of his mouth. It makes Phil a little less worried.
“Yeah, go on,” Phil encourages him. Dan sighs.
“I just don't want to be here anymore. I hate uni,” he says, with a halfhearted shrug. Phil watches him as he starts to fidget with his hair, his face half obscured by his hand and his fringe. “I - the professors and the people in my lectures and the coursework, like, I just. I hate it, Phil. It's so boring.”
He's said all of this before. From what Phil can tell it all seems to come down to boredom, to Dan being too scattered and distracted to commit himself to something he isn't really interested in. And it makes sense, of course, to be disinterested. As far as Phil can see, Dan’s law course is mostly a series of text-heavy assignments and nerve-rattling seminars with people who Dan describes as both intimidatingly clever and awful.
“Is there a way to make it un-boring?” Phil asks, shifting a little so his laptop is balanced more securely on his knees. He doesn't have much advice for Dan - he never really struggled at uni past his first year, always liked his housemates and his course. The bitter way Dan talks about his classes and his friends is almost alarming.
Dan snorts and says, “not even a little bit” and flicks his fringe out of his eyes. Phil wishes he weren't at uni. The flat’s messy and Dan wouldn't be getting any more work done here than he is in his room at school, but at least here he'd be somewhere comfortable, with someone he properly knows.
“How much have you got left to do?”
Dan glances to the side, then looks back at Phil with a grimace.
“Er, like. All of it?” He sighs heavily and props his head up with his hand. Phil frowns. “Don't make that face at me, come on, you wouldn't want to write about fucking property law either, I don't give a shit about any of this.”
“You've still got to do it,” Phil tells him gently. “If it's due in soon.” Dan looks away again and Phil’s stomach twists. He wishes he knew how to help.
“Yeah,” Dan mumbles. He rubs vigorously at the corner of his eye for a moment, then sighs again and nods. “Yeah, alright. Can I come over once I've finished?”
Phil should say no. It's only Thursday and he knows he should, but Dan looks so… bad. Like he hasn't slept in weeks. And Phil misses him, when he's at uni. The flat feels too quiet now that he's got used to Dan filling up the space with his voice and his music and his laugh.
“Yeah,” he says, and Dan’s whole body seems to go a little less tense. Phil wants to hug him so much.
“Okay,” Dan agrees, nodding a few too many times and sitting up straight again. “Okay, yeah, I’ll just - I mean it’ll be shit but I’ll finish, and then -”
“Just text me when you're on your way,” Phil tells him. Dan nods again.
“Yeah.” Phil’s chest swells up full and warm when Dan smiles, small but real.
They hang up after a few more minutes of Dan nattering on, a transparent attempt at procrastination that Phil allows because he can't find it in his heart to resist, and when he finally shuts his browser he feels mostly-confident that Dan will be able to finish in time for them to have a nice night. Dan’s clever, is the thing, and quite good at school when he puts his mind to it. When he’s interested. The only problem is that he's usually not.
It's half eleven by the time Dan texts again, two in a row, OMW!!! :D followed by city buses can suck my cock. Phil huffs out a laugh and heaves himself off of his sofa. He still hasn't put his sheets in the wash, but he can do it now. They’ll be finished by the time he and Dan are ready to go to bed.
u would get dog aids, Phil replies, going into his bedroom and tossing his duvet to the floor. There's no point washing that tonight. Considering what they're probably going to get up to there might honestly not be much of a point to washing his sheets at all.
disgusting, Dan texts back. can you give me a blowjob when i get in
Dog aids made you think of that?? o.o
Dog AIDs aside, Phil ends up on his knees within ten minutes of Dan walking through his front door. Dan looks so tired is all, and sad, and not much else cheers him up like a blowjob. He comes with a sigh and his hands curled into fists in Phil’s hair and afterwards he's soft-limbed and pliant as he curls up next to him, head resting heavy on Phil’s shoulder. They sit quietly for a while. The tv murmurs. A siren wails distantly outside.
“Are you okay?” Phil asks finally. Dan goes very still for a moment, then sighs. He traces his fingertip across the inside of Phil’s wrist. It tickles and sends a ripple of gooseflesh across Phil’s skin.
“I guess I just thought it would be - uni i mean, obviously - I thought it'd be easier than it's been?” he says without an intro after a long, contemplative pause. Phil starts rubbing his fingers across the jut of Dan’s shoulder blade, steady and repetitive. “Or at least interesting. But it's hard and I can't, like, make myself focus on something I don't care about, d’you know what I mean? Like I literally can't.”
Phil doesn't really know, but he nods anyway and goes with it when Dan sighs heavily and slumps over to press his forehead against Phil’s chest.
“I've been tired for months, Phil,” he mumbles. His voice is muffled against Phil’s shirt and when Phil moves his hand up to play with Dan’s hair, Dan sighs again, his breath hot on Phil’s skin. “I sleep loads but I'm so fucking tired and I have no idea what I'm doing with my life and I can't even see the point in trying at this shit anymore.”
That's a new one. He's heard Dan talk about boredom and dissatisfaction, about irritation with his modules and his teachers and his friends, but he's never heard anything like this.
“Do you think you're depressed?” he asks after a few seconds. Dan sits back up and scowls at the ceiling.
“No,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I’m stupid, Phil, I’m not fucking depressed,” Dan snaps.
“You're not stupid.”
Phil’s lungs constrict when Dan stands up, launching himself off of the sofa and pacing round the room. He doesn't understand why what he's doing is making Dan feel worse.
“I’m stupid for going into a course that I knew I’d hate.” Dan’s voice is tight and he keeps shaking his hands hard, like if he snaps his wrists enough his anxiety will go away. “I’m stupid for never doing any of my work, like, I can do it but I don't, how is that anything but stupid? And - oh, god, Phil, what am I gonna tell my mum?”
The issue, Phil thinks, is that Dan thinks in blacks and whites and catastrophes. His mind has jumped from being bored of coursework to - failing his classes maybe? Dropping out? Phil's not even sure where Dan is going with this.
“What d’you mean?” he asks, and Dan makes a frantic distressed sort of face.
“I don't know. Oh god. I don't know anything.”
He slumps against the wall and then slides down it rather pathetically, wide-eyed and stricken. Phil is shocked by how small he looks, folded in on himself like that on the floor.
“Dan,” Phil says, heaving himself off of the couch and kneeling next to him. On a small positive note, Dan hasn't started to cry yet. There might be time for Phil to bring the mood back to where it ought to be on a Saturday night. He can at least get them to the equivalent of an average Thursday. “We can work on it later, for now I need your help on this level of Sonic I got stuck on earlier.”
“You are shit at that game,” Dan tells him, and he smiles and sighs shakily and closes his eyes. Phil watches his eyelashes flutter. On the floor, Dan moves his fingers to slip them between Phil’s own. “Give me a minute.”
They sit for a while. Evening has fallen and the flat is dark, lit only by the light above Phil’s kitchen sink. Dan’s breathing gradually slows and their fingers stay linked and the silence is heavy but soft as Phil leans his head on Dan’s shoulder.
“You know I've got you, right?” he asks eventually, staring at the shadow of Dan’s foot on the floor. It's been a lot longer than a minute. He doesn't mind.
“Yeah,” Dan whispers.
“Okay.”
He can't believe he has this, sometimes. Someone who trusts him this much. Someone who makes him see the world so differently.
They don't bother trying to finish Phil’s level of Sonic. Dan keeps yawning, his mouth wide and half-hidden by his wrist, and Phil makes the executive decision to move them to bed.
“Come on,” he says, turning off the television and nudging Dan out of his half-sleep. “You can even be big spoon.”
“Yeah, ‘kay,” Dan mumbles. He yawns again. Phil wants to kiss him, but that feels a little bit like taking advantage right now so he doesn't. He just leads Dan to his bedroom, hands him a pair of trackies, doesn't nag him about brushing his teeth because he's barely conscious anyway. It's awful. Phil wishes he could hit pause on time and let Dan sleep here for a week or a month or a year. Anything to get rid of the bags that hang so heavily under Dan’s eyes.
Phil keeps glancing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror while he cleans his teeth and washes his face. He looks tired too, but not the way Dan does. His kind of tired could be solved by just a few hours’ sleep and a pot of coffee.
“Bed’s brilliant,” Dan mumbles as Phil climbs beneath the duvet next to him. The sheets are soft and cereal crumb free and smell faintly of soap. He's glad he washed them, after all. “Soft and - yeah.”
He's mostly asleep before Phil can get cuddled up to him, but that's okay. Phil shuts off his light and settles in and closes his eyes, listening to Dan’s breathing slow down into a steady rhythm. It's been a really long night. He’s in too deep, he thinks, and then he takes it back. Dan’s worth a bit of worry. What they've got together, that's worth it.
Dan comes over more and more as his exams approach, and every time Phil sees him he looks more exhausted. They don't talk about it anymore, though. Dan’s made it clear there's nothing Phil can do. Several times, Phil has found him curled on his side in Phil’s bed, staring glaze-eyed at the blank wall, unable to drag himself out of the vacant daze he's fallen into.
Today is one of those days, apparently. Dan’s been over for three hours already and he'd said all of five words before pushing a quick kiss to the corner of Phil’s mouth and stumbling into his room. He'd brought his coursework over, presumably to revise, but it's all just sitting abandoned on Phil’s table. Phil drinks a cup of coffee and has a staring contest with a frowny face scrawled on the notebook at the top of the pile. It's labeled equity & trusts in Dan’s barely legible handwriting.
"Horrible,” Phil says out loud with a shake of his head. He's glad he studied something he enjoyed at university. It made getting his degrees an adventure instead of a obligation.
“Talking about me again?”
Dan’s rasping voice from the doorway to the kitchen makes Phil jump and grab at the front of his shirt, startled. He’s slumped against the doorframe, his hair dirty and sticking up straight on one side, the skin under his eyes thin and bruising.
“Hi,” Phil says, and then, “stop, no,” and then, “did you sleep okay?”
“No,” Dan sighs. He bumps his head against the doorframe and closes his eyes. “I could sleep for a hundred years and still wake up too tired to revise.”
Phil's chest feels pried-open and aching with sympathy. He stands up and moves across the room, reaching out to snag Dan’s hand from midair and pull him in close. The half-inch of height that Phil used to have over Dan is gone and he misses it a little, misses the way he could kind of wrap himself around Dan and pretend he was protecting him, or something. Their hugs are still nice though. Better than nice. Dan’s always so warm.
He can feel Dan’s chest moving up and down as he breathes, his neck bent and his forehead pressing against Phil’s shoulder. They stand together like that for a long time. Neither of them say anything and eventually Dan pulls away and slings himself over the back of the couch.
“Leave me alone please,” he says, shuffling through the stack of folders and books on the coffee table. “I’m gonna try to do this.”
Phil nods and sits down at the kitchen table, opening up his laptop and glancing over at Dan again. He’s got his chin propped up on one hand, a book held open with the other, his body hunched forward. His foot is already bouncing and his lips move slightly as he reads.
Only a few minutes pass before Dan starts sighing and shifting his weight impatiently. Phil can hear him drumming his fingertips against the textbook.
“Can you play music or something,” Dan asks abruptly. “I don’t care what. I can’t think in the quiet.”
Phil nods and pulls up his itunes, clicks through to the Planet Earth soundtrack, and lets it play.
Hours pass. Dan, for once, seems fairly absorbed in his work. He keeps clicking his pen but Phil doesn’t mind - he’s distracted, too. His lease is coming to an end in a few months and he needs to decide on a new place to live. There’s also the matter of actually asking Dan to move in with him, officially, because he still hasn’t done that. It’s not that Phil thinks he’ll say no or anything - he knows Dan’ll say yes, they’ve talked about it in passing enough. It’s just that it feels so huge and real and important. Phil doesn’t want to jinx it. He’s never wanted anything else quite this much. He thinks about it a lot - sharing a space with Dan, waking up and knowing that he's just a room or two away, always having the option of company when he doesn't want to be alone. And Dan is so easy to be around. Phil gets on better with him than he does with pretty much anyone else. The two of them moving in together just seems like common sense.
“Hey Dan,” he says, and his throat is dry so his voice comes out raspy. He coughs, then takes a sip of Ribena and tries again. “Hey.”
Dan looks up. Blinks blearily. Raises his eyebrows and smiles a little.
“Hi.”
“I - what do you think of this flat?”
He turns his laptop so the screen is facing Dan, who leans forward, then shakes his head and stands up to join Phil at the table.
“Enlarge the pictures then. You don't want to stay here?” he asks. Phil clicks on the first of the slideshow, a picture of a breakfast bar and a sink and a neatly-tiled floor, then frowns.
“I dunno,” he replies. Dan nods. “I mean - we might. Need more space, if you're going to - I mean. You want to, right?” Dan’s not looking at the laptop anymore. He's staring at Phil with round eyes and a slightly-open mouth.
“What?” he says. Phil swallows hard. He has no reason to be this nervous. It's not like Dan'll say no.
“Live together,” he tells Dan, and Dan’s mouth drops into a small O. “Figured, you know, you had the uni experience with halls and everything, and you hated it, so. And we’ve been - we’ve been together for a year and a half and it would save us money so I thought I would ask. Or - yeah.”
Dan blinks and raises his eyebrows. Phil’s heart is about to leap out of his throat.
“You're serious?” Dan asks. He tilts his head to the side like a puppy. His fringe is falling into his face - Phil reaches out and pushes it back.
“Yeah,” he says. Dan leans his face against the flat of Phil’s palm. The corners of his mouth are starting to tug up into a smile. Phil can feel the dimple growing in his cheek.
“Yeah, alright then,” Dan tells him, like he's doing Phil a favour. It's amazing how bright his tired eyes have gone, warm and glittering. Phil wishes he could make Dan look like that all the time.
It feels strange, again, to be packing up his whole life and putting it into boxes, but Phil doesn't mind much this time around. He's not scared shitless this time, anyway - why should he be, if he won't be alone?
Mostly he's excited. Living with Dan has been on his mind since Dan told him he was coming to Manchester for uni last year. To think that within 48 hours his daydreams will become a reality is almost mind-boggling. It makes Phil’s stomach do several back handsprings in a row.
His flat’s nearly empty. The vacant shelves look sad and lonely without his stuff stacked all over them, but Phil can't find it in himself to be upset because he keeps thinking about how good his stuff will look with Dan’s stuff interspersed throughout it. Sharing a space has never seemed so thrilling before.
His phone buzzes with a text from Dan, so Phil stops stacking dvds and slides open the message.
Fairy lights?? :D it says, accompanied by a photo of what appears to be someone else’s room in halls. Pink Christmas lights are strung across the window frame, glaringly neon against off-white curtains. Another text comes through. obviously not pink as that is hideous but white or gold! cozy x)
hahaa yes! Phil texts back. A smile pushes at the sides of his mouth. And loads of candles as well :p
Dan has lots of plans for decorating. He's told Phil all about them and Phil is so excited - there's a vision in his head of what they could have together and it's brilliant, glittering and beautiful at the back of his mind.
lol yes :)) Dan replies. ily
It's too warm in Phil’s room. He smiles at the ceiling anyway. Nearly two years on and Dan still makes him feel fluttery on the inside, sparrows ruffling their wings from their perches on his ribcage.
seeya soon <333 NEW HOUSE IN THREE DAYS!! he texts back, and that's so soon. He could cry.
Dan responds with another :D . He's out at a party or something tonight, Phil’s not really sure. Wherever he is it's with people from uni who Phil’s never met and Phil is alone at his mostly-empty flat and that's fine. He's got Spyro and a pizza and in three days he's moving into an apartment with his boyfriend. He couldn't be happier if he tried.
“We should celebrate,” Dan says, once the last of the boxes have been unpacked.
Well. Opened and shuffled through for essentials. They can do the rest of it when there isn't an apartment to christen. When they haven't got a bed each to break in.
“Yes,” Phil agrees, and he grabs Dan by the wrist and tugs him close. Dan stumbles forward with a laugh and a sweet, flirty smile. They kiss hard in the middle of their kitchen - their kitchen, it's theirs, Phil gets a thrill down his spine every time he thinks about it - and it takes several minutes for either of them pull away.
“Do we have alcohol?” Dan asks, eyes bright, lips puffy. Phil vaguely recalls there being a bottle of something or other in a box that he probably set down in here somewhere, so he nods. “Excellent.”
He wiggles out of Phil’s grasp and Phil’s left empty-armed and still smiling, watching as Dan opens one box, then another and another. The first three turn up with nothing but there's shot glasses in the fourth and a quarter of a bottle of bad vodka in the fifth and Dan holds them up above his head like a prizefighter.
“I thought you didn't even like vodka?” Phil asks as Dan opens the bottle and pours generous portions into two of the shot glasses.
“I don't,” Dan says, and Phil takes the shot glass he's being handed, “but this is a special occasion and also -” he picks up his own shot - “I don't actually give much of a fuck what I'm drinking anymore.”
He looks wild and reckless for a moment, like he's daring Phil to ask him what he means, but Phil doesn't ask and Dan doesn't push it, just tips his head back so all Phil can focus on is the long line of his throat as he downs his shot.
“Drink, fresher,” he rasps, slamming his glass down on the breakfast bar and coughing hard into his hand. “ Fuck. I hate vodka.”
“It's really bad vodka as well,” Phil laughs. He brings his glass up to his face and grimaces when he gets a whiff. “Smells like paint stripper.”
“You're a paint stripper.” Dan’s already grabbing the bottle and pouring more vodka into his glass. “Go on, take the shot, don't be a pussy.”
“Don't say that,” Phil scolds, but he exhales hard and throws the vodka down the back of his throats and shudders at the burn. “God, that is bad.”
Three shots later and Phil is feeling it, his head spinning and his whole body going slightly too hot. There’s a splotch of red on the skin at the edge of Dan’s jaw that Phil wants to kiss. Somehow the two of them have drifted across the room to their lounge and Dan is sprawled across the floor, his arms and legs akimbo and his hair flopping away from his forehead.
“We live here,” he says with a flush-cheeked grin, and from his perch on the couch opposite Phil says, “yeah, we do,” and they grin at each other and despite everything being new and different Phil feels suddenly, completely, entirely at home.
"I don't know if I want to go back to uni in the fall."
Dan's voice makes Phil jump. He tugs his headphones off of his ears and shuts his laptop, blinking owlishly when Dan's bedroom goes suddenly dark. He hadn't even noticed the sun setting.
"What?" he asks. Dan, who in the last half hour has gone from sitting with Phil on his bed to pacing back and forth between his bedroom and the front door, sinks back down onto the edge of the mattress, his head tilted up to the ceiling and his face silhouetted by the pale light coming in through the doorway from the hall.
"I'm not sure about going back to uni."
It's not that Phil's surprised, really. It's more that he hoped it wouldn't come to this. He'll support Dan no matter what, but dropping out of uni seems so risky - and the cost, god, Phil can't even imagine.
"Are you angry?" Dan asks when Phil doesn't respond.
"No," he says firmly. "No. I just think you should give it a little time, because - I mean, it's a lot, isn't it? You're upset. You should think about it. I mean, there's loads of options for uni without leaving."
Dan slumps forward until he's laying down face-first and doesn't say anything. His hand is resting limply on the duvet near Phil's but Phil doesn't move to take it. They sit in silence for a very long time.
“I want to leave uni because it makes me want to kill myself,” Dan says finally, muffled against his pillow, and Phil’s chest aches. He doesn't know what to say.
“Please don't,” he tries. His voice is creaky.
“Obviously I'm not going to,” Dan replies. He sighs heavily. Phil watches his chest rise, then fall. “Like I don't want to die, I just want to not be alive.”
Phil doesn't quite understand how that makes sense but he doesn't want to argue, so he simply stays quiet. The blinds on Dan’s window are shut and his lights are off and the room’s gone dark, the air sticky with sadness.
“I’m sorry,” Dan mumbles after a few minutes that seem to drag into days. He rolls over onto his back but brings his pillow with him, keeping his face obscured.
“It's okay,” Phil tells him, even though it's not, really. “Erm. D’you think maybe you should talk to someone then? About like - depression or -”
“I’m not depressed, Phil, Christ, you don't have to be depressed to want to be dead,” Dan mutters darkly, pushing his pillow off his face and leaning up on his elbows. Phil isn't sure if that's true. “I’m just being - I’m exaggerating, right, it's fine. Just - I'm sorry. I’m sorry. I feel like shit. Can you leave me alone?”
Phil almost says can I? but he stops himself just in time. There's no point picking a fight. They can talk about it later.
“Leave the door open?” he asks. Dan raises his eyebrows but Phil doesn't budge. There's a newsreel of worst case scenarios flickering in the back of his brain and he can't turn it off. “Dan, come on. Just so you can tell me if you need anything. I - I’ll leave my door open too, okay? Just. In case.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine though, Phil. I'm sorry I said that.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I don't actually want to be dead. That'd be a bit shit for you.”
Phil can't stand the space between them anymore and rolls from his stomach to his side so that his arm is draped carefully over Dan’s waist. Dan doesn't move, but he doesn't protest when Phil pulls him closer, so his back presses against Phil’s chest. His body heat seeps through Phil’s shirt slowly, familiar and comforting even in the summer warmth.
“More than a bit. That would be the worst thing.”
“Just sleep here tonight,” Dan interrupts. Phil goes quiet. “I don't want to talk anymore but just sleep here. I need to brush my teeth.”
He’s out of bed in seconds. Phil watches his shadowy figure leave the room, then flops back onto Dan’s pillow and sighs heavily. Something has got to be done.
Neither of them say anything when Dan comes back a few minutes later. He tugs off his shirt and his jeans and doesn't even bother putting on pyjamas, just crawls onto his bed in his boxers and falls face-first onto the mattress. Phil rolls into his side and reaches out, skims his fingertips across the dip of Dan’s back.
“Night then,” he says quietly. Dan nods into the sheets. “I love you.”
“You too,” Dan says back, muffled. Phil leans down to press a kiss to the curve of his shoulder, then slips his arm around Dan’s waist again and settles down into a cozy little cuddle. It's too warm for this but Dan needs it, and if Phil’s honest with himself he kind of needs this too. He worries so much about Dan, about how to help him and make him happy and get him to see his own worth. He just wants to be able to help, and if this is what Dan needs then this is what Phil will give.
Dan's back moves against Phil's chest in a steady slow rhythm of inhales and exhales, and Phil can tell he's fallen asleep because he starts to snore a little, snuffling through his nose. Phil's glad - sleep won't fix any of Dan's problems, but it'll help him feel a little better. A little less worn-down.
"It's going to be fine," he says quietly to the top of Dan's head, and maybe a bit to himself. "It's all going to be okay."
Dan's resit is tomorrow.
His resit is tomorrow and he's playing Call of Duty instead of revising and it's not Phil's job to keep him on task but this seems a bit too urgent for Phil to just sit back and let Dan sort his shit out on his own. There's a little bubble of secondhand panic that keeps swelling in Phil's stomach every time he thinks about the potential fallout of Dan failing an exam again. The grim mood hovering over the flat has lifted in the last few days but if the resit goes poorly Phil knows it'll come crashing back, and probably worse than before.
"How's revision?" he asks at last, his hands wrapped too tight around his third mug of coffee. Dan shoots a building and it explodes fantastically. He doesn't respond. Phil doesn't push. He knows how this goes, how Dan is. He shouldn't have said anything in the first place.
Dan's soldier onscreen gets his head blown off a few minutes later. Dan drops his controller onto the couch next to him, then turns off the tv and leaves the lounge. After a few minutes the shower starts and Phil sighs. He's trying not to worry or be annoyed but he's watched Dan have a slow-motion panic attack that's spread across this entire summer because of this exam. It makes absolutely no sense for Dan to be throwing his second chance away.
The shower runs for half an hour. Dan doesn't sing and Phil doesn't drink his coffee.
When Dan comes back his eyes are red-rimmed and when he sits down in the lounge with a pile of uni books his knee keeps jiggling. Phil pours his cold coffee down the drain, then starts on the small pile of washing up that he's been ignoring for three days. Neither of them say anything - the only noises are the clink of dishes and the rush of the tap and the drum of Dan's fingers on the tabletop. At least Dan is revising now.
Once Phil finishes the dishes he goes back into the lounge. He feels a strange sort of obligation to stay in the room with Dan, so he knows he's not alone.
"D'you mind if I play Spyro?" he asks, because there's not much else to do and Dan's not particularly likely to get distracted by a game like that. Dan shakes his head.
"Just keep the volume down."
They go on like this for a while - Dan muttering under his breath at his notes and Phil absentmindedly going through the motions of collecting eggs and rescuing dragons. He's pretty good at Spyro but his heart isn't really in it today.
“I’m not going,” Dan says, sudden and quiet from the couch, and then there's a slap and a scuffle and Phil pauses his game. “I’m not fucking doing it!”
Phil turns and looks at Dan, who’s standing now, his hair on end and a wild look in his eyes. His books are scattered, his notes strewn wildly across the table and floor, a pencil gnawed down to splinters dangling from his fingertips.
“What are you talking about?” Phil asks, and Dan starts to pace.
“I don't give a fuck anymore!” he cries, his voice going sharp, waving his hands around his head like he's shooing his thoughts out and away from his brain. “No one can make me do it.”
“Do what?” Phil pushes. He sets down his controller and shifts so he's looking at Dan properly, his body angled towards him so Dan knows he has Phil’s full attention.
“I’m not going,” Dan repeats, and then he drops back down onto the couch and starts to cry. “I’m not going to my fucking exa-am.” His chest heaves and his shoulders shake and Phil doesn't know what to do, doesn't even know where to start with this, but he moves quickly and sits down next to Dan. Their knees bump together but other than that Phil doesn't try to touch him, waits for Dan to make the first move.
“What do you mean you're not going?” Phil asks after a couple of minutes in which they simply sit. Dan is still crying, short sharp sobs that sound like they might hurt.
“I can't,” Dan whimpers into his hands. He doesn't say anything else. Phil has never seen him cry like this before. He doesn't know what to do. It's generally pretty easy for Phil to lift Dan out of his moods - he gives him a hug, usually, and maybe a kiss, and makes a hot drink and puts on Howl’s Moving Castle, and by the end of the film Dan is usually ready to talk about what's wrong - but he thinks it’ll be harder this time.
“Do you want a hot chocolate?” he says anyway. Might as well start with what both of them know before they move into the unfamiliar territory of whatever is coming next. There's a knot in Phil’s stomach as he moves his hand from his own lap up to rub Dan’s back. Dan sighs and leans into the contact immediately, slumping against Phil like his strings have been cut.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, his hands falling limply into his lap. His head is a familiar warmth and weight on Phil’s shoulder. Phil hears him draw in a long, shaky breath, then release it.
“Do you want to come with me to make it or do you want to wait here?” he asks. Dan shifts and turns his face further into Phil’s shirt, his hair tickling the side of Phil’s neck.
“Can I stay here,” he says. His breath is warm against Phil’s collarbone. “I really - I just -”
Tears drip hot and wet down his nose onto Phil’s skin and he turns too, pulls Dan to his chest and hugs him hard.
“Yeah, Dan,” he mumbles, resting his cheek against the soft hair at the top of Dan’s head. They both ought to shower tonight. Maybe Phil can coax Dan in with him, wash his hair, pamper him a little. He has to do something .
“I’m gonna get up,” he says after a minute or so. “And make the hot chocolate. Is that okay?”
Against Phil’s shirt, Dan nods. Then he sits back and curls into the corner of the couch, his arms and legs pretzeled together and his eyes very wide.
Phil doesn't bother with a kettle, just throws the mug in the microwave for a few minutes and tidies up the small mountain of hot chocolate powder he left on the counter, then turns on the kettle for a coffee and opens twitter. He stares at his timeline blankly. Everything seems so unimportant compared to the magnitude of what's happening in this flat today.
The microwave beeps and Phil retrieves the cocoa, then grabs a peanut butter biscuit from the jar they have sitting out on the counter at the moment.
“Here we go,” he says, trying to be cheerful. “I’m making a coffee and there's loads of biscuits left. We can talk about it, if you’d like.”
“We don't have to, like.” Dan pauses and sniffs hard, then laughs wetly. “Say things and cry and turn it into a moment to look back on or anything, okay, I - I just need like twenty minutes and then I’ll be.” His voice cracks and he waves his hand around in vague circles. “Y’know. Fine.”
He doesn't look like he's going to be fine, but Phil doesn't try to push, just nods and sits down next to him quietly and passes him the mug of cocoa. Neither of them say anything. Phil can feel Dan shaking.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Phil tells him after a little while. Dan sniffs again and reaches up to wipe his eyes.
“Yeah,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “Yeah, I know. It's just scary.”
“Well, but you're brave,” Phil says. Dan smiles slightly and leans his head on Phil’s shoulder again. “Braver than I am.”
“I’m scared of the dark,” Dan tells him. “Not brave.”
“I’m scared of putting new shoes on top of tables. Even more not brave.” Dan inhales like he’s going to say something else, but Phil shakes his head. “Just - Dan. Come on.”
"You're stupid," Dan whispers, and then, "I love you."
"I love you too," Phil says back. Dan nods and takes a long sip of his cocoa. "It's gonna be fine."
There's a lot they have to take care of. A lot that Dan has to take care of. Phil has a list forming in his head already (call uni, call Mum, make sure Dan calls his parents too) but for now they're just going to sit. Everything that needs to be done can be taken care of tomorrow.
"Thanks," Dan says quietly when he finishes his mug of hot cocoa, and Phil nods, and after that they simply sit for a while, on the couch in the flat that they share. Phil's eyes are heavy with tiredness but he doesn't move until Dan does. "Can we go to bed?"
They sleep in Phil's room that night, Dan out like a light as soon as his head hits the pillow, his face relaxed and peaceful for the first time all day. Phil presses a tiny kiss to the side of his face and settles in behind him. He wishes he could do more but this is enough, for now. This is enough for them. Everything else can wait.