Chapter Text
2010
Dan would have been fine on his own if it weren’t for the twat three doors down. Later, he’d talk about the sock. And Dan would stand by his point that it takes a certain sort of maniac to steal somebody’s laundry. That was already thrown on the floor. But if he was being honest it was mostly something else.
Dan is crouching in front of the only open washer, trying to figure out why in the fuck there is a leaf symbol on the knob–no one can really be meant to wash leaves, can they?--when the guy enters the narrow wash room. Dan had met him before, unfortunately. Well. “Met” was a gracious way of saying the guy had winked and said, “Fashion!” Yeah, sure, it was a women’s shirt. But it looked normal. Dan hadn’t worn it since then.
When the guy brushes past him to get to his own laundry, Dan stands and pulls out his phone as if he has something important to do on it. What Dan does is pull up his Phil text thread and text, Help.
“Hey,” the guy says, “mate.” Dan is mortified to find that the guy is waving his hand to get Dan’s attention. “You need help?”
“Oh, no, thanks.” Dan looks back at his phone as if Phil can somehow get him out of this from across the city. Phil’s sent back a ridiculous selfie. He’s trying to look all serious. His eyes are scrunched together. It’s paired with a text: Reporting for duty.
Dan snorts. Phil looks like an idiot.
The guy from three doors down says, “What are you grinning at then?”
Dan puts his phone away. There’s no way he could have seen–? “Nothing.”
“All right, all right.” The guy raises his hands. “You’re a shy one.”
Dan crouches to look at the washer again. He turns the knob randomly. He can’t tell which symbol the dial is turned to because his eyes have, of fucking course, filled with tears. This is going to be just like it was before, isn’t it? It’s always going to be like this no matter where he goes.
The guy doesn't bother him again. Other than the inherent bothering that is stealing a goddamn sock off the ground. Dan stops the machine after the guy leaves and pulls all his clothes out and hurries back to his room. He throws the trash bag full of clothes on the ground and joins it next to his bed. He doesn’t want to cry. He’s supposed to skype Phil soon and his eyes always get red. There’s no way to hide it. He pulls his phone out.
Ok? from Phil.
Dan stares at it. There is no way he can answer without sounding like a lunatic. No, I’m having a breakdown because I don’t know how to do laundry. No, I’m having a breakdown because I can’t open a picture of you without some guy commenting. No, I’m having a breakdown because I’m a useless fucking loser.
Dan is wallowing in that thought when he sees that Phil is calling. He doesn’t consider not answering. He’s never not answered Phil.
“Do you need me to say I’m having an emergency?” Phil says without saying hello. Dan loves that, that they don’t need to say hello. It’s like they’ve never stopped talking.
Phil does a stupid voice and says, “Ah! I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding out my eyeballs! You have to come–uh–staunch my wounds!”
“Staunch your wounds?” Dan can’t help repeating back to him. “Don’t call me if you’re bleeding out your eyeballs, you twat.”
“You wouldn’t come staunch my wounds?” Phil says in an even stupider voice. Dan can nearly see the way his eyes get big as he says it.
Dan rolls his eyes. “You’d go to A&E, obviously. What am I gunna do about– ? And you’re meant to be saving me, Philip.”
Phil giggles. “Oh, right. What happened to you anyway? Did you work out the washing machine?”
“These machines are useless,” Dan says. “There aren’t any words! All little symbols. One’s a leaf! What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t speak washing machine.”
“Mum has one like that,” Phil says evenly. “I think the leaf means ‘eco.’ Like, less water.”
“Right,” Dan says. “Obviously.” He feels like an idiot.
“You could send me a picture,” Phil says. “I’ll tell you which setting will work.”
It kind of makes Dan want to cry again. He doesn’t want to figure out the machine. He doesn’t want to be here. He misses Phil so much. What’s the point in being in Manchester and he’s stuck in this horrible dorm?
“I miss you,” Dan says.
“I miss you, too,” Phil says easily. “Skype?”
“No,” Dan says. He doesn’t want to Skype ever again.
“Oh,” Phil says. “Um, okay?”
“No!” Dan says. “God, you idiot. I didn’t mean it like that. Ugh. I’m useless, Phil.”
“You’re not useless.”
“I can’t figure out how to do the wash! How am I supposed to live on my own when I don’t know how to do anything? Everyone already thinks I’m mental and it’s been like five minutes. I can’t manage anything on my own.”
“You don’t have to do it on your own. I’ll help you.”
“I sound like a charity case.”
“You sound like you’re stressed. It’s fine, Dan. I promise it’ll get better.”
“Don’t you have a washer?” Dan says pointedly.
“Yeah–?”
“Phil!”
“What!” And then, happily, “Oh! You’re coming over?”
“It’s nearly midnight,” Dan says as if he weren’t the one who made Phil invite him.
“I don’t mind! We can play Mario Kart. And we’ll do your wash.”
“Really?” Dan says. We’ll do your wash, he repeats back to himself. Like it’s nothing. Like it’s normal.
“Really.”
“I’m sorry I’m a pathetic idiot,” Dan says.
“You’re not,” Phil says. “I don’t mind it. When you rely on me. It’s nice. You should tell me when you’re feeling bad.”
“I love you,” Dan blurts. It’s not the first time he’s said it. Not even close. But it still feels precious and dangerous.
“I love you, too,” Phil says.
Dan is glad no one is around to see whatever his face looks like.
“Come over?” Phil says. “I hate missing you when we’re in the same city.”
“Yeah,” Dan says. “I’m on my way. And I seriously am bringing my laundry, I hope you meant that.”
“I meant it.”
2012
Phil didn’t think anything of it, at first, when Dan said he couldn’t go to the apartment tour in London. He said his mom had been wanting him to come home and he couldn’t put her off any longer. That’s okay, Phil had said, even though he was nervous about making the trek alone. And he had meant it. He was glad Dan was visiting his family. And if a part of him wondered why it had to be this weekend, well, he didn’t mind it much.
It’s the first apartment the guy shows him. It’s wonderful. Old and weird and big enough and Phil can see them here, together. He calls Dan right away.
“Did you see the pictures?” Phil says, unable to contain his excitement. The real estate guy shoots him a thumbs up.
“Yeah,” Dan says.
“It’s perfect,” Phil says. “And within range!”
“Barely.” Dan sounds distracted.
“Can you talk now?” Phil says. “I feel like this is it.”
“Aren’t you seeing a load more today?” Dan says, incredulous.
“No reason if we love this one.”
“Phil,” Dan says, and Phil already knows he is not going to like whatever Dan’s going to say next. “I don’t know about this.”
Phil sighs. “Fine, I’ll look at the other ones.”
“I don’t mean just that.”
Phil feels, suddenly and seriously, like he might faint. It’s not an unusual feeling for him. He knows what to do. He walks into the kitchen of the apartment he loves, away from the real estate guy, and sits down at the cheap, adorable kitchen table. He can see the street from here. It’s busy. It’s London. He can almost see Dan sitting across from him, people-watching. He tells himself the dizzy feeling has nothing to do with Dan’s tone.
“I don’t know if we should do this,” Dan is saying. “Living together.”
It’s not the first time Dan’s talked about it. He has a whole theory on how they don’t work enough when they’re together. They play games and they talk and they make out on the couch and they don’t have a schedule and Dan said that’s all great but it’s not good for productivity.
“You said you changed your mind,” Phil says.
“I’m thinking about it again,” Dan says. “Did you know most successful artists lived alone? Picasso, Emily Dickinson, Van Gogh–”
“That doesn’t even sound real,” Phil says, petulant.
“Dad was saying there were loads. It’s hard enough on your own to keep to a schedule, wake up at a decent hour.”
Dad, Phil thinks.
“We rely on each other too much as it is,” Dan is saying.
“Did your dad say that, too?” Phil says before he can stop himself.
“This has to work, Phil,” Dan says without answering, which is an answer. “If we move to London for the radio–if I really don’t go back to school–it has to work.”
The real estate guy chooses that moment to say, “How are we feeling? Ready to move forward? I could tell you liked it, you looked so excited!”
“Who’s that?” Dan says sourly.
Phil doesn’t realize how angry he is until he feels his face getting hot. What did Dan mean, who is that? He knows where Phil is right now. “Fine,” Phil says. “I didn’t realize you changed your mind. I guess I’ll talk to you later,” and he hangs up the phone.
He’s kind of shocked by himself. He’d never hung up on Dan before. He’s not sure he’s ever been properly angry with Dan before.
He manages to tell the real estate guy something halfway intelligible and begs off the rest of the day.
He finds the nearest Starbucks. It’s not hard to do in downtown London. He orders a coffee and sits in a far corner and watches the people go in and out. It’d just started raining. Everybody’s shaking the rain off them as they come inside. Their faces all do the same thing once they’re inside. They relax. The relief is obvious, simple. It’s objectively lovely and Phil can’t enjoy it at all.
Phil doesn’t look at his phone. He warms his hands on his coffee cup and thinks about how happy he should be right now. He had been looking forward to this weekend. He had told himself a story about how this day was going to go. He and Dan were going to explore the city after the apartment-hunting. They would have scoped out the local restaurants. They would have found somewhere fancy to get cocktails. Dan would have tried to make him laugh just as they sat down to drink and Phil would have to try not to spit out his fancy drink.
The more Phil thinks about it the more irritated he gets until he is pulling out his phone, resolutely ignoring the missed calls and texts from Dan, and Googling “did Van Gogh really live alone.” He feels ridiculous even as he does it, knowing it doesn't matter, knowing it isn’t about this, and unable to stop himself from having the ammunition to tell Dan he’s wrong, anyway.
He’s dismayed and then sad to find that Van Gogh did live alone, at least for some years. He had forgotten Van Gogh was the one with the ear, who committed suicide. He feels hopeless and miserable and lost. What if Dan means it this time? What if he really doesn’t want this?
Phil’s not sure how long he sits there through the dreary day, making himself more and more miserable. When he finally decides to look at his phone, there are four coffee cups in front of him.
There are a slew of messages from Dan.
Really, Phil?
Did you hang up on me?
I know I was being a dick, okay? Are you really not going to answer?
Where are you?
Phil texts him back, I’ll call you in a bit, because he knows that he will.
Forget that, where are you now?
You know I’m in London, Phil texts.
Obviously, Dan says. Where??
Phil stares at his phone. You don’t mean you’re here?
Yes, I’m here, and it’s raining bloody hard, can you tell me where you are now or will you never talk to me again?
Phil tells him.
When Dan walks into the Starbucks– no umbrella, dripping wet, not even a real jacket on–he does not look relieved, as every other patron had. He looks stressed, almost frantic. He’s stopped right in the way of everybody to look around the store. Someone knocks into his shoulder and spills a bit of their own drink. Dan doesn’t seem to notice. Dan keeps looking until he finds Phil and it’s then that his face does the same thing everyone else’s had. Relaxes. And it wasn’t because he got out of the rain. It was because he found Phil.
Dan traipses through the crowded cafe dripping water everywhere. Phil knows in a deep-down way that he is never going to love anyone like he loves Dan.
“I’m sorry,” Dan says before he sits down. “I’m a dick. I said I wanted to do this and then I–”
Phil is looking at him. “You’re soaking wet.”
Dan pushes back at his hair. It’s too wet for his curls to form.
“I didn’t have an umbrella.”
Phil is so relieved and happy that he forgets everything and reaches over to push Dan’s sopping hair out of his eyes. Dan flinches. They don’t do that in public.
“Sorry,” Phil says, and pulls away.
“It’s all right,” Dan says. “I thought you’d be pissed at me.”
“I was,” Phil admits.
Dan takes a big breath, but then he doesn’t say anything. He half-smiles at Phil. He looks miserable. “I’m a dick,” he says again.
“You don’t want to live with me,” Phil says, because the words have been sitting with him all this time, and he needs Dan to hear them, too.
Dan doesn’t look at him when says, “I want to. I want to too much.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Is this about–?” Phil stops. There are too many ways to finish the question. Your dad? The radio show? Us? Phil shouldn’t have started if he didn’t know where he was going.
But he had. Dan is waiting. He keeps clenching his teeth together to try to stop the shivering. He wipes his forehead with his wet hoodie sleeve and it doesn’t do much good.
“Here.” Phil pulls his hoodie off and hands it over.
Dan looks like Phil gave him his last pound note. Or the whole of London. “Your hair’s a mess, rat.”
“A rat mess?” Phil says, even as he starts patting it down.
“A rat massacre.”
“Is that better?” Phil says.
Dan’s eyes go soft. “So much worse.”
Phil knows if they were alone Dan would fix it for him. “Come on,” Phil says, “put it on,” and forces Dan to take the hoodie.
Dan puts it on and wraps his arms around himself. He looks up at Phil.
Phil thinks he is unbearably cute. He’s not sure, right now, if he should say something like that. He hates that he doesn’t know. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve pushed you into everything and you don’t want any of it.”
“Phil,” Dan says, and Phil realizes what he’s just said.
Phil looks back up at Dan. He looks scared and even more miserable. Phil has to suppress the knee jerk reaction to take it back. But it’s true. “Am I wrong?” Phil says.
“Of course you’re wrong,” Dan says, his voice getting pitchy and intense. “Obviously you’re wrong. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. I thought I’ve been massively obvious this whole time. You’re my best friend, and I want to be around you all the time, and–” Dan stops, looks around the crowded Starbucks. Phil might as well be able to read his thoughts. Has anyone recognized them? How many cell phones are out? Dan looks back at Phil. Phil can see the other thoughts, too, the ones he’s already said, the ones he’ll say again, later. I love you. I was made to meet you. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. That apartment was great. Let’s do it, okay? Can we go home now?”
“Yes,” Phil says, and stops himself from reaching for his hand again. But he smiles, and says, “That’s all I wanted.”
December 2012
Dan has felt off all day. It’s the day before Christmas Eve and it shouldn’t really feel so weird here in the still-new apartment. It already feels cozy. It already feels like home. The lounge is lit with soft colorful lights and the tree is standing guard and the little of the sky Dan can see through London looks like snow. And sure, Phil has gone off north to be with his family, and Dan misses him in the way he always does. But Dan can enjoy a day or two in the apartment alone, especially when he is dreading the trek to Reading to see his own family tomorrow.
But still, something is wrong. A feeling like he left the oven on or a candle burning or maybe the front door unlocked. He goes around the apartment and checks for the usual things. He finds everything in order. He tries to focus on an anime, and then he tries to scroll Tumblr, and he never quite shrugs off the feeling of wrongness.
So he’s not entirely surprised when he gets the call from Phil. Not that he has a Phil spidey-sense, because that’s not a thing.
“Miss me?” he says in lieu of hello.
“Dan,” Phil says very seriously into the phone. “Something’s wrong.”
Dan throws his laptop off of him to sit up. “What do you mean? Are you sick? Migraine?”
“Worse,” Phil says, in morose tones. “No one will play Mario Kart with me.”
“Phil!” Dan whines, throwing himself back on the couch. “You twat! I believed you.”
Phil is giggling in a way that explains several things at once.
“You’re pissed!”
“Noo,” Phil moans. “Little tipsy.”
“Snowballs?”
“You remembered!” Phil says happily.
Dan rolls his eyes. “You go on about them all the time.”
“Everyone misses you,” Phil says.
“Everyone?” Dan teases.
“Mum almost had my head when she heard you’re home alone for Christmas Eve-Eve.”
“Oh no,” Dan says, “not the sacred Christmas Eve-Eve.”
“And I told her you wouldn’t come even though I tried.”
Dan sighs. “You know we can’t.”
“We wouldn’t have to tell anyone,” Phil says, and now he sounds morose for real. “Even Martyn wouldn’t play with me.”
Dan snorts. “So this really is about Mario Kart?”
“I said.”
“I think you’re just mad that your family doesn’t spoil you like I do.”
“No one spoils me like you do,” Phil says, and Dan can hear the over-the-top wink in his voice.
Even still, it makes Dan giggle. “Philip Michael Lester,” he says, faux-outraged. “In your old bedroom?”
“My bed misses you, too,” Phil says in the same ridiculous suggestive tone that’s absolutely not working on Dan.
“Are you alone, then?”
“Mm-hmm,” Phil says. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah,” Dan says and gets comfortable on the couch.
“What time is it there?” Phil says, still going for the sexy tone.
“What–?” Dan is wheezing before he can get anything else out. “What time is it there!” He’s cackling loud now, the sound reverberating. “What–” He has to stop to breathe again. “I’m in London! What do you think a time zone is, Philip?”
Phil is giggling down the line. “It’s a sexy question!”
“How!” Dan says. “How is that a sexy question?”
“Because!” Phil is saying through giggles. “If it’s nighttime, that’s sexy.”
“It’s not nighttime for either of us!” Dan says, and is laughing so hard again his stomach hurts.
“Fine, fine!” Phil is yelling to someone else through the phone. He comes back. “Ugh. They want to watch a film. Why do they always have the worst timing?”
“Oh yeah, you were really in the groove there, Philly. God forbid someone interrupts your time zone sex talk–”
“Whatever! You were into it.”
“Unfortunately I’m into you saying anything.” Dan snorts. “The classic ‘What are you wearing?’ was right there.”
“I always know what you’re wearing.”
“No, you don’t. I could be stark naked.”
“Black!” Phil says, triumphant. “Wait. Are you naked?”
“Well, you’re wrong. I’m wearing the York hoodie.”
He can hear the smile down the line so loudly it’s almost like he’s seeing it. “You mean my hoodie,” Phil says smugly. “You do miss me!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t.”
Phil sighs. “It felt weird all day without you.”
“I kept thinking I was forgetting something,” Dan admits. “Left the door unlocked or the stove on.”
“When really you left me,” Phil whines.
“You left me!”
Dan can hear the Lesters shouting something again. They’re laughing and Phil sounds indignant.
“Phil,” Dan says even though he thinks Phil is still distracted by various Lesters, “drink water. And don’t fall down the stairs.”
“I will!” Phil says in that happy way that Dan knows means he wasn’t listening. “And I’ll call you later. I love you.”
Dan thinks about Phil saying that so easily in front of his family, thinks of how it’ll be tomorrow at his own parents’ place. How can he ever bring Phil there? How can he tell him not to be so–Phil?
“I love you a lot,” Dan says.
“Dan.”
“What?”
“It feels less weird now. Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me, idiot?” Dan says.
“For talking to me,” Phil says happily.
Dan looks around the apartment, the cheery decorations they put up together. If Dan was living by himself he knows he’d never put up a tree, little colorful lights, when they wouldn’t even be here for Christmas Day. Phil had insisted. Maybe it was all worth it, to be loved like this.
“It feels less weird for me, too,” Dan says.
2013
Phil is usually not great at keeping track of time, but Dan has been gone for twelve hours and thirty-two minutes and he has tracked every minute. It is late. London has been dark for hours. Phil is well-folded into the sofa crease. He doesn’t turn the TV on because right now, even a rerun would feel like a betrayal.
Phil went out a few hours earlier as the sun was setting. Surely he could find Dan if he just started walking. Like a homing pigeon. It didn’t work. There was no pigeony sense directing his feet. There was only big, loud, impersonal London and a very light rain. And there was Phil, two blocks away from their apartment, realizing that whatever it was that connected him to Dan was not going to guide him to his location.
So he went home. And he waited.
They had a bad day at the radio yesterday. Arguing with the producers. Snapping at each other. Flubbing one segment after the other. Dan had been taciturn since this morning and had withdrawn more and more throughout the day until actually leaving out the front was the natural next step. One Phil should have seen coming.
They’d talked about it already. Phil had apologized. Phil had laid out a game plan, a way to run interference. Dan had posted–well Dan had posted, and Phil hoped it made him feel better. Phil tried to distract him, to get him away from Tumblr and Twitter and the endless, endless chatter online.
What does it matter to them? In their home, alone? But they aren’t home, alone together, are they? Dan left. But it feels more like Phil had allowed him to be taken by some dark, unbeatable entity. Worse than that. It feels like Phil had delivered him to it.
Phil looks at the text thread again. Dan hasn’t answered him once. Not in twelve hours and fifty-two minutes. Not even when Phil said Please, and Just tell me you’re ok.
Phil’s neck is hurting from how he’s sitting in the crease but he doesn’t adjust the awkward angle that allows him to keep staring at his phone. In eight minutes Dan will be gone for thirteen hours and that’s a number he can’t stomach.
He’ll call his mum first, maybe. She knows what to do in a crisis. He has long since called every friend he imagined Dan might go to in London.
But Phil does not have to call his mum after midnight because at twelve hours and fifty-seven minutes, the door squeaks open.
Thank God, Phil thinks, when he sees him, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Hey,” Dan says. He hasn’t taken off his jacket or his shoes. His hair is all curled up from the misty rain. His eyes are flat and remote.
Phil thinks about letting it go. He sees it play out in his mind’s eye. Phil could hug him. He could say, Don’t ever do that again, and Dan wouldn’t say anything, but he would let Phil hold him, and they would go to bed, and tomorrow it would be better. For a week. Maybe two.
In the silence, Dan toes off his trainers. He peels off his jacket. He sits on the couch with Phil and keeps a strange, respectful distance between them. He does not seem to have prepared the lengthy apology that Phil thinks the moment requires.
“You don’t have anything to say to me?” Phil says, and his voice shakes.
“I told you I needed to get out,” Dan says, his tone as flat as his eyes.
Usually, Phil wouldn’t try to force Dan to talk about hard things when he’s like this. But usually, Dan doesn’t abandon Phil for nearly thirteen hours, either.
Phil opens his phone to look through his history. “How many people do you think I called tonight?”
“What?” Dan says.
“It was ten,” Phil says. “I called ten of the closest people we know in London to see if any of them knew where you were. And then I called your mum, and she didn’t know either.”
Something flashes across Dan’s face, almost a wince. “I told you–”
“And none of them had seen you. Not one. We don’t know that many people here, so I didn’t know who to call next, or what to do. Do I call the cops? Or–or–?”
“I was fine, I told you–”
“You told me you were going to take a walk! It’s been thirteen hours!” Phil’s voice is shrill and upset to his own ears.
Dan’s shoulders turn in, but he still says, “I was just walking. You’re making it a big deal.”
“A big deal?” Phil says. “I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know if you–if you were hurt.”
“I wasn’t.” Dan looks guilty now and Phil can’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction.
“I know that now,” Phil says. “You can’t do this to me.”
Dan puts his head in his hands. “I know.” He laughs a horrible laugh. “It’s still weird to me. That you would care if something did happen.”
“What?”
Dan shrugs with one shoulder. “I haven’t been good to you. You should be glad.”
“I would never be glad,” Phil says, his voice shaking. “I would never, ever be glad.”
Dan looks up at him and Phil knows exactly what he’s going to say before he says it. “I can’t do this.”
Phil’s shaking his head before Dan can continue.
“I’ve been trying to tell you, Phil,” Dan says with a gentleness Phil for the first time hates. “I just–can’t. You don’t deserve this. You never have. You should get to–”
“Stop,” Phil says. “You scared the shit out of me. You’re not allowed to talk about leaving again.”
Dan shakes his head. “I can’t change into someone who can be–” He swallows. “Out.”
“I know. I don’t care.” Phil tries to make the words different this time, as if there is a cadence that will convince him.
Dan is still looking at him. His eyes are unbearably sad. “Phil,” Dan says again, “this morning, when I looked at you, I–”
Phil wants to tell him to stop talking, that whatever honesty he is about to say is not worth the expression it’s putting on his face, but Dan is dogged, as always.
“All I could think about was them,” Dan says. “Everyone else.” He braces his hands on his knees. “I can’t stop.”
“Okay,” Phil says, although he hates all of that. He hates that he has felt what Dan is describing, too. “Okay. It’ll get better.”
“You don’t know that,” Dan says. “They won’t stop, either. This isn’t supposed to be for them but now it is. I feel like–I’ve lost my mind. I used to feel like I knew who I was when I was with you, but I don’t feel like that anymore. I woke up this morning and I didn’t feel anything when I looked at you. I’m lying to everyone and now I’m lying to you. I can’t fucking live like this.”
Dan makes a pained noise when Phil starts to cry. “And now I’m hurting you, too,” Dan says, “I can’t stand it.” Dan is squeezing the tops of his thighs so hard that it must hurt. “When we argued I told you it was your fault. Of course it’s not your fault. Maybe this was never going to work. I’m not ready. I’m taking it out on you. I’m so fucking sorry, Phil. You deserve better. You deserve to be happy and–”
Phil has heard this self-hating rant before. He doesn’t want to hear it again. “What do you mean you felt nothing?” he forces himself to say.
Dan sighs. “I’ve told you. Sometimes I can’t feel anything. All I could do was think and think and think. About how everyone else sees me look at you. They know and I hate it.”
“Dan,” Phil says, frustrated and tired and strung out from so many long hours of worry, and sick to death of hearing Dan try to convince himself he is unlovable. “Are you trying to say you don’t love me anymore?” Phil thought the words as a challenge, but they come out vulnerable and sincere and scared.
“Not love you anymore?” Dan lets out a sad laugh. “Would that make it easier?”
Nothing would make it easier, Phil thinks.
“Is that what you think?” Dan says. “That I don’t love you? Is that what you’re worried about? I’ve been an ass to you in seventeen different ways this week, and seven hundred more in the last four years, and if I were a better person I would have never made you meet me. But I did because I couldn’t help it, because you’re the best person I’ve ever met, and you’re the only person I want to be around, and when I’m with you I feel safe. You’ve made my life better in every way. And I’m grateful. I never want you to think I’m not grateful for it.” Dan’s all worked up now, his face red, and his words coming out fast. “I’m telling you I love you so much that I’d give it up if it’d be better for you. That I should.”
Phil is crying in earnest now. “Please don’t leave.” He has to pause, get his breathing under control. “You’re trying to convince yourself to leave and I don’t want it. It wouldn’t be better for me.”
Phil tries to say something else but he’s cut off by his own sob. It’s too much for one or both of them and before Phil knows anything else his face is in Dan’s shoulder and he’s wrapped up in Dan’s arms. Dan’s arms are shaking. “Philly,” he says. “I’m sorry.” Dan squeezes Phil some more and squishes his cheek into the top of Phil’s head. “Okay, okay. Don’t cry, please.”
Phil thinks maybe he shouldn’t listen. Maybe he should stay here crying for as long as he can so Dan won’t leave. But Dan keeps apologizing and so Phil tries. He pulls out of Dan’s arms and mops his face with his sleeve.
They look at one another, a bit stunned. But at least, that flat, faroff look is gone from Dan’s eyes. For the moment. They’ve never talked about breaking up before. Phil hates that it has become a possibility between them, even if it still doesn’t feel possible in his own mind.
“I’m allowed to love you, too,” Phil says.
Dan’s face looks so fragile that all the fear from earlier comes rushing back.
“I was worried about you,” Phil says. “Really, really worried. I thought–what if you’d hurt yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” Dan says. “I didn’t.”
“Can you just tell me where you are next time? When you need to leave?”
Dan bites his lip. It’s bleeding, again. “It’s hard to–remember. When it gets like that. It’s like I can’t think. This is what I mean, Phil, I’m just–like this–”
“Stop that,” Phil says, and takes Dan’s sweet, sad face in his hands. “I don’t want to hear about you leaving anymore.”
“But it’s not that–”
Phil claps his hand over Dan’s mouth. Dan gives him a half-hearted glare. “No,” Phil says.
Phil feels Dan’s mouth making words that aren’t clear enough to make out. Phil knows he’s saying something pedantic and faux-reasonable and heartbreaking. Phil doesn’t move his hand.
“I’m better with you,” Phil says. “And you’re better with me.”
Dan mumbles something and Phil remembers to remove his hand from his mouth.
“Oh, I’m allowed to talk now?” Dan says sarcastically.
“Only if you say you agree,” Phil says.
Dan rolls his eyes and laughs like it’s a joke.
“Say you agree,” Phil says again.
Dan smiles a small real smile. He uses his fingertips to brush the tears under Phil’s eyelashes. “Psht. Cocky bitch,” he whispers. “I’m here,” he says like a promise, and kisses Phil softly, and Phil accepts that, for now. It’s the most important part.
Dan uses his thumb to brush Phil’s lip. “You’re bleeding, bubby.”
No, Phil thinks, you are. But it doesn’t make much of a difference, does it?