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“This is nice.”
It’s an exaggeration, Phil knows that himself as soon as he closes the door behind them. They’ve been to so many hotels and motels by now that they rarely excite him anymore. The room before them isn’t even anything out of the ordinary. It’s small for a twin room, with dark brown carpet on the floors and beige walls, empty except for a flat tv and a framed picture of a bird drawn in a multitude of colors. The nightstands each have a bedside lamp, which are lit in an attempt to give the room that inviting feeling, and below the big window stands a dark brown desk with an office chair.
The colors make Phil think about Dan’s old room. Beige and brown. Except this room doesn’t smell as good as Dan’s used to do.
“The view is kinda nice,” Dan says as he drops his backpack on the floor and walks up to the window. It displays the skyline of Phoenix, with its skyscrapers and the mountains as a backdrop. Below them the cars are just tiny dots moving in the same direction, like ants finding a piece of fruit on the ground. The air vibrates with heat even though it's late in the afternoon and Phil sends a grateful thought to the AC in the room. He’s been sweating enough today already.
“And nice that it’s clear,” Dan adds after a moment of silence. He says it facing the window, but Phil knows exactly what facial expressions he has as he says it. Eyes locked on something in the distance, the tiniest of wrinkles between his eyebrows, chewing lightly on his bottom lip. An expression showing relief and content, but also the never-ending tenseness that coats Dan nowadays. Only in the depths of their own home, Phil can see it slip off him, like a wet rug falling to the floor. Only then Dan looks fully relaxed.
But they’re not in their own home at the moment. They’re on tour, and have been for the last eight months. They’re nearing the end of the American leg of TATINOF, and as much as they love it, exhaustion has started to seep under the happy personas they try to hold up for the world. Everyone knows that Dan and Phil are the happy comedy duo on Youtube that does light entertainment for their millions of fans, and Dan and Phil knows that it’s their job to give the people what they want. That’s just how it is and how it’s always been.
After closing the curtains despite the clear view from the window, Dan pulls off his black t-shirt by the collar with a sigh.
“God, I haven’t been this sweaty in a long time. I’m heading for the shower.”
“Go for it,” Phil says as he flops down on the nearest twin bed and rests his head on the white fluffy hotel pillows. Dan grabs the white hotel towel from the other bed and throws it over his shoulder as he walks past Phil, all while looking down on the phone in his hand. Phil loves to watch him like this, deep into whatever's showing on the screen, chest bare and smooth, hair slightly curly from the sweat on his forehead. His jeans hang low despite him wearing a belt, but not as low as they did three years ago when his whole ass was out. Now it only shows off the hem of his boxers, and Phil marvels at the sight, even though he sees it every day.
Phil just never gets tired of the sight of Dan.
Dan is probably midway through his shower when Phil finds himself done scrolling. His twitter feed is full of fans discussing the tour and their latest show, and he just doesn’t feel like reading that right now. He would like some easy, light content to flood into his brain, like cute animal videos, but the occasional cute dog video on twitter doesn’t make up for all the tweets he feels like he shouldn’t see. If he ever creates another app it will be one with an endless stream of cute dog videos, no matter how far down you scroll.
If that app existed in this exact moment, it is exactly what he would indulge in now.
But it doesn’t, so Phil puts his phone down by the nightstand next to his bed and starts to massage his temples with closed eyes. The tour is making him tired, and the constant travelling is making his brain ache. There’s just so many new impressions every day and new people to talk to and fans to hug and Phil is not built for all that. As much as he loves it, he misses lying in bed all day and watching anime with Dan. He misses not getting dressed and wearing loose pj's with nothing underneath. He misses cuddling with Dan and sleeping in the same bed.
The need flushes over him in an instant. He really misses spending his nights next to Dan. Matter of fact, he thinks all his problems would be fixed right now if he just got to lower the AC in the room and cuddle up next to Dan to keep himself warm. Suddenly it’s all he wants.
Phil opens his eyes and looks at the other twin bed, so close but so far away from the bed he’s collapsed on. He shuffles his hips a bit, to feel the softness of the mattress, and there’s not much retraction. Good, that’s good. In order for this to work the mattresses can’t be too soft.
He gets up from the bed and dedicates a moment to ask himself the question if he should wait for Dan to help him. But no, he realises quite quickly that he wants it to be a surprise. Phil knows how the tour and Dan’s own mental health eats away at him these days, and Phil wants to ease the pain, if only for just one evening. Phil knows that Dan also loves to sleep together, but that sharing a twin bed is too crowded even for him. Truth is none of them really gets proper sleep on the rare occasions that they do share a twin bed, and it breaks Phil’s heart.
No, Phil is not waiting for Dan to finish his shower to ask for help. Phil wants to surprise Dan with this because he loves him.
Thankfully he doesn’t have to move any nightstands as they’re placed on the outer sides of the twin beds, so after a quick deliberation with himself he decides to push the bed he was just lying in towards the other one. He places his hands on the mattress, after making sure that it’s attached to the bedframe, and starts pushing.
It slides surprisingly easy over the carpeted floor, and Phil lets out a little “iih” in excitement. He feels strong and empowered; they are about to spend a night next to each other, skin on skin. Dan is going to be so happy and Phil can’t wait to see Dan’s surprised face when he gets out of the bathroom.
Suddenly he lounges backwards with a loud “yelp”, almost hitting the wall behind him. For a millisecond he doesn’t know why, it’s like his body has a visceral reaction without his consent, until he looks down.
“Urgh!” Phil exclaims, pulling his feet and arms towards himself, as if he’s trying to get inside of his own skin. His eyes rest on a big, red-brownish stain on the carpet, which up until this very moment was covered by the bed he just moved.
“Wha’?” Dan shouts from inside the bathroom, followed by the sound of the shower being turned off. Phil doesn’t even have time to form any useful thoughts of how to explain this to Dan before the door to the bathroom opens and Dan steps out, towel around his waist and hair slicked to his head.
“I-,” Phil starts.
“Oh my god Phil, what is that?!” Dan shrieks, eyes flickering from Phil to the stain back to Phil again. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know! Or- yes, I am, but I, or I mean, no- I have no idea!”
Dan pads closer to the stain, his wet feet leaving dark stains on the carpet, along with small, dark circles as water drips from his hair and naked chest, and crouches down. He’s squinting, nose scrunched, and mouth slightly open as he tries to make out what the red spot below him might be.
“That looks foul, Phil,” Dan says, and looks back up at Phil, eyebrows furrowed.
“I know! What if someone died in this room?”
“Or had a rough night.”
“Dan!”
“I don’t know! I’m not the one who moved the bed!”
As Dan says that he stands tall and turns fully towards Phil, expression confused.
“Why were you even moving the bed?”
Phil looks down at his own feet as all the energy he just had evaporates from his body, leaving him feeling defeated and deflated.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“With a stain?” Dan huffs out.
“With a bigger bed,” Phil says, voice small.
Dan, who looks like he was just about to joke on Phil’s behalf, immediately softens. He closes the short distance to Phil, who just stands there, arms hanging limply by his side.
“Phil,” Dan says as he takes Phil’s face between his hands, and tilts it upwards so their eyes meet. Phil doesn’t say anything back, he just lets himself drown in the brown familiar eyes that he knows better than his own. Dan's hair is still sending drops of water down his cheeks, down the tiny freckles below his eyes, down the spot where Phil knows the dimple is. He loves this man so much, and he just wanted to do something to make him happy, but it failed. The pressure of the last couple of months floods over him and suddenly he feels like such a failure.
“Hey, Phil,” Dan says again, stroking his thumbs over Phil’s cheeks. “It’s okay.”
Dan then lets go of Phil’s face and embraces him in a warm, wet hug. Phil rests his chin on Dan’s moist shoulder, lets his lips sink into the soft skin, and inhales the familiar smell of Dan’s skin. Even though he just used some generic hotel shower gel, Phil can still smell Dan; the softness, the warmth, the familiarity. He closes his eyes and exhales deeply, letting himself deflate completely in Dan’s arms.
“Were you trying to surprise me?” Dan asks as if he can read Phil’s thoughts, and Phil nods against his shoulder.
“I really appreciate it,” Dan says after a moment, voice low and warm with affection. He rests his cheek against Phil’s hair, and Phil feels like he’s about to cry, so he doesn’t answer. He needs to gather himself before uttering any words, because right now he feels caught off guard and not like himself. This is not how he planned the evening to turn out. This is not how he planned to feel tonight.
“Y’know, let’s pretend we never saw the stain,” Dan mumbles into Phil’s dark hair. “We can try to move the other bed instead, or just share a twin one. It’s not like we haven’t done that before,” he says, and Phil can see the fond smile on Dan’s lips simply from the way Dan’s voice sounds.
“How about you go get a shower and I do this, yeah?” Dan asks as he leans back to meet Phil’s eyes, who nods, still not ready to speak. Dan’s eyes are so warm, so safe, so coated with love, Phil almost tears up just from the look of them. It’s as if Dan knows what’s going on inside of Phil’s head, and he leans forward and presses a kiss towards Phil’s forehead.
“I love you Philly,” Dan mumbles, lips pressed against Phil’s forehead, the skin contact straightening out every worry line on Phil’s forehead.
“I love you too,” Phil whispers back, and he really means it.
Maybe someone did have a rough night in the hotel room Dan and Phil stay at this warm night in June of 2016, maybe someone even got murdered. Tonight though, the room is filled with peace and love, as Phil falls asleep nuzzling at the skin between his boyfriends shoulder blades, arms slung around his waist as if to pull him impossibly close to himself. The twin beds have become one, even though it turns out it’s not needed, since the two young men lie so close to each other all night that they only really would’ve needed one. Their life together might be stressful, and difficult, but they always have each other.
And they don’t know it yet, but ten years from now they won’t need to book any more twin rooms. Their relationship won’t be a secret any more, and they will proudly check into rooms with only one, big bed.
That will be a waste of space and money though, because even in ten years time they’ll still sleep just as close together as they do now.