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1
“Are the Four Seasons people?” is the first thing Phil says to him when he wakes up. Or, at him, at least. Dan still hasn’t even opened his eyes, and Phil is mussing up his hair like Dan won’t have to fix it later, before they film. “Like, is it Mr. Season and his gang of misfits?”
Gang of misfits? Dan actually loves this man, which is a horrifying and terrible conclusion to have to come to so early in the morning.
“Or maybe,” Phil continues, “they’re all in a polyamorous relationship.” He’s got a finger around one of Dan’s curls now, and he’s looping it around his finger in a way that’s bordering on painful. Dan would tell him to knock it off, but he kind of can’t be assed. He’d like to pretend to be asleep for at least a few more blissful seconds.
“I know you’re awake,” Phil says pointedly, as if reading his thoughts. He gives Dan’s poor curl a tug.
“’M not,” Dan groans, batting Phil’s hand away from his hair. Phil isn’t a quitter, though, not when it comes to annoying Dan, and switches to pressing his cold fingers to Dan’s stomach under the covers. The noise Dan makes is something akin to a dying swine being bludgeoned to death with hammers.
“You are!” Phil says triumphantly as Dan scoots away from him, still refusing to open his eyes.
“Leave me alone, I’m dying.” Dan’s words are muffled by the white hotel pillow he’s stuffed his face into. He shouldn’t have drunk that fancy wine; it gave him a headache.
“No, you’re not, you baby. And anyway, you need to answer my question!” He tugs at the pillow under Dan’s head like a dog whose favorite toy got wedged under a chair.
“What question?” Dan lifts his head to look at Phil for the first time, and finally takes in his beautifully rumpled state, face creased from sleep and blond hair sticking up every which way. It’s a sight Dan never gets tired of, because he’s the only one who will ever get to see Phil like this, first thing in the morning.
The effect is ruined somewhat when Phil opens his mouth and says, “Are the Four Seasons in a polyamorous relationship?” patiently, like Dan is the one who’s being an idiot.
If they were filming right now, Dan would say something like, “Do I think spring, summer, fall, and winter are in a polyamorous relationship? No, Phil, because they’re not people, for fuck’s sake.”
But he is still blinking sleep out of his eyes, and Phil had put his hand back in his hair at some point and started petting him like a cat, and he can’t be bothered to perform just yet. So, he says, “Probably,” before closing his eyes again for a few more minutes of sleep.
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2
“Did you know whales have huge penises?” Phil says conversationally one night, not looking up from his phone. He’s standing next to Dan for ‘emotional support’ while Dan stirs the sauce for a new curry recipe they’re trying. His phone brightness is so high that Dan can see the reflection of whatever article he’s reading in his glasses.
“What the hell are you on about?” says Dan, trying very hard not to sound endeared. He thinks he mostly succeeds, and luckily, Phil is distracted enough by whale reproductive organs that he doesn’t notice and tease him for it.
“Blue whales can have penises up to ten feet, or three meters.” Phil is doing his reading voice now. “Though the average reported length is seven point nine to nine point eight feet.”
Dan decides to play along. Maybe they can talk about this on the podcast, though god knew they needed to cut down on the time they spent talking about dicks. “Wouldn’t that be awkward to have when swimming?” He turns back to the curry sauce, which is bubbling nicely. Probably a good sign.
“They keep it contained in a genital slit.”
Dan wrinkles his nose. “Oh. Lovely.”
There’s a comfortable pause, and Dan lets his mind drift for a bit as he stirs idly. He thinks about what they’re going to watch while they eat (Buffy, they’re in the middle of their rewatch) and what drink might pair well with the meal (probably Ribena, but possibly milk if it ended up being too spicy) and-
“Would you still love me if I had a blue whale penis?” says Phil completely seriously.
Dan’s thoughts come to a screeching halt and die tragically in a fire. “What?” He whips his head to stare at Phil, who has a terrible, knowing grin sliding across his face.
“Would you still love me if-”
“No, I heard you.” Dan wonders if he can get away with ignoring his horrible boyfriend, but Phil’s smile is at maximum silliness, so no, he can’t. “Would you still have the rest of your normal body?” he asks reluctantly.
“Yep,” Phii answers, like he knows he’s got him. “Just the penis is different.”
“It would be longer than your legs, Phil,” Dan points out in feeble hope of stalling the inevitable, “you wouldn’t be able to walk. You’d have to hobble around like a-“ he’s so blindsided by the mental image that he can’t even think of a proper comparison. He doesn’t know if one even exists.
Phil is unimpressed. “And would you still love me?” he prompts with an expectant look on his face.
Dan sighs and stirs the sauce some more. It’s probably ready by now, actually. How is he supposed to know? He’s forgotten what the recipe said because Phil’s idiocy is taking up his entire short-term memory. “Fine, but we’re getting you some kind of surgery to fix it, you can’t live with a giant whale penis, Phil.”
“What if I want to keep it?” says Phil haughtily.
“You wouldn’t want to keep it.” This is a fact Dan is sure of.
Phil sighs like this is some great inconvenience, but there’s still a cheeky smile on his lips, so Dan isn’t fooled one bit. “So, you would still love me?”
Dan rolls his eyes. “Yes, Phil, I would still love you if you woke up with a giant whale penis for some reason. Happy?”
Phil answers by giving him a peck on the cheek, which Dan pretends not to like, and goes to check on the rice in the rice cooker.
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3
“Why do you want to be a twunk so badly anyway?” It’s a question that’s been in the back of his mind for a while, and he decides to ask it as they’re exiting the podcast studio one chilly day.
“Why not?” Phil answers simply, rubbing up and down his arms and shuddering dramatically at the cold. Dan thinks of the colorful fleece jacket that should be arriving in the mail any day now for Phil’s birthday, and holds back a smile.
“Well, you don’t really go to the gym, Phil,” Dan teases. He wonders if he can get away with putting an arm around Phil’s shoulder, under the guise of warming him up. Public displays of affection are still hard for both of them, but especially for Dan, and his therapist says that increased physical contact in public could be a form of exposure therapy for him.
“I could start! I could keep up with you better then, too!” He can tell Phil’s not really upset, but something about this comment makes Dan pause.
“Is that what it’s about then? Keeping up with me? You know, just because I’m going to the gym more-”
“I know, I know, it’s just...” Phil fidgets. Dan doesn’t know quite when this became a serious conversation, but it is one now, suddenly. “I don’t want you to... I don’t even know. It’s silly.”
“You’re always silly,” Dan says automatically. He’s really thinking about putting his arm around Phil now. That’s what a good boyfriend would do, he thinks. Instead, he steps closer and says, “What is it?”
Phil blows out a long breath of white air before sucking it back in. Self-regulation. Dan is proud of him. He fidgets again, tapping his fingers into empty air like he’s playing the piano. (Dan always thought Phil would be beautiful playing the piano if he were patient enough to learn.)
Finally, he speaks, with a forced joviality that Dan doesn’t believe for a second, “You’re not going to leave me behind, are you, Howell? Or...” he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, “start to feel like I’m dragging you down?”
It might be the stupidest thing Phil has ever asked him. It’s at least in the top five.
Before he even knows what he’s doing, Dan is grabbing Phil’s hand and squeezing it in his own. It’s not the could-be-construed-as-platonic half hug he’d been envisioning, but this was more them anyway. “Never. Not ever. Okay? You’re fucking stuck with me, Philip Michael Lester. Forever.” Dan doesn’t even believe in forever, but he believes he’ll be with this idiot long enough that it will feel like eternity anyway. He’ll love Phil until the day he dies.
“Full name, huh?” Phil’s eyes aren’t as tight anymore, but Dan is still worried.
“Needed to make sure I really hammered the point home.” Dan drops his gaze and swings their hands between them awkwardly. Should he let go? How long was the appropriate time to hold hands? He chews on his lip. “You know you could never drag me down, right? You do the opposite, you always have, Phil.”
When he looks back up, Phil is smiling. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I just needed to hear you say it.”
Dan squeezes his hand. Phil squeezes back.
“Well, I’ll remind you as long as it takes,” Dan says. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Phil replies, bumping their shoulders together. It’s not until they start walking towards home that he adds, “I’m still going to have my twunk era though, Howell, you can’t dissuade me that easily.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
And they’re still holding hands like a couple of saps.
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4
“How about this one: ‘Are you a lion? ‘Cause you could be my mane man.’”
Dan groans and lets his head drop onto the couch cushions behind him. “Phil, the point of this video is to romance the men.”
“What? That was romantic!” Phil looks up from his list of Top Ten Pick-Up Lines Guaranteed to Get You a Second Date and fixes Dan with a sullen pout.
“Phil, that was cringe.”
“Well, if they don’t love me at my cringe, they don’t deserve me at my...” Phil trails off, glancing back down at the list. “Oh, this one is good.” Dan is immediately sure it is not going to be good. “’If this date was a vegetable, it’d be a funion.’” Phil looks at him expectantly.
Dan ponders for a moment before deciding, “Okay, that one was pretty cute.”
“Yeah? Did it rizz you?”
“Don’t ever say that to me again.” But Dan is unfortunately smiling, so even he doesn’t believe himself.
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5
“Can you pretend like I’ve said something really funny?”
Dan, who is trying to figure out how to inconspicuously wipe matcha powder off his white shirt, doesn’t pay Phil much mind. “Alright, why?”
“They’ve laughed ten times in the past three minutes,” Phil mutters furiously, his gaze fixed somewhere over Dan’s shoulder where, sure enough, some masculine laughter was coming from a nearby table. “They cannot be real, Dan.”
Dan considers taking the cloth napkin from his lap and using that to brush the matcha powder off, since his hand is just sort of smearing it around. What the hell is matcha made of? “Are you talking about Harry and Jerry again?” Their names aren’t actually Harry and Jerry, but Phil had given them those nicknames for when he wanted to complain about them. (Dan guesses that their habit of ascribing strangers fake names to talk about them for videos has slipped into their real-life conversations. Oh well.)
“Yes, it’s bloody Harry and Jerry, they’re such twats,” Phil hisses, as if they’re going to be overheard. Dan can’t say he isn’t grateful for it, though. This would be a hell of a conversation to overhear. “It’s like they're trying to rub it in our faces how happy and perfect they are!”
“They’re just normal men,” Dan quotes, dabbing at the matcha powder with his napkin. He probably looks like an absolute heathen, but at least he won’t be a heathen with a big green handprint on his shirt. Stupid green matcha cocktails. “They’re just innocent men.”
“I’m going to have to stalk their Instagrams. They can’t actually be this happy, it’s not possible!”
Privately, Dan thinks Phil is probably just choosing to fixate on this because his brain doesn’t quite know what to do when on vacation. Relaxing and thinking about nothing on a beach for hours on end just isn’t how Phil’s mind works, and Dan doesn’t begrudge him that.
He does begrudge Phil giving some poor gay couple the stink eye while they’re supposed to be having a nice dinner. He sighs and puts his napkin down. “If I fake laugh, will you stop glaring at them like a creep?”
Phil looks relieved. “Yes.”
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+1
Dan bursts into the lounge like there’s fire on his heels and says, “What if I proposed to you?”
“Hello Phil,” comes a voice from the couch, behind the Nintendo Switch held in front of his face. “How was your day? Did you do anything interesting?”
Dan ignores him and starts to pace. “Think about it, last year, we did the phaby, this year,” he spreads his arms out wide, “the phroposal.”
“So you’re baby trapping me into marrying you? Tsk tsk, Daniel.” Phil has set down the Switch and is now giving Dan his undivided attention. It’s making Dan a little nervous.
“Actually,” Dan holds a finger up for dramatic effect, “that’s the April fool, we’re not getting married.”
Phil cocks his head, “Well, obviously.”
“Because you’re going to say no,” he finishes with a proud smile.
Phil starts to smile. “Okay, that is a bit funny.” Then, his face gets serious. “Are you sure?”
Dan finally sits next to him, because this doesn’t feel like a conversation where he should be looming over Phil. “I should probably be asking you that.”
“Maybe, but I asked first.” Phil pokes him. “So?”
“Don’t poke me!” Dan goes to slap the offending finger away, but Phil has already moved away, anticipating this attack. Dan sighs. “I am sure. I’ve thought about it, and, you know, maybe it will be a way to...” he waves his hands in the air, trying to articulate his thoughts in a way that makes sense.
“Manage everyone’s expectations? Since some of them are still hoping for a wedding?” People have been wanting them to get married for over a decade, and it hangs in the air for a moment, all those years, all those invisible eyes. Dan finds he can shake it off easier than ever before.
He snaps his fingers. “Yes. Exactly. It’ll get everyone on the same page in a lighthearted, funny way.”
Phil nods thoughtfully, “I like it.”
“So you’re in then? You’ll be my not-husband? Or, not-phusband, I guess.” He feels nervous again, like this is a real proposal.
Phil smiles and pokes him. “Of course I will, you numpty.” He says it like it’s obvious, and Dan loves him so much he could burst with it.