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Dan goes a bit weird after Phil tells him.
So weird that Phil almost regrets saying anything at all, but, well, that hadn’t really been an option. The minute the conversation was over he had been buzzing with the desire to tell Dan. And then he’d looked over at Phil, the slightest pinch in his brow, and asked “You okay? What did she want?”
There were a lot of moving pieces in the BBC; lots of people and cameras and microphones. Phil ushers Dan into a back corner until they’re blocked from view by equipment, huddled all the way against him until he’s practically whispering in his ear (and yes, that would have been the greater scandal, but Phil has to tell him right now and no one else gets to hear this) and recounts the conversation in a hushed tone.
“She just asked me out,” Phil says, with an almost crazed little giggle. “Me, can you believe it, it was so awkward. I can’t even remember what I said to turn her down. She probably thinks I’m a freak.”
Phil waits for Dan to laugh in surprise, or gasp, or make a stupid joke. Dan says nothing. The baffled smile falls from Phil’s face. Dan’s expression is doing something slow and foreign and complicated, like he’s trying to solve an impossible math problem, or else falling from a very high height.
“You sure?” Dan asks, after the silence had gone on too long. There’s a pinch in his brow. He’s talking so quietly, like the carpet could be listening.
“What?”
“You’re sure she meant it like that? Like. Romantically? You weren’t misinterpreting?”
Phil steps back, just an inch, so he can see Dan’s face better. “I know it’s hard to believe,” he says, almost amused. “But this really wasn’t something you could…misinterpret.”
It had been quite direct, actually. So much so he’d thought it was a joke at first, before she’d waited and waited for his answer with serious, almost-nervous eyes. It had dawned on him like an anvil to the head. So Phil had done something very Phil-like, which was to laugh awkwardly, and babble something nonsensical.
Phil feels a bit of déjà vu, standing in the back corner of the studio. He waits and waits for Dan to turn it into a joke. For Dan to shove at his shoulder and make a quip about Phil’s northern charm. For Dan to say anything at all. Dan, apparently unaware of these internal expectations, does nothing but frown and stare at the wall behind Phil.
It was strange. Phil wants very badly to poke gently at Dan’s cheek. He knows that if he did, Dan would flinch away like it had been a hot poker.
“Hey,” Phil says eventually, when Dan continues to be reticent in his silence. “You alive in there?”
Dan’s eyes, at least, flick back to meet Phil’s own.
Phil could sense a storm brewing in Dan’s mind from miles and miles away. He was never wrong. And yet- there it is, right behind his eyes, and Phil hadn’t seen it coming at all.
“I promise I didn’t say yes,” Phil says, gentle, lighthearted, nudging the toe of his shoe against Dan’s.
Usually that was enough.
Dan looks at him like he can’t see him. He steps back, scuffing a shoe on the carpet.
“You should’ve,” Dan says, and maybe it was meant to be funny, but it comes out instead as incredibly flat. And then he’s walking away, his back to Phil, leaving the room, leaving Phil standing in the corner alone.
It’s so surprising that for several seconds Phil doesn’t move. He just stands there, stunned, blinking too many times in a row. When he can move again, he shakes his head in astonishment and follows after Dan.
The rest of the day is strange. Phil feels like he’s in a parallel universe; everything was normal, and things went to routine, and Dan was the same as he always was. The problem was he wasn’t Phil’s Dan anymore. Phil was cut off. No more glances, no more silent communication, no more feeling like the two of them were living in their own world even with a dozen people in the room. For the first time in ages Phil was outside of Dan.
What is this? He keeps trying to ask, in looks, in little touches, in head jerks. What’s wrong, what’s going on, just talk to me?
It all goes unanswered.
Phil is starting to hate this. Properly, properly hate this, whatever this was.
He’s beyond ready to leave by late afternoon. It’s not a show day, just lots of recording and meetings. Phil rocks back and forth on his heels as they linger in the BBC lounge on their way out, making small talk with Josh. He’s a junior producer of something or another, and is much closer to them in age than most of the middle-aged adults they work with. He’s a bit…well, sporty for Phil. Or maybe he’s just cranky because it’s been a long day and they’re waiting for Josh to fill up a cup of coffee even though it’s four o’clock and they’re actively leaving the building.
“Long day,” Josh sighs, reaching across the complimentary lounge table to grab a plastic lid. “And nothing even happened. I almost fell asleep in the fourth meeting.”
“Ours was a bit more entertaining,” Dan muses, and Phil can’t fathom why they’re still there, why Dan hasn’t said a polite goodbye, and since when does Dan make idle conversation with their lad coworkers after hours- “At least, Phil got an interesting offer.”
Phil blinks twice to make sure he’s heard him right.
Josh pushes his coffee lid on and raises an eyebrow, curious. “Well? Let’s hear it, Phil.”
Dan isn’t looking at him. Won’t look at him. Phil tries desperately to catch his eye anyway, looking for any kind of hint. What? Are we doing this? Are we really, really doing this?
Josh is still waiting. It’s been long enough to be awkward.
“It wasn’t really anything,” Phil says, mumbles really. He looks at the floor instead of Josh. If there is one thing on the planet he doesn’t want to talk about, especially with a straight acquaintance, it’s this. And Dan knows that, of course he does, so why is he-
“Go on. Tell him, Phil.”
Phil’s blood freezes over. He glances up, and there Dan is, finally looking at him, but his eyes are…wrong. Not-Dan. They’re expectant, and closed-off, and Phil gives him a look that’s exasperated and hurt and disbelieving and Josh definitely sees it but he doesn’t care. Because…because what the hell? This is supposed to be a situation that Dan helps get him out of, not push him into face-first.
Phil swallows hard. Take it back, he urges silently, though he isn’t sure exactly what he wants. Dan says nothing and waits.
Fine. Fine, if they’re doing this, then they’re doing this.
“Kind of got asked out,” Phil says. He tries to give Josh a sheepish but pleased look.
He might be a terrible actor. But Phil knows how to hide. This, at least, is easy and practiced.
Awkwardness evaporating, Josh breaks into a grin. He whistles. “Alright, mate! Who’s the lucky lady?”
Phil’s stomach almost churns at that.
“Remember the interview from earlier?” Dan jumps in, and of course he jumps in now, and Phil feels absolutely sick.
Josh’s mouth opens. “You don’t mean…her?”
And why were they telling her business anyway, Phil thinks miserably. It’s not like he’d want people gossiping about him if it was the other way around. He gives a noncommittal shrug that can really only be interpreted one way.
Josh laughs in surprise and swishes the coffee around in his cup. “Wow, congrats, Lester. You’re about to be rich beyond your dreams!”
“That’s what I said,” Dan jokes along, grinning.
“So? When’s the big date? Dinner, coffee? What’s the plan?”
Josh is looking at him expectantly. Phil has never wanted the floor to open up and swallow him more.
“I, well.” He chews on his lip. “I…said no.”
Shock, of course, floods Josh’s expression. “What?”
Phil tries to think if there’s a way to respond to this in a way that doesn’t scream I’m gay, which is probably what Josh thinks already. He can’t come up with anything to say. He can’t believe that Dan has just-
“Phil’s just too much of a gentleman,” Dan says with a dramatic sigh, and there, finally. This feels normal. Phil fumbling, Dan jumping in to bail him out. It’s just that usually Dan wasn’t the cause in the first place.
“We’re very busy, you know,” Phil says with another little shrug. “With work and all. I didn’t really think it would be…fair. To her. And all.”
He waits anxiously for the confusion to spread across Josh’s face, for the inevitable logical leap. But luckily he seems to accept it easily enough.
“I s’pose that’s mature or something,” Josh says, shaking his head a little. And then he grins. “Should’ve given her my number instead. Or, hell, the least you could have done is give her Dan’s.”
Phil wants to throw up. He tries to smile through the nausea.
Dan barks a laugh. “Yeah, Phil,” he says. “You’re a terrible best mate.”
Phil watches him. He’s smiling, that sharp-toothed grin that’s completely empty, with nothing in his eyes. And this- this isn’t Phil’s Dan at all. This is fake-Dan, persona-Dan, the face he puts on when he’s feeling hollow and bitter. When he’s surrounded and running scared. Except- he’s the one who’s pushed Phil in the path of the train, and now he’s laughing with those empty eyes, and he’s never left Phil like this, all alone without a lifeboat, and Phil realizes he’s had enough.
Phil slips his hand into his pocket. “Sorry,” he says, pulling out his phone, “sorry, I’ve just- I’ve got to make a call. I’m going to…”
And before he’s even finished babbling an excuse, Phil’s stumbling back and turning around and pushing open the doors of the building to step out into the sun.
He plans on just walking laps around the block until Dan comes to find him. But a part of Phil wants to be alone for a while to clear his thoughts, wants to put a bit of distance between himself and the whole situation. Before he’s really aware of what he’s doing he finds himself at the nearest tube station.
Phil blinks. It’s the end of the work day; people are swarming around him. He thinks about going back, thinks about texting, and then decides that Dan is a grown man who can find his own way home. Phil gets on the train.
He goes home. It feels strange to open the front door to the flat without Dan at his side.
Nearly the second Phil steps inside, his phone buzzes. He imagines a long, thorough apology text from Dan. When Phil flops on the couch and pulls it out, though, it’s a single word from Dan: where?
Phil sighs. home, he sends back, equally uncommunicative.
Dan reads the message, and says nothing else. Phil tosses his phone to the other side of the couch. He reaches for his laptop, sets it up on his knees and scrolls mindlessly, trying to think about anything else.
It takes twenty minutes, maybe, for him to hear Dan’s key in the lock. Phil bites his lip. He’s…not sure how this is going to go.
And here Dan is, appearing in the living room. Phil is finding it hard to meet his eyes.
“You just went home without me,” Dan says, chucking his keys on the coffee table, and he’s trying to sound played-up and whiny but Phil can hear the undercurrent of pure surprise beneath the nonchalance. “I had to take the tube all on my own. I was deathly afraid.”
Dan perches on the arm of the sofa, crossing his arms, waiting expectantly for a response. Phil makes a grunting sound and doesn’t look up from his laptop.
“Not going to talk to me at all?” Dan asks. “Is that what this is?”
It sets off something hot and defensive in Phil’s chest. “Seems fair,” he hears himself mumble.
Dan’s eyes brighten a bit at the reaction. “‘Cos I was being a dick? I can say sorry.”
And there’s something…something, about his tone, that makes Phil feel flushed and angry. Because isn’t Dan supposed to be the one person who knows him best? And isn’t it obvious, how upset Phil is, how upset he’s been all day? So why is Dan treating this like it’s nothing? Why is he acting like he’s forgotten to take the bins out, instead of…something a lot more serious than that?
“Dan,” Phil says, feeling helpless, at a loss, “What are you…you were acting like a complete stranger all day. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Dan does an awkward, avoidant little shrug that would look more at home on Phil’s shoulders.
Phil throws his laptop to the side. He rubs at his forehead, making a frustrated noise. “I don’t understand you. I don’t- are you going to explain anything? At all? Or just sit there like a lost puppy?”
Dan snorts a little. He scrubs a hand through his fringe. “Dunno,” he says, and then gives Phil a tiny grin. “Guess I was just jealous it was you who had the chance with the rich popstar instead of me.”
And it’s still not Dan. It’s still not his Dan, even though they’re alone in the apartment, even though it’s just Phil.
He stares. Dan just keeps waiting, and waiting, and- for what? For Phil to move on? For Phil to catch on and turn it into a joke?
Phil should try to be gracious. He should try to be patient, and understanding, like he always is. But- but fuck it, he’s hurt, and he’s tired, and Dan isn’t taking this seriously the way Phil wants him to and Phil is struck by the realization that right now he feels incredibly, incredibly lonely.
Forget Phil Lester the saint, the great mediator, diffuser of fights and tension, constant taker of the high ground. Maybe he can be the one storming off for once. Maybe he’s earned this.
“I’m not doing this,” is what he hears himself say, and he ignores whatever response Dan tries to give as he stands and stalks from the room and shuts the bedroom door behind him.
It takes Phil around two minutes to feel guilty. He remembers, belatedly, that this is also Dan’s room he’s locked himself in. Usually when Dan gets upset or needs space he burrows away in the fake Dan set room, with black and grey patchwork bedsheets that are hardly ever slept in; Phil doesn’t have one of those. His room is also their room.
Then he figures that if Dan needs something so badly he can just ask. Maybe it’s okay for Phil to have his moment of drama.
He’s also left his phone and laptop outside. Phil sighs deeply.
He feels antsy. And sick, and lonely, and angry. Phil paces around his room, restless. He makes his bed. He picks up the few stray pieces of clothes from the floor and tosses them in the hamper. He pulls everything from his bookshelf and reorganizes it, then decides it’s worse and puts it back to the way it was before.
Phil doesn’t know how long it’s been. He flops down on the bed, the bed that’s his and Dan’s, and splays out his limbs like a starfish. What’s bothering me? he thinks, blinking up at the ceiling. What is it that’s upsetting me this bad?
Dan shutting him out. Dan airing out his business to other people, like it’s a game, like it doesn’t matter. Dan backing off and getting defensive and angry and bitchy over something that’s not Phil’s fault.
And it wasn’t, is the thing. Phil hadn’t done anything at all. And here Dan was, punishing him for it anyway.
Phil had almost forgotten what it felt like, to be angry with Dan. It settles strange and unfamiliar in his stomach. Like molasses, or oil.
There’s a knock at the door.
Phil freezes, still starfished.
“Phil,” comes Dan’s voice, from right outside the door. “Just come out. Please. I can’t take this anymore.”
He sounds…more like himself, maybe. Phil thinks, that’s how I always feel, but tries to push the pettiness away.
Phil thinks. And takes a breath. And pushes himself up, walking over to the door.
He opens it just a crack and peeks through to the other side. A tiny sliver of Dan blinks back at him.
“Dan,” he says, a hint of warning in his voice, but Dan slips his foot in the door.
“Hey,” he says, and his brown eyes are big and lovely, and he’s looking at Phil like he can see him, finally. “I fucking freaked out, okay? I’m sorry. Can I just…can I come in?”
Suddenly Phil’s vindictiveness melts away in a heartbeat. This is his Dan. He opens the door.
They settle onto the bed. Phil scoots back against the headboard, cross-legged, while Dan sits a bit awkwardly on the edge. “I hate when we fight,” Dan mumbles, running a hand through his hair and messing up the perfect swoop of it. “I only lasted fourty-seven minutes. It felt like I’d been cut off from the whole world.”
“That’s what I felt like all day,” Phil says before he can help himself. It’s the truth.
Dan winces minutely.
“Phil,” he says, urgently, nearly babbling, “Phil, Phil, look. I’m sorry.”
Phil raises an eyebrow. “For?”
Dan huffs a laugh. “I’m sorry for being an ass and running away from you and shutting you out and for- for that whole fucking thing. With Josh.”
Phil blinks. This, at least, is what he’s been wanting.
He pulls his knees up, hugging them to his chest. “I just don’t get it,” he says quietly. “I- all because some singer had a crush on me?”
Because wasn’t that the heart of it? What had set the whole thing off? Phil’s brain can’t wrap around it.
Dan does a little shrug, abashed. “Guess so.”
“Dan,” Phil says, incredulous. “People flirt with you all the time.”
And it wasn’t like Phil enjoyed it, obviously. He didn’t like having to stand by and watch. But it was just something that happened, because Dan was Dan, and Phil couldn’t blame anyone. It never made him angry. He knew none of it would ever go anywhere.
Surely Dan knows that too.
Dan falls back onto the bed, like Phil had earlier, staring up at the ceiling. “This was different,” he whispers, and his voice sounds very small.
“Different how?”
“She was sweet,” Dan says miserably, closing his eyes. “And she actually liked you for you, not for- a joke, or internet clout, or whatever. She meant it. It was- like- real.”
“Dan,” Phil says helplessly.
“And I could just picture all of it. You’d go out for dinner or whatever and you’d both be awkward and nervous but also sweet and she’d drag you to go shopping with her and you could hold hands in public and then eventually I’d be best man at your wedding.”
Dan blows out a breath at the end of all this. Phil stares, a bit aghast. This is reminiscent of eighteen-year-old Dan catastrophizing. It’s been a while since he’s seen this.
He nudges Dan’s side with his toe. “Daniel,” he says, letting his words go a bit gentle around the edges. “Not sure if you know this. But…I’m gay. And taken.”
It’s quiet for a minute.
“Not that anyone else knows,” Dan mumbles eventually.
Phil bites back a reply. This is always…a touchy area, especially for Dan.
“I could see it.” Dan’s eyes are squeezed shut. He throws an arm over his face. “I don’t know. It’s just that- that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Through everyone else’s eyes. It could be real. It was almost real. Fucking Josh thought you had a date planned and everything. And I was just standing there and- I thought, he’d be safer like this anyway, and what the hell have I ever done to make this real for him, and for the first time in so long I was outside of you. I just wasn’t in the picture at all.”
He sniffles a little. Phil just sits there, silent, shocked.
“I don’t know,” Dan says, drawing in a breath. “I don’t know. It’s just…I’m just a fucking freak.”
Phil is at such a loss that he nearly can’t say anything. His pulse is bulging and insistent in his neck. Dan looks so sad, laying there on the bed, hand draped over his eyes.
Phil reaches down and takes his wrist, gently guiding it back to the bed. He twines his fingers in Dan’s.
“Hey,” he says, swallowing. “I don’t know if you’ve been on the internet lately. But…I’m moderately sure you’re never not going to be in the picture.”
An absurd laugh bursts out of Dan. His eyes open, searching for Phil’s.
“Am I a bad person,” Dan says, with a sad, twisted smile on his face. “For making you keep it a secret and then getting pissed when people don’t know?”
“Don’t say that,” Phil hisses, shaking his head back and forth. “Dan, don’t, it’s not about that.”
“Of course it is,” Dan says, and there’s still a ghost of a smile on his lips but the words are hollow. “It’s always about that.”
“It’s not,” Phil insists. “Dan, Dan- look at me.”
There’s a moment where Dan doesn’t move. It’s so, so quiet. And then he draws in a breath. He pushes himself up, until he’s sitting, eye-level with Phil.
He looks sad. Phil hates seeing him sad. Always hates seeing him sad.
“You always do this,” Phil says, reaching out to press two fingers into Dan’s shoulder. “And you never listen to me.”
“Always and never statements,” Dan mumbles, and Phil shakes his shoulder until he mutters an apology.
“You think you’re some evil person who’s trapped me in a place I don’t want to be in,” Phil says, and now he’s the one squeezing his eyes shut, and ducking his head, because he can’t do this looking at Dan’s eyes, “And you’ve always been wrong. Don’t you think- don’t you think it’s scary for me too?”
“Phil...”
“I just- I’m not ready either, Dan. I mean, sure, if it was just me I might have come out by now, but it’d still be scary. And the us part of it…I don’t want the whole world knowing our business either. It’s not magically simple, for me, like you seem to think it is.”
Dan swallows. He reaches a hand over to cover Phil’s knee. “Don’t try and make me feel better. Don’t try and sugarcoat it. I’m the one that’s the problem, we both know that’s true.”
“Stop it.” Phil shakes his head violently. “You’re not listening still. I’m not a damsel in distress, Dan. You didn’t force me into anything. And I’m not stupid. Don’t you think if it was that important to me I would have said something? Don’t you think we would have had more conversations? Do you not- like- trust me?”
He opens his eyes, finally. Dan is giving him a look like he’s split open. His lower lip is wobbling dangerously.
“Of course I do,” Dan says, voice breaking. His hand hovers near Phil’s face and then falls back to his lap. “I- Phil…”
Phil draws in a deep breath, and then another. His heart is flip-flopping in his chest.
“So stop putting words in my mouth,” he whispers. “I love you. I’d choose you over anything else. That’s it.”
“That’s it,” Dan repeats back, almost a question, voice shaky. “You make it sound so…”
“Easy.” Phil swallows. “It is. I’ve got you, haven’t I? Nothing else matters so much.”
Dan is properly crying now. Tears run silently down his face. Phil can’t wait any longer, and so he leans forward to wrap two arms around Dan and pull him close.
Dan crumples against him. He balls his fists in the back of Phil’s shirt. It feels like something right, at the end of a very long day of wrongness.
“I’m sorry,” Dan cries against him, sucking in a breath. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Phil blinks a few tears out of his own eyes. He turns to press a kiss to Dan’s cheekbone.
“I love you,” he says softly. “Please don’t ever do that again.”
Dan nods, face still buried in Phil’s chest. “I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”
Phil believes him.
They stay like that for a while, not saying anything. Dan trembles and cries himself out; Phil holds him as tightly as he can.
And everything’s worth it, for this. It doesn’t really matter to Phil, what’s going on outside; and yes, it’s hard, and messy, and draining. But he has Dan. They can get through the rest.
“You know,” Phil whispers, when they’re lying silent in each other’s arms. “Earlier. When you said it doesn't feel real because nobody else knows.”
“Mm,” Dan says vaguely.
Phil gazes into the distance thoughtfully. “That’s not really true,” he says. “I mean. My parents know. Martyn. Peej and Sophie. Louise. Cat.”
He continues to list off their admittedly not very large inner social circle. Dan raises his head when he’s done, his blotchy red face frowning at Phil.
“And?”
“I’m just saying,” Phil shrugs. “All the important people know already. It’s not like we’re totally alone in the world.”
It’s a comforting thought to him, at least. Dan gives him a regretful look.
“You’re saying my nan’s not important?”
Phil swallows hard. He looks at Dan’s face and sees all of his relatives, all people Phil still barely knows. He leans over to kiss the bridge of Dan’s nose.
“We’ll get there,” he whispers. And it is a we- Dan’s not alone in this, not anymore. “I think we’ve reached our quota for now.”
Dan laughs softly. He rolls away, lying on his back next to Phil.
“Phil,” he says, a lighter tinge to his tone. “If someone else asks you out just don’t even tell me. I won’t be able to listen to her music anymore.”
Phil giggles in surprise. “What? Don’t think this is something you can move past?”
“Mm, nope. She had the nerve to make a move on my boyfriend. And I might not be able to do anything about it but I can silently hold a grudge forever. You know. In the privacy of my own mind.”
“Sure.” Phil taps a finger on his chin. “Maybe she’ll write a song about me. A really sad one, about the traumatic rejection.”
“Oh, god.” Dan dramatically presses his thumbs into his eyelids. “I’ll puke.”
“Come on, Dan, that would be brilliant. Can you imagine the blackmail material? In twenty years I’ll drop that it was about me and the tabloids will go absolutely wild.”
Dan barks a laugh, and it’s his real laugh, the loud, joyful one that Phil loves. Phil giggles along with him. He thinks, we’re okay, thinks, maybe I finally got it across, thinks, I’ll remind him as many times as he needs.
“You’re the best, you know,” Dan says when they’re both done wheezing, and there are tears in his eyes from laughing this time. “I just mean. You’re my favorite.”
Phil smiles an incredibly pleased smile. He leans over to pepper Dan’s face with kisses, despite Dan’s hands flailing in protest.
“I better be,” Phil says happily, planting one last kiss on his forehead. “It’d be pretty odd if I wasn’t.”
“Mm,” Dan says, stretching his arms out over his head. “Cocky.”
“Be nice to me. I’m your favorite.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Phil stares down at him, his boy, his Dan. His favorite person in the world. It isn’t so bad, he thinks. They’ll be alright.