Chapter Text
"am i drunk?"
"i doubt it,"
"i feel drunk."
"i think that's called anxiety,"
"i could be anxious and drunk, phil." dan turns from the mirror where he's staring far too intensely at his own eyes, to phil, lounging on the sofa.
phil's smiling, full of love and amusement and.. something else dan hasn't been quite able to identify but makes him a little uneasy.
this doesn't happen much anymore. they can read the other very well; and more importantly, they rarely hide things from each other now.
a small pit begins to form in dan's stomach and he thinks, just a little, that it feels like he's eighteen again. and he hates that, a lot.
"you've had two glasses of rosé and a history of anxiety," is phil's pointed but gentle response.
he makes a good point - not that a good point is something that's stopped him from arguing back in the past, but.. dan just huffs, then rolls his eyes and shuffles across the room to sit next to his boyfriend instead. phil immediately puts a hand on dan's leg and begins rubbing small circles, still smiling at him with a level of adoration he doesn't think he's ever deserved, though there’s still a flicker of.. nervousness? in his eyes.
"my head's buzzing," he murmurs, fidgeting with the sleeves of his jumper. he immediately wants to get up and move again, the angsty feeling beginning to overwhelm him already, but phil's hand feels nice.
"have you checked it at all?"
he shakes his head. "don't wanna. what if there's more hate than love? i mean, i know people are going to support it- support me, but what if more people hate it than anything else? what if it's being quoted on twitter as the 'top ten worst parts of 2019' and the guardian’s picked it up? what if.." he trails off, knowing that the more he verbalises these thoughts, the louder they're going to get.
phil laughs softly, but not unkindly.
"are you laughing at me?" for a moment, his fidgeting pauses, the offense of his partner laughing at him for a real deepseated worry of his too great.
phil laughs again, his hand not stopping the odd patterns he's tracing on dan's leg. "of course not you dork, you're just.. you're very cute, and i know those thoughts of yours won't stop, but there's just something a bit silly about thinking that out of everything in 2019, there would be an article listing you coming out as top ten worst things to happen,"
dan opens his mouth to say something about his agony not being a joke, but phil continues, earnest. "besides, i'm putting mine up in a couple weeks, yeah? so if anyone really was going to do something as dumb as that, it won't be for long. they'll latch onto mine pretty quick, it's not even close to being as thoughtful as yours was,"
he sounds so light and unaffected by the prospect, that for a moment, it makes dan angry. how is he being so calm about this whole thing? this is the biggest thing they've done, bigger than any tour could ever be. it took decades to feel comfortable enough to do this, and now all it is to phil is a joke.
he doesn't realise he's verbalised this thought until he hears phil sigh, a little tired, a little upset (but no less loving, he has to remind himself; they can be upset with one another and still love each other).
"this isn't a joke to me, dan," he says gently, "i'm just.. not as in the closet as you were. most people already half-knew, and it's not.." he hesitates, "it's not a huge deal for me. i mean, it is because it's a big deal to you and i'm so happy and proud that you've decided to do this, because i know how hard it was for you to come to terms with this and all, but for me personally, coming out was probably going to be a tweet, if that."
dan knows, logically, that this isn't phil blowing him off. he'd been extremely, painfully patient with him the last ten years and when dan finally told him that he wanted to come out to everyone, to his following and the entire internet, phil was the first one to encourage him and cheer him on. he was the first one to insist they do it at dan's pace, and promise him that he'd make a video after dan made his, so he wouldn't be alone.
but it still stings. somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, it feels like manchester all over again.
the thought, the feeling of that, makes him stand up quite abruptly, shaking phil's hand off in the process.
phil smiles at him wryly, knowingly, before flitting his gaze away.
there’s tension building in the air and he doesn’t want to spook dan by starting an intense stare-off; he doesn’t want to start an argument.
"this isn't manchester, dan," he echoes dan’s thoughts gently (as if he's made of fucking glass or something), "it's not 2012, either. i'm just being honest with you, you know i care about you and about the whole coming out thing,"
coming out thing.
it's just a thing now, is it? not something he had been in turmoil over for most of his twenty-eight years of life. not something he had routinely broken down over. no, it was just a thing. the coming out thing.
dan's anger in recent years has substantially curbed. not subsided, because years of growing up being the ‘little kid’, the ‘posh kid’, the ‘weird kid’, the one who always got picked on for something, doesn’t just.. go away.
but he's working hard on it in and out of therapy, and the recent(ish - it was six months ago, but dan still feels like it was yesterday. phil feels like it was years ago) hiatus they've taken from the gaming channel has allowed him some level of free time to make genuine progress in that, despite being busy with other projects.
but sometimes it still comes back full force.
like now, when phil's treating him like he's a child, and being dismissive of his very real fears.
he purses his lips in thought more than anything venomous.
a small voice in the back of his head reminds him that he's being silly, that he's purposely trying to find something to fixate on so he doesn't think about the actual video and potential responses, but he ignores it in favour of nurturing the bigger voice that's telling him to start a fight about it.
frankly, it's been a while since they got into a fight, and while that may sound good, sometimes dan really, really misses it. anger was, after all, a lot easier than actually talking through things in steady breaths.
and he's pretty sure phil's hiding something, so picking a fight might be a good idea, in fact.
but phil's smart. he accurately knows what dan's thinking about 97% of the time now, and this time is no different.
as dan's contemplating how to best start this fight in the silence that’s quickly becoming overbearing, he hears a soft, weary sigh from the sofa.
perfect, he thinks and turns around, eyebrow raised and eyes shining with challenge; absolutely daring phil to say something. to meet his challenge.
but phil avoids his eyes by staring down at his hands (mostly just missing the feeling of dan, partially because the dread of the looming fight is exhausting him already) and shakes his head.
after a beat, he murmurs quietly, "i'm not getting into a fight with you, dan,"
"coward."
phil laughs down at his hands, the sound hollow even to his own ears. he’s unsurprised but still a little hurt. it’s not fun having your boyfriend call you names.
though, he has to admit he’s mostly just amused. he knows dan is trying to rile him up, to induce a fight, because he’s always been on team ‘anger is easier’ and he needs something to focus on that isn’t his coming out video.
a small part of him wants to see how far dan will go to start a fight.
if the past is any indication, though, it’ll stop be amusing and become just extremely unpleasant very quickly, so he tells that small part of him to shut up.
but dan might need this fight, if only to get his mind off of whatever level of broken they’ve caused the internet to become.
phil’s not sure he wants to handle dan’s anger, though.
“nice try,” he says instead of verbalising any of this.
yeah, they’re not going to fight, he decides. especially about something like this, especially because something has been eating at him in the kind of way that’s impossible to shake and he doesn’t want to risk it coming up.
it’s not dan’s problem, after all, just his. his own insecurities.
surely there’s no way that it’s true, right?
surely it’s just anxiety.
“well at least i’m trying to start a conversation,”
dan’s voice snaps him out of the creeping anxiety starting to settle in his stomach and he snorts.
a conversation. right.
“you’re not trying to start a conversation, you’re trying to start an argument,”
“yeah, well, you’re hiding something, so it’s warranted.”
phil freezes a little at that. he didn’t realise he was so obvious about the fact that something has been on his mind.
he opens and closes his mouth like a fish a couple times, each time something new crossing his mind about how to bring this up.
his guilt is palpable in the air, and dan grasps at it eagerly.
“i fucking knew it.” dan sounds like he’s about two seconds from being properly outraged, and phil flinches at the tone.
“it’s-“ he hesitates, a flush creeping up his neck with his panic. “it’s not a huge deal,”
“and yet you hide it from me,”
“because it’s dumb,”
“clearly not, if you can’t even tell me,”
“okay,” his concession is mostly out of tiredness, not a desire to actually tell dan what’s running through his mind.
he can feel his head start hurting at the possibilities of this conversation.
“okay,” he repeats, rushing to add it on before he loses his nerve.
“do you ever regret us?”