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Dan doesn’t know how they ended up here.
It hurts. All of it. It’s too much, this mix of wanting and fearing. The not knowing what they are anymore or what they’ve ever been or where this has all been leading to.
He squeezes his eyes shut. He has days, sometimes—close to all the time, lately—where he feels nothing at all. Where he is just a speck of dust in the void, floating along, separated from everything and everyone. Too small to face what he should.
He almost wishes this were that.
He almost wishes his brain had chosen to disconnect him from his emotions before he had seen the hurt on Phil’s face.
The hurt he caused.
Each time Dan blinks, he sees it: the widening of Phil’s eyes, the stress in his brow. The tears building up, but not falling—not while Dan was standing there, still hiding himself behind a wall.
Causing the hurt as well as burrowing himself inside of it.
“Dan, please. I want to help you through this. Tell me what I can do.”
“You can’t. You can’t help me, Phil. Nobody can help me.”
In the dark of his room, where the shadows of the night settling in around him have nothing on the shadows of his mind, Dan is hyper-aware of how hopelessly lost he feels. How sad and empty he is.
He’s also aware of how afraid he is of the dark.
So he tries, weakly, to conjure up something brighter.
He pictures Phil’s face. A version without that hurt. And it’s easy, really, to lean back into a better memory of it. Because that face, in the best of times and in the worst, is a ray of light. A prism of endless colors, shining through heavy clouds.
Those clouds have always been there—an approaching storm, dark and ominous, never raining, never letting go. Just lingering. Lingering over Dan and around him and inside of him with things unanswered, things never faced.
And always, amidst it all, Phil.
Phil with his bright smile. Phil with his laugh and his beautiful mind and the gentle way he cups Dan’s face in his hands. The way he looks at Dan, eyes full of light and love and stars, and the way he listens intently when Dan speaks, and the way he kisses him like that’s all he was ever made to do—
Dan squeezes his eyes shut.
He doesn’t want to cry. He won’t.
Phil hasn’t kissed him in so long.
“What are we, then? Can you at least answer me that?”
“I don’t know what we are, Phil. Like, fuck, I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe we shouldn’t be anything anymore.”
“And is that what you want?”
Is that what he wants…
What Dan wants is to go back. He wants to go back to the days when the only thing that mattered was falling into each other. When the falling was strange and unexpected, but they were there to catch each other, and there were no bottomless pits of fear and what-ifs waiting for them down below.
He wants to go back to when they were trying something new, something beautiful, and maybe Dan wasn’t facing the truth yet, but it didn’t matter because he knew he wanted this.
He wanted all of it.
Brushing his hand against Phil’s and then looking away shyly. Hugging Phil from behind and burying his face in his shoulder. Leaning in at the top of the Manchester Eye and feeling the world stop for them as their lips met for the first time.
Waking up beside him, their bodies bathed in cool morning light, Phil’s black fringe so messy and out of sorts that Dan would have to reach over and gently move it back into place. Sneaking kisses on cheeks and laughing about nothing into the late hours of the night and staring at each other, cautious but expectant, nervous but so inexplicably fallen.
But that was before.
Before, before, before.
Before reality wrecked the bubble they’d formed around themselves and the darkness crept in and Dan pushed everything all the way down.
(Don’t acknowledge it. Don’t deal with it. Don’t open yourself up to the possibility of being completely yourself, weightless and free, even though there’s this boy you love, who waits and waits and waits, who has withdrawn himself for you, who pretends to be someone he’s not to give you the time you need.
Kiss him and feel yourself become lighter from head to toe—and then regret it, because there’s this feeling inching through your veins like poison ivy, telling you that this is wrong, that you are wrong.
Even though it felt right before.
Even though it always feels right.)
But still, Dan wants it. He longs for it, that closeness, the warmth of Phil all around him. He yearns and he aches and he has Phil here, always here—it’s not like he’s lost him completely. He knows they both want it, they can have it, but Dan is a mess and the storm clouds persist and he doesn’t know what any of it means anymore.
“I’ll wait for you, Dan. You know I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“That’s the thing, Phil. I can’t promise you that you’ll be waiting for anything at all. I don’t even know who the fuck I am at this point, or if I’m someone worth waiting for.”
The urge to cry rises in his throat. Dan clings to his pillow like a scared child waking from a nightmare. That’s really what he is, after all—except this nightmare is never-ending.
He doesn’t know how to wake from it. How to be who he is.
The door creaks open, and it can only be one person on the other side, but Dan doesn’t turn to face him. Not yet.
He sinks down lower under the black-and-grey duvet until his fringe is the only thing that pokes over the top of it. His back is turned to Phil and he curls further around the pillow and it should be hard for someone of his size to become so small, but he manages it anyway.
Distantly, he knows they’ll be fine. The darkness has never been inescapable.
No, they’re stronger than it. Much stronger. They might get frustrated and snap at each other and argue, they might not kiss each other anymore… but they are still Dan and Phil.
Aren’t they?
(What does that even mean?)
“Do we just keep going on like this, then? Would you rather us take a break?”
“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”
“I mean… a break from all of it. From work, from living together. Is that what you need?”
“I don’t… Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore, Phil.”
Dan hears soft footsteps. Then he feels the mattress sink down, and Phil is there—not yet slipping inside their bubble, the one that has kept them safe for so long, but waiting just at the edge of it.
“You okay?” Phil asks softly.
As soon as he hears his voice, Dan breaks.
The tears fall like rain. There’s no warning, no way of stopping them. It is an outpour, creating a mess of his eyes and his face, and he’s embarrassed by the sound of it too, this quiet, pained noise that escapes him.
He squeezes the pillow. He sniffs a few times, trying to will the tears away, but it’s pointless.
Phil has seen him cry, and he’s never judged him for it, but Dan still hates when it happens. He hates when Phil sees him this way.
Any other person might try to immediately comfort him, to figure out how to make those tears go away. To touch him unprompted.
But Phil doesn’t do this. He knows Dan well enough not to. Not until he’s ready.
There’s a brief moment of quiet before Phil speaks again, carefully, sadly.
“I’ll go if you want me to,” he says. “I just want to make sure you’re okay first.”
Dan wants him here. He really does. But what does that make him? Is he selfish for needing this? Is it unfair to Phil, to both of them, to keep dragging this on when it’s not at all like it used to be?
“I’m fine with just being your friend. You know I am. I just want you to be okay. I want you to know that you can let me in. It feels like you don’t do that anymore.”
“It’s not… it’s not that I’m shutting you out on purpose. I just… fuck. I can’t keep doing this to you. It’s not fucking fair to you but I also don’t know how to make it stop.”
Their conversation from earlier has been flashing through Dan’s mind for hours, but in a choppy, nonlinear sort of way. Immediately after it happened, his brain put this foggy lens over it, the way it likes to do when the darkness is present and emotions are running a bit too high. Could be a survival tactic, maybe: if you feel too much, just separate yourself from whatever it is that’s making you feel.
(And even with that, he still can’t separate himself from the look on Phil’s face. So much for his brain succeeding at doing the one thing it was wired to do.)
For a long while since, he’s just been lying here, remembering bits and pieces. Letting those bits and pieces pass through his mind and trying to force himself not to feel anything about it, but feeling it anyway.
It was all things they’ve both said before, honestly. About what they are. About what this is. About how much they should share beyond their own little bubble and who they should let in—or if the bubble is even big enough for the two of them anymore.
But for some reason, this argument (or whatever you want to call it) was worse. More intense. Something came over Dan, something that wanted to end it with Phil, all of it, even though he knew through the whole thing that that isn’t even close to what he wants.
With Phil here, most of it is coming back to him now, running him over like a truck.
He still can’t quite remember how it started, though. If it was a YouTube comment, or a speculative article, or if Dan simply wanted to bring it up by disguising it as another argument. An excuse to find a reason to hate himself, to feel that fear and regret and self-disgust.
The arguing has been happening more than it used to. And the thing is, despite everything, they are still picture perfect when it comes to conflict resolution. They communicate and they work through their issues and really, they’re not fighting so much that they really want to move out or anything like that. It never has been and never will be that bad.
But still, Dan hates that it happens at all.
He hates that he says things he doesn’t mean.
And he hates that he can’t say what he really wants to.
Dan remembers the worst of it then. The words that slipped so carelessly from his mouth, the ones that crushed Phil the moment he said them.
He knows he shouldn’t say things like what he said a few hours ago. They’ve talked about it before, when Dan is having one of his better days and his head is a bit more clear.
To say what he said… It doesn't help anyone involved.
“I don’t want you to feel like you need to be here for me. I know I’m fucking useless. I don’t know why you still even put up with me. I don’t know why you’re still here, Phil. Anyone else would have gone away a long time ago. Why are you still here?”
He cringes. He curls tighter around his pillow.
(“I love you, and I want to be with you, and I’m glad you’re being patient with me even though my brain is making it so hard. Even though I have no idea where this is going, or when I’ll get better, or when we’ll be like how we were before again.”
That. That’s what he should have said instead.)
Part of him hopes that this was the final straw for Phil. It’s the part of him that’s submerged in darkness, that has to claw its way out of this deep, dark pit to even begin to think rationally. And clawing his way out is hard. It takes so much effort and Dan doesn’t even know if it’ll be worth it when he reaches the top.
He tries to ignore that part of his mind, and sometimes he can, but on days like today, that’s all he can hear. Just blasting on full volume around him.
You’re not worth it. Everyone thinks so. Yes, even him. Even the one that has proven otherwise to you, time and time again.
Phil should just give up. He should just walk away.
But that isn’t Phil.
(And honestly, it isn’t Dan either. Not really.)
“Don’t say that, Dan. Please don’t say that to me. You know why. After all this time, you must know.”
(He does know. He does.
That’s what makes this whole thing so fucking hard.)
“I’m not,” Dan finally says, voice cracking. He still doesn’t look over at the older boy. “I’m not okay, Phil.”
Phil stays where he is. He doesn’t leave, but he doesn’t come closer, either. He simply waits.
He always waits for Dan.
And that hurts. For some frustrating, fucked up reason, knowing this hurts so much.
Still, Dan turns around. He faces Phil. He owes him that.
The younger boy doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. He just shows his face, broken and tear-stained. Finally letting Phil in, letting him see how he feels right now, giving him the okay to move into the bubble.
Before he knows it, Phil is pulling the duvet aside and getting in next to him. He’s lying beside Dan, putting his arms around him, holding him close, and the world might suck a lot right now, the storm clouds might never go away, but at least Phil is here, safe and warm. He’s wearing his soft grey jumper, the one with the little foxes on it, and he’s got his glasses on, and he smells and feels like home.
Dan makes himself small again, but this time he does it in Phil’s arms. He sinks as far into them as he can, letting Phil envelop him until this is all there is. Dan buries his face against Phil’s chest; Phil rests his chin at the top of Dan’s head.
For a while, they lay there like this. They don’t speak, they don’t blurt out apologies, they don’t try to dredge up anything from earlier. They will eventually—maybe in an hour, maybe tomorrow—but not now. This moment is nothing but quiet breathing and sinking into each other’s space.
Dan lets Phil’s warmth dry his tears. The darkness is still there on all sides of him, but maybe not quite so pressing. Not so daunting, anymore.
That nagging voice in the back of Dan’s mind is still there, like it always is. Telling him that this is wrong. That two boys aren’t supposed to hold each other this way, even if they’ve done it before. Even though they’ve done so much more before.
And if he listens to it—which he sometimes does—he’ll just push his own feelings away again. He’ll say something stupid. He’ll disappear into the hole he’s so carefully dug around himself.
Maybe it’s because he’s so tired—drained from the tears or the guilt from the things he said or the stress of running all the time—but right now, he’s able to tune it out. The darkness is heavy but so is the promise of sleep and of Phil’s weight around him, and he’s so warm, and this is okay. This is good.
How could it not be?
After some time, Phil’s hand finds its way to Dan’s hair. Dan’s curls are showing through again after such a long day, and that’s another thing he never likes for Phil to see, even though Phil claims he’s always loved them.
Again. Too tired to care or to fight it. Dan sighs a little, enjoying the feeling of Phil’s fingers in his hair. Running through the curls, his touch gentle and perfect.
It’s enough to finally settle the aching in Dan’s bones. To calm him enough to think clearly.
And he thinks, without a doubt, that he loves this boy next to him.
He loves him so much. He’s tired of fighting the fact that being this close to Phil is the best he’s ever felt. And he has it all the time.
It won’t be easy, climbing out of this hole for good. This is not a one-and-done decision that Dan makes. And it’s definitely not something that Phil alone can fix.
But something clicks, and for a moment Dan wants to cry again, because now he’s thinking of all the ways he should have answered Phil’s questions during their argument before.
(“Would you rather us take a break?”
“Never.”
“What are we?”
“We are Dan and Phil. We’re us. We don’t need to be anything else.”
“I want to help you through this. Tell me what I can do.”
“I think I need help from somewhere else, but… as for you, I just need you to be here with me. Just like you always have been.”)
No, Phil doesn’t kiss him anymore. No, they don’t have a word for what they are. They live together and they hold each other and there are all these memories of what they were before, when being together was easier, when life hadn’t really gotten in the way yet and their bubble blurred everything else on the outside. They work together and they create beautiful things and they are a beautiful thing, despite everything else.
They are beautiful, and Phil’s fingers are in Dan’s hair, and Dan’s tears have finally gone away.
Maybe this was always going to happen. The clouds may have parted briefly in 2009, but the storm was always going to return. It never really left.
The only thing to do next is push through it.
That voice again: He’s going to walk away. This will be too much for him. You don’t even know who you are. How can you expect him to help you with that?
Phil squeezes him tighter. Reminds Dan that he’s there.
Dan doesn’t want to let the darkness take him.
He wants this. He wants more than this, too. And he wants to get himself healed up enough to be able to have that again.
“I’m sorry,” Dan whispers. His arms are pressed up between his chest and Phil’s, and he clings to the fabric of Phil’s jumper as tightly as he can.
“Don’t be,” Phil says.
“I’m just… I’m really stressed. And confused.”
Not nearly enough to encompass how he really feels. But then, how does one even begin to describe this feeling?
“I know.”
“I want to work this out.”
“I know that, too.”
Dan looks up slowly, and Phil meets his eyes. The older boy smiles, a soft and loving thing, then leans in. Not to meet Dan’s lips with his own, but to press a kiss to his forehead, close-mouthed and tender.
This is still not what they were. It’s not holding hands or going on dates or making out on Phil’s bedroom floor. It’s not waking up unclothed in tangled sheets or surprising each other with a kiss when the camera’s not on or giving a label to what they are, the way a man and a woman would have the luxury of doing.
But it’s enough.
For now, while Dan figures everything else out, it’s enough.
And he will never know how to thank Phil for deciding that it was enough for him, too.
He returns his face to the safety of Phil’s chest, and Phil goes back to running his fingers through Dan’s hair.
Dan closes his eyes. He’s so tired, but he doesn’t fall asleep.
Not for a long while.
But he does fall for Phil.
They’ve been in each other’s lives for years—they said I love you for the first time long ago—and really, at this point, they should be beyond falling.
But Dan does it anyway.
He simply can’t help it.
He falls for Phil again. For his smile and his laugh and his beautiful mind and the gentle way he holds him here, his embrace like a promise, one that will never be broken. For the memories of what they’ve shared together, when things were easier, and for the hope of what they will share in the future, when things are truer and more honest than they are now.
Dan may not know who he is, but he knows what this is.
And as sleep gradually begins to take him, this is what he reaches for.
“Love you,” Dan says, and it’s nothing more than a sleepy blend of words, muffled against Phil’s jumper.
Dan thinks he can feel Phil smile. He doesn’t even know how that makes sense. Maybe it’s just because he’s seen Phil smile so many times—has been the cause of that smile so often, somehow—that he can just sense it.
Phil tightens his arms around Dan.
“I love you, bear,” he says softly. “Now get some sleep.”
Dan breathes in deep. He breathes in Phil, lets his presence fill him up, and he carries it with him into his sleep, where—for tonight—the darkness no longer feels so empty.