prompt: Dan and Phil are both sons of rich families and are sent to ballroom dancing lessons. Because there is a shortage of girls, Dan and Phil end up as partners. Phil really doesn’t want to be there and Dan doesn’t either, but is so frustrated by the fact Phil doesn’t want to dance with him he is determined to get him to.
a/n: i catn believe how LONG thsi is fukc my LIFE also to all of u who wanted smut in this chapter i promise i was going to include i but i literally if i did it would’ve spilt over into 7k territory and that’s like the equivalent to 3 short chapters so i promise it’ll be sooN when it doesn’t happen right at the end of a chapter smh i hope this will compensate also i kinda wanna begin to wrap up the storyline and tie loose ends togetehr otherwise this fic is literally gonna carry on for 53 more years so this is the beginning of the kiiind of end idk we’ll see enjoy
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Twenty-Three
It kind of becomes a regular thing after that.
Phil would come over nearly as often as Ryan used to. They’d spend the evenings together doing, well, anything. Sometimes, Dan would write essays and Phil would lie beside him, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder and apart from the odd comment about how much of a twat Jane Eyre was or a snide remark about his history homework from Dan who would ‘rather nail my fucking head to the wall than write another sentence about the Russian Revolution honestly Phil you know sometimes I bet the period of time from 1881 ‘till 1924 only existed to piss me off’, they’d both mutually enjoy the peaceful quietness with no sound other than the gentle tapping of Dan’s laptop keyboard. Sometimes Phil would bring his textbooks and Dan would give him a spare laptop, and they’d study together. Phil takes History, like Dan, but Geography, Maths and English Language as opposed to Literature, so Jane Eyre is a battle Dan realises he’ll have to fight alone. Sometimes they’d mindlessly browse Tumblr, giggling every so often and showing the other whatever it was that had made them laugh (on Dan’s front, nearly always a cat video of some description).
Other times, especially in the evenings, Dan would drag his duvet into the lounge and they’d curl up together on the sofa, sharing popcorn and chuckling at bad movies. Sometimes they’d kiss a lot, sometimes not as much, and sometimes (always) they’d cuddle, nuzzling into the other and playing with eachother’s soft hair in the dim light Dan’s lamp gives off. Sometimes, they’d go a little further, and a messy bedroom would be the least of Dan’s concerns once he has Phil pressed up against his door (locked, this time).
Any spare time they both had, they’d rather spend together than alone even if it did mean the whole time they would be staring at a laptop screen or an open book.
It’s Saturday night, and they both (surprisingly) don’t have any homework.
Dan’s hoping Phil can stay the night, although he hasn’t asked him yet. They’d been watching TechRax videos all afternoon on YouTube, both of them still undecided whether the person behind the relentlessly (but creatively) destroyed iPhones is either getting paid to do it (Dan wouldn’t be surprised; Apple would probably love the promotion through getting millions of views per video) or simply a rich idiot (that also wouldn’t surprise Dan, although despite how well-off he and his family are, he certainly doesn’t view that as an invitation to run his phone over with a train to ‘see what would happen’).
“You know what I love about this guy?” Phil asks.
“What?” Dan glances up at him.
“How nearly after every time he destroys a phone, he seems so surprised that it doesn’t work,” Phil smirks at the video they’re currently watching as TechRax repeatedly clicks the power button on an iPhone 5 he’d just baked in a cake. “It’s almost as if he’s expecting it to spring back into action.”
As if on cue, the cake-covered phone screen lights up with a temperature warning.
Dan huffs out a surprised chuckle. “Looks like you summoned it.”
“Wow,” Phil widens his eyes. “I wonder if it’s still usable?”
“Phil, he just ran it under the tap,” Dan glances at him. “I hardly doubt it’s in mint condition.”
“Surely water isn’t too damaging? I mean, I’ve dropped mine down the toilet countless times,” he whips out his phone. “It still works.”
“Ew,” Dan screws up his face, pushing the phone away.
“My point being,” Phil rolls his eyes. “I’ve ran mine under the tap,” he shrugs, holding it thoughtfully. “And it still works.”
“Yes, but you didn’t bake it in a cake, did you?” Dan says, eyeing Phil’s phone carefully. He’ll be sure to avoid using it; maybe he’d be better off with one of those telephone boxes after all.
Phil shrugs. “The amount it plays up, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have done by accident.”
“Is it really any wonder it plays up considering the way you treat it?” Dan narrows his eyes, pulling his laptop towards him suspiciously. “Remind me not to ever trust you alone with any of my technology.”
Phil raises an eyebrow suggestively, before leaning closer to Dan in order to see the screen. “Ooh, let’s watch that,” he points to the thumbnail of a video in the suggested bar titled Top 5 Best Ways to Destroy Your iPhone 6. “I think that’s new. I haven’t seen it before.”
Dan rolls his eyes, huffs out a reluctant sigh, and clicks on it.
-
Adam and Dan still can’t look eachother in the eye.
After – let’s call it, ‘the mug incident’, Dan had walked into the kitchen once Phil had left to find a Adam perched on the end of the breakfast bar, sipping coffee and – to put it bluntly, with an expression on his face that made him resemble a plane-crash survivor mid-flashback.
“You alright?” Dan had asked, his voice carefully casual as he puts the mugs in the sink and returns the caramel syrup back to its original cupboard.
Adam had jumped at the voice, fixing his eyes on his brother in a suspicious stare. “You know, Dan, a certain You Me at Six song comes to mind when I look at you,” he began, stirring his tea thoughtfully.
Dan had frowned, glancing over his shoulder. “What’s that, then?” he had asked, dragging the stool out and sitting himself down on it. “Loverboy?” he joked, flipping his hair.
Adam had pulled a disgusted face at the bad joke, shuddering before gaining enough composure to make his point. “Well, not the one I had in mind, but it’s still applicable, I suppose,” he paused, looking up from his cup at Dan. “Does Save It For the Bedroom mean anything to you?”
Dan’s smirk had vanished in less than a second, and he’d felt as if he might throw up. Adam fucking knows.
Adam had raised his eyebrows righteously, before returning to his tea, biting back an expression that’s caught somewhere between a grin, a grimace, and a cringe.
“Y’know,” he’d began after a torturous silence. “If I knew I was going to walk into that, I would’ve asked you to bring my coffee to my room,” he shook his head.
“I didn’t know you were coming back in,” Dan mumbled, trying to hide his furious blush.
“Why did you think I wasn’t?” Adam looked up. “Couldn’t you two have kept your hands off of eachother for the five seconds I needed to come back in there?”
“To reiterate,” Dan had gritted his teeth, his voice growing a sharp edge although he couldn’t tell if it’s Adam he was annoyed with, or himself. “I didn’t know you were coming back in,” he says. “I forgot.”
“Well, ‘to reiterate’,” Adam had mocked him. “I don’t see why it should be any different to how it was with you and Ryan. You two were always much more discreet about doing that in the house.” Adam says, and Dan’s too stung with the drop of Ryan’s name to pay attention to what it was Adam had just actually said.
“Well where d’you suggest we do it, in the garde-” Oh shit. Dan snapped his head up, his eyes wide with realisation. “Ryan?” he manages to mumble, his voice nothing more than a thin squeak.
“Yes, Ryan,” Adam had nodded slowly. “You know, Ryan? Or have you forgotten about him alread-“
“How do – did you know about me and Ryan?” Dan tenses up, his voice on the verge of shrill.
Adam’s eyes flicker to his tea for half a second as if Dan’s speaking a foreign language. “What do you mean, ‘how do I know’?” he had frowned. “Are you trying to tell me it wasn’t pretty fucking obvious?”
Dan had shaken his head. “Wait, so – you just-… you kno- knew about us?” he corrected himself.
“As I said,” Adam rolled his eyes, exhausted now for even bringing the topic into discussion. “It wasn’t exactly hard to guess, Dan. You should’ve seen yourself, I mean – the way you two used to look at each-other,” he half-smiles humourlessly. “It was like no-one else existed when you two were in each-other’s company. Like nothing else mattered apart from-“
“Cut the bullshit,” Dan had rolled his eyes, stopping him there before he either throws up or starts crying. “What did you see?”
“I didn’t need to see anything,” Adam says. “-and I certainly don’t need to now, after that-…” he lowered his voice, staring down at the table, with widened eyes, before continuing. “Like I keep saying, it was just obvious,” he’d paused for hesitation.
“So you didn’t see anything, but-…”
“I heard something, mind you,” Adam shudders. “But I quickly resolved that. Dr. Dre headphones really are soundproof, so it wasn’t that bad.”
“Oh, brilliant,” Dan utters sarcastically, leaning back on his stool. “First Max, now you. Is there anyone else who somehow knows all the details about mine and Ryan’s love life that I should know about, then?” he raises an eyebrow expectantly, although he’s more pissed off than he can express in front of Adam, because he knows it kind of is his fault.
Adam had hesitated. “Ross.”
Dan flashed him a furious glare, his jaw clenching. “Fucking wonderful,” he’d muttered through gritted teeth, blood boiling with anger through his veins.
“Don’t get all pissed off about it,” Adam had frowned. “It’s no big deal. I’d just like some warning prior to you dry-humping your boyfriend on my couch.”
Dan rolls his eyes at the ‘dry-humping’ remark, although he can’t manage a comeback any more effective than a mutter of “he’s not my boyfriend”.
“Okay,” Adam stands up suddenly, abandoning his tea. “I don’t want to discuss this with you anymore, it’s too weird. You’re my little brother,” he’d shut his eyes forebodingly.
“I’m seventeen, Adam,” Dan had objected.
Adam had turned to Dan once he’d reached the doorway. “Look, I don’t care. Do what you want, as long as it’s kept out of my sight,” he says, his eyes stern. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
“You sound like a fucking parent,” Dan chuckled.
Adam had raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Well, I’ve certainly been better teaching you about stuff than mum and dad have.”
Dan didn’t comment on that. It’s true.
-
When Adam walks into the room, Dan and Phil jump apart, despite the fact they’re not even doing anything more than simply sitting beside each-other in order to watch YouTube videos (they’d ventured from TechRax to the Slow-Mo Guys, and Dan glances up from their current ‘Electric Bug Zapper In Slow Motion’ video to his brother, although they still can’t quite see eye-to-eye.
“Alright?” Adam jerks his head in a small upwards nod at Phil. Phil gives him a small, polite smile in response, although the new, dense tension in the room could be cut with a knife.
Dan and Phil return back to the poor fly victimised by an electric tennis racket-like instrument of torture and Adam sits down, grabbing the remote and channel-hopping in silence. A couple of moments later, they hear a toilet flush from down the hallway, and seconds afterwards, Ross appears, following Adam onto the sofa.
Dan does a double-take up from his laptop, catching the light-haired boy’s eye.
“Hiya, Ross,” his eyes light up. They haven’t seen each-other in a while, and in all honesty Dan doesn’t know why he’s so surprised to see him here.
“Alright?” Ross gives him a nod of acknowledgement in a very Adam-like manner. Dan suspects they’ve been spending rather a lot of time around each-other recently. He glances back to the video for about half a second, before realising he’s left Phil unintroduced.
“Oh, er-…” Dan jerks his head over to the black-haired boy sitting beside him. “This is Phil, by the way.”
“I know,” Ross grins, and when Dan looks at Phil, he’s also grinning. “We’ve met.”
“You two know each-other?” Dan raises an interested eyebrow, his glance differentiating between the two boys. “I didn’t know you’ve met.”
“I moved Geography classes,” Phil explains. Ah, Dan thinks. Geography, that’ll be it. “And the only free seat was next to Ross.”
“Yup,” Ross nods, still half-grinning. “You’re stuck with me for the rest of the year, now.”
“God help your grades,” Dan shakes his head at Phil, thinking back to the huge E staring him in the face after a term of sitting at the back of Maths with Ross.
“I think we both might be a little behind on longshore drift now,” Phil chuckles, raising his eyebrows. “Mind you,” he adds. “They did say that it came up as a 16 marker in last year’s exam, so he said we might not need to worry about it as much,” he shrugs.
“You never know,” Adam chips in without looking up at the TV. “OCR are very good at fucking people over.”
“You’re only saying that because the 16 marker you got was on something you hadn’t revised,” Dan reminds him, and Adam throws him a steady glare.
“Precisely,” Adam says. “I fell into that trap. They were so certain nothing about the demographic transition was going to show up,” he shakes his head in disbelief. “And guess what comes up as the fucking essay question?”
Phil huffs out a quiet chuckle, vowing to himself he’ll revise longshore drift. He glances up at Adam. “What year are you in now, then?” he asks.
“Me?” Adam looks up from the TV this time. “Oh, I’m not,” he answers.
“Gap year,” Dan explains, and Phil gives a nod of understanding.
“Ah,” Phil stares into space thoughtfully. “I’ve always wanted a gap year, but my parents are so sold on packing me off to University as soon as possible,” Phil sighs.
“Oh?” Adam glances at him. “Where are you thinking of going?”
Phil shrugs, staring into space. “I’ll probably end up at Cambridge,” he mutters with a sneer. “That or UCL, because it’s not far from here. I’d rather go there, I think.”
Adam nods. “My friend’s at UCL.”
It’s strange, even for Dan, to hear Adam talk about friends of his own. It’s even stranger when it reminds him Ross was actually originally his friend. He looks at Ross, and he can’t imagine him ever not knowing Adam. Maybe Dan was always meant to be a bridge joining the two. He looks Phil, quietly hoping he won’t lose him to his brother, too.
Adam flips over to Kerrang, and leaves it there. It’s the top 40 rock anthems, also known as re-rolls of exactly the same fucking hit singles of 2007 that were on yesterday, but none of them seem to mind that much. They all quietly mouth along to themselves every lyric of nearly every song, from Misery Business, to Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down.
Dan just prays to any positions of power up there listening to him, that You Me at Six don’t come on.
-
When Adam’s showering and Phil’s looking for a pair of Dan’s pyjama pants that fit him, Dan and Ross steal a couple of minutes alone.
“Hey,” Ross breaks the companionable silence between them. Dan looks up from his laptop. “I’m sorry about-… you know – you and Ryan,” he sighs, leaning on the cushioned arm of the sofa.
Dan shuts his eyes, oh God no more fucking Ryan talk, please he thinks to himself. He opens his eyes after about a second, blinking a couple of times. “Wow,” he mutters. “Good news really travels fast,” he says, his voice biting with sarcasm.
“I mean it,” Ross says, seeing through Dan’s cold attitude. When Dan looks at him, his eyes are shining with genuine concern – so unlike Ross. “I know how much he meant to you.”
“Yeah, well,” Dan sniffs nonchalantly. “Whatever. If this is about trying to get me to make amends, don’t hold your breath. It’s his fault there’s so much tension in the group chat, now,” Dan reflects on their passive-aggressive comments, withheld arguments and long silences replacing the quick-moving deep conversations about, well, anything, really. Dan remembers the flow of the chat and how he couldn’t take his eyes off his phone for fear of missing anything, and the only time he’d close the chat window was to tend to his private chat on the side with Ryan. “I’m not apologising for anything.”
Ross thinks, because Dan’s right, he supposes. He shrugs. “I wasn’t going to ask you to apologise.”
“Good,” Dan mutters, keeping his eyes glued to the Weightless music video.
“He’s a fucking dick, anyway.” Ross mutters, staring at his fingernails thoughtfully. “I’ve never liked him that much.”
Dan glances up. “Really?”
Ross shakes his head. “Yep,” he hesitates. “Well, I don’t know. I’d only talk to him out of politeness,” Dan snorts at the idea of Ross being anything remotely pointing towards ‘polite’, and Ross glares at him. “We just don’t have anything in common. We were never that close. The only reason we were friends was through mutual friendships with everyone else in our group, if you get me.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Dan sighs.
Ross gazes at him, searching for something – anything, he could do to help. He starts with a subject change, realising how Dan’s usual smile had been erased by the very mention of the foul emerald-eyed boy’s name. “Let’s not talk about Ryan, anyway,” he suggests, and Dan’s expression immediately softens with a mixture of relaxation and relief. “How are things with you and Phil going?”
“What are you, an agony aunt?” Dan raises an eyebrow, and judging by the hazel glint in Ross’s eyes, he figures Adam must have told him something. His grin fades as it suddenly dawns on him like a ton of bricks. “Well,…” he sighs, guessing Adam mustn’t have told Ross about the moving thing yet. “I don’t want to take things too fast,” he admits, and it’s half-true. Just for a bigger reason than due to the wounds Ryan had left behind. “I’m still quite-… confused, I guess,” he stares into space, the mantelpiece going out of focus.
“He really likes you, Dan,” Ross says in a voice so surprisingly quiet and truthful – so unlike Ross, that he can’t help but glance up at him.
“What makes you think that?” Dan’s heart thuds underneath his hoodie.
“I don’t think, I know,” Ross rolls his eyes. “He talks about you a lot to me, for a start,” he begins with a soft grin.
“What?” Dan’s eyes widen, and Ross nods.
“Oh yeah, all the time in Geography it’s; ‘did I tell you about this thing me and Dan did last week?’, ‘if Dan were here, he’d-…’, ‘this one time, Dan and I-…’ ‘that sounds like something Dan would say-…’, ‘I wish Dan went to this school, sometimes-…’ ‘you know the thing Dan does where he-…” honestly, you can barely get a word in edgeways once he’s on the topic of you,” Ross says, and Dan doesn’t make any effort to mask the grin spreading across his face at the mention of that. “He’s easily distracted in class but it was piss-easy to get his attention with the mention of you – all the teachers who catch him gazing out of the window would only have to do so much as drop the name ‘Dan’, and he’d spring into action in an instant.”
“Wow…” Dan widens his eyes, beginning to enjoy this conversation. “What does he say about me, then?” he can’t stop himself from asking.
Ross doesn’t give him an outright answer, but the smirk, glance to the floor and slight blush tells Dan all he needs to know.
Dan feels his own face flush pink. “I like him too,” he admits. “A lot.”
“More than Ryan?” Ross asks, unintentionally tactless.
Dan gulps, hesitating. “Yeah,” he says a couple of seconds later, and his heart suddenly clenches with the truth of his words. “Yeah, I do.”
Ross sighs, giving him a half-smile. “I hope you two work out,” he says. “Hey, we should get Jake and Max over. I don’t think they’ve met him properly yet.”
“Translation – they hate him right now because they only know of Ryan’s perception of him?” Dan guesses.
Ross nods. “You read my mind.”
Dan grins. “I think Jake and Phil would get on particularly well.”
“He has a bit in common with Max, too,” Ross thinks, before glancing at Dan. “I’m happy for you, man. He’s a good guy.”
Dan smiles, reaching out his arm and making a beckoning-motion at Ross. “Come here.”
Ross sighs at the effort of hauling himself up from the sofa, although he obliges, flopping onto the sofa opposite his and snuggling up into Dan’s embrace.
Dan sniffs suspiciously. He smells like Adam’s aftershave. “Have you been stealing Adam’s Paco Rabanne?”
“Shh,” Ross presses a finger up to his lips. “Borrowing,” he corrects.
Dan huffs out a little chuckle. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbles quietly after a brief silence.
“Missed you too,” Ross sighs. “How was Vienna?”
Dan’s faded lovebites sear white hot, and he lowers his chin and hunches his shoulders. “It’s a long story,” he doesn’t know if he’ll tell Ross out of his own will – Max saw them, so Dan figures, being a good best friend, he owes him the explanation to accompany it. But with Ross and Jake, he thinks he can get away with giving the censored recount. “I’ll tell you all another time,” he leaves it at that.
“Only if it’s an excuse to get the group chat up and running again,” Ross narrows his eyes. “We’ve been dead for the past couple of weeks.”
“Fine, if Ryan doesn’t rip my head off at the sight of my name on his phone,” Dan widens his eyes. Knowing Ryan’s temperamental nature, he’ll leave the chat altogether as soon as Dan drops them all a message. “I’ve missed you all, though,” he admits.
“We’ve missed you too,” Ross nudges Dan’s phone off the armchair, landing in his lap. “Go on, send them a message now before you forget.”
“'kay,” Dan mumbles monotonously, not really wanting to do it. He slides his phone unlocked, selecting the Power Squad (they really need to think of a different name) chat and tapping out a quick ’hi lol’-type message.
His phone buzzes less than a minute later
jake: DAN WTF WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
only in a different fuckin country for the past fortnight no biggie Dan taps back, although he’s immediately grinning with finally being able to talk to Jake again.
max: yes and I believe we have some important business to discuss
dan: shhh
max: ;)))
jake: how was vienna anyway??
dan: yea it was cool
max: it was a little more than cool
jake: ???
dan: max u say another word and I will castrate u
max: love you too <33
dan: no but really pls come over soon i’ve missed yall
The chat continues in very much the same lighthearted, banter-y fashion, and Ross finds himself contributing to the group chat despite sitting right next to Dan.
Ryan’s name doesn’t flash up once.
-
“Where is Phil?” Dan frowns a couple of minutes later, wondering if he’d accidentally opened Dan’s wardrobe and been trapped at the bottom of the fabric avalanche.
“Wait-” Ross swipes his own phone unloocked. “I’ll call him.”
“You have Phil’s number?” Dan frowns, more interested in that than the fact Ross is making such a casual deal out of calling someone in the same house as them.
“Yeah?” Ross raises an eyebrow as if Dan had asked him a question as obvious as ’you have a phone?’ “Why, don’t you?”
Dan shrugs. “Never got round to asking him for it, I guess.”
“I gave him your number, though,” Ross frowns. “Has he not texted you?”
“Not that I know of,” Dan swipes through his conversations, and not once does Phil’s name, or even typing style pop up.
“Oh, well,” Ross sifts through his contacts in search of Phil’s name. “I’ll give it to you so you can shout at him for not being a good enough boyfriend to text you.”
Dan can’t be bothered for another ‘he’s not my boyfriend’ argument.
Ross stops the scroll when he finds ’Kill Jesta’ in his contacts – Dan suspects the nickname had been a mutual creation between the pair of them, and he smirks at the caramel-haired boy’s screen.
“Okay – zero, seven, six, nine, two,” he pauses, looking up and waiting for Dan to finish tapping the digits in. “four, four, one, six, two, five,” he finishes. “Got that?”
But Dan can’t answer. The number’s already been saved. He feels his heartbeat spread through his entire body until he can hear the thudding pulse in his ears, his throat tightening and his mouth going dry. The text – the fucking text that had been eating away at his sanity for the weeks ever since he’d received it, had popped back up.
+447692441625
I love you.
“Got it,” Dan manages to stutter once he remembers he’d left a lingering silence. He types 'Phil’ with shaky thumbs into the contact information box – he doesn’t have time for creative nicknames right now. “Thanks,” he gulps, still slightly shaken as he stares blankly at the TV, jiggling his leg softly.
The sight of Phil– I love you replacing a coldly anonymous +447692441625 stays burning into the back of his mind – no amount of generic Sum 41 and Blink 182 music video re-rolls can erase it.
“Why the fuck do I have a missed call from you?” A voice emerges from the lounge door. Dan whirls round, the sight of Phil with messy hair and wearing his pyjamas feeling like a concrete block to the stomach. He eyes him for a couple of minutes, wondering why the hell out of all of Dan’s clothes, he just had to go with that fucking Nirvana hoodie worn countless times by Ryan. He realises there and then he probably should’ve made the effort to shove it under his bed along with all the forgotten rubbish and dust-coated belongings. “You made me go all the way down to the kitchen to get my phone,” he whines, pacing over to the sofa. Ross gets up on his account, shifting back to his original seat and Dan budges up, making space for him.
“Just wanted to check you hadn’t got lost in the mess of Dan’s room,” Ross teases, and Dan whacks a cushion at him.
“It’s not that bad,” Dan defends. “It’s been worse.”
“Trust me,” Phil grins. “It’s tidy compared to mine.”
Having half-expected Phil to be a neat-freak, Dan breathes a discreet sigh of relief, letting a soft grin escape his lips. “Really?” he raises an eyebrow with interest.
“Really,” Phil nods. “You don’t want to know, trust me.”
Dan chuckles, although his mind has too many other slightly more important thoughts colliding in his mind than the state of Phil’s room to continue the conversation. Ross takes to mindlessly channel-hopping until Adam returns, and Dan and Phil decide to watch 'CD Shattering at 170,000 FPS! - The Slow Mo Guys’ through shared headphones – Phil using the right, and Dan using the left.
-
Dan can’t tell if Ross went home, or up to bed with Adam. He’s too tired to care.
All he cares about is the feeling of soft black hair against his cheek from the sleepy companion snuggled up next to him. The room’s filled with a thick late-night quietness, the only noise coming from the gentle hum of Dan’s laptop fan, the dim ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the TV left on the Starz music channel, volume switched down to 3.
Dan closes his laptop after a couple of seconds, setting it down on the coffee table and pulling his duvet further up over him and Phil. He winds his arms around Phil’s waist, leaning on his chest – he could easily fall asleep there and then to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, but he vows he won’t sleep until he’s said what he’s been meaning to say to Phil ever since, well, ever since he can remember. It’s as if his mind had erased any memory of what it had been like to not be in love with him.
His head falls onto Phil’s lap, and he rolls over, looking up at him. Phil gently sweeps a couple of stray strands of hair out of his face, gazing down at him with the same soft expression of fondness.
“Thanks for the text,” Dan mumbles seconds later without thinking.
“What text?” Phil freezes, his eyes suddenly wide. For a horrible second, the possibility of Ross giving him the wrong number crosses Dan’s mind, but the sudden glint of realisation appearing in Phil’s eyes accompanied pink cheeks replacing an even, pale complexion tells Dan all he needs to know.
“You know,” Dan mutters without breaking eye contact once Phil’s made it obvious enough.
Phil shuts his eyes, his chest collapsing in a sigh of regret. His eyebrows furrow, and he flops his head back onto the sofa cushion, staring up at the TV instead of Dan.
Dan leans up suddenly, realising Phil seems to have the wrong impression.
“Sorry,” Phil mutters a couple of seconds later, keeping his eyes to the TV and clenching his jaw as if single ounce of conscious effort is being used to compose himself, and by the looks of his eyes diverting across the screen in search of an excuse, Dan wouldn’t be surprised if in his desperation he’ll pull a ’sorry that was my friend lolz’ that hadn’t seen the light of day since the days of 2007 msn. They sit in an agonising silence, before he gulps, shaking his head and standing up from the sofa, keeping his eyes to the floor as he makes for the hallway. “It’s late, I should-”
“Phil?” Dan frowns, hauling himself up from the couch and following him. “Where are you going?” concern raises in his voice as visions of Phil walking home in the middle of the night dressed in Dan’s pyjamas.
Phil doesn’t reply, walking down the hall and going for the door he thinks is Dan’s room – his house is so huge he figures he’d probably need a map to find his way around despite his famous 'navigation skills’. Dan frowns, still clutching his phone with clammed up hands.
“Phil wait- where are you going?” Dan doesn’t bother keeping his voice down. He catches up with him in a lazy jog. “You can’t go home, it’s the middle of the fucki-”
“I’m not going home, you idiot,” Phil glares at him, his eyes truthfully cold. He opens Dan’s door. “I’m tired.”
“But what abou-”
“Forget it.” Phil grits his teeth, cutting Dan off with an angry spit.
Dan gulps, standing in the middle of the hallway, his heart thudding. He hurries back to the lounge, lifting his heavy duvet up from the sofa and dragging it out. It still smells like Phil, and his heart clenches.
He groans quietly when he’s halfway up to his room, pausing and taking a break because fuck, a king-sized duvet is a lot heavier than it looks and Dan realises how wasting a year of his abandoned gym membership and instead spending the transport money on food might not have been the best idea after all.
Wait, he has an idea. His eyes light up, and he whips his phone out of his pocket. He knows Phil’s got the wrong message from Dan’s response, and although he could easily throw himself down on his knees and declare his undying love for him, he thinks of a better way to go about it.
I love you too, he hastily taps out, but doesn’t press send. He continues the marathon-like journey from the hallway up to his bedroom, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he were to break a sweat there and then.
When he nudges his door open, Phil’s already sitting on the edge of the bed. Dan gives him a soft half-smile despite the fact he’s turned away from him, before throwing his duvet on the bed and shutting the door, locking it on the off-chance his plan is successful and possibly leads to something else, (even if not, he figures it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?) before sitting himself down on the opposite side of the bed. He unlocks his phone, his thumb hovering over send.
A couple of seconds after he plucks up enough courage to tap it, Phil’s phone vibrates next to him, and despite the fact Dan’s trying to make a point by not looking at him, he wishes he could see his expression. It’s probably priceless.
Phil breaks the heavy silence a couple of minutes later with a sigh of defeat. Dan feels the creak of the mattress as he shuffles around, turning towards him.
“Look,” Phil sighs again. “If you’re only saying that because you’re-”
Dan cuts him off suddenly, launching himself at Phil and pressing their lips together in a rough collision as if this would be the last chance he’d ever have left to kiss him. He pushes his body against Phil almost immediately, parting his lips and feeling Phil’s mouth melt against his own, the warmth of every breathy sigh lingering between them as Dan breaks off for half a second to wrap both his legs around Phil’s waist.
They nudge up as close to eachother as physically possible, Dan gripping onto Phil as tightly as he can manage in fear of him slipping away through his fingertips, before tilting his head and returning to the softness of Phil’s lips, feeling gentle tugs in his scalp as Phil combs his fingers through his silky, chocolate hair. Dan lets a little moan escape from his chest as he opens his mouth a fraction, slipping his tongue into Phil’s mouth for a slow moment, eyes closed and breathing heavy.
It’s a substantial amount of time until Dan remembers to pull away and actually make the point he’d been trying to make.
“I love you,” he finally manages to murmur against Phil’s lips. They break apart, both of them breathless and when Dan opens his eyes to the bright cerulean stare flaming back into him, his heart clenches and desire sears through his veins. “I love you, Phil, I-… fuck, I love you. I love you, I’m in love with you, I-…” he repeats, testing the phrase out and adoring the way it sounded against the heat of Phil’s skin. “I love you. I lo-”
They find each-other’s lips in a matter of seconds picking right up from where they’d left off, Phil’s grip around his waist firmer than before as they fall onto the mattress, flat against eachother, and it’s Phil who slowly begins grinding into Dan, another quiet moan arising from the boy’s chest as his hands slide down to his hips, resting either side of them.
He rolls over, Dan finding himself underneath Phil once again.
“I love you,” Phil breathes against Dan’s collarbone, pressing gentle little kisses against his skin, tracing the yellowed, faded bruises that had once flared deep purple against Dan’s tanned complexion.
Dan can’t help thinking the way things are going, he’ll be having to put extra effort into hiding his neck from the prying eyes of Ross and Adam, but as agonisingly restrictive as his clothing is against Phil, he thinks that’s a worry that can wait until tomorrow.