Love Yourself (Chapter 36)
title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 9.7k story words: 299.5k (so far) chapter: 36/? rating: m warnings: language, alcohol, sex mentions, some bi/homophobia, eventual explicit smut, some depression genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn
read on ao3 or below the cut
a/n: oh my GAWD we're here. can you believe?? it only took six short little years to write this chapter. genuinely, the most massive thank you to everyone who is still interested in this fic, who sent asks in over the years, who responded to my frightfully introspective a/n a couple weeks back. i appreciate all of you and probably would not be coming back to this fic without that kind of welcome back.
a note on fic vibes going forwards: as i mentioned in the author's note (see the contents last chapter if you missed it), there's a bit of a vibe switch going forward with dan (boi is in his healing era now), though I'm working to make it a natural part of his growth and not a hard stop. you'll definitely start to see that in this chapter and will continue see it in future chapters. also, I've added some updated tags on ao3 to reflect how the story evolved/will continue evolving
as for continuity… let's all remember that it has been 6 years since i wrote this fic last LOL. please bare with me if I contradict anything I wrote in the first volume of this fic. I do my best to search the fic for relevant details before writing something, but sometimes is hard when you don't know exactly what wording past!you would have used. also, i decided that I didn't give a shit about sticking to 2018/2019 references/slang/events whatever. I will never write a single word if I have to police it for "would people have said this in 2019" lol, so please don't come at me for them using "crash out" haha
thanks as always to the wonderful @auroraphilealis for editing, you're still my best friend six years later <3
_______________________________
When five minutes passed, and then the shower clicked on, Phil figured Dan wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Reluctantly, he turned his attention to his computer to start tackling the overflow of emails, texts, and notifications that he’d been ignoring for the better part of three days. The first thing he did was tweet about the change in his liveshow schedule, doing his best to make it sound like it wasn’t for emergency damage control (even though it definitely was).
@AmazingPhil: Surprise! I’m moving my liveshow to 8pm this evening (nyc time, sorry europeans!) because I’ll be on a plane during my normal liveshow time.
It was a pretty bare bones tweet; usually Phil would add something to make it a bit more enticing — some topics, a funny joke, something — but he figured enough people would be interested today anyway, and adding topics felt like a minefield. Either he’d have to directly mention Dan and their New York activities, or he’d have to make up some fake topics that would be a very obvious distraction, and neither of those felt like a great option to Phil. Instead, he added a plane emoji, then scrolled through the dock and selected a few random emojis — an apple, the full moon one with the weird face, and some bubbles — before sending the tweet.
Closing twitter without reading any of the responses or opening any of his notifications, Phil turned his attention to his messages. He decided to wait to call his mum until after his liveshow, opting for a quick apology text and a promise to call later. In his defense, he had tried to call a couple of times since landing, but apparently his parents had both been working in the garden all day. His mum wasn’t thrilled with waiting another few hours to hear from him, but Phil needed to focus on his liveshow, and a distraction was too much to stomach..
Martyn was easier to handle —
Martyn [3:22AM]: So baby brother of mine, twitter would have me believe that you’re dating a rockstar…
Phil [4:11PM]: I dare you to call Dan a rockstar to his face
Martyn [4:12PM]: Finally surfacing are you?
Martyn [4:12PM]: Does that mean I’ll be meeting Dan at some point?
Phil [4:13PM]: shut up, martyn
Martyn [4:13PM]: Is twitter right then?
Pausing, Phil turned his attention to the bathroom, listening for any indication that Dan might be coming out soon. The shower was still running, though, so with the tacit permission of If you have to say something, I’d prefer it be the truth repeating on loop in his head, Phil responded.
Phil [4:15PM]: You know what they say, even broken clocks are right once a day
Martyn [4:15PM]: *twice a day
Martyn [4:16PM]: I would never have believed that MY baby brother is getting with a rockstar if I hadn’t had to turn off your twitter notifications so I didn’t have to see you flirting for two months first
Phil [4:17PM]: *gif of Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge*
Even though Phil was not eager to do this liveshow tonight — to face what was likely his and Dan’s combined audiences alone — he had to admit that getting it out of the way would make his life easier when they got home. Judging by his email inbox, Phil would be busy with the BBC all week; he had four different meeting requests on top of his usual planning meeting, plus the actual recording. With a resigned sigh, Phil texted Emmalee to ask to switch his opening shifts for her closing ones this week. Phil hated working the closing shifts — evenings have been the only time he could work on videos for his channel lately, and while he could edit or draft a video if B&G was slow, it’s not like he could film there.
Emmalee [4:19PM]: No problem. I’m training a newbie this week and opening shifts are probably better for that anyway
Phil [4:20PM]: Newbie???
Emmalee [4:21PM]: Yeah, I hired another barista. Eir name’s Alex
Phil [4:21PM]: What is e like???
Phil felt bad that his first reaction was an overwhelming sense of relief. His workload had radically increased since he first got to London, and between his work at the BBC and his hours at the coffee shop, Phil was struggling to stay on top of his channel. Sometime in the last month or two, youtube — the thing that was supposed to be his main job — had started feeling like a side hobby.
Phil’s phone buzzed with Emmalee’s response, and then buzzed and buzzed and buzzed and buzzed.
Emmalee [4:25PM]: Hipster, 18, not going to uni. E’s never baristaed before but e just moved out of eir parents’ house and it didn’t sound like a great situation so I wanted to give em a chance.
Emmalee [4:25PM]: And dw, I asked in the interview how e felt about famous people and I kid you not e said “like Ned Sheerman?”
Emmalee [4:26PM]: So I don’t think you or Dan will have any trouble with em
Emmalee [4:26PM]: But if e’s weird about it, let me know and I’ll talk to em
Phil laughed, another wave of relief loosening some of the knots in his stomach, and was grateful that Emmalee had prioritized asking that. Really, if Phil didn’t like Emmalee so much, both as a coworker and a friend, he probably would have quit weeks ago. Maybe once this new person was trained, Phil would talk to her about cutting down his hours.
Scrolling through the rest of his unread messages, Phil felt like everyone he’d ever been sort-of friends with over the years had texted him about getting papped with Dan. Phil marked most of the messages as read or deleted them without opening. He didn’t particularly need to hear what his uni classmates and distant youtube acquaintances and ex-coworkers thought about the picture.
He hovered over a text from an unknown number. The text preview — hey phillie bop! sorry to bug u but i got ur number from — confused him. No one in his life had ever called him Phillie Bop, and he couldn’t think of anyone that didn’t have his phone number that people in his life would trust enough to pass it on to.
Only one way to find out, he supposed.
0118 246 7321 [1:14PM]: hey phillie bop! so sorry to bug you but I got your number from louise. I know she said she heard from dan so I know he’s not like DEAD but he’s not responding to anyone else’s messages so I just wanted to make sure he’s okay. sometimes being ~famous~ is a lot for him
0118 246 7321 [1:18PM]: this is adaline btw
Phil’s eyes popped when he realized the message was from Dan’s sister. Thank god Phil didn’t delete the text without reading it. He quickly saved her as a contact and tried to figure out how to respond.
He didn’t particularly want to talk about Dan behind his back, especially without his permission. But at the same time, Phil understood where Adaline was coming from and knew that she genuinely cared about Dan — and got the sense that Adaline was one of the few people in Dan’s life that he was honest with. Phil typed out a response, doing his best to toe the line between being loyal to Dan and saying enough that Adaline could stop worrying.
Phil [4:32PM]: Hey Adaline! I just saw this, sorry. We had a quiet day hanging out at the hotel. Neither of us checked our phones until about an hour ago, so we only just found out about the picture. I think he’s handling it okay. We talked about it some and he’s in the shower now. I can tell him to check in when you when he’s out if you want?
Adaline: [4:34PM]: HI PHIL!
Adaline: [4:34PM]: thanks for responding. no worries about having him text me, I just wanted to check
Adaline: [4:35PM]: also, I lived with that man for fifteen years. he’s never been quiet a day in his life
Adaline: [4:35PM]: unless you found a different way to shut him up, in which case GROSS but also YAY
The shower was still running after Phil responded to Adaline, so he switched his attention away from his personal messages and to the slew of emails in his BBC inbox. Skimming the first email, his attention caught on lines like leverage your current spike in popularity and additional celebrity interviews before he decided to just flag it — along with the other half dozen — to read over in more detail on the plane tomorrow. He accepted the meeting invites, since he didn’t think there was any hope of getting out of them, and added them to his calendar.
By the time Phil was done managing the most urgent of his notifications, the shower was still on. Concerned, Phil closed his laptop and chucked it on the bed, making his way over to the bathroom door. He hesitated for a second, listening, but all he heard was the rainfall of the shower.
“Dan?” Phil asked, rapping his knuckles lightly on the door. “Are you trying to turn into a mermaid?”
He was relieved to hear a muffled laugh, even if it did sound kind of hoarse. “Yes, I’m looking for Prince Eric,” Dan joked, and that — that was good to hear. Phil didn’t actually think Dan was hurt in the bathroom, but Phil had been growing increasingly concerned that Dan was upset in the bathroom. He couldn’t be too upset if he was joking about Disney princes, though.
“He is hot,” Phil agreed sagely.
“Do you need the toilet? Sorry, I’ll be out in a minute.” Phil chose to temporarily ignore the fact that Dan’s voice sounded kind of brittle.
“I’m good, just checking on you.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
The shower ran for another five minutes — Phil was glad he didn’t have to use the toilet — and the bathroom door stayed shut for another ten before Dan finally emerged. He was back in the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, black joggers and a plain black tshirt, but now his hair was a sopping, curly mop on top of his head and his skin was dewy, likely with the arsenal of skincare products that Dan had unloaded onto the bathroom counter yesterday.
As Dan got closer, Phil also noticed that his eyes were distinctly red, bloodshot in a way that he suspected wasn’t from the heat of the shower or an errant drop of product, especially in tandem with the scrunched set of Dan’s shoulders.
“Come here, darling,” Phil said softly, opening his arms and beckoning Dan forward. Dan shuffled his way over to Phil, not quite making eye contact. He sat sideways on Phil’s lap, his long legs spilling over the side of the chair, his side pressing into the length of Phil’s chest, his head burrowing down into the crook of Phil’s neck. Phil wrapped his arms around Dan, one around his shoulder and one around his waist, and pulled him closer. “You okay?”
Dan nodded, his wet hair tickling Phil’s neck. “Yeah, sorry. I just meant to, like, go to the bathroom and the next thing I knew, I was taking a half hour long shower.”
“That’s okay.”
Dan was silent for a moment before, tentatively, saying, “I think I just needed a few minutes to process? I swear I’m not actually freaking out, but sometimes when I have a lot of emotions I just kind of need to… be alone and cry. Sorry. Again.”
Phil squeezed Dan tightly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Dan, you don’t need to apologize for having emotions or taking time to deal with them,” Phil explained gently, his heart breaking a little for this soft boy who thought he needed to apologize for being human.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Phil’s gaze drifted to the clock, and he considered their options. Without dislodging Dan, Phil pulled up the maps app on his phone and did a search for nearby restaurants, taking note of a casual Indian place less than a block away. Phil was pretty sure that Indian was Dan’s favorite takeaway option, even if Dan did purport to like sampling all of the world’s dips equally.
“I have about two hours before I need to start setting up for my liveshow. There’s an Indian place around the corner. We could order takeaway or eat there, if you want.” Phil hoped giving Dan an easy choice would settle his head some.
Dan lifted his head, blinking blearily at the clock. He seemed to think over the option, quiet for a long moment before speaking. “Fuck it. Let’s eat there. I think I need to get out of this hotel room and see some natural light.”
Patting Dan’s hip, Phil urged him up. “Sounds good to me. Do you want to change first?”
Dan eyed their clothes before rolling his entire head back with a groan. “Ugh, we probably should. Shouldn’t make it too obvious we’ve been in the hotel all day in case we get papped.”
“Fair enough,” Phil agreed easily, tugging off his joggers and swapping them for a pair of more stylish canvas pants while Dan hopped into a tight pair of ripped jeans. Phil raked his gaze over Dan appreciatively, his eyes catching on the flash of skin exposed by one of the highest rips, one that salaciously wrapped around the inside of his thigh. There, framed by black denim and stark against Dan’s milky skin, was a mottled, purple bruise. Without thinking, Phil reached out, and thumbed over the mark.
“I don’t remember doing this,” Phil said, pressing a little harder to draw Dan’s attention to it. To his surprise, he was rewarded with a throaty groan.
“Really? Because I sure fucking do,” Dan scoffed, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.
“Sorry. I should ask before I mark you up, and I keep just… doing it instead.”
Dan shook his head. “No, it’s fine,” he said quickly. Too quickly.
“Darling,” Phil reprimanded pointedly, attempting to coax the truth out of Dan with a single word.
Dan closed his eyes, his head dropping back again. “God, honesty is the worst,” he grumbled before looking back, seemingly steeling himself. “You don’t have to ask. I like it when you leave marks on me. If I’m going somewhere where they’re not appropriate, I’ll tell you or I can use coverup or whatever. But it’s not like I exactly work a traditional job where people are going to care if I’ve got massive hickeys on my neck or whatever. If anything, it feeds into the whole”— Dan waved his hand in the direction of his guitar—“image. I think your reputation stands to suffer more than mine.”
Phil felt a slow, proud smile spread across his face. Dan tried so hard, was so eager to be good, and Phil appreciated it. “Thank you for telling me that. You’re so good for me.” Experimentally, Phil pressed on the mark once more, properly hard this time since it seemed to get a positive reaction last time.
And as Phil suspected—
“Jesus fuck, Phil,” Dan groaned. “If you keep that up, we’re not going to have time for dinner.”
Phil let go of Dan’s thigh, bravely resisting the urge to drop to his knees and suck a matching mark onto the skin exposed by the slit of the other leg. He grabbed Dan’s jacket and threw it at him. “Come on, let’s go.”
**********
While sitting at a small table near the window of the crowded, dim restaurant, Dan and Phil talked in hushed voices and established the specifics of what they were and weren’t willing to share with Phil’s audience. Productive afternoon: fine. Slutty dancing in the club: their ears only. Dinner at the revolving restaurant: be vague on the details. Phil messily ate with one hand, keeping his other on Dan’s thigh, thumbing over that damn stretch of skin and that damn angry purple mark almost possessively. The food was great — a solid four stars from Dan — and between the two of them, they demolished three appetizers and three entrees. Sex, as it turned out, made them pretty hungry.
They got back to the room with half an hour to spare before Phil had to log on for his liveshow. The closer the clock ticked to eight, the more Phil’s stomach churned. He probably could have done without eating the second helping of aloo gobi; it wasn’t helping matters. He didn’t usually get worked up over interacting with his audience, not even live, but then again, there weren’t usually quite so many landmines to consider.
Dan had had an emotional-enough few days, though, and Phil didn’t want to add to Dan’s stress — or worse, make him feel guilty again for “making Phil’s life harder”. So Phil focused on logging into his laptop and getting his tweet ready, on setting up his computer and making sure nothing too damning was in the shot.
“What are you going to do while I’m live?” Phil asked as he shoved Dan’s guitar case a few feet to the right — he didn’t need anything in the frame that would prompt more questions about Dan, and he figured it was best to try to keep the hotel room situation ambiguous. If it were fully up to Phil, he’d just tell everyone that yes, they’re together, but he understood why Dan wanted his coming out to stand on its own for a bit.
Dan pulled his switch out of his backpack, waving it in the air before plopping down on the unmade bed. Seeing as they hadn’t left the room until dinnertime, the housekeepers hadn’t been able to get in to do their job.The bedding was fucked, but Phil couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Zelda?” Phil asked, settling into the armchair.
“Obvs,” Dan agreed. He studied Phil for an uncomfortably long moment, his brows furrowing. “Hey,” he finally said. “Are you okay?”
Phil dropped his gaze to his screen; he’d never been a particularly good liar, and he suspected that, by now, Dan knew him well enough to see through him. He launched the younow website. “Of course.” Sent the tweet.
Before Dan could ask any follow up questions, Younow conveniently dinged that he was live, effectively ending the conversation. Within thirty seconds, there were already as many people watching as Phil had on a good night. By the one minute mark, the audience was bigger than he’d ever seen.
“Um, hi guys!” He waved at the camera, hoping his voice didn’t give away how nervous he was.
Phil spent the first quarter of the show chatting about the safe topics he had listed out earlier — the gross muffin he got at the London airport, the Indian food they just ate, what it was like backstage on the Tonight Show. Each anecdote solidly confirmed that he was here in New York, that he was with Dan in New York, without Phil having to actually make a proper statement about it.
Good. That was good.
Or it was good, at least, until his audience started talking about Dan’s late night appearance — Phil hadn’t realized that it would spark so many questions that he not only didn’t want to answer, but didn’t even want to go anywhere near.
mostlyphangirling: did you see that dan said his perfect date was mario kart… didn’t you once say your ideal date was video games and pajamas?
amazingdaphne: so like is that cuddly picture from after filming fallon or what?
plantdaddy: pleaseeee talk about dan lecturing *the straights* about bi erasure bc it was AMAZING
Phil scanned for something tame, something that wasn’t about romance or sex. He was debating answering the one about bi-erasure, even though Phil wasn’t bi and he tried not to speak for identities that weren’t his — plus he doubted he could say anything nearly as articulate as what Dan had said.
In the nick of time, his eyes caught on an innocent-enough question and he leaped on it.
“Danielahowls loves Dan’s new song and asks if I got to hear it before Friday night. I did actually! I was around when he wrote some of the instrument bits, and he sent me a voice note of the chorus from when they were working on it in the studio, so that was pretty cool.”
It was clearly the wrong question to pick.
Suddenly, the chat was full of comments about Dan’s album, about his breakup with Isabella, about how Phil had to be the person Dan talked about liking. About how Dan had apparently — somewhat notoriously, even — talked about how he never shared his work-in-progress music with anyone other than his manager or studio team, which was news to Phil.
And Phil just— froze.
The chat kept scrolling, almost too fast for Phil to read thanks to the— oh god, 52,000 people watching. Intellectually, Phil knew that his youtube videos and radio show were watched by more people than that, but something about seeing a real-time number that large, about knowing that the only thing standing between him and breaking Dan’s trust was Phil’s objectively terrible brain-to-mouth filter…
And fuck— how much time had gone by since Phil said something? It felt like a long time. It had to be a long time, right?
He forced his eyes to focus — his vision had gone blurry sometime during the last however-long — and found the tone of the chat had shifted. People weren’t hung up on asking about Dan’s performance or his album or his recent breakup, but now they were asking all kinds of questions about him that Phil didn’t know how to answer
twinkyphil: r u okay?
lionessphilipa: is the stream frozen orrrrrrr?
phantastictrash: omg do u think dan is in the room again?
Phil tried to make himself say something. Really, he did. He just didn’t know what to say, couldn’t come up with anything that would derail the chat enough to feel like he had control again. All he could think about was the fact that more and more time had passed, and he hadn’t said anything, and he still didn’t have anything to say.
In the end, it wasn’t a comment, or his own willpower, or a stroke of genius that shook Phil out his stupor. It was the sudden, jarring collision of something ramming into, and then bouncing off of, the side of his armchair. His attention snapped into clarity, and he realized that the something was the desk chair. That Dan had wheeled it into the shot and was now settling into it with all the casualness in the world.
“Hello Phil’s audience,” Dan gave a little two-fingered wave at the camera. “We thought it might be fun to have a surprise guest on Phil’s liveshow, but I almost missed my cue.” He turned his attention to Phil, his eyes searching Phil’s face far more than was probably considered casual, and Phil knew the audience would probably notice. “Sorry I left you hanging there.” His attention turned back to the camera. “Anyway, I think you were going to talk about the new song I shared on Friday, right?”
Phil was floored at how smoothly Dan was covering up his mini-meltdown, at how effortlessly Dan was taking the blame and shifting the conversation away from all the topics that made Phil freeze up.
Dan continued to chatter on, seemingly content to let Phil recover in silence for a few minutes. “When is Tell Me I’m a Wreck going to be out to stream?” Dan read off the chat. “Great question, Abigail. Hopefully by the end of the week. I didn’t actually plan on debuting a song this early, and I’m not happy with the version we have recorded. But I’m in the studio constantly these days, so new music is coming along nicely. Though I’m sure my record label would appreciate it if I was less of a control-freak. There’d be new music a lot faster if that was the case. ”
Phil was amazed at Dan’s ability to talk endlessly, somehow without ever giving anything of real importance away, but also without ever seeming like he wasn’t trying to give anything real away. He was interesting and charming and captivating, and the audience was eating out of the palm of his hands. Yes, there were still the influx of comments asking intrusive questions about their love lives — if anything, there were more of those kinds of comments now that they were both on the screen — but Dan managed to glaze over them like they didn’t exist, easily extracting the most innocent questions from the chat and seamlessly switching the topic on his own when there weren’t any appropriate questions on screen.
Dan meandered through a whole array of topics, somehow managing to talk about their dinner at the revolving restaurant for almost fifteen minutes without ever giving anything personal about the night away. He told everyone all about the food, the champagne, the view… each time looping Phil in with specific, pointed questions that Phil was able to answer without fear of accidentally talking about how Dan kept playing footsie with him under the table or how Phil ate most of his dinner one-handed so he could keep a hand on Dan’s thigh or how horny Dan apparently became after a single glass of champagne.
At one point, while telling a fairly-exaggerated version of how much they ate at dinner earlier tonight, Dan brought his leg up onto the corner of his chair, his foot resting near his bum and his knee tipping out to the side to make room for his gesticulating hands. Phil watched it happen, unable to focus his attention on anything other than Dan in his element, and was powerless to stop his gaze from tracing down Dan’s body, from catching on the exposed stretches of skin through the rips of his pants.
And Phil was completely powerless to stop himself from staring at the hickey on Dan’s thigh. What the fuck was Dan thinking? Was Dan thinking? Had Dan somehow forgotten about the very obvious hickey on his thigh?
After a second — probably a second or two too long, if Phil was being honest — Phil ripped his eyes away from Dan and forced himself to look at the chat, steeling himself for whatever comments his blatant staring at Dan’s thigh might bring.
Comment after comment made it clear that the chat had noticed the same bit of skin Phil had —
river46: omg am i imagining things or is that a giant HICKEY on dan’s thigh
philstan9: ummmmmm p sure that’s not a bruise
howellyoudoing: Welp I guess SOMEONE has moved on
terminalphannie: GUYS DID YOU SEE PHILS FACE WHEN HE SAW THE HICKEY, THAT IS THE FACE OF A TURNED ON MAN [lightbulb emoji]
Phil was not turned on by the hickey, at least not right now. Affecting what was hopefully a casual look on his face, Phil turned to look at Dan. Dan, who looked just as at-ease as ever with his relaxed shoulders and wildly-moving hands.
Dan, who quirked a single eyebrow and flashed Phil the fastest, barely-there smile — just a smug upturn of his lips that was there and gone so quickly that Phil almost thought he imagined it.
“Alright guys, it’s getting late and Phil and I have an early flight tomorrow so we should get to bed.”
The chat did not love Dan’s timing, multiple people accusing him of ending the show because of what they’d already dubbed the hickey incident. But when Phil looked at the clock, he realized it was quarter past nine — a full fifteen minutes past his usual runtime.
They signed off, shouting out goodbyes to some of the viewers (the ones who weren’t still commenting about the hickey anyway) as Dan ended the livestream.
When the laptop clicked shut, Dan immediately turned to face Phil fully, his legs criss-crossing sideways in the chair in a way that someone well over six feet should not be able to comfortably do.
“Are you okay?” Dan asked, brow furrowed as he surveyed Phil with such scrutiny that Phil got the impression he’d been holding it back this whole time.
Phil hesitated. Dan had had a hard enough day — week, really — without Phil dumping all of his own drama all over him. He didn’t want to lie to Dan, but he didn’t want to cause him more stress, either. So he settled for something that was true, but hopefully wouldn’t turn Phil’s minor freakout into a whole thing. “I’m good now. Thanks for the save.”
“Sure,” Dan said easily, like spontaneously taking over Phil’s liveshow for him really was no big deal. His forehead was still wrinkled in concern though, his eyes still scanning over Phil like he was trying to solve a mystery. He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. Finally, he said, “But… can I ask what happened? You seemed kind of off before the show and then…”
Phil shrugged, once again reaching for something honest but, hopefully, dismissive enough that they could get on with their night. “I just got nervous. Having you there helped.”
There was a long pause, like maybe Dan was waiting for Phil to say more, but Phil was really hoping to avoid that. Avoid upsetting him.
“Urghhhh.” Dan’s head fell back with his groan. From this angle, Phil could just barely see his lips scrunched up, his eyes squeezed tight. A few seconds went by — with a few more indecipherable sounds from Dan — before Dan abruptly looked back at Phil, his face a solid picture of steeled determination. “But you said the way to make fights go away is to talk about what you’re thinking. Or feeling. Or whatever”
Phil jerked back, unable to curb the surprised movement even though he hated the way it made fear flicker in Dan’s eyes. “Are we having a fight right now?”
Dan averted his gaze, staring at something vaguely to Phil’s right, and half-heartedly shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. It feels like we might be if you don’t tell me what the f—” Dan cut himself off, swallowed, and looked Phil in the eye. “—What’s bothering you.”
Phil bit back his automatic response, the one he would give most people in this situation — that of course he was fine, he was always fine, he was AmazingPhil after all. But this was Dan, and they’d just had a whole fight about Dan honestly communicating earlier in the week, and Phil knew Dan deserved better than that.
“Okay,” Phil nodded. “That’s fair.” He shifted around in the armchair so he could face Dan directly, which wasn’t nearly as easy as Dan made it look even though the armchair was significantly bigger than the desk chair. But after a moment of shuffling, he got one leg pulled up in front of him, mostly splayed against the back of the chair, the other kicking out of the seat towards Dan.
Dan waited silently, and Phil wasn’t sure if it was an impatient silence or not, but as soon as Phil was settled, Dan rested his forearm on the uneven ledge formed by both of their armrests, his hand briefly dangling in the small space between Phil’s hips and the side of his chair before he turned his palm up and offered it to Phil. Phil accepted the gesture with a small smile, intertwining their fingers even though the angle meant he had to twist his wrist around a little. The discomfort was worth it, though, because as soon as their palms touched, Phil could see a bit of tension drain out of Dan’s shoulders.
“I was fine at dinner, but by the time we got back here, I was nervous. Like, nervous enough that I wished I hadn’t eaten. And I’m not usually nervous before a liveshow, but there was so much that I wasn’t supposed to talk about that I knew everyone would want to talk about. And then the chat was— well, you saw the chat. And I just kind of froze.”
Dan rolled his lips between his teeth, the pink skin turning white like he was actively biting down, like maybe he was trying to hold back his first reaction. From someone other than Dan, that might worry Phil, but instead, Phil appreciated — was proud of, even — Dan for trying to temper the unhealthy coping mechanisms he’d come to rely on.
“Okay. Thanks for sharing that with me,” he finally said, sounding like he was reading off a script but looking no less genuine for it. “I’m confused, though, because I told you that you could tell people if you wanted to.”
That was, Phil thought, oversimplifying what Dan had said to the point of losing meaning. Careful to modulate his voice, to make sure it didn’t come out like a rebuke, Phil gently corrected him. “Sort of. You told me that if I had to say something, I could say what I wanted and you preferred it to be the truth.” Phil remembered the exact words — had no choice but to remember the exact words — because they had been playing on a loop in Phil’s head since Dan had said them.
“Yeah? Same thing?” It wasn’t quite a huff, but it was a near thing.
“It’s not though. If you have to… isn’t the same as I want you to… or I’m okay with you…” Phil explained. “And then you disappeared into the bathroom for long enough to use up the entire hotel’s hot water. Can you see how that didn’t inspire confidence?”
Dan tipped his head back and forth a few times, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the back of Phil’s hand. “Fine. Yes. I can.” Dan finally relented.
Phil rearranged their hands, moving so they were still clasped together, but this time in a way that wouldn’t make the tips of Phil’s fingers go to sleep. “Do you actually want to tell people? Or were you just stressed when you agreed to that?”
Another long pause from Dan; Phil was coming to expect them. “Can we come back to that after we finish talking about the liveshow?”
Phil wasn’t particularly keen to talk about the liveshow. He knew it wasn’t his finest moment and he’d like to move on from it if possible, but he wasn’t going to do anything that would discourage Dan from having a healthy conversation, so he — begrudgingly — nodded and said, “Sure.”
“Why were you so nervous about the liveshow?” Dan asked immediately, like the question had been on the tip of his tongue. He tutted and added, “I mean, obviously I know why. You said why. But can you… help me understand what was going on in your head better?”
“I can try,” Phil offered. Phil paused, being careful with his words to make sure they were neutral and not assigning blame, because this really wasn’t Dan’s fault and Phil didn’t want him to think it was. “Before the liveshow, it was the anxiety of knowing that the chat would probably be really focused on one thing and how to handle that. But I told myself it would be fine because we’d planned out safe topics and stuff.”
Dan hummed and nodded but didn’t interrupt, so Phil kept going.
“And then we got on the subject of your music, which I thought would be fine! But the chat was filled with messages about your breakup and people speculating, and all I could think about was the fact that I didn’t know what to say, and then I couldn’t say anything. It was like the words wouldn’t come out.”
“Okaayyy,” Dan said slowly, thoughtfully. “I heard you say— you were anxious before the livestream.” The words came out slightly stilted and clunky, again like Dan was reading unfamiliar lines in a play, but his face was earnest. “Why didn’t you talk to me before the liveshow started? We could have figured something out together.”
Phil offered Dan a soft smile. “You’ve already had a terrible week and had to put up with so much drama. I didn’t want to cause you any more stress.”
Dan visibly balked, his mouth dropping open with a dramatic aaah-aa noise. “Your feelings aren’t a source of stress for me. I want to know about them.”
Chagrined, Phil conceded, “I get that. I just don’t want to be one of the things that make you unhappy, I guess.”
“Phil, look. I realize we haven’t known each other very long, but you make me happier than probably literally anyone else in my life. Like, every day, without even trying. You don’t have to—” Dan cut himself off again, licking his lips before he restarted. “Remember how last time we fought, I said that I needed to trust that you’d support me?”
Phil nodded.
“Okay, well, that goes both ways. You need to trust that I’ll support you, too. Whatever that looks like for you. I would have helped you, I dunno, process your feelings”—another phrase that came out like a foreign language, too clunky to sound natural—“or we could have actually planned for me to join you, maybe from the beginning if that would have made it easier for you.”
“That… probably would have helped,” Phil conceded. But that did bring them to another thing he was concerned about, something he wasn’t quite sure how to talk about without bringing up bad memories for Dan. He tried for a subtle approachX. “I’m aware that you’re more famous than me.”
Dan blinked at him a few times, brows scrunched in confusion, before letting out a short, incredulous laugh. “Wow, the stupid book did not prepare me for this.”
Now it was Phil’s turn to stare at Dan in confusion. “Book? What book?”
Dan rolled his eyes, a self-deprecating smile on his lips. “The stupid conflict resolution book I’m reading.”
“When did you have time to read that? We’ve been together since…” Phil trailed off, not sure what the polite way to say since I made it clear that you needed to work on your conflict resolution skills was.
Dan must have gotten his point, though. “I listened to an audiobook on the plane. Well, part of an audiobook, anyway.”
“Wow, Howell, were you planning on getting in another fight with me that quickly?” Phil teased.
“Shut up,” Dan rolled his eyes again, but this time there was nothing but affection in the gesture. “It was just on my mind and it was bothering me that I… apparently handle conflict in really unhealthy ways, so I bought an audiobook. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Phil thought it was, in fact, a pretty big deal. He was pretty sure that Dan of Last Week wouldn’t have said the words I handle conflict in unhealthy ways, but Phil didn’t want to make him feel self-conscious by pointing that out.
Instead, Phil leaned in and pressed a soft, tender kiss to Dan’s mouth that was more smile than kiss. “Thank you,” he mumbled against Dan’s lips.
“Fuck off,” Dan mumbled back. But Phil could feel him smiling too, could feel Dan’s free hand thread its way into Phil’s hair, could feel the gentle pressure against the back of his head that encouraged him to kiss Dan a little harder.
Phil indulged him for a minute, plying him with long, languid kisses without any heat but with plenty of feeling. When Dan licked along the edge of Phil’s lower lip, though, Phil pulled back, just enough to rest his forehead against Dan’s.
“Hey now, no more of that before we’re done talking,” Phil chided with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dan whined, no actual annoyance in his voice. “You said I’m, uh, more famous than you?” His eyes flicked down, like maybe he was thinking about kissing Phil again, so Phil leaned back, sitting upright again so there was a bit of distance between them. “Is that, uh, something you’re… insecure about?” Dan continued, his shoulders tense.
“No!” Phil exclaimed. “God no.” He tempered his volume. “I meant more that, ya know, I know you just got out of a relationship where someone was kind of… using you for clout.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Phil swayed his leg back and forth a few times — it was getting numb sandwiched between him in the chair, but he didn’t want to disrupt the conversation (and Dan’s, frankly pretty shocking, improvement in communication) by moving them to the bed. “I don’t want you to ever feel like I might be doing the same thing. I mean, it’s clear that interacting with you is good for my content. Like, full disclosure, I’ve got almost a million more followers since we started interacting publicly—”
“—As you should, because you make amazing content—”
“—But,” Phil emphasized over Dan’s interjection. “I don’t want you to think that’s why I’m in this relationship even a little bit.”
Dan blinked slowly at Phil. “I definitely did not think that, but thanks for clarifying, I guess.”
“Good. But I know how brains can be, and I don’t want you to, I dunno, look at my follower count one day and notice how much it’s increased and start to wonder.”
“Phil,” Dan said flatly, “I didn’t even notice that Isabella was using me for fame and she literally paraded me around London like a fucking show pony. There was literally no risk of that.”
Dan’s rebuttal was, truth be told, kind of heartbreaking, but Phil didn’t think that diving into that can of worms would help right now. So instead, he opted for raising his eyebrows, a smirk playing on his lips. “Dan, that is not the ringing endorsement you think it is,” he teased.
Dan rolled his eyes. “Shut up Philip.”
Smiling, Phil huffed and tried again, more serious this time. “You clearly think it’s ridiculous now, but can you just, like, promise to talk to me if you ever feel like I’m ever taking advantage of your fame? Even if you don’t think I’m doing it on purpose? I don’t want this to become a thing that drives a wedge between us.”
“Yes, Daddy, I promise,” Dan said sarcastically. “Are we done yet?”
Phil leveled Dan with a flat look. “One more topic,” he reminded him.
Dan dropped his head forward dramatically, eyes closed, and let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “Fineeeeee. You wanted to talk about— coming out or whatever?”
“Or whatever,” Phil agreed.
“Ugh,” Dan whined. “We’ve already talked about so many hard things though. Can’t we be done?”
“We’re talking about it tonight,” Phil said sternly. Then, reconsidering, added, “Unless you actually need more time to think about it, in which case, yes of course we can be done for the night.”
Groaning, Dan twisted in his chair and dramatically slid down until his butt was hanging off the edge and his neck was bent at an ungodly angle against the back. “No,” he grumbled. “I don’t actually need more time. I’m just tired and sick of talking about important things.”
Taking a second, Phil surveyed Dan, cataloguing the twitchiness in his hands and feet, the tension in his shoulders, the extra wildness to his curls. And then he ran through the last few minutes, realizing that Dan’s words were becoming less measured, his jokes a little more flippant. Impulsively, Phil decided to try something. It might be an awkward and uncomfortable disaster, or it might smooth out the jagged edges of Dan’s energy. Either way, Phil figured, he’d know for next time.
Phil stood up, his right leg protesting about being bent awkwardly for so long, and extended a hand to Dan. “Come on. We can take a break while we pack and get ready for bed, and finish the conversation once we lay down.”
“Really?” Dan asked, his voice mystified, his eyes wide and hopeful.
“Really really,” Phil agreed, shaking his hand at Dan. “Now come on.”
Dan put his hand in Phil’s and let Phil pull him up. He stepped into Phil’s space as soon as he was standing, his hands coming to rest on Phil’s hips, his lips pressing a clumsy kiss to Phil’s mouth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now go pack,” Phil instructed with a light slap to the side of Dan’s arse. The spark of interest in Dan’s eyes was unmistakable — but even if it wasn’t, Dan’s high-pitched squeak was pretty damning. Phil gave Dan a stern look.
Dan’s lips quirked up in the ghost of a grin, his eyes quickly flitting down Phil’s body before he made eye contact. “Yes sir,” Dan said, a little smug, a little turned on.
“God, you’re such a brat sometimes.”
“Pretty sure you’re into it,” Dan shot back.
And— yeah. Phil couldn’t deny that.
They went their separate ways for a bit, each collecting the remaining odds and ends they had strewn about the room. Dan, Phil noticed, checked three times that his black notebook was tucked securely into the easy-access pocket of his backpack. For only being in the room for technically a little over twenty four hours, they certainly had sprawled their shit around. Phil ended up with some of Dan’s clothes in his suitcase, and he was pretty sure his laptop charger was in Dan’s backpack, not his own, but he figured it didn’t matter — they could sort it out when they got home.
When Phil had suggested pausing their conversation, he’d been a little worried that the interim might be awkward, that there would be lingering unresolved tension. But Dan took to the break like a fish to water, easily filling the silence with quips about their mess and peppering Phil with questions about the new video game Phil was playing.
By the time they were brushing their teeth, Dan was relaxed, and the itchy, unsettled air that had been slowly consuming him during their conversation was now noticeably absent.
They settled in the bed, Phil sitting against the headboard with Dan’s back pressed against his chest. Phil’s legs bracketed Dan’s, one of Dan’s ankles hooked over Phil’s shin. Even though the break had originally been for Dan’s benefit, Phil found that he was actually grateful for it, too — if for no other reason than it meant he’d get to have this part of the conversation with Dan in his arms.
“No one has ever let me just, like, take a break in the middle of a conversation like that,” Dan said, and Phil figured that was as good of a reopening as any.
“I wasn’t sure how it’d go,” Phil confessed. “But it seems like it helped?”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed, confirming Phil’s suspicions. “My brain gets all fuzzy when I have a lot of emotions, so talking about them… especially when I’m trying to be all healthy or whatever, it’s a lot of effort. Might have to work our way up to marathon-length intense conversations.”
Shrugging, Phil said, “Eh, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind taking a break when your brain needs it. We can save the marathons for sex.” The way he saw it, accommodating Dan so he could think clearly seemed like a bare minimum expectation for someone in a relationship with Dan, but he was well aware that the bar was on the ground in that regard.
Dan tipped his head back and puckered his lips up for a kiss. Phil obliged, dropping a quick peck to Dan’s lips. Apparently satisfied, Dan let his head return to its resting position on Phil’s chest.
Phil waited a moment, giving Dan some silence in case he wanted to speak first, but the seconds stretched on long enough that Phil started to say, “So about—” at the same time Dan said “I wanted to—”
They both cut themselves off, descending into giggles.
“Oh god, we’re the same person,” Dan said through laughter.
Smiling, Phil nuzzled his head into the crook of Dan’s neck, pressing a kiss to the edge of Dan’s t-shirt before hooking his head over Dan’s shoulder. “The same amazing person,” he said cheekily.
Without looking, Dan swatted his hand back, lighting whacking Phil’s shoulder. “You’re such a dweeb.”
“If I’m a dweeb, you’re a dweeb,” Phil pointed out.
“Listen—” Dan’s threatening tone was undermined by his inability to control the sound of his happiness.
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
“Sto-ooop,” Phil whined.
“Start.” And that — that was definitely a little bit Dan’s sex voice.
Phil blinked, thrown off but still smiling.
“Anyway. Hard cut,” Dan said, slicing his hands through the air. He made a funny little vurrppp noise, reminiscent of old technology. God, Phil adored this dork.
Phil let the mood settle for a moment and then offered, “You go first. I was just going to break the ice.”
“Sure,” Dan agreed. He inhaled a deep breath and blew it out of his mouth noisily. “Okay. I wanted to apologize for pushing for us to stay in the closet.”
Well that— that certainly wasn’t where Phil expected this conversation to start.
“What? No. You don’t have to apologize for that.” He appreciated the sentiment but, really, he didn’t think it was necessary.
“No, let me finish.” He didn’t sound frustrated exactly, but between the tense tone and the yield motion he made with his hands, Phil could tell Dan needed to get whatever this was off his chest.
So Phil snapped his mouth shut. He knew that Dan struggled with these kinds of conversations and wanted to give him the space to talk freely, even if he didn’t particularly need an apology from him.
“I didn’t realize that keeping us a secret was going to cause you anxiety. And— okay, when I wasn’t out yet, fine, that was one thing. But once I was out, I just made the decision for both of us that we should wait and didn’t really even hear your thoughts on it.”
“I told you, Dan,” Phil interjected. “I’m okay with following your lead. You had a good reason for waiting and that’s fine.”
“Sure, but not wanting my boyfriend to crash out during a liveshow is a good reason too.”
“I didn’t crash out,” Phil whined, a bit indignant.
Dan titled his head back, this time giving Phil a flat stare that was more humorous than threatening in its upside-down state.
“Okay, fine, I might have crashed out a little,” Phil conceded. “But that still doesn’t mean you have to be okay with telling everyone we’re dating before you’re ready.”
They lapsed into silence for a minute, Dan finding one of Phil’s hands with his, tapping his thumb and fingers along Phil’s. “I did mean it,” Dan said finally. “I would have been fine with it if you’d ended up launching our relationship in your liveshow.”
“Good to know. But also, I know you, Dan Howell. You’d rather curate an announcement for everyone to pour over, not just have me clumsily drop it in an emergency liveshow.”
“That’s— annoyingly accurate, actually.” Dan laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that took the edge off the self-deprecation. “I’m such a pretentious fuck sometimes.”
“I told you, I know you, Dan Howell.”
“God, shut it, Lester.” The words were joking, but they were followed by one of Dan’s hands clumsily reaching over his shoulder and covering Phil’s mouth — well, his eyes, and then his nose, and then his mouth, but still. It was an obvious enough clue that Phil did, in fact, shut it.
“I think,” Dan started slowly after a long minute had passed, “that making sure you feel comfortable and happy talking to your audience without you having to overanalyze every single thing you say is more important than me controlling the narrative or whatever.”
Phil opened his mouth to point out that both of their needs were important, but Dan continued on.
“To me, I mean. Like, I think it’s more important to me that you’re happy than to have the perfect coming out arc.” Dan’s gaze was focused straight ahead and his fingers were tapping a barely noticeable, fast rhythm on his thigh.
“Thank you,” Phil said softly. He pressed a soft kiss to Dan’s tense shoulder and felt it relax a little under his lips. “You’re a good boyfriend.”
From the up-close angle of laying on Dan’s shoulder, Phil watched Dan gnaw on his lower lip. The unsettled look on his face made Phil unsurprised when he said, “But maybe—” Dan cut himself off, and Phil gave him a quiet hum of encouragement. Phil felt him take a deep breath before saying, “Do you mind if I talk to Lou about it first?”
“Manager Louise or Friend Louise?” Phil asked, even though he supposed it didn’t really make a difference; he knew sharing with Louise was important to Dan, and had already accepted that she would probably know a lot more about Phil than he actually told her.
“Friend? Mostly? Maybe a bit of manager, but honestly, I don’t really care what Manager Louise has to say. The professional stuff is just the annoying side of work. But mainly, I guess, I just want to make sure… Louise always lectured me about putting Isabella’s needs first or whatever. And this feels like— I’m pretty sure this is the good kind of centering your partner’s needs, but it might be good to just… check.”
Phil blinked, a little stunned. “You called me your partner,” he pointed out. He knew it wasn’t the important part of what Dan said, but his brain had latched onto it and was genuinely unable to think about anything else.
“Yeah? So?” Dan sounded cavalier, maybe a touch confused.
“You haven’t called me your partner before,” Phil explained, though he felt like that was obvious.
Dan twisted sideways in Phil’s arms, flashing him a befuddled look. “I definitely have.”
“No,” Phil corrected. “You’ve called me your boyfriend.”
“Okay? So?” Dan’s eyes flitted around, nearly going cross-eyed in his attempts to scan Phil’s face. “They’re practically the same thing.”
Phil shrugged. “I feel like partner is more serious though. I liked it.”
The confusion melted into a softer look. Dan’s brows were still furrowed, but his eyes were fond and his parted mouth tipping up into a smile at the edges. His gaze flickered to Phil’s lips but he didn’t make any move to actually kiss him.
“Alright, par’dner,” Dan responded, belatedly, in a terrible American accent that was made all the more terrible by the affection seeping into his voice.
Phil rolled his eyes and kissed his forehead. “Of course you can talk to Louise,” Phil said, unable and unwilling to keep his humor at Dan’s antics out of his voice. He’d learned — was still learning — that Dan wasn’t confident being himself in a relationship, and he didn’t want to contribute to that, not even inadvertently.
“Word,” Dan said, this time in a bro-y accent, but it was overenunciated and sarcastic in a way that made it sound like thanks. “So what have we learned?”
Phil was surprised to hear his own words from their fight parroted back to him, but given how conscientious Dan has been with his phrasings, with his approach to their entire discussion, tonight, maybe Phil shouldn’t have been.
“I learned that you don’t actually suck at talking about hard things,” Phil offered with a laugh. It was a relief to see that Dan could actually communicate healthily, even if it looked a little different than other people Phil had been with in the past.
“Wowwwwwwww,” Dan drawled, clutching his chest dramatically.
“Hey! I said you don’t suck!”
“Honestly, that’s probably the biggest compliment I deserve.” Dan shrugged, and Phil kind of wished he could take his words back, because Dan had done much, much better than not sucking today, and he should know that. But Dan continued on, and Phil didn’t want to interrupt him. “I mean, I wanted to know what was going on with you, so that was probably most of why. But also, I dunno, I guess it’s not that hard with you. Like, you’re quiet and you shut up long enough for me to put my thoughts into the right words and you didn’t push me to keep talking when I needed a break.”
Quiet, Phil thought, was probably a kind euphemism for don’t scream by default. He gave Dan a soft smile and squeezed his hand before trying to lighten the mood a little. “Plus, I didn’t poke the bear before he had caffeine this time, I imagine that helped too.”
“Yes, that too,” Dan agreed with a laugh. “We also learned,” Dan said pointedly, “that this relationship goes both ways, and I’m here to support you too.”
Dan’s we learned suddenly felt a lot more like he meant Phil learned, but Phil appreciated that Dan didn’t call him out quite that directly. As it was, Dan was staring at him expectantly, like he was waiting for confirmation that Phil understood.
“I’ll talk to you next time,” Phil agreed. Before he could get too self-conscious, he moved the conversation along. “We learned about the mighty power of breaks, too.”
“Yes,” Dan agreed. “The break was good. Louise would probably support that over blowing you to get the conversation to stop.”
“Well, duh,” Phil agreed with a small chuckle and an eyeroll. More serious, he pressed a kiss to Dan’s cheek and gave him the honest compliment that he deserved. “Thank you for trying so hard tonight. You were so, so good.”
“Mmm,” Dan hummed, a small pleased noise, his eyes closing softly with the praise. “It wasn’t too bad.”
“Good.” Phil pressed another kiss to Dan’s skin, this time to the sensitive patch of skin beneath Dan’s earlobe. Then he pushed and prodded Dan until they were laying down, Phil on his back, Dan half on his side with his upper body sprawled across Phil’s chest. They were quiet for a long while, long enough for Phil to assume Dan had fallen asleep, when Dan whispered, “Thank you for somehow making a conversation about our public image fun.”
“Anytime, love.”












