Chapter Text
Working Out
"What if I got a personal trainer?" Dan asks.
He's sprawled out on the couch in a t-shirt and boxers, laptop on his stomach and legs over Phil's lap. Phil's laptop is across his shins, the discomfort of the metal surface offset by how pleasantly warming it is to his skin.
Phil gives him the saddest sad-Voldemort pout. "Don't."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll get really fit and meet someone at the gym who is equally fit and run off to be fit people having fit people sex and I'll just waste away all alone and pining."
Dan laughs. "Well, lucky for you, my aesthetic remains pale and scrawny."
"Good." Phil nods to himself and looks back down at his computer.
"But you wouldn't want a boyfriend with a six pack?" Dan asks after a few beats of comfortable silence. "Some eye candy?"
Phil gives him a surprised look, like he's actually realizing Dan might be slightly serious. "You're already eye candy."
He leans over and pokes where Dan's dimples form, knowing Dan can't resist smiling when he does that. He bats Phil's hand away with a laughing, "Stop that!"
"Seriously, though. The only six pack you need is... a six-pack of Ribena," he declares.
"That's not even-" Dan rolls his eyes. "But, come on, seriously. The pudge can't be attractive, now can it?"
"Pudge?" Phil looks genuinely bothered. "Please tell me you don't actually think that."
Dan's cheeks go a little splodgy pink.
"Are you gonna make me get all romantical and tell you that I think every bit of you is perfect and you don't need to change?" Phil asks, whining slightly. He puts his laptop aside and moves Dan's out of the way, crawling up the length of him to straddle Dan. "Because I will, if you need it, but I'd have to put pants on to go buy all the rose petals, and my lips will get numb halfway through kissing every inch of your silken skin..."
Dan laughs, leaning up and kissing Phil. "Nah. I think a blowjob will do."
Phil gets to his feet with purposeful speed, holding a hand down to help Dan up. "One ego-reaffirming blowjob, coming right up."
"We have to move?" Dan pouts.
"Yeah, of course. Gonna need room to work on this one. Couch is only good for quickies." Phil explains with a serious expression, while Dan listens and tries not to laugh.
"Well, far me it from me to undermine rules of polite blowjob society." Dan shuts his laptop and gets to his feet.
Separation Anxiety
"Remember how once in a while we start to worry that we're a little too attached and it's unhealthy for us to never be apart and one of us goes and signs on for a job that the other isn't doing and ends up in a different country feeling painfully alone and awkward?" Dan says all in one breath as soon as Phil answers the phone.
"Only one of us does that, but since I suspect there's a point you're driving toward, I'll say yes for the sake of speeding it along," Phil says.
"I miss you." Dan whines.
"Do you miss me or do you miss the idea of me?" Phil tries for a philosophical angle.
"Both," Dan admits. "It's nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with, but it's always nicest when it's you."
"Daniel, that's almost romantic of you." Phil's smiling a little, settled onto the sofa with the phone in his hand. He rests his head on the pillow "House doesn't feel quite right without you."
"I don't feel quite right without you."
They indulge in a shared moment of emotional wallowing.
"Only another day now," Phil says. "Should I meet you at the airport for a dramatic reunion scene?"
"I'm sure the fifty fangirls with cameras would appreciate it."
"You exaggerate. Five, tops."
"But they'll sound like a crowd of fifty."
"That one I'll allow you."
The comfortable back and forth is soothing.
"Maybe a dramatic hallway reunion?" Dan suggests.
"Probably for the best," Phil agrees. "Easier to cue dramatic music in the hallway. Less stares."
"No stares, hopefully."
"Maybe that one nosy neighbor."
"Maybe her, yeah." Dan sighs. "I should go. This closet smells."
"Wait, you're in a closet?"
"I'm in a closet."
"A literal one?"
"Yes, you dipwad, a literal one. Where else was I going to go to call you without anyone overhearing?"
"You're in a literal closet while making a call to your secret boyfriend."
Dan snorts. "Don't read into it."
"Sure. Well. Try to make sure no one sees you coming out."
"I hate you." Dan laughs. "But I love you."
"I both love and hate you, too."
Bad Days
Sometimes conversations don't really need words. Phil wakes up, not too often but at least once or twice a year, with a headache so bad he just cant move.
At this point, Dan doesn't even have to ask. There are a dozen different subtle signs; Phil sleeping in later, Phil with the blankets over his head to block out the sun once he is awake, Phil even paler than normal or sweating though the weather is temperate.
Dan knows to speak in a whisper when he does speak, to bring Phil something light to nibble and some coffee, some water and one of his pills, to move the bin closer to Phil's side of the bed in case the pain gets so bad it makes him ill.
Dan also knows that Phil likes it best when Dan stays with him during the truly bad migraines. He's effortlessly patient with sitting there, not risking a light or even the glow of a laptop screen. He understands that sometimes Phil likes his hair stroked or the back of his neck rubbed, but that sometimes even touch is just too much stimulation. Usually Phil ends up with his head on Dan's lap until the worst of it goes away.
It usually fades by midday, and Phil's left feeling shaky and off for the rest of the day. He’ll emerge from the bedroom den of darkness and let Dan ease him through the rest of the day.
Shopping Lists
"You have to do the shopping with me this time," Phil says. "Or just do it by yourself."
There's that ever so slightly annoyed edge to his voice. It's taken a while for Dan to train himself out of instantly prickling to defensiveness every time he hears it. He is now a mature adult aged twenty four who definitely doesn't balk every time he's faced with someone finding something of annoyance in him or his behavior. (Okay, mostly he doesn't. Sometimes. He's working on it.)
"Why?" He asks.
"Because I can't actually keep track of what you are and aren't eating!" Phil shuts the refrigerator door. "Weren't you going vegan like, a week ago?"
"Maybe," Dan says.
"And all my milk is gone now."
"You shouldn't even drink milk anyway." Yeah, it's work in progress. "I ran out of almond milk."
"I put milk in my coffee! Now I can't have coffee because there's no milk." Phil looks properly cross for all of thirty seconds, which Dan knows is about max capacity for petty annoyances. It almost visibly drains out of him.
"I'm sorry," Dan says. "I'll do the shopping. In fact, why don't I go right now? I can pick you up a coffee on the way back."
It's almost embarrassing how Phil looks a little bit surprised every time Dan doesn't rise to the bait of bickering. The smug part of Dan really enjoys surpassing expectation, but the rest of him just likes the little smile that grows on Phil's face.
Viewing Habits
"No. We're not watching that."
Phil sulks over the Buffy box set clasp in his hand. "Well, what would you rather watch?"
"Steven Universe," Dan says. "You said we could do it next last time."
"Yeah, but it just doesn't... look..."
Dan lifts an eyebrow. "Don't judge a cartoon by it's box set art, Philip."
"But we know we like Buffy!"
"No, we know that I 'like' Buffy. We know that you're 'hopelessly obsessed and unhealthily infatuated' with Buffy. Besides, you know the rule."
"One rewatch per every other year." Phil pulls a face as he says it. "I just feel like... not a cartoon."
"Scifi?"
"Eh. Just a movie?"
"No, I'm craving commitment." Dan whines and sighs. "Why is this so hard."
Phil looks down at the box set regretfully and sets it aside. "We're going to argue about this, aren't we."
"I think so." Dan looks equally un-enthused. "Or we could just have sex instead."
Phil appears to be considering it until his expression turns suspicious. "You're just going to wait until I'm about to come and then get me to agree to watching your bloody cartoon, aren't you?"
Dan grins. "Maybe."
"... oh, fine."
They end up starting Steven Universe an hour later, in bed.
The Future
"Someone on the internet says I have to marry you." Phil absently says it while he scrolls through his twitter feed.
"What, like, right now?" Dan asks, spoon full of cereal halfway to his mouth. A little bit of milk from his last bite is still dribbled down his chin. "Can I finish my breakfast first?"
"They didn't specify a time." Phil shrugs. "I think it can wait til lunch, at least."
"Oh, good. I've always wanted a mid-afternoon wedding." Dan finishes his bite and wipes his chin on the back of his hand. "So that's sorted?"
Phil nods. "Sorted."