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Dan is one month into his international leg of the We’re All Doomed tour, and he does feel the most fulfilled and happy he’s ever been. He’s having fun, is the thing. He’s in his element on stage, and the people can tell. They cheer and they sing and then they come around to hug him and bring him flowers, and tell him they’re proud of him, and all Dan can think of is how different the world feels from two years ago, when he felt like he was drowning inside his own mind.
The crew likes to explore the cities they’re in, and he tags along. They go out to eat, into clubs, into the city.
Dan loves it, he does.
He’s just starting to spread a little thin. There’s so little time to recharge, hopping from city to city, from attraction to attraction, always people surrounding him. On stage, behind the stage, after the stage, before the stage. It’s like his world has narrowed down to perform.
And… Well, who is he kidding?
He misses Phil.
It’s easier with Phil, to just shut the world out and disappear into their own little world, just the two of them, carving themselves some quiet time away from the rest. He can just be with Phil. He can just let himself lie there, and communicate with nothing but grunts for hours on end, and it’s fine.
It’s a little harder to do this on his own.
Dan tries it anyway. He goes out for a walk, just wherever his feet carry him, taking in the beautiful dazzling colours of Salt Lake City, and ends up getting hit on.
He should feel flattered, maybe a little amused, but instead something spreads in his chest, aching and heavy, and he just. Misses Phil. Because he already has whatever this guy is looking for – and so much more. He has that perfect connection, that one person who knows him and loves him better than anyone else, sitting at home, waiting for him, and Dan longs to be there too.
He can picture it in his head – curled up on the sofa next to Phil, while he looks at something on his phone, his glasses on because he can’t be arsed putting in contacts, giving him that cute stern expression whenever he’s looking up at Dan without moving his head, like a teacher staring at him over the rim of his glasses.
He can feel the softness of his sweater, because in this situation, even though they’re doing different things, aren’t talking, they’re sitting so close their shoulders are bumping together. It’s cosy and it’s home and Dan wants to be there, right now, so badly it makes his breath hitch.
Dan wonders how Phil is doing – Asleep, right now, probably, since it’s the middle of the night in London. But does he miss Dan? Does he have shit to deal with he needs emotional support for, does he bring out the trash despite the looming threat of their neighbours seeing him, does he open their mail regularly, is he watering the goddamn plants? Are there open cupboards in every room of the house?
Dan’s heart clenches painfully. He even misses those.
The guy looks at him like he already knows what he’s gonna say.
Dan sighs.
There are a million lies at the tip of his tongue. Being flirted with is not a rarity for either of them, and they’ve learned how to gently let someone down by now.
But none of the usual lies quite seem to want to spill tonight, so he just gives the guy an apologetic smile and the truth, for once.
“I’ve got a boyfriend at home.”
It’s not a big moment for the guy. He shrugs, looks a little dejected and waves him goodbye. Dan still looks after him when he’s long gone, and feels himself choking up, because it is a big moment for him, actually, and he wants Phil.
He goes back to the hotel, glad they decided to stay here the night, glad he decided he needed a bed for himself, and grabs his laptop. It’s a shot in the dark – literally. A quick Google search tells him that London is seven hours ahead of him, so right now it’s four am for Phil. There’s no way he’s online, but he presses the button to video call him anyway.
It barely even rings. Usually, Dan would pick a humanly bearable time for both of them, and text Phil beforehand, but apparently he’s just on his own laptop, because there’s Phil’s face popping up on his screen, pixelled at first, until the shitty hotel wifi gets a grip and the image clears, and Dan breathes out a sigh of relief so loud, the rest of the crew probably heard it from next doors.
“Hey you,” Phil greets him cheerfully.
And Dan might be a bit sappy, and might be a bit yearny, but he can still identify the tone in Phil’s voice as a little too much cheer.
“Hey,” he says, and narrows his eyes at Phil immediately. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, nothing, just holding up the fort here. I did some laundry earlier, now it’s drying.”
“You did some laundry in the middle of the night?”
Phil shrugs.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
There’s still something off in his tone, but Dan can’t focus on that now. Phil is wearing his glasses, tired, blue eyes wide and magnified as they look at him softly, and he’s wearing his smile, and Dan wants to drink it in until he drowns in it. And… huh.
Dan cocks his head, confused.
“What’s that you got on your cheek there?” he asks.
Phil’s hand reacts faster than Dan can look, fingers brushing over the smudge on his cheek until it is gone.
“Nothing, just some lint,” Phil says swiftly.
Yeah, okay, he’s definitely up to something.
“It looked like paint,” Dan says. “In some really ugly shade of green.”
“Now, why would I have green paint on my face,” Phil grins at him. “Why did you call anyway, are you having another crisis?”
“Urgh.” Dan lets his head fall back against one of his propped up hotel pillows (not the decorative ones, he threw these off the bed right away), gaze pinned to the ceiling just for a short moment, before he remembers he has something so much better to look at. “You could say that. Except, everything’s going well, I just–” He cuts himself off, sure that there’s another speck of green right below Phil’s earlobe.
“Miss me?” Phil finishes for him, and it’s the smug tone that tears Dan out of his distraction, making him roll his eyes, even though it is absolutely true.
“I mean, I guess it’s a bit weird to go this long without your annoying babbling,” he concedes and then, because he has to, and his voice is actually a bit too heavily laced with emotion to keep a secret from Phil anyway, “yeah. I miss you.”
“Didn’t seem to miss me all that much, when you walked around town with a slutty nun costume on.”
Dan let out a little snort, letting the relief of hearing Phil’s teasing tone pour into every fibre of his being, feeling it relax him from the inside, all of the tension and the yearning and the ache slowly dissipating.
“Now, Phil, come on. You’re the first one I’ve shown her to – and your version is a lot sluttier than the one the internet got, might I add.”
Phil is grinning at him, and it’s doing horrible loopy things to his heart. Dan wants to kiss him so badly, it’s actually taking his breath away.
“Yeah, I quite liked those, actually.”
“I bet you did.”
They stare at each other for a long moment, both clearly drinking in the sight of the other.
“I got hit on today,” Dan says.
Phil raises an eyebrow.
“By a car?”
“By a guy.” Dan rolls his eyes.
"In a car?"
Dan glares at him.
Phil lets his finger slide underneath his glasses, rubbing his eyes tiredly while a yawn slips from him. It does something to Dan, heat spreading under his skin like a second layer. Phil could not be less concerned if you paid him to be.
“Did he look good?”
Dan wants to kiss him so badly.
“No. Uh. Maybe. I’ve no clue, actually.”
The look Phil gives him in response is exasperated and fond.
“I just– I told him I have a boyfriend.”
And immediately, Dan gets to watch it melt. His eyes go soft, his tired expression makes space for a smile, tender and small and beautiful.
Dan has never wanted to kiss Phil more in his life, actually.
“Look at you, soft-launching us,” he chuckles. “And I’m not even there.”
“Yeah.” Dan finds that when he speaks, his tone is hoarse, his voice breaking suspiciously. “What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know, I think you decided to write a brilliant show about growth and healing, and then took it on tour without me, leaving me for months on end and discovered some hot nun drag queen tendencies on the road, while I am stuck here dyeing my towels green.”
“Okay, for the record, I did not–” Dan stops himself, feeling his face derail as Phil’s words catch up with him. “You did what to our towels, Phil?”
“Nothing.” Phil is grinning at him with that same cheerful expression and tone, lips twitching suspiciously.
Well. That certainly explains a lot.
“What towels?” Dan asks immediately. “Tell me which towels. If it’s the good, tasteful cream-white ones, I swear to God–”
Phil sighs, hands rubbing at his eyes under the glasses again, and they move up in the process, and Phil, tiredly, takes them off, sets them down on the nightstand next to their bed, and Dan, without thinking, says, “no, keep the glasses on.”
Blinking at him with a confused expression, Phil freezes mid-movement.
“My glasses?” he asks.
Dan nods, gaze heated.
“Yes, your slutty little glasses, keep them on.”
“My–” Phil starts laughing, but he puts them back on, pushes them back on his nose with his eyes locked with Dan. “I did not know they were doing it for you, Howell.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Dan quips back.
“Right. Boyfriends, nuns, glasses… The surprises just keep on coming.”
Dan hasn’t forgotten about their poor towels per se, he just has different things in mind right now. Because Phil’s tone has changed, the teasing underlying something else now, his voice rough and low, and he’s heard that tone before. In bed, at home, yes, but so, so many years ago, in a situation much like this, too – Dan, trapped behind a screen, trapped in his tiny, badly lit bedroom in his parent’s house, staring longingly at the one person in his world that made him feel alive, and Phil, staring back, with so much hunger in his gaze that the heat of it single-handedly drove Dan out of the closet and into a life-long commitment to being gay.
“Something else should be coming right now,” he says and it’s cheesy on purpose, making Phil laugh. For everyone else, maybe this would’ve broken the spell, but Dan loves it. Watching his eyes crinkle beneath the glasses, watching his entire face scrunch up with joy, he’s always loved making Phil laugh.
“That was horrible. Take your shirt off.”
Dan wishes he was there, he really does. He would kiss Phil breathless, press him into their mattress, their nice, soft mattress at home, nibble soft bites into his ear as revenge for being cheeky, and then take off his shirt anyway, because what Phil wants, he gets.
As things are, all he can do is roll his eyes at the camera, which somewhat loses all meaning because it’s almost immediately covered by his shirt being pulled over his head.
When he looks back at the screen, Phil has his head crooked, eyes raking over his chest intently, and Dan feels his skin tingle under the intensity of it, even through the distance.
“I really do miss you,” Phil sighs.
“Get naked about it.”
Phil huffs a laugh and takes his glasses off, and Dan lets out a low whine, making him chuckle.
“I’m just taking my shirt off. Jesus, Dan.”
He slips out of his sleeves and pulls the shirt over his head, and Dan catches the seam of his stupid Minecraft pajamas and smiles.
He knows for a fact Phil’s not wearing any underwear under those.
Phil catches his gaze even through the screen, soulmate connection apparently working overtime today, and puts his glasses back on before kicking off his pajama pants.
“It’s a bit like old times,” he comments as he re-arranges the camera.
Dan has to smile, because of course he’s not the only one thinking it, but also because the sudden expanse of skin available to look at is something he will never tire of. Pale, bony long legs, long fingers gripping around Phil’s dick, stroking it lazily as he leans back, eyes fluttering closed beneath his glasses and Dan watches, wishing he could kiss him, wishing he could let his lips follow the path of that slight rose blush the arousal sends over this body.
He knows him inside and out. It’s not the same thrill it was thirteen years ago, hushed voices because their parents were downstairs, awkward jerks of their hands in their pants, every patch of skin uncovered new and enticing, but Dan prefers this, actually. Watching Phil comfortable and hard for him, every inch of him Dan’s, knowing he’s going to be the only one who sees him like this for the rest of his life.
Dan lets his own hand run over his chest, his stomach, and dips it lower, beneath the seam of his boxers and to his half-hard dick, stroking it to full hardness before kicking his pants off.
It’s silly, but he loves the effect he has on Phil every time. His eyes zero in on his length, unblinkingly staring for several seconds with an intensity that makes Dan shiver. Somehow, the glasses make it better, magnify his expression, the glint of desire in his eyes – Dan is absolutely gonna make him wear them more often during sex.
Usually, Phil follows that kind of want up with a blowjob, but right now, that’s a bit tough, so Dan just tightens his grip and thrusts into his hand, moaning softly.
“It’s a really nice hotel,” he tells Phil between heavy breaths. “When we’re back on tour together, we should come here. I’ll take you apart in this bed, on soft hotel sheets.”
Phil’s lips quiver slightly as he speeds up his own strokes, eyes never leaving Dan.
Right where he likes them.
“Would you now?”
“Yeah. The walls are thick here. I could make you beg for it – tease you for hours. Just kiss my way up and down your body. I’d suck you off so good, and then right before you’d come, I’d stop.”
Phil throws his head back, exposing his neck to Dan. He wants to kiss, and to bite and to mark. He’s been biting back that particular need for so many years now, so many cameras constantly on them, but right now, it’s so easy to imagine. Softly sinking his teeth into his neck, right there, below his beautiful jawline, kiss his way down to his collarbone, give it a good suck–
Dan gasps and Phil gasps in turn, glassy eyes focusing back on him as he lets his head snap back.
“You’re so– fuck,” Phil says and it’s always a novelty to hear him curse. Dan smirks.
“Yeah, you too. Just– wish I could touch you right now.”
“I need you to fuck me.” It’s Phil’s voice that really drives the point home, a high-pitched, proper whine, shooting straight to Dan’s dick. “It’s been so long.”
Dan bites his lips, letting out another moan, his thrusts frantic, his hands sticky from pre-cum. He can’t stop, can’t slow down, not now. It just feels so fucking good to have Phil like this, even if there’s an ocean and a screen between them.
“Yeah?” he asks, breathless. “Not used to going so long without my dick filling you up, are you?”
“I’m actually really not,” Phil huffs and Dan manages a little laugh in return. “It just sucks, because I feel so–”
Dan watches, entranced, as Phil lets his fingers slide over the slit on the tip of his cock, catching drops of pre-cum. He knows what he’s going to do, but he still holds his breath, watches that hand disappear beneath him. Phil’s camera is a lot better angled than Dan’s, and he can see his finger circle his rim before it slowly sinks in, Phil’s gaze back on Dan, hungry and eager.
“... empty.”
Jesus fucking–
“You’re such a bloody tease.” It’s Dan’s turn to whine, because really, if this doesn’t do it for him. The idea of Phil sitting at home, aching to have him inside him so much, he has to finger himself on fucking zoom like a slut.
“If only you were here,” Phil muses, smirking slightly, even through the little gasps he makes – the ones that Dan loves so much, that tell him how close he is, that he likes to lure out and drink up like a drowning man. “I know you’d fuck me so good.”
Dan would like to say that he’s stronger than this, that Phil complimenting him doesn’t still make him fall apart like an 18-year old fanboy getting a chance with his YouTube crush, but he suspects that him coming all over his hand with a cry of Phil’s name isn’t doing that particular pretense any favours.
He gives himself a couple seconds to just throw his head back and enjoy the after-throbs of his orgasm, all the stress and longing of the last couple weeks somewhere on the back burner. All he knows, right now, is Phil. Phil’s breath getting erratic, the wet noises of his dick in his hands, his finger in his hole, fucking into it with desperate speed now. Phil’s eyes on him, almost pleading.
Dan raises a hand, licks a stripe of his come off his finger, tongue long and hungry as he smirks up at Phil.
“So come on then – imagine it’s me, coming inside that needy hole the way I know you love me too, fucking you into the mattress until you see stars, baby.”
Phil comes with a long drawn-out whimper. Dan loves it. He loves the way his eyes crunch up underneath his glasses, the way his gasps make his whole chest rise and fall visibly, the way he comes all over his stomach, making a huge mess. He wants to lick it off him, wants to snuggle up and hold him close and whisper little jokes into his ear until Phil’s post-sex coma gets interrupted by those little giggles he does, shoving Dan away, but never really.
He wants to go home.
“Philly.”
HIs tone comes out choked and Phil hears it, because he blinks his eyes open and smiles at him with nothing short of sadness caught in his eyes.
“I know,” he says. “Me too.”
They sit for a while, no one saying anything, both catching their breath. After a while, Phil takes Dan to the bathroom, grabs a towel and cleans himself up, and Dan does the same in the impersonal hotel bathroom. They could do it alone, but Dan is glad that they don’t.
He is not so glad when he sees the colour of what was once a perfectly fine, white towel.
“Phil, are you doing okay?” he asks softly when they’re back in the bedroom and both have put their pants back on.
Phil shrugs and doesn’t say anything, which Dan knows means no.
He sighs.
“Can I take the glasses off now, please?”
“If you must.”
Dan watches with a wry smile as Phil puts them back on the nightstand, and wipes away a tear.
“Want to stay on while we sleep?” Dan asks quietly.
They’ve done this before too, on Dan’s worst nights. It had been easier back then, falling asleep to the sound of Phil’s peaceful snoring. Like he was really in the room with him. Like there really was peace to be had, somewhere in the world.
Dan knows now that there is. He’s found it, has built his world around it. Whatever storm has come for them from outside, Phil has weathered it with him, safely inside, kept him warm and loved and wanted.
Phil just nods. They curl up in their beds, and Dan can see from the way the room changes on the screen that morning is coming for Phil, while Dan’s night is only just beginning, but they don’t care. For a moment, it’s like they’re next to each other, sharing a night.
“‘s only a little bit longer,” Dan yawns. “We’ve made it through the worst.”
“You’re never going on tour without me again.”
Dan grins into his pillow, knowing that Phil can’t see, not with the shitty connection and without his glasses, and his eyes only half-open, but he’ll know anyway.
“I’m not,” he promises him.