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Phil’s still half asleep. He can feel the bed shifting beside him, feel the solid warmth of Dan’s body right next to his.
He feels off. An unsettled feeling clings to him, a heaviness from dreams he can’t remember. His body feels it before his mind is awake enough to process it, before he can tell Dan it’s going to be one of those days.
Dan is rolling over, pressing himself up against Phil’s side and Phil thinks maybe it’ll be enough to chase the clouds away. He doesn’t have these days very often anymore, not even as often as Dan does, but each time he’s desperate to ignore it and hope it’s nothing more than a kind of nightmare hangover.
Dan isn’t any more lucid than Phil is. He flings his arm across Phil’s stomach and hitches his leg up onto Phil’s thigh. Phil feels all at once comforted and suffocated, but he takes a deep breath and tries to let the former override the latter.
Dan smells good. He smells like the shower they’d taken last night and the hint of sweat they’d worked up against their grey sheets afterward. His face fits into the crook of Phil’s neck, mouth breathing slow and warm.
Phil’s skin crawls. He’s awake now, awake enough not to have any excuse not to tell Dan that he just can’t do it today. No excuse but the fear of hurting Dan’s feelings, of making Dan feel like this has anything to do with not wanting him.
Dan hums contentedly, pressing his lips to Phil’s skin. His fingers curl around Phil’s waist and it feels all wrong. It doesn’t feel like building heat and happiness but an invasion, cloying and heavy.
Phil cringes against his will. There’s a disconnect between his mind and his body and he feels as betrayed by it as he always does on days like this. He loves Dan. He wants Dan, always. He loves Dan’s body and the way it fits into his and how good it feels to trust a person like that.
But today his body is betraying him and he cringes when Dan starts kissing his neck.
Dan goes stiff, pulls his face back instantly.
“Sorry,” Phil whispers. “Sorry.”
Dan pulls back all the way, careful to ensure no part of him is touching Phil.
Phil hates the relief that floods him. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do that,” Dan says. His voice is soft but firm as he sits up. “Phil.”
Phil keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to see the hurt he can’t help but imagine on Dan’s face.
“Phil, look at me.”
He opens them reluctantly and looks up at Dan. He doesn’t look hurt, and Phil should have known that he wouldn’t, but he’s not rational in moments like this.
“You don’t apologize for that. Ever.”
Phil nods, his jaw clenched to keep from trying to do it again.
Because they’ve had this conversation. Many times. Dan knows. Dan knows exactly how Phil feels on days like this and he he knows it doesn’t mean Phil loves him any less.
Dan gives him a smile. “Coffee?”
Phil nods. He watches Dan as he climbs from the bed and fishes a shirt out of the dresser, the green and brown Yeezy one Phil hates so much. He watches Dan pull that ugly cammo shirt over his naked back and wonders how he can find someone so hopelessly, devastatingly gorgeous and still not want them to touch him.
Dan doesn’t put on trousers. He turns and gives Phil another soft smile and plods out of the room in his shirt and boxers. Phil hears the water running in the bathroom and the sound Dan’s toothbrush makes as he scrubs it against his teeth.
He rolls over onto his side and curls up into a ball, pulls the duvet up over his shoulder and closes his eyes again. Guilt burns in his gut even though he knows Dan would be cross if he knew. Phil would never be cross with Dan on one of his dark days, so why should he expect any less understanding from Dan?
His therapist would be no less disappointed to hear Phil still feels shame about things he can’t help, but he’s trying. He is trying. At least he’s made enough progress to know that Dan’s not going to be angry.
He waits until Dan’s done in the bathroom before hauling himself out of bed and into the first hoodie and pair of sweatpants he can find.
He joins Dan in the kitchen when his own teeth are brushed, just in time to watch him stirring the milk and sugar into his coffee. He sits at the kitchen table and Dan walks over and places the mug in front of him before sitting down at the opposite end.
“Thank you,” Phil says, picking it up and taking a sip. It burns a little, but nothing he can’t handle.
Dan blows on his, because he doesn’t have a mouth nearly impervious to heat like Phil does. He looks particularly lovely right now, his eyes still sleepy and his hair a mess of curls, frizzy from falling asleep with them still damp.
“D’you work today?” Phil asks, desperately hoping the answer is no. It makes no sense given his touch aversion today, but he really doesn’t want to be alone.
Dan is looking down at his coffee, still blowing on it dutifully, so the wisps of steam that rise up are dispersed over the edges of the mug. “Not anymore.”
Phil frowns. “You didn’t.”
“Course I did,” Dan says, like it’s nothing. Like calling in sick to take care of your not-actually-sick boyfriend is not an act of love worthy of celebration.
Phil takes another sip of coffee. He can already feel it perking him up a little. His chest feels tight. He wants to get up and sit himself down on Dan’s lap and just squeeze the hell out of him.
But also he doesn’t.
He hates days like this. They don’t make sense even to him, even after all these years of loving Dan and knowing that every once in a while he’ll have a day when he simply can’t escape the curious nature of his brain’s sexual chemistry.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. He thinks Dan knows how much it means to him.
“Remember the first time you did that for me? When you came to my flat and rescued me like fucking prince charming?” Dan asks. “We barely even knew each other then.”
Phil remembers. How could he ever forget? “That’s not true,” he murmurs. “We knew each other. I was already in love with you then.”
Dan smiles the dimply kind that Phil loves. “Yeah. Me too.”
They drink their coffees in comfortable silence after that, Dan scrolling through something on his phone and Phil just watching him do it. It’s comforting to watch. It reassures him that nothing is really different, nothing has really changed. Even though he feels flipped upside down today, things are as they always are, really. Things will go back to normal tomorrow, or maybe even later today. Everything is fine.
“What d’you want to do today?” Dan asks after he’s finished his coffee and wandered over to the cupboard in search of breakfast. “Should I ring Jimmy and see if he’s free?”
He turns and looks at Phil, who shakes his head. “Just want you.” He does want to see Jimmy soon, but not today. Today he wants things simple and contained.
Dan’s smiling as he pulls a box of cereal from the cupboard. “K.”
They end up on the sofa in the lounge playing Mario Kart. Just like the old days, Phil thinks. They sit on opposite ends of the sofa and even though that’s what Phil needs today, it doesn’t stop him admiring the view of Dan’s bare legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles on the poof they’d bought recently.
Phil’s own legs are folded up underneath himself. When they start to lose feeling a few hours later he tosses his controller aside and stands up to stretch. “We should probably go for a walk or something,” he says to Dan.
“I went for a run yesterday, Lester. We can have a chill day.”
“I’ll buy you a donut.”
Dan thinks about it for approximately three seconds before saying, “Alright let’s go.”
*
“It’s not unhealthy if it’s vegan, right?”
“The motto I live by,” Dan replies, mouth full of chocolatey peanut butter doughy goodness.
“Right,” Phil says. “Once every like three months, right babe?”
“Oh shut up.” Dan’s cheeks do that little patchy thing they do when he’s flustered. Phil rarely busts out the pet names and mainly for this reason. He loves how instantly affected Dan is by it.
They hold hands on the way home. Phil is starting to feel a little better.
*
Dan cooks them dinner while Phil sits on the counter and watches. At one point he pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of Dan staring down intently at the frying pan.
“You wanker,” Dan says, reaching out and trying to snatch the phone away, no doubt to delete the photo he would insist is unflattering.
Phil shoves it into his pocket with a smirk, knowing Dan won’t try to go for it there. Not today.
“That was a good one,” Phil says and Dan just rolls his eyes. He’s mostly resigned by now to Phil snapping candids at the most random, inopportune moments.
It’s Phil’s favourite thing to photograph, Dan in the home they share, lost in concentration in uneventful domestic moments. He’s got a rather huge collection at this point, and he cherishes it. Dan pretends to be annoyed, but Phil knows better. He knows Dan loves their safe boring life just as much as he does.
They eat at the table like respectable adults before settling themselves on the sofa again. Phil puts on a show they’ve been meaning to watch and Dan drapes a blanket over the both of them. They stay in their separate corners, but Phil can already tell he feels a world away from where he was when he woke up.
One episode in and he shifts his position, laying his head back against the armrest and dropping his feet into Dan’s lap. Dan looks at him for a moment as if to gauge Phil’s mood without having to ask. He takes hold of Phil’s feet without looking away, and Phil smiles to let him know it’s ok.
Not just ok, but good. He wants to be touched, and feet are a good place to start.
Two episodes in and feet aren’t enough. He pulls them out of Dan’s hands and crawls over to Dan’s side of the sofa. He lifts Dan’s arm and fits himself underneath it, tucking his head in against Dan’s neck.
Dan looks surprised but he goes along with it, squeezing his hand around Phil’s shoulder. “Hello, you,” he murmurs, dropping a kiss into Phil’s hair. “Alright?”
Phil nods. His body seems to have caught up with his brain finally. He wraps his arm round Dan’s middle and like that they stay for a long time, cuddled up and watching television. Safe and domestic and boring— just like they like it.
Eventually Phil’s attention and eyes wander from the screen to Dan’s face. He shifts his head back a bit onto Dan’s shoulder so he can get a better look, but Dan notices and turns his own head to look down at Phil.
He doesn’t say anything and neither does Dan. They’re just looking at each other, eyes locked and it still feels as electric as it did back when they barely knew each other at all, before Dan became everything to Phil, before he fell head over heels and never looked back.
Phil leans in and kisses him gently, because he hasn’t done that all day and it’s suddenly impossible to imagine doing anything else. Dan’s lips are surprisingly soft today, and they make a quiet smacking sound when Phil pulls away.
It’s Dan who leans in for the next one, a little wetter but no less slow and cautious. Phil doesn’t let him pull away, parting his lips against Dan’s until Dan does the same.
The show is forgotten as their mouths move together, pulling apart only to come right back, tasting each other and reaffirming for the millionth time that this is right. That in each other they found exactly the thing they needed to be well and truly happy.
Maybe that’s sappy, Phil thinks, but he’s feeling sappy right now. He’s feeling so very in love. He feels like he’s finally recovered after waking up from a nap that was just a little too long. The heaviness is gone and in its place a need for the levity that comes from feeling Dan’s body against his again.
His hand finds its way up under Dan’s shirt to trace fingers along the bare skin of his stomach. Dan breathes a little heavier against Phil’s face but his hands don’t move from where they are, and Phil knows they’re not going to unless he’s asked. Anything that happens tonight is going to come from Phil.
He’s not in a hurry. Kissing is good. Exploring Dan’s chest with his fingers is good, catching a nipple with the pad of his thumb before moving down. He licks into Dan’s mouth properly and slips his fingers under the band of his pants and just runs them slowly back and forth across Dan’s skin.
When his hand slips lower, all the way into Dan’s underwear Dan makes a little noise in the back of his throat and pulls his mouth from Phil’s.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” Phil says, wrapping his fingers around the half hard length of him. “I want to.”
“You sure?”
Phil rolls his eyes, but really he loves it. He loves that Dan is still so gentle, so in tune with Phil’s vulnerabilities. Even as he grows harder in Phil’s hand he’s telling Phil it’s fine to let go.
“I’m sure,” Phil says, giving a little squeeze. He is. He wants to watch Dan fall apart at his hand.
“Do you want me to…?”
Phil shakes his head. He’s not there yet. Maybe he won’t be tonight, but that’s ok. Right now he wants to make Dan feel good. He leans in and kisses him again as he starts to stroke his hand up and down.
They kiss until Dan can’t anymore, until he has to drop his head back and bite his lip and slide his fingers up into Phil’s hair.
That’s alright with Phil. He likes watching Dan’s face when he’s lost in pleasure. It’s never stopped being a wonderful kind of fascination to Phil, even after he learned what it felt like to lose himself in it too.
Dan tells Phil he loves him as he comes, his words a stuttered, stop start mess but they light Phil up all the same. For him, it will never get better than this. Sex can’t compare to the way it makes him feel when Dan tells Phil he loves him.
*
They fall asleep that night as they couldn’t wake up, wrapped up in each other and not an inch of space between them.