So I returned to my tiny hometown with the plan of spending perhaps four or five days at my parents'. Then things took an unexpected turn and now I'll be here for at least a week longer than expected and all I can really find the energy to do is read Virginia Woolf and write (quite bad) phanfiction, apparently.
Here, have the boring parts of the a/n: Contains some swearing and some mentions of sex but nothing graphic. Possible errors because English isn't my first language and this was a bit spur-of-the-moment and not very closely proofread. This is pure fiction. Title borrowed from the song with the same name by Black Kids (listen to if you feel like dancing and simultaneously being slightly bitter).
The alarm clock next to Phil shows 02.42 when the rustling sound of keys clumsily being placed in the lock on the third attempt reaches his straining ears. Dan's drunk again. Not that he shouldn't be. It's Saturday, he's 21 and living in London; it's almost to be expected even if slightly uncharacteristic when it comes to Dan. It's just that lately it's been a frequent occurrence that made Phil painfully aware of how long it's been since he himself did the same. It reminds him of the countless unanswered messages and neglected calls from friends that wanted to see him laugh and assure them he was fine, that this whole situation was fine. He's not, really, and the situation is fucked up if anything, and he's always preferred giving nothing to giving lies. More than anything it's that Dan's alcohol filled nights has two outcomes that seem to repeat themselves in a pattern wearing Phil down little by little. Scenario one: Dan doesn't come home, and Phil spends the larger part of the night sleeplessly waiting for that familiar sound of shoes being kicked off and a hushed string of curse words when Dan inevitably bumps into something in his attempt to drunkenly manoeuvre around the flat without turning any lights on. When he does come home the next day guilt is apparent on his face (though he doesn't have to feel guilty; it's been 9 months now and there's no denying he can fuck whoever he wants and so can Phil even though he hasn't) and they won't talk about it. Phil eats his cereal next to Dan who's nursing a cup of coffee and downing two aspirins before he goes off to sleep off the last traces of the night before. Phil sits there like his heart wasn't heavier than if it'd been made out of lead.
Scenario number two involves hesitant steps that come to a halt outside his bedroom, before they more resolutely invade the boundary that is a fully closed bedroom door. They rarely go further than kisses. There's the occasional sloppy hand job, rushed and oddly noiseless to keep the realisation of what they're doing from hitting them with full force, because they both know they'll regret their actions in the morning for one reason or another. But it's always sleeping as wrapped up in each other as they always used to, and the untangling of limbs the morning after is always painful for Phil. He know he should say no, ask Dan to sleep it off in his own bed, get up and leave, take the couch, do something that resemble a step towards closure. Make a statement. But instead he keeps lifting up the covers to invite Dan and kisses that tastes like tequila, whiskey, sambuca, gin – one flavour for each and every mistake.
But this time the steps aren't leading to his bedroom door but instead continue past it. And it's not one pair of feet – this time there's two. Scenario one and two both bring a fair amount of pain, but there's a familiarity in the pain that Phil embraces. Scenario three hit him like a ton of bricks where he's lying. The realisation is like a cigarette burn. The worst isn't when the lit cigarette meets skin but rather afterwards when the blistering pain takes up your whole consciousness.
You can try to keep it down all you want, even breathy moans carry through paper thin walls. And despite pushing his nails into his palms almost to the point of drawing blood to desperately try to focus on something other than an unknown man causing his ex boyfriend and still-best-friend-question-mark to repeat the sounds he used to draw from him, Phil decides that he can live through this third scenario as well as the previous. Because that man is here tonight, he gets a few hours of Dan's body and mind, and he himself will be here tomorrow and the day after that and hopefully a long, long time after that as well. And though Dan doesn't know it yet, it will be them again. Dan won't be 21 and feeling stuck and tied down forever. He'll wrap his head around how amazing their story up until this point have been, that the two of them together is the only thing that makes sense in a world which most of the time doesn't.
What hurts him infinitely more is when this man, who isn't unknown to Phil anymore but rather known to him as a blonde, handsome man somewhere around his own age, doesn't leave after an awkward breakfast. The breakfast sure is awkward, with Dan shooting apologetic looks in Phil's direction, this other man noticing and seeming unsure of how to interpret it. But he then drags Dan back to his bedroom, right when Phil was ready to somewhat gloatingly say his goodbyes to the temporary distraction in Dan's life. He leaves late into the afternoon. And comes back only two days later. And then over the next month it becomes a more or less given thing that he's there. Always straight to Dan's room and Phil is out of his room before Dan even answers the door because breathy moans carry and he needs no reminder of the sounds Dan make when he comes undone. Dan doesn't talk about what he is to him. Phil doesn't ask. He spends his time making a list in his head of things this guy does wrong. He could give him all the pointers to what to avoid and as well as make sure to do. Hell, he could write the guidebook to Dan Howell, everything down to how to handle the nights when he was absolutely lost and panicking about what the future held for him. The only chapter he will have to exclude from the book is how to get through his thick head that he is seeing, fucking, dating (whatever it is they're doing) the wrong guy. That is something Phil has to trust this guy to help him do by making all the mistakes Phil knew not to make, or the same ones he'll have to admit to making himself. He takes comfort in every fault, every touch Dan shies away from with subtle but still (for Phil) apparent annoyance when they're on the couch in the living room before the other man goes home to his life that doesn't involve Dan when Phil's does. Because every fault in him means they are one step closer to Dan's realisation that he doesn't have to keep chasing after other things just because he was 21 and parents and friends thought him confused and too quick to dismiss other opportunities. It took them two years to properly get to him. Phil was aiming for one year to convince him how wrong they were. Because that one right opportunity had already been given to him, just like Phil's been given his. Despite all Phil found it easy to forgive Dan, because Phil had a four-year advantage and had possibly reacted the same way if presented to the same dilemma at age 20. And the waiting is painful, but it's also doable if you're as sure of the waiting being worth it as Phil is.