It's not like Dan is nervous. He isn't. The flicker beat of his heart and the slight swimming of his vision isn't nerves. It's excitement, gnawing at his insides, crawling from his throat.
There's an excited tension in the air - so thick, Dan can taste it, could cut it with a plastic butter knife. It radiates through the air (as does the quiet thump thump of the music from just beyond the door) and swallows him whole.
Looking at Dan, you wouldn't picture him to be the male Burlesque dancer type. He wears skinny jeans, drinks Starbucks and spends most of his life browsing the eternal pit of the internet. He hasn't got the look of the rest of the dancers in the club. The sultry, dry heat that seems to pour out of every pore isn't present in Dan. He's tall, mostly quiet, eyes far too large and innocent for a dancer. Especially a dancer at PJ's.
PJ's is much like Dan, in a way a building can resemble a person. Quiet, unassuming, all at once timid and loud, and despite the innocent look, the place holds a dirty secret. The club isn't huge (far from it) but to Dan this is home. He looks at himself in the mirror - hair immaculate? Check. Kitty mask? Check. Snug shorts and open plaid shirt? Check. Dan looks at himself and smirks. The fake sharp canines in his mouth glint in the light of the dressing room. The smile looks awkward, but appealing in a way that even Chris, the choreographer, can't work out. Dan is a mystery, an enigma. He is everything the patrons want, in exactly the right dose.
The music has stopped, and Dan walks out of the door, passing Carrie, the wardrobe organiser and general sweetheart on the way out. She gives him a smile from her sewing.
Dan's music started pounding, and as he stepped on stage, the lights drew up and the crowd burst into hollers and shouts.
Yes, Dan doesn't look like your average Burlesque dancer, but he's a goddamn good one, and maybe he should be at uni studying law or something, but right now he's here, doing what he does best. And that's okay.
Dan, on top of being an elusive dancer at PJ's by night, is a rather boring and plain comic bookstore cashier/waiter by day. His head is pounding from the night before, his muscles aching from the routine. He groans into his hands.
A cough. Dan opens an eye and squints.
"Um, I'm here about the job you have advertised in the paper?" The boy says, and Dan backtracks because wooooah. The guy's not exactly stereotypically attractive, but his brilliant blue-green-gold eyes suck Dan in a little. The brunette breathes slowly before answering.
"You're lookin' for John and Hank, buddy. They're prob'ly over in the graphic novels section arguin' over coffee beans or somethin'." Dan tells the guy before lying back on his arms and trying desperately hard to not just stare.
"Right. Um. Thanks. I'm Phil, by the way." Dan 'hmms' from his arm-pillow, tilts his head up.
"Nice t'meet you, Phil. M'Dan." He would hold his hand out, but he knows he's sweating like a pig (ridiculous, considering how many highly - conventionally - attractive men he sees on a nightly basis) and really, really doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of a possible colleague.
The black haired man smiles at Dan (whose heart doesn't constrict at the sight, that would be preposterous) and begins making his way to the - wrong- part of the store. Dan closes his eyes and prays to the lords of Nerdfighteria Comic Store and Café that he won't completely embarrass himself and rises from his seat, coughing lowly to get Phil's attention.
"You're going the wrong way," he says, and Phil's face contorts into something adorable and when Dan reaches out an arm in the direction of where the Green brothers are, Phil thanks him quietly before scuttling off.
Dan certainly does not stare at the black clad butt as it shimmies away, because even if Dan is not a great employee, he definitely knows how to be professional. Mostly. And he most definitely doesn't believe in love at first sight, promptly ignoring the burning in his stomach and the skip-beat of his heart that normally only accompanies the minutes leading up to a dance.
Dan almost regrets not following his gran's advice, until he hears Carrie singing soft and sweet when she's sewing, almost like it's a private show for Dan, to stop him stressing. Dan ponders his life for a moment; he gets to dance his tail feathers off and listen to Carrie every night (even though she doesn't realise he can hear), and Dan figures everything could be a lot worse.
The second time Dan meets Phil, it's at PJ's. Phil is sat with PJ. PJ and Phil are talking. Dan freaks out a little. The skip-beat burn returns, and Dan struggles to ignore it this time.
"Jack?" The light and sound tech looks up from his console. "Who is that with Peej?" He needs to make sure, because he can't live his life falling for every single pale, black haired male he comes across.
"Phil? He's a friend of PJ's and Chris' from uni. Why, you interested?" The blonde punctuates the question with an eyebrow wiggle and Dan makes a noise of dislike in the back of his throat as the burn intensifies.
"Of course not, Jack. I was just intrigued. Never seen him before." Dan lied. Jack 'mhm'ed and turned back to his console, but not before saying that Dan should really go talk to him if he thinks he's hot.
Dan is many things - a great dancer, less than stellar employee, but one thing he is definitely not in possession of is an average length fuse. So he punches Jack firmly on the arm and then stalks off, leaving a chuckling techie in his wake, and a heart that's beating just a little too fast.
Law suddenly seems like a very interesting idea. Carrie hands him a mixtape of her favourite songs when she sees him pacing around the dressing room, and Dan slips it in his jacket pocket and vows to listen to it. When he does, he breathes in deep, thinks of Carrie's voice floating over the dressing room and realises that maybe, just maybe, he might have the best friend in the world.
The next time they meet is after Dan and PJ have an argument over Dan's routines. PJ seems to think Dan should tone them down a little - which, excuse Dan's rudeness - is nothing to fucking do with Dan anyway, Chris is in charge of routines and Dan thinks PJ should take his opinions and shove them where the sun don't shine, thank you very much.
PJ starts shouting, Dan just ignores him and sits at his table and starts organising his stage make up. Naturally, a certain black haired male happens to walk in at this exact moment (luckily, from the side of the room that means Dan is mostly unseeable apart from the back of his head, but where Dan can see his fantastic body) PJ takes some calming breaths before storming out of the dressing room, a confused Phil following him out.
Carrie pokes her head round the door, about to ask Dan if he was okay, but when the man groans and flops his head down on the dresser, she quickly disappears again, humming a lullaby her mother sang to her when she was a baby, trying to calm Dan down.
Carrie may not be good enough to be a performer at PJ's yet, but she knows enough about those who are to know when to leave them alone. She knows enough about Dan to know when all he needs is a backing track to unwind and forget.
When Dan meets Phil without being exhausted and hungover or without being at the club, he makes a better second/first impression than he would've dreamed of, and the burn in his everywhere is a lot less painful than he remembers.
This time, they meet at Nerdfighteria again, only it's one in the morning and Dan may or may not be mildly inebriated. The Greens have organised a party for the employees (Phil got the job in the end - when Dan clocks off at 3, Phil clocks in, and so far Dan has done brilliantly in avoiding running into him) for New Years.
"Happy New Year, Dan." A soft voice says in Dan's ear. Dan yelps and turns to face it, coming face to face with Phil's vortex eyes. Phil's lip twitches in amusement at Dan's noise.
"Oh, uh, yeah, happy New Year Phil." The two clink champagne glasses and the next thing Dan knows, he's waking up in a bed with Phil.
Clothed, thank god.
Phil rolls over and opens one blue-green-gold eye, half smiling with his tongue between his teeth (Dan may melt a little). "Morning, Danny. Good night's sleep?"
Dan just squeaks, the now familiar ache settling onto a low heat in his heart, the beat of which doesn't skip as much as it did only a few months ago. He finds out later, over breakfast in Phil's apartment, that they'd left the party and made their way to PJ's, where Peej gave them both drinks, apologised to Dan for being such a cockend (which Dan was smugly happy about) and when Phil asked Dan how he knew PJ, Dan had apparently climbed up on the bar and given the best dance of his life (mortifying? Slightly) and then he'd drank Phil under the table. Chris had dropped them both at Phil's, where they unceremoniously passed out on his bed.
"So, you're cool with the whole being a dancer at PJ's thing?" Dan asks, nursing a steaming cup of coffee. Phil, who is sitting opposite him also holding a cup, shrugs.
Impulsively, Dan reaches over the table and squeezes Phil's hand. Phil squeezes back.
Two weeks later, they're cuddled up on Dan's couch watching some god-awful low budget sci-fi movie and Phil looks over at Dan and asks him to be his. The burn is gone, now. It just leaves a little fuzzy feeling in his chest cavity that rolls through his being (and honestly, it doesn't feel half bad).
Dan admits to many things - he is a nerd, an awful employee and an amazing dancer. But there's one more thing he knows about himself, five years later when him and Phil walk into PJ's with matching rings and matching smiles; the skip-beat is still there (will always be there), and he has the most amazing husband in the world. Not that he ever says as much aloud. Phil can just look at him with those eyes of his and know.
Dan looks at the ring on his finger as Phil and PJ talk about business (and PJ and Chris' wedding, which Phil is helping organise because he is an actual angel) and watches as Carrie takes to the stage and sings with the most beautiful voice Dan has ever heard, and she looks over at him and smiles big and wide. He smiles right back, letting the words sink into his skin.
So, yeah. Dan figures that his life is pretty damn perfect, law degree or no law degree. He wouldn't want to change it for the world.