Author's Note: I'm sorry if Dan is OOC in this, but I was feeling down and wanted to write some fluffy hurt/comfort, and this is what resulted.
You don't have to have seen the movie "Truly Madly Deeply" in order to understand this story, but I encourage you to see it, because it's incredible. Very sweet, very funny, very sad, and VERY romantic. Yeah, I suppose it would help you to know that the movie is very romantic.
Truly Madly Deeply
Phil wakes up slowly, groggy, wanting to slip back into sleep but feeling a slave to his bladder's inconvenient timing. It's the middle of the night, for fuck's sake! He fumbles for his glasses and crawls out of bed, shuffling to the bathroom like a crankily inconvenienced zombie. After taking care of business, he decides that he may as well get a drink of water while he's up, so he continues on toward the kitchen.
He's surprised to find Dan sniffling on the sofa, eyes swollen and red. At the sight of Phil, Dan wipes his hands at his face, obviously trying to banish tears. It's not particularly shocking that Dan is still awake, but his wee hour Tumblr scrolling doesn't usually lead to sobbing. Phil walks toward the sofa and sits down. "What wrong?" he asks quietly. The hour doesn't lend itself to speaking at normal volume.
Dan looks away and bites his lip, new tears springing to his eyes. "It's stupid," he says in a choked voice. "Just a movie."
Relieved, Phil chides him jokingly, "Were you watching 'The Fault in Our Stars' again?"
Dan shakes his head. "I was reading this article about people who died in 2016, and they were talking about Alan Rickman, and I was thinking about how great he was as Snape, and I realized I didn't really know anything else he'd been in, so I went looking on Netflix." He sniffed again and wiped his eyes. "I found this movie called 'Truly Madly Deeply,' and I watched it, and it just … it got to me."
"What's it about?" Phil asks gently. "If you want to talk about it." Dan nods, and Phil makes himself more comfortable, sitting cross-legged on the sofa facing Dan and resigning himself to staying awake for a while.
"He's dead," Dan says, and Phil wasn't expecting that. "He's dead, and the woman he was living with is grieving, and she can't move on with her life, so he comes back, as a ghost."
Phil tilts his head in curiosity. "A ghost story?"
Dan shrugs. "Kind of. But not scary. He comes back because he loves her and he doesn't want to leave her hurting." Tears spring to his eyes again and one trails down his cheek. He puts his face in his hands and his shoulders shake a bit. He's full-on weeping, Phil realizes. He scoots closer on the sofa and puts an arm around Dan, who unexpectedly collapses against him, face wet against Phil's neck and t-shirt. Phil wraps both arms around him as Dan hides his face, and Dan feels strangely small and fragile in his embrace. It reminds him of the early years, when Dan had been so young and still smaller than Phil. Now, he's taller and broader, and it isn't often that Phil feels protective of him like this anymore. They've been peers for a long time now, no longer really noticing the age difference, and Dan hasn't turned to him like this in years.
Phil shushes him gently, rocking back and forth a little bit, running a hand through Dan's wavy hair. He has it so short right now that he hasn't been bothering to straighten it, and Phil hopes that maybe that'll become a habit. He's always liked the hobbit hair. The thought makes him smile a little.
Dan only has one lamp lit in the lounge, and the atmosphere is cozy and intimate. Phil just holds Dan tightly and croons to him under his breath. Eventually, Dan seems to calm, though he doesn't move away. Instead, he snakes an arm around Phil and clutches him tighter. He mumbles something into Phil's neck, but it's completely unintelligible.
Phil cranes his head away a bit to try to see Dan's face, but he's hiding it in Phil's shoulder. "What was that?" Phil asks softly.
Dan's voice is still muffled when he chokes out, "If you died, you'd come back for me, right?"
Phil's eyebrows go up. "You'd want me to haunt you?"
Dan just shrugs silently, nestling closer into Phil's arms.
"You don't even believe in ghosts. And you're afraid of anything supernatural. Wouldn't I freak you out if I came back as a ghost?" Phil is a little amused at the turn the conversation has taken. Even as he comforts Dan, he can't help but find the situation a little funny.
Dan nuzzles his cheek against Phil's t-shirt a bit and says in a quiet voice, "I just … I wouldn't want you to not be here. I would want you to come back. Because I wouldn't just move on. I couldn't. I'm sorry, but I couldn't." And he starts to cry again. Phil is no longer feeling amused, because Dan doesn't seem to be talking about the movie anymore.
"I'm not going to leave you, Dan," he whispers into his friend's hair and presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head. It's a risky move, but it feels right in the moment. Phil hopes Dan won't be offended that Phil crossed some sort of line, but Dan doesn't seem in a state of mind to reject any offer of comfort right now.
Dan nods a bit, just a slight movement against Phil's shoulder, and sniffles again. He's probably getting snot on Phil's t-shirt, but Phil doesn't mind sacrificing a bit of clothing to the friendship gods. They sit that way for a while in silence, Phil's arms wrapped around Dan, Dan's fingers clutching the back of Phil's t-shirt. And then Phil feels a soft, quick brush of lips against his neck, just below his jaw.
Okay, that was definitely over the line.
Not that Phil is complaining, but … he isn't quite sure how to react. Dan's in a vulnerable place right now, probably not thinking straight.
No pun intended.
He decides not to show any overt reaction, just continues to hold Dan tightly, no longer rocking but just sheltering his friend in a slightly awkward embrace. They don't really do this a lot, but it feels good. Feels right. He can feel Dan's body beginning to relax against him and he presses another kiss to the wavy brown hair. Hobbit hair, he thinks to himself again, and the slight smile curves his lips again. Dan hates it so much, but it's so cute.
"Can I lay with you in your bed?" Dan asks hesitantly, surprising Phil again. They haven't really cuddled in bed together since Dan was a teenager, not since they've been living together and had their own separate bedrooms. Phil has thought about it, sure, but Dan put up walls between them years ago, drawing lines between what was okay and what was too much, and Phil had always tried to respect those lines. It seems like the lines are a bit blurry tonight.
Phil gives Dan a tighter squeeze for a second and dares to press another kiss to his hair. "If you want," he agrees, and Dan nods against his shoulder again.
They stand up and Dan wipes at his face again. "Let me go … blow my nose and stuff," Dan says, obviously embarrassed. Phil smiles and nods.
"I'll be in the bed. You come and join me when you're ready," he says in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. Dan walks off toward the bathroom.
Phil walks to his bedroom and climbs under the duvet, wondering at Dan's openness tonight, his willingness to show such vulnerability and seek comfort from Phil in a way he hasn't done in a very long time. Once this would have been commonplace for them, but Dan has been holding himself in reserve since the fan shipping started bothering him back in 2012 or so. Phil hopes maybe this is a sign that Dan is relaxing that reserve a bit, because he's missed the casual intimacy of those early days. He's missed that thrilling sense of possibility, too, but he doesn't dare hope for that now. It's been too long, and Dan has made his preference too clear.
But there was that little kiss to his neck out on the sofa just now. Did it mean anything?
Phil sternly tells himself it didn't, protecting his heart as he's become so used to doing. It was just a moment of weakness on Dan's part, just another way of seeking comfort when he was upset over some silly movie he'd watched too late at night when his defenses were down.
Dan slips into the room on silent bare feet, then crawls into Phil's bed, immediately scooting to press up against Phil's side. "Spoon?" he requests softly, and Phil's heart melts. They roll so that the full extent of their bodies are pressed together, Phil's front to Dan's back, their knees bent in perfect alignment, Phil's body sheltering him again, and Phil wraps an arm around him to hold him close. Dan sighs with apparent contentment, then whispers, "I've missed this."
Phil pauses a long moment before replying in the darkness, "Me too." It's safer to admit it when Dan can't see his face, can't read the naked longing that's probably obvious there. He's worked so hard to hide it for so long, it feels scary to let it loose, even in the dark with Dan facing away. He worries that he won't be able to contain it again in the harsh light of morning, when Dan is just his friend and the lines stop blurring and become clear again.
They lie there cuddled together for a long time, but Phil can't fall asleep and can tell by Dan's breathing that he's still awake, too. Phil listens to the nearly undetectable sound of Dan's breath sighing in and out in the silent room, feels the slight movement of his back as his lungs expand and contract, and it's soothing.
Without a word, Dan takes Phil's hand in his and lifts it, presses a gentle kiss to the knuckles, and Phil's breath catches in his throat. Those lines are getting so blurry he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to see them clearly again.
In the hush, he can barely hear Dan's voice as he whispers, "I've been so stupid." Phil doesn't ask what Dan's talking about, just squeezes him more securely to his chest and twines their legs together. He takes a chance, crashing through those lines Dan has drawn so clearly for so long, and brushes his lips oh so briefly against the nape of Dan's neck.
Dan rolls over to face him, and Phil finds that his eyes have adjusted enough in the dark room that he can barely make out Dan's features. "I promise I'll always find a way to come back to you," Dan says with a strange intensity in his voice, as if he's making a solemn vow. "Always." His hand reaches up to cup Phil's cheek and time seems to stop. The darkness wraps them in an intimate quiet and Phil doesn't dare speak. "Can I … can I kiss you?" Dan whispers.
Stunned, Phil doesn't move for a moment, then he whispers back a simple, "Yes." He feels so much more than that one word, but it's all he can do to say that much. And then Dan's lips are pressed to his, soft but slightly chapped, and Dan's other hand weaves into Phil's hair, and the lines are just … obliterated. Maybe he's wrong, maybe Dan will try to draw them again, sharp and clear, in the morning, but Phil doesn't think he'll ever be able to really see them again, like looking at the world without his glasses on. And with Dan's lips on his, he doesn't think Dan wants to draw them anymore either.
"Promise me you'll always come back to me," Dan whispers, kissing the corner of Phil's mouth, then his chin. "I'm sorry I've been so stupid, but I don't ever want to be without you." Their lips meet again, and this time Dan lingers, increasing the pressure slightly before pulling away and watching Phil's face with eyes that seem to shine in the dim light.
"I promise," Phil says earnestly. "I don't want to be without you, either." He leans forward to touch his lips to Dan's, as if sealing the vow. "Ever."
Dan wraps his arms around Phil and hugs him tightly, his body trembling, and Phil hugs back just as tight. Something has been forged in this bed tonight, something that transcends the boundaries Dan has held so firmly for so long. Phil can feel it. And he knows that in the morning they have talking to do, but for right now he simply presses another kiss to the side of Dan's head and holds him in his arms in the dark.