"Dan!" Phil whined as they walked along the narrow lane. It was autumn and the colorful, dead leaves were gently falling down with the crisp breeze that accompanied them this fall day.
"What Phil?" Dan asked, annoyed to be taken out of this autumn anesthetic immersion.
"My hands are cold." Phil complained, making a big show of him rubbing his hands together to warm them; which was to no avail, they were still more frozen than Jack Frost's blue ass.
"Help me?" Phil asked, holding out his hand to Dan in the middle space between them as they walked. Dan eyed Phil's hand as if Phil might strike Dan with. Dan now slipped his own hands into his coat pockets to keep Phil away from them.
"Try doing this." Dan muttered. He showed his hands in his pockets; sticking them out a little, making them bulge. Dan was now walking at a quicker pace to knock them out of their previously synced strides. Phil slowed and felt the hurt showing on his face.
He and Dan had been dating far too long for hand holding to make Dan shy or uncomfortable. It was just Dan's perpetual fear of being outed when he wasn't ready. Sure, there were pictures of them hand holding throughout the years, but they were blurred and hard to really tell if he and Dan were actually hand holding. However, every new picture made Dan push himself away from Phil, sometimes for months at a time.
Just as Phil managed to pull Dan closer to him, another picture of 'Phan proof' would pop up and he'd have to fight Dan all over again. Phil was sick of it but he did have his own reservations about coming out to their fans, just not as bad as Dan's. Today, on the other hand, there was hardly anyone within their demographic out today and they weren't in a shopping mall, they were on a residential street on a Sunday afternoon. Everyone was inside, gathering strength for the week ahead.
Screw this. Phil thought then rushed back to Dan's side, plunged his hand into Dan's pocket, pulled out Dan's hand and interlocked their long fingers.
"Phil, what are you?!" Dan questioned shocked. He then realized how nice if felt to have his hand in Phil's. "Wow." Dan gulped, feeling Phil's skin on his own. "You really are cold."
"Not much warmer than you; you're freezing!" Phil frowned but bumped a hip into Dan's, causing Dan to jostle a little in his steps. "You should be called Mr. Freeze." Phil mumbled.
Their paces slowed until they were in sync once more. Phil closed the gap between them and sort of leaned and walked with Dan, forcing him to do the same unless Dan wanted to wander into the streets due to the newfound weight on his side. Dan pressed his head to the side of Phil's and sighed.
"I miss this." Dan whispered. He was referring to the times before he and Phil became so overwhelmingly popular that they couldn't go five steps without getting recognized. Which was basically a very small window of time in 2009 when Dan was just starting out as a YouTuber and Phil was still in the thousands, subscribers wise.
"I miss it too." Phil whispered back. He thought about sharing food and feeding each other without millions of awes, walking hand in hand, dancing to Fall Out Boy songs at the shopping center, even finding dark corners for them to kiss from time to time; sometimes doing more.
But this was the best they could do for PDA right now and Phil could accept that until the next post sends them into another pause on their relationship. For the moment, holding hands on a Sunday afternoon was just what he needed.
As the men were rounding the corner for home, they came to realize that they were no longer cold.