Author's Note: This chapter focuses on the very sensitive, deeply personal topics of homophobia, biphobia, and the internalization of both/either of these. I've tried to treat those topics with respect and hope that readers will forgive me if I've unintentionally written anything insensitive. I wanted to focus here on the pain these prejudices can cause everyone involved. The next chapter will address how and why Phil developed these feelings, but this chapter focuses only on the feelings themselves and their impact on individuals and on relationships.

Chapter 5: Answers

Dan was confused at first about what Phil was trying to say. "So when you were younger you figured you'd grow up and marry some nice girl? How disappointingly heteronormative of you, Phil." He was half-joking, but also a little disturbed to learn that Phil had bought into such societally prescribed expectations at some point in his life.

Then the penny fell.

"Wait," Dan said slowly. "Wait. So … are you saying … are you saying that's what you still want?"

Phil grimaced. "No! I mean, I'm not with a girl. I'm with you!"

"But you want to marry a girl? Eventually?" Dan's entire chest was seizing up, and the guilty look on Phil's face was only making it worse. He felt like he might faint or vomit or just run screaming out of the room. Then it all became horribly, horribly clear. "That's why you were so freaked out when I proposed. Because … because you would never marry me. Because I'm a guy."

"I never really thought about it that way!" Phil insisted frantically. "I just … when you asked me that on the beach, I realized that it wasn't what I'd pictured. And I didn't know what to do. I panicked!"

Dan stared at the coffee table and said dazedly, "So you've just been shagging me for the past several years, passing time while you waited to meet the right girl so you could settle down like you always dreamed?"

"No!" Phil shouted, looking aghast. "I was never looking for anyone else! love you, Dan! You know I do! You've never doubted it before, and nothing has changed. I still love you, you still love me, we're still together…"

But Dan interrupted, his anger rising as the shock receded, "But never the way you wanted, right? Because I'm a guy. And that doesn't fit your pretty little socially acceptable picture of what marriage looks like. Right? Two guys, getting married? Does it seem wrong, Phil? Does it turn your fucking stomach?"

"No!" Phil shouted again. His face was bright red. Dan noticed it the way you notice these things. These things that don't matter to you because your world has been turned upside down. Phil's face was red, his mouth contorted, so fucking what?

Phil was talking. Dan heard him in a hazy sort of way. "It's just that I like both guys and girls, and it just made more sense in the long run, if I was going to get married, to go with a girl. Just … simpler."

Dan nodded slowly. "And that's what marriage is about for you? Going with what's simplest?"

Phil threw his hands up. "I don't want to get married at all! I told you that! I'm with you, and I want to stay with you, and I love you, and I thought we were happy together, I thought we could stay happy like that forever, and that's what I wanted. That's what I still want!"

"Just not marriage," Dan replied, and his voice was calm now. The rage had sunk deep inside him, so deep that none of it showed anymore. It was his own private inferno. "Because that's only for men and women."

"I didn't say men couldn't get married…" Phil began hesitantly, but Dan interrupted.

"Just that you wouldn't want that. But you would want to marry a woman. Because you feel like marrying a woman would be okay, but marrying a man wouldn't."

Phil bit his lip, looking the most uncomfortable Dan had ever seen him.

Dan continued, the rage roiling silently beneath his words, "So, somewhere inside you, somewhere, you really believe that straight marriages are more valid than gay ones. That's what you're saying."

"Just for me," Phil said quickly, then seemed to realize what he'd said and clenched both hands into his hair. "Dan, listen to me…"

"I think I'm done listening to you, Phil. Because you disgust me." Dan spat the words, his anger growing out of control, rising toward the surface and bursting through.

Phil paled. "Dan, no, I love you. You don't understand! It's just … I can't help the way I feel…"

Dan's voice was hard and cold when he said slowly, "Yeah, well, that thing you're feeling?" He looked Phil in the eyes and let all his harsh emotion show in his face, "We call that fucking bigotry, Phil."

Phil's head jerked back as if Dan had dealt him a physical blow. His eyes were wide. Wider than they'd been on the beach. The beach where Dan had asked Phil to marry him with such blind excitement and certainty, the beach where Phil had apparently been horrified because men were good enough to fuck, maybe even good enough to love, temporarily, but not good enough to marry. God, he'd been such a fool! He'd been with Phil all these years and never seen it, never seen that this man who supposedly loved him so much was a fucking homophobe.

Dan stood and turned to go, but Phil jumped up to grab his arm. Dan shook him off, snarling, "I can't even stand to look at you right now, let alone have you touch me."

He stalked around the lounge, picking up his coat and phone while Phil watched him in helpless, horrified silence. When Dan got to the front door, he turned to look at Phil, feeling nothing but righteous indignation and pain. "You aren't the person I thought you were," he said, purposely trying to hurt Phil the way Phil had hurt him. "You aren't the person I loved." And then he walked out the door and slammed it behind him.

He didn't even really pay attention to where he was walking for a while, just striding along the pavement with his thoughts churning and his heart cold and dead as a stone in his chest. He ended up in some sort of park—he hadn't even realized there was a park anywhere near their flat, so how far had he walked?—and he threw himself down on a bench, panting, raising his head to stare up into the night sky.

On their various visits to the Isle of Man, he and Phil had stargazed many times. There was little light pollution near where the Lesters lived, and the sky at night was a marvel of spangled beauty. This London sky suited him better, he decided. With all the city lights, no stars were visible at all—just the black abyss of space.

That's what he felt like inside. Cold and dead and empty and just … darkness.

Sure, he was upset about what Phil had said as it pertained to him personally, how it made him feel like a placeholder, just helping Phil pass the time until he found someone—a female someone—with whom he might be able to imagine getting married.

The fact that Phil couldn't even conceive of wanting to marry Dan.

Dan, who had been so sure that Phil was as committed to their relationship as he was, so sure that Phil would accept his proposal with unhesitating joy.

Dan, who Phil would never want to marry.

Dan, who hadn't understood anything.

Dan, who was so completely fucked.

But he was upset about more than just himself, because this issue, the thing that had him so blindingly angry and made him feel so betrayed, was bigger than just him.

Dan had never really felt comfortable labeling his sexuality, but he had no problem admitting that he found both men and women attractive. He couldn't imagine having a problem feeling attracted to someone who identified outside that binary construct, either. He was attracted to people, not genitals. It had pretty much always been that way, though it had taken him a while to fully understand and accept it.

Phil had been a big part of that process. He'd already openly identified as bisexual when Dan first met him, though he'd become more private about his sexuality as his channel had grown in popularity and shrunk in average viewer age. But back then, he'd been older and wiser, and he'd really helped teenaged Dan start to believe that maybe it was okay if he didn't just like girls. That there was more than one way to be, that he didn't have to judge.

Those early lessons he'd learned from Phil had started him on the journey toward who he was today and the strong feelings he had about a wide variety of social issues, including LGBT ones. Dan was passionately committed to equality for all people—regardless of their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, the color of their skin, or any other supposed "difference" that haters used to separate "us" from "them." He saw no "us" or "them" … and so, to him, there was absolutely no difference between a straight marriage and a gay one. The importance was the love and the commitment, not the gender identity of the two parties involved. Finding out that Phil was prejudiced in this way rocked Dan to his very foundations. It actively offended him, because it disrespected all gay and bisexual people and their relationships, which Dan found literally abhorrent.

For Dan, this wasn't just about what he and Phil chose for the future of their relationship—it was also about how they each saw the world and what their values were. And he suddenly felt like he didn't even know who Phil was anymore, whether Phil was even a person he could respect, let alone love.

He no longer knew whether Phil was someone he would even want to marry, even if Phil were to accept his proposal now.

What made it even more mind-boggling to him was that Phil could feel this prejudice against gay men marrying, when he himself was bisexual! He'd never seemed to have any hesitation about being in a relationship with Dan, not just sexually but romantically. For years, he had lavished Dan with love and support, kindness and encouragement, respect and admiration. He'd shared every success, every triumph, every wonderful moment that memories were made of. Dan thought of that first PINOF, his longtime idol sharing the limelight with an unknown kid who dreamed of being a YouTuber. He remembered Phil rushing him to the hospital and staying with him when he got sick in uni. He remembered their first night in the Manchester apartment, when he felt like an actual adult for the very first time, because Phil had suggested that they live together. He remembered the night they realized they'd finished writing the very last page of TABINOF, realized that the book was officially done, and how they had danced around the living room whooping like lunatics. He thought of all those nights together with confetti raining down on them at the end of each TATINOF performance. He remembered Phil calling him up to the podium at the BONCAs, taking what should have been his own private moment of recognition and accomplishment … and preferring to share it with Dan. And as he remembered all these moments of connection and mutual support and partnership, he realized that he'd maybe let his anger get the best of him tonight.

Phil loved him. Now that he had calmed down and thought about it more rationally, he could see that. Phil loved him in a way no one else ever could, just as intensely as Dan loved Phil in return. They had gone through too much making this work, had learned to communicate and compromise and tolerate the little differences that were just part of who they were as individuals. This wasn't a little difference. This was a huge fucking difference. But maybe they could still get through it somehow.

They were meant to be together.

But just staying together wasn't enough for Dan anymore, not now that he'd realized that he wanted a real commitment. He wanted to marry Phil, and he didn't want it to be a compromise. He wanted Phil to want to marry him. He couldn't stand to believe that Phil actually saw things the way he'd said, and he didn't think he'd be able to stay in this relationship if Phil didn't change his mind at least about the concept of gay marriage in general, even if he didn't want to marry Dan.

But something inside him, some little voice of hope, some little voice that grew out of all those happy memories, said that maybe Phil did want that. Just maybe. It was worth some calm discussion, at any rate.

A long time ago, Phil had helped that mixed-up teenaged Dan deal with a lot of confusing feelings, helped him find his way and figure out who he wanted to be and what he wanted to do with his life, helped him figure out what things were important to him and what things were crucial.

Back then, Dan had been struggling, and Phil had been there to help. Maybe now it was Dan's turn to return the favor.

Meandering back toward the flat, unsure of his path and just traveling by instinct, Dan thought to himself that loving someone isn't a choice, and the fact was that he loved Phil for the person he was, the good and the bad. And this prejudice of Phil's, this self-destructive judgment of the very love he valued in his life … this was a part of Phil. A very problematic part, a part that still pissed Dan off, but still a part of the person Dan loved, and so he should have treated him with more respect when the issue arose. He should have talked to him, explained his own thoughts and feelings, clarified why he was angry, and listened to what Phil had to say in response. Phil seemed confused and distressed over this sudden realization, so he should have tried to help Phil sort out what he was feeling, the way Phil had done for him so long ago. He should have trusted in the strong partnership and mutual respect they'd built over the years.

Instead, he had called Phil a bigot, told him he didn't love him, and stormed out of the house.

Yeah, great fucking relationship skills there, Danny boy.

So when he finally found himself climbing the stairs to their apartment, his tread was slow and heavy. He dreaded the confrontation he would face when he opened that door. He was still a little pissed off, but willing to talk. He didn't know whether Phil would even consider that or if his prejudices were set too deep.

But instead of a confrontation, what he found was Phil sitting on the sofa, head in his hands, sobbing. He looked up immediately when the door opened, and he flinched when he saw Dan. That flinch made Dan want to slap himself silly. He should never have done anything, not anything, to make Phil afraid of him in any way, not even just emotionally or verbally, no matter how angry he'd gotten. He'd never felt such shame.

Dan smiled ruefully and jumped right into it. "I was an ass. I'm sorry. Are you still willing to talk with me if I'm willing to listen?"

Phil was wiping tears from his face, but he laughed at Dan's words, a relieved and exhausted little hiccuping sound. "God yes."

Dan came to sit beside him on the sofa and took his hands like he had earlier before saying, "I pressured you to tell me how you feel, and then when you did open up I called you names and hurled insults at you. That's no way to treat someone you love. Yeah, I'm upset about some of the things you said, and I'm offended by some of it, too, and still a little angry, but I should have talked to you about it instead of just becoming a rage beast. You deserved better than that from me, and I'm sorry."

Words burst out of Phil like a waterfall of anguish. "I knew the things I was saying were hurting you, but I just didn't know how else to explain how I feel, and I'd never really thought about it until you asked me and I realized I felt this way, and I know it doesn't make any sense but it's still how I feel and I don't know how to feel about how I feel, and … Dan, it was just horrible. The most horrible thing I've ever gone through. Let's never do that again, okay?" Phil was looking at him with red, swollen puppy dog eyes. But this was important.

Dan replied, "Just to be clear, I want you to tell me how you're feeling, even if it hurts me or makes me angry. What's important is us really talking to each other, not hiding things to avoid drama. I want to talk about this whole thing, Phil. I want to seriously discuss it, because it's an important issue to me, but I want to hear your thoughts and tell you what I think and really talk it through … just all at a much lower volume and with a lot more cuddles." He smiled, and got a hesitant smile from Phil in response.

Maybe they'd end up getting married, and maybe they wouldn't, but Dan realized that what was important right now wasn't the destination. The point right now was the journey, and them making that journey together. And they were on their way back to doing that.

That night they made love for the first time since before the Isle of Man, and every gentle touch upon each other's skin bestowed reverence, apology, forgiveness, and promise.