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If you asked Phil what his favorite thing about being with Dan was, he’d probably say something like “being with your best friend”. He’d bring up laughing together, sharing their interests, being there for each other in tricky social situations, that kind of stuff.
If you wanted an actual honest answer, you’d probably have to be Dan.
They’d never talked about it directly, but Phil suspected his partner knew anyway – over the years, Dan read Phil as easily as Phil read him.
So, yes. If Dan asked Phil what his favorite thing about being with him was, he’d just flat-out tell him, because Dan would know anyway.
It was the fact that he was the exception to every single one of Dan’s rules.
“I’m not gay, but…”
“I’ve got commitment issues, but…”
“I don’t like the colour green, but…”
“I want to go on hiatus, but…”
“I’m not going to make a podcast, but…”
Everyone knew how each and every point of that went. And Phil wasn’t petty enough to point it out point blank, he wasn’t going to sit down in front of a camera and tell people – not when Dan did it himself every time, pointing it out with sarcasm and self-deprecating humour, while Phil had to do nothing but sit there and quietly and smugly grin.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that at some point, the whole thing had turned into a little game they played.
Phil asked for something, Dan said no, and then Phil got it anyway. Those were their roles in the universe, and Dan might hiss and buck his back about it like a cat in a bathtub, but in the end he’d still get wet for him.
(Okay, that sounded wrong, maybe he picked the wrong imagery here.)
(... Still.)
(Was he wrong, though?)
“Dan doesn’t believe in marriage,” he said, grimacing at the camera, while Dan went into a whole spiel about how he had commitment issues and needed to at least feel like he could leave if he wanted to.
Phil just sat next to him, nodding and smiling.
Sure thing, Danny boy. Sure thing.
So, Phil played the long game. He’d become an expert player over the years.
He started it so subtly, even Dan didn’t pick up on it at first.
“Your husband’s the king?” asked Dan, with an eyebrow raised sceptically.
It was just a video game, of course. Over the years, fans had posted a lot of out of context clips in which Dan was allegedly jealous, one more abstruse than the other, and Dan loved nothing more than to play into them once in a while, so that’s exactly what Phil was banking on right now, grinning from ear to ear.
Phil didn’t actually think Dan was going to get jealous of a video game King, that wasn’t the point – the point was the pham teasing him about it. Phannies were about to do a lot of the heavy lifting here.
“Yeah,” said Phil smugly. “He liked my jokes so much, he decided to put a ring on it.”
He side-glanced Dan, who side-glanced back at him, clearly unable to say anything unless he wanted to give away their biggest secret (which was in the workings. Yet another thing Dan changed his mind about). So Dan just glared. And Phil just smiled. And enjoyed the clips and reactions the little spectacle got – because of course everyone immediately picked up on it.
So, yes. If Phil liked some of them. And sent some of them Dan’s way. Who could blame him?
People were talking about it. Which was good.
People were talking about it even more after Dan, without much prompting from Phil, might he add, started talking about who would take whose name in a marriage.
“So, it’ll never happen, because all of these sound horrible,” Dan announced after they’ve gone through the possible variants. Phil let him get away with it for the sake of the podcast, but as they were shutting off the cameras and packing up their shit to go home, he couldn’t quite bite back the comment.
“You know you don’t have to take someone’s name after marrying them, right?” he asked gently. “Completely possible for both parties to just keep theirs.”
“Then what even is the point,” Dan muttered absent-mindedly, too focused on slipping into his coat to really pay attention to the undertones here.
Phil smirked to himself.
“Oh, I don’t know. Love, probably. Not that you’d know anything about that.” He nudged Dan with his elbow, grinning when he looked up at Phil with narrowed eyes.
“Right,” he finally snorted. “Fuck you.”
"Marital abuse,” Phil sighed. “And you haven’t even proposed yet.”
“Have to do it while it’s still plain old domestic abuse,” Dan quipped back, not even realising what he was implying.
Phil liked those little planted seeds the most – basically already sprouting in Dan’s mind, that one.
They went to karaoke with Louise, which was a horrible idea, because it was loud and crowded and they both hated loud and crowded. It was hard to talk over the awful singing, but with rising levels of alcohol, Phil found the whole thing becoming consistently more bearable. It’s been ages since they’ve hung out with Louise – Something she’d reminded Dan of with a glare that lasted a whole of three seconds before she gave up and melted at the sight of him (like everyone else did, Phil was pretty sure) and pulled both of them into a hug.
Now Phil was genuinely trying to bring up the courage to go on stage and do something funny.
Urgh. Too many people though.
He nudged Dan instead, who was drinking his third cocktail, grinning slyly.
“Hey, I’m betting you to go up on stage and sing a song I picked.”
Dan glanced at him.
“That sounds like a risk. You’ll pick something embarrassing.”
“I’ll pick something you know!” Phil promised.
“That is not what I was worried about.”
“Ohhh, you should do it!” said Louise, eyes gleaming.
Dan glared at her.
“I don’t want to do it. He’s planning something.”
Phil did his best to bat his eyelashes at him, smiling brightly while Louise made “awww” sounds.
“Don’t let him fool you!” Dan called out. “He’s not as innocent as everyone thinks!”
“Nevermind,” Phil said to Louise. “He’s too much of a coward.”
“I am not a coward. Stop trying to bait me,” Dan grumbled.
“I mean, in all fairness, I wouldn’t want to go after this guy, either,” Phil added, pointing at the stage. The guy currently singing Shake it Off was atrocious, which added fuel to the fire. “It’d just be embarrassing, he’s clearly better than you.”
Louise was giggling into her drink. Dan just stared at Phil, quietly fuming. He could see it all in those brown eyes, familiar to Phil as his face in the mirror. Dan knew exactly what was happening and chose to fall for it anyway.
“Fine. But if I go up there and it’s something embarrassing, I’ll make you pay, Lester.”
“It’s not gonna be embarrassing! Promise!”
Dan rolled his eyes, clearly not believing him, but he followed Phil up to the stage. Phil whispered into the tech guy’s ears, who confirmed with Dan that he wanted to go on blind, and that was that.
While Dan waited, he slapped his shoulder, wished him good luck and made his way back to their table to sit next to Louise, wanting to see his face when he realised which song Phil had chosen for him.
“What’s he gonna sing?” Louise asked.
“Oh, just some Beyoncé,” Phil smiled back.
It really was worth it, in the end – no one else was likely to pick up on it, but Phil did. The complex range of emotions Dan’s face underwent, when “Single Ladies” came on – Surprise to shock to realisation to quiet suppressed laughter, to – finally – putting on his best glare just for Phil while singing the song.
That was Dan, alright? Theater kid through and through. Never shying away from a performance, never resisting the lure of a show, never able to rein in his reactions, his heart on his sleeve despite the sarcastic walls built around it in an attempt to protect it.
Phil put his chin on both his hands, grinning back to Dan.
“So uh…” Louise giggled when Dan came back down from the stage, cheeks flushed slightly and his glare pinned to Phil. “I was wondering if you two had talked about getting married yet.”
“Nah,” grinned Phil, his eyes also not leaving Dan’s. “That’s for the Beyoncés of this world, you know? Dan couldn’t afford me.”
Dan spluttered angrily.
“I couldn’t– Oh you little–”
“I mean, do you even know when he last uploaded on his solo channel? I’m basically his sugar daddy.”
Dan looked like he wanted to throw his drink in Phil’s face. Instead, he took a deep breath, put on a deceptively sweet grin, and turned to Louise.
“You’re my only best friend now,” he said. “Make it count.”
“I’m not going to marry you,” Louise said immediately.
“I don’t want to– Oh, fuck off, both of you,” he laughed when Phil started snorting quietly into his shoulder, having leaned into Dan’s space to press a kiss to his cheek. “You’re unbearable, you little rat.”
He couldn’t be that unbearable though, if Dan’s hand on his knee for the rest of the evening was anything to go by.
“Chris texted me again, you know?” Phil told Dan one morning when they were having cereals on the sofa, an episode of Friends running in the background.
Dan blinked.
“Okay?”
“My ex Chris, I mean.”
“The model?” asked Dan.
“Yeah, the hot one,” Phil chirped. “I knew you’d remember.”
Dan whipped his head around to do an exaggerated stare, now clearly getting the drift.
“The hot one?” he repeated, voice dripping with venom.
“That’s the one,” Phil nodded.
“Well, what did your hot model ex want? Did he call me crazy again?”
“Actually, sort of?” Phil fought with himself and lost, a little giggle escaping him at the sight of Dan’s expression. “He asked if you had proposed to me already. Said, if it was him, he’d have locked me down already.”
Dan stared at him with uncharacteristic silence.
“I know what you’re doing, Lester.”
Well, obviously. It would only be half as fun if he didn’t, so much of Phil’s master manipulator talents going to waste and unappreciated.
“He asked if I was sure I picked the right guy. Really sweet of him to care, actually, don’t you think?”
Dan shovelled another spoon into his mouth, but Phil could still see the edges of his lips tremble from the effort not to laugh.
“Well, you tell him to fuck all the way off,” he finally said after a rather aggressive chew. “Dunno what he’s doing, texting a clearly taken man like this.”
“Well, I mean, until there’s a ring on this finger,” Phil said with a wiggle of his hand precariously in Dan’s personal space – the guy looked like he was half-tempted to bite his ring finger right off –, “it’s everyone’s game really, isn’t it?”
Listen, he wasn’t engaged yet – but the side effects of his plan were still rather pleasant. There was something so fun about the way Dan got during sex when Phil managed to actually bait some of his possessiveness out of hiding.
Phil started the day off with his ass hurting, but still wonderfully relaxed.
“The whole point,” Dan repeated, “was that we don’t do it together. That one of us– I mean, seriously?”
“It’s more fun together. It’s what the people actually want to see – we can just as well just test both out together, and then recount our experiences together.”
“It feels like cheating.”
“No, Dan, we talked about it, it’s only cheating when tongue is involved.”
Dan groaned and bumped his shoulder into Phil’s, rolling his eyes.
“Alright, fine. We’ll try it out and see what people say, I guess.”
Finally. Phil held the door open for him, and Dan slipped inside before him, nervously holding up his camera phone to film some of the impressions from the lobby.
One of the reasons Phil had preferred the Four Seasons deal, really, was that they were well aware that they would be filming. This, waltzing into a new place with many people and filming themselves, was always a little awkward.
“Hi, we booked a room for two,” Dan said, and Phil held out his phone with the reservation on it.
“Right, Lester,” the receptionist muttered, clicking around on her computer. Finally, she looked up at them with a smile. “Do you need two keys?”
“Yeah, just in case,” Dan agreed easily.
She handed out the keys with a bright smile.
“We’re happy to have you. You’ll have a great time, we have several activities for married couples that–”
“Oh, we’re not married,” Phil interrupted her cheerfully, ignoring the glare it caught him from Dan, instead winking into the camera he was still holding up.
“Oh,” said the lady. “My bad. I thought–”
“We’ve been together for sixteen years though, so maybe we can still partake?” Phil grinned. “Certainly act like an old married couple, don’t we, Dan?”
He smiled at Dan innocently, who glared back.
“Uh-huh,” he made.
“Sixteen years?” the woman asked, stunned. “And you’re not– That’s– May I ask why not?”
Dan let the arm with his camera sink, rolling his eyes.
“Here we go,” he muttered.
“Oh, this one doesn’t believe in marriage,” Phil explained to her with both eyebrows raised. “So of course, good partner that I am, respect his wishes.”
“Ohhh,” the woman says, giving Dan A Look. Dan looked back at her tiredly, lips pressed together to a thin line. “But what about your wishes?” she whispered to Phil, completely audible to Dan, who looked like he might consider jumping her.
“I know,” sighed Phil. “I’m being very–”
“He doesn’t give a shit,” Dan spat. “Stop acting like a martyr and come on, we have work to do.” He walked off with quick steps, heading towards the elevators.
Phil giggled at the woman’s widened eyes and grabbed both their keys.
“I do not give a shit,” he assured her. “But he’s gonna marry me anyways.”
He waved at her as he made his way over to Dan, who glared at him, even as he wrapped an arm around Phil's waist.
Lovely lady, really. She’d played her part perfectly.
Against public judgement, they were both usually pretty chill about the other getting hit on.
Mostly, because they trusted each other. Dan liked to play into it, but at the same time, he knew damn well Phil was going to send everyone away to go home with his man.
Phil was, however, not a stranger to sometimes letting things go a tiny little bit further, just to make Dan drag him home like a cave man. They had that trust. So it was fine. It was part of the game, it gave them both a thrill, it was fun.
And what could he say? It worked.
So when the guy hit on Phil, Phil let him. He smiled at him, both his and Dan’s drink in his hands, and leaned over the counter and into his space, encouraging him to keep going. Phil knew damn well that Dan was watching, could feel his gaze burning holes into his back.
“Do you come here often?” the guy asked and Phil gave him a little smirk.
“Oh, you know, not really. I’m honestly more of a couch potato but my husband over there,” he pointed at Dan behind him with his elbow, “wanted to go out.” He did his best to speak the word as annoyed as humanly possible.
That was not quite how that happened, even apart from the whole husband stuff, the reality of it was that they both needed to unwind after the cheap hotel video they filmed, but that was neither here nor there.
“Well, in that case, I better use my chance to get to know you better,” says the guy, shifting ever so much closer to Phil, a seductive, confident smile on his face. Under normal circumstances, Phil would take a step back to get some distance between them, but this time he leaned in, grinning widely.
“Oh yeah?” he asked and that was about the time Dan had managed to make his way through the crowd, his hands suddenly snaking around Phil’s waist from behind, so familiar to him that he didn’t even need to turn around to know it was him.
He leaned in just slightly, just to signal to Dan that there really wasn’t anyone else he wanted to be with, and found Dan’s hands squeezing him back in reassurance just once.
“Sorry, am I interrupting?” he asked, humour clear in his voice for absolutely everyone who knew him as well as Phil – which was only Phil.
“You his husband, then?” asked the guy. “You know, you guys should really wear rings – prevents a lot of misunderstandings such as these. Unless you’re ashamed of something?”
Phil felt Dan’s chin slip onto his shoulder and turn next to his and looked to the side to meet Dan’s inquiring brown eyes.
“What’s he talking about, honey?” he asked sugarly-sweet.
“Oh you know, our unhappy marriage,” Phil chirped back. “I was just about to tell him all about it.”
“You know, if I had a guy like this, I’d do everything to keep him happy,” the guy said with a wink towards Phil, who giggled, safely wrapped up in Dan’s arms. He didn’t usually like to mess with people like this, but to be fair, his empathy for attempting homewreckers was moderately low.
Dan rolled his eyes.
“You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. The guy’s insatiable.”
Well. Alright then. Phil would happily admit to that.
“I’m just saying,” homewrecker guy raised both hands in the world’s sassiest offer of peace. “Put a ring on your man if you don’t want him to be hit on.”
He walked off with a shake of his head, leaving Dan wrapped around Phil with a heavy sigh.
“Nicely arranged, I gotta hand it to you.”
“Thanks,” grinned Phil, stretching his neck to steal a kiss from Dan. “I’m getting better and better, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sometimes I’m almost scared of you, you freak. Come on. I want to actually have some of that drink before we go home.”
He didn’t sound scared at all though, he sounded fond. Phil grinned as he followed Dan back to their table, the idea that he would ever not give him what he wanted nothing but laughable.
“Hey, let me have a sip from your drink,” he asked as soon as they sat and Dan, before he had even had one of his own, held out his glass to him.
Yup.
He had this one firmly wrapped around his little finger.
“Dan, you won’t believe who I met at Tesco!”
Dan snuck into the kitchen behind Phil, glancing into the bags and immediately stealing himself a snack to open.
“Who?”
“Sam!”
“Sam?” asked Dan.
“Yeah, my good friend Sam!”
Dan furrowed his brows.
“You don’t have a good friend Sam.”
“Sam! The surfer!”
Phil looked up just in time to watch Dan’s entire face fall.
“There is no way you met Sam the fucking surfer guy in our Tesco!”
“I did! He immediately recognised me too! He asked about you, you know?”
“Did he now?” Dan’s tone was stiff. “Wanted to know if I’m still in the picture, did he?”
“Well, yes,” Phil grinned. “He asked specifically if we were married already. Apparently he really regretted not asking me out back then, can you imagine? When I said no, he said he’s glad he hasn’t missed his chance yet and–”
Dan threw one of the marshmallows he’d stolen at him.
“Oh my God, there’s no way you’d go as low as to bring up Sam the surfer for your agenda!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Phil said as innocently as one could say while also attempting to catch the next marshmallow directly with his mouth. “I have no agenda whatsoever.”
“You want a fucking ring so badly? Fucking fine!”
Phil watched, stunned, as Dan stomped off towards one of their cupboards, opening up an almost untouched package of hot cocoa powder and poured it into a cup.
“What are you–”
The rest of the question got stuck in Phil’s throat when a little ring box popped out of the package and softly landed on a mountain of powder.
“Did you– But–”
Dan held it out to him in his flat palm, rolling his eyes.
“Well?” he asked.
“That’s not a proposal,” Phil protested.
“Well, someone wouldn’t let it go, and someone couldn’t wait, so someone is not getting the actual romantic Tokyo proposal I had planned for him, and now has to make do with a box covered in cocoa powder.”
“Why the fuck would you even hide it there?” Phil laughed.
“There’s no fucking place safe for it between you and the builders! And you get headaches from hot chocolate, so–”
“You’re insane,” Phil laughed. “For how long have you had it?”
“Fucking stop asking questions and put it on, you absolute freak.”
But again, Dan sounded nothing like fond.
Phil crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“You can at least get on your knee. And open the damn box for me.”
“You can open a box,” Dan said through gritted teeth. “These are the consequences of your actions, Philly!”
But what Phil wanted, Phil usually got.
Dan rolled his eyes and huffed and puffed about it, but he got on his knee in front of Phil on their kitchen tiles, open box held out to him, and the ring was simple but beautiful, shimmering in the lights, and the look in Dan’s eyes bright when he looked up to him, and Phil was happy.
“Marry me?”
Phil’s lips twitched into a smirk.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he finally sighed. “I’ll have to think about it. You know, I’m not really the marriage type of–”
Dan got up so fast, for a second Phil wasn’t sure if he was going to be shoved or kissed, and then realised it would be both. Dan slammed him against their closed fridge door, lips on Phil’s, seemingly intent on shutting him up, and Phil allowed himself to get lost in it, but he still felt the slide of metal against his finger when Dan sneakily put the ring on it.
So, yeah. If you asked Phil about it, he’d say something about the laughter they shared. But the reality of it was – and Dan knew it damn well – that he enjoyed it quite a lot, to be the exception to every single one of Dan’s rules.
“I’m just too much fun,” he muttered in bed, with Dan wrapped around him, looking down at his new ring and how it looked with their fingers intertwined.
Dan grunted into his shoulder. It was incoherent, but Phil knew the guy well enough to know full well, that it was a grunt of begrudging agreement.
They did both appreciate a good game, after all.