Work Text:
”Phil, darling, do you have a minute?”
Phil looks up from the notebook in his lap, still chewing at the tip of his pen, and frees his right ear from his headphones.
”Yeah?” he replies, before the circus manager, who is also his boss, peeks her head into his office.
”Daniel just arrived, can I send him in?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Phil says, removing his legs from his work desk to sit up a little straighter. He takes a glance around his messy office, that barely is an office, but more of a storage room filled to the brim with colorful fabrics and his sewing machines, but doesn’t have time to do anything about it in terms of cleaning before their latest recruit enters the room.
Phil’s been expecting Daniel, as he’s the last one to arrive this season. All the other performers have already been on site for a couple of days, and thus already gotten their measurements taken, but Daniel had to arrive a few days after everyone else because of another job at another circus on the other side of the country. Phil has therefore been prepared for days, as it’s just another performer who needs his measurements taken and costume sewn. This is just another, ordinary day at work.
Still, nothing in Phil’s life has prepared him for the guy who enters the room at that exact moment.
“Meet me at the arena afterwards, will you? This will only take a few minutes,” Phil’s, and now also Daniel’s, manager says to the guy, who enters the room with a nod towards their manager. His curly hair frames his face perfectly, and his oversized hoodie and sweatpants hug him in all the right places. “Phil is a professional,” she adds with a smile towards Phil, and then it’s just the two of them left.
At this moment Phil does not feel like a professional.
“Hi, I’m Phil,” Phil says after a moment of silence, after quietly reminding himself that he’s supposed to lead them in this situation. The guy is in his court, he’s here for Phil’s service, and this is Phil’s ace.
Get it together.
“I’m Dan,” the guy answers, awkwardly raising a hand in a wave, as if he too never has met a person in his life before. He smiles kindly though, showing off a dimpled cheek, which Phil falls into headfirst, losing his brain in the process.
He has to shake his head in order to get his thoughts together and gain some composure.
“Okay,” he says, mostly to himself, as he aimlessly searches his desk with his eyes. He thinks he’s looking after a notebook, but he’s not sure.
“Should I…?” Dan asks, hesitantly tugging with one hand at his hoodie.
“Yes! - Please, I -” Phil stumbles over his words, as he stands up, still searching for something on his desk.
He finds it, his fucking notebook, it was apparently right in front of him all along.
Of course it was, you just used it.
“I mean, please do,” he adds, looking apologetic at Dan. “I’m sorry it’s such a mess in here.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Dan replies with a smile, before tugging his hoodie over his head from behind in one motion.
Phil doesn’t know where to look. The guy standing in front of him is singlehandedly the most attractive guy he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen a lot of attractive people, being a tailor and all. He’s tall, maybe taller than Phil, which itself is unusual, since the performers at a circus usually are shorter in build. His chest is bare, in fact almost his entire torso is bare, except for a small trail of dark hair leading down below the hem of his sweatpants.
Fuck. Sweatpants.
”Erm,” Phil stutters, and Dan looks up at him, with a small frown above his intense brown eyes.
”You’ll have to take those off as well,” Phil says eventually, gesturing towards the pants, feeling his cheeks grow warm. ”The… fabric is too thick to measure through.”
Dan exhales with a chuckle.
”Yeah that hit me as soon as I walked in here,” he smiles, as he scratches the backside of his neck, looking a little embarrassed. ”I’ve done this enough times to know not to wear bulky clothes, but I’m coming directly from the train and didn’t have time to change.”
”It’s all good,” Phil smiles back, relieved that the guy in front of him seems a bit nervous as well, ”I’ve seen a lot worse than this.”
He realises what he just said the second Dan looks up at him again with a laugh.
”You’ve seen? -”
”Oh! No, I didn’t mean it like that - like - you’re fine, you look great, I - I didn’t -”
”Don’t worry, I get it,” Dan smiles as he steps out of his sweatpants and neatly folds them to put them on a chair. ”I’ve seen worse too.”
If Phil could melt through the surface of the earth, he probably would’ve by now. He’s usually a professional, calm and composed as he measures, fast and purposeful as he tailors. He’s done more costumes than he can recall, both for circuses and theatres, but not once has he been thrown off his tracks like this.
He’s as flustered as he was the first time he saw a fucking dick as a teenager.
”Okay, how do you want me?” Dan asks, arms hanging by his side, in nothing but his underwear.
On top of me, Phil thinks as he sees the tight, black briefs hugging whatever’s under it. He’s fit. Like, proper fit. His body is lean, and toned, with muscles carefully moving under his smooth skin, as if carved out of marble.
”You can stand over here,” Phil manages to say, and gestures towards the small podium he usually lets his clients stand on.
Dan goes to stand on it, and now he’s taller than Phil, like an entire head taller, and Phil looks up at him.
”I’m tall,” Dan says, and Phil snorts.
”Yeah, I’m not used to that. Uhm, you can stand down here instead.”
Dan steps down from the podium to stand in front of Phil, all toned, slender limbs and warm skin. All ready for Phil.
”Right,” Phil thinks out loud, trying to collect his thoughts, with notebook in hand and pen behind the ear. But something’s missing.
”Oh! -” he exhales once he realises, and turns around to fetch his measuring tape. When he turns back to Dan he’s looking directly at him, dimpled smirk and all.
”Right,” Dan says.
Fuck, Phil thinks.
He gestures for Dan to put his arms out to a T, and this is a thing he’s done hundreds of times, it should not be as nerve wracking as it suddenly is, it should not be this hard.
He tries to think of ugly people, dying animals and moldy cheese as he wraps his arms around Dan’s torso to get the measuring tape around his chest. But he only sees warm, tanned skin, toned muscles, tiny freckles, pink nipples. A chest rising and falling with Dan's breaths, the air hitting the top of his head as he does so.
Phil swallows thickly, checks the measuring tape and scribbles down the number in his notebook. Diving back in, he puts the pen between his teeth instead of behind his ear. Mostly to have something to bite on to.
He lays the measuring tape along Dan’s elongated arm, and holds it in place at the wrist to check the number at the tape on his shoulder. Dan’s face is so close now, and a quick glance at it reveals a tiny, dark stubble he didn’t see at first, and more, tiny, light, freckles below his eyes. Phil can feel Dan’s pulse in the hand that is holding his wrist, and the tendons below the skin.
Phil takes a mental note of the measurement, and decides to move on to the next one without further ado.
“Okay, so I’m just gonna -” Phil starts but the sentence trails off as he carefully wraps the measurement tape around Dan’s neck.
He does this every day, but suddenly he feels as if he’s gonna combust.
Then Dan flinches out of the grip and the measuring tape falls to the ground.
“Oh, sorry, did I-” Phil begins, pen still between his teeth, as he bends down to get the tape.
“It’s okay,” Dan laughs as he raises his shoulder to his ear, rubbing the neck between his own skin. “I’m just a little sensitive around my neck.”
“Oh,” is all Phil can say as he stands back up, busy using all his willpower to stop the train of impure thoughts racing towards him at about two thousand miles per hour.
“It’s okay,” Dan repeats, replacing his feet steadily at the ground, as if to prepare himself. “I’m ready now.”
Phil once again wraps the measuring tape around Dan’s neck, a bit more careful to not accidentally tickle him, trying his best not to look into the brown eyes staring at him from a way too short distance, and takes a mental note of the number on the tape.
He then scribbles both of the numbers down before he forgets them. He usually keeps more than two numbers in his head at a time, but he does not trust his brain right now.
Phil once again swallows thickly, pen pressed between his teeth.
He takes the measures between Dan’s armpits, and he’s fumbling, messy, fingers shaky. It’s like he’s forgotten how much he usually touches his clients. Does he use his hand to make them spin around? Does he keep holding onto their bodies as he writes down the numbers? Does he usually take deep breaths as he leans into their personal spaces, to get a smell of their bodies?
Dan smells amazing by the way. Clean, soft, warm. Manly.
Phil gestures for Dan to turn around so he can get his back width. His back is as free from hair and moles as his chest, and Phil lets his eyes lap over the shoulder blades, over the curly hair at the base of the neck, over the small of his back. He drags the measuring tape along the spine as he measures the nape to waist-length, just about resisting the urge to let his index finger drag along the tiny bumps that are his spine. He wraps his arms around Dan’s torso once again, careful not to wrap his entire body around him, and gets the numbers for his waist and hips.
”Done,” Phil says, with a last look at the tight ass in front of him, only covered by the thin fabric of Dan’s briefs. Dan rightfully understands Phil’s comment as the cue to turn around so he’s facing Phil again, and in the meantime Phil focuses on scribbling down the measurements he just took.
Anything to try to stop the heat rising at his cheeks.
For fuck sake Phil, this is definitely not professional. Behave.
”Okay, I only have the legs left and then we’re done,” Phil says as he puts the notebook to the side.
”That’s a shame.”
Phil’s eyes shoot up to meet Dan’s brown, a hint of slyness in the deep color.
”I’m used to my tailors being old ladies who smack my bum whenever they get the chance,” he shrugs with a crooked smile, and Phil chokes on nothing, resulting in him coughing. Dan's smile widens as he eyes Phil’s body, up and down and up again. ”This is nicer.”
Phil’s still trying to catch his breath, both from whatever just invaded his throat and from what Dan said.
”Yeah,” he eventually scoffs, a little breathless, and Dan chuckles, looking a little too confident considering he’s only wearing a pair of very thin briefs. He swallows with his hand on his chest, trying to gain his composure. ”I’m gonna take the last measurements now.”
”I’m all yours,” Dan smiles, and Phil’s heart skips a beat, even though that’s a comment he’s heard more than once while taking someone’s measurements.
Phil walks up to Dan, and quickly realises that there’s no other way of doing it than his usual way, so he crouches in front of Dan, and quickly wraps the measuring tape around Dan’s bum and hips. He lets the tape meet at Dan’s side, and uses all of his power to look at the number it shows, (which will tell him the circumference of Dan’s tight ass, he realises, biting harder down at the pen between his teeth) and not at the crotch which is at perfect eye level. And mouth level. But he’s not looking.
Get it together, Phil.
Phil releases the tape and lets it fall down along the outside of Dan’s thigh, and he can feel the warmth of Dan’s skin as he flattens the tape with his hand. The hair on his legs is light, and soft, and gets thinner the higher up he gets. The insides of his thighs are almost completely hairless, Phil realises as he wraps the tape around Dan’s thigh to get the circumference of it, careful not to touch despite it being everything he wants.
”How come you’re working as a tailor?” Dan suddenly asks.
Phil looks up at him, for a second lost in the way Dan looks from his position; how his chest heaves with every breath, how his curly brown locks falls down into his eyes as he tilts his face down, how said eyes look down at him, eyelids droopy and-
Oh my god. Phil has to get away from this exact position now or he’s gonna start sucking the man’s dick out of pure instinct. He turns away his gaze, ears burning with heat and starts scribbling down the numbers he just got in his notebook.
”Uhm,” he starts when he gets his numbers down on paper and starts to fiddle with the pen between his fingers, only with one thing left to measure, but he needs to calm himself down before doing that.
Thank god he decided to wear baggy clothes to work today.
”I’ve always liked to create,” Phil answers eventually, playing with the pen between his fingers. ”But I never wanted to be a fashion designer. This is more fun, getting to create pieces for people to move in, for people to create art in.” He then puts the pen behind his ear, out of old habit, and grabs the measuring tape instead. ”Being able to bring out people’s strengths and highlight their best features, I don’t know… It makes me happy to see people perform well in what I've created for them.” He looks up at Dan, who looks down at him. ”Plus, this is the closest I ever get to working out.”
Dan laughs at that, a warm sound coming from his chest, fine lines appearing at the outer corners of his eyes as he does so. Phil steadies himself for the last measurement, and decides to keep the conversation going to make it not too awkward.
”How about you?” he asks Dan, who frowns slightly at the question.
”What about me?”
”How long have you been a trapeze artist?”
Dan exhales and smiles down at Phil, before looking up and beyond the walls of the room. Phil takes the opportunity and starts to measure the inseam of Dan's legs.
”I’ve always loved doing it, which is weird, because I’m terrible at basically every other sport,” Dan starts, seemingly unfazed by the fingers grazing his skin. ”But I love rollercoasters, and the feeling I get when I’m on a rollercoaster is the same as the feeling I get when I’m performing my routine. Does that make sense?”
Phil, one hand holding one edge of the measuring tape against the floor, and the other hand holding the measuring tape right below Dan’s crotch, looks up.
”I guess? It sounds and looks fun, but I get motion sick so I wouldn’t know,” he manages to say, which makes Dan chuckle and accidentally move his hips an inch lower which leads to Phil’s hand unmistakably grazing Dan’s balls.
”Oh god-” Phil starts, before he tumbles down on the floor, bum first, measuring tape still in hand.
”I’m so sorry -” Dan gets out between laughs while clutching his stomach.
”I didn’t mean to -” Phil continues, terrified of what he just did. He’s a professional for fucks sake.
”No, seriously, don’t worry about it,” Dan chuckles, one hand drying a tear from the corner of his eye. ”It’s just about my luck, to get my balls handled by a hot tailor.”
Phil, just about to get on his feet, chokes again, on nothing (or on the thing Dan just said). He turns away, coughing into his elbow, trying to gain control over his breath.
A few moments later, Phil has stopped coughing and Dan has stopped laughing. They both have flushed red cheeks when Phil tells Dan that he’s got everything he needs in terms of numbers. A moment of silence follows, as Phil takes a few more notes (sensitive neck) and Dan gets dressed, and when the silence is broken, it’s by Dan.
”Since you’ve taken all my numbers now, how about I get one of yours?” he asks, just as the sight of his beautiful torso disappears under the big hoodie he was wearing when he entered the room for what feels like hours ago.
What?
Phil looks at him, all wide eyed, and is met by smug eyes, a kind face and lips that’s turned up at the corners. Dan has dug out his phone from the pockets of his sweatpants, and is holding it out for Phil to take.
”If you want to, that is,” Dan adds, and with that Phil takes the two steps forward that kept them apart, and grabs Dan’s phone.
With shaky fingers (they always shake) he types in his number, checks twice so it’s the right one, and gives the phone back to Dan, who takes it in a smooth motion, softly touching Phil’s fingers in the process.
”Thanks,” Dan says with a smile, and Phil can’t help but smile back.
They stay like that for a second, or two, or ten, or twenty; Phil’s honestly not sure. Dan’s eyes are boring into his own, searching, looking, observing, admiring, and Phil is doing the same thing back. He sees curiosity in the deep brown irises, kindness in the lighter, almost gold specks within it, and something close to desire in the way his pupils elongate for each moment. His lips part slightly as he seems to exhale almost soundlessly, and Phil can see his tongue lick the inside of his bottom lip.
Phil would love to do the exact same thing.
The moment comes to an abrupt end by a knock on the door.
”Daniel? You in there?” their manager asks through the closed door. ”Please tell me you’re dressed, we’re going through the program now and we need you to be with us.”
”In a minute,” Dan shouts back, eyes still on Phil. When the steps on the other side of the door die out, Dan lets the dimpled smile take over his face again.
”Thank you for measuring me.”
”Thank you for… letting me do it?…” Phil hesitantly replies with a frown, because what did he just say?
Get. It. Together, Phil.
But Dan only laughs, fondly almost, before typing something on his phone and dropping it in one of the pockets of his sweatpants.
”I’ll text you,” he says, just as Phil’s phone vibrates at his table. ”Oh, looks like I already did.”
Before Phil has time to answer, or even think of an answer, Dan's out the door, carefully closing it behind him.
Phil stands baffled for a moment (because what the fuck just happened?) before he pads over to his desk, throws his notebook on the piles of papers and fabrics already on there, and he takes out his phone.
He has one new text message.
you forgot to measure one thing
Before he has time to reply or even think of a reply, two new texts follow.
its 12 inches fyi
jk. this is dan btw
Phil slumps down at his desk chair with a groan and the palm of his hand pressed firmly between his legs.
He’s about to become the worst professional ever.