You’re Not Alone

Phil had never thought twice about it before this. He found himself staring at a cylindrical container that contained multiple branches of artificial mistletoe, made for the festive, and occasionally romantic, season of Christmas. It wasn’t often that he went to the stores on his own, as his roommate would often accompany him, but an unspoken agreement had been made.

They wouldn’t question any outings the other had by themselves during December. It was an assumption that they would be buying a gift for their best friend, and that was the only thing that kept them apart on trips like these.

The mistletoe was beckoning Phil to take a closer look. To consider the possibilities of having a sole piece of it hang above their kitchen, or their hallway, even Phil’s own bedroom if he preferred. It was a welcome distraction from the pressing matter of buying Dan a gift that was meaningful but wouldn’t result in him being scolded playfully for its cost.

Phil tentatively held up one of the small branches and inspected it, not knowing what he was looking for. A pleasant appearance? A comforting ambience? A romantic tingle?

The final thought stopped Phil in his tracks. He knew he felt something for Dan. There was no point in lying to himself over and over again; it achieved nothing. So while Phil did acknowledge the fact that he did have romantic feelings for Dan, he never acted on them.

He’d never been confident enough to confess his feelings. He’d never been bold enough ask him on a date. He’d never even had the courage to discuss his and Dan’s current relationship in fear of losing everything they’d built together.

Until now.

Leaving the small store £4 lighter than when he entered, a small, determined smile made its way on Phil’s face as he wondered off to buy Dan a present; the beginnings of a plan now set in motion for the season. He could only hope that he remained motivated enough to follow through with his anticipated actions.

◂◅◄╌◂❀▸╌►▻▸

Phil lost any minute amount of courage he’d had earlier when he bought the mistletoe as soon as he entered their flat. Dan was sprawled out on their living room’s couch, casually scrolling through what Phil could only assume was a social media platform. He made sure to avoid Dan’s curious glances as he walked past him to the kitchen.

Taking out the ingredients necessary to make a hot chocolate due to the cold weather, Phil placed the bag that contained Dan’s present down on the floor next to him, and took two mugs out of the cupboard almost automatically. Dan had by now closed his laptop and made his way over to the kitchen, him innocently wondering what Phil was making for the two of them. He hadn’t meant to scare Phil when he suddenly appeared at his side from behind.

“Dan! You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

Huffing playfully, Dan took a step closer to Phil, attempting to peer over his shoulder to see whatever he was making. In the process of doing so, however, his foot knocked Phil’s shopping bag over and knocked its contents all over the floor.

“Fuck, sorr-“

“Turn around!” Phil shouted in a state of mild panic. “I don’t want you to see your present!”

Dan quickly turned his body around to avoid seeing his Christmas present. He hadn’t been trying to see his gift, honestly, but he wasn’t sure if that was the impression Phil had from the ordeal.

“Sorry if I like, ruined it...” Dan murmured guiltily.

Phil sighed quietly to himself before putting the present back into the bag; relieved that Dan hadn’t, to the best of his knowledge, seen his gift for later that month. It was probably just an accident. At least he wouldn’t have to buy him another one.

Thinking that his dignity had been saved, Phil stood up and told Dan he could turn around. He began walking back to his bedroom in order to hide his flatmate’s present but was stopped by Dan calling out his name.

“Hey Phil? What’s with the mistletoe?”

Phil’s body tensed as he scanned his eyes through the bag, hoping against hope that the stupid piece of plastic he’d bought on a whim would still be in there, hidden away from Dan’s view. He knew it was useless trying to find it, though. Dan already knew.

“Why did you buy it? You know we’ve got enough decorations set up already to last us a decade.”

Turning around cautiously, Phil forced himself to relax as he made eye with his friend. Just his friend. Dan didn’t know what he’d been planning to do and so far, he didn’t suspect anything along those lines. Phil only had to improvise a decent excuse to get out of this situation.

“I just, you know, kept thinking about all those Christmas movies with mistletoe in them and thought it would make a nice addition to the flat.”

At least he hadn’t stuttered. By the look on Dan’s face, Phil had the interpretation that Dan believed his tall tale, thankfully.

“Ok, so where are you gonna put it?”

Dan had returned his attention to the incomplete hot chocolates and was now adding milk to them before Phil could respond. Phil, at least, felt some of his stress dissipate as he watched Dan lose interest in the mistletoe.

“I was thinking I could put it up in the kitchen somewhere? Probably near the hallway. That way we can see it from multiple rooms.”

“Mmhmm,” was the response Phil received from Dan as he put their drinks in the microwave, making sure not to spill any of it before it reached its destination. Phil took this as his cue to find a roll of sticky tape and attach it to the lowest part of the ceiling, where the kitchen met the living room. He only had to stand on the tips of his toes to reach it.

The microwave beeped, alerting Dan to their newly made hot beverages. Carefully, he carried both mugs out of the machine and placed them on the bench next to two spoons he’d taken out earlier. He looked up at Phil and noticed the piece of mistletoe hanging delicately above him, Phil’s expression one of curiosity. He wanted to know what Dan thought.

“It looks great, Phil,” he complimented warmly, bringing Phil’s mug of hot chocolate over to him. “How about we just lounge around for a little bit? We’ve got time.”

Phil took one last glance up at the mistletoe hanging above them. Then he tilted his gaze to meet Dan’s, who’s eyes were full of endearment. In a friendly way, though. The mistletoe wasn’t suddenly going to change their status just by standing underneath it.

“Yeah, sure. I’d like that,” Phil replied, walking over to the living room in hopes of finding a good anime to watch on the television with Dan. He pretended to ignore Dan’s lingering stare at the mistletoe.

◂◅◄╌◂❀▸╌►▻▸

Christmas Eve came around quicker than they had both anticipated, and Dan and Phil found themselves wondering what they could do on this special night. It was at Phil’s suggestion that they decided to bake Christmas cookies, and they initially thought of filming it as a Christmas baking video. In the end, though, they decided against it. Baking videos could be filmed for Easter and Halloween instead.

“Dan! Where’s the flour?”

Huffing at Phil’s ability to lose just about anything, Dan turned around and grabbed a small pinch of flour from the corner of the kitchen bench and flicked it in Phil’s face when he turned around.

“Hey!”

“I think I found it,” Dan replied sassily, taking in Phil’s current image. Flour dotted his cheeks and covered his nose, and in an odd way he looked like Rudolf the White Nosed Reindeer.

“You could’ve just told me it was in plain sight!” Phil suggested mockingly, but the goofy smile and slight blush on his face told a different story.

“Mmhmm, sure.” Dan bopped his nose and saw the way Phil’s eyes flickered downcast; was he nervous?

“Anyways,” Dan continued, ignoring the slight action that was against Phil’s character, “we need to get this batter made if we’re going to have cookies for Christmas.”

“Definitely. We don’t want Santa abducting us because we failed to make anything Christmassy.”

Dan laughed to himself, trying to hold back an unbelieving smile. “Is Christmassy even a word, Phil?”

“Probably not, but it is now!”

“Okay you absolute spork, what’s next on the recipe?”

Phil struggled to read the instructions off his phone as Dan leant over his shoulder and practically buried himself in between Phil’s neck and collarbone. He could hear his best friend’s quiet breathing, feel his curly hairs pressed against the underside of his chin, smell the slightly feminine scent radiating off him in small waves. Moments like these Phil liked to treasure, before reminding himself that whatever he wanted them to be would remain inside his private thoughts, and would never see the light of day if he could help it. The dynamic they had now was perfect, and there was no need for Phil to change it to suit his own desires.

“Philll, what’s next?”

“Oh! Sorry, we mix the butter, melted chocolate, milk and flour all together with a pinch of sugar.”

Dan pulled away from Phil casually and held a hand to his hip, as if he was surveying the situation at hand. His questionable expression dissipated in a matter of moments, though, and Phil was left with a silly smirk and a dangerously high level of motivation.

“Ok, enough sitting on our asses, let’s bake some shit!”

The next twenty minutes, to Phil at least, felt oddly romantic. It was as if every possible excuse Dan could come up with to touch Phil arose, and they accidentally bumped into each other more than enough for Phil to get suspicious of his flatmate’s behaviour. Phil was the one who was supposed to fancy the other. Not Dan. He’d made that conclusion to himself months ago.

They stirred the bowl of ingredients together, taking turns in holding the spoon until at some point they both had a hand on the utensil and their fingers were overlapping and Phil could feel a blush forming on his cheeks that wasn’t there before. Why couldn’t he stop blushing? He’d had no trouble beforehand with hiding his complicated emotions, so why did they choose that moment to show themselves?

“Hey, are you gonna wipe that flour off your face?”

Phil moved the hand that wasn’t currently rotating the spoon around the bowl of batter to feel his nose where sure enough, flour crumbled at the touch of his fingers and spilled into his slightly parted mouth. He couldn’t resist the urge to cough and ended up spluttering flour all over Dan’s black top and skinny jeans, earning a disgusted and appalled Dan in return.

“You motherfucker!” Dan insulted, a cackling laugh erupting out of him as he surveyed the damage on his clothes. “You could have at least turned around!”

“S-Sorry!” Phil stuttered, still recovering from his hacking fit. “At least I didn’t cough into the food.”

“True. If that’d happened, that would be a real tragedy.”

“And my brutal death by choking on flour wouldn’t have been a tragedy?”

“Of course it wouldn’t have, Phil! I treasure food higher than any social status a human could have.”

“I’m not even surprised. Would you even attend my funeral?”

“Only if there’s food.”

The atmosphere was building to a climax, Phil could feel it. It wasn’t suffocating him, but at the same time the aura wasn’t avoiding him. It felt like a gentle pressing against his skin, like a small reminder that something was going to happen. But nothing had, and nothing will, Phil had to remind himself. He was getting worked up over nothing.

“Since you thankfully didn’t ruin the cookies with your awful coughing, I think they’re ready for the oven,” Dan said, leaning ever so slightly against Phil’s frame. Phil didn’t say anything, but simply nodded in agreement.

They didn’t need words sometimes to convey their thoughts to each other.

Phil began tipping the cookie batter onto a baking tray and tried his best to keep the sizes of the treats relatively even. He failed miserably, but it was the thought that counted, so he proceeded to pick up the tray of delectable goods and carried them over to the oven, where Dan had kindly opened it for him with eager eyes.

Phil knew that look. Dan wanted to say something, but was holding it back for whatever reason. It made Phil somewhat sad that Dan felt like he had to measure his words around him, but when he thought of his own, private secret, Phil understood his position.

Once the tray had slid into the oven, and the cookies were being baked at a decent pace, Phil turned around to see an expression of curiosity dawning on Dan.

“Phil, you’ve been awfully distracted for pretty much the last half hour; care to share?”

He never thought that this would be something he could experience, but Phil could feel his face paling at that sentence. Dan knew. He had to. There was no way he would have opened his mouth and said that if he didn’t already know the answer, as he just wasn’t like that. Dan knew.

Phil was terrified to say the least.

“Hey hey hey, Phil, look at me.”

He didn’t. He could feel the tears begin to slip involuntarily out of his eyes as he avoided Dan’s concerned gaze.

“Phil, please.”

He still didn’t. He refused to look at Dan, not with his stupid tears and his stupid frown and his stupid feelings.

A pair of long and soft arms embraced him, and a shoulder presented itself for him to cry into. So cry he did. His secret was out. Whether or not it had happened with the aid of Dan’s actions, it was still being acknowledged by his flatmate, his best friend, his Dan. Phil thought, for the first time in a long period of his life, that he didn’t know what to do.

“I knew I should’ve just told you,” Dan murmured above him. “None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t just...”

Phil felt Dan pull away, but he didn’t leave him. Rather, he held onto Phil’s hands and rubbed his thumbs over his palms in a comforting manner.

“Phil, I like you. I fucking like you, okay? You’re not alone in this, in any of this. Okay?”

The grip on Phil’s hands hadn’t loosened in any way during Dan’s confession. His eyes were expressive and honest, with a few tears managing to make themselves apparent, and Phil knew in that moment that Dan wasn’t lying. He would never lie to him about something as serious as this.

“We’re both idiots, aren’t we?” Phil muttered between shaky breaths, attempting to wipe the cascading tears off his cheeks.

“Yeah, romantic idiots though.”

It took Phil a moment to understand what Dan was referring to. He followed Dan’s lingering stare at something above them, and Phil realised with a start that the piece of mistletoe he’d hung there earlier that week was hanging above them. It couldn’t have been more cliché if Phil tried. Regardless, though, Phil found himself lost for words.

Dan was giving Phil this huge, beaming smile that said more than a thousand words could. It was as if it was displaying Dan’s true self, his real feelings and hidden emotions. He was being laid bare in front of Phil, and Phil found himself doing the same, allowing all of his ion and desire surface for the very first time in front of Dan.

The effect was instantaneous.

Dan gently moved his hand to Phil’s hip and pulled his closer, while his other hand came up to rest around Phil’s neck. The older wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist as he was pulled closer, and there was a moment shared between them that spilled their innermost thoughts without a single word being annunciated. They both just, knew.

Dan’s eyes closed slowly as he leant forwards towards Phil, and Phil decided to close his too. Phil could feel the hesitation in Dan’s actions, as he refrained from instantly ing Phil, giving him time to consider if this was what he actually wanted. When there was no resistance to his movements, Phil felt a soft pair of lips touch his own, and he was instantly a goner.

They kissed like they were inexperienced teenagers, with neither of them setting up a dynamic for future reference. But then again, they didn’t need one. Dan and Phil lived without labels, without words defining their every action and existence. They didn’t need labels to know that they were made for each other.

The connection remained for a couple of seconds before they harmoniously pulled away from each other, both opening their eyes to view each other in a new and exciting light. Dan’s eyes portrayed true and bubbling happiness, and Phil could only assume his eyes demonstrated the same emotions. They held each other dearly, as if they were one another’s life rafts in a murky ocean, and they continued their non verbal communication until a shaky giggle forced its way out of Dan.

“You know what? I don’t just like you, Phil. I’m fucking in love with you.”

Dan closed the small gap between their lips again and reconnected them in a way that Phil felt was now essential to his survival. He craved Dan’s affection, his happiness, his personality. He needed Dan.

Phil loved him.

And Dan loved Phil.

But words couldn’t express their heartfelt joy, or their blinding positivity, or their newfound adoration. Words could only express so much. This intimate conversation between their bodies meant much more than anything in the English language.

They remained wrapped up in each other’s arms and company for the remainder of the night, only separating to retrieve the chocolate cookies from the oven to eat on Christmas. They’d both long forgotten about the presents they were supposed to give each other.

The best gift they’d ever received was in their arms, and Dan and Phil planned on keeping it that way.

AN:// Thank you for reading ‘You’re Not Alone’! I really appreciate anybody who takes the time to read any of my works, and I cannot express how happy I am to receive positive from you guys.

Also, merry Christmas! Sadly, it’s already halfway through the day over here, so I’m looking forward to celebrating Christmas again, but this time online, tomorrow!

Also, it’s my one year anniversary of watching Dan and Phil today, so yay for me? Damn, I’ve become so attached to them and it’s barely been a year... :D

Anyways, merry Christmas! I’ll talk to you all later friends!