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even in my worst lies (you saw the truth in me)

Summary:

au where dan and phil are actors pretending to be boyfriends for pr

(title from dress by taylor swift) (obviously)

Notes:

she's baaaaaaaaaaaack for realz!
this has been in the works for literally 2016 how tragic is that
but i dusted off some off my old stuff and this one just called to me so i guess we're going with it. i'll add more tags to it as the story progresses and i'll be (hopefully) posting twice a week - tuesdays and saturdays.
thank you so so much to charlotte and sara for helping me out, i am forever indebted to you<3333
this is a work of fiction obvs, i don't own dan and phil, don't let them see this yall know how it goes THANKS

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: one

Chapter Text

It happens during Nick Grimshaw's show.

When Dan says the words, ‘oh I went out with this guy’, it isn’t made a big deal of. He freezes for a millisecond, looks at Nick, clearly panicking but his friend nods encouragingly at him. So he takes in a deep breath and continues talking about his terrible date with an anonymous man who spilled rosé on Dan’s trousers. He fidgets with the wire of his headphones and spinning on his chair. He finishes his entire bottle of water. No one comments on the story other than politely laughing at the situation. The show ends with Nick’s favourite song of the week, Dan doesn’t pay attention. As he stands up and hugs Nick, shakes hands of other radio people, he feels like he’s floating because he did that. And nothing blew up.

Outside, however…

“Do you even know what you’ve just done?” Francis exclaims. His face is red and Dan’s afraid his head might pop at any moment. “You could’ve given us some kind of warning, Daniel, honestly.” He pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand and squeezes Dan’s shoulder with the other.

“Don’t ‘Daniel’ me,” Dan retorts, shaking his hand away. “I just...wasn’t thinking, okay?”

“Yeah, obviously.” His manager rolls his eyes. “C’mon Dan, think of how this has made you look.”

“How this has made—what?”

“Your past relationships have all been with women. There’s going to be questions about that.”

Most of those weren’t real.” Dan argues, gritting his teeth. “It was to hide...all this. But now I don’t have to hide anymore. I can be myself.” He tries for a smile he thinks is hopeful but it probably looks like a grimace. He sighs. “I can, y’know,  go out with guys and not have them sign things to keep quiet or cover it up by saying it was a night out for beers or whatever. Because it’s more than that. I—I’d like for it to be.” He doesn’t usually speak his mind but now all his thoughts are pouring out like someone tipped his head over to the side.

Francis nods but he’s looking at his phone, typing away. He puts it to his ear and says, “Get yourself in the car. I’m going to try and calm the entire world down.”

“Not like you haven’t before.” Dan murmurs but he complies and goes to his car.

Really, it’s just another typical day in the life of Dan Howell. But something tells him it’s going to be his last one of those for a long, long time.

-

His best friend in the industry, Niomi finds it a bit funny. She’s proud of him and tells him as soon as he enters her salon. And then she asks him if he wanted any numbers of her cute male friends, which Dan glares at her for.

He slumps on an empty salon chair and rubs his eyes. “I dunno, should I have not?” He asks.

“I think you should come out when you think you’re ready.” Niomi answers. “Maybe you thought you were ready. I mean, you can’t do anything about it now.”

“I know.”

“You’ve sent the media into Apocalypse mode.”

“Ah, what else is new?”

Niomi laughs and shakes her head, making her blonde fringe fall onto her eyes. “I’m going to attend to clients now, are you staying? We could do dinner.”

Dan nods. “ Please .”

She leaves him alone to think. It wasn’t supposed to be like this , is his first thought. It really wasn’t. When Dan did think about coming out, he knew he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He’d wanted to do it slowly, gradually – normalise it a bit for him to say that he’s been out with boys and done things with them. He wonders what exactly everyone’s saying. He usually likes to lurk on social media but this time...he realises he’s scared. There’s always been theories about his ‘relationships’ with all his female co-stars being strictly for PR. Will this prove anything? Maybe they’ll think he has a preference for women? Which would be wrong, because he so does not. Can bisexual people even have preferences when they’re supposed to be attracted to two or more genders? It seemed like an open game to him when he first started discovering himself. What are the rules here?

Maybe coming out when he’s still having an identity crisis wasn’t the best idea. Oh, well. Too late now, sonny. You’ve done it, haven’t you? Now deal with the mess you’ve created.

-

Dan knows a lot of people. But only a few know him well enough to know that after a Big Day of Coming Out, he needed a Big Night Out.

Or not.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

Someone rips the curtains apart, letting glaring sunlight into the room. Dan groans and buries his head in his pillow.

“Dan, c’mon. You’ve got an important lunch booked.”

“Wha’?” He mumbles. Only then does it register to him that his manager is in the room. He sits up and stretches. “What lunch?” He asks, yawning.

Francis spares him an exasperated glance before going through his wardrobe, presumably looking for what Dan would be wearing for this mysterious lunch.

“A director. Or well, I think it’s a manager of an actor.”

“Make up your mind.”

“They were being vague on the phone. Anyway, take a shower and wear this.” He throws Dan’s red Givenchy jumper and black jeans at him. “I’m giving you fifteen minutes and then taking you away.”

“It takes fifteen minutes for me to straighten my hair.” Dan argues. “I can’t go out with shower hair.”

Francis rolls his eyes. “Why not? You’ve been embracing other non-straight aspects of your life, why not your hair?”

Dan makes a face at him. “That’s cold. Get out of my room.”

-

Once Dan is dressed (he’s unable to straighten his hair because Francis hid his straighteners while he changed his clothes) and fed a granola bar for energy, he allows himself to be taken into his car, making sure the hidden paparazzi that are sometimes out and about to take candids get some good shots of him walking (about ninety percent of the reasons why Dan never leaves the house is people, to be honest. It’s a bit much).

“So what is this lunch about again?” Dan repeats. “You didn’t elaborate and I like to know details.”

“Well,” Francis starts, “we’re meeting a filmmaker.”

Ooh .” Dan widens his eyes in mock wonderment. “I know this already, Francis.”

“He’s new, or well, new to the big screen hopefully if you like the script and you better because I had to dig for this, Daniel --” He catches himself before Dan could interrupt him to stop his ramble. “Anyway, it’s a good movie. A little lowkey for someone with your history—”

“I don’t mind lowkey.” Dan says quickly, suddenly more interested. He wonders how low is lowkey because he’s only ever worked with big names before.

“Right, well, when I called him, he was obviously thrilled and said he’d love to meet and show you the script. I thought it’d be quite a special one for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ll see,” Francis says, smirking.

-

“Daniel, meet Mr. Pj Liguori.”

“Please, call me Pj or Peej, if you like.” The curly haired guy in front of Dan says, grinning. His green eyes are wild, and he’s taller than Dan by at least two inches. He doesn’t look like a filmmaker - at least none of the ones Dan has met. They usually wear dress shirts for meetings. Pj has on similar skinny jeans to him and is wearing a grey jumper that had a black patch on one of the shoulders that looked like it might’ve been stitched on by Pj himself. He’s also really young; probably Dan’s age or a year older. Dan wonders how much experience with film he has.

They sit in their reserved booth and look at the menus in front of them.

“Dan, I’m a huge fan.” Pj starts earnestly and Dan smiles at him. “I loved you in Where I Go. Your lines in that reduced me to tears and I’m not easily moved.”

Dan wonders if that’s true or if he’s just saying that. Pj doesn’t look like someone who’s easily moved. It’s hard to tell who tells him the truth so he just goes along with it and says thanks. “Well, the writers write. I just do my best to do the script justice.”

He notices that Pj has a bag with him in which he assumes is a script of some sort and points at it. “Anything in there for me?” He asks.

“What? Oh.” Pj turns a light pink and nods before pushing his hand into the bag and pulling out a thick folder of sorts. “This is what we’ll hopefully be working on together.” He slides it towards Dan and intertwines his fingers together.

“I call it monsters. No capital letters.”

Dan smiles as he skims through the pages. “Is that your thing?”

“Something like that. Anyway, the story is a bit overdone but uh, you’ve never done anything like it and y’know, considering recent events—”

“Recent events?” Dan asks, looking up.

“You coming out,” Pj replies quickly. “Congratulations, by the way. The news made me and my friends really happy.”

“Thank you,” Dan says, smiling. “What does this have anything to do with—”

“You’ll be opposite a guy.”

Dan’s jaw almost hits the floor. “Like, romantically?” He asks, eyes wide.

Pj nods. He leans forward and says, eagerly, “You’ve never done a full romance film, I know, it’s always been a side plot thing for you. You like the action and the sci-fi and the thrillers but this will be so good, trust me, like, I know we don’t know each other at all but you can . Trust me, that is. My friend Phil? He says I have that face, y’know, the kind mums like and --”

“Pj, stop.” Dan interrupts, but he’s grinning. He can’t actually believe it. And Francis is smirking at him. “You did this?” Dan asks him.

Francis shrugs. “Least I could do. Also, you’re free now, thought I’d make you busy.” He sips his strawberry water. “Anyway, Mr. Liguori and I need to have a chat about this movie and its promotion since you’re not an indie actor, are you? It’ll get more attention than Pj here is used to and he needs a proper PR team working with him.”

Dan sees Pj’s eyes widen even more and notices how green they are and how they’re brought out more by what he’s wearing. He probably doesn’t have a personal stylist, but Pj definitely knows how to make himself presentable, a feat Dan has yet to master.

“A PR team? I mean, what my team usually does is send out the final copies to lots of festivals, see which ones pick us and attend. It usually works.” Pj turns a light shade of pink because Francis is looking at him like he’d just spoken in Italian. “I don’t need a PR team.” He says decidedly, even nodding like he’s sure of himself and what he’s said. Dan admires that. He himself has only ever defied Francis a handful of times and gotten away with it.

Francis however, raises an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. “Mr. Liguori, can I speak to you outside?” His voice is dangerously calm, but Dan knows he’s really alright. He’s just going to be more firm, maybe give Pj an empty threat or two. He smiles at the director reassuringly as he and Francis leave the booth to talk.

“Let’s lookey here,” Dan says to himself, pulling Pj’s folder towards him. It has the movie’s name on the front, Pj’s name along with others – Sophie Dunn, Louis Lawson , Ciaran Malone – names he’s never heard. He opens it, and is greeted with a handwritten list of names this time. There’s a bolded CAST heading which catches his eye. Almost every name has an actor next to it – again, none he can recognise – except one where Pj has written, ‘Dan Howell???? ’ at which he smiles. The character’s name is Adam. The name itself feels foreign but that’ll last until he’s finished reading the script in about half an hour.

Under his character is Orion, played by one Phil Lester. Pj’s added next to it a cheeky, ‘playing himself in his true form of an alien’. Dan laughs to himself and wonders about this Phil Lester that Pj had also mentioned earlier, how they both had been very happy about him coming out. He definitely likes Pj and likes the script more and more as he goes through it, noting little doodles and notes in the margins, some by Pj, others by who Dan assumes are the people mentioned on the cover page.

All he knows he definitely wants to work on this project, no matter what.

^

Phil’s day really couldn’t have started worse, to be honest.

First, he wakes up too late to be on time to get to work, his shower is unnecessarily cold and you would think eating a bowl of Lucky Charms would turn this around but no . Wrong. He pours too much of it into his bowl and then he’s almost out of milk so it ruins the cereal to milk ratio. He sighs because really, there’s nothing he could do now. Before he can pick it up and eat though, he gets a text.

It’s from Pj. need to see you asap. see you at the usual place? Phil frowns and leans on the kitchen counter.

Bad idea.

The bowl of too much cereal and too little milk is pushed off the edge of the counter and smashes on the floor, pieces of glass flying absolutely everywhere \, milk splattered on the cabinets, Phil’s pyjama bottoms, dripping down the counter. It looked like a cow was just split open in some horrible murder scene (a cow murder. He makes a mental note to tell Pj about that, see if they can turn it into a short movie somehow).

The milk ruined the t-shirt he was wearing slightly so he runs back to his room to put on his gray jumper with foxes on to cover it up. It’s a chilly...afternoon anyway.

The usual place is a cafe a small distance away from Phil’s apartment so he walks there and sees Pj bouncing on his heels outside the cafe.

“Hey!” He calls out. Pj’s face lights up when he sees Phil which is worrying because that means he’s going to tell him to do something no one else wants to do.

-

“I got Dan Howell.” Pj says solemnly and takes a small sip of his tea. He’s not a coffee drinker which is strange since he’s been friends with Phil for about nine years. He’s got a small smile on his face but he doesn’t look like someone who has got Dan Howell.

“But?” Phil prompts. There has to be a but; it’d be dumb to not assume that because this is a big time actor with an agent and probably a personal stylist who would not agree to an independent film by someone no one respectable has heard of. Yet.

“It’s ridiculous.” Pj says, teeth gritted. “But they...Dan’s manager has this elaborate plan, okay? And I would’ve said no straight away if this wasn’t Dan Howell , you know? And I met him and he’s so genuine and nice and he really liked the script and wants to be in the movie—”

“Peej, you’re drifting.” Phil interrupts. “What do they want?”

Pj takes a deep breath in. “You both to be in a relationship.”

Phil frowns. “We are. In the movie. It’s a tragic relationship but nonetheless—”

“In real life, Phil.”

Well, he’d figured that out – he was just hoping he was wrong. He gulps. “Why?” He asks. “I mean, I thought the whole fake, PR relationship thing was when he was pretending to be straight. What’s this—”

“It’s for a cover up.” Pj explains. “Apparently the coming out wasn’t planned, and Dan was in huge trouble with people, but they’ve come up with this fake boyfriend that he’s been hiding and now they don’t want to anymore. I know, I know,” he lifts his hands up because Phil’s raising his eyebrow, ready to scorn big Hollywood people, “but that’s the condition. And to be honest, Dan didn’t seem that reluctant.”

“Wow, he really wants to do this movie.” Phil murmurs. A little louder, he says, “Weren’t they going to ask me about it first? You know, the super secret fake boyfriend?”

“They do want to speak with you, but only after you’ve agreed to do it.”

Phil snorts. “Fat chance.” But then he sees how Pj’s face falls for a second but then it’s back up in a supportive smile and guilt traps him. It would go against so many of his morals to do this, but then again, having someone like Dan Howell in his movie would bring Pj’s name up in the industry so much. “I...Let me think about it?”

Really?” Pj asks, leaning forward, his eyes wide. “Hey, this is totally your decision, okay, I don’t want you to do it because you feel—”

“I’ve thought about it. Boyfriend me up.” Phil says, smiling at his best friend, feeling queasy inside but he’ll die before he disappoints Pj in any way. Dan Howell better be as nice as he’s heard. And a good kisser.

 

^

 

“So who is this guy?” Niomi asks, leaning forward curiously.

Dan shrugs. “His name’s Phil. I’m meeting him tomorrow on set. And then it begins.”

“Ah, you’re going for a love-at-first-sight story. Always fails, that one.” She rolls her eyes and Dan smiles sheepishly at her.

They’re at a club, in a private booth and there’s noise in the background that isn’t quite reaching their ears. Dan’s thinking about Phil Lester, and the alien movie, and working on an independent film with Pj, who he’s met once but already likes more than every other director he’s ever worked with on anything. The thing he’s most excited about is getting to kiss a boy on camera. He’s had that experience off before, but only with strangers, no one he knows. There was that Chip Gellar back in secondary school but he was seventeen and they called it ‘experimenting’. Now he’s twenty five and he’s (almost) sure that he’s attracted to men and he has a good life. More than good.

He smiles. “It’s not. Love at first sight, I mean. Apparently we've been hiding our relationship for a while now.”

“Oh really?”

“Mhm. And the reason I came out was because I'd had enough of hiding.”

Niomi looks at him intently. He never knows what she’s thinking, even after years of being friends. Before she can say anything though, Dan’s phone rings. It’s Francis, and he considers hanging up but decides against it and picks up.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Daniel, I know this is unexpected,” Francis says, skipping out on greetings. Always business. “But I’ve called Pj and told him to get his filming team and also Phil to the club you’re at right now.”

Dan sits up straight, eyes wide. Niomi tilts her head at him questioningly. He shakes his head and says, “Wait, what? Here? Now?”

“Yes, yes. It’s been days since you’ve come out, and filming starts tomorrow. The press will get a look at you both and wonder who he is, and what you’re up to. It’ll be good promotion for the movie too.”

“The movie.”

“Of course.”

Dan sighs. “The press will get a look at me and the guy tomorrow too, they’ve never stayed away from sets. Besides, I don’t even know anything about him, how’re we supposed to—?”

“It’ll give you some time to get to know each other then!” Francis interrupts. “Keep to yourselves for a bit, talk to him, ask him questions. Honestly Dan, you’d think this was your first time doing this.”

That stings. It isn’t the first time Dan has done ‘this’, is the thing. But it’s the first time it’ll be with another man and he doesn’t know the first thing about him. At least with the actresses before he had a little background information, time to watch their movies. Does Phil Lester even like his movies that much?

He hangs up, probably when Francis was mid-sentence. Well, fuck him. He lets out a frustrated sigh and leans back on his seat.

“What’s wrong?” Niomi asks.

“My boyfriend is coming here.” Dan answers, smiling tightly. “Along with the director of the movie and a bunch of their buddies. We’re having a group bonding session.”

“But this is our bonding session.” She complains.

Dan sits up and shrugs. “Can’t do anything about it now. They’re on their way here.” He’s still angry, mostly at Francis and he gulps down his glass of vodka, feeling the alcohol burn his throat on its way down.

Niomi opens her mouth to reply but sees something behind Dan that makes her stop. “Is that them?”

Dan turns around and sees Pj Liguori followed by a few other people. He can’t see all their faces clearly, but he stands up and waves in their direction, trying to get their attention unsuccessfully. He calls a waiter over and tells him to get them to the booth before they get lost.

He looks at Niomi, feeling a sudden panic within him. He is not prepared. His best friend imitates taking a deep breath and he follows her.

“Sir?” The waiter has returned and behind him - there they are. There’s one girl, who’s holding Pj’s hand. She smiles at Dan. He breaks eye contact with her and looks at the three other men with them. One of them looks at him with no expression at all and the other two look around at the club and people.

Show time.

“Pj!” Dan exclaims, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “Thank you so much for getting my boyfriend out of the house!” He leans in close to Pj’s ear and whispers, “Which one is he?”

They break apart and Pj lets out an exaggerated laugh. “Oh, well, he never could say no to me.” He replies, and pats the shoulder of the guy who was looking at Dan before. Oh.

Phil Lester looks nothing like Dan expected. If he didn’t know he liked men already, he’d definitely start wondering after looking at this one. He’s tall. But that’s not the best part. He’s wearing a well-fitting red shirt with white hearts all over it, buttoned up all the way. It doesn’t look like an expensive shirt, probably from Topman. He’s wearing black rimmed glasses but Dan can see blue eyes and he’s always been a sucker for them. His hands are balled into fists and though he doesn’t seem to be nervous, he’s now avoiding looking at Dan at all.

The waiter is still standing close by so Dan smiles at Phil in what he hopes is a fond manner. He leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, making him jump slightly. He pulls away and says, “It’s good to have you tonight. Nice to have a bit of a party to celebrate the movie!” He glances at the waiter and thanks him, signalling him to leave. The latter does so, but his step has a bit of a hop in it. Like he’s just got some inside scoop. Wonder what that’s about.

“Sit!” Dan says to everyone. “There’s vodka, champagne, something else that made me dizzier than I expected.” He laughs, and they join in but they seem to be scared. Oh well. “And meet my best friend, this is Niomi. She makes me look prettier.”

“It’s hard work,” Niomi says, smirking, sliding a bit to the side so Pj and his apparent girlfriend could squeeze next to her.

Pj introduces everyone, except Phil. Louis, Jamie and Sophie. Apparently they’re his team on all his movies. A consistent group. That must be nice. Phil is sat next to him, closer than strangers normally would be sat, but they’re not strangers, are they?

God, it’s going to be a long evening.

-

At the first chance he gets - when everyone is chatting amongst themselves and Niomi has found a new friend in Jamie - Dan leans in closer to Phil and whispers, “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Excuse me?”

“Or to a dark corner here,” Dan continues, smirking. “You know, to talk and get to know each other.”

Phil’s eyes widen and Dan notices that they’re a strange shade of blue. Very blue, but flecks of other colours in there, which he can’t see because it’s too dark and his glasses reflect Dan’s face back at him. “T-talk?”

“Just talk.” Dan says reassuringly. In his haze, he can see Phil’s nervous but he wants to make sure there’s no reason to be. He gestures to the railing that’s looking down at the club where all the people are unaware of them being there.

He gets up and walks, feeling Phil follow him slowly, nervously. He leans over the railing, looking down at everyone seemingly having the time of their life; skin against skin, laughing, drinking, kissing, loving, living. He smiles at them, feeling a little bitter inside because of what he’s doing when he should be feeling free.

“So, you actually like guys?” He asks when he feels Phil stood next to him.

“Oh yeah.” Phil replies. “I love boys. All kinds.”

“Do you like girls?”

“Did. Lost interest.” He chuckles. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to a girl who isn’t Sophie or Louise regularly in years. Bryony doesn’t count, she’s like...my mum or something, honestly.”

He’s rambling. Dan turns to him, his face now lit up by the lights. He’s pale. Almost translucent. He doesn’t look anything like an alien, except maybe the shape of his head. Dan wonders why it’s like that. He’s really pretty though. Smart-looking.

“So you’re my boyfriend.” He states, smiling at him.

Phil shrugs and purses his lips. “I guess.”

“I have good taste.”

He blushes. Dan likes him already. But he’s really not good with conversation. He suddenly doesn’t know what to say. The glass in his hand is almost empty. He says, “I’m gonna go get some more—” the same time Phil says, “So what’s your fav—” before he stops. His cheeks get redder and he shakes his head. “Sure, go ahead.” He says quickly. “I’ll be here.”

Dan gulps and walks away, feeling beyond embarrassed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck —” He mutters under his breath and walks to where Niomi is stood with a couple of other girls. “Niomi!” He calls. “I need to die, like, right now.”

She smiles bemusedly at him. “What embarrassing thing did you do now?” She asks. “Do I need to take you to the back to leave?”

“Maybe.” Dan answers, sounding hysterical to himself. In the back of his mind, he knows he’s making this a much bigger deal than he’s making it out to be, but this is who he is as a person.

Niomi tilts her head to a side and pouts sympathetically. “Look,” she says, patting his shoulder with her free hand. “You can’t run away from this. Think of how it’d look to your new friends.”

Dan mumbles incoherently. He didn’t ask for them to be there. He’s not prepared for this situation.

Niomi tells him to go back to his boyfriend and stay until she gives him the signal that it’s acceptable to ditch them.

Dan goes back to Phil, a full glass in hand. “Hey, sorry for disappearing,” he says sincerely, because he can tell Phil feels out of place. He’s fidgeting with the hem of his shirt with one hand and pushing his one strand of hair falling on his forehead back (it relentlessly falls back down – Dan doesn’t hate it all that much).

“It’s totally cool!” Phil replies, voice a little high. “This just, uh, isn’t my scene.”

“I understand. What is your scene?”

“Ha, well, it’s probably a tie - either fire up the Xbox or microwave popcorn with one of your movies on BluRay.” His eyes widen. “That makes me sound like a weird obsessive fan. I’m really not, I mean, there’s loads of other actors whose movies I have on BluRay, you’re not like, first choice or anything—”

Dan laughs lightly. “No, Phil, it’s alright. I’m really flattered.”

Phil turns a light shade of pink which is so noticeable over his really pale face. Dan sips on his drink some more, his brain trying to come up with more conversation topics. He’s done this multiple times (he hates himself for just thinking that).

“So, how long have you and Pj known each other?” He asks.

Phil’s eyes widen a little, but his shoulders relax, as if Dan had just asked a question on a test and it was from a chapter he was well-versed in. “Uh, about ten years or so? We met in university, in the same course. Did a couple of group projects together. Peej was really into telling stories – I think that comes across as obvious though.” Dan nods and even from the corner of his eye, he can spot Pj in the group they’d been part of previously where he’s gesticulating wildly as he tells them some anecdote or the other. “And I liked acting and editing. We uploaded some stuff online, that got attention and we made some really cool friends around the country and that’s been our crew until now.” His eyes go a little glassy as he speaks, like he can see a supercut of the things he’s describing.

Dan swallows. “Well, that sounds amazing. You have to show me some of your old stuff. And I can’t wait to see you all in action tomorrow.” He really can’t. The more he talks to Phil, the more he thinks about the script, Dan feels his insides squirm with excitement and nervousness.

Just then, Sophie walks up to them and waves to catch their attention. “Uh, Phil?”

Phil looks at her questioningly. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“It’s late. We have to be early tomorrow.”

Dan picks up a flicker of disappointment on Phil’s face but it’s so minuscule that maybe he imagined it. Because he’s definitely feeling disappointed at the interruption. They had just gotten comfortable. But Phil nods at Sophie, and says, “Yeah, okay. We’ll leave in a bit. Let me just say goodbye.”

Sophie glances at Dan and gives him a small nod before going back to Pj, Jamie and Louis. Phil now turns to Dan and smiles. “It was really nice meeting you. Wish I could stay longer.”

Then stay, is what Dan wants to say. But instead, he says with a strained smile, “I understand. Call-times are important. We’re all serious artists. I’m probably going to leave soon too. No point in staying if my boyfriend’s not with me.”

Phil laughs. “I guess.”

Dan walks them to the door, keeping close to Phil, a hand on the small of his back. When they’re out, the rest of the group not paying much attention, Phil looks at Dan and smiles at him. “See you tomorrow. Goodnight.”

Before he can walk away, Dan leans forward and kisses Phil on the cheek. “‘Night, Phil.” He whispers in his ear. Phil shivers, possibly from the cold of the air, or maybe just because of Dan.

He gulps, nods and follows his friends into the London night. Dan watches his hunched back until the group turn a corner.

-

The thing is, Dan knew someone would’ve seen that kiss. Taken a picture. They weren’t at the secret exit that celebrities take to avoid paps, and that wasn’t an accident. Just because they weren’t in Dan and Phil’s faces, doesn’t mean they weren’t watching. People saw. And people clicked. And now Dan Howell is officially seeing Mysterious Black Haired Mystery Boy. Nothing new.

“Let’s do shots.” He says gruffly, sitting next to Niomi.

“Are...you okay, hun?” She asks, raising an eyebrow at her friend.

Dan nods furiously. “Need to chill. Last night before work, work, work.”

And so shots.