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"We should play this game today," Dan says.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed watching Phil get dressed. He keeps almost falling because there isn't really enough room on a moving bus to jump into jeans. If he does fall, Dan won't catch him, but he will laugh and then make sure he's okay. (In that order, probably.)
"What game?" Phil grunts as he manages to get the jeans up over his butt. They aren't even that tight. The effort required is a mystery.
"The game of Let's Be Normal." Dan's voice is quiet and hopeful. "Like, a normal. You know. Couple."
"New country, new us?" Phil's response is a careful not-no.
"Just to try," Dan says. "Nothing too overboard."
"Yeah." Phil turns around, tugging his jumper over his head. "I can try."
Dan holds his hands out and Phil steps into his space, meeting the gesture halfway. "It's okay if it doesn't work."
"I'll try," Phil says again, gone quiet. It's not easy for him. It's not easy for either of them, but especially him.
*
Breakfast is a pancake place that says they have the best maple in Canada.
"You can't believe them," Martyn says, waving his fork around. "They lie. The moose make them lie."
"Stop being problematic." Cornelia frowns at him. "That could be offensive to Canadians."
"Is it offensive?" Dan asks. "Are Canadians sensitive about their moose?"
"Meeses," Phil adds, which makes no sense at all.
"I think they are," Cornelia says.
"You'd be a cute moose," Martyn tells her, and she grins over at him. Dan's so busy watching that it takes him a moment to realize that Phil's ankle is hooked around his under the table.
*
"Save me! Save my hair!" Dan shrieks.
The falls are beautiful but his GHDs are on the bus and at least two twelve-year olds with smartphones eyed them up on the way in. The internet doesn't forget, he must remain diligent.
Phil bravely steps in front of him. Dan won't really consider it taking one for the team, since Phil is a bastard with hair that dries just as smooth and straight as ever without the help of straighteners. Plastic ponchos crinkle against their skin as Dan hides behind Phil, avoiding the spray of water. His fingers work their way under and clench at Phil's side.
The twelve year olds with the phones, he tells himself, are not on their boat. This is fine. He repeats it again in his mind as he digs his chin into Phil's shoulder. And even if there are pictures, this is fine. They're fine.
There's laughter all around them, exhilaration of the moment and some just at Dan. Phil covers one of Dan's hand with his own and laughs, too.
*
"They have mugs with our names on them," Dan says, holding up his prize. "We need mugs. For the bus."
"I'm going to tweet," Phil says.
He is staring at Dan wide-eyed.
"Okay," Dan says slowly. "That's fine."
"About us," Phil says. "Doing this."
"If you want," Dan says.
Dan pulls up his phone to look at the tweet, and then proves that in his heart of hearts he's just your average twelve year old girl because his stomach squirms so pleasantly.
"Phil?" He asks. "Can I tweet, too?"
"You don't need my permission, Dan." And there, there it is, another little wall crumbling down.
Dan still shows him the tweet first. Because, well. Typos. But also to make sure Phil really means it.
Phil doesn't flinch at all when Dan says he's putting it on instagram.
He smiles. He smiles and then stands in close with his body angled toward Dan's until Dan turns the phone around to show him.
"It's a good picture," Phil says softly. "I'm going to find a magnet now."
Dan lets him walk away. He thinks Phil probably needs a moment. Maybe Dan does too, just because he can't stop smiling and he feels ridiculous.
He takes the mugs to the counter to pay.
*
"It's a baseball game," Dan says. "I'm having a beer."
"You hate beer," Phil reminds him.
"Yeah, but isn't that a thing? Beer and baseball? And... hot dogs?"
"Are you really going to eat a hot dog?" Phil sounds curious, not judgmental.
"... probably not," Dan admits. "Popcorn, though?"
"Popcorn!" Phil beams at him. "And nachos."
Cornelia leans down to poke her head between them. "You're both disgusting human beings, but if you're getting nachos I want some."
*
Phil doesn't ask the second time he tweets.
He also doesn't mention Dan, but that's fine. Rome wasn't built in a day and Dan isn't sad about being able to check twitter and only find remnants of the first fan-crafted shitstorm of the day instead of a whole new one.
*
The hotel room has one bed and a bathroom with a nice big tub that Phil is already staring at like he's working out the measurements in his head, deciding if they both can fit.
Dan's so convinced of it that he doesn't comprehend what he's being asked when Phil says, "So did we win?"
"Win what? The game? We barely knew which team was which until halfway through, we were supposed to pick a side?" Dan kicks his shoes off and flops starfish-style. The mattress is too firm, but it'll do. Anything that isn't bolted to the floor of a moving vehicle will do.
"No, I mean us. Did we win your game? Were we normal?" Phil lays down beside Dan, crossing his arms behind his head. Their legs and elbows overlap.
Dan laughs. "We got stopped once an hour to take pictures of fans."
There's a knock on the door. It's one of the crew, inviting them down for a drink.
"Do you think they drew straws?" Dan asks, once the door is closed. They've said they'll be there in fifteen minutes. "Loser had to knock no the door?"
It's disconcerting to be walking the same path, literally, as this entire group of people that they barely remember the names of. It must be even more disconcerting, Dan thinks, for the crew to be following the lead of people they barely even see.
"We should offer to buy the winner a drink," Phil says.
"Or we just buy them all drinks?" Dan suggests.
"Buy their obedience?"
"I prefer to think of it as currying favor to ensure future silence, because there's no way this tour will end without one drunken karaoke night, and the last thing the world needs is another video of us singing Toxic."
"Leave Britney alone," Phil says. "Leave Philip alone, too."
"Britney's off the hook. You, my one true bae, are not."
Phil shoves him out the door. "Never call me that again."
(He says that every time.)
*
They take a walk around the hotel grounds. It's nearing midnight. The moon is high but the street lamps are brighter. They veer away from the pool, take the quieter path around.
The crew was sad they only stayed for one drink, even if happy that it was a round on them.
Phil claimed to want the fresh air, said he was still feeling of from the bus. They both silently prayed no one invited themselves along. Some prayers are answered. (Obviously, the bullshit ones that doesn't amount to anything anyway.)
"Are you even actually sick?" Dan asks, once they're free from the small noisy crowd.
Phil shakes his head.
It's the lack of any other answer that makes some kind of feeling swell up thick in Dan's throat. "Hey," he says, hand fumbling out.
They don't hold hands often. They laughed about that once, doing it for show in a video. They said how strange it was.
It doesn't feel too strange right now. It feels right to feel his palm clasped against Phil's. Are they really that good at convincing themselves things have to be a certain way, that they wouldn't want the alternative anyway?
"No singing The Beatles," Phil says.
"I wasn't," Dan immediately responds, but it's halfway a lie. The tune was definitely already in his head, he just hadn't placed it yet.
(Phil knows Dan better than he knows himself.)
(Which might not be saying much, since sometimes he doesn't feel like he knows himself at all.
"Martyn said he and Cornelia do this," Phil says. "They sneak out for a walk every day. Said it's the only time they get to be alone."
"Yeah, some primadonna bitches took the only bed," Dan says flippantly.
Phil ignores him. "I thought it sounded like a good idea."
"We're alone all the time."
"Yeah, but." Phil sounds wistful. "We don't just take walks... you know." He looks down at their hands. "Like this."
"Does the 'if you aren't old enough to say it, you aren't old enough to do it' rule apply to this?" Dan asks. He's being a jerk. Humor is a defense mechanism against the sheer discomfort of not knowing what to say.
"Isn't it what you wanted?" Phil asks. He sounds unsure and Dan hates that it's his fault, even if just for a moment. He's had enough of them making each other doubt things to last him a lifetime.
"Yeah," Dan answers. "I want this. If you want it. But, you know, we can just start with what feels natural to us. What's normal to us, you know?"
There's no need to clarify exactly what he means when he says they're starting. They both already know.
"You mean you being a loser?" Phil asks. "That's normal to me. "
Dan laughs. Somewhere in the brushes a small woodland creature is shocked into running away. "I hate you," he says, in a voice so full of warmth and fondness that it threatens to consume him. "And we won, for the record."
Phil smiles and squeezes his hand. "Maybe we should go for best two out of three, then? Make tomorrow another game?"
"Yeah," Dan agrees, and then he says it again because if he doesn't he's very likely to say something else instead, something much more embarrassing like, I love you so damn much or marry me right the fuck now. "Yeah."