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danfanciesphil · 6 years ago

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too high (can’t come down) by @danfanciesphil

Suspending himself 7,000 feet above the rest of the world seems likely to be a sure-fire way for Dan to escape normality, and isolate himself for the foreseeable future. The Secret of the Alps, a small hotel tucked into the side of the Swiss mountains is too niche for most avid adventurers to have heard of, making it the perfect place for Dan to work as he sorts through his problems. Unfortunately, privacy is a coveted thing, and as Dan soon finds out, the hotel harbours one guest who values it more than most.

Rating: Explicit Tags: Enemies to lovers, snow, mountains, skiing, hostility, slow burn, secrecy, longing, repression, nobility, classism, cheating, eventual sex

Ao3 Link

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

*Warning: This chapter has a mild reference to an eating disorder. Nothing graphic, and nothing more than a mention of past issues with it. But if you are easily triggered, maybe avoid this chapter.*

Three hours later, Kaspar is departing after a quick check around the hotel to see if anything needs repairing - “Little Dan, your handyman skills are excellent! You wound up Mona’s big ugly clock, and fixed all her trinkets! I am impressed!” - and then loading the cable car with around twenty large bags from the outside bins, which he does once a month.

“I am in for a smelly ride!” he shouts cheerily as he squeezes into the cable car amongst the bags, and waves to Louise and Dan as if he’s a child on a merry-go-round waving to his mum and dad. “See you soon, friends! Please do tell lovely Mona I think of her constantly, and send kisses upon kisses!”

Louise leads Dan back upstairs then, sits him down in a chair in the mezzanine, and brings him a freshly baked cupcake. He blinks down at the treat once it’s placed in front of him, pleased but bewildered.

“What’s this for?” He picks up the cupcake anyway, marvelling at the swirled peak of blue frosting. His mouth waters as he peels off the paper case.

“Well, I was hoping to get a smile out of you,” Louise says, pulling a chair around to sit beside him. She rests her chin in her hand on the table, and looks at him with obvious concern. “But perhaps I’m dreaming too big.”

Dan sinks his teeth into the cupcake. It tastes like sweet relief. “Unfghh,” he says, eyes falling shut. “Sensational.”

When his eyes reopen, it’s to Louise’s pleased smile, but her worry lines peek through, betraying her. “Was it that bad?” she asks.

“Meeting Nikolai?” Dan asks, and wrinkles his nose, contemplating the question. “Meh. I’m used to dealing with snobby wankers at this point. Though he makes Phil seem like a peach.”

“No, not that,” Louise says. “Obviously he’s a Royal pain. Could you tell he doesn’t remember my name? He learns it once and makes a big show out of using it, but after that you’re less than dirt to him, though he tries not to let it show.”

“Dick,” Dan says firmly, then takes another bite of fluffy, crumbly goodness.

“But I meant the weekend, Dan,” Louise says, apparently not willing to let this drop. “I knew you could handle it, but I did worry. What with all the... friction between you and Mr Novokoric.” She pauses, eyebrow arched, perhaps to give Dan a chance to jump in, which he doesn’t, instead opting to finish off the cake. “Did something happen? Another argument?”

At her first question, Dan almost chokes, but is quickly placated by her second. He thinks about pretending that nothing whatsoever occurred, that they barely glanced at each other in three whole days, but decides quickly that it would be far less believable that things went totally smoothly.

He shrugs one shoulder, trying to exude nonchalance, then licks his fingers of crumbs. “Some minor disagreements. He called me bony.”

Best way to disguise a lie is to conceal it in truth. That’s what Dan’s always found, anyway. The admission makes Louise laugh, and mercifully she seems to relax. “Struck a nerve, did he?”

“I have a perfectly normal amount of bones, thanks very much.”

She titters again, then eyes him curiously. “Anything else? You were alone up here for three days together. I half expected to walk in on a crime scene.”

Dan can feel the traitorous blush creeping into his cheeks, and he shrugs again, trying to think of something that will appease her. Perhaps he should give her a small nugget of the real story. The shock of it might be enough all on its own to get her to ease off.

“We, uh, went skiing,” Dan tries. “Briefly.”

She balks at once, lipsticked mouth falling wide. “You what?!”

Okay, perhaps that nugget wasn’t the best one to choose. Dan winces at her obvious flare of anger. “I know it’s against the rules, but Phil’s super experienced. And anyway he practically dragged me out the door!”

“Do you even have skis?”

Dan hesitates, biting his lip. No point trying to backtrack now. “Phil lent me his new ones.”

A weighted blanket falls over the conversation then. It feels like Louise is scrutinising him, for some reason he can’t put his finger on. As if he’s accidentally revealed that he has gills beneath his shirt collar, and she’s spotted them peeking out.

“Did he now,” Louise murmurs. It doesn’t seem to be a question.

In the hopes of lifting the quilt of this weird new atmosphere, Dan decides a change of subject is in order. “Anyway, enough about me and dick-brain. How was it with Pearl?”

Despite her obvious reservations, Louise’s smile breaks through upon hearing her daughter’s name. Relieved to be off the hook for now, Dan listens avidly to Louise as she gushes about her little girl, about how she’s grown, about her predictable but adorable three-year-old interests - Frozen, My Little Pony, Peppa Pig, etc - and sits patiently smiling at photo after photo of the blonde toddler, beaming her gap teeth at the camera, ribbons decorating the wavy locks she inherited from her mother.

It starts getting dark eventually, he and Louise still talking about nothing much at all. It’s so pleasant, just sitting with her and laughing, bantering about life, sipping coffee and eating cupcakes, that Dan doesn’t even realise he’s stalling until Louise points out how long they’ve been doing just that. Reluctantly, Dan starts to extricate himself from the conversation, mind wandering to all the tasks he needs to accomplish. He hasn’t swept the balcony since the storm, and the lobby could do with a mop and tidy after all the hoards of people traipsing through it today.

“Oh, by the way,” Louise says, scooping cake crumbs off the table into her hand. “I don’t know if Mona mentioned, but as we don’t get a lot of opportunities to get into Mr Nov- I mean, Phil’s room, we usually snatch any chance we get as soon as he’s gone for any length of time.”

Dan sends Louise a puzzled look, and she chuckles.

“To change the bed and the bins and everything. He doesn’t let us do it normally. So might be an idea to go and give it a spring clean.”

“Ugh, do I have to?” Dan asks, dreading the idea of re-entering the scene of what feels like his very recent crime.

“You should go in just to have a nose around,” Louise tells him with a reticent grin. “You’ll never believe the size of his suite.”

Dan shrugs, picturing the untidy floorplan of room eight, already moving to the stairs. “The bed takes up most of it.”

He’s already up the second flight of stairs before he realises he’s probably let slip a little too much.

After three trips up and down the three flights of stairs, carrying dirty mugs, sheets, towels, and rubbish, Dan finally gets Phil’s room to a point where he can begin rebuilding. Phil Novokoric has the only King-sized bed in the entire hotel, so there are just two sets of bedding big enough to fit. After half an hour of searching, Dan is still unable to locate the second set, so he gives up, resigning himself to waiting until the sheets currently in the wash are clean and dry.

Knelt in Phil’s ensuite bathroom, scrubbing the glass pane of the shower, Dan is not feeling particularly warm towards the man. The bathroom isn’t dirty exactly, but it’s clear that it’s been a while since the sinks and bath have been properly scrubbed and bleached. By the time he’s done, he’s too exhausted to think about re-dressing the bed or lining the wastepaper bins. Instead, he goes down to Louise, wrung out and pissed off, to complain and beg her for snacks.

“I don’t know where you put them all,” Louise says as she hands Dan another cupcake - his third. “Phil’s right, you’re all bones.”

Dan shoots her a glare, but given that he has blue frosting smeared across his mouth, he doubts it’s particularly menacing. “He’s one to talk, he never eats anything. I practically had to force soup and pizza down his throat.”

She’s quiet for a minute, folding tea towels. “He ate soup and pizza?”

“Only after I yelled at him.”

Her mouth quirks. “What did you say?”

“Something like…” Dan tilts his head, trying to remember. The events of last night somewhat obliterated the rest of the day from his memory. “‘Starving yourself isn’t cute or impressive and I won’t be fired for your valiant attempt at martyrdom.’ Roughly.”

Louise stops folding, then leans against the counter. “And that worked?”

There’s something amiss in her tone. “Apparently. Why?”

She catches a strand of blonde curl in her fingers and twirls it. “I don’t know the extent of it, but I understand he has a tricky relationship with food. His brother, who used to be his PA, told me that once.”

Guilt lashes through Dan like he’s been whipped. “Oh. Shit, wow. I didn’t know.”

“I don’t think it’s as bad as it once was, judging from what Martyn told me,” Louise says with a shrug. “He only said something to me so that I wouldn’t push him to eat, or say the wrong thing. If you ask me, it was probably a sort of rebellion on Phil’s part, to do with all that awful Royalty training he had to go through. Can’t imagine the sorts of things they put him through.” She grimaces, and Dan replays some of the conversation he had with Phil last night, about nose jobs and personality bleaching. “You know, he told me once that they made him do something called ‘kidnap situation training’,” Louise says, clearly not noticing the anvil of guilt Dan’s struggling not to be crushed under. “They stage a kidnapping when he least expects it, take him to an unknown location and he has to get out of it using self-defense and mediation. And they use live ammunition to simulate reality. I mean, obviously they’re experts in avoiding actually shooting him, but can you imagine? It must be terrifying. And he has no choice. He’s forced to do undergo these crazy exercises because he married Nikolai so fast. He probably had no idea what he was signing up for, the poor kid.”

The impossible weight of the anvil buckles Dan’s knees. He feels himself crumble under its mass, slowly, and he has to discreetly grip the lip of the worktop to stop himself from slipping to the ground. Twenty-one, Phil had said. That’s how old he was when he was swept off his feet by a charlatan promising a life of love and luxury, and consequently forced through a complete physical and personal re-design, then locked away up a mountain. Is it any wonder he’s so moody, so snippy, so sad? And along comes Dan, griping and pestering him at every turn, telling him off for things he can’t help, for things he’s been traumatised by.

“I should…” Dan mutters, pushing away from the counter, only to wobble on unsteady legs. “I should get on. Lots to do still.”

“Are you alright?” Louise asks, slipping effortlessly into concerned-mother-mode. She lifts a hand to his forehead, and he shrinks away. “You’re all pale suddenly.”

“I’m fine,” Dan tells her, managing a tight smile. He walks briskly to the door. “Just… got a load to do before, um, before Mona gets back.”

“She won’t be back today,” Louise says, frowning.

Dan shrugs, already at the kitchen door. “Still. Best to prepare. See you later.”

“He’s alright, you know Dan.” Her voice is soft, careful. It makes him pause, halfway through the door. “He made a bad choice, I’d say, but he’s not completely without a brain.”

“A dick-brain,” Dan says half-heartedly, though he still feels wretched.

“Better than nothing,” Louise says.

Dan doesn’t know how to reply, so he nods, swallowing something acrid and bitter, then pushes out of the kitchen.

An unfamilar noise splits through the silent crackle of the night, burrowing beneath the thin skin of Dan’s light slumber, and waking him. His eyes are crusted and filmy with dried tears as he wrenches them open, and he scrubs a hand over them, sitting up. There is only one thought clear enough to articulate in the gloop of his viscous mind: why am I awake?

Blearily, he turns to the window, or the place he knows the window to be, given that it’s dark and his eyes have yet to adjust. Nothing seems out of place as far as he can tell. No ghostly movements in the shadows, or unusual shapes that might be demons lurking, ready to pounce. Of course, these things are impossible anyway, but Dan’s rational brain doesn’t like to be disturbed during the nighttime hours. He listens for a good minute or two, ears straining against the thick blanketing silence; faintly, he thinks he can make out muffled movement from downstairs.

He sighs, thinking of Louise scuffling about, trying not to make too much noise, and reaches blindly for his phone. It’s two in the morning. Given that Louise often tells Dan she would rather watch her own legs be chewed off by ravenous wolves than disturb her slumber for anything less than an emergency, he thinks he’d better go and see what’s stirred her. As he peels back the duvet and drops his feet to the carpet, trepidation begins settling around him like a cloak. The more he wakes up, the more images his paranoid brain provides of possible situations happening below: Louise, legless and bleeding, at the mercy of an actual wolf. Some sort of mountain-dwelling-specialist burglar, currently hauling the TV down the floating stairs. A poltergeist, smashing coffee cups and tugging Louise’s curls. He’s barefoot, but it’s not cold in the over-heated hotel, so he pads out of the room and begins making his way down the stairs, wishing he’d thought to grab some kind of weapon on his way.

The shadows paint the wooden walls with hunched, crouching ghouls, warping the layout of the familiar building until Dan is disoriented enough that he has to pause on the lower landing and re-evaluate where he’s headed. Eventually he makes it to the mezzanine, and the moonlight streaming through the balcony windows illuminates things a little better. Dan looks around, thinking idly that he’s likely to find Louise in the kitchen, if anywhere. He starts towards the door, and stops suddenly, heart lurching into his throat as he catches sight of a shape curled in one of the beanbag chairs, large and too bulky to be a stray blanket.

As his eyes adjust, he’s sure he can make out the form of an actual body, and has to swallow a scream of terror. Luckily, as he’s spent the past few days staring at or thinking about a certain sweep of jet black hair, the specific hue of pale skin and big, long-fingered hands, he recognises the blob in under a second. He has to blink a few times to be sure he’s not hallucinating.

“Phil?” he asks once he’s relatively certain this is not a mirage.

Eyes flick open, and that brilliant blue shines out, caught in the wash of moonlight. “Dan.” His voice is barely a croak. He moves sluggishly into a more upright position, as if his limbs are weighted, and presses his palms to his eyes. “Ugh. Di’n’t wanna wake you up.”

Ignoring the urge to unpack that statement for now, Dan decides to tackle a more pressing confusion. “What are you doing here? How are you here?”

“Plane,” Phil says vaguely, floating a hand in the air above his head, as if Dan needs a visual aid.

“You’re supposed to be in Milan,” Dan says, utterly bewildered.

As his eyes adjust, he can see Phil is in a suit and tie, somewhat creased now, but still obviously expensive and posh. He doesn’t appear to be wearing a coat, which is concerning. Had he walked from wherever the plane landed to the hotel without one? And even then, how he got inside is a mystery. It occurs to Dan that he’s pretty sure he didn’t remember to bolt the front door, which answers that he supposes, but the rest is still completely up in the air.

“Yeah,” Phil sighs, shoulders slumping, “couldn’t bear to be parted from you, I guess.”

Despite the typical sarcastic response, there’s something off about his words; they’re all bumping together, the consonants jostling for position. It occurs to Dan that Phil’s probably drunk, as he’s been at some fancy event, and he doubts the snobs that put those together skimp on the champagne. Further interrogations can wait until he’s sober enough to speak some sense. It’s obvious that Phil is not capable of looking after himself right now, so Dan needs to get this man into bed. He contemplates how best to do this, chewing his thumbnail.

“I stripped your bed earlier,” Dan tells him in a sigh. “Your room’s not ready for you.”

“S’fine,” Phil says, toeing off his loafers and leaning back into the beanbag. “I’ll sleep here.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a prat. Just wait here a sec while I get the bedding.”

He descends into the dark lobby, shivering from something that doesn’t feel like cold, then ducks into the tiny laundry room to retrieve the sheets he’d washed and dried earlier. He folds it all up diligently - though not very neatly - and puts it all into a basket to bring back upstairs. As he passes through the mezzanine lounge, he inclines his head as a signal for Phil to follow him up to the top floor.

Dan walks slowly on account of his weak ankle and the dark, but he can hear Phil’s plodding, unsure footsteps behind him, careless and clumsy. Dan wonders how fast the other man’s mind is spinning, and wishes he had another set of hands to help keep him steady.

“Not far now,” Dan reminds him in a low voice, because they’re approaching the floor where Louise sleeps. “One more set of stairs.”

“Thank God you’re here, I almost forgot,” Phil mutters, though his words are so slurred that the contemptuous remark loses its potency.

In a way, it’s almost soothing to know that Phil is still lucid enough to deride him. They reach the top floor eventually, Dan’s arms aching and his ankle throbbing. He’d left Phil’s door unlocked earlier, so he pushes it open now and heads straight for the bed. Phil ambles in afterwards, moving to switch on a lamp on the bedside, which offers some yellow light that glosses the moonlight pouring in through the huge windows.

Dan sets to work immediately, pulling off the pillows and duvet in order to cover the mattress with a clean sheet. Given the size of the bed, this is no easy task, and the corners spring off twice in his haste. To his surprise, Phil begins attempting to help, moving sluggishly, but managing to hold the corners in position.

They work together silently, dressing the pillows and even stuffing the duvet into its cover. By the time it’s done, Dan’s about ready to drop, but he can feel the weight of responsibility on him right now, along with that anvil of guilt Louise heaved on his back earlier. It’s not something he can just shrug off, so despite the fact his shift doesn’t technically start for a few hours, and Phil is supposedly not his problem yet, Dan finds himself going to Phil’s small kitchenette area and finding a glass. It looks a bit smeary, but otherwise fine, so he takes it into the bathroom, rinses it out and fills it, then brings it out to Phil, who is now sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders hunched forwards, face in his hands. He still doesn’t look up to giving the full explanation Dan wants to drag out of him, so it will just have to wait until tomorrow. Not that he’ll be any more forthcoming then - he certainly doesn’t owe Dan any explanations if he doesn’t want to share.

Given that there’s no point in attempting to pry answers out of him at the moment, Dan places the glass on Phil’s bedside table and studies the man in front of him, deciding how best to approach the task of getting him into bed. Probably best to start with removing his uncomfortable outer layers, Dan decides, and reaches for Phil’s suit jacket, which he then begins shoving awkwardly down his arms. As he works the material over Phil’s biceps, Dan vaguely notes Phil’s head lifting, blue eyes squinting at him curiously.

After a moment or two, Phil asks, “um, what are you doing?”

“As fun as it would be to watch you attempt to struggle out of your clothes in your inebriated state, it’ll be a lot quicker if I help,” Dan replies, managing to pull the garment off him.

He turns to fold the jacket carefully over a chair, then spins around to find Phil fighting a smile. Dan ignores it, reaching for Phil’s shirt buttons, some of which are already undone. He works efficiently, keeping his mind focused resolutely on the action of slipping the round discs of plastic through their respective holes, and not anything about the soft, pale skin beneath slowly revealing itself.

“Dan?”

Dan tuts, wishing he’d just shut up and be helped without argument. “What?”

“I’m not drunk,” Phil says.

Dan’s fingers still. Phil’s shirt is almost entirely open, revealing the length of Phil’s lean torso in a long, deep ‘V’. “Yes you are,” Dan says stubbornly.

Phil shakes his head. “Not even slightly.”

“But... you were at that event,” Dan tries, though his stomach is squeezing, and he can already feel the blush creeping into his face.

Belatedly, Dan realises then that he’s got one knee on the mattress beside Phil’s left thigh, and the other nestled between Phil’s legs, almost pushing into his crotch. He’s essentially in Phil’s lap, methodically undressing him. For some reason, this incriminating position doesn’t seem to be anything other than mildly amusing to Phil.

“Yeah, well after about a minute of watching Nikolai schmooze a bunch of CEO’s and their wives, I knew I had to make a break for it at the first opportunity.” He shrugs; one of his hands rests absent-mindedly on Dan’s knee, like he’s not even aware of the action. “Can’t fly drunk, so I avoided the free schnapps.”

“Fly drunk...” Dan tries to process this information, and fails. “You don’t mean- you flew the plane up here?”

The corner of Phil’s mouth twitches. “And here I thought I was running out of ways to impress you.”

Dan stares into Phil’s eyes - they’re bloodshot and drooping, but the pupils are small, the irises bright and clear. He’s not lying, Dan realises. He’s stone cold sober. Too caught up in the embarrassment of having tried to undress and basically straddle a man who was totally capable, the information Phil is feeding him - that he apparently can fly planes, that he’s been trying to impress Dan of all things, that he’d escaped from Nikolai’s side to come back here at 2am - is enough to have Dan totally flummoxed. He attempts to leap backwards, to extricate himself from Phil, but Dan being who he is, trips and stumbles.

Though sluggish and inalert, Phil somehow still manages to catch him before he lands on his ass. He tugs Dan sharply forwards, and he ends up falling front-ways instead, pushing Phil until he’s toppling backwards, both hands coming down to bracket Phil on the bed.

“God, you’re insatiable tonight,” Phil jokes as Dan attempts to scramble off him, mortified. “Relax,” Phil laughs, though it sounds numb and hollow. “I’m not under any impression that you’re actually that unable to resist me.”

“Sorry, fuck,” Dan says, flushing, having rolled off Phil smartish. “I’m barely awake right now, and I thought you were sloshed and-”

Phil throws him a tired laugh. “Not sloshed, no. Just exhausted. Can barely see straight.”

Dan’s heart is jackhammering, but one look at Phil, sprawled out on his fresh bedclothes, eyes half-shut, tells Dan that this is a lot more than exhaustion. He can joke that watching Nikolai hobnobbing with a load of posh gits is enough to send him running for the door, but if Dan had to guess, he’d say something happened at that party. Something bad enough to have Phil finding the nearest plane and pointing its nose straight back up the mountain he loathes being stranded at the top of.

“Well yeah, I’d imagine,” Dan replies carefully. “Round trip to Milan and back in less than twelve hours?”

Phil doesn’t answer; Dan wonders if he’s fallen asleep. He dithers, shifting, and the mattress bounces Phil up and down.

“Don’t,” Phil mutters.

“Don’t what?”

A pause. Dan’s ears strain to hear the response. When it comes, it’s almost a whisper. “Don’t leave.”

To spare Phil the humiliation of explaining himself given his current state, Dan just nods to the otherwise empty room, and shuffles to the edge of the bed. He gets up to plump the pillows, then pulls back the duvet. He turns to prod Phil in the leg.

“Get in, then.”

When Phil immediately begins moving in accordance with Dan’s instruction, Dan tells himself it’s because he’s so tired that he’d do anything he was told. Once he’s beneath the covers, Phil shuffles around a bit until he’s shucked off his trousers, which he then pulls out in a magician-like reveal, and throws to the ground. Dan picks them up, and folds them across the chair with the jacket. They’re still warm.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dan asks as he slides in to the other side of the bed.

“No,” Phil says half into the pillow. He sounds seconds away from unconsciousness, which is promising. Then, quietly, he says, “if you’re really gagging to know, I suggest you check the news.”

Given that Dan himself is about five years away from getting any sleep, he reaches into his pyjama pocket for his phone and opens his news app. He doesn’t even need to use the search bar. Right there, on the front page, blares the headline:

‘SIR NIKOLAI’S HUBBY THREATENS DIVORCE IN SHOCKING DISRUPTION AT CHARITY EVENT’

Dan scrolls down, already alarmed. Granted, the newspaper this particular headline belongs to could probably be best described as a tabloid, but he hasn’t the patience to look for a more reputable source of information just yet. He reads quickly, eyes darting along each line like he wants to get it over with all at once.

‘...came as a surprise to us all when Swiss bachelor Sir Nikolai Novokoric announced his marriage to Philip Lester, a Manchester-born student he’d known for less than a year. The two lovebirds married in a secret ceremony in early 2016. After a few months of being snapped canoodling at various parties and events, Sir Nikolai pulled his new man out of the spotlight, and he’s barely been seen since.

Last night at the annual European Young Person’s LGBTQ+ charity event was the first public sighting of Sir Nikolai’s husband in some time. Evidently, due to the shockingly dramatic stunt Philip pulled during his husband's speech, this absence might be the sign of trouble in paradise between the young couple.

“It’s bloody hypocritical!” Philip spat into the microphone once he’d pushed Sir Nikolai aside [see video below]. “He’s getting an award for being this charitable gay icon, but he’s exploiting his own sexuality.”

As you can see in the video, there was little chance for him to finish his impromptu rant, as he was quickly escorted off stage by security. He did however shout, as he was being pulled out of the building, that he intends to file for divorce. We’ve yet to pin down Sir Novokoric for a responding comment.’

Beneath the wall of text is a video, taken on someone’s phone by the looks of things. Dan’s thumb hovers over the play button, heart pounding. Does he really want to see this?

“Go ahead,” Phil says from beside him, making Dan jump. He’d assumed the other man was asleep by now. “The rest of the world’ll have seen it in a few hours. Why not join them.”

Dan hesitates for less than two seconds, then locks his phone, placing it on the bedside table. “I don’t go in for that tabloid bollocks.”

There’s a moment where Dan thinks Phil might smile, but he just rolls over again, fringe falling over his face. “I was dumb,” he sighs. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Somebody needed to,” Dan replies sniffily, thinking of Sir Nikolai’s irritating winks. “I mean, if you’re right about the exploitation,” Dan clarifies quickly. There’s no use telling Phil that he has a personal dislike for his husband. “That should be brought to people’s attention, if it’s true.”

“Well of course he’s exploiting himself,” Phil says. “And me. And anyone who identifies as gay or bi. He’s pretending he’s the Ellen Degeneres of the Swiss Royal family, happily married to his true love, when he’s actually in the Bahamas, shagging anything that moves - male or female.”

“Well, if it’s male or female-”

“Don’t,” Phil cuts in, tartly. He sits up, pushing a hand into his hair. “Are you really gonna argue, to me, that just because he’s bi, and he’s up front about it in the media, that he still deserves to be heralded as some admirable icon for the LGBT community? Why is it that just because he fancies blokes as well as girls, everyone can look past the fact he’s married? Don’t the public give a shit about what I might feel? It’s all so creepy, the way everyone pretends he’s some Saint, looking the other way when he’s caught snogging models on beaches. He’s a sociopath if you ask me. He doesn’t fuck people based on real attraction like everyone else - for him it’s all about who can get him the most publicity. Who would look best next to him in the paparazzi photos, or in the leaked sex tape.”

Dan is only able to glean bits and pieces from Phil’s rant at a time; the slew of information is startling, as is the sheer loathing coating each sentence. One thing Dan does catch though, are those last two words. “...you and Nikolai have a sex tape?”

Phil throws him a withering look, but there’s a tinge of amusement tucked into its far corner. “Not the point, Dan.”

“Sorry.” Dan sighs, sinking back into the pillows, mind spinning as it attempts to process everything. Dan doesn’t know the other side of it, has never paid attention to the public’s fawning over Nikolai, so perhaps he’s biased, but everything Phil is saying makes a worrying amount of sense. “Seems like he’s an absolute bellend,” Dan says, succinctly summarising his own responding feelings. He can hear Phil snort with laughter, and it’s nice. “Way I see it,” Dan continues, slowly allowing his words to shape around his developing stance on the matter. “He shows up here after months of nearly no communication, expecting you to play along with his plans, go right back to being the perfect little house-husband. If you ask me, it’s his own fault. Anyone in your position would have been fuming, ready to explode at the drop of a hat.”

“Yeah, but other people would probably have exploded in private,” Phil sighs, picking at the duvet cover. “You don’t get it. I’ve been in this world for a while now. I should’ve known better than to blow my lid on a damn stage like that, in front of all the press. Now the world will be on Nik’s side, and I’ll be the trashy scumbag that Kanye’d his acceptance speech and broke up with him in front of a live audience.”

Dan is silent, contemplating this. Instinctively, he reaches out and places a hand over where he thinks Phil’s knee is. Phil stares at the hand, perplexed, then turns to look Dan in the eye.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Phil asks, eyes round.

The bits of Dan that still reverberate with hurt from all his mean comments, and a disgust for the bourgeoise in general, tell him to say yes. Dan thinks he could say yes, if he were crueller, if he didn’t think he’d throw up after watching the glacier-blue eyes in front of him fill with tears. It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that Phil’s been an idiot since the day he put on that bloody ring.

But it’s too late. The pieces of Dan that started, days ago, to warm to Phil, to understand him, to sympathise, now form the majority of Dan’s being. He wonders if it was the same way for Phil, back in the first weeks of knowing Nikolai, as that charming grin and laser-focus on just him began chipping away at his resolve. Dan hasn’t much experience in love, but he’s beginning to suspect that even with every scrap of common sense you have at your disposal, pretty much anyone is in danger of being a complete idiot.

“No,” Dan says truthfully. He remembers Louise’s words from earlier. He made a bad choice, I’d say, but he’s not completely without a brain. She’s a lot wiser than she gets credit for. “A dick-brain, sure. But you’re not stupid.”

“I feel stupid right now.”

Dan lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, searching for a bright side of this gloomy looking cloud above Phil’s head. “At least he can’t pretend that everything’s fine between you now,” Dan tries. “You announced to the whole world that you’re unhappy. Puts him in an awkward position if he tries to just brush it under the rug.”

Phil cocks his head, looking at Dan as if he’s never seen him before. “I didn’t think about that.” He turns away slowly, eyes unfocused as he settles back down into the pillows. “Maybe there’s a way out.”

“Get some sleep,” Dan advises, noting the exhaustion in Phil’s voice. “It’ll all seem better in the morning.”

“Mmm,” Phil says, eyes already closed.

“Can’t believe you Kanye’d him,” Dan marvels, trying to picture it. He notes the twitch of Phil’s mouth, and laughs softly. “And you weren’t even drunk.”

“They should give me a medal for not chugging a bottle of Greygoose, listening to Nik talk about morality and political change like he has any clue,” Phil says, sighing heavily.

“How’d you resist?” Dan asks affably, hoping to send Phil into dream in a lighter mood.

“Just kept thinking...” Phil mutters, trailing off.

“Thinking what?”

“Thinking that if I just didn’t drink... if I could hold on and hold on...” he breathes a long sigh, mouth falling slack, and whispers, “I could fly back to you.”

(Chapter Twelve!)

#phan #phanfic #too high #enemies to lovers au

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