#he's literally on top of him and they're both breathing heavily what do u want me to say.

[kiisaes]

If not gay explain this

fun fact about me, i've rewatched this episode like a million times but every time i reach this scene i get hit by a wave of second hand embarrassment exactly like when i watch on-screen romantic moments in a movie or tv show. sometimes it's so strong i have to physically look away

[danfanciesphil]

I am *loving* your prompts!! I love the way you capture the boys, Ellen. :) I'd love to see something where they're out of their element (being forced to drive, or camping, or a blackout, or outside of the city, etc) Hope you're having a fabulous Parisian day, lovely!!! :)

Thank you sweetheart! I am enjoying all the practise enormously! Just sorry it’s taking so long. 

Ok so your prompt is a little broad, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve run away with it a bit! Hopefully this is along the lines of what you were looking for. Much love, angel! xxx

Got a prompt for me? Click here! (Please be aware that due to an abundance of prompts, your prompt may take a few days to complete - but thank you all for submitting so far!)

Dan and Phil are indoor people. 

It’s something they really, really appreciate about one another. A basis for their friendship, in a way. And then, later, their relationship. 

Their perfect weekend would probably consist of very similar things - video games, Deliveroo, pyjamas, Netflix, and staying up laughing about stupid memes or playing board games until the wee hours. 

This is how most of their weekends are spent, in fact. 

However, occasionally they are forced outside of their comfort zone. They don’t budge easily, as they are very happy in their socially reclusive, hermit-crab ways, much to their friends’ chagrin. 

Usually, when they have to spend their weekends elsewhere, it’s unavoidable. 

Like this weekend, for example. Caspar Lee is having a birthday. Well, he has one every year, so it’s not exactly unusual. This year however, he’s decided to organise a camping trip. 

In other words, he’s decided to single-handedly create Dan and Phil’s worst nightmare, and invite them to it via a Facebook event. 

When Dan had first seen it, he’d snorted with laughter, showing Phil. Phil also rolled his eyes, amused at the idea of accepting an invitation so hideous to them both, and Dan had moved on with his life. 

He figured he’d whip up some excuse later - feign a fictional conference or event of some sort - and tell Caspar that, regrettably, he and Phil would have to pass. Instead, Dan just forgot about the whole thing, and then it was two days before Caspar’s birthday, and Dan received a text. 

From: CasparTo: Dan13:24pmHey Dan! We’re leavingat 5 on Friday. Are u andPhil driving up? x

From: DanTo: Caspar13:26pmWhat? Driving where? x

From: CasparTo: Dan13:28pmLake District lol Didn’t u read the event? 

Dan’s blood runs cold, and all of a sudden he remembers everything. He jumps up from the sofa, sprinting towards Phil’s room in a sudden panic. 

Phil is sat on his bed eating crisps and scrolling through his laptop; at Dan’s entrance, he looks up, frowning in confusion. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Fuck, Phil we forgot about Caspar’s thing.”

Phil looks confused for a moment, then his eyes grow round and wide. “What?! The camping thing? I thought you said no to that!” 

“I thought I did too!” Dan cries in despair. “I must’ve forgotten.” 

*

That’s how, two and a half days later, Dan finds himself in the passenger seat of a rented Land Rover, watching warily as Phil navigates the rural countryside of Northern England, despite the fact Dan knows for certain that he hasn’t driven a car in years. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Dan asks for the fifth time. 

Phil side-eyes him crossly. “I know you’re a paranoid person, but you’re supposed to have total trust in me, remember?” 

“I do, I do.” Dan lies, turning to look out of his window, trying to find something to distract himself amongst the flat, endless bracken stretching out to meet the greying sky. “How fucking far away is this place, anyway?”

Phil sighs, glancing at the Sat Nav on the dashboard. “It says we’ve got another hour at least.” 

“Ugh,” Dan grunts, lifting his feet up onto the dashboard. 

Phil looks at them in silent disapproval, no doubt thinking about the fact that this car needs to be returned in pristine condition if they want their deposit back. 

“Maybe it’ll be fun,” Phil suggests, shrugging. 

The atmosphere has been pretty tense between them ever since they found out they’d have to go through with this debacle. Camping, in the wilderness, with five other boys. Louise had initially said she’d come along, but has since pulled out due to ‘childcare issues’. 

Dan hates her a little bit for having such a good ‘last minute’ excuse. If he and Phil had a baby, they could’ve weaselled out of this thing too. Dan pauses at this peculiar thought, wondering where on earth it came from. 

If he and Phil were ever planning on adopting a child - which they have absolutely no current plans to do - they probably need to have a better reason than ‘using it as an excuse to get out of socialising’. 

“It’s gonna be so... laddy.” Dan complains, pouting. He fiddles with the knob of the radio, which is only receiving static, as they’re in the middle of effing nowhere. 

“We have alcohol,” Phil reminds him. “That might make it a bit better.” 

Dan nods vaguely, sighing. He has no right to be complaining, he knows, because it’s all his fault they’ve ended up having to do this. He’s the one that forgot to reply to Caspar’s invite. For some reason, Caspar didn’t invite Phil on the event, but neither of them thought much of that. It’s more or less assumed amongst any of their friends that if you invite one of them, you’re gonna get the other too. 

“I hope so.” Dan says, shifting into a position where he thinks he might be able to nap for a while. “If not we can just make out or whatever.” 

Phil chuckles, and it’s the last thing Dan hears for a bit. 

*

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this experience is that Phil seems to adapt to it with an ease that Dan literally could not have foreseen. They’d gone on a mega shop before they left London, packing the boot of their hire truck with a brand new tent, specially designed outdoor cooking utensils, sleeping bags, groundsheets, kindling for the fire... you name it, they bought it. 

Of course, Dan’s main concern was that he and Phil would flail about for hours trying to set up their stuff whilst Joe, Caspar, Josh and the others would whip out those protein enriched muscles and have their tents erected in two seconds flat. 

On the contrary, Phil launches himself into the task, and quite honestly blows the others out of the water with his prowess. 

He and Dan pull up to the spot Caspar had chosen just after the others, and hop out of the car to greet them all. Then, as the others begin unloading, Phil strolls around to the back of the truck, slinging the - heavy, bulky, complicated-looking - tent onto his back, and waltzes over to a spot near where Caspar has begun setting up. He looks over at Dan, stares at him, marvelling really, and calls: “Is here okay?”

Dan nods wordlessly, and Phil gets to work at once. He hammers the pegs, he threads the rods through the frame. He lays the groundsheet and carts the bundles of sleeping stuff through the front entrance. 

Dan just watches him, mouth agape. It’s strange that, despite the length of time he’s known Phil, intimately, the man still utterly astonishes him. 

“Voila!” Phil says after what can only have been fifteen minutes of work. He stands back from the tent, proud, and for good reason. “She’s ready.” 

Before Dan can speak, Joe and Caspar sling their arms around his shoulder, grinning at him. 

“Always pick a man who knows how to use his hands, eh Dan?” Caspar asks, jostling his shoulders. 

“I wonder who wears the trousers in this relationship...” Joe adds on, winking before wandering off towards his half-erected tent. 

Phil walks over to Dan then, smiling nervously. “Is it okay? I can make it a little straighter if you want.”

He’s taken his outer shirt off, and his arms are slightly dewy from the exertion of all the physical activity. His hair is ruffled by the cold, Yorkshire wind, and he’s breathing heavily. In other words, he looks kind of like sex on legs.

Dan stutters on his own breath for a moment before replying. 

“N-no, it’s- I really- you did a good j-job.” He gets out eventually, and Phil beams, clearly pleased. 

Phil pulls Dan towards him, right into his chest, and Dan just sort of melts there, his eyes falling closed as Phil’s thick, bare arms wrap themselves around him. 

He feels Phil press a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re teeth are chattering. Are you cold?” 

Dan hasn’t the heart to tell Phil that he’s just stuttering because he’s overwhelmed by Phil’s Heathcliff-esque ruggedness in the setting of this wild moorland landscape. Instead, he just nods silently, and Phil tells him he’s going to go and find Dan’s jumper in the car. 

*

By the second night, Dan has more or less surrendered himself to the wilderness. At first, having no showers, toilets, or other amenities was a difficult adjustment, but despite being a bit of a princess nowadays, Dan has in fact camped quite a bit in the past. Okay, so maybe camping at Reading Festival isn’t quite the same thing, but it’s still a tent, and sleeping outdoors, and slowly descending into a savage over time. 

They’ve hiked (not Dan’s choice of activity, duh) all day around the beautiful, raw and untamed land of the Lake District. They’ve even climbed a (smallish) mountain, atop which they’d stopped to guzzle the picnic they’d brought along. 

Normally, Dan would’ve hated it, and it certainly wasn’t what he’d call fun, but the views were immense and breathtaking, and there’s something about being here, amongst the undisturbed wilderness, that leaves one with a primitive sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself. 

He tries to explain this to the others, and they all laugh, of course. But it doesn’t matter. Phil squeezes his hand in acknowledgement, showing that he understands, even if it’s only a bit. 

They get back to the camp and crack open the beers, huddling around a campfire in their bedraggled states. None of them look their best in their rain macs, thick woollen jumpers and muddy walking boots, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody is filming them now. They snap a single photo for Caspar’s Instagram, then tuck their phones away. They’re no use out here, anyway. 

Dan is squeezed into one of the camping chairs they’ve brought along, on Phil’s lap. He’s tipsy and his face is pink and warm from the wind burn and the heat of the roaring fire they’ve created. He’s full of soup and hot dogs and marshmallows - camping food - and he’s surprised to find that he’s happy.

Phil’s arms are wrapped around his middle. It feels so safe, here, with him, despite the fact they’re a hundred miles or more from London, in a place they’ve never set foot before now. 

Silly games are played, drunken stories are exchanged, which leads to secrets being told, and a solemn pact that nothing will leave this spot. And then, it’s time for bed. 

Last night, Dan and Phil had slept restlessly, too cold to lift their arms from their sleeping bags let alone cuddle. Dan looks into Phil’s eyes as they extricate themselves from the chair, and he can tell, at once, that the same won’t be said for tonight. 

They stumble through the tent flap, giggling drunkenly, and fall onto one of the sleeping bags - Dan doesn’t remember whose is whose at this point. 

Phil is immediately attacking him with kisses, which makes Dan laugh harder, and he rolls them until Phil’s on top of him, though it’s hard to see what’s happening in the dark. 

They struggle with layers of clothing, pulling and prising at various fabrics in the pitch black, laughing uproariously at the whole affair because it seems so difficult they might as well give up the attempt. 

They don’t, though, and somehow they get there, naked and shuddering as they make love in the narrow confines of their two man tent, the sound of the furious wind whipping against the canvas outside. 

When it’s over, they crawl into one sleeping bag with some difficulty, the heat radiating off their naked bodies at once suffocating and not enough. Dan listens to the steady, fast pace of Phil’s breathing, and traces his lips with one hand. 

“Can’t believe you just Brokeback Mountain’d me,” Dan says, teasing, and Phil laughs.

“Couldn’t help myself.” He confesses, yawning. “Please don’t get murdered with a tyre iron.” 

Dan chuckles. “Fine. If you insist.”

“Home tomorrow.” Phil mutters, sounding sleepy. 

Dan snuggles towards him, more than happy to close his eyes as well after the copious amount of exercise he’s done today. 

“Hm,” Dan agrees. “Maybe you were right, though.”

Phil’s hand is at the base of his skull, his fingers trailing through the short, bristly hairs there. “Hm?” 

“Maybe camping isn’t so bad...” Dan says, feeling awkward about the confession. “Y’know,” he pauses, swallowing his embarrassment as best he can manage. “As long as I’m with you.”