Chapter Text
The plans were made.
Endless Skype calls and text messaging blurred into one another, neither measured their time in specific numbers or figures but in the moments they had with each other. It seemed surreal that Phil hasn't even known this person for a year, yet it feels as if they had been good friends for years.
Phil had a hard time believing someone as complex and amazing as Dan existed, sometimes late at night he had to pinch himself to let himself know that what was happening is real. That Phil has met his figurative other half...although he wouldn’t mind him to be his actual other half, by the other definition of the phrase, because it felt like Phil had been searching for someone for so long, that now he had thought he had found them he was being far too cautious as he didn't want to lose what he had only just gained.
“Did you know that bees have a system of democracy for when they need to find a new place for the hive?”
Dan turned around from his position on the other side of his room. They had been Skyping for the last few hours and it had calmed from catching up on each others days, to sitting in comfortable silence, both doing separate things in their rooms but connected through the pixels of their screens. It’s staggering how their chats had changed, from awkwardly saying too much too quickly to not needing to say anything. Dan moved towards his screen with a bemused expression on his face, sliding into the chair and fully facing Phil on the screen.
“What the fuck?” He made a 'go on' gesture with his hand as if he was genuinely interested.
“Yeah!” Phil, surprised he was being taken seriously, rearranged his limbs into a more comfortable position (not that it looked all that comfortable). “They dance as well! And the workers bees do a little booty shake when they find a new house and if the queen likes it she’ll do the same booty shake as well.” Dan was still looking very confused but was dimpling at him. “So, like, it gets a bit dark and then the queen sort of brainwashes her workers? It’s really weird.”
Trailing off in his sentence, Phil allowed it to linger between the two, once again getting absorbed into the article he was reading. Dan took in Phils appearance while he was briefly unaware. His hair pushed over onto one side of his face, where he keeps twitching his head to the same side where stray locks keep falling into his eyes. Phil flicked his eyes upwards briefly, catching Dans soft look and turning his face upwards making a goofy beaming smile.
Dan smiled back and huffed a laugh, once again getting up and padding over to the other side of the room. “Have you almost packed everything yet? I’m so excited for you to get here.” Dan threw a thumbs up behind his back, while rummaging in a chest of drawers with his other.
Phil placed his chin into his hands. Staring at the boy being projected through his laptop, the boy who has several train tickets to see him tomorrow, the boy currently trying not to show he is freaking out as much as Phil was trying not to show how nervous he was.
Thoughts that maybe Dan will dislike him once he see him kept clouding his mind, that maybe he will get tired of him, that Dans opinion of Phil will change and Phil will lose him. Rationally, Phil knew he was just being insecure. None of what he was thinking would be likely ever happen and he would only stop dwelling on it once Dan was standing in front of him without the view of a computer screen between them. When he could reach out and touch Dans skin...intertwine his hands with his.
So the night went on, until it got too late that Dan had to hang up or he would never wake up on time to catch his train.
Only Phil, once hanging up, laid in bed staring at his Buffy poster on his ceiling. Overthinking and worrying himself into a wide-awake state had become an increasingly frequent affair ever since Dan brought the tickets. For Phil, he was one parts nerves mixed with 2 parts excitement and just a dash of fear.
He just had to shut his eyes and turn his brain off, unplug his thoughts and erase his fears. If only it was that easy. Tossing and turning in waves of green and blue cotton it seemed impossible to switch off. His body was a live wire buzzing his brain with a nervous energy, a hum of anxiety ticking away under his skin.
The waiting before an event was always something Phil hated. He hated how his mind over thought a dozen different situations and a million interpretations of how events could happen, worst case scenarios and all of his insecurities manifested into these imagined scenes. He wished that time could be fast forwarded. That he could wish that he could skip this like a movie to get to the best part.
Only he couldn’t...and he hated it.