Work Text:
It’s raining. Of course it’s fucking raining, it’s always raining. The city sky is grey and the rain falls near-constantly, be it a drizzle or a downpour. Dan checks his phone, the weather widget prominent on his lock screen as ever. Acid rain warning for half an hour’s time. Fuck.
He weighs his options. He can risk it. The rain right now might be cold but at least it’s probably safe, and if he's quick he can make it in time.
He shrugs on his jacket and wraps a thin scarf around his face. There might not be acid rain falling right now, but the air quality is still nothing to be trifled with. The city has been thick with smog for days, heavy acrid clouds somehow refusing to be washed away by the endless rain. Delightful. Of course he'll be missing this when the hot season rolls around again, when he's reduced to cowering naked in his tiny bedroom, blinds closed for weeks on end to keep out the sun.
He slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, not even waiting to hear the click of the door locking behind him as he leaves the pathetic cell he calls a dorm room. The cold concrete corridors of his block are mercifully empty as he hurries through them. He has no inclination to stop and chat to anyone, or to have to explain where he’s going. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea to go out under an incoming weather warning and no one else needs to know why he’s taking that risk. The warnings are usually relatively accurate these days, but that’s not to say there’s no chance of him stepping into the street to the static air and tell tale hiss of a proper storm.
In that sense, he’s lucky. The rain is regular old rain — wet and cold, collecting in the blocked drains, flooding the streets, but no risk to him beyond making him chilly and damp and slightly more miserable than usual. He huddles under the shelter at the tram stop after tapping his card on the reader. The grey sky is dimming and the digital clock on the shelter ticks down the time of his safe window.
Across the tram tracks the neon sign of his local A-47 convenience store taunts him. Anyone else in his block who wanted snokoplasm bought it there, he was sure. Or bought it online; delivered by drone in 24 hours if they could afford it, or in a couple of weeks by a grumpy guy on a bike if they couldn’t. Dan usually went with the second option. But he’d been stupid, left it too long, and now he was out and it was all he could think about. Sure he didn’t need it, but… being a depressed student who hates his course and has no other purpose in life is bad enough. He has to let himself have something.
And so here he is, alone on a darkening street, about to get a tram across town because he isn’t brave enough to let anyone see him buying the one little joy he has in life. Great.
Before he can berate himself enough to give up on the whole endeavour and head home, the tram arrives. There’s a few other people in the carriage already when he boards, looking almost as miserable as he feels, pointedly avoiding eye contact with each other. Dan gratefully joins them, slumping into a plastic seat and staring at his shoes. The tram whirs to life and moves off. No turning back now.
The further away from home he gets, the more confident Dan starts to feel. He fidgets with the scarf still tucked around his face. There was no way he would be recognised. No one knows him here, not this far from the university and everywhere he usually hangs out. He can do this. It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong, after all.
The city passes by in a blur. Bright lights and grey streets, rain lashing against the windows. And then he’s stepping off the tram, bracing himself against the rain, tapping his card to end his journey. The beep of the reader rings in his ears, bright and chirpy in the gloomy street. The light of the A-47 flashes in front of him. Neon light reflects off the puddles, scatters in the prisms of the raindrops. Dan takes a deep breath. No turning back now.
He pushes open the door to the shop.
In the worst-case-scenario his brain likes to convince him will happen, everyone he’s ever known is in the tiny convenience store and the electronic beep boop the door makes as it opens draws their attention. They all turn to look at him, staring, knowing exactly what he’s there for and judging him for it.
Of course, that doesn’t happen.
There is one other person in the shop, but Dan doesn’t know them. It’s a boy, about Dan’s age — tall and lanky like Dan, but he holds himself very differently. Dan has the hunched posture of someone who doesn’t want to be tall, always drawing in on himself, trying not to attract attention. This boy stands up straighter, shoulders back, looking relaxed, confident. Dan bets this boy doesn’t travel half way across the city to buy fucking blue snokoplasm.
The boy glances over his shoulder at Dan. It’s a casual half movement, an acknowledgement that there is something going on behind him, but lacking the judgemental stare Dan fears so much. His mop of black hair barely moves as he does, Dan notices. The boy’s hair is cut in a similar style to Dan’s, but he manages to make the artfully messy fringe look effortless. Maybe it’s a wig, Dan thinks, unkindly.
It’s a learned defence, to immediately try and put this boy down. This person who seems so like Dan, except without the crushing weight of his own self hatred. He’s attractive, is the problem. Slim and broad shouldered, seemingly perfect hair and — from what Dan had glanced when the boy looked over at him — the most gorgeous blue eyes. But Dan can’t think about that, isn’t allowed to contemplate this boy’s long pale fingers as he points out what he wants to the XO helper. Dan is at university to get away from his home town and his reputation, to reinvent himself: get a respectable degree and a respectable job … and travel as far out of his own neighbourhood as possible to buy blue snokoplasm and ogle hot boys in the A-47. Fuck.
The interaction between the boy and the XO helper continues on for several minutes. Dan isn’t trying to listen in, but he’s standing a reasonable distance away as the next person in the queue and well — there isn’t much else to do but hear. The boy appears to be arguing with the XO helper over colours. That’s yellow, he’s saying. Dan rolls his eyes. It’s obviously green, everyone knows it’s green. He couldn’t help but be gently entertained, though. The boy’s gesticulation and enthusiastic insistence on being wrong is somehow endearing.
But it’s the way the boy reacts to the suggestion from the XO helper that he might want blue that has Dan hunching his shoulders further, tugging awkwardly at his scarf, staring at his feet. Did he look like someone who would use blue? He thought the whole thing was ridiculous, you couldn’t tell anything deep about a person from the way they looked. Or what colour snokoplasm they preferred. And yet people tried, constantly, and all those kids in his hometown… hadn’t they been right?
And so the hot boy in front of him, with his stupid perfect hair and his ardent denial is paying for his “yellow” snokoplasm, and the tiny part of Dan’s brain that had half hoped is beaten back into submission. He couldn’t talk to this boy — what would he even say? Hi, I like your hair, is it real?
And well, Dan knows what he’s here for. He’s paid his tram fare, he can’t afford to back out at this point. So Dan is doing something objectively judgment worthy already, he doesn’t need to add embarrassing himself further to the list.
“Oh, hey, sorry—”
Dan starts at the voice. He’d been a million miles away, and now suddenly the hot boy is standing right in front of him.
“Uh—” Dan manages to blurt out. Smooth, Daniel.
“Can I, um…” the boy gestures vaguely, and Dan belatedly realises he’s completely in the way of him leaving the store. What a stupid layout.
The boy is looking at him expectantly but Dan is frozen in place. He’s not used to being actually eye-to-eye with people, and oh what eyes to be looking directly into. You could go swimming in them. He mentally shakes himself.
He steps aside, muttering a “yeah of course, sorry” under his breath. The aisle is narrow and the boy still has to turn to get past Dan, almost brushing him with his shoulder. Dan gets a waft of coconut as he passes. Fuck, this guy even smells nice.
He’s still considering that as the door chimes it’s cheery beep boop, and the boy is gone out into the night.
He walks up to the counter in a daze, his head full of blue eyes and coconut scented, shiny black hair. The XO helper is looking at him as expectantly as a robot can manage. It also has blue eyes, eerily fake in the harsh fluorescent store lighting, nothing like the pools of blue and green and yellow Dan had been looking into moments before. He really needs to get a grip.
“Welcome to A-47 how can I—” the XO helper starts its spiel. Dan can’t deal with that level of social interaction right now, even from a robot.
He opens his mouth. Three words, Dan, that’s all you need to get out. Three words, take your shit, pay, and then you can leave. You’ve made it this far.
The robot is still talking. His mental pep talk doesn’t help.
“Uhhh snokoplasm, please,” he manages.
The XO helper stops talking.
“Gre— blue,” Dan clarifies.
The XO helper nods, retrieving the requested tube and placing it on the counter. He can’t help but notice that the robot doesn’t react at all to his colour choice, not like it had for the boy before him. That familiar voice in the back of his head starts up its all-too-incessant chant: everyone knows, everyone is judging you, you can’t run from yourself, you’re every bad thing anyone has ever said about you.
Dan swallows down the lump forming in his throat. Thanks the XO helper. Pays. Shoves the snokoplasm into his messenger bag, pushing it deep down like he could hide everything it represents.
He doesn’t hear the door chime as he leaves, only the blood pounding in his ears. He’s on the home stretch now. Avoid the weather, get on the tram, get back to his depressing little breeze block room.
Avoid the weather. Ah. About that.
The smell hits him before anything else. There’s a specific tang that always accompanies the acid rain. It feels like it’s singeing the hairs on the inside of your nose. The air has a static prickle, and the puddles sizzle and jump. The wind roars down the street, channelled by the tall buildings on either side.
Dan’s heart sinks. The storm had hit already, and there was no avoiding it if he was going to get home tonight. He couldn’t exactly stand under the narrow ledge above the convenience store all night. He’s going to have to run for it.
There’s a tram already at the stop, the lights flashing to indicate the doors are about to close. There’s nothing for it. He’s running before he’s even finished pulling the hood of his jacket over his head.
Ten paces maybe, with his long legs, from the convenience store to the tram. The hiss of the rain, the pinpricks of it landing on his skin, his adrenaline still high from his shopping trip, the storm static palpable in the air.
The tram doors slide closed.
When the tram moves off from the stop, Dan is still sprawled on the sticky floor from his well timed but poorly aimed jump.
He lies panting for a few seconds longer, contemplating a piece of gum stuck to the floor next to his hand. At least this late, in this weather, no one else will be around to see his shame. He slowly climbs to his feet and has to immediately reconsider his last thought.
Dan isn’t, in fact, alone in the tram carriage. He’s almost alone — once again the worst case scenario of embarrassing himself in front of everyone he’s ever known hasn’t happened — but, once again, the one person around to observe him at his lowest is a tall boy with perfect black hair and gorgeous blue eyes.
Those eyes are trained directly on him.
The boy’s gaze darts away as soon as he realises he’s been caught looking. The classic go-to of public transport — no one is in immediate danger that I can do anything about, so the best thing to do is to avert my eyes and pretend it isn’t happening. At least Dan can pretend he has a shred of dignity left as he scrambles to his feet.
Unfortunately that last shred of dignity doesn’t last long.
Almost as soon as he's standing, there's a huge clap of thunder. The air fizzes with lightning, the tram and the street around it illuminated bright as day just for a second. The tram jolts suddenly with a squeal of brakes, the momentum sending Dan flailing back to the floor.
He drops his bag as he goes and its contents spill across the carriage. It feels like he’s watching in slow motion as the tube of blue snokoplasm rolls away from him and stops. Right in front of the hot boy Dan had long given up on hoping to impress.
They both reach for it at the same time. The storm is picking up, but its sounds seem to have receded into the background. If this were some kind of meet-cute in a movie there would be a flash of lightning as their fingers brush against each other, literal sparks, but instead there’s an ominous roll of thunder. Dan snatches the tube away.
“It’s — it’s, uh, for a friend,” he blurts out. He doesn’t dare to look at the handsome stranger, focusing instead on trying to collect the rest of his belongings.
The other boy doesn’t speak until Dan has fished his last stray pen from under a seat, stuffed it back into his bag, and finally awkwardly got to his feet.
“You were in the shop,” the boy says, almost as if he hadn’t heard what Dan had said.
Dan stands, mouth opening and closing like a fish. He feels like his limbs are too long for the situation all of a sudden — he’s looming like an ungainly spectre.
He sits down opposite the other boy.
“Yeah,” he says, not sure where this conversation was going.
“I— um, I don’t care if it’s yours,” the boy shrugs. His face looks kind; not quite smiling, but Dan can’t find any malice in his expression. He’s got pretty good at recognising when people are making fun of him, over the years, but this feels genuine.
Dan mirrors the boy’s shrug. “I guess,” he says. “Most people do. Care.”
The boy laughs. “I’m not most people,” he says, actually smiling now.
“Then who are you?” Dan asks. Something about the stranger made him feel bold. Or maybe the adrenaline crash after everything he’d done so far this evening was making him go slightly insane. Dan Howell didn’t talk to strangers on the tram, let alone hot ones.
“Phil,” the hot stranger says. His smile reaches his blue eyes.
“Dan,” says Dan, smiling back despite himself.
The boy — Phil — grins. “Nice to meet you Dan. Do you think the tram is going to move again, or are we stuck here until the storm is over?”
Dan isn’t sure that he doesn’t want to be stuck on a tram with Phil. Okay, it wouldn’t be ideal. Even if Phil didn’t mind the blue snokoplam, it didn’t mean anything. And even if it did — well, he’d quickly realise that Dan was just a bumbling idiot who wasn’t worth his time if they were stuck here for too long.
The tram answers Phil’s question before Dan gets a chance to, the engine whirring back into life. It’s not the smooth start the trams usually have, but they’re definitely moving now.
“Guess we’re in luck,” Dan quips. He sounds more confident than he feels.
They sit in silence for the next couple of minutes, being jostled by the jerky movements of the tram. Dan half wishes he’d sat next to Phil instead of opposite him, imagining the bumpy ride pushing them into each other, pressed shoulder to thigh. Doesn’t mean anything, he reminds himself.
But it might, a small part of his brain points out.
The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but Dan is tempted to break it anyway. He’s already been brave tonight, and in an otherwise empty tram caught in the biggest storm of the year so far, the rest of the world might as well not exist. Why not?
“You got far to go?” he asks.
Phil opens his mouth to answer, but his words are swallowed by an almighty crashing sound that’s much closer than the thunder has been. The tram jolts again, much harder this time, accompanied by the deafening screech of metal on metal.
The lights flicker, then go out entirely.
In the dim glow of the emergency lighting, Dan and Phil stare at each other.
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere for a while,” Phil says quietly.
Dan’s brain goes immediately into problem solving mode. He fishes his phone from his pocket and unlocks the screen, to immediate disappointment. Of course this type of storm would knock out the phone network. No calling for help then. He looks wildly around the tram carriage.
There’s an emergency stop button, but he didn’t need to stop the tram — they were already stopped, that was the problem. His eyes catch the doors and the distinctly not illuminated button panel next to them. He starts to wonder if he could force the doors open, before quickly realising that the one thing worse than being stuck in a stopped tram in a storm of this magnitude, was being outside in a storm of the magnitude.
Dejected, he looks back at Phil.
“Well shit,” he says, shoulders slumping.
It isn't like he has anything waiting for him in his tiny dorm room, no plans for the night besides a dinner of instant noodles and falling asleep in front of his laptop, but spending potentially hours in a metal tube with a storm raging outside isn't exactly his idea of fun either. And if the trams were stopped and the phone network down, this storm was the worst that had hit the city in a good while.
As if on cue there’s another crash of thunder, directly overhead now, and a flash of lightning illuminates the carriage. Phil flinches, and Dan can see well enough in the second of light to see he actually looks scared. He has a right to be, storms like this could be dangerous. It wasn't like they were going to be struck by lightning — he vaguely remembers enough high school physics to think, probably, the tram carriage would act as a Faraday cage — but there were still falling branches, or bits of building, or the window seals failing under the corrosion of acid rain, or if the storm was bad enough, all kinds of weird dust or gasses or —
Not helpful Dan, get a grip.
Dan smiles at Phil, trying to arrange his face into something that looked reassuring. Sure he’s scared too, but with Phil looking so pale he feels like he has to be the one to step up here. It was no use both of them sitting there shitting themselves.
“At least we're not outside,” he says, aiming for cheery and missing by a mile.
“Yeah,” Phil agrees. He doesn't sound particularly convinced.
On impulse, Dan stands and takes the two short steps to cross the carriage to the opposite row of seats. He drops his bag onto one, and then sits himself down next to Phil. He doesn't know this boy, but he thinks he likes him, feels like he could know him, and even though they're strangers, really, they're also now comrades in this situation they'd ended up in. To put it shortly — Phil had been kind to Dan, and now Phil is scared, so Dan wants to help him feel better.
“Right,” Dan says, more decisively than he feels. He's not sure how to continue the sentence.
Phil scrunches up his nose. “Is the tram on fire now, too, or is that burning I can smell you trying to form a thought?”
Dan's eyes widen and he looks frantically around for the supposed fire before he realises. Oh. Phil is making a joke.
Belatedly, he snorts out a laugh. “Yeah fine, I have no bright ideas,” he says. “Do you?”
Phil shakes his head. “I think we just have to wait it out.”
Dan shifts slightly in his seat, trying to get comfortable now he's resigned to staying here for the foreseeable future. He quickly gives up, there's no comfort to get from the hard plastic.
“Couldn't we at least have got stuck on one of the new ones with the nice seats?” he grumbles, making Phil laugh.
The sound is a joy against the backdrop of the storm. Dan thinks he could listen to that laugh forever and never get tired of it.
“Wait, maybe —” Phil shrugs off his short cape, shaking it in front of him to straighten it out. Raindrops fly off it in every direction as he does.
“Ugh,” Phil groans and lets his head fall back against the window behind him, dejected. “I thought I could make it into a cushion or something but it's soaked.” He drops the offending garment into a crumpled heap at his feet.
Dan pulls off his own jacket and holds it out in front of him. It's even wetter than Phil's, with the added bonus of a few new holes in the hood where the already thinning fabric had been burned by the acid rain. “Yeah, useless,” he says, dropping his jacket to the floor, where it lands on top of Phil's.
He'd expected to feel the chill of the stormy autumn air without his jacket, but the tram is … warm. Hot, even. Almost uncomfortably so. Weird, that the heating would be working when everything else had so dramatically stopped. Dan shifts again, rolls up his sleeves, pushes his fringe out of his face.
Next to him Phil is wearing a much thinner, short sleeved shirt, but he doesn't seem to be faring much better. He's turned his head, partially to look at Dan, presumably, but also to rest his cheek against the window as if he's trying to get the benefit of the storm's cool air via the glass. There's a pretty pink flush colouring his face just above his cheekbones now, too.
“Is it just me, or is it getting fucking hot in here?” Dan asks. He immediately regrets his wording.
Phil's eyes obviously flick up and down Dan’s body, the corner of his lip quirking up into a smirk.
Dan drops his head into his hands with a groan. “You know what I meant!” he says, muffled into his palms.
Phil is merciful enough not to tease Dan further. Maybe he'd just done what any guy would do, seen the opportunity to make a dirty joke and taken it. Dan wasn't all that versed in whether regular guys jokingly flirted with other men on trams. Probably not? Although Phil had already told him he wasn't most people — maybe it was just something Phil did.
“No, it's boiling. Which is weird, for October,” Phil says, tugging at the collar of his shirt.
“Great, just how I always wanted to go. Cooked in a tram,” Dan deadpans.
Phil laughs, covering his mouth with his hand. Dan tries not to find it endearing.
He looks around, wondering if there was a heat vent or something. He doesn’t know what he'd be able to do if he could find it, but maybe knowing would be a start. There are multiple vents — in the ceiling, in panels beneath the seats — all looking completely innocuous. Dan puts his hand in front of the one beneath his seat. He can't tell if he actually can feel an airflow from it, or if he's imagining it to try and make sense of the situation.
He sits back up and looks at Phil, seeing the helplessness he feels mirrored back in Phil's eyes.
The heat is beginning to make him feel fuzzy. His long sleeved top is starting to stick to his skin, feeling itchy around the seams. Phil is fanning himself with his hand, ineffective in the still, hot air of the tram, despite the wind clearly continuing to gust outside.
“Any idea what the hell is happening?” Dan asks, wiping his forehead. His hand feels gritty against his skin. He frowns and brings his hand in front of his face to inspect his fingers. The hand he'd held in front of the vent is covered in a fine layer of shimmery dust.
“Nope—” Phil starts to say, then catches what Dan is looking at. “No idea what's on your hand, either,” he adds.
Dan wipes his hand on his trousers leg. “Gross, must have come from the vent,” he says.
Phil's eyes flick between Dan’s hand, the vent, and his face, where he must have smeared dust across his forehead. There's a look in his eyes that's not quite the same fear he had before.
“Do you think you've, uh, inhaled any of that?” Phil asks, his words slow and cautious.
Dan frowns. “I mean I guess we've both been breathing it in the whole time it's been there,” he says. He doesn't like how concerned Phil looks. “Why? I don't think it's poisonous or anything, I feel fine?”
Fine being relative, of course. He feels far too hot, for one, uncomfortable in his clothes designed for much cooler weather. And he’s still scared, of the storm and now of whatever mystery nightmare Phil’s brain has conjured up.
Phil unfastens a couple of buttons on his shirt, revealing pale milky skin and a hint of chest hair. Dan forces his eyes away, not wanting to be caught staring. He wishes his shirt had buttons he could undo, some way to try and escape the claustrophobic warmth. He ignores his other wishes, as much as the desire to reach out and touch Phil clamours in his brain.
“I don't think it's exactly poison…” Phil looks at him sheepishly.
“Then what?” Dan says, “Stop beating around the bush, just tell me!” If his voice squeaks a little in panic, they both pretend not to hear it.
Phil doesn't tell him. Instead he leans forward and kisses him.
Dan pulls back, mouth open in a soft gasp, but Phil doesn't even let him catch his breath before he's surging back into Dan's space, taking advantage of his open mouth to catch his lower lip between his teeth. Dan feels helpless — two steps behind in a dance he barely knows, the music speeding up around him and all he can do is cling onto Phil and follow his lead.
His hands are in Phil's hair (definitely not a wig) and he's moaning into Phil's mouth. His brain is foggy. He doesn't remember how and why they got here, he just doesn't want it to stop.
He whines when Phil pulls back from the kiss, though their foreheads are still touching and he can feel Phil's breath against his cheek.
“Dan… I need to fuck you,” Phil breathes out.
Dan's stomach drops and his heart leaps, metaphorical sensations feeling all too real inside him, like he's about to be ripped apart from somewhere behind his ribs. He pulls back further from Phil, dropping his hands to his sides.
“What? Now? Why—” the words tumble out with no real purpose. Half of him is ready to beg Phil to strip him of his sweaty clothes and lay him out right here on the slightly sticky floor of this godforsaken tram; the other half is screaming that this is too much, too fast, what does this boy he's just met want from him?
Phil kisses away his protests, his hands firm on Dan's shoulders.
“That dust,” Phil says, finally, “I've heard rumours of people seeking it out but… I thought it was a stupid myth.”
Dan blinks at him, the heat and the fuzz in his brain stopping him from understanding what Phil was saying. Or maybe it was because Phil wasn't making any sense.
“It's hot, right?” Phil says. Phil must be feeling as foggy as Dan, if he's trying to explain by making such obvious statements.
“It's hot in here and it's cold out there, and I feel…” Phil's hands have found their way just under the hem of Dan's top, his thumb gently stroking just above his hip. If Dan was struggling to follow before, he really is now.
“…And I think you feel it too.” Phil's eyes are wide and his pupils are huge, swallowing up the blue.
Dan nods. He thinks he knows what Phil is getting at. He's so hot he wants to pull all of his clothes off but it's more than that. He was already attracted to Phil, but now the fuzz in his brain is telling him there's no point in resisting those urges. Especially not when Phil doesn't seem to want to either.
“They say it's something blowing in with the storms,” Phil is almost whispering now, like he's telling a story around a campfire. His hands slide up Dan's back under his top, and Dan raises his arms instinctively, allowing it to be pulled off over his head.
“Makes everything hot and fuzzy…” Phil's hands are running over Dan's chest, ghosting over his nipples. Dan whimpers softly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, wanting to reach out and touch but not quite sure how to make that actually happen.
“… Until you can either fuck it out or you pass out and maybe don't wake up.” Phil says the last words into Dan's neck in between kisses, gentle and tender and nothing like the horrible potential outcome he was describing.
Dan's brain connects to his hands for long enough to gently push Phil back. He searches Phil's face, looking for a smirk, waiting for Phil to laugh and tell him this was all some ridiculous joke. He couldn't be infected with some weird dust that made him need to fuck the nearest person, this had to be a prank at his expense. He wondered if Phil had friends around who would jump out to laugh at him, naked and alone and afraid.
But Phil's kisses had been so tender, his touches so gentle. Either Phil is an incredible actor or he’s into this too. Dan doesn't see any humour in Phil's expression, only heat.
“You're — you're kidding me, right?” Dan says, his voice shaking slightly. “C’mon, what's the prank?”
Phil shakes his head. “I don't know for sure,” he says, “but that's what everyone says.”
Dan doesn't know who ‘everyone’ is. Doesn't know, doesn't want to know, doesn't care. He wants, he's itching to touch Phil, for Phil to keep touching him, and they're all alone here, trapped in this storm that no one else is out in, so why shouldn't he?
He leans forwards towards Phil, the small movement feeling like a giant leap of faith.
“Better to be safe than sorry, then,” he whispers against Phil's lips.
He kisses Phil with everything he's been holding back so far. Their lips slide against each other, opening just enough for their tongues to touch. Phil's hands find their way into Dan's hair, tugging at it and oh — Phil couldn't have known, but it's enough for Dan to become putty in his hands, ready and willing to be shaped into whatever Phil wanted him to be in that moment. Dan fumbles with Phil's remaining shirt buttons, the need to feel skin on skin burning him up from the inside.
Eventually he manages the final button and Phil lets go of him long enough for Dan to push the shirt off his shoulders. Phil shakes his arms free and immediately his hands are back on Dan, pulling him in so they're chest to chest, and then he’s kissing and nipping at Dan's neck. Dan tips his head back, exposing more of the sensitive skin to Phil. The air feels like it has an electric charge, a static build up, and Dan can't tell if it's from the storm or if it's just because every touch feels like it could be the spark that finally causes him to ignite.
His lips meet Phil's again, and he can finally get his hands on him properly. Phil's skin is so soft under his fingers. He feels clumsy and uncoordinated, his limbs heavy, trying to touch everywhere at once. He revels in the feel of the hair on Phil's chest, the way his nipples have hardened despite the heat, the broad expanse of his back. Now that he's touching Phil he never wants to stop. He wants to keep touching Phil, and for Phil to keep touching him, in this weird little bubble of heat in the storm.
There was an impediment to that, though, and Phil has obviously realised it too. His hands are trying to slide down the back of Dan's jeans, pulling him closer but failing to get very far in groping Dan's arse.
“Need to get these off you,” Phil says, almost to himself rather than Dan.
Dan whimpers in agreement, nodding when he can't get the words out. Yes yes yes, he needs them off like, yesterday.
It's a slow, sweaty fumble, both of their hands on Dan's belt until they realise it will go much quicker if they focus on themselves for one agonising moment. Dan stands up and shoves his trousers and underwear down together, the part of his brain that would usually be cognisant enough to not get completely naked in public overwhelmed by the fog of lust. His clothes get caught on his shoes, forcing him to awkwardly toe off shoes and socks before he kicks them away. Phil sits in his boxers — trousers still around one ankle — staring, eyes dark and wide.
“Dan, you're so…” he doesn't finish the sentence, just grabs at Dan and pulls him back towards him.
Dan goes easily, allows himself to be pulled into Phil's lap. He can feel Phil hard and hot beneath him and he moans, diving back in to capture Phil's lips in a kiss. He licks into Phil's mouth, tasting and taking, drowning in need and spit and sweat.
Phil's hands trail down his back, grab his arse, roughly pull him closer. His fingers dip between his cheeks, ghosting over his hole, and Dan keens into Phil's mouth.
Objectively it's a ridiculous scene — sweat slicked skin sticking to the plastic seat, Phil half dressed with a naked Dan squirming in his lap, damp fringes plastered to their foreheads, surrounded by a scatter of clothes and belongings in a stalled tram carriage — but in the moment it's the hottest thing Dan has ever experienced. And not just from the temperature.
Phil's fingers tease at his entrance and Dan feels like every nerve ending is on fire. He's not exactly inexperienced, but he's never felt like this before. Raw, passionate need for someone he's only just met. Every sense filled with the boy beneath him and everything screaming for more more more.
He whines against Phil's lips as he shifts, trying to get Phil to stop with the light teasing, trying to push back against his fingers. Phil chuckles and rather than doing what Dan wants, does the exact opposite. His hand comes back up to grip Dan's hip.
“One sec,” Phil says. He gives Dan one more quick peck on the lips then he's using his grip on Dan to manhandle him, swapping their positions so that Dan is sat bare-arsed on the grey plastic seat. It's warm and damp beneath him, and it should be weird and gross, but Dan is feeling flushed and fucked out just from kissing Phil — he can't think about his surroundings when he needs Phil to touch him again so badly.
Phil stands up to rummage in Dan's messenger bag, and Dan aches with how far away he feels. Those few inches may as well be a million miles. He can't keep his eyes off Phil — the long line of his back glistening with sweat, the swell of his arse, the obvious hardness of his dick in his boxers when he turns back to Dan. He's holding something, and Dan's eyes widen when he realises what it is.
“I thought you weren't supposed to —” he cuts off his own protest. Nothing they were doing was anything you were supposed to do.
Phil is already popping open the tube and Dan is immediately distracted from any vague memories of ‘external use only’ PSAs about snokoplasm. Phil pushes down the waistband of his boxers just enough to free his cock, his eyes locking with Dan's as he coats it in the blue substance.
“It's okay,” Phil says quietly, moving closer to cup Dan's face. “I've, er, done it before. Not ideal but it'll do.”
Dan just nods. The amount of trust he has in this boy — technically still a stranger, he doesn't even know his last name — is ridiculous. But in this moment it makes so much sense. He'd let Phil do anything if it meant he'd fuck him right now.
Phil's hand leaves Dan's face, but he doesn't get the chance to mourn the loss before it's back on him, hooking around the back of his knee to pull his leg up, tipping him backwards and exposing him to Phil. And then Phil is crowding into his space, slick cock nudging at his hole.
Dan moans as he pushes in — oh so slowly — the slight burn of the stretch, the tingle from the snokoplasm, the heat already prickling under his skin, all overwhelming his senses, fighting with the fog in his brain. He can see the strain on Phil’s face as he forces himself to hold back, to ease himself in and let Dan adjust.
Finally Phil bottoms out and lets out a shaky exhale. His thumb strokes gently against Dan's knee. It feels like Dan is being branded. There is no one else in the world right now, just Dan and Phil. No tram, no storm, no racing thoughts and fear of discovery. Just this. Just them.
Phil hooks his hand under Dan's other leg. The position is awkward, Phil is too tall for this really, but they're too eager to switch it up now. He pulls at Dan's legs, hitching up his hips so Dan slides against the plastic of the seat. He allows Phil to manhandle him, fold him almost in half, not caring that his back will undoubtedly ache later if he gets to feel so deliciously full of Phil right now.
And then Phil is moving, quickly abandoning his restraint. He pulls back, almost all the way out of Dan, then slams back in. Over and over, his fingers gripping tight onto Dan, struggling to keep his grasp as the sweat pours off both of them.
It's all Dan can do to keep his eyes on Phil. It’s so much, an assault on his sense, but Phil looks so good above him that every time his eyes start to close he forces them open again. The look of focussed bliss on Phil's face, his eyes dark and shiny, his black fringe falling forwards as he leans over Dan. Dan wants to burn the image into his brain forever.
Every thrust knocks a small breathy noise from Dan, and Phil's responding moans echo in his ears. Dan curls his fingers around the edge of the seat, trying desperately to stop himself sliding off. His neglected cock bounces against his stomach, but he doesn't have enough hands to touch himself and neither does Phil.
Phil is showing no sign of slowing down. His eyes have fallen closed and his mouth open, panting as he fucks Dan with increasingly frantic strokes. He must be close, but Dan isn't sure he can come like this. He never has before. His heart is beating wildly, he can hear his own heartbeat mingling with Phil's pants and gasps. He feels so hot, like he has a fever. Every point of contact with Phil burns, but it's so so good.
“Phil, Phil, I—” Dan gasps out, a harsh whisper, his eyes wide. He needs to come, he needs it, his head is swimming and maybe Phil is right and he might actually die if he doesn't. But as good as Phil feels inside of him it's not quite enough. He's so close to the edge, teetering, but the snokoplasm is starting to get tacky rather than slick, the burn becoming friction as well as everything else.
Phil's eyes snap open and meet Dan's. Dan can’t form the words to express what he needs, but somehow he doesn't need to. It's like Phil can read his mind. Or at least he can see the desperation written across Dan's face. Phil shifts his grip on Dan a little, moves him just enough to change the angle slightly, so he can —
Dan yells as Phil picks up his pace again, this time directly against Dan's prostate. He might be crying, he can't tell through the sweat dripping down his face. He's flying and he's falling and he's coming, and through it all Phil is holding on tight to him, swearing through his own orgasm.
Phil presses in one final time, hips flush to Dan as his breathing slows. Dan lets his body relax, finally, slumping back into the seat. Phil gingerly pulls out of him. He drops to his knees, bringing Dan's legs down with him. From his position on the floor he rests his cheek on Dan's thigh, looking up at him through his lashes.
Dan is vaguely aware of feeling sticky, cum and sweat drying on his still-too-hot skin. It's a far away feeling, though, like he's not quite back in his body yet. The edges of his vision are still a little fuzzy, but his brain is starting to feel clearer. It's a strange feeling, slowly coming back to himself like his consciousness is being redownloaded into his brain. He suspects Phil — currently smiling vacantly up at him — is experiencing the same thing.
“Did… did it work?” Dan asks eventually.
Phil giggles. “What a way to go if it didn't,” he says, which isn't all that reassuring to Dan.
It turns out when he's pushed, when there's an actual risk of it, he doesn't actually want to die. Funny, that.
Phil places a hand on Dan's thigh, and Dan immediately covers it with one of his own. He feels peaceful, soft, like he's been in free fall from a massive height only to somehow land gently on a feather mattress. The world is slowly coming back into focus, but all of his focus is still on Phil.
Phil, who he's known for maybe an hour and also an entire lifetime. Who doesn't have a last name but doesn't care that Dan likes blue snokoplasm, who thinks green is yellow and has the prettiest eyes Dan has ever seen.
“Howell,” Dan says after what feels like an eternity.
“Awoo?” Phil tilts his head, or rather smushes it more into Dan's thigh.
Dan laughs softly. This boy.
“No, I mean — Dan Howell. That's my name. We did all that and I didn't even know…” Dan feels like he isn't explaining very well. How he wants to know Phil, properly, not just — well, biblically.
Phil grins up at him. “Lester,” he replies, simply.
Phil Lester. Dan grins back. Now the urgency has died away it feels like something has shifted between them.
A rumble of thunder breaks through his awareness, and suddenly Dan is all too conscious of how exposed he is. His back and arse are sticking to the plastic seat, his skin is tacky with dried cum and snokoplasm, and his now-soft dick feels like it's trying to retreat inside his body, away from the sudden chill in the air. He shifts slightly, unsticking himself, and grimaces. The movement jostles Phil, too, who raises his head.
“Ugh,” Phil says, expressing the growing sentiment for both of them. “I feel disgusting.”
Dan nods, but Phil's words send a wave of nausea and dread through him. Was Phil just referring to his physical discomfort? Or now they’d apparently survived the effects of the dust, the fuzz and heat replaced with clarity, did he regret what they'd just done?
He stays quiet as they both collect their clothes and get dressed. There's nothing to be done about getting clean here, so Dan determinedly focuses on the promise of a hot shower to stop himself from spiralling. A mind-blowing fuck didn't mean anything when it was a life saving measure. Of course it didn't. Phil Lester was hot and confident and didn't buy blue snokoplasm. As soon as they were free from this enforced proximity he would go back to his own life and forget Dan even existed. Dan could understand that, even if the idea of ever forgetting Phil made him feel slightly sick.
He's looking around for his bag when he feels a cool hand grasp his. He looks up to see Phil watching him.
“Hey,” Phil says gently, a small smile on his face. “Your thoughts are louder than the thunder.”
Dan ducks his head, feeling his cheeks heat up. Oh god. Now Phil just feels sorry for him.
Phil squeezes his hand; Dan's traitorous heart leaps. He lets himself meet Phil's eyes again.
“It's okay,” Phil's smile widens. “I think I like you, Dan Howell.”
Dan just gapes at him. The incoming freight train of shame and self hatred that had been racing towards him disappears — poof — and suddenly his brain is completely empty.
Phil takes his other hand and pulls him forward. They're standing toe to toe, and Dan feels himself mirroring Phil's smile. They both lean in at the same time.
This time the kiss is slow, tentative, a real first kiss. They break apart shyly, just blinking at each other until Phil bursts into giggles so infectious that Dan can't help joining in. What the actual hell.
The hiss of a single door opening further down the carriage makes them both jump. A rush of cold air and the smell of the rain fills the space, the reminder of the world outside bringing them crashing back into reality. There's no fizz now, it's cool and fresh. The streets outside are starting to return to normal.
They both turn to look at the door, then look back at each other.
“C’mon,” Phil says, tugging at Dan's hand. “It's not a long walk to mine. We both need a shower.”
Dan reluctantly releases one of Phil's hands to grab his bag, but he's grinning from ear to ear.
“Lead the way,” he says, nodding towards the door.
Neither of them stop smiling as they jump down from the tram and walk together, hand in hand, into the night.