#i wanna lean into the fact that bio is really fucking scary on the outside but is a hot mess

[kaliido-s]

needed to draw mothollante again

#i wanna lean into the fact that bio is really fucking scary on the outside but is a hot mess #mothollante #mothra #biollante #shitpost #heisei era #ship

[wildflowerhowell]

I Found, chapter 7

Dan Howell and Phil Lester hate each other, and everyone at the Ida Gatley school of dance knows it. So what happens when the two are paired together to choreograph and perform a duet at England’s most renowned contemporary dance competition?

word count (in total): 22,139

chapters: 12

genre: fluff and angst

tw: none

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Phil pushed open the door to their hotel room, revealing a bathroom to their right, a closet to their left, two queen beds, a dresser, and a TV. It was an average hotel room, but the two boys rarely stayed in hotels and were pretty excited. They each chose a bed to drop their bags on (Dan chose the one closest to the window, Phil chose the one closest to the door) and started exploring their home for the next two days. They marveled at the plushness of the pillows and the fact that you could just make a quick call and have food delivered to your room.

Dan walked over to the far side of the bedroom, looking out the window at the beach, a sight he rarely got to see. His family barely ever travelled. He replayed the train ride from London over in his head, amazed at how far his friendship with Phil had come in the past month. They’d sat facing each other, trying to play Cards Against Humanity (but failing because it’s not the easiest game to play with only two people.) They’d laughed over funny Vines, just as Dan and Liam had done a while ago. They shared a bag of cheddar popcorn, even though Phil said he was lactose intolerant. The other passengers glared at them when they burst into fits of laughter when they pulled out Cards Against Humanity again to play charades using the white cards.

“This is pretty damn nice, I'm not sure I'm gonna want to leave on Sunday,” said Phil, opening the drawer of the bedside table in between their two beds. “Wanna look through the Instagram accounts of the other competitors?”

“Duh. Maybe they're all gruesomely ugly and it'll make me less nervous about tomorrow.”

“So you're finally nervous, I see. Anyways, they're dancers, Dan. They're all gonna be fit.”

“Shit, you're right. Worth a shot. Let's still look through their accounts though.”

Phil sat down on his bed and leaned against the pillows, Dan flopped down right beside him. They looked through about ten accounts before Dan got bored, saying they all looked like gods and goddesses and had all won tons of awards which they bragged about in their bios, and looking through any more was pointless. Phil agreed.

“How do you think we'll do tomorrow?” Phil looked to his right over at Dan.

“I'm usually really confident whenever I go to a competition, but right now, I'm not so sure. These dancers look really good, Phil. What if we don't even place?”

“Oh come on, our dance is so fucking good. We're definitely going to place. These other people might have great technique, but I doubt any of the duos have the sort of stage presence and chemistry we have. We make a really good team, Dan. Like, scary good.”

“Kinda sucks we didn't figure that out earlier.”

Phil laughed softly. “No shit, Sherlock. Oh, I've been meaning to tell you. In our dance, there's this one part you're doing weirdly. Your arm placement is kinda distracting from what I'm doing. It's the part right after the fouette turns, I think.”

Dan sat up so that he could face Phil with his whole torso. “Wait, you think that there are points in this dance where one of us is more important to the dance than the other?”

“Well in this particular part, I think I'm more…in focus, I guess you could say.”

“Hold on, this dance is a duet. Every part needs both of us for it to look complete. That's kinda the point.” Dan couldn't believe Phil was actually saying this.

“I'm fully aware of the point of a duet, thank you very much.” Phil was sitting up now. “But in this part-”

“Can you let go of ‘this part’ for just one goddamn second? This isn't about that. You’re the one who preached about us being equal, Phil. Not me.”

“And I understand that, but when I said that I was talking about us being petty all the time, y’know?. How about we just go over that part and see what we can do.”

“No.” Dan sighed, standing up now. “I'm going into town, I need some time to think. I'll be back later.” He reached over to his bed and grabbed his lavender bomber jacket.

“Dan wait, can we talk about-”

“See you later Phil.” Dan accidentally slammed the door while on his way out, he cursed under his breath. All he wanted to do was get away from Phil. Preferably for as long as possible. For most people, a small argument like this wouldn't end with someone leaving. But he and Phil had been through such a big change over the past month. He was just starting to trust Phil, to think he was someone different than the person Dan had assumed he was.

Dan found himself in a small coffee shop with walls covered in art from various local artists and plants in every place that one could fit. He sat down at an open table after grabbing the chai latte he ordered from the bar and let his thoughts wash over him, emotions pooling up inside his brain. He was angry. And confused. And hurt. He didn't know what to do. He knew he should probably talk to Phil about how he was feeling, but he didn't wanna do that until a lot later. He could just walk around and shop, distract himself from the situation.

“Sorry to bother you, young man, but you look like you have worries on your mind.”

Dan glanced up to see a woman, probably in her mid 60’s, looking down at him. He laughed. “How can you tell?”

“I have kids. And my kids have kids. I've seen a lot of worried faces in my lifetime. Do you mind sharing your thoughts?”

What the hell, it's not like this is my deepest, darkest secret. “Yeah sure. Please, sit down. I'm Dan by the way.”

“Meredith. So what’s on your mind?”

“Well, there’s this one guy I’m here for a dance competition with. His name’s Phil. He and I used to hate each other. We were always trying to be better than the other, kiss up to our dance instructors more than the other, stuff like that. But when we were both chosen for this competition, we actually started getting along; you could pretty much say we’re friends now. But today he said something that makes me think he still hasn’t let go of that feud. I wanted so badly for us to be friends because he’s such a fun guy and I love spending time with him, but I’m just worried he’s not who I’ve been hoping he is.” Dan felt good for telling someone all that. He let out a sigh of relief.

Meredith took a sip of her coffee, thinking. “It sounds like this new friendship is mutual, yes?” When Dan nodded, she continued. “Just have a talk with him. Maybe you interpreted him wrongly, or he said something he didn’t mean to say. Communication is always key in every kind of relationship. Tell him how you felt when he said what he said, but try to understand his point of view.”

Dan considered this for a second. “You’re right. As I was leaving our hotel room , he said he wanted to talk about it. I should probably go back and figure this out. Thank you so much for talking to me about this.”

Meredith beamed at Dan. “It was my pleasure.”

“Hey, that competition is tomorrow, would you like to come?”

“Oh absolutely!” Meredith handed Dan a scrap piece of paper from her purse for him to write all of the details on. When he was done, she tucked the paper away. “I wish you the best of luck.”

~

Dan threw his now-empty cup in a bin outside his hotel and headed inside, hurrying to get back to the room. The 30 second elevator ride was agonizing, all he wanted to do was get things sorted out with Phil. He rushed out of the elevator, almost running into a small child. He didn’t pause while saying his apologies to the kid’s mother, which may have not been the best idea, but in that moment, it was the least of his worries. Dan fumbled through his wallet, where he was storing his room key, and swiped it through the lock on the door. When the door unlocked, he practically burst through.

Dan entered the room to find Phil laying in bed, watching Harry Potter on the TV. He jumped a bit, caught off guard by Dan’s sudden entrance. “You’re back,” he said cautiously, clearly not wanting to fight anymore.

“Can we talk?” Dan sat down on the edge of Phil’s bed while Phil paused the movie. “I kind of had a conversation with a grandma who told me I should have a talk with you about this.”

“You talked to a grandma? Where?’”

“Coffee shop. So, can we talk?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Phil affirmed, scooting to the left so Dan could sit by him, “What’s up?”

“Okay,” Dan moved over next to Phil, “I’ve realized a few things during this past month. First of all, I was a fucking idiot for starting this whole feud with you. I never even gave myself the chance to see what you were like before deciding that I hated you, and I’m so sorry for that.”

Dan looked over at the older dancer for a second. Phil smiled.

“Secondly,” Dan began talking again, “I know we’ve only been friends for about a month now, but I already really value our friendship.”

Phil’s eyes lit up. “I do too!”

Dan beamed. “I’m so glad.” He paused, and his smile faltered. “But let’s be honest, this friendship is clearly fragile. If I’m being honest, we hated each other for a pretty damn long time. I think it could be really easy for us to go back to how we used to be after just one fight or disagreement.”

The older boy looked down at his hands. He nodded.

“What I’m saying is, I care about you. I don’t want for us to go back to hating each other after an argument because we couldn’t talk it out.”

Phil looked up. “Let’s talk this out then.”

Dan gave Phil a grateful smile. “Okay,” He nodded, “I guess I’ve never really thought of this dance as a duet.”

Phil gave the brown-haired dancer a quizzical look.

“What I mean is, when we dance together, it’s not like we’re two different people. It’s almost like we’re one person split in two. It’s almost scary how well we dance together. You’ve looked in the mirrors, you’ve seen videos of our dances together. You know what I’m talking about.”

Phil chuckled in agreement. “Yeah, I do.”

“So I guess when you said that there was a part in the dance where I was distracting from what you were doing, it kind of shocked me a bit. I thought we were on the same page, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, “I thought about what you said while you were gone. I think I’ve been so used to trying to one-up you that even now those old habits still haven’t completely gone away. I obviously don’t want to have this rivalry anymore, but I’d gotten so accustomed to it that it almost became second nature to me. I hadn’t even thought of our dance that way until you mentioned it. But I’m glad you said something, because I never would have realized I was thinking about it the wrong way.”

“So we’re good?”

“We’re good.”

“Fuck,”Dan exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “I’m so glad we cleared that up. Can we agree to always be completely honest with each other?”

“Obviously.” Phil hesitated a bit before giving his answer, but Dan didn’t notice. “Well, now that we’re being all honest and shit, wanna tell me any secrets?”

“Yeah, I stole your credit card before I left and bought 50 pairs of designer shoes for myself. You’ll be in debt for years.”

“Wonderful,” Phil grinned, “Wanna watch Harry Potter with me?”

“Yeah, which one?”

“Order of the Phoenix.”

“Oh God, the book is so much better.” Dan rolled his eyes.

“Hmm. I honestly prefer all of the movies to the books.”

Dan looked over at the older boy in disbelief. “Phil.”

“I’m joking!” Phil giggled, biting his tongue.

“Phil, that’s not funny!” Dan playfully slapped Phil’s right arm.

“You’re such a nerd.”

#phanfic #phanfiction #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #phan #phandom #wildflowerhowell