Chapter Text
Dan has, quite frankly, been having a terrible month. He likes touring, he really does. The feeling of being on stage, the absolute rush of performing live. Not just the people shouting his name, though that’s part of it. He just- likes it. You can take the kid out of the theater, or whatever.
Usually, he likes it. Right now, he’s just tired. He’s tired of playing songs he didn’t write about girls he doesn’t love, and he’s tired of the overnight drives to play back to back shows. Plus, someone had tried to sneak into his dressing room the other day, and that video was going around again. The one they had been trying to erase since before Dan had signed on to his agency. Every time it crops up, he can’t fucking escape it. They’ll be asking about it for months. He’s a friend. It was a joke. Please stop asking. Redirect your attention to this “candid” picture of me getting sloppy drunk with a woman who’s name I already forgot.
He just has to make it through the next three shows, and then it’s Christmas and he can rot in a hotel room for a few weeks before getting back to it. There’s not much use flying home if he just has to go back again, after all. Not much waiting for him there, anyway.
(He does feel bad for Veronica, who keeps sending him pointed emails with flight details. But she’s got his mother and brother to keep her company, she doesn’t need Dan.)
He’s deep in a very shameful instagram hole- not exactly looking for pictures of his ex but not not stalking his brother- while also avoiding texts from his PR girlfriend of the month, an up and coming actress who’s so effortlessly charming she makes even Dan look good, when the bus grinds to a halt, literally. Dan nearly falls out of the cramped bed in what passes for a master bedroom when they jolt to a stop, and the smell of burning rubber fills the room. He groans, throwing his phone down and cracking the door open. “What the fuck?” he yells, to no one in particular.
He doesn’t hate his tour crew. He really should be nicer to them. They’re great people, and they keep him from going off the rails nearly daily. It’s just that it’s a pale imitation of friendship, when he’s paying them all to live practically in each other’s pockets. Trying to make friends just reminds him of the bridge he burned back in Manchester, anyway. Best for him to be on his own.
“Mechanical issue,” the driver yells back. “Everyone off the bus!”
They’re somewhere between Chicago and Boston, Dan thinks. He loses track, sometimes. Goes to sleep in one city and wakes up in another. It’s not his job to know where he’s been, just to shout the right name at the shows.
Thankfully, they’re not actually in the middle of nowhere. The town is small and a bit run down, but there’s a coffee shop that’s warm and bright, so they troop through the snow and crowd into a booth near the back. It’s blessedly empty this time of day- Dan can’t handle smiling for a selfie right now.
“Can’t we get another bus?” he asks, cupping his cold hands around a warm mug of coffee. His winter gear is sorely lacking, which isn’t much of a problem when you go from bus to hotel to venue to bus again. He doesn’t have time to get cold on tour.
Sarah frowns, tapping at her phone aggressively. “Closest one that’ll work is in Texas, but it’ll be a few days with the weather and all.”
Dan rolls through the dates in his head, doing the Tour Math on a several day delay. “What about Boston?” he asks. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, then he’s done until the new year. In January it’s Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, Salt Lake City. Then up the coast, two shows in a row in LA and hitting three more cities before the end of the leg in Vancouver. He’s exhausted just thinking about it. Sarah’s face twists unpleasantly, she’s about to give him bad news.
“We’ll have to reschedule maybe all three shows,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. “Hit them after Vancouver.”
Dan sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back against the vinyl of the diner seat. This is supposed to be the last tour on this contract. He had been nineteen when he signed it, full of enthusiasm and fire and misplaced trust in his agent. Five years, three albums, two tours. They’re already mapping out the next five years. Dan’s not sure if he’ll sign the contract again. He’s just- tired.
When he opens his eyes, they catch on someone outside the diner window, and his breath catches uncomfortably in his chest. His first thought is he bleached his hair. His next is fuck damn it where did Martyn say he was moving.
“What town is this?” Dan asks, not looking at Sarah. Phil looks good. Happy. He doesn’t need you .
“Uh- Pinewood, Pennsylvania,” Sarah says. “Are you okay?”
“Is there any way we can get to Boston tonight?” he asks, tapping his fingers against the table impatiently. Don’t look over please don’t see me.
“We were just missing the worst of the weather before, now even if we did have some way to move everyone and the sets and instruments we might hit the storm and get stuck anyway.”
Dan’s psychic powers evidently aren’t working, or maybe they’re working too well, because Phil happens to glance over, and their eyes happen to meet.
Dan’s started wearing his hair curly since the last time they saw each other. He feels oddly self conscious about it as Phil frowns, blue eyes wide and surprised. Phil has probably seen more of Dan than Dan has of him, he knows. The fucking magazines and interviews and, oh god, pictures of him out with various women. Dan pulls his eyes away from Phil, trying to focus on Sarah.
“It’s almost Christmas,” he says, nonsensically.
“Get ready to spend Christmas snowed in at the- Pinewood Inn and Suites, they’ve got vacancies.”
The bell above the door jingles. Phil Lester walks into the cafe, looking windswept and snow covered and fucking beautiful. All the breath goes out of Dan’s lungs.