It started with the bruises.
He'd seen them scattered over Dan's skin like smudges of paint; like little lavender blooms in a field. Greyish-lilac in colour, and faintly speckled. Oddly pretty, even. They were dotted here and there, in odd places that shouldn't often get knocked – his palms, his thighs, his stomach. His shins were littered with blotches like he'd been playing football, yet Dan was hardly a sporty person. Upon noticing them, Phil had pointed them out as they slouched on the sofa watching Planet Earth. Dan had glanced down at the mark and wrinkled his nose, dismissing it as clumsiness or some other mishap. Phil hadn't thought much more of it after that.
A few days later, in the early evening, a loud curse came from the bathroom and Phil started, calling out. A few thuds sounded, then Dan walked into the room with bloody hands and a bloodier nose.
'It just came out of nowhere,' he'd said.
They'd found tissues and cleaned up the mess, Dan lying on his back squeezing the bridge of his nose. A small drop of red had fallen onto Phil's carpet; he didn't mind that much. No amount of bleach was going to get it out.
Later, he placed a shoe over the mark.
The nosebleeds became a recurrence, to the point where Dan constantly carried tissues and Phil nagged him to visit the doctor. Dan was stubborn and lazy and put up a mean fight, though, and Phil eventually gave up.
Then, for a week, there was no blood and nothing extraordinary happening, and Phil almost forgot about the incidents until Dan was straddling him on the sofa with his hands on Phil's skin and their bare chests pressed together.
Pulling away from the breathless kiss, Phil frowned as his hands trailed Dan's sides. Each rib was a small bump under his fingers.
'Have you lost weight?'
Dan shrugged, breathing hard and pressing his lips to Phil's neck. 'Dunno. Maybe. Why?'
'I can feel your ribs. You're thinner.'
'Good,' Dan joked, grabbing Phil's chin and pulling it back up to kiss him. Phil sighed and relented, moving his hands to Dan's hips. He was quickly distracted as Dan ground down into him and he gasped, revelling in the feeling of Dan's fingers tugging at his hair. Sliding his hands under Dan's waistband, he gripped his ass, rocking them back and forth. Dan's hands were everywhere and the friction between them felt a thousand degrees hot; whatever he had been worried about was quickly forgotten.
They slept in Phil's bed that night, and Phil lay awake longer than he should have, tracing his finger down the ridges of Dan's spine as he lay on his front next to him. He knew it was probably just his own hypochondria making him worry, but Dan was definitely thinner. He was all angles now, and his hips seemed to have lost some of their curve. Dan wasn't meant to be bony – Dan was soft and had thighs that gave when you gripped them. His legs had felt skinnier locked around Phil's waist that evening.
Phil shuffled closer to him and fell asleep with his hand on the curve of Dan's back and a frown creasing his brow.
-
Dan was tired.
That was the main theme of the next few weeks.
Even the fans had caught on thanks to Dan's insistence on tweeting every thought that came into his head, and they'd even gotten the hashtag '#whyisdantired' trending. Phil scrolled through it once, just curious to see what the hell it was all about. Many posts suggested he was tiring himself out fucking Phil every hour of the day – Phil had known they'd come up with that eventually. He wondered how many of them were actually being serious.
