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Dan wakes up the morning he turns 26 and blinks at his bedroom. Everything is white and silver and serene and he spends a moment just trying to focus his eyes at the light comes in through the window. He should have bought blackout curtains honestly, he hadn’t thought through the direction of the sun in the mornings and the light cotton at the window, while airy and beautiful, does very little to filter out the bright stream of sunshine.
At least it’s a nice day. If he has to be getting older, at the least the weather has the decency to be nice.
He turns over and shuffles into the sleeping shape of Phil at his side, melding himself into the space created by his arms and letting a soft sigh escape his lips.
“Happy Birthday,” Phil mumbles, his eyes still closed.
“Oh, you’re awake.” Dan says, trailing a hand over his waist.
“Hmm,” Phil replies, running his own arm over Dan and pulling him closer. He still doesn’t open his eyelids but instead settles his head onto the top of Dan’s. “I could hear you thinking.”
“Just cursing the sunshine for waking me up,” Dan singsongs.
“Yeah, okay.”
“I was.”
“Not thinking about how now you’re closer to thirty than you are twenty? Not thinking about your encroaching death and how time is fleeting and… well you know, all the usual stuff you get introspective about on your birthday.”
“Not this year,” Dan whispers.
Phil does open his eyes then, and squeezes Dan twice, signalling for him to lift his head at look at him.
“What’s different this year?” They both know what is different this year.
Dan shrugs, feigning nonchalance, the movement jostling both of them in their tight embrace. “Dunno. Getting older doesn’t seem so bad when I get to do it with you.”
“You sap.”
“It’s my birthday, I’ll be sappy if I want to.”
Phil ducks his head then and kisses Dan lightly, a delicate brush of his lips against Dan’s pink and parted ones. Dan sighs into Phil’s mouth and slides his legs forward, tangling them with Phil’s. He presses closer, deepening the kiss slightly, though nothing too extreme. It’s lazy and natural, moving their mouths together with no real goal in mind other than the simple enjoyment of it.
“Hmm, a happy birthday indeed,” Dan jokes as they part for air.
“Birthday breakfast?” Phil suggests, “Then presents? Then… Mario Kart? Then….” He trails off with a shrug. “Anything you want, it’s your day.”
Dan nods, but gets thoughtful look on his face. Phil reaches out to brush a stray hair from his forehead, and ends up rubbing the crease between his brows with the pad of his thumb.
“Thinking again?”
“Just…” Dan smiles, the dimple in his cheek deepening slightly. “I think I’ve already had the best gifts ever over the past few years, I can’t imagine asking for any more. We’ve done some amazing things, haven’t we?”
Phil nods eagerly. “Yes, we’ve been very lucky. The books and the tour and everything.”
Dan shakes his head slightly, “I didn’t mean that,” he clarifies, “I mean us.”
He tangles their fingers together on his chest and drops a kiss on Phil’s jaw.
“Us?”
“All of this, the house and… I don’t know. I guess somehow everything feels a bit more… permanent.”
Phil slides a hand to cup Dan’s face, drawing him close so that their noses brush. “It is permanent, Dan. I’m keeping you forever, okay?”
They kiss once again and it’s sweet and lingering and Dan feels his mouth curve into a smile against Phil’s.
“Even though I’m getting old?” he asks, “I’m not young and beautiful anymore.”
“You’re always going to be beautiful,” Phil corrects him, “And I’m always going to be the one to get old first so I’ll try it out for you and let you know how it feels, okay?”
“Good plan.”
“You ready for some fun today?” Phil moves away from him then, getting out of bed and searching the room for his discarded tshirt. It’s somewhere around, he’d flung it across the room at one point last night.
“Can’t we just stay here?” Dan says, rolling over defiantly and shoving his head into his pillow.
“Nope, places to go people to see.” He finds his tshirt wadded up against the foot of the bed and pulls it on over his pyjama bottoms. “Come on, up.”
“I’d rather just be with you,” Dan says, lazily moving from the bed, his pace slow and laboured.
“That’s why we went for dinner last night,” Phil insists, “Because we have plans with other people later today. We have a few hours though.”
“Fine,” Dan pretends to pout and look grumpy so that Phil will move closer and kiss him to make it stop. It works. “But after dinner we’re coming home and I get to do whatever I want. Which will be nothing.”
“Deal.”
Phil moves away again and Dan takes a moment to pull on his own clothes, watching as Phil looks into the mirror briefly, running a hand over his hair. His glasses are askew and his tshirt is wrinkled and his actions aren’t doing much to tame a mop of bedhead currently adorning his skull, but Dan smiles fondly at him in his reflection.
“What?”
“Nothing, you look cute this morning.”
“I look cute every morning,” Phil giggles, tongue poking between his lips.
“True. Still… maybe I am getting all introspective, because I was just thinking that I can’t believe I’ve known you for nearly a third of my life. I’m getting old and life is unpredictable and time is slipping away but… I have you, don’t I?”
“You have me,” Phil nods.
They gaze at each other without words for a few seconds and Dan lets the passage of the years wash over him. It’s his birthday and he’s closer to thirty than he is to twenty, and Phil is already thirty and everything feels wonderful and permanent. This is it for him. He’s had so many birthdays where all he could think of was that he felt uncertain and like he hadn’t achieved what he should and that time was his enemy, rushing forward without giving him a chance to catch up to the expectation of it all.
This year is different. Because they’ve made all of these decisions and they’ve been about them in a way that’s more personal than they’d allowed themselves to be previously. They’ve taken the leap and moved again, to a place where they only have one bedroom really, and picked colour coordinated furniture and have the floor to ceiling windows that Phil has always dreamed of. This year it feels like he’s caught up with time, like he’s finally settled and happy and confident with everything.
It’s slowly getting to the point where they might be able to share that with the world. Not yet, neither of them are really ready for that, but it isn’t an impossibility anymore. It’s gone from an if to a when in a way that Dan never really expected. They don’t talk in hypotheticals anymore, they talk in in eventualities.
“Did you say something about presents?” Dan asks, shaking himself from his thoughts.
“Yes!” Phil enthuses, taking Dan by the hand and pulling him from the room. “But first, breakfast!”