Work Text:
Dan is up early. He doesn’t want to be. He blames it not being his bed. He pulls the covers up while reaching for his phone on the charger. Phil is still asleep, his mouth open ever so slightly making soft snoring sounds. Although there’s nothing really soft or attractive about it, it’s just. Phil. Phil on his birthday weekend, Phil in Isle of Man surrounded by family and lovers. Dan reaches out to cup Phil’s face, it doesn’t wake him, he’s being as slow and as gentle as he can because he’s about to leave the warm comfortable bed.
Normally Dan can fall back asleep, but it’s too late now that he’s gotten his phone out, he wants to watch Youtube videos and he’s prone to reacting loudly when something funny happens. He can let Phil sleep in, it’s his birthday after all. Dan grabs his pyjama pants from the floor and his headphones and carefully opens the door.
The feeling that mornings usually bring sits in his bones and in his heart. When the sun has disappeared and there’s only fog and gray clouds, it’s a sadness that’s manageable. He thinks that winter stays for too long and it exhausts him in many ways, he wishes it wouldn’t.
He doesn’t smell the morning coffee, but he supposes that’s because he’s up far more earlier than he expected. He grabs a cup of water from the cupboard and chugs the glass of water and placing it in the sink before he finds himself in the living room, grabbing the blanket that he and Phil managed to bundle themselves up in last night while they watched a movie. It’s a sweet memory and smells like them and a mix of the hot chocolate that was spilled in an attempt to be more comfortable.
While this is the house that Phil comes to visit, it’s not his home, and Dan and Phil leave small traces themselves like that here and it’s comforting in a way that he doesn’t know how to explain.
He sticks his earphones in and goes through his subscription feed, wishing that it was a book but it’s too late to go back he’s prone to making noise and it’s not worth it. He laughs quietly at things that make him laugh and presses the like button, moving on to the next one. His heart feels a little better now that he’s waking up more. He needs this alone time sometimes, it gets to be too much and he feels trapped when there’s people that he’s not used to seeing.
*
He’s six videos in when he feels a hand on his shoulder, it makes him jump and his heart is beating fast but no sound comes out. It’s Martyn who looks ready for the day, wearing the hat that Dan always sees him in. He laughs, shaking his head, his hand over his heart.
“Jesus Christ.” he says with another small laugh, taking his earphones out.
“Sorry, mate.” Martyn has a cheeky grin like he knew what he was doing and Dan can’t help but playfully roll his eyes.
“I was going to go down to the shop to get some pastries for this morning, if you want to go.”
Dan thinks about it for a moment before looking down at his pyjama bottoms and ratty shirt. He shrugs, getting up to go change, telling Martyn to give him a minute. He knows that Phil is still asleep because he can sleep through anything but Dan wants to be quiet anyway. There’s something thrilling about getting sweet treats that he knows Phil will like, and while it was Martyn’s idea it’s still nice. He wants to be as nice as Martyn.
*
They’ve known the lady at the bakery shop for years. There was a time when Dan and Phil were always at the shop, coming to get a cup of coffee and whatever popular pastry they had, and they’d take it to go most of the time, but sometimes they would sit and just be together in the silence, on their phones, scrolling through their many social media outlets and sometimes laughing at a post they thought was funny. It’s one of Dan’s favourite memories here. The ones where they could just be together, and that be enough.
It still was enough. It’s just, you forget to appreciate it sometimes.
“What do you reckon we should get?” Martyn has his arms crossed, looking very intensely at the pastries and donuts, if this were several years ago he would have been intimidated. Now he just notices that similarities and differences of personality traits and physical appearances. They’re friends now. Friends that occasionally go to each other’s homes with a new bottle of wine and a board game, and they tease each other like family because that’s exactly what they are. Dan has grown up with Phil but also with Martyn and Cornelia. It was a friendship he treasured over time.
“If it’s sweet Phil will eat it.” Dan shakes his head, looking at the old fashioned donuts. He was an easy man to please, he saw Martyn looking at them too. They both silently agree to get more than two of them for later.
They get a box of different things, but they order two cups of coffee to sit and finish at the bakery. They’re not in a hurry and if they’re bringing everyone else coffee and donuts they need the extra hands. So they sit and they share one half of an old fashioned donut because as it turns out they don’t have self restraint.
Dan gets his phone out to take a picture. He doesn’t know if he’ll post it, either way, he wants to remember the moment before it’s gone. Martyn watches as he messes around with the photo. Dan gives him a knowing look- that he’s ridiculous when it comes to editing it before giving up and just posting it. Except this time he won’t. He’ll save the photo for a rainy day.
It was nice to just sit here and drink coffee together. There wasn’t a need to talk about anything. Whenever they came to the Isle of Man it was strictly family time. Dan was still learning on fitting himself into that equation. Family time meant something different at his home. They all had a common love for Colin and sometimes that was it. When Dan was feeling brave he’d suggest a board game with an anecdote of how Phil plays it. How Wirrow and Bryony play it. How Martyn and Cornelia play it. It was just different. It was very evident how different it was when he was here, but he was learning to love that part of it. Phil was teaching him a lot of things, and he was grateful.
Dan takes another drink of his coffee and he makes a face. He needs more sugar. He gets up and grabs a small little pack and stir stick and sits back down pouring the pack in and stirring it around, Martyn smiles slightly.
“I remember the first time I made you a cup of coffee,” Martyn says with his hands around his cup for warmth. He brings the coffee up to his lips now.
“You seemed really nervous to talk to me, like I was going to bite your head right off.”
Dan would blush, instead he intensely stares down at his cup, but a smile creeps up on his face and he shakes his head. “Dunno what you’re talking about mate.”
“You drank your coffee black because you were too nervous to tell me what you wanted in it.”
Martyn was cool in a lot of ways. He was very opposite of Phil but they had a similar sense of humour. Dan didn’t know what to expect. He just wanted his brother to like him and think that he was good enough for Phil no matter how crazy that sounded.
“It was a shit cup of coffee.” Dan can say now, with a small smirk, taking another drink of his coffee. Much better. He thinks that Phil has tainted how he drinks his coffee because he makes it for him so much that he doesn’t bother remembering how he used to drink his coffee. It’s more sugar and milk than it is caffeine but he’s grown to like that as well.
“Oi, alright. Don’t be mean.” Martyn laughs too. Dan knew he would.
“I just wanted you to like me and think I was cool because I drank black coffee.” It seems ridiculous now. It was half wanting him to like him but also half of that anxiety he felt, feeling like he’d be a nuisance if he requested anything else.
“Life is strange.” Martyn says, and Dan knows what he means.
They were much older now, with lives that intertwined with each other. Sometimes Martyn came over for business, sometimes he came over to play video games. It didn’t matter. Cornelia would sit on the couch and discuss things like music and soundtracks with Phil. It seemed ideal, like something out of a television show and not realistic, but it was their life. They all got along in some way, and enjoyed each other’s time, which made trips like these so memorable.
“Life is strange.” Dan repeats.
His phone buzzes and it’s a text from Phil.
Are you with Mar?
Dan smiles.
no i ran away with the cute bartender from the pub last night
He can see that Phil is typing a reply back.
On my birthday?? Shame i really thought we could make this work
Dan smiles again.
i’m too awkward for him. he’s too beefy for me.
we’ll be back soon x
Dan shows him the text that Phil sent, which is their cue to go. Martyn shakes his head at the both of them, but they take one last minute to enjoy the rest of their coffee.
*
By the time they get back everyone is awake but barely. The television is on playing the morning news. Phil is in his atrocious Emoji pyjamas because he knows that Dan can’t say shit for it because it’s his birthday. Phil gets up from the couch and has his arms open for Dan to walk in. There’s something about family or birthdays that make Phil extra cuddly but he’s not complaining.
Cornelia takes a picture of them, and Martyn smiles at Dan. It’s the kind of smile that Dan can’t quite figure but he knows that it’s important and that it means something. When they pull away Phil takes Dan’s hand, but Martyn comes close to give his brother a hug.
They have pastries and donuts and coffee, with activities that Phil loves to do, and a birthday walk that’s starting to become part of tradition each time they come down here. Phil is surrounded by his favourite people, and Dan feels so lucky just to be a part of it.
He passes out donuts explaining that him and Mar didn’t know what to pick so they got one of each thing, and Martyn places a hand on Dan’s shoulder to get by him and he laughs at what Dan said because it’s true. In this small space it feels like a family, if Dan could stop time and just be in this moment forever he could, so he enjoys it while it lasts.