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The rule, as it very well should be, is that the birthday boy gets whatever he wants.
So for Phil’s birthday, Dan spends weeks researching the best red velvet cakes in London. He decorates the flat while Phil sleeps and coordinates with Kath and Martyn. He brings Phil coffee in bed on that morning (and usually every morning for a week afterwards, just because).
But today is not Phil’s birthday, it’s Dan’s. And his idea of celebration looks a little different.
***
It’s early. Dan’s skin is left temporarily cold as Phil vacates their bed in favor of drawing the curtains against the bright June sun. Dan shuffles backwards across the sheets, still mostly asleep, searching for warmth.
Phil says oi, get back on your side , repaints his body along Dan’s back and presses a kiss to his shoulder.
Years ago, curled up like this on a darker morning, Phil had said what would you like for your birthday, love?
Let’s just stay here, I just want you.
And so that’s what they do.
***
Phil brings tea and toast and both their laptops. Still snuggled under the duvet, Dan accepts his birthday breakfast (that contains no candles, very weird) but waves away the offer of his MacBook. He doesn’t feel quite ready for the inundation of tweets, the beautiful art and edits, the outpouring of love and support.
Instead, Dan says get back under here, ‘m cold , and Phil complies because the birthday boy should always get what he wants.
(He’d comply anyway, but.)
***
Phil disappears again as the sun arches high into the sky, and Dan thinks that should really be against the rules. He’d been given instructions to stay here, stay under the covers, don’t come out, because you look cute like that, that’s why .
Dan presses his ear against their bedroom door. There’s some clanging that sounds like it’s coming from the kitchen and Phil’s muffled voice saying mum, how do I -
Dan smiles and rolls his eyes. He knew the lack of toast candles was suspicious.
He grabs his laptop and settles back in under the blankets. He dithers a bit before opening Twitter, still, always unprepared for this. It’s an immediate flood, it’s a lot, it’s too much, it’s fucking eight thousand quid in his name and so by the time Phil is saying Dan can you open the door, I haven’t got any hands , he’s already crying.
The candles are precariously wedged into a slice of warm blueberry pie. It tastes like the Lester family kitchen and Phil’s tendency to add more sugar than strictly necessary.
He loves every bite.
***
They’re both back under the duvet. The sun lingers into the evening, later still every day.
He licks into Phil’s mouth, chasing remnants of blueberry. The sun finally gives way for all the time Phil spends kissing over every inch of him, until Dan is begging and using please, it’s my birthday as leverage so Phil will let him come.
He does come, twice actually, once from Phil’s mouth around him, tight and hot and fast (the way he likes it), and again with Phil buried deep inside of him, slow and wonderful and with teeth digging into his shoulder (the way he likes it).
Because the birthday boy should always get what he wants.
***
Behind him, body wrapped around his like a second skin, Phil says did you have a good birthday, love?
Dan turns around to look at him properly, considering. We’ve grown together , he thinks, pressing him thumb against the corner of Phil’s eye.
Somewhere in between blueberry pie and Phil fucking him into the mattress, he’d done some thinking about getting older. Some mandatory self-reflection about where he is in life, what the last year has meant, what the next one will mean.
The sun is long gone. You make me brighter, year after year.
(He doesn’t quite say that out loud. Phil hears him anyway).