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Dan jolted awake to the sound of glass shattering and a string of expletives being shouted from the kitchen. “Phil?” he called out, “You alright?”
“Yeah, just dropped something.”
By now, Dan knew that the sounds of glass breaking or things falling weren’t really cause for much concern; Phil was clumsy enough that things like this happened nearly every week. But Dan also knew that Phil was clumsy enough to cut himself on the broken glass, so Dan had better get up and help him. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself before leaving the bedroom. The T-shirt and pyjama pants he preferred to sleep in were not enough for him to brave the cold of their London apartment in the winter mornings. He arrived in the kitchen to see Phil also in his pyjamas gingerly stepping around the glass to get to the broom.
“What’d you drop?” Dan asked, looking at the clear glass pieces that now covered most of the kitchen floor.
Phil’s face fell a little, “The vase.”
Dan laughed, “The one you drink out of?”
“Yeah, unfortunately,” Phil answered with mock melodrama. He found the vase quite funny and it was his third favorite thing to drink out of behind two truly amazing mugs, but he wasn’t deeply sentimental about it per se.
“Good riddance, you’ll finally stop getting comments on your videos telling you it’s a vase. C’mon I’ll help you clean this up and then we can make breakfast. Actually, I was thinking, can we have breakfast in bed today?”
Phil rolled his eyes fondly, “No, we have so much to do today. We have to work more on set design, and then we need to finalize and send out that list of props we want to get.”
“Please? We can talk about it during breakfast and do work in bed.” Dan pouted and looked at Phil with wide eyes, feigning innocence.
In the few seconds that Phil stood there deliberating, Dan pouted more dramatically and made his eyes even sadder until Phil caved, “Okay fine, let’s have breakfast in bed.”
“Yay,” Dan pressed a kiss to Phil’s cheek as he picked up the broom, “Love you.”
Phil just smiled, but Dan knew that was as good as a verbal response.
Dan swept up the pieces of glass while Phil made pancakes and scrambled eggs. As he did, he reminisced on their Manchester days when he would make scrambled eggs for Dan every morning because that was essentially all he knew how to cook back then. Then, Phil had just finished his Master’s degree and Dan was having daily crises over his law degree. It was both a much simpler and much more complicated time. Simpler because they were just making Youtube videos and not planning a world tour while also maintaining three main channels at the same time. Complicated in that their relationship was new and confusing and became even more so when it was suddenly under the scrutiny of thousands of pairs of eyes. Phil was so proud of how far they had come, and knew that he was living a life that he wouldn’t have dared dream of ten years ago.
Phil divided the eggs and pancakes on two plates and poured two glasses of orange juice. He placed this all on a tray and picked it up, walking imperceptibly slowly towards the bedroom.
Dan laughed as he saw Phil walk by, “I bet you could still drop it even being that careful.”
“Don’t bully me, I made us breakfast!” he cried somewhat indignantly. After an agonizing three minutes, he made it to the bedroom and placed the tray on the bedside table without spilling a drop. Ten seconds later, Dan appeared and immediately jumped into bed, the blanket he had brought to the kitchen still wrapped around him. Phil brought the tray to the center of the bed, resting it on their legs as they dug in.
“So,” Dan started, mouth full of pancake, “We have the neon for the set design but do we want anything else?”
“What if—also don’t talk with you mouth full—what if we had fire like on stage during the wheel part? That would be so cool!” Phil was emanating excitement.
“Phil, you just dropped something for the third time this week and you want fire on stage? You know you’re going to stand in it accidentally.”
“Okay fine, what about fire behind the wheel or somewhere that’s visible but neither of us will accidentally touch?”
“Hm, okay fine, send the email to George then.”
Phil penned an email to their stage director in between sips of orange juice asking if they could have fire on stage. “What if we had birds?” he mused quitely and half to himself as he sent the email.
“What?”
“Like birds, on stage,” Phil explained rather poorly.
“Phil, what do you mean ‘birds on stage,’ like live birds? On stage? Where would that even fit in the show?”
“I dunno, but wouldn’t it be cool?”
“Phil,” Dan started slightly exasperated but also rather amused, “We already decided not to bring live dogs, birds are arguably harder to deal with.”
“Yeah but—”
Dan cut him off, “Just please...no birds. Imagine if we had birds and fire, that would be a disaster.”
Phil knew he couldn’t argue with that logic, “Ugh fine, no birds.”
“Okay good, that’s that settled. Now for the props list, we need to finalize that.”
“Already on it,” Phil pulled up the document that was a neatly organized list of props. Under each prop were notes on whether it had been approved for use yet or not, how much it cost, and if they had acquired it yet. Phil may leave socks around the whole flat and spend hours looking for something he had lost, but he had a mind for organization when it came to directing and projects. It was something Dan had always admired about him, they way Phil knew exactly where each file regarding the stage show was, how he responded to every business email almost immediately and with a perfect balance of friendliness and professionalism, and how people in the industry always loved working with him no matter how difficult or complicated the project was. “The only thing left we haven’t told Robyn about yet are the tear-away shirts.”
“I still can’t believe that bit was your idea. I mean, I can,” Dan clarified, “I’ve known for a long time that you’re not as innocent as I used to think you were, but I know at least some of the audience will be shook when they learn it was your idea in the directors’ commentary.”
“Hey, maybe it’ll be a good way to ease them into a rebrand.” Phil replied as he typed out the email to Robyn, their props mistress, and Dan texted Martyn about tour merch.
“Have you decided if you’re gonna do that after the tour?”
“I’m not like 100% sure yet, but I think it’s almost time for one, don’t you?”
“Yeah I guess, although you have dropped a lot of the innocent persona on the gaming channel this year, so it’s like you’ve already started easing them into a rebrand. Maybe it’s already started, it’s just not as dramatic as mine.”
“Mm, that’s probably true.” Phil finished the email and sent it, then closed his laptop and tossed it to the end of the bed. He got out of bed and picked up the tray, this time walking a bit less slowly to the kitchen before placing the plates and glasses in the sink. He grabbed the plant mister from the kitchen counter and made his way to the lounge where he began to water his half dead succulents and cacti.
He was interrupted by Dan calling from the bedroom, “Philllll,” Dan whined, “Come back to bed.”
“In a minute.” he called back, smiling to himself at how Dan was just as sappy and clingy now as he was years ago. Phil walked back to the bedroom and was greeted by Dan who had also thrown his laptop to the end of the bed and stretched his arms out when he saw Phil.
“Dan, we have work to do.”
“I know, but we can have a ten minute break and you should come cuddle with me.” he said matter-of-factly.
“Fine,” Phil crawled into bed and into Dan’s arms where Dan’s space heater-like body warmed him up immediately, “Ten minutes.”
“Love you,” Dan said softly as he closed his eyes and reveled in how much he cared for Phil and how heart-burstingly happy he was to be able to spend every day with him.
“Love you too.”