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Part 8 of giving the people what they want
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Published:
2019-07-04
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1,440
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1/1
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INAPPROPRIATE BIRTHDAY GIFT

Summary:

Dan is almost ready to walk up to the register with the autographed photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar circa 1999 in his hand when something a little more… interesting catches his eye.
A fic about presents and loudness.

Notes:

happy birthday ms waves💞🎉

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Dan is almost ready to walk up to the register with the autographed photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar circa 1999 in his hand when something a little more… interesting catches his eye.

Phil’s 30th birthday aligning so perfectly with his biennial rewatch of the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series front to back (yes, even the first season. yes, even the musical episode— “especially the musical episode!” Phil always defends) made Dan think some memorabilia was an appropriate gift. An autographed photo of Phil’s most formative comp het crush made perfect sense to him.

The autograph shop he’s spent fifteen minutes combing through had a surprisingly limited selection of Sarah Michelle Gellar but he still found two he thought Phil would like. He was choosing between a photo of her crouched in a quintessentially chunky 90s heel clutching a spike in her hand and a photo of her sat in the street holding a fluffy white dog. Then he saw photos of the other cast members, and one in particular he couldn’t possibly resist. He wasn’t going to pass up Phil’s face when he opened it, he wasn’t going to pass up teasing Phil about it on social media, and he wasn’t going to pass up that in its own extremely dated and over-the-top way it was a good fucking photo.

So he walked up to the register instead carrying a signed photograph of David Boreanaz in a bath, not bothering to suppress a grin.

*

Dan wakes Phil the morning of his birthday by booping his bird nose and whispering, “Rise and shine, old man.” The bright sun of the Isle of Man is pouring through their windows and the room is nice and warm despite the late January wind outside. Downstairs Dan can hear the bustle of the early-rising members of the Lester clan in the kitchen. There’s a smell of coffee that’s sure to urge Phil up as well.

But instead of getting up quickly, Phil scrunches his eyes shut tighter, moves to press his forehead against Dan’s bare chest, and mutters, “Let this old man sleeeeeep! Thirty years old, I’ve earned it, Danny.”

“C’mon,” Dan says, pushing on Phil’s shoulder until he lies on his back, “I wanna give you your gift, and I don’t think you’d appreciate me presenting it in front of your family.”

Phil’s eyes widen at that and he gets a self-satisfied smirk on his face that drops when Dan moves to get out of the bed. He digs in his backpack and Phil yawns through, “Oh, like a gift gift.”

Dan snorts and shakes his hips a little. “I mean, the other sort is coming later.”

“Is it really so bad my parents can’t see it?”

Dan hands Phil his glasses from the bedside table, then holds the wrapped 8x10 frame out to him. “No, not really. But it’s … mildly inappropriate,” he laughs.

Phil tucks a finger under a folded flap and hesitates before pulling on the tape. He bends his head back for a kiss, which Dan gives him. “Happy Birthday, Philly,” he says. Phil kisses him again then tears the paper.

David Boreanaz’s eyeliner-traced stare looks up at Phil who lets out a great laugh, his whole body shaking with it.

“Look at those nips!” he laughs, like Dan had entirely expected him to. They’re the actual centre of the photo, just above the waterline and inexplicably the focal point. “Oh my god,” Phil holds it up closer to inspect all the hilarious details, like David Boreanaz’s wet frosted tips and the long chain necklace placed off to the side so it just barely dips into the water. The moustache, soul patch, and goatee— none of which connect to each other— and the hand half out of frame. The giggles overwhelm Phil; he leans back against the headboard and sets the photo on his lap.

Amidst the laughter and lack of breath, Dan thinks he hears a “Thank you.” He climbs back into the bed and lays his head on Phil’s shoulder. “Pretty good, yeah?” he says, holding the gift up to view.

“Perfect,” Phil says, wiping a tear away from under his glasses. “Seriously perfect.”

“Almost went with Sarah Michelle Gellar,” Dan says.

“I mean, that would’ve been good. But this is…”

“—perfect?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Phil says, wrapping a hand around Dan’s waist. He traces his fingers along the smooth skin there and Dan loves it.

“Should I have let you open it in front of your family?”

Phil is thoughtful a moment, pulling the photo closer. “I don’t know. This is fine because without any Buffy knowledge it just looks like you gave me some really softcore porn. So you did them a favour because I don’t have to go into yet another Buffy ramble with them.”

Dan presses his face into the crook of Phil’s neck. He knows that was a truthful answer from Phil, but he also knows Phil didn’t exactly answer his question. What he meant was, can he give Phil a campy gift like this that screams gay and have him open it in front of his parents and have it be okay? He’s been out to them for nearly a decade, but there’s a difference between feeling acceptance and feeling you can be loud. There’s a difference between them welcoming Dan into their lives and Dan reminding them with a blatantly queer gift that their gay son is in love with a man. And either answer is fine with him, that Phil genuinely wouldn’t mind or that Phil prefers moments like this to belong to just the two of them.

He just doesn’t know how to tell Phil that without spitting it all out in some sort of panicked soliloquy.

But then Phil saves him the trouble. “But opening it up here means I can’t make some kind of joke about a moment of pure happiness that only Martyn would really get,” he grins. “So pluses and minuses either way.”

Dan nips a little at Phil’s neck and snorts out a laugh, “Am I providing that moment or is a single bath pic enough to do it for you?”

Phil sets the photo on the bedside table and kisses Dan. “I’ll take all my birthday presents here in bed, if you’re offering.”

“What the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets,” Dan says, rolling his eyes and he making his way down the long line of Phil’s body. He doesn’t exactly have something planned, but Phil’s hand threaded through his hair guides him to the most predictable location and he figures this is the kind of morning to be indulgent. So he determines to really take his time.

*

When they finally make their way downstairs Kath has breakfast waiting for them. She leans up on her tiptoes to kiss her son’s forehead and he leans down to accommodate it. She hands them both a steaming mug of coffee and Phil sips it thankfully as he has been awake for far too long without one.

“Sleep well, love?” she asks, sitting back down at the table. Phil nods, his mouth too full of pancakes to speak.

There is some clattering out by the front door and Cornelia’s voice drifts through saying, “We’re back!”

She and Martyn come into the kitchen and Kath asks them how their walk was. Corn pulls out her phone and shows her a photo of a bird they saw perched on a street sign and they distract each other for a while trying to decipher just what kind of bird it is. Martyn clears his throat and has a bit of a blush on his cheeks, ignoring his girlfriend and mother to lean close in between Dan and Phil.

“Just a heads up,” he says quietly, “You may have gotten a little too comfortable with open curtains at your high-rise place in London. You can see way too much of the second floor here from the street.”

Dan can feel his rosy patch explode into a blush, and Phil’s usually pale face has far too much colour as well. Instead of red, though, he looks a little green. Then the tension breaks and the three of them laugh. Martyn slaps Phil on the back. “Nice present, Dan,” he teases, “Solid, classic.”

“Oh, what’d you get him?” Kath asks, pulled back into the conversation.

Dan feels far too flustered to speak and opts to sip his coffee. Phil rolls his eyes at his brother, says, “Buffy memorabilia,” then takes another bite of pancakes.

“Oh, you’ll just encourage him,” Kath shakes her head and smiles at Dan.

Notes:

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