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"Is’not fair!" she's been scream-crying the same phrase for 15 minutes.
It's becoming more and more garbled and hopeless as the time passes. The fight is draining out of her, slowly but surely.
There's pounding on the door again. A tried and true trick that they now know better to ignore.
Dan opens his eyes and looks up at Phil. His head is lolled back against the sofa and from where his head is in Phil's lap, he's mostly got a view of his neck and chin.
It's covered in stubble, something that's becoming a more frequent appearance. Especially over the last 32 months.
Thirty-two months. He still can't believe it's been that long. She'll be three soon.
The mighty, adorable little hellion is almost three.
Phil's fingers are running through his curls gently. It's comforting and would threaten to put him to sleep if it wasn't for the terror trying to kick her door frame apart. Again.
It's been an incredibly long day. The longest in a while.
Thea woke up in a mood and it's been slowly getting worse all day. She refused to nap, refused to eat and is refusing every activity in favour of screaming.
They tried to distract her with toys and activities, her favourite movie and show, cuddling on the sofa, listening to music, nothing was working.
It's an off day and they get it. Being two is stressful and dramatic, they can't blame her really.
But it's been ten hours of this and they're on the verge of waving the white flag.
Phil shifts and looks down at Dan, he smiles slightly.
"Reckon that two is too early for boot camp?"
Dan snorts, "I'm pretty sure child services would be called on us. I think intake starts at four."
"Ugh," Phil shifts his body and nudges Dan to move over so he can lay down beside him.
Hugo, their five year old spaniel mix, huffs at them for the inconvenience. He gives a pointed look and rearranges himself on the edge of sofa.
"I'm officially dead. I'm too old for this."
Dan hums in agreement. "I think I've aged 20 years in the past two."
"How long can we leave her in there before it's just mean?"
"I give the door only ten more minutes of life," Dan chuckles a bit. This girl has a temper to be contended with, that's for sure.
"I'll get up in five and try to make peace with the enemy again."
"My hero," he kisses Phil's forehead.
They’ve realized a few weeks ago that they had to approach her one at a time on days like today. Dada and Papa ganging up on her together was too much for her to handle and the meltdowns only got worse.
One of them could usually calm her down at some point. It depended on the moment which one it was, so they took turns going into enemy territory.
Phil is able to calm her down this time. She comes out of her room snuggled into Phil's neck, a death grip around her stuffed fox. Her face is blotchy and red from the hours of tears and yelling and she's sucking on the fox's nose, a habit they can't seem to break.
Dan sits up and eyes Phil who gives him a small nod. The sign that he's dealt with it and all is well and good.
"Hi, Thea. You coming to sit on the sofa with us now?"
A choppy, post-sob breath comes out as she sits up to look at him.
Giant, glassy eyes meet his and she nods her head dramatically. There's a small pout on her face and it's taking everything in Dan to keep from saying how cute she looks.
Phil sits down with her and Thea spins her body and reaches out for Dan.
"Dada," her voice is finally back to matching her normal size. Not the screaming monster that was alive in her room.
He picks her up and fits her onto his lap. "Come here, goose."
It only takes ten minutes of staring blankly at the TV for her to fall asleep. She must be exhausted.
Hell, they're exhausted. Dan can sense the exhaustion even coming from Hugo.
They leave her for a half hour, just to make sure she's actually asleep before Dan carefully gathers her up and they carry her to her room.
Phil stands by the door with Hugo at his feet, while Dan turns on her bedside light and makes sure her fox is close by.
He turns to Phil, watching the two of them with a soft and happy look covering his face so he goes to stand with him at the door.
Dan slides his hands around Phil's waist from behind and rests his head into the crook of his neck.
"She's going to cause us so much trouble," Dan whispers.
Phil turns his face towards Dan's slightly. "She's just like you, you know. An electric ball of energy ready to burst. Feels everything at level 100, all the good and the bad."
He's smiling. This is Phil's favourite thing about Thea, that her personality has seemed to take after Dan to such an extreme. He gushes about it constantly.
Dan turns to kiss into his neck. "Shut up," he mumbles through his kisses.
--
7:03 a.m.
It will always be too early. No matter how many times he's forced out of bed at this hour, it's always too early.
He thought the pure exhaustion from raising a child would help him sleep, but his insomnia has yet to disappear.
Dan rolls over and crawls in behind Phil who groans quietly.
"Did you get any sleep?" Phil's voice croaks deeply.
He hums a response, trying to make it sound as much like 'no' as possible. It's all the energy he can currently muster.
"I'll go get her up, you sleep for a half hour," Phil starts to roll and crawl out of Dan's grip, reaching to the nightstand for his glasses.
Dan tries to tighten his grip, but he's slow with the lack of sleep and just ends up grunting into Phil's pillow.
Hugo jumps up onto the bed, immediately replacing Phil, nuzzling into the warmth left behind. Phil huffs a laugh back in his direction, leaning down to press a kiss to the side of Dan's head and gives Hugo a head rub.
"Sleep, babe."
And he does. The next thing he knows, Phil is sitting beside him on the bed, lightly shaking his shoulder.
Then he hears the clunking footsteps.
"Dada!" Dan peels his eyes awake to see Thea climbing onto their bed, barreling towards them.
"Morning, T," he smiles at her as she thuds her little body onto his chest.
"Wakey, wakey," she sings as she runs her toy car up and down his arm. She continues to roll it over Hugo's back where he's completely undisturbed.
Phil wakes her up with "Wakey, wakey" every morning and she's been repeating it anytime she thinks someone is sleeping-whether they want to wakey, wakey or not.
He peels himself out of bed and puts on joggers before grabbing Thea and heading downstairs to the kitchen. Phil can shower while Dan eats, feeds Hugo and gets Thea dressed.
That's the routine on days when Phil lets him get a few more minutes of sleep. All of their days have a routine now, focused around this other little human and animal in their life.
Dan thinks back to a few years ago, when they stayed up way too late and didn't wake until almost noon. They could laze around in their pants all day and order pizza and barely go outside.
Things changed for the better after that, Dan worked hard to get his mental health in order and their life was focused around the routines of keeping Dan on track.
Regular walks outdoors, home cooked meals or at least healthier take-away, a bed time that they tried to stick to, and even exercise.
It was this routine that lead them here. Lead them to realizing they wanted their family to grow. They could commit to Dan's health, so a dog and a child didn't seem like so much of a stretch anymore.
Shortly after adopting Hugo, they started the adoption process for Thea. It was lengthy and stressful, but worth every second.
Dan thinks they wouldn't have survived all of it if it wasn't for the routines. Even if 7 a.m. was like a slow decent into hell.
Thea's dressed in a dark navy jumper with small white stars and teal leggings-the girl had Phil's sense of fashion. Dan's sat on the sofa with her standing in front of him while he brushes her hair. It's starting to get long and unruly, they should probably think about getting it cut.
He pulls her hair up into a high ponytail and wraps a white ribbon around the elastic into a bow. If left to Phil, the girl would leave the house with a bird's nest on top of her head, so Thea always asks for Dada's help.
His hair styling skills have drastically improved in the last few months due to some videos he found online. Dan can't help but beam every time she asks him to do 'a fancy one'.
Thea somehow always stays still during it, no matter how long Dan takes with plaits or just getting out knots. She chats away to him in her two year old nonsense and he holds on to the hope that they can continue this routine as she gets older.
Phil comes down the stairs from their room, showered and ready for work. He looks good. Button down shirt, tucked into smart trousers with a quiff and his glasses. Dan gives him a once-over and Phil notices just shaking his head but a smile plays at the corner of his mouth.
"Okay goose, you're done. Go play for a bit"
He grabs his coffee and runs upstairs for a quick shower. He runs it a bit cold, hoping it will jolt his brain awake.
There's a bit of a fog that's hanging on to the edges of his mind, likely from the lack of sleep.
It won't keep him from anything today, but it's still there as a subtle reminder that he needs to keep himself in check.
Phil's got bags packed, Thea in her shoes and coat and Hugo on his leash by the time Dan's back downstairs.
The clock reads 8:42. They leave the house at 8:45 every morning, dropping Thea off at daycare and Phil at the station before Dan heads home with Hugo.
It's been years now that they stepped away from YouTube. Away from the spotlight to figure out their next phase in life. Phil's working in creative at BBC and Dan's been focusing on a lot of work with charities for the past few years. He's found his passion helping others.
As he sits down at his desk, he's greeted by the framed photo of the four of them.
For the second time today, he's thinking back to their life years ago. It was terrifying but exciting and a lot of days were too hard and this kind of future seemed so impossible. He picks up the frame and feels the tears well up in his eyes.
Who would have thought Dan from 2009 would end up here. Happy and surrounded by love, with Phil in tow.
The tears are falling before he can catch them. He grabs the other frame from his desk, one of him and Phil, sometime a year or so after they met.
He takes a picture of the two, side by side and sends it to Phil.
D : how did this happen?
P : Some really hot guy...think his named rhymed with Will.. he met a dork and fell in love.
P : You okay?
Sarcasm followed by compassion. Checking in to make sure Dan's head isn't spinning in a bad direction. That's Phil's superpower.
Dan snorts at his response.
D : good, bit of a fog but tears are happy. she's getting big.
P : She is. You're cute. Going into a meeting. Lunch?
D : starbucks at noon?
P : Of course!
D : love u
P : You too dork.