Chapter Text
He walks anxiously from one side of the fireplace to the other. It’s been about five minutes. Shouldn’t someone have read it already? People are on their phones all the time these days and they can’t even bother to check an email when they receive it? Or, he thinks, maybe they’ve already read it. Maybe his grandma is writing him out of her will right now. Maybe his mum is frantically calling his brother, screaming into the phone something like: “Did you know?!?!?!” And what would Adrian reply? Dan added him as a recipient as well, even though of course his brother already knows. He just thought it’d be nice for him to know that everyone else now knows, too. Eight years later and he finally no longer needs his brother to keep his secret. Dan will be grateful forever that he did, though.
In an attempt to calm himself, he looks up at the collection of pictures on the mantle piece.
There’s one of Phil’s parents on the Isle of Man, holding hands and smiling widely into the camera. It was taken on one of their walks only two weeks after they’d found out that Nigel was finally in remission. They’d flown out immediately upon hearing the news and celebrated. No wonder they were smiling so widely.
There’s one of Dan and his grandma, he is about 5 years old and smiling widely for the camera. He touches the heavy golden frame, as old as the picture itself and feels another wave of anxiousness hitting him. Would his grandma ever talk to him again? He tries to calm his breath. Steady in, steady out. Just like his therapist told him. She had to talk to him again, right? I mean, he’d promised to give her his old iPad, so she’d have to wait to cut him out at least until then.
Then there is the one of Phil and him with Louise and her daughters. It was in the craziest frame and honestly, it didn’t fit the aesthetic of their place at all. It was bright pink and covered in feathers and blue glitter, so every time you’d move it there’d be glitter everywhere for weeks. Still, it was kept in this frame. Darcy and Phil had ‘designed’ it together when they went up to visit Louise. Him and Louise were stood watching from the kitchen, Pearl happily cooing beside them, as the Phil and Darcy laughed freely and made a mess of the living room. “He’ll make a great dad someday, you know?” she’d said, shoving her elbow into his side lightly, and Dan had rolled his eyes while secretly agreeing.
There’s one of them with PJ and Sophie at a beach, taken just after Dan and Phil had helped PJ propose. It’s legal for them to get married now. Dan knows he wants to propose to Phil. He doesn’t know how to make it as special as Phil deserves it to be yet, but he’ll figure it out.
There is one with all the Lesters, blood-related and in-laws alike, taken at Christmas a couple of years ago. Dan loves Christmas at the Lesters. It always feels lovely and warm and sweet and so different to how he used to spent Christmas as a kid. He never wants to leave the Isle (and Phil) on Christmas Eve to go to be with his actual family in time for Christmas Day. Maybe this year, for the first time, he wouldn’t have to.
There’s one of just him and his Mum after their show in Reading last year. Dan was sweaty and the picture is blurry, but it deserves to be here. His mum had hugged him so tightly and just said “I’m so proud of you” over and over and over again.
And then, just behind it, there’s his favourite one: Dan, Phil, and Adrian, all smiling awkwardly and a little glimpse of the Manchester wheel in the background.
Dan picks it up, running his thumb softly around the edges of the plain black frame. A lot has changed since that picture was taken.
Phone cameras had improved greatly, he thinks as he takes a closer look at the approximately 10 pixels the photo consists off.
The wheel visible behind them had been dismantled, much to their dismay. To this day it remains a sore topic for Phil.
Both he and Phil now have slightly less ridiculous haircuts.
He no longer has to bend down to fit into frame with his brother, who is now just as tall as Dan himself.
But of course, that’s just the blatantly obvious stuff. There is so much more that had changed about them than met the eye.
In all the years that passed, Dan and Adrian’s relationship has changed time and time again.
After that first visit to Manchester, where the picture was taken, Adrian had visited them two more times before they eventually moved to London.
They’d promised he could come visit when they’d properly moved in, but by the time that happened, Adrian no longer wanted to come visit. Their relationship was beginning to shift as Dan developed a bigger audience and people started prying not only into his and Phil’s personal lives, but also his brother’s. Adrian didn’t know how to handle it. How could he, Dan himself didn’t know how to handle it. They drifted apart, then. Adrian didn’t come to visit their new apartment and eventually, they barely spoke at all. It was even worse than it had been back when they were living under the same roof and Dan doesn’t remember how many times he fell asleep crying in Phil’s arms during that time. Yet, during all of it, even in all the anger Adrian had rightfully directed at his older brother, not once had he threatened to out him. Not once. Back then, Dan was so scared of it happening that he eventually got Phil to call Adrian. And of course, Phil did. He was laying in bed while Phil was on the phone in the living room. He could only hear muffled voices but when Phil came back all he said was “Adrian said he would never do that to you.” And Dan, not for the first time, wondered why his brother was still so nice to him, even after everything Dan had – voluntarily and involuntarily – put him through.
That time hurts to think about, even now. But, just like everything else, it had passed. And even with all the terrible memories attached to that whole year, it made the reunion of the two brothers approximately one year later all the sweeter.
When his mum finally kicked his father out for good, Dan had spent a week back at his old house with her and Adrian. As they both held her as she cried, it seemed they seemed to realize that in the end, this was all they had: each other. They talked and talked and talked. About how many of the strains put on their relationship were somehow connecting back to their father. About how they had to come together to be there for Mum. About how it was okay that they weren’t okay and that they were going to work on it as a family. As brothers.
As emotionally draining as that week was, it also holds some of his favourite memories they ever made as a family. Adrian did actually teach him how to cook during that week and his chickpea curry is still a favourite in their household nowadays (and one of the only things Phil lets him cook unsupervised). He remembers that one evening his mother found a moving box of old tableware from his father. It was quite possibly the ugliest thing Dan had ever seen and they spent the whole night in the garden, smashing cups up with a hammer, throwing plates on the tiles of the back porch and laughing like maniacs until eventually, their neighbours had threatened to call the police.
Dan remembers the long phone call after Dan had posted his video ‘Daniel and Depression’ back in 2017. It was probably the most nervous he’d ever been posting a video on YouTube. Even the jitters before his first ever video paled in comparison. (He knows that, soon, he’ll probably experience the very same feeling all over again. That’s a different story, though. First he needs to see how this part with his family goes.) During their phone call, Adrian had opened up about his own mental health struggles and told Dan that he’d been seeing a therapist for some time now, too. Dan still remembers how protective he’d felt over his younger brother, even though of course, Adrian was all grown up by then. He also remembers that it was the first time they’d actually said ‘I love you’ to each other. It had taken almost twenty years for them to get there, but they finally did it.
He thinks about visiting Adrian and his girlfriend in their current flat only a couple of months ago. About how they’d shown him around and how Dan realized in that moment that his little brother was, finally, properly, grown up. More important, he noticed how Mia would give him little reassuring touches every once in a while, how she would kiss him even in front of Dan and how Adrian would smile every time she did. Dan is convinced that Adrian has finally found his person, too. He remembers them in the kitchen, Dan put on wine duty while the two of them moved around each other like a well-oiled machine, when she mentioned an ex-girlfriend in an off-hand kind of way. He remembers almost dropping the bottle and shooting a glance at his brother, who just winked at him and carried on chopping his tofu as if nothing ever happened.
His phone pings with a new notification and Dan jumps out of his trance. He quickly sets the picture frame back on the mantle piece as Phil’s head appears in the door frame.
“Is that the first reply? I’ll be right there.”
And with that, Phil’s head is gone again, presumably to go back to the kitchen. Phil had been put on Hot Chocolate Duty right after fulfilling his job as ‘Emotional Support Button Presser’.
As Phil walks into their lounge, carefully placing two steaming mugs on the coffee table, Dan finally musters up the courage to look at his phone screen.
“It’s from Adrian” he says, relief washing over him. He already knows it’ll probably read “Oh My God! I had no idea” or something similarly silly, so he’s fine. Or at least, he thinks he is.
From: Adrian Howell
Subject: Re: To the family from the awkward one
Hey awkward one,
I guess here’s my second chance to react to you coming out, huh?
Let’s start with: I am proud of you and will forever be grateful to have you as my brother.
Life really didn’t go easy on you and the fact that you came out the other side as the amazing, wonderful, inspiring and (now fully) authentic person that you are makes me both incredibly happy for you and proud of you.
I know this wasn’t an easy thing to do and I’m so glad for you to have found the courage to finally announce it.
Big love to you (and Phil, knowing him he was probably just as nervous as you), I hope you celebrate and enjoy your first night being out to the rest of the fam. I’ll be sure to have a glass in your honour tonight (by that I mean a protein shake, my next marathon is in two weeks, can’t really be having alcohol right now.)
Love you, see you soon,
the other awkward one
P.S.: Mia says to tell you that you and Phil should come visit soon.
P.P.S.: An email?? Really???
Dan doesn’t really know whether to laugh or cry happy tears as he takes another look at the picture up on the mantelpiece.
Yes, quite a lot of things have changed since that visit to Manchester all those years ago. If he looks for it, Dan could probably even find a better, more recent picture of the three of them together.
Dan knows full well though that this picture will stay up on that mantelpiece until it is all bleached out from the sunlight.
It will always remind him of the special bond him and Adrian have.
It will always remind him that, even though life had lead them on different roads, for sure, at the end of the day, they’d always share the same one home.