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Christmas was always a lovely time of year for Phil. Born in the midst of a snowstorm, he'd always been fond of winter and all that it brought along: the crunch of snow with every step he took, steaming mugs of cocoa and jumpers to keep him cozy inside and out, family gatherings where all the grownups cooed over how fast he was growing and his mum fussed about his socks not matching.
As the years passed, as he grew up, maybe the events started to lose their novelty. Not that he would ever outright say that to his family, though. It wasn't that he hated them, just that the routine was familiar, a well-worn book with yellowing pages. The excitement it had once sparked in him had started to mellow out into a smooth warmth: no less pleasant, just a different variety of satisfaction.
At least, that was the case — until the winter of 2009, when a boy who had mustered up just enough courage to barrel headfirst into Phil's life accidentally got stuck at his home due to a disruption in railway services thanks to an unforeseen deluge of snow. They ran about filming each other, got told off by Phil's mum for getting their clothes all wet, and, when the trains started back up, said their goodbyes on Christmas Eve.
Of course, they had no way of knowing it at the time, but this would quickly become their new normal. Dan would tag along with Phil to join in the Lesters' festivities, try to enjoy the little remaining time he had with them, try to ignore how each passing second brought him closer to leaving the first/only person to treat him well, closer to trudging through dreary cold back to the people he unfortunately shared DNA with. Phil would hold the door open for Dan, the last gesture of kindness they could afford, and hold in a sigh of disappointment until the younger's shrinking silhouette was barely visible against darkening eventide sky. His mother asked, more than once, if Dan could stay for the 25th. Every single time, Phil could see the cracks in Dan's forced smile as he tried to politely evade the question.
It was no surprise, then, when even after ten years since that snow-in, after they had both announced to the world that they were gay, that nothing really changed when 2019's end approached. Phil took Dan to see his parents, Dan went back down south alone, they met again after everything was done back in their London home. It was fine, Phil told himself, told his mum too when she caught him looking out the window for a smidge too long. He was fine with it all, he insisted, even as 2023 saw the end of pandemic-related restrictions and Dan glancing back at Phil when he left the Lesters' home on the Isle of Man with just hours to go until Christmas.
It shouldn't have hurt him as much as it did to hear his (now official!) partner of sixteen years say that 2025 would be the same old story, Phil chided himself when he caught his train of thought heading towards daydreams of spending Christmas with his whole family, both blood and chosen. There was absolutely no precedent to suggest a deviation from the norm. He shouldn't have expected anything new.
But still the daydreams persisted, and he didn't have the heart or will to shut himself up so harshly again, and was it really too much to ask for to spend just one more day with Dan? Everyone knew Dan hated going back to his hometown, and it was no secret Phil wasn't the biggest fan of being apart from Dan either. The status quo was really a lose-lose situation, and wouldn't it be so sweet to wake up together and see their stockings side-by-side and full of presents?
Phil sighed, blinked the last fragments of fantasy out of his mind, and wrapped the blankets even tighter around himself. The room was too cold, the bed too big for him alone, and Dan had left their house some time ago for some errands. He fished out his phone from the crevice it had fallen into and turned it on.
The logical thing to have done would have been to text Dan for his whereabouts and when he'd be back. The next most logical option would have been to order food, considering evening was fast falling and he was hungry. What he actually did was nowhere near the top choices; it probably wouldn't even have made the top hundred.
And yet he did it anyway: open his photo album and scroll all the way back to the oldest photo of Dan in his phone. Which, unsurprisingly, was also the oldest photo in his gallery, period. His life had been intertwined with Dan's since well over a decade ago, everyone knew, and he was determined to capture every possible moment they had together. Most of the moments he had managed to save didn't make it to potential video content, let alone see the light of the Internet, but they were indisputably precious and heartwarming and Dan through and through. And that was enough.
He scrolled down a little, looking through old pictures of them, looking back on their past, when a video clip with horrible lighting and quality poor enough you could almost see individual pixels appeared. Even so, a smile came easily to Phil's lips at the sight of familiar rooftops covered in powder snow and younger, much younger, Dan with his ridiculous fluffy hat. He knew from the thumbnail alone that it was the "forward snow angel" gift from the Interactive Christmas Adventure he'd filmed with Dan long ago, their first Christmas together, like he'd made a plush lion toy say via YouTube annotation.
Nobody needed to know how he knew it so well: sometimes he'd scroll through their videos and rewatch their old content. It was always a little sad to see how their past fears had clearly restrained them, but the misty eyes Phil got from the process had far more to do with getting to see glimpses of the younger, more carefree Dan again.
So maybe he played the video, turned the volume up a little more than he should have, teared up at the sight of a Dan from ages past falling facefirst into thick snow, let the clip loop with the speaker by his ear so he could pretend the voice was from the actual eighteen-years-old boy from Reading and not just metal pieces replicating a signal recorded on now-obsolete technology. "Congratulations! You won a forward snow angel!" was soon imprinted onto his brain, the exact pitch and cadence echoing in his skull. It stopped after a few moments, though; blessed be the wonders of the iPhone auto-lock settings. And then there was silence.
More silence.
And then, the unmistakable smell of… freshly baked pizza?
Confused but intrigued, Phil got out of bed and shuffled out of the spare bedroom. He opened the door to—
—Dan standing in the doorway, one arm holding something up above his head. Before Phil could properly react, he was pulled close for a tight hug and a kiss. He promptly reciprocated, his own arms wrapping around Dan, almost clinging to him, begging him to stay.
When they finally pulled apart, Phil gave Dan the best smile he could manage to compensate for the way his voice broke when he asked, a little stupidly, "Mistletoe?" He knew all the Christmas traditions by heart, and though he also was well aware Dan wasn't really a stickler for such things, he didn't know what else it could be.
Dan shook his head, though, with a grin on his face, and when Phil hesitantly looked up at the hand above them Dan brought it down to eye level for a better look at the contents.
It took a moment for Phil to read the text, eyes squinted and glasses not on his head, but the biggest reason for his delay in processing what he was seeing was probably sheer disbelief. A train ticket, sure, the usual. From the Isle of Man back to London, alright; Dan could have wanted to pick something up on his way back to Reading. Dated for…
Phil looked back up at Dan, eyes now wide with astonishment, and Dan smiled even wider. "You're staying?" Phil finally said when his speech faculties returned, "you're staying."
"I'm staying," Dan agreed. "I called your mother already, Kath says she can probably house me a little longer."
"Probably— well of course! You're—" Phil started, but his surprise left him so giddy he couldn't form words. Dan shut him up with another quick peck on the lips, but his eyes were no less bright.
"Merry Christmas, Phil. Our first real Christmas together."
[extra]
In between bites of pillowy dough with an enjoyable excess of toppings, Dan gave Phil a sly grin, eyes twinkling with mischief. "I heard what you were watching earlier," he started, tone all too nonchalant.
Phil tried to fight back his shock. He failed miserably and choked on a mouthful of pizza. When he finally swallowed it down and wiped the sauce off his mouth, he sputtered, "That— what— how did you even hear—?"
"Forward snow angel, huh? Didn't know you liked looking at 2009 me so much." And then Dan pouted a little, obviously fake but no less effective at making Phil feel guilty. "What about me right now?"
Well. Maybe the thing that nobody needed to know wasn't really Phil's nostalgia for their past. Maybe it was how Phil reacted to that.