fallen;

“Coming!” Phil shouted as he rushed down the stairs to open the door. As he opened it, he saw a shivering Dan waiting to be let in. His face lit up instantly. “Dan!” he said, jumping into his arms. He had no idea what he was doing here, but equally, he didn't care. Instead, he squeezed him tightly, taking in his warmth and familiar scent. “Surprise!” Dan said in response. “I've missed you so much.” Phil smiled and hugged him again. “I've missed you too. So so much.”

Phil couldn't believe that Dan had traveled all this way just to surprise him on Christmas Eve. Suddenly he didn't care about opening presents or eating chocolate: Dan was here and it was all he could ever wish for.

They dumped themselves onto the couch in front of the TV, talking about Dan’s train trip to Manchester. It was a long, painful one when you were as impatient as Dan. After all, seeing Phil was all he could think about for the 3 hours on the train, and the fact that he couldn’t hug or kiss or hold him whenever he wanted to was frustrating. Distance was a bitch.

“One day,” Dan started, allowing Phil to rest his head on his chest, “We’ll get a house just for the two of us - and maybe a dog - and we’ll be able to spend everyday together, for the rest of our lives. I’ll be able to wake up next to you every single morning. How wonderful does that sound?” Phil looked up at him, smiling widely. These were the kinds of moments he adored. “I can’t wait,” he said. “Then there’ll only be 2 centimeters between us, not 200 miles.”

“Yeah,” Dan laughed.

Phil sighed and put his arms around Dan. After a few blissful moments, Phil gasped. “Look outside!” Phil said, pointing behind Dan. Dan turned around to find that there were snowflakes falling outside the window. “It's snowing!” Phil exclaimed, running to the window. Dan giggled to himself as he watched Phil jump up and down, his eyes wide. He looked like an overexcited puppy, but it was cute. “It hasn't snowed in like, a billion years!” Phil said, sticking his face to the window.

“Hey! Let's go play in the snow!” Phil suggested, a wide grin on his face. There was barely any snow on the ground, which made Phil’s idea questionable, but his pleading eyes couldn't allow him to say no. They put their coats and hats on, and headed outside.

Their footsteps crunched on the centimeter of snow as they raced into the patch of grass outside of Phil’s apartment. Dan watched as Phil started collecting the snow into a ball, attempting to make a snowman. The determination on his face despite the lack of snow made him laugh. Just as he stepped over to Phil to help him make the miniature snowman’s base, he felt a snowball hit his shoulder out of nowhere. “Got you!” Phil said, grinning. In revenge, he gathered a snowball and threw it back at Phil. His bad aim caused him to miss, which made Phil laugh. “Fuck you,” Dan said, but he was laughing too. In seconds, a whole snowball fight had started, where both Dan and Phil were chasing each other with snow in their hands, laughing like children.

After about an hour of playing around, the snow had piled up and there was at least 2 inches on the ground, perfect for making snow angels. They lay down on the ground and turned their heads to each other, smiling. Then, as if attracted by some magnetic force, Phil’s hand slowly moved towards Dan’s and squeezed it tightly. In that moment, Dan realised just how lucky he was to have Phil. He looked into his deep blue eyes and smiled. “I love you,” he whispered, playing with his hair. Phil smiled. In that second, nothing else seemed to matter. It was just him and Dan lying hand-in-hand on the cold snow, and nothing could get in between them. There was no world outside the two of them. “I love you too,” Phil answered. With that, they shut their eyes and relished the moment.

“Phil?” Dan said after a while, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?” Phil answered, looking up at the stars on the now dark sky.

“I’m fucking freezing,” Dan stated. Phil laughed and picked himself up from the ground. “Yeah, I think we should go back inside now,” he said, and they swept the snow off their coats and went back to Phil’s apartment.

Once they were inside the warmth of Phil’s house, Phil went into the kitchen to make them hot chocolate, whilst Dan stayed in the living room and picked out a movie for them to watch. After Phil had topped the hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows, he sat down next to Dan and handed him his mug. “We’re watching A Nightmare Before Christmas,” Dan announced happily, taking a sip of his cocoa.