#phan fluff

Christmas with the Lesters.

No, Christmas Day with the Lesters. For the very first time. Dan had been spending the time around Christmas with Phil’s family often, more and more as the years went by. He’d also spent a couple back home in London with Phil when a pandemic and illness got in the way. Once they’d hosted their families too. So, it wasn’t exactly new.

But it felt like it. New and special and Dan felt like he was allowed a peek into Phil’s past to get to experience going home for Christmas in a way that didn’t make him dread it.  

They had always had rather different feelings about coming home for Christmas. For Dan, it was a special kind of hell, even if he tried to put on a smile and get through it as best that he could. For Phil, it was a joyous celebration full of silly traditions that made Dan realise that Phil did not get his weirdness from strangers.

Smurfs’ Christmas album, getting tipsy with Snowballs, stockings and so much more. And it was all going to be his. He’d been welcomed into Kath and Nigel’s home on Isle of Man like he was their own son.

Everyone was healthy. It had paid off to say no to the various Christmas invitations. They weren’t going to risk falling ill this time around. Dan was not going to have this experience be postponed again. And while Phil’s family had known about them for a while, it was still something strange to know that they were out to the whole world now. Hard launch had gone over as well as they could have hoped and since October, they had put out so many videos that Dan’s head was spinning just a little. This Christmas break and the subsequent pyjamas week was going to be sorely needed, even if they did still have a final phadvent calendar video to put up.

Reacting to the interactive Christmas adventure on AmazingPhil. Their very first winter together, so close to Christmas, that even back then Dan had quietly dreamed about what it would be like to just stay… Stay right next to Phil instead of going home. Maybe the storm would rise up and he simply couldn’t go home.

It would have felt like a cheat, and his mother at least would have been very sad not to have her eighteen-year-old son come home.

This was sixteen years on now and everything was above board.

Maybe that was why Dan blinked awake a little too early on Christmas morning, the sky just barely starting to show streaks of the rising sun behind the drawn curtain. Batteries of the alarm clock taken out to grant them peace.

Phil had insisted that they didn’t need to set an alarm on their phones. It was Christmas. You could wake up when you wanted. And if worst came to worst, Kath probably would come and rouse them.

Dan lay and listened for a while, picking up on Phil’s soft breathing next to him, some exhales bordering on a light snore, even if he’d stayed away from the wine yesterday. The rest of the house seemed mostly quiet, though he felt like there might be a slight pottering around in the kitchen.

He didn’t exactly want to leave the warmth of the bed and Phil, but he did kind of need to pee. He started to extract himself carefully, and when he lifted the duvet, he noticed something that he’d missed before.

Two stockings at the foot of the bed.

Dan had thought that Phil might have been kidding about his mother sneaking in with the stockings but it seemed like he’d been dead serious. Dan wasn’t sure how she’d managed without waking any of them. Maybe it was those special mother powers.

Phil and Martyn had both had the same stocking for years and they were starting to look a bit worse for wear, even if they didn’t get used that often. Phil’s red sock with the reindeer head was rather iconic. He had seen them in photos.

But there wasn’t just one. There were two. Identical, though one had a lot more signs of wear and tear.

Dan crept up on his knees, slowly crawling towards the end of the bed and fought emotions that threatened to rise in his chest. He reached out a hand to trail fingers slightly over the newer reindeer’s face. It was so soft. The red of the sock a bit more vibrant but there was no mistaking that it was the same exact sock.

Placed lovingly next to each other. Dan felt a lump in his throat and he just barely held himself back from shaking Phil awake to watch this. He wasn’t sure Phil knew this. He’d said that Dan would get a stocking of his own but had he known that it would be the same as his own? A perfect replicate?

Dan made his way off the bed, pausing as it creaked but Phil didn’t stir. He patted out of the room on bare feet, making his way to the bathroom, though his mind left behind in the guest room and the matching stockings.

When he came out of the bathroom, he paused in the hallway and listened once more. Yeah, someone was awake. And in the kitchen by the sounds of it. Dan told himself that he was thirsty and in need of a drink. He walked down the stairs quietly.

It was Phil’s mum, seemingly in the process of some early morning baking. She was wearing a big, and as tradition dictated, ugly Christmas jumper and she smiled brightly when she spotted him pausing in the doorway.

“You’re up early,” she said. “Come taste this.”

She said it so easily that Dan just went. Kath fetched a spoon from the drawer and scraped it along the mostly emptied bowl of batter. Dan took it and it was something sweet and vanilla-y. He should probably be polite and ask about the baking, or even just say anything but words felt hard right now.

He was looking at Kath, the woman who’d welcomed him into her home all those years ago and who somehow managed to still make things even more welcoming as time went by.

“We have matching stockings,” Dan said, leaving the tip of the spoon against his lip. Maybe it would soften the way that his voice felt so raw. Block some of the emotion dripping off his words.

Kath turned her head slightly to the side and chuckled at him. It was warm and for a moment, it had the same cadence of Phil’s chuckle.

“Of course, I know you two boys like to match,” she said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. She turned around to take the tray and put it into the oven.

Dan suddenly felt like he emphasised with the grinch. It was quite something to have your heart grow much bigger inside your chest when you weren’t expecting it.

“They still sold that old stocking?” he asked, going over to the sink to wash the spoon before moving to put it in the dishwasher.

“No, no. It’s been out of production for a while now, I imagine. But I’ve had that extra one saved away for a while,” she said.

The heat from the oven must be stinking Dan’s eyes. It must be the only explanation why his vision suddenly felt a little blurry. 

“Yeah? You bought an extra as back-up?” Dan asked, trying to lean casually on the counter.

He wasn’t usually nervous around Phil’s mother, not anymore but right now, he couldn’t quite figure out what to do with himself. All of his limbs felt too long and gangly.

“No, dear,” she said and levelled him with a look that pinned him right where he stood. “I found it back in 2009 when you were here just before Christmas.”

“You…”

“Yes,” Kath said and walked closer to him. Dan tried to shrink himself down to be smaller to be more on her level. “I had never seen Phil like that before. I wanted to be prepared for everything. So that stocking has been waiting for you for a long time.”

The oven door was closed but Dan’s eyes kept stinging. He blinked and it felt like something might slip out. He laughed a bit to cover it up and turned his face away. This whole conversation was craving open his chest in a particular way.

He had been going at such high a frequency lately, and he hadn’t really allowed himself a moment to breathe. He was breathing now, and it was coming out shaky.

Kath seemed to clock it and she reached forward to pull him into a hug. It didn’t linger for long, but she squeezed him tightly and Dan felt as if some of his blurry edges had been pressed back into their original shape.

“Did you look inside it already?” she asked, patting him on the arm even as she drew back from the embrace.

“No, I’m going to wait until Phil wakes,” Dan said.

It wasn’t even about what might be inside of it. Classically stocking gifts were supposed to be a bit shit. It was part of the deal. The tradition of it. But the care around it was what really got him. How Kath had snuck into their room and placed it, and how she’d evidently had that stocking tucked away for a very long time.

Since that very first Christmas back in 2009. When Dan and Phil were running around outside of their house filming the interactive Christmas adventure. She’d been roped into playing in that too, always so ready to join in with the fun and support her son.

“Go back to bed,” she said. “House is still waking up. There’ll be fresh cookies in about half an hour.”

And then she all but shooed him out of her kitchen. Dan was in no position to argue and walked back up the stairs, trying to make sense of the tight feeling in his chest.

Phil was still soundly asleep, though he’d moved slightly since Dan left, and he was curled towards Dan’s side of the bed. His hand lay outstretched, palm open as if he might have reached for him in his sleep.

Waking up next to Phil was his norm. They were almost always together in bed and so, some of the soft domesticity had faded with time, but sometimes, it also came back so strongly. Dan attributed it to all the Christmas emotions swirling in his chest right now.

He climbed back into bed, jostling Phil as he went, until he could grab Phil and pull him into a sleepy embrace. He must have jostled him too much because Phil frowned and tried to open his eyes, though he didn’t look very happy at being waken up.

“Merry Christmas, asshole,” Phil muttered, squinting as if that would make him be able to better see Dan without his glasses.

“Merry Christmas, twat,” Dan said, mostly whispered against the top of Phil’s head.

“Why are you up so early? It is early, isn’t it?” Phil asked, though he was slumping against Dan now and definitely not looking around.

The way his body relaxed and eased; Dan wouldn’t be surprised if Phil could manage to fall asleep once more. He was almost tempted to give in and let him snooze a bit in the embrace, but he had a more pressing question.

“Had to check our stockings, of course,” Dan teased.

It had the desired effect. Phil started trying to get up. But Dan closed his arms around him and dragged him down. He had another question before Phil actually saw their stockings.

“Did you know what stocking I would get?”

“You-? No? Mum said not to worry about it, so I didn’t,” Phil said and he struggled a bit more against the hold. The struggle was performative at best, and mostly half-hearted. “Why?”

That tightness sat heavy in Dan’s chest, and he let go so Phil could sit up properly. Phil did, reaching for his glasses on the bedside table.

He had pillow creases on his face that Dan’s fingers itched to reach out and trace them. Like he could smooth them over with just a touch. Phil looked beautiful like this. Slight crow’s feet appeared when he squinted at Dan. Every single line added to his face only reminded Dan that he’d gotten to be there to see them all form in the years that they’d been together.

Phil finally turned his attention to the stockings and Dan watched him closely. Closely enough that he clocked the genuine surprise on Phil’s face and how he quickly whipped around to look at Dan.

“It’s like mine?” he reached for both of the stockings.

Dan hadn’t dared touch them, almost as if they might disappear if he tried to touch them.

“Your mum snuck in without anyone hearing,” Dan said, watching how Phil pulled them into his lap. Side by side.

“Santa,” Phil corrected, even now. Just because he knew it made Dan want to argue back.

He might have tried but he was feeling too sentimental and happy today. The hug from Kath still felt like it lingered in his body. She might as well have been Santa honestly.

“Your mum said that she’d had it for a while,” Dan said, and he reached over to touch his stocking again, though he didn’t try to take it out of Phil’s lap.

Phil hummed. “You talked to her?”

“She’s up baking,” Dan said with a nod.

“How long has she had this?” Phil asked, turning his full attention to Dan.

“You really didn’t know?”

“I would tell you,” Phil said and leaned over to bump their shoulders together. “Come on, when did she say?”

Dan looked at Phil and for a flicker he felt transported back in time. He could see the Phil of then bleeding into the Phil of now. Black emo hair swapped for the blonde artfully tussled mess. Glasses gone from black frames to see-through ones. The edges of his face a little sharper, the roundness of youth faded, though it had only made him more handsome. The eyes were the same, even with slightly more prominent crinkles around them.

“Since the first December that I came to visit,” Dan said.

They’d filmed their reaction to the interactive Christmas adventure already, and though it was filmed on a literal potato, it had been so good. Brilliant for its time, for one, but Dan had also been reminded of the energy that they’d put into it. How he’d sat hidden away from his family on Christmas Day, to help Phil finish editing all the individual videos for it all to work.

He'd laughed to himself at all their silly antics in the videos, and he thought about how for once he was too happy on Christmas to be brought down by all of the tension.

All the while, a stocking had been waiting for him back in Rawtenstall. A stocking that had survived the move to Isle of Man, and finally now found its purpose.

There was a soft touch to Dan’s face, familiar hands that navigated his skin easier than anyone else ever would be able to. Fingers curving under his jaw and just holding him for a moment. A kind of tenderness that wasn’t unfamiliar but still it was not often that Phil would touch him like this.  

It was grounding. It felt a little like Dan was his old eighteen-year-old self, so scared and excited about what was to come. He couldn’t have known. In no world could he ever have predicted the trip that they would take here.

But he had been sure back then. He’d had a plan. Find a way to Phil Lester and then anything else would work itself out. That determination had waivered sometimes since then, but young Dan had dreamt so big.

The rush of falling in love had made him feel invincible when he was next to Phil.

“I didn’t know that,” Phil said into the quiet space between them. “But I’m glad she believed in us.”

“Hey, she might just have reused it for another boyfriend, if I hadn’t worked out,” Dan joked with a shrug, because it was a bit easier to soften up the emotions with jokes.

Phil reached over to pinch him. He somehow wormed his fingers under Dan’s shirt and grabbed skin. It left behind a slight sting across the skin, but Dan barely squirmed after the initial flinch. He never really minded Phil’s hands on him.

“Guess I still have time to meet a hot surfer Australian. Perhaps she should have saved it for a bit longer,” he said, joining in on the joke despite the pinch.

“I will fight him,” Dan said. “I can take a surfer.”

Phil laughed. It was loud in the quiet morning. It was like birdsong as the sun rose. “You could not. You can lift me but you cannot take a surfer.”

“Watch me,” Dan said. “I could take a bear for you.”

“You could fight a bear?” Phil asked, though the words barely made it out between giggles.

“Yeah,” Dan said with a shrug. “Though who said anything about fighting? I said I could take them, and I pro-” The rest of Dan’s joke was stopped promptly by a stocking being shoved at his face. “Hey watch it! Careful with my stocking!”

No stockings were harmed. Phil stuck his tongue out at Dan and got off the bed.

“Come on, I want cookies.”

“Should we open our stockings here?” Dan asked, carefully cradling both stockings in his arms.

Phil shook his head. “Downstairs. And we can see what Santa decided to give you this year, and then maybe if you’ll be a good boy, you’ll get more next year.”

Next year. There was a strangely hopeful tone to that. This would just be the first of many. Another new tradition that they were allowed now. It was funny how there kept being new traditions to make, stacking up and intertwined with all the ones they already had.

It took a while longer for the rest of the house to wake up, but Dan was in no rush. Him and Phil were lounging in their matching Ribena shirts, and Phil had started on the fresh-baked cookies. The vibes were good and the Smurfs’ Christmas album was already playing and he could begrudgingly admit that the songs were quite good, even if they also were ridiculous.

Opening the stockings weren’t even that big an affair, but Dan still found himself rather overwhelmed just looking at the single satsuma from his stocking. An irrational part of him didn’t even want to eat it, like it should be preserved.

Another memento for their not-so-secret memory box.

He did eat it, of course. It was only polite and Dan was doing nothing if not making sure that he was on perfect son-in-law behaviour for Christmas. He did take a photo of it first and shared it with their followers, whom he knew would be excited for him.

The rest of the day went by entirely too quickly, which was the first time since childhood that Dan had felt like that about Christmas Day. He was done watching the clock tick by excruciatingly slow. No clocks chimed in this house and time flew. This was a new era in a lot of ways and he could get used to this. He was getting used to this.

Young Dan had probably been right, as foolhardy as he’d been running around in the snow and falling more and more in love with each step. As long as he had Phil next to him, it would all work out alright.

now onto the next part. rubs my hands together. im not gonna do this tooooo in detail just bc .... this is like my first ask ever SORRY EVERYONE. better things will come up

— they were both reallt nervous. it was the opposite of everyones dream first time together because they couldnt stop giggling or stumbling over eachother, or dan would shriek because phil accidentally tickled him

— phil was more nervous than dan even though dan had been the one with a massive crush on him.

— it was a lot of questions — is this okay? did that feel alright? did you like that? — both of them nervous about what the other thought, what the other wanted. they were still getting to know eachother, after all