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Dan’s hands are big.
It’s not like Phil’s never noticed before - quite the opposite actually. It’s one of the first things he ever noticed about Dan, his broad palms and long fingers and the way they always seemed sure of their movements in a way Phil’s never really had.
They’re so sure now, moving to take apart the parts of the espresso machine that need to be sanitized. They move like Dan doesn’t even need to think about what he’s doing. In truth he probably doesn’t anymore.
He’s been doing this for years now. The moment his ease with all things barista surpassed Phil’s had come and gone a long time ago. Phil’s not bitter about that. If anything it makes him proud: his boyfriend is such a clever person. Dan’s successes are not Phil’s failures.
It’s not because Dan is good that Phil feels a little bad today as he leans back against the counter and watches Dan work. It’s not because Dan is a shift supervisor now that Phil feels a strange itching under his skin like he should be moved on from all this.
He doesn’t know why he’s feeling what he’s feeling, but he knows it isn’t about Dan.
Is it about Rory? Maybe, but she’s been gone a while now, and she was always too much of a force to be contained by a corporate coffee shop. It’s a wonder she stayed as long as she did.
It’s not about Jimmy. Jimmy has always been more driven to career success and financial stability than Phil has.
Nothing has really changed. Everything is mostly the same, but Phil’s starting to feel different.
Dan catches him staring. “Hey Lester, get to work.” He says it gently, hinting at his authority over Phil in this particular setting but only in a teasing sort of way.
Phil pushes off the counter and walks over to the pastry case, sliding it open and plucking out a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. “Don’t wanna,” he mumbles over a giant bite.
“The sooner we get done here the sooner we can go home,” Dan reminds him.
Phil sighs, but he puts the biscuit down and gets to work marking out the pastries that have reached their expiration. “You want any of this?” Phil asks.
Dan shakes his head. “We’ll take it to the shelter.”
Phil smiles over at Dan even though he’s hard at work scrubbing dried milk off the bar and can’t see Phil’s sudden fondness.
Dan is just so unfailingly good. If the overlords at the upper ranks of this coffee powerhouse became aware of the fact that he and Phil take the marked out food left over on the nights they close the store together and donate them to various shelters throughout London, they’d be fired on the spot - and maybe even worse. Especially Dan, who technically belongs to the management team now.
He says he doesn’t care, that throwing out that much perfectly good food is a crime and he never signed up to be a criminal. Phil doesn’t argue. He’s a lot more afraid of consequences than Dan is but his commitment to helping Dan uphold his convictions is fierce.
That’s just one of the many, many things Dan has brought to his life, the courage to be bad. Or good. Or maybe just… himself?
He’s staring again. He can’t seem to help himself tonight. It’s almost as bad as it was in the beginning, when Dan was a shooting star crashing straight into the middle of Phil’s life and exploding stardust onto every inch of it.
(He knows that’s not scientifically accurate and Dan would sure as hell point it out if he voiced the thought out loud, so he’s just going to keep it to himself. He’s allowed - his therapist told him so.)
Maybe he should bring this all up with her. Maybe it’s just anxiety, or something about getting older. Perhaps it’s something about the way he’s starting to notice the physical signs of the way his body is aging. Dan likes to point out every new strand of grey and Phil can feel the strain in his back after he’s worked a full day, much more than he ever did when he first started here.
If that’s the case then maybe it is Jimmy’s fault. Jimmy, who constantly sends Phil selfies asking if he looks young enough to still pass for twenty-something. Jimmy, who bleached the bejesus out of his hair in an attempt to follow trends he has no business participating in. Somehow Phil dying his hair black and Jimmy dying his blond don’t seem on the same level of desperate but maybe they are. Maybe he’s just deluding himself.
“Do you think I should go back to my natural hair colour?” he asks Dan.
“Why?” He doesn’t even look up from what he’s doing.
“Am I too old to still be dying my hair?”
“Don’t be stupid please,” Dan says. “Go mop the floor in the lobby.”
Phil whines. The doors are locked and there’s no one here but the two of them, so he’s allowed. It’s not insubordination when it’s your boyfriend trying to boss you around, right?
Finally Dan looks up. “You can get away with making me do all the cleaning at home, but not here, mate. Here you are actually contractually obligated to listen to me.”
Phil scrunches up his nose. “No I’m not. Besides, I always listen to you.”
A smirk spreads across Dan’s face and he waggles an eyebrow.
“Oh, piss off,” Phil laughs, and goes to the back room to fill up a bucket with soapy water.
-
Phil lies on his side, one arm propped up at the elbow as his hand cradles the side of his face. His glasses are still on the side table so his vision is blurred, the shape of Dan beside him soft and muted.
He can still see the slope of that long neck, the downward cast of Dan’s eyes and the way his knees are pulled up to hold the notebook he’s scribbling words into. Dreams or a poem or just a stream of thoughts, Phil can’t be sure. He never asks, but he likes to watch. He likes to bask in the aura of peace that fills their bedroom when Dan is writing, as morning light warms the brown curl of his hair.
Phil doesn’t talk, not even to say good morning. He doesn’t shuffle closer to close the space between their bodies. He’d sooner leave the room than risk interrupting Dan when he’s like this, quiet and focused and lost in his own words.
Phil has tried a few times over the years to do the same, to get some of these loops and spirals of thought down on paper, but it just doesn’t work for him like it does for Dan. He finds his center in the world of the visual, in the stacks and stacks of overflowing photo albums he’s got in boxes in the otherwise empty wardrobe in Jimmy’s room.
He still uses the camera Dan bought him for Christmas. He’ll probably keep using it forever, or at least until it doesn’t work anymore.
He’d like to take a picture of the way Dan looks now. A still frame wouldn’t quite be able to encapsulate the way his heart feels full and settled in moments like this, but photographs come closer than anything else Phil’s tried. He’ll leave the words to Dan. Dan’s good at those.
Sometimes Dan writes things that Phil is allowed to read. Sometimes he writes things just for Phil, whatever’s inspired him in the moment that he thinks would mean something to Phil. Their fridge is covered with bits of sellotape and scraps of paper smudged with ink and words scrawled so messily they’re barely legible.
Phil has a few of them memorized. Sometimes when his mind is racing and it’s late at night and all he can see is panic and fear and pain from the past he’ll recite them in his head until he’s calmed down enough to get air back into his lungs and wake Dan up to hold him through the rest. Sometimes he’ll recite them out loud to Dan while he’s folding laundry or lying in bed listening to Dan play his keyboard.
There are also photographs stuck to the fridge, and many other surfaces in their flat. Dan’s words and Phil’s pictures share space in their lives and serve to remind each other of both the good and the bad in the moments they need to be reminded. Sometimes Phil wakes in the lonely hours to find Dan sat up in bed thumbing through a stack of his and Phil’s memories, smiling or even crying at what he sees there.
Phil rolls over and grabs his glasses before slipping out of bed as quietly as he can and making his way down the hall to the kitchen. The air is a bit nippy as he’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, but he doesn’t want to disturb Dan by rummaging around for something warmer.
He puts the kettle on and pours some coffee beans into the grinder, pulsing them until they’re the right consistency for the french press. He hopes the noise isn’t a distraction for Dan, but a pleasant confirmation that soon there’ll be hot coffee to sip.
He’s just pushing the plunger down when there are footsteps shuffling up behind him and Dan’s long arms wrapping around his waist.
“Sorry,” Phil murmurs.
Dan hooks his chin around the front of Phil’s shoulder and shakes his head. “Was done anyway.” He rubs his palm against the hair on Phil’s belly so absentmindedly Phil’s not sure Dan even knows he’s doing it. “How’d you sleep?”
Phil just shrugs. It feels wrong to complain about something he knows is often much worse for Dan.
“I thought so,” Dan says quietly, dropping his arms from around Phil’s middle and reaching up into the cupboard to grab them each a mug. “You were moving around a lot last night.”
“Crap,” Phil mutters. “Sorry. Did I keep you up?”
Dan ignores the question, which is really an answer in and of itself but of course he’s too wonderful to say anything about it. “Something bothering you?” he asks.
Phil walks to the fridge to fetch the milk. He’s quite sure he hasn’t sorted through the waffle in his head enough to articulate it into words, but he might try anyway. Even just telling Dan he feels weird is often enough to lift some of the weight; another thing he learned from his therapist.
So he says just that: “I feel weird.”
“Yeah?” Dan asks, stirring a sugar into his coffee and two into Phil’s.
Phil nods, pouring milk into the little whirlpools Dan’s created in their mugs. “Can’t really explain why.”
“That why you asked about your hair yesterday?”
Phil nods again. Dan reaches up to ruffle the fringe Phil’s got pushed back over his forehead. “Your hair looks amazing black. You’re never too old to have hair that looks amazing.”
Phil smiles, leaning into Dan’s space to peck his ever-chapped lips before grabbing his coffee and carrying it out to the lounge. Dan follows and they settle on the sofa to watch out the window while they enjoy their morning caffeine hit. There seems to be some sort of unspoken agreement not to mess with the television at all. Phil’s so endlessly grateful for that, for sharing his life with someone who knows when he needs to sit with his thoughts without distraction.
“Do you think I’m too old to still be working at Starbucks?” Phil asks after a few minutes of quiet.
Dan turns to look at him. “Do you?”
Phil shrugs. “Sometimes it feels a little silly.”
“You’re not even the oldest one there,” Dan reminds him.
“Yeah. True.”
“Age is just a number.”
Phil snorts. “Tell that to Jimmy.”
Dan puts his feet up on the coffee table, crossing one ankle over the other. His nails are a deep blue colour that Phil had painted on them last week. He warms at the memory.
“Sometimes Jimmy is well strange about that,” Dan says.
Phil doesn’t have to say anything for Dan to know that he agrees. They’ve had that discussion many times. It doesn’t make Phil love Jimmy any less, but at the moment it’s making it a little impossible for him to see his own life as anything but… underachieved.
Phil’s own legs are tucked up underneath himself. “I guess I thought I’d have things figured out by now.”
“What things?” Dan asks. “What’s not figured out?”
Phil reaches out to cup Dan’s bare thigh. “M’not talking about you.”
“Then what?” He takes a big swig of coffee and sets down his mug to drop his arm around Phil’s shoulders. “I feel like things are pretty good for us, no?”
“Yeah, of course,” Phil says softly. Dan takes the mug from his hand and puts that down too.
“Are you allowing yourself to feel inadequate because of bullshit societal capitalistic expectations?”
Phil chuckles and lets Dan pull him onto his lap. His knees press into the cushions of the sofa on either side of Dan’s hips. “It’s possible.”
“Well cut it out.” Dan nuzzles his face into Phil’s neck and wraps his arms around his middle again. “You don’t need to be a doctor or a lawyer to be successful.”
“No?” Phil murmurs warmly, dropping face down into Dan’s hair. It smells vaguely like coffee, but mostly just like their bed. “What do you need, then?”
“Whatever you want. Whatever makes you happy,” Dan says simply.
“What makes you happy?”
“You. Writing. Food. Laughter. Sex when you want it. Great British Bake Off. Music. Having a job that pays the bills but doesn’t make me stressed enough to lose sleep over it.”
“Wow.” Phil pulls back a little to get a look at Dan’s face. “Did you practice that?”
Dan shrugs. “I’ve talked about it a lot in therapy.”
“Ah. Maybe I should get on that.”
“I think it’s good to be able to recognize what actually matters to you,” Dan says. “And to understand that your list doesn’t have to look the same as someone else’s.”
Phil nods, but he doesn’t say anything.
A frown creases between Dan’s brows. “Are you feeling bad about stuff, really? What’s up? Did something happen?”
“No, not really.” Phil leans down and kisses Dan’s forehead. He doesn’t want him thinking even for a second that this has anything to do with him. “I’m not feeling bad, just…”
“Weird,” Dan offers.
“Yeah.”
“Does Kath still talk shit?”
Phil snorts. “Dan!”
“I don’t mean like— you know what I mean.”
Phil sighs. He does. And she does. “Maybe she does, kind of. Sort of,” Phil admits grudgingly.
“I bet that doesn’t help.”
“She says I take enough photos to sink a battleship, I should be getting paid for it.”
“Would you want that?” Dan asks.
Phil flops off Dan’s lap back onto the sofa and grabs his coffee, keen to drink it before it gets cold. “I dunno. I guess getting paid to do what you love wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“Mm,” Dan hums noncommittally and reaches for his own mug.
“What?” Phil demands. He can tell when Dan doesn’t agree with him but is trying not to get into it.
Dan shrugs. “I just wonder if you’d love it in the same way if it became your job to do it. Would it still bring you the same peace if it was tied to making money and providing income? I know writing wouldn’t feel good to me if it came with pressure and deadline and expectation. But you might feel differently.”
Phil chews on that thought for about ten seconds before huffing a frustrated breath. “You’re so annoying.”
Dan grins. “Why, because I’m always right?”
“I didn’t say you’re right,” Phil grumbles.
“You didn’t, but I am.”
Phil rolls his eyes and lets his head tip against the back of the couch. “That doesn’t help me, though. I’m still back to where I started.”
“Which is where, exactly?” Dan asks over the rim of his mug.
“Feeling weird.”
Dan opens his mouth to respond, but Phil’s finger darts out to press against his lips before he can speak. “Can we just… not? I don’t even really know what I’m on about.”
Dan nods. Phil retracts his finger and returns to his coffee and Dan does the same, not speaking again until he’s drained his mug. “You know there’s still lots of time, right?”
Phil just looks at him, his face full of questions Dan doesn’t actually have the answers to.
“You’re still young, even if it doesn’t feel like that,” Dan says gently. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have their life figured out by the time society expects them to, and that’s ok. Life is long. You have time.”
“You spend too much time in therapy.”
Dan grins. “Maybe that’s my true calling.”
“Honestly, yeah,” Phil says. “It might be. You act as mine often enough.”
“That’s just because I’m a good boyfriend, dingus. It’s called listening.”
Phil sticks out his tongue. “Are you saying I don’t listen?”
“No.” He drops his head down on Phil’s shoulder. “You’re the best listener in the world, you always have been.”
Phil sighs. “I wish I knew how to listen to myself.”
Dan snickers. Only for a brief moment, but Phil still hears it.
“Was that cheesy?” Phil asks.
“Yes but you’re right. You need to learn how to listen to yourself and ignore others people’s rubbish.”
“Is that even possible?”
Dan stands then, stretching his long arms up over his head, distracting Phil with all that soft skin on display. “I dunno. I’m still working on it myself.”
“We should do something today,” Phil says idly, even as he sits there on the sofa wanting desperately not to move from it. He’s still feeling yesterday’s shift in the soreness of his feet and the pull in the muscles of his lower back. “Go somewhere pretty and let me take photos of you.”
Dan smiles. “That sounds perfect. But you have to buy me breakfast first.” He turns away and heads for the kitchen.
“No way.” Phil hauls himself up with a groan, and follows Dan to the kitchen, where he can hide his mug in the sink and pretend there’s no washing up to do. “You’re the sugar mama in this relationship, Mr. Supervisor.”
“Kinky.” Dan puts his mug in the sink too and turns around to grab Phil suddenly and pull him in close. “Phil.”
“Yes,” Phil says, hooking his arms around the back of Dan’s neck.
“Are you alright? This stuff is like… it’s real stuff. We don’t have to joke if it’s not feeling good.”
Phil shakes his head. “I like joking. It makes things feel less scary.”
Dan pulls Phil closer and squeezes him into a proper hug that Phil reciprocates with surprising intensity. They’re stood there in the middle of their little kitchen in nothing but their pants, locked in a bear hug when it really hits Phil just how lucky he is.
“Are you actually scared?” Dan asks.
Phil shrugs, swallowing over the swell of emotion in his throat. “Maybe a little.”
“You don’t have to be,” Dan says, pressing a kiss to Phil’s neck. “We’ve gotten through worse than this.”
Phil nods. He’s not even sure there’s really anything to get through. He reckons this is just what life feels like: constantly wondering if you’re doing it right, if you’re fulfilling some mythical concept of your own potential. If you’re as happy as you have the capacity to be.
Phil is happy. He doesn’t love his job and he doesn’t make a lot of money, but he likes his life. He’s got people he loves and who love him back, people who’ve loved him through the days he struggled to love himself.
Phil has a partner, in all the ways that word could possibly apply. He’s got Dan to make him see reason, or at least to help him try. He’s got Dan, who helped re-introduce Phil to a life where he could heal and forgive himself, where he could laugh and take risks and love himself enough not to give up on chasing happiness.
So maybe Phil feels a little weird about being in his thirties and making lattes for a living. He might never make use of the degrees he spent four years earning and he may never make his parents truly proud, but that’s probably what life feels like too: learning to live with the quiet disappointments.
He’s happy, even if it isn’t perfectly rose-coloured. He’s got Dan and he’s doing his best. Everything else is just background noise.