Superstition - Phan (danisnotonfire and Amazingphil)

[MaiMai]

*waves nervously*

It's been a while since I've posted any stories (since December, whoops ) but I'm back to spam you all with Phan fluff!

This is just a fic I've been working on for a while, so I hope you enjoy. If this could just make one person smile, that would be nice.

Warning for language (Dan and his inappropriate vocab )

 

Superstition

Rain is tolerable – but only under certain, very specific conditions.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the rain must be outside, and you must be inside. This is fundamental to surviving the British weather.

Secondly, warmth. The crackling of a fire, the simple warmth of a radiator, or, in their case, the soft glow of an electric fireplace; whatever form it takes, warmth is imperative. Knowing how bitterly cold it is outside just amplifies its worth and the relief to be found in sinking into the heat of a cosy, insulated room.

Thirdly, a hot drink. This way, the warmth is twofold, both internal and external. His favourite is hot chocolate, but Phil prefers coffee. The type is negligible. It’s the heat itself that matters.

Finally – and this step isn’t necessary, but it’s one that he has a fondness for – someone to complain to about the pelting raindrops on the roof. Complaining about the weather is inexplicably satisfying.

Those are the criteria that Dan likes to stick to for the perfect rainy day.

Unfortunately, England has no concept of moderation when it comes to the aforementioned rain. One drizzly day is followed in swift sequence by another, and another, and another. It becomes impossible to avoid being outside. The weather might be horrendous, but unfortunately, day to day life does not have a pause button that can be enacted on days that you really, really don’t want to leave the house.

In consequence, he tries to hold on to his distant idea of the perfect day and focuses only on what is waiting for him back at the flat. It’s a tougher task than he had anticipated, and he finds himself moping instead.

He dwells on the way rain is trickling down the back of his neck. The way water is beginning to soak into his shoes. How his hair is curling and sticking clammily to his forehead. How water is dripping into his eyes and making everything just that tad bit too blurry so that he has to squint at the pavement ahead.

His clothes cling to him, cold and making him shiver. He tries to wipe the water from his eyes: it doesn’t work. His sleeve is so sodden that it makes no difference.

The only consolation is that he knows this street, and by extension he knows that he is nearly home.

When he does reach it, he fumbles with his keys and lets himself in to the building clumsily. His hands are frozen and flushed pink by the bitter wind.

Somehow, his first venture into the interior of their apartment building affords little in terms of either comfort or warmth. He still shivers as he makes his way up the stairs, still curls his hands into fists in a vain attempt to regain a little feeling in them. The result isn’t what he had desired: his attempts to unlock the door are ungainly at best, and he drops his keys more than once.

When it happens a third time, he bends down with a huff and a few impulsive but heartfelt curses.

“Jesusfuckmotherofa-“

It’s then that there’s the clack of the door being opened from the inside, followed by the soft squeak of it swinging open. He looks up, blinking a few damp, stray curls away from his eyes.

“You could have texted me if you needed help, you know.”

Phil sounds mildly amused by his debacle. He’s still in pyjama bottoms, partially hidden by a hoodie that ends just past his hips and Dan is relatively certain is actually his.

“Thank you terribly for the offer, but I didn’t need any help. Stupid keys,” he grumbles as he straightens and pushes past Phil into the hallway. He can’t quite hide his jealousy at how enviably cosy Phil looks.

“I could hear. I was listening to you trying to get in from the kitchen.”

“Wait. You mean you could hear me the whole time, and you just let me struggle?” Dan sounds incensed, glaring at Phil as he stands dripping rain on the carpet. “Thank a lot for that, Phil.”

“I thought you just said you didn’t need any help?” Phil counters, grinning that peculiarly charming grin of his, slightly lopsided and his tongue peeking out from between his teeth.

“Shut up,” Dan replies simply, rolling his eyes. His first priority is to get warm and dry, not try to come up with justifications for his own stubbornness.

Only then does Phil seem to fully appreciate just how completely drenched Dan is, and his grin is replaced by a frown.

“Dan, you’re soaked. Come on, you need to get into dry clothes,” he says, ushering him towards his room with an urgency Dan doesn’t understand. It’s only a bit of – okay, a lot of – rain, after all. He’s uncomfortable and grouchy, granted, but it’s not exactly a situation that needs to be resolved urgently.

“Phil, what the hell? Okay, I’m going, I’m going. Jeez.”

He gives him an odd look as he disappears into his room to change. Although his clothes cling to him uncomfortably as he strips, the relief of pulling on clean, dry jogging bottoms and a hoodie more than makes up for it.

The first thing that comes to Dan’s attention, entering the lounge with lessened shivers and a marginally improved mood, is his favourite mug set on the coffee table, and a blanket folded on the arm of the sofa. Both bear the mark of Phil’s doing.

The warm arms that encircle him are Phil’s doing, too, along with the towel that is thrown gently over his head and the hands that rub his messy hair dry through the fabric.

Warm, and enjoying the near massage more than he would care to admit to, Dan doesn’t protest. He simply closes his eyes and lets Phil dry him off.

“I knew you would forget to dry your hair. Of all the things to forget, Daniel.”

Dan stifles a giggle.

“You sound like my grandma.”

“Hey! Your grandma is a lovely woman. That’s not an insult.”

This time, Dan laughs fully and disentangles himself from the towel, grinning at Phil.

“I think I’m dry enough, you can stop now.”

A little bashful, Phil smiles and nods, “Right, yeah. Come and sit down then.”

With Phil present to witness his reaction, Dan swaps a wistful smile for raised eyebrows at the mug and the blankets waiting for him.

“And what did I do to deserve this? I hope you’re not expecting some sort of payment later.”

“No, silly,” Phil takes his hand and pulls him gently down onto the sofa, “You need to warm up properly. I don’t want you getting sick.”

This time, Dan does roll his eyes, whole heartedly and every bit as dramatically as he can muster.

This is a conversation they’ve had time and time again. Of the two of them, Phil has always been the superstitious one, but sometimes, it gets out of control. Instances such as these include the time he tackled Dan to the ground before he could place a new pair of shoes on a table, the time he ran across a busy London street during rush hour, just to avoid walking beneath a ladder (scaring Dan half to death in the process), and times such as this.

“Phil, I’ve told you a million times. You don’t get sick from being wet, you spork. It doesn’t work that way.”

Phil is the first to raise his eyebrows this time, pausing as he drapes the blanket around Dan’s shoulders. With a sigh, he sits back, his lips curling into what is unmistakably a smirk. Dan suspects that he’s about to be eating his words.

“Oh really? You seem to have conveniently forgotten a few incidents.”

He settles down next to Dan, taking on a practiced stillness that Dan is all too familiar with.

“Here we go. Story time with Phil.” He rolls his eyes, but beneath it, he’s smiling, even when Phil opens his mouth and, as anticipated, begins to set the record straight with an impeccable degree of memory Dan swears he saves specifically for times like this.

-

“Dan? Where have you been? It’s been hours.”

Dan was expecting Phil to be angry, or at least put out. His voice held quite a different range of emotions, however: concern, confusion, even a bit of hurt. Dan lowered his head, letting the rain drip down from the tips of his long, curly fringe.

“I-I was thinking,” he replied quietly. He didn’t feel able to say anything else, lest he give Phil a dangerous insight into the conflicted storm that was destroying the steady pattern of his thoughts. University versus dropping out; youtube versus career; he could have gone on forever. There was far too much to ever translate into words. Were he to start, Dan thought that he would either never be able to stop or be unable to utter a single word.

“You’re also soaking…” Phil pointed out. Dan was thankful that he had chosen not to ask.

“Yeah,” he gave a small laugh which sounded strangely like a sob, “I am, aren’t I?”

“Come here.”

Phil didn’t seem to mind the way the dampness of Dan’s clothes seeped into his own, or how his dishevelled curls clung to his skin as Dan buried his face readily in the crook of his neck.

“It’s going to be okay. Take as much time as you need to decide what you want to do, okay?”

Dan took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. Thanks, Phil.”

When they broke apart, Dan instantly yearning for the warm and dry that Phil seemed that moment to embody, the other man gave him a critical look.

“You need to get out of those clothes. You’ve been standing around in them for far too long already.”

Dan raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t think this is the best time to proposition me, Phil.”

“You know what I mean. You need to get dry.”

“Fine, fine,” Dan obediently left for his room, but as he walked, he found himself becoming unbearably weary. By the time he was standing in front of his bed, it seemed like the best and only desirable option.

Fully clothed, he fell onto the blankets and into peaceful oblivion.

When he next woke, everything had the jittery, translucent quality of a dream. It took several blinks for the room around him to come into focus; several more for Phil’s face above him.

“Ph…Phil…?”

Oddly, the whisper didn’t seem to reach his own ears. He knew he had said it, was sure he had said it aloud: only it had been swallowed by something like the roaring of the ocean, swallowed up and tossed out to sea.

His confusion lasted only a moment, overwhelmed and overthrown as he registered dimly a prickling somewhere between his eyes. It was muscle memory more than anything else that prompted him to move, burying his face in the blankets.

“hh…hhi’chshh!-chhshu!”

“Bless you.”

Even if he couldn’t hear himself, whatever mysterious force had spirited away his voice was leaving Phil’s well alone. More than that: when he spoke, it seemed to echo, and was all that he could hear.

“-you’ve got a fever, I should have made sure-…”

It suddenly occurred to Dan that he might not have been thinking entirely straight.

“I h…have a fever…?” he questioned faintly.

“Mmhm,” Phil gave a disapproving tutting noise, “I should have made sure you changed, you silly goose. Let’s get you into warm clothes and you can get some more sleep.”

-

“Phil, that’s not fair. You know I get sick when I’m stressed. That had nothing to do with the rain,” Dan protests. He shivers under the blankets all the same, and puts it down to the echoing recollection of the fever.

“I take it by that you want me to give you another example?”

-

“Stop giggling, Phil.”

Phil bit down on his lip in a futile attempt to crush his grin.

“I’m sorry, Dan, it’s just-“

He was off, yet again, one hand partially covering his mouth as he laughed. The sight made Dan both want to join in and gave him a heart-felt desire to slap him.

“Seriously? You’re still laughing about it?”

Finally, Phil sobered up, though he smirked as he directed an appraising look at Dan. His eyes ran over everything from the bits of reed that were tangled in his hair to the tips of his trainers which were a shade too dark where the water had seeped in.

“You’re going to have fun going on the underground like that.”

“What? No, can’t we get a taxi?”

Smiling, Phil performed an exaggerated and theatrical imitation of Dan’s voice from earlier that day: “There’s no point, we already have Oyster cards, we might as well use them, it’s better for the environment, blah blah blah-ow!”

He broke off into laughter again when Dan elbowed him in the ribs none too gently.

“Don’t ‘ow’ me. You deserved it,” Dan said pointedly, and wrapped his arms around himself as he shuddered in the cool spring air. At this, Phil frowned. With careful hands Phil began stripping Dan’s damp jacket away from his shoulders, an air of decisiveness about his squared shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

“You look freezing,” was the simple reply. Phil substituted Dan’s jacket for his own, ignoring his protests.

“Your coat will get wet-“

“I don’t care.”

Admittedly, it was warmer. The fabric was still warm, in places, from where Phil had been wearing it. Unintentionally, Dan found himself retreating into the folds of the coat and pulling the sleeves down over his hands.

“…thank you.”

“Welcome. We’ll get a funny story out of this, at least.”

Dan could practically see the cogs turning in Phil’s mind.

“No. This is not going in a video.”

“But Dan-!”

“No, Phil. Not this, please.”

“Fine, fine. We’ll have to be the only two who remember the time danisnotonfire swan-dived into a lake.”

In spite of himself, Dan laughed, which became caught up and shortened as his breath came in quick, soft, sporadic gasps.

“hh…hhh-hit’shhuu!”

“Bless you-“

Before Phil had the chance to say anything else, Dan interrupted him.

“I am not getting sick.”

-

“Let me guess. I got sick after that too?”

Dan already knows the answer to that question. Again, he feels the reminiscence of a low grade fever and the phantom itch of numerous sneezes.

“You got it.”

“Both of those were coincidences. They don’t prove anything.”

“Would you like me to keep going?” Although Phil’s tone of voice is innocent, his eyes hint at something more mischievous. Dramatically, Dan throws an arm over his eyes.

“Please, no. I don’t think I can cope with any more.”

Phil’s smile becomes a bit softer, then, and more affectionate.

“I’ll have mercy on you just this once.”

“I am eternally grateful,” Dan mumbles sarcastically into his arm.

When, only a few days later, he wakes up shivering and sniffling and coughing, Phil says nothing. All he does say takes the form of questions about what sort of tea Dan wants and whether he should really be trying to edit.

It’s not until the fourth day, when Dan is feeling well enough to smack him with a pillow when he says it, that he finally gets round to it.

“I told you so.”

[Hovercuke]

That was absolutely adorable! You wrote them both well, and I love how it could be interpreted as platonic or romantic, just great story in general!

[Coffee Chicken Barista]

This is the cutest thing! I love it so much!

[HoneyBunny]

This was so cute! I love the way you portrayed their relationship!

(Also, them sneezes. DAAAMN, DANIEL.)