Chapter Text
1st December
Dan was sat in his office, massive headphones clamped over his ears. He was trying to edit a video, but his phone buzzing from Twitter notifications was slowing him down. Though not as much as that obnoxious banging sound! He didn't know what Phil was up to but this was almost as bad as the constant drilling in their old flat.
Ignore it. He thought. Just ignore it. Dan really needed to get this video finished and he couldn't afford Phil's antics. But of course that wouldn't last long.
THUNK! Dan took off his headphones in alarm, just in time to hear, "Ouch!" Phil's shout sounded less pained and more frustrated.
Dan rolled his eyes and closed down his computer. "Phil," he called into the hall, "where are you and why are destroying the flat?"
He found Phil on the floor in the lounge, surrounded by bags and boxes that appeared to have been run over by a truck... Or most likely dropped down stairs once or seven times after being pulled out of too small of cabinets. He rubbed his arm where a bruise was already starting to form on his porcelain skin.
Dan tried to use all his spacial skills looking at the scene in front of him to discover how the hell Phil managed to get a bruise on his arm of all places and why that landed him on the floor. He decided satisfying his curiosity about his friend's clumsiness wasn't worth the time or headache. "I know it's cold in here but turning up the heat works better than a box blanket."
"Ha ha," Phil grumbled from the floor. "Well now that you're not editing, maybe you'd like to lend a hand." He opened the nearest box and pulled out a medal rod with dark green plastic needles. "We brought the tree over from the old flat but I can't find more than one box of ornaments. And," he motioned to the bags to his left, "half of our decorations are missing." The sad puppy look Phil managed to pull out whenever he wanted something appeared on his face. Dan was still exasperated but his annoyance melted away. He could never stay mad with a sad Phil.
Dan kneeled down and started shifting through the various containers, taking inventory. He wasn't sure why Phil was so worried about the decorations when the solution seemed simple enough to him. "So let's go buy more. The old ones wouldn't all work in this place anyway."
It took Dan about six seconds to realise he'd been played. Phil shot up, boxes falling to the floor, and exclaimed, "Great idea! I've been looking at what we have all afternoon." He started walking out of the room leaving Dan no choice but to follow. "It shouldn't take us more than a few hours to get everything we need."
Dan was stood in the hall, frozen until that sunk in. "You want to go now?"
In response, Phil tossed Dan's coat at him and slipped his own on as he walked out the door. Dan scrambled to get ready to go out into the cold and made sure he had everything he needed for spontaneous shopping.
Phil dragged Dan all around London looking at various stores and even little tourist shops for decorations. Dan kept a stubborn frown on his face in the Tube but he couldn't help but crack a smile whenever Phil's face lit up more than the Christmas lights was they walked into a likely shop.
"Look! Look! Look!" Phil ran over to a display of a snowy wonderland around a window. "Dan, we need this!"
Dan fought to keep his expression in check. "We don't even have a window this big," he pointed out, trying to sound annoyed but also reasonable so as not to hurt Phil's feelings.
"No, look!" Phil grasped Dan's hand and pulled him up to the display.
Dan was looking at his fingers intertwined with Phil's, stunned that they were holding hands at all let alone in public. His first thought was that it felt nice, it was cold outside but somehow Phil's hand felt warm in his. It looked nice too, Dan only a few shades darker since he hasn't gotten much sun this past year. But the warm thoughts didn't last long before the panic set in. His heart was racing, unsure whether to pull away or gently let go, or just stay linked like this with his friend for the rest of their shopping.
He was spared from making the decision when suddenly Phil dropped his hand to point at a snowflake on the window. When he glanced up he was shocked to see Phil looking at him expectantly. After a few seconds of awkward eye contact Phil stuck out his lower lip and dropped his eyes. "You think it's stupid."
"No, wh-, I, er," Dan struggled to respond, surprised by the hurt in Phil's voice and knowing that he must have missed something. Phil looked back up at him, waiting. Dan gave himself a little shake. I'm a twenty six year old man, I should not lose my head because someone held my hand! But he had, and now he had to gloss over it with Phil. He shrugged and sighed, "I didn't hear what you said when you brought me over here. Sorry. Lost in my head," he added by way of explanation.
"Oh," a confused look landed on Phil's face but the hurt went away. He studied Dan for a moment, wondering whether or not he should be worried, but decided to let it go. "I was just saying that it's not the whole display for sale. You buy each item and build you own at home." He motioned to the snowflake again. "I think those would be really nice in the background of the gaming videos. And the stick on frost along the edges would be so much easier to decorate the windows than trying to spray fake snow like last time."
Dan gave his approval immediately, showing far more excitement at the prospect of frost window stickers than made sense to Phil but he went with it. Both boys picked apart the display and dug in the bins around it for what they thought they could use. They filled up far more of the trolley than was wise for their first stop, but both were trying to smooth over the awkwardness by being overinterested in winter scenes.
Weighed down with an embarrassingly large quantity of snow flakes, icicles, window frost, and cotton snow when they finished in that shop, they decided to make one more stop for lights and then for a few more ornaments.
It took walking a few streets to find a good place for lights. They needed another strand of lights for the tree and Dan wanted fairy lights for the backgrounds of all their filming spots.
They found a net of lights that would perfectly wrap around their tree, saving them the trouble of winding strings around and untangling them when they inevitably mess up. Yet after several aisles they still couldn't settle on good lights for backgrounds. All the options just seemed wrong somehow.
"How about these ones!" Phil seemed entranced by baby blue and white frosted lights that twinkled on and off at four different speeds.
For the first time today Dan allowed himself to laugh. Phil was just too cute hypnotised by the lights. "You sure they won't distract you from filming?" He joked.
Phil brushed his concerns aside, pulling out several bundles of them from the shelf. "They'll be in the background. Besides, the viewers will love them."
Dan relieved him of a his bags from the other shop so he could hold all the strands without breaking anything. Peering back into the bags of decorations he added, "Good call, Phil. Those lights will go better with the snow ascetic we seem to be building than anything else here." Then he proceeded to roll his eyes as Phil looked overly pleased with himself.
When they went to leave, Phil winced and tried to hide the price from Dan but wasn't fast enough. "Ouch," Dan cringed as well, pulling out his card to pay.
"No no no," Phil reached for his own, "I picked the fancy lights, I'll pay."
Dan inserted his card and picked up the pen to sign. "Not a chance. I'm the one who wanted lights for all the rooms."
Phil grumbled but couldn't stop Dan at that point. He made himself a mental note to buy Dan another Christmas present to make up for it.
When they made it out onto the streets again night had fallen. They had to stop by a bench at a bus stop to rearrange the bags. Somehow they had thirteen between them...
Dan rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the headache coming on. "Aaand we still need ornaments," he lamented, putting four bags on each arm and leaving the rest for Phil. He shrugged his shoulders under the weight and sighed as he looked up and down the street for a place.
A flush of guilt crept up Phil's neck when he saw how tired Dan looked and remembered that he hasn't exactly volunteered to come out today and was probably planning to spend it snug in his office. "Actually," he started, "we don't really need any more ornaments."
"You said you only found one box of them for the tree."
Phil shifted uncomfortably, "Yeah, well, it was a big box..." sigh "We have plenty for the tree."
Dan was so relieved that they could go home that he didn't even bother to be annoyed. He set the bags back down and reached waited as Phil got them a taxi; there was no way they were taking the Tube with all this.
Back in the flat, they deposited their new purchases next to the old ones. It went without saying that the actual decorating would have to wait until tomorrow.
Dan reached his arms up towards the ceiling, closing his eyes and stretching his back out. He eyes flew open when he felt Phil wrap him in a hug bent to lay his head against Dan's chest. "Go relax in the lounge," he ordered as he drew away, "I'm going to order pizza for us."
Dan smiled, doing as Phil said without resistance. "Thank you," he mumbled when Phil set the pizza in front of them and handed Dan a few pills for his headache. Not the way he expected his day to go, but he guessed ending the day with a happy flatmate and a belly full of pizza was a pretty good change of plans.