THE SKI FIC
Author's note: This is based on a thing that actually happened to me and a few of my friends, so I have turned it into a fanfiction. It only took six months, give or take. I hope you enjoy. Ending is super fluffy and cheesy and I am not ashamed.
I have no idea if Dan and Phil can ski, skate, or survive any kind of winter sport. If you know that they posses wintery athletic prowess, shoot me a friendly comment or message. Leave comments please, they make me feel loved and willing to write things.
"Phil, remind me to never listen to you again," Dan griped. His dark-haired friend grinned at him, unfazed.
"Come on Dan, I'm rubbish at it too. That doesn't mean it won't be fun." Phil shot him a smile, made more prominent by his bright orange ski goggles and sapphire blue neck band that hid most of his chin.
"At least you've done it before," was all Dan had to add.
The two boys were on holiday in America, and Phil had suggested to Dan that they go skiing. Of course, Phil assured him that he would be just as bad as Dan at it, but his parents had taken him skiing before. Dan's vacations had been more tropical, as his past bout with sunstroke could indicate.
They had stood in a queue for a half hour to get ski passes, only to wait in another queue to actually acquire skis. Dan reasoned that he might be able to survive the ordeal using the poles, but an attendant told him they were more often for the older guests, and that he would be fine on without them.
Now, Dan had the bloody skis strapped on, after only needing a little help from Phil. He slid them back and forth in an effort to make a walking motion towards the bunny slope. He barely moved, and he could hear Phil's giggles. (No matter how much the older boy protested, they were giggles. Their shared fans could confirm it.)
"It isn't easy, Phil."
"Remember, pizza to stop, French fries to go."
"Great, now I'm hungry and doomed."
"Just pretend you're a duck with really big feet. Lift them and waddle."
Dan tried to imagine the skis as extensions of his feet. He let out a sigh, before lifting one slightly, extending it forward. Too much weight went on his back ski, and before he knew it, he was on his butt in the snow.
"You definitely are not on fire, Dan."
"Thank you, Phil," Dan replied sarcastically. "Now help me up."
With a hand on the railing of the lodge's deck, Phil managed to pull Dan up without toppling over himself.
S
Dan's first attempt at the bunny slope went well…he only fell once, at the top, sliding the rest of the way down on his butt. Phil made a soft pssh in the snow beside him as he stopped.
"We'll go on the ski lift and try again," Phil said encouragingly.
Thankfully, Dan could handle sitting down, even if the chair was moving. His avoidance of exercise came in handy for once. The ride was too short.
After several attempts, Dan finally managed to remain standing for the whole slope. He even came to a stop before the ski lift, which earned cheers for him from Phil. He smiled gratefully.
"Now we can go on something bigger," Phil said, excited.
"Bigger?"
Dan suddenly missed the bunny slope, even if it was full of toddler-shaped obstacles.
S
I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna DIE!-Oh thank God it's the lift.
Dan breathed a sigh of relief as he sat in the chair.
"That was a great run, Dan! I think you've got the hang of it."
"Yeah, all four limbs accounted for," Dan said, watching as the top of the hill came closer. Phil watched his friend, following his dread-filled gaze.
"It's getting colder out, so I was thinking of heading into the lodge to eat, if that's alright with you?" Phil gave him a knowing look.
Dan smiled, sure he was making his 'heart eyes Howell face' (Yes, he was familiar with the term. He was the king of memes, after all.), but not caring in the slightest. He nodded earnestly before adjusting his beanie.
S
"What can I get you, gentlemen?" The chipper waitress asked, dark hair pulled up in an elegant bun.
"I'll have a hot chocolate, and the daily special, please, miss," Phil added. The waitress dutifully wrote it down. Then she turned her dimpled smile towards Dan.
"And for you, dear?"
"I'll have the grilled chicken, and three hot chocolates please."
"Alright, I'll have that out as soon as I can," she said, and she hurried off to the kitchen, almost skipping.
"She seems nice," Phil said conversationally.
"Maybe she came from the Phil Lester planet of sunshine."
Phil laughed at his friend's joke.
"Yeah, maybe," and Phil smiled brightly at Dan.
They talked amicably for a few minutes, eventually getting into a debate over what their next anime binge should be. Phil was trying to convince Dan that they should at least give Sword Art Online 2 a chance, while the younger boy talked about how it would be more fun to rewatch Attack on Titan.
"Well, we brought them both," Dan said just as the waitress returned.
"I have four hot chocolates," she said, distributing them appropriately.
"And the special, and the grilled chicken."
"Thank you," the two boys chorused.
"No problem, gentlemen. You two enjoy your Valentine's Day." She left with a wink.
Valentine's Day? Dan thought. How can it be Valentine's Day?
He glanced around. Indeed, the restaurant was tastefully decorated with darkly hued roses, and the tables glowed with candles. Dan took a moment to assess his situation.
He was at a ski lodge, in a dimly lit restaurant, having a romantic dinner with his best friend Phil. Weren't these kinds of places just the perfect setting for a cliché romantic comedy?
Dan would have taken the time to worry some more, if the smell coming from his food hadn't been so enticing. He soon found out that his hot chocolate alone was orgasmic, and he was halfway through the second cup before he even touched his food. He glanced up to find Phil giving him a bemused look.
"That good, huh?"
"It's fantastic."
"I'm glad you like it." Phil beamed before returning to his own food.
Soon, Dan was full, happy, and sleepy. Phil's eyes were drooping too. After paying the bill and tipping the waitress, they made their way to the front of the lodge and called a cab.
At their rented house, Dan immediately shed his snow pants and heavy coat to flop on the couch in front of the fire place. Phil put in a movie and relaxed beside him. Dan gave up watching it after a few minutes, opting to give in to the temptation of a nap.
S
"Dan, Dan, wake up," Phil said, shaking him gently, the eagerness apparent in his voice.
"Whaisit?"
"It's time to go ice skating! It's late, so the rink is empty. Come on!"
"Phil, you go," Da mumbled. " 'm still sleepy."
"Daaaaaaaaan," Phil whined. Dan told himself he wouldn't open his eyes. If he did, he old have to face Phil's big blue puppy-dog eyes, and he knew he'd lose.
"Please?"
And Dan caved, opening just one eye, then the other. There they were. His favorite pair of eyes. (What, Phil was his best friend. Of course he'd like his eyes.)
"Fine," Dan muttered, and Phil cheered.
Phil instructed Dan to grab his hat and gloves, but to forgo the heavy ski jacket for a slightly (only slightly) lighter one. Dan wore long underwear under his skinny jeans and regretted his life choices.
Phil bounced into the cab, wearing the winter hat he often used in his videos. The purple really brought out his eyes, which were a stark contrast to his pale face, as usual.
Dan looked warily at the sky as he climbed in after Phil. Dark grey clouds were piling together in the distance.. He started to doodle the clouds in the fog of the cab window. The ride didn't last long enough for Phil to notice his less than cheery art, but he added an ice skate to the frowning cloud drawing anyway.
S
"You can tie skates, too?" Dan questioned Phil. Phil nodded, still concentrated on curving the laces tightly around the hooks.
"Martin showed me," was all he added. Dan hummed in response.
Once both boys had their skates on properly, they (regretfully, on Dan's part) exited the sheltered fire pit next to the skate rental area for the small outdoor rink. Phil went out first, gliding with only some effort on his part, staring up at the massive amount of stars beaming down. He turned his wonder-filled grin on Dan, who felt his heart give a hard thump in his chest.
Gripping the wall tightly, Dan managed to pull himself halfway around the rink. Phil skated beside him, wobbling and catching the wall every few minutes.
"Daaan, skate with me."
"I am." He huffed, focused on keeping his balance.
"Let go of the wall," Phil continued to pester him.
"I can't skate without the wall, Phil. I'll fall."
Phil stopped, thinking. Then, he tried to snap his fingers as an idea came to him, but the action was rendered useless by his gloves. He resisted the urge to pout, instead turning his wide eyes on his best friend.
"Let go of the wall and I can pull you!" Phil made a grabby motion with his hands. Dan pulled his hands towards his chest, palms out.
"No way. We'll both fall, you spoon."
"Please?"
Dan sighed inwardly. He needed to work on resisting Phil's charms (and who was he kidding? He had never been able to resist Phil).
Dan, wincing in anticipation of their impact on the unforgiving ice surface, let Phil take his hands in his. (Platonically, of course.)
Dan and Phil locked eyes as Phil began to skate backwards, pulling Dan along as well. Dan's grin soon matched Phil's, and Phil took secret pleasure at having made his friend smile so earnestly. He could even see the dimple on Dan's cheek, and he felt his face softening with affection.
While Phil stared unabashedly, Dan scrunched his nose, feeling a sudden wetness there. His gaze drawn upward, he soon found himself blinking snowflakes out of his eyes. He laughed, letting go of one of Phil's hands to try to catch some of the fat flakes. Phil watched the snow fall around them onto the otherwise empty rink.
He slipped his other hand from Dan's grasp, allowing the other boy to skate around on his own to chase the snowflakes. By the time Dan realized Phil was gone, he was more amazed than angry.
"Phil!" Dan shouted, a rare amount of youthful joy in his voice. He started to laugh, so Phil joined in.
"Dan?" Phil asked, bemused.
"It's snowing!"
"Yes, yes it is." Phil said, feigning nonchalance. Dan blew a raspberry at him, causing Phil to giggle.
"We should take a picture," Phil called back, and Dan nodded. Phil skated over to Dan and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He fumbled a bit with the phone bouncing between his hands. Dan's face formed a horrified expression before Phil found a grip on the phone. The ebony-haired boy bit the finger of his glove, yanked it off, and stuffed it quickly into a pocket.
Then he held the phone up, drawing Dan closer by the waist to take the photo. Both boys smiled up at the camera, huddled close for comfort as well as warmth as the snow drifted down around them.
It was only a little spoiled when Phil, in trying to free his glove from his coat pocket, elbowed Dan in the ribs. Dan grabbed wildly, grasping Phil, and both boys tumbled onto the ice, which was, thankfully, blanketed in snow.
"I knew you would knock us over, you spoon!"
"It's not my fault, Dan, my hand was freezing, so it needed the glove back, but it was too frozen to move properly and we fell."
"You make it sound like it has a mind of its own. This isn't your fanfic, Philly," Dan mocked, but only half-heartedly. Phil managed to stand up first, and he offered a hand to Dan before pulling the younger up.
They met there on the ice, chest to chest, as the wind picked up and started blowing their fringe to and fro. Dan's beanie had come off in the fall, and Phil brushed the hair from his friend's face on instinct. Dan looked at him with wide eyes. Phil held his stare, hands still gripped together between them, frosty breaths mingling in the air. Phil reached forward, just thinking about how warm Dan seemed, his breath, his skin, his eyes-
Phil startled as he heard his phone blare. He fumbled with it as he heard Dan skate a little distance away. SEVERE WEATHER WARNING, the screen announced.
Dan collected his hat from the ice surface, noticing that what was once clear was now coated in almost an inch of snow. Phil and I haven't been here that long, he thought. He started to panic when Phil skated over to display his phone warning.
"We'll just head back early, Dan. It'll be okay," Phil assured him. "I'll call the cab."
S
Dan handed in their skates at the rental counter, thanking the employee. He plunged his feet into his snow boots, desperate to get some feeling back in his toes. Phil was pacing and gesturing as he talked with the cabbie. Dan sat by the fire and fidgeted nervously.
Phil soon hung up and came to sit close to his side. He stuck out his hands towards the fire before speaking.
"The snow's getting pretty bad, but he said he'd try and come get us as soon as possible. He asked us to wait near where he dropped us off, so," he turned to face Dan. "We kinda…have to wait out here."
"Oh…Alright, I suppose."
"Sorry. I planned the worst holiday ever."
"No," Dan started, softly. "It was nice." Phil rolled his eyes.
"You hated skiing, I knocked you over ice skating, and, to top it off, I got us stuck in a snowstorm." Phil chuckled darkly, and Dan felt his a weight lower itself into his chest.
"The restaurant wasn't awful," Dan joked. "I'm always happy when food is involved.
"Plus," Dan continued, peeking at Phil, "the ice skating was pretty great before you reclaimed your title as clumsiest human on Earth." Phil smiled the tiniest bit.
"Yeah?"
"Yes, Phil. And skiing wasn't so bad, even though you completely neglected to describe your superior skill level."
"I've only been a few times! Like, twice, maybe," Phil said indignantly, but his smile was broader now.
"Still more times than I've done it!" Dan shouted back, laughing.
"Well, my punishment from the universe for neglecting to brag about my nonexistent skiing prowess is freezing to death in a snow storm, so you win."
"I'll freeze, too, so there's no winner. Idiot," Dan nudged Phil's shoulder. Phil pushed him back, lightly. This caused them to be closer together on the bench, but neither seemed to mind. Dan leaned further into Phil.
"Besides, it's not so bad right now. The snow's lovely, there's a fire, and," Dan allowed a short pause before he continued despite his fear, "I'm here with you."
He and Phil stared into the fire for a while after that. Eventually, Phil turned to watch the snow fall. Lying back against the wall, he pulled Dan against his chest. The taller boy let out an irk of protest, but didn't attempt to pull away.
They watched the snow flakes build into a formidable flurry. Dan snuggled against Phil's coat, and Phil tightened his arms around Dan's chest. He nuzzled his face into the soft black of his friend's beanie.
"What are you doing," Dan asked, but it was too gentle to sound bothered.
"Warming my nose," Phil lied. His skin was already flushed from the cold, but he knew a blush would've lit up his fair skin otherwise.
"Well, stop stealing my warmth. My nose is cold too, but you don't see me siphoning your warmth," Dan griped.
"Here," Phil said, moving his hand to turn Dan's face toward his. "I can warm our noses up."
"Uh, Phil, I –uh," Dan stammered, before Phil closed his eyes-
And began to rub his nose back and forth against Dan's.
"What. Are. You. Doing."
"Eskimo nose heating technique!" Phil exclaimed, beaming. Dan didn't know whether to feel mortified or amused, so he went with the latter.
"That's not what it's called," he said, laughing. Phil pulled back, looking hurt.
"How do you know," he challenged.
"It's called an Eskimo kiss, you dork. Honestly."
"We could do that instead."
"What?"
"It keeps you warm and burns calories. Did you know that other animals have forms of kissing as well?" Phil was babbling and he knew it because he had just suggested that they kiss. His internal monologue began to panic.
"Are you suggesting that we-"
"Not if you don't want to-"
"Well, if it were a choice between that and freezing to death, I mean-"
"So, for our health-"
"We probably should, yeah." Dan stopped, meeting Phil's eyes. His neck was craned at an unnatural angle, his butt was freezing, and he probably had horrible hobbit hair. And he was about to kiss thee boy he that he loved and had loved in one form or another for years.
He pulled himself from Phil's grasp, filing away the other boy's whine at the loss of contact to analyze later, and positioned himself next to Phil on the steel bench. Phil's blue eyes looked almost grey in the firelight, and he watched them grow closer until he had to close his own to keep from going cross-eyed.
S
Dan had kissed people, as well as been kissed by people, before. He remembered it being awkward and oddly mechanical at first. Eventually, he had grown more skilled at the activity, and with his skill grew his fondness for it.
Now, he was drawn back to Phil's telling of his first kiss, where he had misjudged just how much of his tongue should be involved.
That wasn't to be a problem, Dan learned. Phil delicately pressed his lips to his before allowing them to flutter lightly. Dan was awed by the gentleness that was so utterly Phil.
As soon as it started, it seemed, it was over. Dan felt Phil ease away and he blinked his eyes open almost blearily. Phil gazed at him, uncertainty written all over his face.
"Was that," he hesitated. "Was that alright?"
Dan nodded before adding a, "God, yes," as well as a breathy "Phil," and that was all it took to send the older boy towards him again. He held Dan's shoulders as he kissed him, pleading with him to come closer. He enticed him by tracing his tongue along Dan's lip, drawing a high-pitched croon out of the other boy.
Dan tried to stay composed but it was Phil, his best friend, the man who had seen him at his worst and stayed by him anyway. In light of this, he decided he cared naught for composure and embraced the horrifically embarrassing (to him, anyway. Phil was reveling in every. Single. Noise.) sounds being drawn lovingly out of him.
Phil gently nibbled his lower lip before moving to kiss up along Dan's neck teasingly.
"So, what happens," kiss, "to anyone," kiss, "who touches," kiss, "your neck," kiss, "again?" Phil was breathless and cheeky and Dan wished that he didn't love it as much as he did.
"Arse," Dan breathed, placing his hands on either side of Phil's face and drawing him back up into a kiss.
Dan sucked on Phil's bottom lip, drawing it into his mouth gently and allowing his tongue to trace it. This form of vengeance elicited a gasp from Phil and Dan vowed at that point to do that continuously, forever, until one or the both of them died.
It was at that moment that a honk shattered the calm of the snowy night. Phil saw the headlights of their cab fighting beaming through the snow towards them.
He stood up, wobbling from the cold as well as his recent activities with Dan. He offered Dan a hand up, like he had so many times that day (Dan really had been a horrid skier), but this time he kept his hand in Dan's.
Dan smiled as Phil interlaced their fingers, and Dan tugged him towards the cab happily. He was already grinning at the thought of cuddling on the couch with Phil.
Phil smiled back at Dan, bewildered, as he was tugged into the backseat so that he fell against the black-clad boy. They giggled all the way back to the house.
Phil opened the car door with a flourish, and they both toppled out into the snow, where Phil insisted that they make snow angels before going inside. They made them side by side, gazing back and forth between each other and what few stars showed from between the heavy clouds.
Dan made them stay out even longer when he robbed Phil of his hat and ran around the yard. The chase ended with Dan's hands happily fisted in Phil's dark locks. He marveled at the softness.
By the time they had pulled apart, they were wet, freezing, and both without their hats. Phil held Dan's up triumphantly, and Dan scooped Phil's from a snowbank.
Dan insisted on a picture this time, at the brink of being too cold to stay out any longer. He wanted to have the memory of the snowflakes trapped in Phil's hair forever.
Finally they took turns dragging the other inside, where they would change out of their damp clothes into their pajamas, curl up next to their fireplace, and fall asleep in each other's arms, feeling the warmth of the flames and their love.