Dan Howell had never thought that doing the things he wanted to do the most in life would be so draining. When he a kid, busy drawing on the corners of every worksheet and turning in papers saddled in doodles, he hadn't expected to one day find himself sitting at a small desk in his cramped dorm room, his eyes accompanied by dark purple bags and his pencil chewed so thoroughly that it was threatening to snap.
With a glance at his obnoxiously bright alarm clock, which revealed that it was already three in the morning, Dan groaned. He tugged viciously at his hair, already extremely ruffled from his previous tugs of frustration. His scalp was sore.
"Think. Think!" he muttered to himself, putting his pencil to the paper and willing it to just make something already. He considered the fact that he might be going crazy. After all, he was talking to himself, although this in itself was actually not so rare an occurrence. And of course, there was the fact, that for once in his life, Dan couldn't seem to make himself draw anything.
Normally, Dan was assigned an art project, and he went with it. He got headaches from how many ideas he had, and felt anxious at how many he had to discard, seeing as he simply couldn't do all of them. Now, he most definitely had a headache. And that was simply because his hands seemed determined to rip the hair out of his fucking head.
"God dammit!" He groaned, his head coming down to thunk on the table, as his breath whooshed out of him in something that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Dan refused to cry. He would not cry over an art project that he simply didn't seem to have any ideas for. Besides, it wasn't like the project was due tomorrow. It was due Friday, and it being Monday instilled more than a small amount of stress and anxiety into Dan. Of course, this was normally not a problem for Dan, getting his artwork done, but for the first time, he had procrastinated the thing he cared the most about.
Usually, Dan got his art done the second he could. He spent any and all free time he had neck-deep in his artwork. His hands were always covered in something, chalk, marker, the ever-frequented graphite pencil. His few friends, or acquaintances, more like, found him crazy for how dedicated to art he was. They simply didn't know what it was like to be doing the thing you loved.
But Dan's hands had never been more clean. There wasn't a spec to be found on them, not even under his fingernails.
Dan pried his head up from the desk, and forced himself to look at the clock. Fifteen minutes had passed. Fifteen more minutes, wasted! All Dan could seem to do lately was sit and sulk and wait and come up with nothing.
Grumbling under his breath, and ignoring how a normal, non sleep-deprived person would probably react to his strange behavior, he stood. Dan was simply sick of sitting here. Sick of waiting and waiting for an idea to come. One that clearly had no intention of coming.
And so he threw himself out the door and into the startlingly dark and quiet hallway, before making his way to the elevator. Because if there was one thing any sleep-deprived college student required on an all-nighter, it was coffee.
—
It was incredibly late when Dan finally arrived at the coffee shop— or more accurately, extremely early. It was a wonder that he'd even managed to find a 24 hour coffee shop, and he pitied the poor soul who'd been stuck with the night shift in the first place.
He was exhausted, and his body begged to have its veins replaced with caffeine. Dan stepped through the door, the shrill dinging of the bell hurting his sleep-deprived head, and took a deep breath. The shop smelled of coffee, unsurprisingly, and he was beginning to feel less tired already.
"Good evening," the guy behind the counter greeted, sipping a coffee himself. Dan didn't blame him, seeing as he wouldn't be able to power through the night without caffeine either.
"Is it?" Dan muttered, nodding a greeting of his own. The guy, who had apparently heard him, laughed and stepped forward from where he was leaning back against the wall.
"What can I get for you?" he asked, his eyes alight and sparkling with something that looked like happiness. Which, of course, it couldn't possibly be, because no one had the capability of feeling happy at this hour.
Inspiration, Dan thought. "Whatever has the most caffeine," he said. The guy immediately set forth to preparing something most certainly unhealthy for Dan's heart in a large cup.
The guy was cute, which was undeniable, but Dan didn't really have the capacity to appreciate it with how tired he was. He just needed to sit in a coffee shop, drink an unhealthy amount of coffee, and make it through the day. And, of course, he needed to finish his dreaded project. The prospect of that happening seemed unlikely though, and his chest clenched with stress and anxiety just thinking about it.
"Here you are," said the cute guy, whose black hair look ruffled, likely from his hand running through it throughout the night. He handed over a large, hot coffee, and Dan thanked him.
Dan slouched his way over to a small booth against the wall, and he pulled out his sketchbook. Surely, inspiration was about to hit him. He was sitting in a coffee shop at nearly four in the morning, with burns from hot coffee on his tongue, and a familiar ache of sleeplessness behind his eyes. He was sure that this was payment enough for whatever bad karma he had somehow earned, and now, surely, inspiration would come.
With nearly half his coffee gone, and his fingers aching from clutching his pencil so hard, Dan gave up. He stopped trying to come up with an idea for his art project, something that was supposed to represent unity, and turned his eyes toward the cute barista.
He was sitting on the counter, the one that was against the back wall and was home to all the coffee makers, with a textbook perched open on one knee. He was holding a pen in his hand, tapping it against his lip as he thought, and occasionally he bent down to write something.
Taking hold of a fleeting sensation which felt oddly like his lost inspiration, Dan yanked a napkin from the napkin holder and twirled his pen between his fingers. It didn't take long before the shape of a person was taking place, one who was sitting cross legged on an invisible surface, a textbook perched on their knee.
"Want more coffee?" said a voice quite suddenly, from directly beside him. Dan spluttered, awkwardly slapping his hand over his doodle and shoving it under his sketchbook, before clearing his throat.
"Sure," he squeaked while avoiding eye contact, his face red with embarrassment.
The cute barista swiftly returned, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He set it in front of Dan, and then indicated the vacant seat in front of him.
"Do you mind?" he asked. Dan stared blankly, confused. "Unless you're busy. Or... expecting someone?"
Realization his Dan like a punch to the gut.
"Oh! No— I, I mean... yeah."
The cute guy, who Dan now wished couldn't see him, laughed. He hadn't seemed to make any more sense of that sentence than Dan had.
"Yes I can sit down or yes you're expecting someone?"
"You can sit," Dan said quickly, and the barista smiled.
"I'm Phil," he introduced, as he slid into the seat across from Dan.
"Dan," Dan replied with a nod.
"So What are you doing here at—" Phil glanced at the time on his phone, "five in the morning?"
Suffering, Dan thought. "Trying to finish my art project," Dan sighed.
"What is it?"
"I don't know yet."
Phil laughed. "How are you supposed to finish something you haven't even started?"
"I'm trying to start it too."
"May I?" Phil asked politely, reaching for Dan's abandoned sketchbook. Dan nodded with a shrug.
Phil flipped open the sketchbook, starting at the beginning, and let out a low whistle. "This is awesome," he said. He continued to flip through the sketchbook, a mixture of drawings that Dan had actually tried on, half-hearted doodles, and unfinished and abandoned projects.
"You're a really good artist," Phil said, and Dan flushed.
"It won't matter if I can't come up with an idea for this project," Dan complained, and then realized he was complaining, which embarrassed him more.
"You'll get it," Phil promised, and for some reason, be it the twinkling in his eyes or the trustworthy smile on his face, Dan believed him.
It was as Dan was walking back into his dorm, trying not to wake anyone else on his hall, that he realized he'd forgotten the doodle he'd done of Phil on the table. He'd taken his sketchbook, which had been covering the drawing, but forgot to throw away the napkin. Blushing at the fact that the near-stranger had most likely seen it, and most probably felt creeped out at the fact that Dan had drawn him, Dan collapsed onto his bed. Determinedly, Dan pushed the embarrassment out of his mind. It wasn't like he was likely to ever see Phil again anyway.
—
The next night, when Dan found himself drowning in horrible ideas with crumpled papers surrounding him, his hair once again resembling a bird's nest, he barely had to think about it before he was slinking out of his dorm and past the closed doors of everyone who knew how to fall asleep at a sensible time. His thoughts were filled with the smell of coffee and a blue eyed boy who'd listened to some broke, tired art student complain about his problems.
When Dan arrived at the coffee shop, he briefly stopped to wonder if Phil would even be there, or if it would be someone else's shift tonight. He half-heartedly hoped that it would be someone else, so he wouldn't have to face the fact that he'd drawn the cute barista in a moment of boredom. The jingling of a bell and an anxious glance to the counter revealed a familiar kind face, which glanced up when the door opened.
"You again?" Phil said with a smile, and Dan smiled tentatively back in response. He was half embarrassed that it was Phil who was here, and half glad. Perhaps more than half.
"Couldn't stay away."
"And you can't stay awake either, without coffee, I presume?" Phil joked, already preparing a cup.
"You know me so well."
Phil cut to the chase this time, bringing Dan his coffee and sitting with him immediately. Dan sipped the drink gratefully, though he nearly spit it out as Phil spoke.
"Are you gonna draw me again?"
"W-What?" Dan responded, feeling the blush spread across his face, from the tips of his ears to the roots of his hair.
"I could be your muse," Phil said dramatically, whipping his head to the side and pursing his lips. Dan laughed nervously.
"I was just doodling..."
"It was a very good doodle," Phil said seriously.
"Narcissist," Dan quipped. Phil rolled his eyes.
"Have you thought of what to do for your project yet?"
Dan huffed out a breath. Way to suck the fun out of any conversation: mention school work. "No," he sighed.
"Maybe you should doodle then? See if anything comes to you?" Phil suggested.
And that's how, at six in the morning, Dan found himself surrounded by napkins, all depicting a different form of the man in front of him. There was a napkin with a picture of Phil's left hand, and a napkin of Phil's ear, and a napkin of Phil drinking coffee. Not to mention the napkin of Phil's eyes, which Dan had spent the longest on, trying to make them perfect.
Dan still had no ideas for his art project, but he had a new friend, one who was enthusiastic and encouraging and appreciative of Dan's art. And as Dan finally left the coffee shop to get ready for the day, he watched as Phil gathered all the napkins carefully, stacking them on top of each other.
—
"I'm starting to wonder if you're coming for the coffee or my charming self," Phil announced as Dan took a step through the door.
"The fact that you make good coffee is only a bonus," Dan replied, taking pride in the faint blush that appears on Phil's cheeks.
Phil doesn't even ask before preparing coffee once again. He doesn't ask Dan if he has any ideas for his project either, just let's Dan draw him without question. And though the anxiety and stress locked away in his chest builds, because he knew he was ignoring his responsibilities to draw a cute boy, he convinces himself to ignore it. Because for some reason he thinks everything will turn out okay.
—
"You're back," Phil said as Dan stumbled into the small coffee shop for the fourth night in a row.
"Yeah," Dan agreed absently, and then he leaned against the counter and threw his head in his hands. "I'm gonna fail," he groaned.
Phil nudged his arm with a cup of coffee, and Dan took it gratefully, and didn't even question the fact that Phil was always abandoning his job, his station behind the counter, for him. Although it wasn't like anyone else had come into the coffee shop the previous nights.
"No you're not," Phil said patiently, but Dan just shook his head at him.
"It's due tomorrow and I've done nothing. I'm gonna fail."
"You're a great artist," Phil starts, and Dan opens his mouth to interrupt, but Phil keeps speaking. "And you haven't done nothing. You've done lots of things."
"What are you talking about?"
Phil smiles and grabs his arm, and Dan tries to ignore the tingles shooting through his body from that point because he needs to concentrate and he's going to fail. But then they're standing next to their table, the one they've been sitting at the past few days, and it's covered in napkins. They're overlapping and intertwining and it looks amazing, Dan just can't figure out what it is.
"Wha—" he starts, but Phil's already speaking.
"It's all your doodles," he explains. "I glued them together— put them on a poster-board too, but you did all the work, really."
Dan took a step closer, and from here he can make out all the individual doodles, Phil's face and body, his legs and hands and torso and all the little parts and pictures of him that Dan drew.
"It represents unity, see? Together they form one big piece of art, even though alone they're just doodles. Good ones, at that."
Dan turned around abruptly, overcome with thankfulness and appreciation for this barista, this cute boy who was willing to listen to Dan complain and willing to let Dan draw him and willing to help Dan. And he strode forwards and gripped Phil's arm with one hand, before the other flew up and attached itself to Phil's jaw.
"Thank you," Dan whispered, and then he leaned forward, pressed his lips against Phil's, felt Phil's surprised gasp directly against his mouth.
Phil kissed him back, and he hugged Dan to him, pressed their bodies together as they panted into each other's mouths.
In that moment Dan knew only one thing, and it was that he had to find an application. Because he had to apply, had to work at the coffee shop with Phil, had to spend his every night tired but happy and with the cute barista, both of them with coffees in their hands.