Work Text:
The ringing of Dan's phone punctured both the silence of their bedroom and the restful sleep Dan had been enjoying. As soon as he was awake enough to register what had woken him, his hand shot over to grab his phone from the bedside table. He knew that ringtone; that was Kate's ringtone. He hit 'accept'.
"Katie? Honey?" He answered, looking over at the clock to see that it was quarter to four in the morning. That was never a good time to be getting a call from anyone, but it was an even worse time to get a call from his sixteen year old daughter.
"Bear? Hey. I'm- okay before I start, please don't be mad at me." Kate was supposed to be at Ty's overnight with some friends. Considering her panicked tone and the faint sound of pulsing music that Dan could make out, he assumed that wasn’t the case anymore.
"I'm not mad.” He promised. It was hard to be mad at her when she sounded terrified, and a little drunk. “What's wrong?" Kate took a deep breath before launching into a slightly slurred explanation.
"Well, okay so we… Ty’s friend texted and we wound up at this party. Ty's fine and so are Riley and James but Daphne and me we're... Really weirded out and someone's got ecstasy and we didn’t take any but... I just wanna come home. I wanna come home." Dan was aching from the fear in his daughter’s voice by the time she’d finished explaining, and it didn’t help that he was sure he could hear her crying. He pressed the heel of his free hand into his eyes, forcing himself to wake up before climbing out of the bed.
"Of course, baby girl. It's okay. I'll come get you.” He looked down at his sleeping husband, deciding not to wake him. Phil would only get worried and protective and a little mad, and someone would have to stay here with Jack and Em anyway. They could talk about it in the morning. The girls were shaken and didn’t need disciplining yet, and Phil didn't need to stress out over this. He was such a soft touch, and he knew it. That was no doubt why Kate had called him and not Phil. “I’ll take it Daphne is going to stay over here then?" he asked as he quietly opened their bedroom door.
"If that's cool?" He could hear his daughter’s guilt in her tone. He wished he could say ‘of course I’m just glad you trust me and that you’ll be safe and that you haven’t actually taken drugs’ without undermining whatever disciplining he and Phil would have to dole out tomorrow.
"I'd rather that than she stayed where she doesn't feel safe." He said evenly. That was reasonable, right? Thirteen years at it and he still wasn’t confident that he actually knew how to parent.
"Thank you." Kate told him sincerely. He’d reached the bottom of the stairs and was fishing his car keys out of the bowl near the landline phone.
"We do need to talk about this tomorrow." He informed her, trying to thread a little authority into his tone. He doubted he succeeded.
"I know." She answered. He snuck into the garage, praying that the sound of the roller door wouldn’t wake any of the rest of the family. No guarantees there.
"But I'm coming now, okay? Where are you?"
"I don't know the exact address but we're on Ramsay Court. Which is really close to Ty's. The house has a weird green fence?" He climbed into the driver’s seat of his car.
"Okay honey. I'll be there in about twenty minutes. Hopefully less. But I dunno. I'll call you."
"Love you." She said weakly. He smiled a little to himself.
"Love you too."
***
As he drove, he thought back to when Kate had left that evening.
He'd been cooking dinner, and Phil had been at the table with Emily helping her with homework when Katie had appeared in the living room with her bag on her shoulder.
"Ty's dad's nearly here. I'm heading out." she said with a grin. "How do I look?"
"You need to twirl so I can get the full picture!" Dan demanded. When his daughter spun, her skirt and her curly ponytail swished about. He was biased, he knew that, but to him Katie always looked like a princess. "Fantastic. 10 out of 10."
"Dad?" She enquired. Phil had looked up from the homework to watch Kate twirl as well.
"I love that skirt, Kate. You look lovely." Phil offered her his best smile, and Dan remembers still thinking that smile was like sunshine.
"You look really pretty Kat!" Emily had added in, before tapping something into her calculator.
"Thanks, family. You're great." Kate had responded, picking up her bag. "Ty texted, they're out the front."
"Well! Make sure you do some hard drugs and make terrible life choices. Y'know, gotta live up to the family name." Dan teased, pointing his wooden spoon at her in mock accusation. He looked at Phil, and saw, as predicted, a look of exaggerated horror on his face.
"No! Don't encourage that! Eat a carrot, pet the family dog. Maybe water a plant." He corrected. Emily was giggling beside him.
"Stellar parenting, Phil." Dan told him. Phil offered him a small smirk, before addressing both of their daughters.
"Never listen to your Bear's advice, girls. He's the worst person."
"I'd never listen to Bear's advice, Dad. Don't you worry." Emily pecked his cheek and headed for the door. "Bye everyone! Tell Jack I said bye when he gets home!"
He wondered if he would have made the same joke if he'd known there was any actual risk of Kate being around drugs. It suddenly did feel like terrible parenting. He gripped the steering wheel harder.
He was just over half-way to Ramsay Court when he felt his phone ringing in the pocket of his pyjama pants. Phil’s ringtone. He wasn't desperate to have this conversation, but he pulled his phone out anyway. Considering there was no-one else on the road, it felt relatively safe to drive as he talked.
“Hey.”
“Where the hell did you go? It’s nearly four.” Phil’s voice was gravelly and sleepy and deep, and God, he’d been with this man for twenty-five years and that voice still got him.
“I’ve got to pick up Kate and Daphne. They got themselves into a… a pickle. Shall we say.” Phil groaned. Dan could easily picture him burying himself in his pillow again. He grinned a little at the image.
“What does that even mean, Dan?” his husband mumbled, though it sounded a little more like ‘whaztha even min, da?’.
“There was drugs, they don’t feel safe where they are. We can talk about it in the morning, I’ve got this.”
“Okay, fine. That’s fine.” Phil sounded clipped, more awake, even a little sad. Dan knew why. Times like this, Phil remembered and resented the fact that his daughter seemed to see him as the bad cop. Dan felt guilty for that. If he was better at discipline, maybe Phil wouldn’t have to fill the gaps he left.
“Go back to sleep, love. I’ll see you in the morning.” Phil muttered a ‘goodnight, Bear’ before hanging up. Dan bit his lip, knowing this didn’t bode well for anyone in the morning. Fine, whatever. At least Kate would be safe and at home as they argued with her and with each other.
***
When he turned into the short street, he immediately saw a ‘weird green fence’ towards the end of the cul-de-sac. He pulled out his phone and hit the ‘call’ next to his daughter’s name as he pulled up on the curb near said fence.
“I’m outside now.”
“Thank you so much, we’re coming.” Kate said down the phone, before she hung up and appeared at the gate in Dan’s headlights, Daphne in tow. Both girls had slightly smeared eye-makeup, probably from tearing up, and his daughter was shamefaced. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail and the septum piercing he and Phil had (somewhat reluctantly) allowed her to get on her most recent birthday was askew. (In the end, it hadn't seem right to deny her a piercing when Dan still hadn't been able to let go of his own pierced ears.) He offered her a small smile as she climbed into the front seat, which she returned sheepishly. Daphne took the back, and Dan begun the drive home. Neither girl said anything for a few moments, so Dan prompted,
“So, is anyone going to explain what exactly happened or shall we just sit in awkward silence forever?” he kept his tone light, because he really was not going to argue with his daughter at four in the morning. Kate let out a small squeak. Dan’s peripherals caught her worrying her thumbnail between her teeth.
“Okay, yeah, we… we were all at Ty's and it was fine, we were drinking and stuff and we were having a good time. But then… then Ty's friend texted them and told them to come over and Ty said that they were already with all of us but their friend said just to bring us too. So Ty suggested it and we thought it would just be a pretty normal party, you know? So the five of us walked to this friend’s house… but Ty’s friend is older and there were so many older people. And this guy kept like… giving Daph weird looks, and then he offered her E and that’s when… that’s when I called you.”
“Really, it was more my fault than Kate’s, Mr. Dan.” Daph had always called them ‘Mr. Dan and Mr. Phil’. She’d never quite been able to break the politeness instilled in her by her mother. Dan had always found it endearing. It sometimes still felt strange to be a 'Mr.' anything. “I-I didn’t know Ty’s friends but the other’s did. So I talked her into coming, as well, so I wouldn't be the only one. Like, it’s… it was me.” Dan grinned to himself, shaking his head.
“Daph, I know my daughter. She's... an individual. To put it one way. You don’t need to try and cover for her.” He side-eyed the daughter in question, and Kate shrank a little in her car seat.
“I’m sorry, Bear.” She said quietly. Dan shook his head once more.
“It’s okay, honey. I was sixteen once. I made questionable choices. I’m just glad you’re safe.” It was the truth for now. He would probably have some criticisms tomorrow, because there was no universe in which walking to a stranger’s party in the middle of the night sounded like a good idea. But not yet.
“You’re the best dad ever, you know.” Kate told him. He grinned, but he felt a twinge of guilt as he remembered Phil’s clipped ‘that’s fine’.
“Your Dad’s pretty great, too.” he replied. Kate let out a bark of laughter.
“He’s fantastic. But he’s also going to kill me tomorrow.”
“Probably.” Dan smirked over at his daughter, nodding. Her grin fell. Dan glimpsed over to see her biting her lip.
“I know I deserve it.”
“You deserve a little bit of discipline, maybe.” He conceded.
“I’m never going to be allowed to go to Ty’s again, ever.”
“Oh, not just Ty’s. You’re not sleeping over at anyone’s ever again. You're on full indefinite house arrest now, dear.” Kate giggled, and Dan could hear the alcohol she’d had in that laugh. He still couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
***
By the time he’d seen Kate and Daphne into Kate’s room, it was a little past five a.m., but, it was also a Sunday, so he figured he’d be able to get in two hours of sleep if he was lucky. So he crept back into his own bedroom, not switching on any lights. After 12 years of living in this house, he really didn’t need lights to navigate. He was in the middle of crawling back underneath his bedsheets when his favourite voice in the whole world startled him from the other side of the bed.
“So what happened with them?” Dan settled into the bed, kissing Phil’s forehead and seeing his husband’s eyes flick open at him, demanding an answer.
“I thought I told you to sleep?” He could hear how soft his voice sounded, and it would honestly be embarrassing just how much he still loved this man if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew the feeling was mutual.
“And you really thought that would happen?” he could just make out Phil’s raised eyebrows in the beginnings of morning light coming in through their open blinds. He gave his husband a small smile.
“I hoped it would.”
“So what happened?” Phil pressed again, moving to rest his head on Dan’s chest. Dan sighed in relief, glad he wasn’t in trouble for keeping Phil in the dark. He relayed the tale to the best of his ability, running a hand through Phil’s hair to comfort both of them. When he reached the end of the story, Phil adjusted himself to look up into Dan’s eyes, and gave him a sad smile.
“You probably did the right thing. I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have gone into that house and had words with the others.”
“They’re all good kids.” Dan protested weakly. It was true, but this had been pretty bad, and he knew it, so it was hard to try and defend or defuse it. Phil frowned.
“I know they are. But tonight was... not their finest moment.” His voice held a thin vein of ferocity.
“We both know we did stupid things when we were young.” He didn’t know if there was anything he could do that would make Phil less angry about this. He knew his husband only got angry about their kids when he was worried about them and didn’t know how else to be. He was probably right to be angry about this. He’d always been the one with the better grip on the whole parental responsibility lark.
“I know, but… I guess you always want to think your kids will know better than you did.” Phil sounded calm, though a little resigned as he said it. He looked away from Dan again and rested back on his chest.
“I know.” Dan twined his fingers back into Phil’s hair as he said the words. Phil sighed heavily, nuzzling into Dan’s neck. “What’s the matter?"
“I just… I still remember every single thing about the day we got her when she was 3.”
Dan did, too. Of course he did. He remembered being terrified and gripping Phil’s hands desperately hard as they sat in the waiting room and talked about how they couldn’t both be ‘Dad’. Phil had shyly told him that maybe they could go with ‘Bear’. “It’s like ‘Papa Bear’, Dan! And it’s something we already call you, you know. It'd be cute. Maybe.” It’d stuck, somehow. It worked for them. The only downside was the way that the name never could and never did reappear in the bedroom after that.
“We both loved her so much the second we saw her. But she just happened to have your dimples and your curls… and she loved you, right from day one. She’s our little girl, but she’s always going to be your little girl just a bit more.” Phil nuzzled into his neck again, and Dan’s stomach was full of lead. “And I don’t mind. But… when she acts out, I… I just feel like we’re always going to butt heads and I can’t help but be a little bit sad about the fact that she would never... trust me the way she trusts you with things like tonight. I don’t want to always be the bad guy”
“I know.” Dan’s voice broke a little at the end of the word. Phil’s hand tangled with his. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I always put you in a position where you have to be the bad guy. I will try to be better with that.”
“I’d appreciate it.” Phil gave his hand a squeeze, moving his head out of the crook of Dan’s neck to look down at him.
“It doesn’t mean she doesn’t think you’re amazing. Everyone knows you’re amazing, Phil.” Dan winked, and Phil groaned, rolling away from Dan.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious, that’s why you married me.”
“Really? I thought I married you because you’ve always had a fantastic ass.” Phil teased, poking the side of that very ass, making him recoil.
“Well, that part is true.” Dan said, grinning but blushing, just a fraction. For a half-second he was the eighteen year old who couldn’t take compliments. He’d owned Phil’s heart then, and he still owned it now. He always would. Phil thought of how much this man had changed, but stayed the same, and of how much of his life belonged to Dan, and remembered that he had a daughter across the hall who’d had a pretty rough night.
“Are the girls okay?” he asked quietly. Dan gave him a small reassuring smile.
“Yeah, they’re both fine. They’re a little shaken up, but they’re good.” Phil moved back over, settling back where he had been, his head on Dan’s chest, their fingers twining together.
“I love you, Bear. Always.”
“I love you, too, Phil.”