prompt: Dan and Phil are both sons of rich families and are sent to ballroom dancing lessons. Because there is a shortage of girls, Dan and Phil end up as partners. Phil really doesn’t want to be there and Dan doesn’t either, but is so frustrated by the fact Phil doesn’t want to dance with him he is determined to get him to.
a/n: WGAT THE FUCK AM I DOING WITH MYSLEF hi so i have only 1 exam left so guess what this means ????? The Return Of THis After One Whole Week Of Not Uploading i hate ymself im sorry this is so astronomically long also stuff will start to wrap up soon btu fuck my life i hope this is okay sigh
-brief mentions of alcohol and being drunk-
——————————————————
Twenty-Five
The more time Dan spends in London, whether it be with Phil, his friends, or even Phil’s friends, for that matter (he and Luke had bonded pretty quickly over their love for Gerard way), the more difficult it is to accept the fact that in just over a month, he’s going to be dragged into hours of house-viewings and boxing everything up in the completely empty lounge with walls stained with faded patches where family pictures and expensive paintings once hung. He doesn’t want to think about how many weeks to go it is until he’s sitting an aeroplane on his way to fuck-knows where, the colossal city brightly lit with static human life shrinking in the circular plane window as he’s forced away from the one and only place in his entire life that actually felt like home.
Dan’s never felt as if he could give ‘home’ a proper definition. London’s the closest he’d got, and probably will ever get.
Neither him nor Adam have discussed anything about moving, but Dan figures he’s probably feeling the same with leaving Ross as Dan is with leaving Phil. He knows their father’s been wanting to pack Adam off to some fancy international University as soon as it suits him, but Dan knows his brother too well to believe he’d be happy living, watching stupid shit on TV, eating, working or just lying in bed doing nothing with anyone who isn’t Ross. He knows what it feels like, he gets it.
And the longer he goes without telling anyone, the harder it gets.
-
“Hi, boys,” Audrey breaks the silence of the lounge with an exhausted sigh, returning the vacuum cleaner back in the cupboard and dumping a stack of cardboard boxes onto the table in front of the two brothers. “You’ll be alright keeping an eye on these, won’t you?”
“They hardly look as if they’re planning an escape,” Dan glances at the boxes, giving Audrey a fond smirk.
She rolls her eyes, neatening up the magazine rack and edging a wad of brochures into the spaces between the glossed paper.
“There we are,” she mumbles, giving the two boys a satisfied nod, before glancing at Dan. “I’m impressed with you today, Dan.”
Dan narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because I can actually see the floor in your bedroom, now.” She smirks. “After uncovering the mystery of the colour of your carpet in there, I can say I’m quite proud of myself.”
Dan snorts. “You’ve finally managed to tackle it?”
Audrey jerks her head over to the enormous stack of stained crockery and mugs covered in a layer of dust. “Finally. Anyone would think your room’s a kitchenware shop.”
Adam screws up his face. “It’d be a pretty shit shop if you ask me,” he eyes the state of the crockery. “I wouldn’t be surprised if even Francis couldn’t shift some of those stains.”
“’Shift some of those stains’,” Dan scoffs, mimicking Adam’s choice of vocabulary. “You sound like you should be on a Vanish advert.”
“Vanish is for clothes, you nonce,” Adam says. “I should do a voiceover for Finish instead.”
“You’d get fired within twelve seconds,” Dan says.
“Twelve seconds is enough,” Adam defends, puffing up his chest dramatically. “It’s the one standard that measures the shine. The clarity. And the brilliance you get when you use Finish Quantum to try and remove a build-up of fifty-six years’ worth of shit off from Dan’s mugs that have been piled under his bed for the best part of a deca-“
“That was well over twelve seconds,” Dan cuts him off, before quietly adding. “Plus we haven’t even stayed in one place for over four years, let alone a decade.”
He starts thinking about the time they’d lived in a castle in Scotland for only six months. It was a pretty magnificent building, Dan still agrees now. He loved the thick, stone walls (being an overemotional thirteen-year old at the time, they deemed particularly useful when it came to blasting Pierce the Veil at top volume in his bedroom). It was such a novelty being able to do it without irritating the neighbours, or anyone more than a couple of feet away from the door, for that matter, like he usually used to do. There weren’t even any neighbours to irritate, either – all that had neighboured their house were miles and miles of thick, green forest, hill after hill of fields to explore and run into at night; he’d be crazy to admit fond memories of the castle were usually made up of escaping yet another argument with his parents and sprinting into nothing but the icy midnight winds, screaming his problems and thoughts at the sky until the stars would fade into lightness and he’s consumed by fatigue and nursing a sore throat. He remembers when he and Adam once managed to nudge the attic trap door open, dusting off the ladder and climbing the decaying, aged wooden steps until they’d discovered the neglected staircase tucked away behind a stack of cardboard boxes and an old Victorian rocking horse, matted with age, and they’d climbed it fighting decades worth of cobwebs until they’d reached the roof. They’d sit and talk about anything and everything until the sun would set, painting the greenery surrounding them a gentle orange, and they would lean on the railing, gazing out into the distance until the fading horizon of the sea would come into focus. Adam would promise Dan that one day, one day when they’re older, they won’t be boring adults like their parents, no, – they’ll travel the entire world together. They’ll sail across the sea until they’ve crossed every horizon, explore every inch of the most dangerous jungles and protect each-other from the deadliest venom, visit every single beach and write their names in the sand – leaving temporary remains of permanent memories, and climb every mountain on every bucket list, checking them off as they go. They’d actually pinky-sworn on it – Dan still remembers it vividly, because that was the same night their father had caught them up on the roof together; his cold, furious growl ripping their hands away from each-other, turning brown eyes shining with hope and happiness into eyes widened with fear, regret, and oh shit we’re really in for it now.
It didn’t stop them from continuing to sneak up there, though. They’d just do it at night, when everyone would be asleep. Dan remembers how the moonlight had painted them silver and they’d gaze up into the clear sky glittering with celestial life and Adam would point out the constellations to Dan – he’d call himself the Great Bear, and Dan would be the Little Bear, and they’d lay on the cold stone of the roof and grin contentedly up at the sky as they’d make up stories and adventures for their constellation-based alter-egos to embark on. Dan didn’t care much for the other constellations; he knew Gemini because it’s his Zodiac sign, and Leo because it’s Adam’s, but he’d prefer to paint his own pictures in the specks of light against inky blackness.
He hadn’t realised how much he misses the castle in Scotland until now – it’d barely crossed his mind since their move to London. He gazes absent-mindedly at the stack of cardboard boxes on the table, realising how much they suddenly resemble the ones blocking the staircase to the roof. He remembers how his father used to stack them higher and higher, and heavier and heavier, yet every single time they’d manage to nudge them over enough for them both to slip through with minimal noise and effort.
He glances at Adam, suddenly realising there’s another pair of brown eyes on the very same stack of cardboard boxes, expression blank, yet slightly wistful.
He bets all the money the castle’s worth, that he’s thinking exactly the same thing as Dan is.
-
It’s still a novelty waking up next to the same person he fell asleep with.
He rolls over, feeling a fond smile gently pull on the corners of his lips as he gazes at a sleeping Phil – or at least pretending to sleep, Dan realises, when as soon as he gently nudges up closer to him, Phil’s eyes flutter open and he returns the sleepy grin.
“Good morning,” Dan mumbles into his mop of black hair, his voice quiet with a roughened edge.
Phil leans back to stretch out the fatigue sitting in his muscles. “What’s the time?” he sighs, nuzzling into Dan’s chest.
Dan attempts to lift his head in order to reach for his phone, but gives up after he decides turning his neck ninety degrees is too much effort.
“Can’t be much past ten, I’m guessing” He flops back down onto the pillow.
Phil frowns, taking it upon himself to glance up to check the time. “Shit,” he widens his eyes. “It’s quarter to twelve, Dan.”
Dan freezes. “What?”
“Mhm,” Phil reaches for his phone, clicking the lockscreen although Dan doesn’t much need confirmation.
“Shit,” He kicks the duvet off, leaping out of bed and stumbling for the first crumpled pair of jeans on his floor he sets eyes on, smoothing out the crinkles as he pulls them up over his waist. He can feel Phil’s eyes burning into the back of him, and he can only imagine the smug little grin on his face right now, but he hardly has the capacity to care. “Get up,” he turns to him, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at him before his blue eyes smouldering under heavy eyelids tempt Dan into doing something that’ll make him even later than he already is.
Phil groans, a lot less paranoid than Dan is when it comes to punctuality. He shuts his eyes and rolls over, staring at the ceiling as he stretches again. “Tired.”
“I said get up,” Dan whips the duvet off of Phil’s body in a very mother-waking-up-hormonal-student-on-a-schoolday fashion once he shrugs on a black t-shirt, causing the boy to groan louder and curl up into a ball in order to try and restore some of the warmth lost in those two seconds of going from duvet burrito to cold, cruel exposure.
“I hate you,” Phil mutters a couple of silent minutes later, although he eventually gets up, pulling on a pair of his jeans and buttoning up a creased shirt while Dan, who decides against straightening his hair, tries to tidy the wavy brown disaster on his forehead into something half-acceptable.
“How did we even sleep through the alarm?” Dan frowns, tapping out an apology message to the group chat. “I didn’t wake up once.”
Phil shrugs, grabbing his own phone and conquering the fifty texts left from his own group chat with his own Fernhaven friends. “Neither did I,” he hesitates, suddenly glancing up at Dan. “Are you sure you even set it?”
“Pretty sure,” Dan narrows his eyes. “Why?”
“I don’t remember you setting it,” Phil frowns, staring into space.
“Why would you even if I did?” Dan asks. “It’s not exactly much of a memorable action.”
“True, but,” Phil shrugs. “Just seems weird how both of us would sleep through an alarm, especially as you’re a lighter sleeper than I am,” he glances to the clock ticking in the hallway outside – Dan had lasted a total of fifteen minutes trying to sleep with it in his room before giving up and shoving it outside his door.
It’s true. If Phil even does so much as roll around too noisily, Dan would wake up. He reflects back on the jokes he’d always make in a mock-Dan voice about him, ‘for fuck’s sake Phil stop dreaming so loudly I can’t get to sleep’, or ‘hey Phil would you mind keeping your thoughts down you keep disturbing me’, to which Dan would probably roll his eyes and Phil would get a pillow to the face, but he has a point. Even if Phil slept through it, there’s no way Dan would have.
He gulps, returning the glance. “Don’t put ideas like that into my head,” he shuts his eyes, flopping back onto the bed beside Phil. “We’re already late enough as it is.”
“There’s no need to worry, anyway,” Phil slings an arm around his shoulders comfortingly. “I’m sure they’ll understand. You’re late to everything, and they’ve never eliminated you from their lives.”
“Yet,” Dan finishes, although to a certain extent, Phil’s right again. All he’s met with after apologising for his forgetfulness and Phil’s laziness is several rows of aw, smh dan get ur shit together, idk what else I expected from you tbh and only a couple of warnings that they’d ‘better get a move-on if they didn’t want to miss the train cmon u have like 50 mins’
I’ve got to ur house in waaay under 50 mins before it’s only a couple of stops on the Victoria line ffs, Dan texts back, ushering Phil downstairs with him. There isn’t time for a breakfast any more substantial than some weird chocolate brioche things Dan found in the pantry and several shots of espresso each, but it’ll suffice for now.
They don’t bother saying goodbye – their father’s on a business trip to god-knows-where, it’s Audrey’s day off, their mother’s in the city; probably at some estate agent, Dan guesses, and Adam’s gone to see a movie with someone who isn’t Ross. In actual fact, it’s Ross’s house they’re headed to now. They leave the empty house together, slamming the door behind them and heading for the station.
London’s pretty empty for a Saturday – well, the ‘London’ definition of ‘empty’ being it’s actually possible to have personal space of more than a two-inch radius, which is quite refreshing. They spend the tube journey sharing headphones and zooming in on models’ faces on the underground, taking photos of them and writing creative captions for them for their Snapchat stories and eventually ending up in fits of laughter; Dan’s head on Phil’s shoulder as he turns his phone screen to him to show what he’d said about the overemotional woman on the mouthwash advert. They end up so distracted by themselves they almost miss their stop, and Dan leaps up with a start as soon as he realises the doors are nearly about to close on them, dragging Phil out of the train behind him with complaints that he ‘wasn’t finished on the hair yet’, but he shuts up after checking the time and realising they only have eleven minutes to spare.
As they approach Ross’s house, Dan begins to feel the black pit of nerves wake up inside his stomach, infecting his throat with a lump and pumping anxiety around his veins until he can barely reach the door himself without feeling the reassurance of Phil’s presence close beside him. Not because this is Max’s party and they’ll have to be travelling fifty miles on the train to reach the fields lining the coastal area where they plan to have it – Jake and Axel, another close friend of Max’s, are already down there preparing (Dan had already received sixteen too many texts consisting of something along the lines of ‘get the fuck down here asap’, ‘it’s cold so we’re keeping warm in this weird place and we have to keep ordering drinks’, ‘cmon I just finished my 5th coffee the people in the café are starting to give us weird looks’, and ‘if we get kicked out I’m blaming you’).
He’s not nervous about the travelling despite the fact living with a personal chauffeur for the best part of four years has caused him to forget the mechanical, cold world of set train times where minutes wait for no-one and robotic announcement voices fill the hollow stations – that’s always creeped him out, to be honest; he’d thought it sounds too much like the Google Translate man for it to be normal. But even that isn’t what he’s so nervous about.
He’s nervous, scared, unprepared and just about every single other emotion aside ‘calm’ he can think of, because Ryan will be there.
For the first time since about a month and a half ago.
He hasn’t told Phil outright, but it doesn’t exactly take a genius to piece the very obvious evidence together. He feels a cold hand slip into his in a loose clasp, and he glances up just as Phil gently squeezes his hand, sliding him a tentative glance out of the corner of his eye.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispers under his breath. “I’m here.”
And Dan gulps, exhaling slowly because he guesses Phil’s right; to certain extent, at least. As long as they stick together, they’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.
-
“Took your time,” Ross glances at the watch that isn’t on his wrist, looking back up at the two breathless, rushed boys on his porch and eyeing them up and down judgingly. “Got distracted, did you?” he raises an eyebrow.
Dan narrows his eyes scornfully. “Leave it out, Ross.”
“I think you should leave it out, actually,” Ross raises his eyebrows playfully, his eyes averting between the two boys.
“Or just remember to set an alarm, maybe?” Phil mutters, raising an eyebrow at Dan.
“Alarm,” Ross scoffs teasingly. “Sure,” he adds, dragging out the ‘u’, although Dan’s too tired to object. He’ll leave it to Ross’s imagination to conjure up a considerably more graphic image than Dan and Phil rushing around the kitchen throwing weird French bread to each-other and downing shots of espresso; making screwed-up faces after every gulp on account of the fact Dan had set the coffee machine too high and used too many beans so it had left a lingering bitter aftertaste sitting in the back of their mouths. It had been under an hour and they’d got through half a pack of chewing gum already.
They follow Ross into the lounge, and Dan imagines the excessive caffeine is probably not contributing nicely to his already overly-nervous mood.
Dan and Phil adopt the spaces on the sofa furthest away from the dark-haired boy hiding his face behind his fringe and pretending to look engrossed in what looks like Snapchat; Dan knows he’s pretending – he knows his body language and the way his thumbs dance nervously, hovering tentatively over the screen while he tries to think of something to do in order to look occupied. He also kind-of hopes he’s seen their stories.
“How’s Adam, then?” Ross flops onto the sofa, swinging his legs onto Luke’s lap and earning a glare from the blonde-haired boy.
Dan narrows his eyes. “You saw him yesterday.”
Ross shrugs. “We facetimed this morning, actually.”
“Exactly?” Dan frowns, although he’s grinning. “What do you think has happened in the meantime?”
Ross pretends to glance up in consideration, before shrugging. “Well, I wouldn’t know what’s happened if I don’t ask, will I?”
Dan snorts. “You’re worse than the obsessed girlfriend meme.”
Ross screws up his face in disgust. “That meme was so 2011.”
“So are you,” Dan retaliates immaturely.
“So’s your face,” Ross retorts even less maturely, and unless it’s Dan’s imagination tricking him, he catches a smirk from Ryan at that remark.
“Where’s Max, anyway?” Dan frowns, glancing around the lounge as they haul themselves up from the sofa to leave.
Ross glances around too, as if he’d forgotten about the actual reason behind the party. “He was here a minute ago.”
“He only went upstairs for something,” Ash (another of Max’s friends) frowns. “He won’t exactly be long.”
“He’d better not be,” Ross checks the time on his phone instead of his imaginary watch this time. “The train leaves in ten minutes.”
“It’ll probably be delayed,” an unfamiliarly familiar voice mumbles almost inaudibly. “This is Southeastern”
Dan gulps, staring at the floor at the sound of the voice. Phil doesn’t respond either.
“Don’t bully Southeastern,” Ash frowns. “The train was only delayed by two minutes last time.”
“And the time before that, how long was it delayed for?” Ryan raises an eyebrow.
Ash’s the one staring at the floor this time. “Okay, bu-“
“How long?” Ryan repeats.
There’s a silence. “Fifteen minutes,” Ash eventually admits.
“Exactly,” Ryan mutters, and it’s then Dan glances up at exactly the wrong moment, their eyes colliding in a sudden green-against-brown mistake.
His throat tightens at the sight of him when he lets himself glance up for more than three seconds – it’s just so alien, so unnatural that he’s less than a metres away from the boy that, fewer than a couple of months ago, was the best thing that had ever happened to him, in his eyes. Who he’d fall asleep talking to, exchanging their darkest secrets they’d never admit even in the light of day to each-other, kissing until their lips were numb and they couldn’t form coherent sentences for being so tired, and when he, up until meeting Phil, believed no-one else in their lives mattered when they were together, because he knew no-one else could possibly matter more than Ryan.
He can almost laugh here and now at how he, as opposed to being in love, was simply just incorrect. About everything.
With Phil is where he feels safe. Complete. With Ryan, he’d feel constantly on edge, every word passing his lips felt like another weight on thin ice, on the brink of collapsing and sending him drowning in metres of water, suffocating in the sub-zero temperatures.
And, ironically, it was always Phil he’d seen as the ‘cold’ one. He drops his gaze, sidling up to Phil and slipping his hand back into the black-haired boy’s warm clasp, squeezing it gently. Half of him hopes Ryan’s watching.
-
By the time they arrive at wherever it was had ordered Ross to take them, the sun’s beginning to dust the sky with gentle oranges, purples and pinks in the late summer sunset, they’d just finished their thirtieth argument of the night, and Dan’s phone’s on three percent battery from having it snatched off Ross every five minutes for Google Maps – he’s pretty sure he has about one molecule of 3G left, now, as well.
But they’ve all made it alive (Dan’s pretty sure Jake and Axel have a serious bout of caffeine poisoning judging by the amount of coffee they’d ingested before the arrival of the rest of them), after enduring a two-hour train journey, watching urbanisation slowly dissolve into greenery until they’re surrounded by miles and miles of fields and forests whipping past the train window beside them. It had reminded Dan a lot of Scotland.
And the area really is magnificent – solar-powered fairy lights scatter food and drink stall frames with prickles of silver lights, bunting hangs lowly from corner-to-corner of the gazebos, and arrays of tables and foldable chairs are mapped out across the entirety of the field. Dan feels the warm breeze whip through his hair and he turns around to face the stretch of the horizon behind him, gazing out in wonder at the seemingly infinite sea lining the sky with a block of blue against fading pastel orange, the sand-covered beach framed with sharp cliff edges either side of it, and the yachts sailing in the distance, dwarfed by the sea against the sky. Dan loves the city, he always will, but he realises how underappreciated natural beauty really is. He has half a mind to drop everything and start sprinting down to the shore, throwing himself down on the warm bed of sand and gazing up until the light blue evening fades into the star-studded blackness of night. Just like he used to.
He’s so enthralled in this temptation he almost forgets the reason why he’s actually here – that is until two warm arms interrupt his daydream and a head of brown curls rest on his shoulder.
“Thanks, Dan,” he hears Max mumble as he returns the hug, a grin warming his face. “You guys didn’t have to go to all this effort, you know.”
“But we did, didn’t we?” Dan smirks. “It’s an important birthday, Max.”
“I’m hardly in line to get a card from the Queen for my one-hundredth,” Max smirks. “I’m only eighteen.”
“Which means you’re legal,” Dan pulls away, raising an eyebrow playfully.
Max narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Implying?”
Dan rolls his eyebrows, jogging over to the cooler stuffed with cans of cider. “What else?” he takes a couple, tossing one over at his newly-adult friend and trusting his catching skills.
“I don’t know what other answers I was expecting, to be honest,” Max raises his eyebrows, pulling the ring until the can fizzes open. “You’re all alcoholics, the lot of you.”
“Says you,” Dan raises his eyebrows, although he sips from his own can. “Actually, I think Jake’s more of a caffeine junkie right now,” his eyes flicker over to their blonde-haired friend darting from one place to the next making sure everything’s perfect, newly jittery from the coffee-bean intake he and Axel had had to endure. “I’m surprised he hasn’t had a heart attack yet, the amount he’s drank today,” Dan smirks. After Jake’s shaky text about the fifteenth coffee they’d had, it had made Dan’s caffeine issue with Phil this morning look as if they’d been ingesting Horlicks, as opposed to espresso shots.
“Maybe we should give him a can,” Max narrows his eyes thoughtfully. Dan stares at him. “What?”
“Do you not read the Daily Mail?” Dan says.
Max stares at him this time. “Why would I want to?”
“It had an article on mixing caffeine and alcohol last week,” Dan fiddles with the ring pull on his can. “A nineteen year old was mixing vodka and Red Bull all night, and ended up having a heart attack.”
Max snorts. “Dan, if I wanted to read such bullshit I’d go to Buzzfeed for that kind of information.”
“They have a point,” Dan shrugs, not looking up. “Caffeine’s an accelerant, alcohol’s a depressant. They do opposite things to your heart.”
“I’m sure one can of Strongbow isn’t exactly going to hospitalise him,” Max rolls his eyes, and Dan shrugs.
“Can’t be too careful,” he says.
“Says you,” Max glares at him. “How many espressos did you and Phil get through this morning?”
“Not half as many coffees as Jake and Axel had,” Dan shrugs.
“At least they had reason to,” Max says.
“So did we,” Dan frowns. “Had it not been for them, we’d probably still be asleep now.”
Max smirks. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Anyway,” Dan mutters a couple of seconds later, sipping thoughtfully from his can. “They didn’t have to keep on buying coffee-after-coffee. They could’ve got by perfectly with one or two.”
“They did have to wait for over three hours for us,” Max reasons. “The baristas would probably think they’re insane.”
“I’m sure continuously going back up to buy more coffees probably had the same effect,” Dan says.
“What other choice did they have?” Max says.
“They didn’t have to stay in that one café – they could’ve rotated,” Dan shrugs. “Like, a café crawl.”
Max giggles heartily, his eyes glittering in the gentle sunset. “I’ve never heard anything more middle-aged in my life.”
“That’s what you are now, Max,” Dan smirks. “You’re elderly. We’re going to have to invest in a stairlift for you.”
“I live in a flat, Dan.” Max narrows his eyes.
“You live on the seventh floor,” Dan shrugs. “You have to get up there somehow.”
“Probably explains why we have elevators in the building,” Max slides him a glance out of the corner of his eye, and Dan rolls his eyes.
“The elderly need extra assistance,” Dan shakes his head. “I’ll have to install stairlifts all over my house too, ready for whenever you come over.”
“There are probably more flights of stairs in your house than there are in my flat altogether, to be honest,” Max scoffs.
“Your flat is twenty-four storeys,” Dan narrows his eyes.
“Exactly,” Max stretches, his voice strained slightly before he drapes an arm around Dan. “Really, though-…” he sighs, lowering his voice. “You didn’t have to do all this for me.”
“But you’re glad I did?” Dan feels himself grinning like an idiot.
Max grins sheepishly as he nods, his dimple appearing. Dan smiles softly, taking another sip before sighing, resting his head on Max’s shoulder.
“Love you,” he mumbles quietly, and he can almost hear Max’s grin.
“Love you too,” Max replies, staring out vacantly into the horizon, the beach only a grassy walk away from them. “Thank you.”
“I shouldn’t take all the credit,” Dan says. “I mean, Jake and Axel have been down here all day setting everything up, so-”
“Yeah, but who came up with the idea altogether?” Max interrupts. “Had it not been for you, we probably would’ve all been stuck in some gross, sweaty club with shit music.”
Dan allows himself to giggle at that. “I certainly didn’t want that to happen,” he pauses. “Besides – I probably wouldn’t have even been let in anyway.”
“Ross, Jake and Ryan are still seventeen,” Max frowns. “They’ve been served at clubs and stuff.”
Dan frowns. When have they ever been clubbing? Ryan hates clubs. “Yeah, but…” he takes his head off from Max’s shoulder. “They look of age. I still look fucking fourteen.”
“But at least you can still get away with child train tickets,” Max reasons. “You have to pay a fraction of what we do on your Oyster.”
“What, so I can’t go out at night, but it’s alright because my compensation is saving a couple of quid every time I catch the train somewhere?”
“Isn’t that great?” Max grins jokingly, and Dan glares at him. “It only cost you, what, a tenner to get down here?”
Dan rolls his eyes. “And the money I saved went on all of this,” he nods over to the drinks.
“Passing for a child to get a discount on travel fares, then spending all the saved money on alcohol,” Max snorts. “Dan logic at its finest.”
“There’s nothing illogical about making sure my best friend has a good birthday.” Dan stands up, holding out his hand in order to help Max up from the driftwood log they’d been using as a seat. Max hauls himself up, their embarrassing height difference resulting in Dan being towered over by the taller boy, his shadow barely reaching Max’s shoulder. Dan glares at their shadows, hating his shortness until Max interrupts his train of thought with another loose hug.
“You’re so fucking cute,” Max sighs, sounding pained. “You know,” he begins as they start walking, arm-in-arm. “If I were into guys, I’d probably date you.”
Dan rolls his eyes. “You’d have to clear that with Phil first.”
“Nah,” Max laughs. “I’d never come in between you two,” he gazes over at Phil, deep in conversation with Luke a couple of metres away from the two brown-haired boys. “You’re inseparable.”
Dan’s heart clenches a little, because he wishes that statement was as true as Max is making it out to be.
He wishes he didn’t have to face the one, and only thing powerful enough to separate him from not only Phil, but the city, his friends and, essentially, home. He wishes in a couple of months he wouldn’t be wallowing in an empty house with hundreds of miles between him and Phil. Oh god, he shouldn’t be thinking of moving, not now, but he wishes, and wishes, and fucking wishes distance didn’t have the power to switch their inseparable bond into delicate fragility, where he’ll give it only a couple of months before their texts begin to decline, their skype calls become less, and phone conversations are forced, and tinny.
And he knows that’s the way it goes; he’s been through the same roundabout motions with countless other close friends he’d had to leave behind – even away from the majority of civilisation up in Scotland, he’d still found it difficult to say goodbye to the class of only ten in the tiny school of Highbridge he’d attended, surrounded by red bricked walls, narrow paths, fox-filled copses and classmates of countryside origins. At the start, Dan had found it difficult to fit in with people rooted so sturdily in this way of life – the village they’d lived near (their definition of ‘near’ being an hour’s drive away, but that was the closest area to their castle with a population of over ten) were the tightest-knit community Dan had ever seen in his entire life – everyone knew everyone, and anonymous passers-by on the street didn’t exist; they were always some kind of neighbour or family friend of some description, and being born into a family with no roots of any kind and no real home to speak of, he can still remember how the nausea had felt sitting in the pit of his stomach on his first day of school.
Yet he’d still managed to make a couple of friends – not exactly lifelong companions, and certainly no encounters with any soulmates along the way, but nevertheless, people close enough to him to make him wonder, from time-to-time, how they’re doing. Wherever they are.
In a way, he envies the Highbridge community. He envies their roots. Their sense of belonging, and direction. Their clear perceptions of what a true home is.
Oh fuck, he doesn’t know; he’s suddenly torn. He wants to move back to the countryside and stay there forever; he misses the beauty of the natural environment too much – he misses the castle and the beach nights and running through the high-ceilinged corridors at three in the morning in order to escape the weight of his father’s heavy discipline and the easy escape to the acres of thick forest only a muddy walk away from the front door.
Although no, actually, because he wants to stay in London, surrounded by dense traffic and noise and sparkling city nights and pollution bleeding through the orange nights. He wants an urban environment – he finds comfort in talking to strangers and diving through crowds and sleeping through the lullaby of static noise and train engines. He wants to stay surrounded by everyone occupying this field right now – even if it means having to put up (or even make up) with Ryan at some point. He wants London the most; he wants the ballroom dancing lessons every Saturday, he wants his friends, and he wants the city.
In the end, however, it all amounts to staying with Phil. Because Phil could make even the most unfamiliar place thousands of miles away from London feel like a long-term home.
-
Dan doesn’t quite know where he’s going – he’d lost Phil in the crowd of his half-wasted friends all congregating to perform some messy recital of the cha-cha-slide when it had come on shuffle, and he doesn’t quite know who had thought it a good idea to sneak on the Spotify playlist, but he’d decided against joining in (he’d rather not get completely trampled on) and gradually started gravitating away from the main mass of the party and weaving his way through tables, upturned chairs and swishing through grass, sipping from whatever number drink this is – he’d lost count after the ninth.
He can’t estimate it’s much past eleven – there’s still a feint, summery afterglow of the sunset darkened into navy blue casting the sky with a gentle dusk, and the moon’s full and shining its silvery light low against the horizon of the sea, spotlighting the water’s surface with speckles of white and silver.
He ambles further away from the party, listening to the music gradually beginning to fade out into the distance behind him as he stumbles over the furthest plastic chair away from the main crowd. He considers getting his phone out to use the torch as some kind of guidance before he either face-plants straight onto a rock and loses all his teeth or falls on the shore and gets a mouthful of sand, but soon decides the moonlight is guidance enough for him – he doesn’t want to drown out the natural beauty of the sky with the static white glare of his phone, anyway.
He continues walking – well, stumbling, down until the softness of the grass swishing against his knees slowly begins to harden into a rocky surface underfoot, and the music, previously fading out into not anything particularly more audible than a hollow bass, is soon masked out by the sound of the sea – the distant, roaring crash of the water breaking on the shore is something he’d particularly missed.
He closes his eyes, deeply inhaling the coastal breeze before opening them, his vision slightly blurred. In a way, he’s beginning to regret drinking so much – it would’ve been better to appreciate such a spectacular view through eyes sober enough to configure a little more detail of the view surrounding him – the moon’s nothing more than a simple, fuzzy disc in the sky and, although he’s admittedly naturally clumsy, by throwing alcohol into the mix with a walk along uneven rocks jutting out with sharp edges in every direction underneath him, he’s probably only one false movement away from coming home tomorrow with a concussion.
“Oh, shit-“ he mutters to himself a couple of minutes later as he sticks his hands out in order to steady himself and prevent diving head-first into what looks like a rockpool.
“Are you going to be able to survive walking over a couple of rocks, or will I have to call an ambulance?” a voice suddenly emerges from a couple of footsteps away from wherever Dan’s staggering towards.
He freezes, his blood running cold. He knows that voice.
He opens his mouth, ready to respond, although he finds himself completely dry of words. He realises he’s suddenly shivering although being mid-June, the warmth of the summer evening’s still lingering in the breeze. He gulps, his eyes swivelling around the seemingly empty beach in search of the unexpected, and quite frankly unwanted company.
“Who-… where ar-“
“I’m over here,” the voice responds with an irritated edge, cutting him off. He follows the direction of the sound, spinning around and squinting into the distance until a figure finally begins to blur into focus. It’s too dark to identify any recognisable features of their face, but hearing the same voice again is like a cinderblock to the stomach as he realises he doesn’t need to see his face to know exactly who it is.
Dan tries to turn around in order to approach the figure with a clumsy stumble – he doesn’t know why, he feels this is definitely his cue to dart off in the opposite direction and sprint back to the party, but he’s soon interrupted by that same fucking voice.
“Leave me alone,” he mumbles, his words muffled by his hoodie. “Why are you even here?”
“Why are you even here?” Dan retorts, but he stops obediently. The figure’s right – he shouldn’t bother.
The figure avoids his question. “Shouldn’t you be back there?”
“Shouldn’t you?” Dan throws the question back again.
“Why should I?”
“Why should I?”
“What are you, a fucking parrot?” he grits his teeth, glaring up at Dan in a cold, emerald stare.
Dan’s jaw tightens as he’s suddenly eye-to-eye with Ryan. “Just curious,” he shrugs innocently.
Ryan doesn’t break the stare. “Leave me alone,” he repeats, and Dan bites back a returning parrot remark.
After a handful of moments, Dan breaks the silence, although he’s more confused as to why it isn’t painfully awkward. Or maybe it is, and maybe it’s the alcohol preventing him from feeling that way. “Okay, well-…” he begins slowly backing away, stepping carefully on the rocks behind him. “I guess I’ll leave y-“ he interrupts himself when he catches his shoe on the large boulder-like obstacle jutting out behind him, and he loses his footing, flailing his arms for a split second before smacking down on the rocks in a clumsy tumble that, if it wasn’t for his foul mood, Ryan would probably find the capacity to laugh at.
“Shit, I-… ow-…” Dan tries to haul himself up from the rocks and continue on as if Ryan hadn’t noticed his embarrassing fall, but he winces as hot pain sears through his spine when he tries to sit up. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying his best to shuffle away in a strange mixture of agony and embarrassment, but when he opens them again, there’s a dark-haired figure towering over him, holding out a hand. Dan freezes.
“Well?” Ryan hisses, irritated. “Do you want to get up, or what? I was joking about the ambulance thing, but-…”
Dan narrows his eyes, although his arm’s tentatively twitching towards Ryan’s grip. “Is this some kind of practical joke?”
Ryan gives him a deadpan glare. “It will be if you keep questioning it,” he nods to his hand. “Just get up.”
Dan swallows, taking a deep breath before allowing himself to take Ryan’s hand which is cold from the night and feels uncomfortable against his own clasp, and he’s pulled upright. He screws up his face, still wincing as he tries to nurse his back.
“You alright?” Ryan raises an eyebrow in an attempt to look nonchalant, but when Dan glances at him, his eyes are concerned.
Dan tries to swivel around, probably mirroring an elderly man with a serious bout of osteoporosis trying to do a morning stretch. “I- yeah-… I don’t kno- shit, ow,” he cringes when he twists his back a little too far.
Ryan nibbles his lip cluelessly, before glancing over to the driftwood log he’d been using as a bench for however long he’d been sitting there for. To come to think of it, Dan hadn’t seen him all evening, so he imagines he’s probably been here a while. “Would sitting down help-…?” he leaves his sentence unfinished, nodding awkwardly over to the log.
“I- er-…” his eyes flicker back over to the general direction of the party he’d left behind. Admittedly, it’s a pretty long walk back, and it involves an uphill trek or two. He doesn’t know if he’ll make it without collapsing or falling over again. “I guess, but-…”
“Look, Dan, I’m not going to have a go at you for anything,” Ryan sighs exhaustedly. “I just don’t want you going all the way back up there after-… y’know, falling on a load of rocks,” he raises his eyebrows.
Dan peers at him hesitantly, his hand still on his back although he gives in and begins slowly following Ryan around a path with fewer rocks in order to get to the bench. “Well if you want to put it like that, I should think it’s probably the other way round,” Dan mutters, glaring at him.
Ryan gives him a puzzled look. “I wasn’t the one who fell over my own feet?”
Dan rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “I meant, it should be me having a go at you. Not the other way round.
Ryan gulps. “Oh.”
They descend into a silence that’s actually awkward this time. Really awkward.
Shit, Dan thinks. That was probably too soon.
Or was it? He doesn’t know. He’s not even sure if he can be bothered to ‘have a go’ at Ryan for everything he’s put him through, because there’s not really that much to be angry about anymore. The overhanging feud between them had since burnt out into nothing much more than cooling embers as opposed to the fire of spite devouring Dan’s sanity less than a couple of months ago. He’s found Phil and he’s happy, He’s moved on, and so has Ryan – he thinks. So what’s the point of dwelling on the past?
“But I won’t,” Dan mutters after a couple of minutes once they find the bench with the help of Ryan’s phone torch.
“You won’t?” Ryan glances at him in curiosity, and Dan shrugs, lowering himself onto the bench carefully, nearly forgetting his back is half-shattered.
“What’s the point?” he asks rhetorically. “It’s in the past, now. I can’t be bothered to argue with you, even if you did put me through hell.”
Ryan widens his eyes. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“It’s the only way of putting it,” Dan corrects. “It’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.”
Ryan nibbles his lip, lowering his glance as he sits beside Dan, and the awkwardness begins creeping up on them again. Dan suddenly panics. Unless he risks the steep walk up, he’s trapped down here with the one person he’d want least to be sitting on a beach with right now, but it’s his only safe option, and he’d rather not spend the rest of the night fuelling the fire he’d been spending the best part of three months trying to put out.
He changes his tactics. “It’s nice down here, isn’t it?”
Ryan frowns, glancing at him. “What?” he follows Dan’s gaze. “Oh-…” he nods thoughtfully at the beach surrounding them, in realisation. “Yeah, it’s-… it’s nice.”
“Is that your excuse, then?” Dan asks.
“For what?” Ryan frowns again.
“For coming down here,” Dan gazes up to the sky, the blue darkening above them and painting the water with an inky dusk. “Because it’s nice, right?”
“I like it,” Ryan agrees, following Dan’s gaze again and looking up at the sky. “I’ve always liked the beach,” he focuses on the horizon, the moonlight casting gentle glitters over every ripple on the water’s surface.
“I know,” Dan allows himself to half-smile. “Remember that time we went camping with my parents, and-“
“Was that the time you swam too far out and Adam had to come and rescue you?” Ryan raises an eyebrow teasingly, and Dan glares at him.
“I was going to talk about how beautiful the beach looked, but that also works, I guess,” he mutters.
“God, that was so funny,” Ryan chuckles.
“You could’ve helped,” Dan complained. “You didn’t do anything apart from sit on the shore and laugh at me.”
“I couldn’t do anything,” Ryan says. “You’re supposed to wait an hour before swimming after you eat, but only one of us paid attention to that.” He raises his eyebrows.
“You could’ve warned me,” Dan widens his eyes disapprovingly.
“I did!” Ryan defends. “What part of ‘Dan, don’t go in the sea yet you fucking idiot’ did you not understand?” he hesitates. “Or- wait, maybe I only thought that.”
“You don’t say,” Dan rolls his eyes. “Typical Ryan; always looking out for me,” he jokes.
“Typical Dan; always listening to me,” Ryan retorts, and fuck, Dan’s forgotten how quick he is to answer back.
Dan flashes him a soft, slightly awkward half-smile, before gazing back out into the distance.
“I was going to say it reminds me of the beach up in Scotland, actually,” he mumbles thoughtfully, more to himself than anyone else, but Ryan picks up on it. “Near my house,”
“Hm,” he nods, remembering the first time he’d ever met Dan and finding out he’d moved down from Scotland. He remembers the beach, of course he does – it had featured in nearly every painting his mother had created and hung up on the walls in the lounge, alongside the family photos of them sitting beside the shoreline. Ryan had listened to more than a couple of Dan’s beach stories from Scotland. “I remember when I found out you’d been living in Scotland – I think the first thing I ever asked you was why you didn’t have an accent,” he chuckles softly, although it’s more thoughtful than humorous.
“Technically I shouldn’t have any accent,” Dan chuckles too. “I’m never in one place long enough to pick it up.”
“You’ve been in London a while?” Ryan suggests.
“Not for much longer, though,” Dan blurts out without thinking.
Ryan freezes, staring at Dan. “What?”
Oh fuck. Dan gulps, glancing up at him in a tentative brown-against-emerald stare. Fuck, did I say that out loud? Fuck shit oh my god what the fuck have I done, his throat tightens suddenly, because oh god, what the fuck’s he playing at? He hasn’t even told Phil yet, and yet after talking to Ryan for a grand record of ten whole minutes the truth’s already slipped out.
He gulps, taking a deep breath and trying again.
“I’m moving,” he confesses to his shoes after breaking their eye contact and realising there’s no way he can climb out of this verbal grave he’d just dug for himself – he keeps his eyes to the floor, because if there’s anything he can’t face right now, it’s the green hue of weird, confused disappointment flashing across Ryan’s eyes. Fuck, he shouldn’t be talking to Ryan. He shouldn’t even be here – he should be up there laughing and drinking under the stars with his actual friends for the remaining time he’s got left.
“Hang on,” Ryan shakes his head in disbelief. “What?” his voice is newly soft, and thinned with shock.
Dan takes another deep breath, his chest tightening. “We-… we’re moving again. This summer, I-…” he gulps. “I don’t know where, but-…” his eyes involuntarily flicker up to meet Ryan’s, and he finds he suddenly can’t look away. “It’s all been arranged, and-…” he can’t finish. His teeth clamp down on his bottom lip in a clenched bite, willing himself not to cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t you dare fucking cry, he squeezes his eyes shut, and manages to shove down the urge to dissolve into sobs.
“Dan, I-…” Ryan shakes his head again, obviously as speechless as the younger brown-haired boy beside him. “I’m-… fuck, I’m sorry, I-…”
“Shit I-…” Dan shakes his head, changing the subject. “Look, can you just promise me something?” he sighs, turning to Ryan.
Ryan nods.
“You’re the first person I’ve told, so-…” he gulps. “Promise me you-… y’know-…” he nibbles his lip. “Just promise me you-… can you just-… like-… not tell anyone?” he glances up at Ryan, his almond eyes shining with plead. “Can you keep it quiet?” he rephrases a couple of seconds later.
Ryan sighs, relaxing slightly. “I promise,” he agrees, and Dan breathes a sigh of relief.
They sit there, the silence devouring any potential conversations, but Dan’s past caring. In an abstract way, it almost feels as if telling someone had acted as a giant weight lifting off his chest – even if his choice of person probably wasn’t the wisest, or who he’d initially planned. He hadn’t exactly expected to fall over a pile of rocks this evening, even if with the alcohol and natural clumsiness, he’d been asking for it, really.
“I’ll miss you,” Ryan mutters so quietly if Dan had been thinking about anything specific, he wouldn’t have heard it. “I-…” he sighs, resting his forehead in his hands. “I-… I miss you, Dan.” he rephrases almost inaudibly.
Fuck, Dan shuts his eyes. Oh god, he’s not up for any of this discussion, not now, not with Ryan. He’d rather break the rest of his limbs trying to get back up to the field than descend into this topic, especially now as he’d only just found Phil and settled down in a new , happier life – to put it bluntly, without Ryan. So what’s the most sensible thing he can find the capacity to say?
“I miss you too,” he breaks his own internal vows before he makes them, keeping his eyes glued to the horizon, because it is true to a certain extent, he supposes.
Fuck.