Dan's back leaned against the sofa. His legs were crossed (clockwise? Anticlockwise?), his plaid shirt had a semi-noticeable vodka stain, and he could vaguely feel the Malibu sloshing in his bottle. (He wanted to get up, but his legs wanted to sleep in). The party was filled with people Dan recognised as two dimensional, that Dan saw through pixels. And yet they were here, full humans with full bodies and full liquor pumping in their blood. The early days. Ah shit I will never make it, why, why. Dan stuck to Phil like glue to paper, the paper had ripped. Phil was off somewhere. Probably talking to Charlie. Dan felt a bitter sting in his chest without realising, (too much vodka? too little movement? was he getting that condition where people sit in one place for too long and get blood clots?) he tried to shake himself off but only succeeded in falling onto the side of the couch, the Malibu sloshing onto his jeans and his head growing like a bulb in spring, too heavy, too powerful to be moved.

"There you are" (there was only a slight slur in his voice)

"Phil!" Dan shouted, "Phil's here!" "We like Phil!" he seemed to murmur into the couch. He thought several heads turned, but all he could see were the threads of the sofa, peeled back with ingrained crumbs and dirt.

"You okay?" Phil said, grabbing him under the armpits and hoisting him up to a sitting position, looking a little too deeply into his eyes in a way Phil would later claim was an attempt to look for signs of sickness (bullshit), I was trying to care for you (Lies).

Phil sat down beside him, folding his body into the crack between the radiator and Dan's bony elbow. He had an indescribable drink in his hand and Dan swore he saw his wrist flick backwards. An optical illusion.

Phil's shoulder looked comfortable in his big jacket (Dan wondered how Phil wasn't boiling). Dan wanted to rest his head on that shoulder, to make it a pillow, to make it a home, but the room was spinning and someone looked and oh god can you really interpret signs through skype? Would he ever truly know if all those grainy winks and smiles were ever anything beyond a nice guy being nice? And Phil was nice guy. He was the nicest guy, he caught everyone's attention, and when you spoke you knew he was listening because he would cock his head and smile in all the right places. And those blue eyes would become so warm and inviting as if they were reaching out to drag you in like a siren at sea. You could swim in those eyes. But it wasn't just that. Phil was nice and he was pretty and he was intelligent but there were layers and layers to Phil; there were layers that brought Dan thoughts as he lay in the shadow of the pale moon, thoughts that made him want to shower and pray to the lord Jesus himself, but there were also layers of him that made him want to sign mortgage papers with Phil, and take a 'couple's cruise' around the Mediterranean with his grandparents in tow. Phil was something else, he knew it, everyone knew it.

But the people, the lights, the carpet, the sofa that wanted to take his name and his number and the surmounting pressure. The room spun and spun, Dan clutched onto Phil's knee, a safety raft. A lighthouse. And a sigh of relief.

Phil stared at Dan's hand on his knee, "you know-"Phil said, the slurring far more evident now, "You, know"

"I know" Dan said giggling, splashing his hand against the sea of the sofa.

"You know, - you have very nice hands" Phil said, taking Dan's hand in one of his in a way a palaeontologist might a bone, or a collector an antique, before he laced it within his. Hook? Check. Line? Check. Sinker? Check.

"And pretty hair, and pretty eyes" Phil said, his words falling over the edge of the waterfall. "I saw you at the train station," Phil took a long pause, Dan tried to keep his spine aligned, "so different to the grain, so different to the screen"

"Worse?"

Phil's head turned.

"Better?" a long pause. "A lot better." He said with a smile, leaning his head a little closer. In the corner of his eye Dan could see people staring (and some people performing a very interesting version of the hokey cokey).

"You look the same" Dan slurred.

"I do?" Phil said, leaning in a little closer, close enough that Dan could see the slight shading of stubble on his upper lip and the small flecks of yellow in his blue eyes.

"Yeah, you still look like a sex god to me" Dan laughed, throwing his head back against the sofa, and knocking his knees against Phil's.

"Creep" Phil said, but pulled Dan closer again, kissing him softly, feeling the jags of mountain ranges in Dan's chapped lips, the soft hint of Malibu making it feel like summer at the beach instead of mildly cold October in Steven's basement, he ran his hands through Dan's hair a little and smiled into the kiss, feeling happiness radiate through the pink in his cheeks.

Dan heard a hoot in the background, small claps and slurs of 'about time', but that was all a bit distant, because he was present. He was present and he was looking at Phil's eyes, Phil's ocean eyes, and he felt it, he felt it, and he didn't know what it was, and to be fair it could have been the Malibu making it's way back up, but whatever it was, Dan liked it. Youth sown into the air like a name stitched into a shirt, like writing on the sand, like screaming in a gorge, I WAS HERE. And Dan was. And Phil was. And star's didn't align and mars didn't find life and global warming still smogged at the windows, but it was different, it was nice, it was new. It was a start.

Yup it's been a while, there are reasons, many of them, I won't bore you with them. Sorry for being gone, thanks for sticking around, sorry this is a shit sort-of comeback but hope you enjoyed all the same. Feedback is very very very much appreciated, have a great day!