Dan watched her leave.

Long brown hair that fell in waves, cascading past the edge of the table. Green eyes that seemed to fade as she talked, eyes that balanced between blue and green, like a swarming sea, eyeliner stretched into perfect little wings over her eyes. Delicate fingers which perused the menu cautiously, pupils that always seemed slightly distracted. His 'type', supposedly, if such a thing even existed. Dan didn't think so.

She was pretty.

Objectively, he knew that. In the same way he knew that Maria would become a Von Trapp and that his tears would fall as the green hills rolled out in front of them, the children's eyes sparkling with a hope he would never have. His tears would have to make up for it. She was pretty in the same way that everyone before her had been. Beautiful even. But every single time he felt it; the spark grow smaller and smaller, until it was in danger of becoming a glowing ember, and Dan was in danger of dying alone. Is that what growing up was like? A slow internal death until you become the business men with dead eyes, greying fingers clutched around briefcases?

The rain was splattering out of time against the roof.

Four. Four in a month. And each one strikingly similar as they flounced out the door, their auburn hair catching the light, tumbling like Rapunzel's locks from the tower but Dan hadn't the energy to climb, his fear of heights weighing heavily on his mind.

He didn't even watch the door close behind her. All he could do was slump to the table, his chin resting against the wood, his eyes focused on the logo. The cursive writing was bright and clear; Rosenwood's. Dan had never known that a word could be woven with so much nostalgia. The place that had seen him grow up, the aging walls witness to his first kiss, his first break-up, his first love, raising their eyebrows at his slowly growing caffeine addiction, because really, really, was he going to drink another expresso? They had watched the small forehead crease as his eyes focused on polynomials, his hand jut and slip, banging a fist against the table, because he just couldn't do it. They had witnessed the slip of tears, dripping into the coffee as the steam curled around him, the closest thing he had to a hug. The smile at the flash of the screen, a text sent from another room, a smile sent to the universe.

And they had learnt. A human is a whole world on their own. A whole scale of emotion.

But right then Dan was just still.

The rain splashed against the pavement, cars driving past, catapulting puddles of water onto the striding workers, it could catch his eye, but it couldn't catch a smile. The corners of his mouth stayed pointed at the floor. Maybe something was inherently wrong within his chest. Maybe his heart was two sizes too small. Maybe he was destined to live upon snowy mount crumpit, grumbling about the people of whoville. Maybe.

There was a tap on his shoulder like the rain that fell against the roof, and a boy with eyes like the sky above. Blue; in the most obvious kind of way. He held out a coffee cup. The rising steam hit against the boy's glasses and blocked the eyes from view. Dan laughed, and the boy seemed to shake a little, mustering a shy smile. And it was beautiful.

"Here," The boy said, his voice hitting a lower octave than Dan had expected. "My boss says to give this to you," The boy's hand shook slightly, fumbling against his apron. "She says you'll find the right one, and umm" the boy seemed to rack his brains, "not to worry." He finished with a nod. Dan felt proud of him. A feeling he instantly discredited.

Dan turned round to see Rose, her cheeks widening, accepting her smile as she raised a hand, widening her eyes and nudging her head towards Phil with a suggestive smile. Dan immediately turned red, causing her to let out a cackling laughter, several heads at the café whipping around.

Back to the night.

Closing time, elbows on bar like something from it's a wonderful life, misery acting in the blood like alcohol, and the dreaded secret, the one that hung at the back of Dan's throat like a uvula, I think I might be gay. Spoken to the universe. Crawling from his throat without his permission, hands grabbing from the cold lake that surrounded him. And a pause that was longer than time itself, that was shorter than a split second. 'Good for you'. Rose nodded, turning around to dust the coffee machine. And somehow that made it easier.

Subtle hints slipped under coffee cups. A roll of the eyes in Dan's direction. Let's find you someone, so distinctly different from You need to find someone. Dan felt the difference was important. It was the difference which drew him to Rose. Even if she did squeeze his cheeks too hard.

Dan blushed ferociously. But Rose turned her head as soon as Phil turned around.

"Oh wow thank you." Dan said, studying the boy. He seemed to turn in on himself slightly, as if he were trying to make himself smaller, as if he were scared for people to see him. God knows why.

The warmth from the coffee cup seeped into Dan's hands, and he felt the spark jolt a little once more. The fog faded from the boy's glasses. He turned to go.

"Wait," Dan said, and the boy turned back around, his blue eyes shining "What's your name?"

"Phil." His upper lip stretched just slightly, and Dan could see the angles of his cheekbones. They made his heart beat just a little bit faster. Dan couldn't help but think that he was everything wrapped up in one. That he was the deepest, darkest night sky and he was the ripple of the ocean on a summer's day. The rain seemed to beat harder against the roof.

He breathed. Maybe Rose was right.

Phil hovered between tables, his eyes skipping without ropes, his fingers tapping without drums, unsure of whether to leave. He turned his head away when their eyes met. And Dan couldn't help but smile.

A decision was made. Phil walked backwards a little, his mouth opening as if he was about to say something but couldn't twist his tongue into the right shape. Dan knew it when he saw it. He reckoned he thought long and hard about every word. The opposite of Dan, Dan blurted out words and then wished he could retract them again. He supposed Phil was smarter.

"Hey umm Phil?" Dan had to take the lead. It was the only way for it not to slip through his fingers. He could never make that mistake again. Phil turned his head slightly, "Do you want to sit with me umm maybe?" Dan uttered, his eyes getting caught on the mystical pattern of the floor.

Phil turned deep red, the colour of the little wrappers that clung to chocolates by the till. His head turned round, catching Rose, but she only nodded, gesturing to the table with a toothy smile that seemed to sing with laughter.

Phil perched on the seat, a cleaning rag still clutched in his hands, his arms hugging close to his stomach as if he were too afraid to place them on the table. Dan wanted to say he was adorable. And maybe he was in the way the world associates children and shyness. But Dan had always thought that to be a little condescending, and the air was a little too thick, like the fog on Phil's glasses, to name it something as simple as adorable.

Dan had always stood by the fact that you can tell how a conversation is going to go from the first few statements. Too much talk about the weather and it would fizzle out like lightning rippling a tree. Dan became hyperaware of this fact.

He realised that he really wanted this to go right.

The spark was burning against his upper chest.

Phil stared at the floor, his fingers having moved on from the rag to wrapping themselves around the string of his apron and Dan desperately wanted to blurt something out, something, anything, but for once he bit his tongue. He didn't know where that came from; the urgency for everything to go right.

The rains bit the dust of the tarmac, hurling faster and faster until Dan's sure it's all there is the world; just the frantic beating of the rain against the road, and the beating of his heart that falls in time.

Phil looked up. And he smiled a small smile. And Dan became overwhelmed with an urge to see his proper smile, because holy hell if that was his small smile, Dan expected his actual smile to be like an exploding star.

That was something Dan wanted to see. He was filled with new desires.

Phil's eyes lapped into his like the sea and the rain seemed to ease a little, and Dan felt as if he were floating.

Dan's eyes latched onto a badge, a small black badge that was pinned to his red apron. He squinted a little. A muse badge. Dan smiled.

Faces changed beside them, blurring in and out, a different nose, a different purse to the lips, ears that stretched out a little further, hair that curled, hair that flattened against foreheads, drinks swapping from black coffee like swirling skies to ice drinks the colour of fruit dangled on a tree. The sky even changed its colour. But they didn't notice. They didn't even notice the eyes of Rose, her smile like a halo hovering around their heads.

"What do you mean you just put it on the bed?" Dan laughed, his eyes widening as his head threw itself back, the laughter escaping from him like smoke.

"I mean, I carried a bloodied rabbit home and placed it on my mother's bed." Phil took a sip of his ice drink as he giggled.

"Colour?"

"What?"

"Colour of the sheets?"

"White" Phil chuckled, his teeth clinging onto his lip like a safety rope.

"Philip" Dan scolds.

"I was like 5."

"No excuses."

Phil curled his lips around his straw, holding it in front of his face like a defence mechanism.

"So, Daniel." He lilted, red rushing to Dan's cheeks, "Tell me what you were like when you were five." His eyes narrowed. And Dan felt the need to pull away from the gaze, but at the same time, he wanted to stay encapsulated forever. Dan had always been indecisive. Especially when it came to pretty boys with seas for eyes.

"Umm." Dan muttered, letting his eyes drop to the floor. He felt the seal stretching over his throat like cling film. It wasn't panic, Dan knew that much, nor was it that he didn't know what to say. It was the seal. And Dan was all too familiar with it. His personal memories, his thoughts, his opinions, were hidden in a dark corner inside, some place which Freud would consider the 'unconscious' but Dan knew better than that. The memories weren't repressed, he could access them at any point. He just had great difficulty in connecting the cave to his throat. The answers to personal questions were his, and he couldn't shake the pathogen from his brain, the little voice that screamed, he'll judge you, he'll judge you. Trust issues, he spat at himself. But he sensed it went further than that. Dan could tell he had retracted, could see that his shoulders had folded, could see Phil slowly swirling his drink with his straw, eyes focused on the chips of ice.

Dan was all about beginnings.

He felt it every time. If he started out confident, if he met someone when in a confident mood, if he walked into a classroom in a confident mood, he could continue to be confident in that situation. But if he couldn't look someone in the eyes the first time, he was destined to never see their eyes, and he was destined to the curved posture.

And Dan felt it slipping, the cloth cutting against his soft palm.

He couldn't drop it. He just couldn't.

"You don't have to tell me." Phil whispered, and his voice was so soft. Dan could feel himself hurtling back down, and Phil's eyes were caught on his and for fuck's sake, the water was gathering in his lids as he hurtled through space, his limbs hurtling against the lit stars.

But he was floating above the sea of Phil's eyes. And the waves were lapping. Sand between the toes. The reeds were waving to a soft song.

Dan could breathe.

Phil had gone back to twisting his hands in the strings of his apron, his eyes focused almost fearfully on the curling fabric. Fuck. He'd scared him. Of course.

Dan's eyes became sealed on the floor too.

A stutter. "Do you – err – want a hug?"

Dan nodded like a small child, his cheeks wet.

"I'm so fucking stupid."

"Sssh." Phil whispered, holding out his arms and pulling Dan down onto the sofa next to him. Phil smelt of warmth and cinnamon. He had never hugged anyone who smelt so distinctly of one thing. Except maybe his Great Aunt Ruth. But then again that wasn't very pleasant.

Dan could feel his eyelids dropping, sleep washing over him. He felt so comfortable. He had never felt that comfortable around anyone. He was always the cold one that kept their distance, the one that people walked around like the corner of a table. It was the first time he had felt part of something in a long time, part of Phil's warmth.

Dan sat up. In the distance Rose was smiling like a maniac.

"Rose must hate you" he laughed, resisted the urge to curl his fingers in Phil's hair. For some reason he hadn't yet moved back to his own chair.

"Why?" Phil's face was a puzzle. "I'm very charming."

"Oh I know." Dan lilted, his voice a little raspier than he intended. Phil turned the colour of apron. Dan wanted to spend the rest of his life making Phil blush like that. He smiled. He wanted to lean against Phil's shoulder. He was painfully aware that the café was slowly clearing of people. Soon the sign would be turned around, scrawling words across the door closed. "No I meant about your work; you've been slacking off I feel." He said, throwing a hand to where Phil was sprawled on the sofa.

Phil bit his lip "my shift finished four hours ago, I doubt she can be mad about that."

Dan raised his eyebrows, "What the fuck are you still doing here?"

"Guess"

And it was Dan's turn to match the apron.

The night came, and the sign turned and Rose stood twirling her keys by the door. And neither of them were good at goodbyes, even in variations of see you later. A nod of the head ended their day and Dan spent his evening wishing he had been able to break out of the box of awkwardness, wishing that he had told Phil he wanted to see him again, or that he had asked for his number. Something. Anything. Dan's fairy lights flickered.

He was worried that it would become a 'one time thing'. He was worried that he would never see Phil again. He was worried about being worried. He'd heard it could create heart problems.

Dan resented his early morning class even more than usual. That time it wasn't just the beams on sunlight that stretched through small window at the top of his dorm. Too light to be real, like it was fading into the sky, that was too blue, sickly like the watery eyes of the young. He draped his head against his prison wall. How come uni dorms never looked like this in films? Or sometimes they did, only then they were draped in needles and rolling cans of Stella Artois.

How anyone could describe early morning air as 'fresh' Dan didn't know. Was it just the cold nature? Because Dan found it to be more oppressive than fresh, curling around his like cigarette smoke, reminding him again and again of his lack of sleep. And not for the right reasons either, not for the kind of reasons that would earn a smirk from his classmates and an approving wink from his professor in the bow tie. The kind of reasons that tied around his throat like ribbon, tightening and tightening again. He tried to avoid people. He was sure that if someone stopped to speak to him, he wouldn't be able to stop it from spilling out. All his hopes and dreams.

His feet hit the cold tarmac of the pavement and Dan noticed the faint layer of ice stretching across the puddles. An early winter. Or a constant winter. Britain could never decide.

He was going back to the café,

For Coffee, he convinced himself, because he was tired, of course. He was craving the curling caffeine smoke, not the tumbling curls from Phil's head. Maybe if he said it enough times it would be true. Rose's red smile bounced through the glass. It was too late to go back now. He pulled his coat slightly closer to his skin, wishing he owned a scarf.

You won't mind if Phil's not there. He whispered as he stepped over the threshold, hearing the familiar bell, the familiar banging of the glass door into place. Yet he couldn't bring himself to look up, because what if Phil isn't there. He's so stupid, he's so fucking stupid.

Dan walked to the coffee bar. Where Phil wasn't. Where the boy had sandy hair that required a bottle and teeth that didn't wish to stick together. Where Rose was stood talking to someone, her hair even bigger than usual, a personal firework. Where Dan felt sad over a boy. Where Dan tried to convince himself that he was strong and independent. Where Dan failed. It wasn't the right day for confidence, it wasn't the right day for independence. It was a day made of heavy fog, a day for duvets to clutch at the skin.

And Dan was at the front of the queue.

"Can I take your order please?" Dan noticed that his voice was slightly too southern for the streets of Manchester. Dan also didn't care. Dan felt as if he were a machine that had been left out in the rain. Broken. Rotting. Rusting.

"No, thank you." Dan stuttered. He knew it was the wrong answer. He wished he knew the right one.

"Sir, you're in the queue for a drink."

"I know."

"So what would you like?"

Dan's eyes scanned the board above the boy's head. His hair ran clockwise. He scanned the board and asked for what he always asked for.

The man had moved away from Rose and the boy was still looking at him cautiously as he stirred his drink.

"What's up, flower?"

Dan didn't know whether Rose's use of flower was a personal nickname or a term of diction. But he needed it. He pulled up a stool, it's scratching unable to make him wince, draping his coat over the seat before sitting down. He knocked his elbows against the coffee bar. He half expected Rose to start wiping down the bar with a towel.

"How come you're back so soon?" she tried again.

"Coffee."

"Just Coffee?" she laughed slightly, "Because I know for a fact they have coffee at that school of yours."

Dan didn't like people invading his life. He didn't like questions and he didn't like jokes about matters which he considered 'personal' (which somehow in the past few years had stretched to every matter). But with Rose he didn't mind. Maybe it was the addition of the laugh. Maybe it was the mutual treatment of everybody. Maybe it was that she was there for him when his own mother wasn't.

"They do indeed." He said, sipping a coffee, his hand stretching into the chocolate bowl by the side of the till.

"Oi!"

"Just one?" Dan smiled, "For your favourite customer?" Dan felt his eyelashes bat. Somehow he felt better already. Dan worried that he was too dependent on people. Which brought him back around to worrying about a heart. Dan was going to have ingrained forehead lines by the time he turned 20. Which was 3 months, 2 weeks and 3 days away. Dan was also worried about that.

"I'm starting to think you're making this all up to get free chocolate." She laughed, but let him take it. She figured he needed it. "Phil's shift starts at 4."

He almost choked on his chocolate. Choking. Choking was another worry of Dan's.

Rose laughed, "don't think I didn't see you Daniel, I knew Phil was good for you."

"That's not why I'm here."

"You keep telling yourself that." She said, plucking the chocolate wrapper out from in front of Dan and fluttering off to help clockwise hair with the drinks.

Four.

Dan took a sip of his coffee.

Four is only 3 hours from now.

Shut up. You just want coffee. It'll all make more sense once the coffee's inside of you. Dan didn't know what kind of logic that was.

You might as well just stay.

Dan thought of the project that was stacked on his desk.

You need to take more opportunities.

Another one of Dan's worries, his worrying was holding him back. That one was probably rational.

He moved to his favourite seat by the window. He had a view of the post box. He liked the post box. He figured it was a clear feature. Even when rain lashed against the window and the customers of the café felt as if they were huddled together against the Armageddon, Dan could still see the post box. Bright red. Never changing. The kind of constant that Dan needed. The kind of steady that made Dan calm. Not that he ever wasn't calm. Of course not.

He pulled the sheets from his bag, wincing at the crumpled corners. He could put off his project. He could do next week's homework. That would be productive. He took a sip of coffee.

There was something he liked about doing his work in a café instead of a study room, or his desk in his prison. He liked the atmosphere, the gentle lulling, the comfortable feeling that lurked in the room. It made him believe he could do anything. He liked that when people saw him, shirt stretched on his back as he leaned over his work, one hand sitting tentatively close to his coffee, steam rising, they thought of him in monochrome, they thought of him as studious or clever, or interesting, they didn't see the layers that made him human. He liked that kind of protection.

The clock hands turned so fast Dan wondered whether his own subconscious had changed the clock to make four come around faster. But he hadn't. And it was still there.

The rain wasn't lashing that time. There was no constant but Phil was still there, his shirt white this time, sleeves rolled over in an attempted to hide the crinkles that lined it. His apron was tied loosely around his waist and Dan noticed a coffee stain where the apron reached his knees. It was vaguely endearing.

Dan forced his head down. His eyes read over the page. His heart beat faster. Stupid. He knew it was. And yet he still couldn't look up. There must be direct, or oblique intent to kill the victim. He heard Rose's voice loud and clear across the café. The concept of "being virtually certain" comes from Lord Lane CJ in Nedrick (1986) He could see Phil lift the hatch up at the side of the coffee bar. and supplemented by the House of Lords in Woollin (1998). Phil was walking towards him. And there was no tray in his hand. And no uncertainty in his eyes. There must be an intent or an oblique intent to cause death or grievous bodily harm and the test of intention is subjective. Phil sat down next to him. Dan looked up from the page.

"Dan," he said and Dan felt as if the whole world was watching, so intense was that moment. He faintly heard Phil breathing. "Dan, I like you."

Dan blushed red, crimson, scarlet, the colour of the correction pen that lay at the bottom of his pencil case. His tongue was too dry to be twisted into shapes and yet words fell anyway. "I err I like you too." Dan said, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face.

"Thank god." Phil breathed, his fingers letting go of his apron.

"What do you mean?"

Phil laughed, "I err left my number on your coffee cup yesterday. And when you didn't call, well, I thought I'd done something wrong."

Dan's mouth hung open, "which coffee cup?"

"The one you were drinking from yesterday."

"I put it in the bin!"

Phil clutched at his heart, "wow, that hurts Daniel, it really does."

"Who the fuck keeps their coffee cups Philip?"

Phil blushed. "It was an attempt at a sweeping gesture."

"Hoping to capture my heart?"

"That's the idea." Phil said, both of them blushing as bright as the post box on the other side of the street. Dan was sure that their light was so bright that you would be able to see it through a sheet of rain. "I can't believe you threw it in the bin." Phil shook his head. "What are we going to do with you?"

"Well I know what I'd like you to do."

"Dan!" Phil exclaimed over the background of Rose's cackle.

"Scrabble, Phil. I was referencing scrabble. Jesus Christ."

"Like hell were you, Daniel."

"Please call me that again."

"Gladly, Daniel."

Dan's smile was a light. He even had the nerve to say it was bigger than Rose's. Although not as constant.

Dan's head leans against Phil's chest. If he is very, very quiet he can hear Phil's heartbeat. His back presses against the cushions of the sofa. Their sofa. Well, Dan's choice. He had fought for it, in compensation for the many rainbow-coloured pillows that line it (which were Phil's choices). The television screen flickers in the background, but Dan knows that Phil is already asleep. Because Phil always falls asleep at this time, the dark lurking and curling its arms around them, kept at bay by the dying flames burning in the fire place. Their fireplace. And Dan still can't get over it, a simple world ours, with so many connotations, springing from it like the roasting flames of the fireplace. The feeling of Phil's arms wrapping around him at night as his head sinks into the pillow, the smell of burnt toast, sacrificed for a kiss, for a hug, arguments over cereal, laughter spilling through the apartment about how much Dan cares. And he does, he cares, his 'spark' had lay fallen into Phil's palms, glowing upwards like a light beam, a hand on his chest and placed back inside, to shine inside his beating heartbeat. And when he worries it is about taxes, and running out of milk, and occasionally the odd question of the universe. But he can handle it. He's sure he can. He brushes his hand through Phil's hair once more.

Originally written