Just as a note I so badly wanted to call this 'Under The Cork Tree' and then I realised most people would think it was a fall out boy songfic which it isn't :( So you are getting a frankly more boring title. (Also I am back off holiday now)
Under The Oak Tree
The sky was a brilliant blue colour up above, littered with slight smudges of white and dark grey like the slip of an artists wrist across a masterpiece or a kitchen counter topped with spilt milk. The slightest hint of yellow shone shyly behind one of the smudges, only parts of itself filtering through. A bit like Dan's life really. A metaphorical cloud standing in front of him, only letting a few wisps of who he actually was escape into the atmosphere. The rest remained a mystery, trapped behind the cloud for only Dan to know about. Dan sighed as he opened his book. Maybe if he spent less time staring up at the sky and pondering metaphors, he would actually get some work done. Maybe.
Dan felt the slight wave of grass knocking against his leg as the sharpness of the bark began to dig into his back some more. It always seemed like a romantic idea, to sit under the tree and study, the wind refreshing you and no distractions other than the bright brilliance of the sky. But in practice it never went quite like that. Dan as a person was very easily distracted, the slight rustling of papers or the peeping of the sun from behind a cloud could break his focus. It took him hours to do what would take a normal person a few minutes. He also watched too many films and read too many books and had a hopeless tendency of romanticising things. Dan could romanticise anything, he dreamt of road trips and boarding schools and coffee shops and instead of seeing the normal, dull things that are the actual embodiment of these words; the endless hours of boredom in the car, the lack of privacy, the overpriced drinks, everything was always covered in a sort of heavenly glow. He saw them as things of wonder, as if all he had to do was climb into a car and then his life would be sorted, as if the piece missing from his life was simply a letter of acceptance to a boarding school. He had definitely read one too many of the St Clares' books. It wasn't logical of course, and somewhere in Dan's mind he knew that a coffee shop couldn't bring him the love of his life no matter how much he willed it. But that's the problem with romance, it seems to cloud all logic.
And that's how Dan had ended up there. In that same spot, day after day like a character in an independent film, just waiting for the day in which someone would come along and warm his lonely heart. It didn't matter to Dan that the bark left tiny marks on his back, or the grass made his legs itch or the wind occasionally turned his pages, he felt as if the tree was the one place in which things like love really happened; another side effect of the words and pictures he so desperately consumed.
Dan was doing an undergraduate degree, with dual-honours in English literature and history at Manchester university and, as lonely as he was he enjoyed it a lot. For loneliness had always followed him, flitting in the background behind boring friends and television screens; but now at least he got to study things he loved. Some days, Dan would get completely wrapped up in a book assigned for class or some research behind a history project. Sometimes the stars would be shining in the sky, the branches throwing questionable shadows in the moonlight before he left the tree; his spot of both hope and wonder. And then Dan would have to go back to the room, listening to the distant, thumping music of parties whilst performing constant sighs at the endlessly frustrating slow WiFi.
In short, Dan's life wasn't so bad. He didn't miss what he had never had and in fact, before the fateful day, he was perfectly happy with his dreams and his tree branches, arching round him like an overprotective parent hugging their child close to their chest. But once he had seen the boy, the glass smashed, the bubble popped and Dan began to see reality for the first time. And he began to like it.
Dan was staring down at the grass when he arrived. His eyes had been hooked on a tiny little dewdrop that seemed to cling desperately to the curved blade of grass as if so desperately afraid to splatter down into the soil. His hand had been hovering over a page of his history textbook, his finger delicately curling around the page number; four hundred and eleven, it read in obnoxiously curvaceous hand writing. He had almost felt as if he were hovering above himself, so ultimately serene, so ultimately quiet, the silent sound of sleeping the only one that could be heard for miles. And so it startled him. It startled him when the sound of footsteps drummed at his ears.
A boy walked across the grass, his head down and a straightened black fringe stretching across any features that might fall into Dan's eye line. He walked slowly and slightly to one side, a backpack on his right shoulder weighing him down. His back was slightly hunched as if he thought standing up straight and allowing the sun to hit him might burn him. Dan noticed him fidgeting nervously with his hands. A white wire dribbled from one ear, down his body and disappeared into a shallow pocket and if Dan looked close enough he could see the boy nod his head slightly to the beat.
Dan thought the boy would pass by, just another body that Dan would soon forget but he didn't. He lightly dropped his backpack to the ground, bending down and curving his knees before pulling several books and sheets of paper from the bag and settling down in the crook of the tree opposite Dan. Dan wasn't going to lie to himself, the boy intrigued him. Especially once his face was revealed to the pale light of early morning. He had the sort of face that he supposed most people overlooked, no obvious striking bone structure or ragged scars of any kind. The kind of face that asks you to look deeper, to run your eyes endlessly over each individual part and, once you had it would give you a key and you would be able to see it, the beauty that lay in the face. The boy was beautiful in a way that most people can't understand; like a tiny butterfly- hard to see but once you had it was more than worth it, the colours flying vibrantly. Dan continued to stare at his little butterfly, afraid it might fly away if he stopped. His eyes. His eyes were the thing that snagged Dan's attention, his clear blue irises flicking back and forth as he read. Dan couldn't stop staring at the boy. The boy didn't notice him. He didn't look up once, instead he ran his moved his hands quickly and almost desperately over his work, his fingers darting about in swift gestures. He seemed anxious and Dan couldn't help but continue to stare as the boy ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip, making his face look even more endearing than before.
When the boy left that day, Dan had felt his heart sink a little. Just once he had wanted the boys blue eyes to connect with his, for him to flash him a small quirk of a smile and for Dan to feel his heart flip a little. That was his movie moment and he was sure of it. Dan's poor hopeless romantic heart had romanticized something again and once again Dan was left with just dreams of his own romance. The boy never looked up once, seemingly lost in a sea of work and had swiftly left mid-afternoon without so much of a glance in Dan's direction.
It had been a long night for Dan. His covers seemed to suffocate him as he attempted sleep, the vision of the boy mixing with stories inside of his head. One minute him and the boy were dancing on the parade float from Ferris Bueller's day off, the next on the table from The Breakfast Club, then kissing in the rain and sat laughing in a cafe and staring at the stars from a rooftop. In fact, by the time morning had come Dan was convinced that he had dreamed him up.
The sun filtered through the curtains and Dan wasted no time in collecting his books together, getting excited by the prospect of a serene hour or two before his first lecture. He tried to convince himself that his excitement stemmed from a desire to be amongst nature, to be able to be happy in his happy place but in reality he wanted to know if the boy would return. He wanted to know whether the boy was real or just a ghost, just another part of his dreams. He walked out the door of the complex, feeling his foot sink into the soft grass. His breath caught. He was there. He was real. That day the boy wore a red shirt, chequered, one button undone revealing his pale skin below. And that time the boy heard his footsteps and Dan got to look right at those blue eyes. You could swim in those eyes. The boy didn't quite manage a smile, but instead a nod of acknowledge before burying his head back into his books below. Dan noticed that the boy was also doing history and he smiled; they had something in common at least.
This went on for a few weeks. The nods slowly building into smiles, the smiles growing wider and eventually turning into shy glances before one of them quickly turned their head away, a pink blush spreading throughout their cheeks.
It was especially windy on the day that it happened. It seemed as if someone had just turned up the dial on the remote for the weather slightly, making Dan's papers flutter more ferociously, before one finally escaped, riding the wind like a road to freedom before finally settling just left of Phil's tree. It was autumn now and the trees were just starting to lose their leaves, the floor becoming scattered with brilliant sparks of orange and red. The paper landed amongst the sea of leaves, it's whiteness so incredibly stark and demanding against the autumnal colours. Dan ran after it, making sure to hold the rest of his paper down with the edge of his backpack. Dan had never been an athletic sort and he tried not to care about what he looked like as he ran towards the boy, able to steal glances at his face from a much closer distance now, able to see the ocean eyes up close. From there he could see that the ocean of blue was actually scattered with little flecks of green and grey; driftwood floating in the sea if you will. Dan grabbed the paper and saw Phil look up, words seemingly dancing around his lips before he settled for just a regular smile, his face tilting downward once more. But Dan wasn't having it. Dan was feeling confident, maybe it was the crisp air or the magnified view of the boy's eye or the small amount of exercise that spurred him on, but whatever it was, it made him speak.
"Hi." he said shyly and Phil blushed, looking up, an expression of puzzlement still etched into the lines of his brown.
"Hi" he said and his face softened "I'm Phil." Phil. Dan thought, and it fit. He finally had a word to describe the boy, a way to refer to him.
"I'm Dan." Dan said, extending a hand. Phil took it, shaking it with a bemused expression drifting across his eyes and lips.
"Do you need any help?" Dan said, his confidence lingering as his eyes wandered to the scattered sheets.
"Are you sure?" said the boy-Phil. He bit his lip again and his eyes filled with a distant kind of worry. It kind of made Dan's heart want to melt.
"Yeah of course, I'm pretty much done anyway." he said, his head cocking towards his tree.
"Okay then, thanks." Phil said, shuffling to the left slightly and patting the space beside him with his right hand. Dan couldn't help but grin, he felt as if he had fallen straight into the page of one of his books.
Dan helped Phil all morning, occasionally slipping into conversation. They actually had a surprising amount in common which might not be so suprising once you consider that they both picked a tree to study under. Dan tried not to let himself fall into some deep metaphorical hole in which the tree represented love or something but he was struggling, metaphors always seemed to be on the tip of Dan's tongue. They poured over the work, almost making Dan late for his lecture when time ran away from them. Dan caught the sight of his watch and jumped up, aiming to run over to the other tree and collect his bag before scurrying down the hallway and to his lecture. Dan was never late, he hated being late. And yet when Phil grabbed his arm, he stopped.
"Do you want to maybe go for coffee some time?" Phil asked, his voice sultry and smooth despite his obvious nerves. Dan paused for what he later considered was probably too long of a time, words rushing around his head but none of them quite finding their way to his tongue. Eventually, though, they must have managed to find their way and Dan spoke.
"Of course." Dan said, his grin shining through his voice and as he pulled away he grabbed Phil's hand, "Tomorrow, Starbucks at 6?" he asked and Phil smiled,
"See you then." And with that Dan turned away, his hand reaching out, shoving his papers into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He looked back once, his final view one of Phil with his back rested casually against the tree, one knee bent up against his stomach, a secret and yet uncontrable grin spreading across his lips.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This is one of my many many ideas that I have had in an ideas folder for a while so I hope it went okay in the end. If you got this far you might as well review ;) It's much appreciated. Thanks!