stars - phan

parents and galaxy ceilings

"You actually like anime?" Phil exclaimed, making Dan jump slightly and almost drop PJ's macbook. Phil was holding Dan's phone, his lock-screen background was L, his favourite character from death note.

"Um, yeah... I guess, do you?" Dan turned his head, scared that Phil didn't like it and thought he was weird, that would be very awkward.

"Of course I do! It's like the best thing ever! What's your favourite one?" Phil babbled; Dan almost couldn't keep up with how fast he was speaking.

"Death note, probably, it's boring I know. Or maybe Your Lie in April, I've always loved that one." Dan said, and then looked back to the laptop screen,

"Oh my god, Death Note is mine! I've literally just ordered Your Lie in April, too." The other declared, Dan snapped his head to the side.

"Really?" He questioned, Phil nodded eagerly.

"We should watch it together sometime." He almost squealed, Dan nodded,

"I'd like that," he replied quietly, and turned back to the laptop.

One thing Dan had learned from spending almost every weekend in the university halls, was that Peej and Chris were barely ever there. Chris would see his family a lot, so went home almost every weekend, and PJ just seemed to be always busy. It had been three weeks since Dan had met Phil for the first time, and every day he was there it would work the same, PJ would tell him what to do, and then leave somewhere mysteriously unknown. Dan quite liked this, though, because it meant he could spend more time with Phil, who he would happily spend every day with. But his mind-crippling social anxiety and the fact that he was almost numbingly socially inept meant that he couldn't speak to Phil as much as he would like to. Eventually though, Peej would always return, and review what Dan had done, mostly it was writing and editing scripts, looking up filming sites on Google maps, drawing up storyboards, and creating props (being more creative than Dan, Phil would always help him out with that bit).

-

It was one of those days where Dan had finished all of PJ's tasks, but didn't want to go home and be forced into church or family time or whatever torture his parents would have lined up for him. So he lay on his back on the rug, and stared up at the peeling ceiling.

"Are you alright?" He heard Phil's voice.

"Yeah, I'm just finished with everything." Dan replied, "And I kind of like lying on the floor, especially when the rug is fluffy like this one."

"Wait a sec', look at this." Not wanting to move his head, Dan just listened to Phil shuffling across the floor, and the lights switched off. Dan looked up at the ceiling again.

The ceiling was covered in stars, but not just those crappy glow-in-the-dark stars you get from a supermarket for a couple of quid, it was almost a galaxy. A vast array of what looked like thousands upon thousands of stars. It gave the affect of looking at the sky at night; Dan couldn't stop himself reaching his hand up as if to grab at them.

"Stars..." He smiled, feeling Phil's body lie beside his.

"Yeah, don't they look cool? I was left alone one day so I used glow in the dark paint that I got for Christmas last year, and a small paintbrush, took ages but, it worked better than I expected." Phil smiled like a little kid, his tongue poking out of his teeth.

"Very cool, they look extremely cool."

There was a comfortable silence for a couple of moments before Phil spoke up again,

"Did you not want to go home?" He asked, "Why don't you?"

Dan coughed awkwardly before speaking, "U-Um... M-my parents a-are..."