You're My Canvas

Addict with a Pen part 2 by phansomniac

The nights get colder. And unlike most people, Dan doesn't really complain about the early sunsets and the darkening of streets at 4pm; he quite likes the extra time spent wallowing and convincing himself not to go and see Phil. Mostly for the fact that he's been to Phil's house three times in the last four days for no apparent reason other than his need for company, and Phil's probably getting a little sick of him by now.
Dan has a lot of spare time now, though, because of the rapid decline in guests at the B&B as winter approaches, and so he doesn't really have anything to do except walk around by himself and try not to go insane. It's not hard to in a place like this, with the population consisting solely of the retired and small business owners. Dan doesn't really have any friends, unless Phil counts. But, he supposes he doesn't mind; he's not exactly an extrovert, and he's lived here long enough to know things aren't going to change anytime soon.
So, mostly, he does what he's always done; sits on the beach with his moleskine and his ipod, and sketches. Despite how much Dan loves his radiohead, the intrusion of music is sometimes unwelcome, and so on occasion, like today, he just lies back on the sand with his eyes closed and listens to the waves. They're like a constant in his head, the waves. Consistent, a white noise that echoes until he's floating in the space between awareness and subconsciousness, one which brings a sense of calm that he doesn't quite know how to explain That is, until someone decides to shock him out of his own skin.
Dan's slammed back into consciousness as a pair of hands settle over his eyes and he shoots up, hands scrabbling for the open sketchbook he managed to forget about in favour of sleeping. He shoves the sketchbook back into his coat pocket before the offender has time to see any more of his works and blinks, eyes focusing on the figure beside him.
Of course. "Phil!" he breathes, half relieved.
"Sorry," Phil says from beside him, hands smoothing down his shirt as he settles back into a cross legged position. "I was going to grab your shoulders but I thought that'd be a bit of a shock."
Dan fixes him with a glare. Phil just keeps laughing, and so he rolls his eyes, not able to dampen the small smile that breaks out at Phil's words. "That was a shock enough, Jesus Christ, Phil."
"Sorry," Phil mumbles again with a smile, before turning to face Dan completely. "Are you busy?"
"Now?" Dan raises his eyebrows. "Of course not."
Phil's smile widens and he seems to contemplate Dan for a second. "Can I sit with you then?"
"Of course not." Dan repeats jokingly, though his features are soft. He shuffles back, gesturing for Phil to move closer. He's surprisingly not at all bothered by the disturbance, willing for Phil to take up his personal space and crowd the corners of his head for the next few hours if it gives him any distraction from the loneliness he blatantly denies. Phil moves close, flopping back onto the sand.
It's silent for a second, a seagull calling in the distance as Dan gathers his thoughts enough to voice them. "Do you want to talk? Because like, you know- I usually just sit here. I'm not very good company," he admits, bringing a hand up to mess with his fringe. Phil doesn't seem fazed.
"I don't mind. You're not bad company," Phil adds, and Dan can feel his gaze from where he's looking out at the sea, "You're just. Unusual? Because you could not talk for hours and we could just sit here and it'd somehow still be comfortable."
Dan just nods, slowly. "Well. That's good." He's guarded, for some reason, and the realisation stings because he's found someone who cares, someone who wants to know. Yet.
Phil takes the message, tilting his head from Dan back to the sky and shutting his eyes. Their conversation is stilted, unstable. It always has been. But somehow, in the few weeks they've gotten to know each other through endless small talk and quiet contemplations, Dan feels closer to Phil than anyone in his life back home. He supposes, he'll let down his guard after he understands Phil a little more. Ironically, it's the fear that Phil will give up on him or think he's rude that stops Dan from chasing him.
He tries not to flinch too hard when Phil's fingers lock with his own on the sand, half an hour later.
—-
It's late when Dan opens his eyes. So late that twilight is setting into the clouds, scratching at the corners of the sky and bleeding into a blend of purples and blues. With a drawn out glance at the sky he twists around, but stops at the pressure on his waist. Dan stiffens, for a long second.
Phil's arm is draped around his middle, his body curled in towards Dan, and for a moment Dan just settles back into place and looks at him. He's not sure what to think; Dan's never been used to any form of physical intimacy, whether platonic or otherwise, and the gesture catches him off guard. Surprisingly, though, he decides it isn't all that bad.
He's about to reach out for Phil's hand when Phil's eyes open, soft and tired.
"Hello." Phil murmurs, and Dan just smiles.
"We fell asleep on the beach in the middle of the afternoon," Dan remarks as a reply, lifting his head a little to scan his surroundings. Luckily, the beach is deserted. "Is that what normal people do?"
Phil scoffs, retracting his hands from Dan's waist almost casually before rolling himself into a tighter ball. "Probably not."
"You're very affectionate when you're tired." Dan comments a little offhandedly, trying his best not to make things awkward. He's not exactly uncomfortable, just not used to it. And the edges of his head blur with sleep and something cold but he's too tired to fight it off, just lets the overwhelming feeling of veins tightening and throat constricting take over. On the outside, he supposes, it won't show all too much.
"Are you uncomfortable with it? I'm sorry if-"
"No," Dan says, holding out a hand to strengthen his point. "It's just- different."
Phil looks up at him, then, studying him for a long moment. Dan finds himself strangely at ease, though, and so he smiles. The tightening of invisible hands stops, for a short time.
It's a second before Phil nods, and then he's moving to stand up, holding out a hand. "Let's go back to mine."
Phil's house is starting to feel more like home than his own room at the B&B, these days.
-
Phil makes them both cups of tea, and Dan's cup burns his fingertips, chews into the palms of his hands until he finds the conscience to hold it by the handle, instead. He's not sure why all forms of logic, all processes of 'this is good, and this is bad' have suddenly been wiped out of his mind, and the lack of stability mutes his head, a little. Because it takes Dan approximately four minutes to realise that his mug is searing his palms, and another minute to realise that Phil didn't invite him back for him to just stare into space. It's like- he's disoriented, the sort of puzzled that won't have a happy ending no matter how many puzzle pieces he jams into an empty slot. So he coughs, and blinks until the colour of Phil's rug focuses into jarring shades of red and gold.
Phil notices his apparent absence from reality, his sense of verisimilitude*, but doesn't comment. Somehow over the time they've known each other Phil has learnt to just watch, rather than question, because Dan has few words and what ones he does have are heavily lathered with restraint. And it's okay, mostly. Because Phil may not care why Dan doesn't function like a normal person, he may do. Dan doesn't know much save for what little he can study with his gaze.
They end up watching some TV show neither of them are really focused on, and the lights are off, and the room is setting into dark. It should be cold, but Dan grabbed a blanket that was hanging on one of the chairs in the kitchen and draped it over them both, letting Phil shuffle close until the space between them was static. Dan doesn't dare move any closer, or let Phil's fingers intertwine with his own. He's a little scared Phil will feel how shaky he is; his mind is concave, elapsing into something indistinguishable and he's been staring at the TV screen for 4 minutes, possibly 5, he doesn't know, but the colours are seeping into each other and the backs of his eyes burn as if they're going to rupture his skull. He's okay.
Phil shifts after a while, moving both his and Dan's cups (Dan had been holding his, empty, for a reason he wasn't quite sure about) to the table in front of them before leaning back into Dan's side. His fingers come up to trace the outline of freckles on Dan's arm and Dan feels almost vacant as he watches, blinking at the goosebumps Phil's fingers leave in their wake. He's okay.
"Your freckles suit you," Phil mumbles, voice not unusually quiet in the dim light of the room. "They're like- skin stars."
The edges of Dan's lips twitch with affection. "Skin stars?"
"Yeah," Phil pulls Dan's arm closer, until it's resting on top of the blanket between them, and begins his tracing attempts for a second time. "If I had a pen I'd play connect the dots. Join them all together, then you'd have little constellations on your forearms."
"You're such a dork." Dan murmurs, blinking a few times as his vision clears and spots of yellow clear into nothing. He's almost awed in the way Phil manages to snap him back into some sort of actuality, the way he can already begin to feel the weight of his arms come back to him, aching numbness subsiding in favour of taking in Phil's fucking skin star theories. It's a second before he remembers to smile; another before he realises he already was.
Phil's staring at him, now, gaze flicking over every thought process Dan seems to be going through and it's surprising to Dan that he doesn't feel uncomfortable, only content. He's a little frightened to know he feels sheltered from the way Phil watches him, a little nervous at the way he wants to wrap his arms around Phil's waist and burrow into his chest. It's not new. Just.
"I would get up and put a light on, but i'm really warm and you're comfortable to lie on." Phil confesses, moving his hands back to Dan's and twisting them together. Dan finds he really doesn't mind.
"S'fine," Dan's yawning, flopping his head back onto the head of the sofa as the sounds of the TV blur into the background and the imprints of colours echo onto the dark of the ceiling, projecting disallusion. Phil squeezes his hand and it doesn't occur to him that he's perfectly okay with squeezing back. "You are really warm," comes after a moment of silent contemplation, and Dan rolls so that his head is dangerously close to resting on Phil's shoulder. "You're like a space heater."
"Good thing," Phil says with a hint of a smile in his voice, "Lots of skin stars need warming up."
Dan slaps his arm and Phil rolls away laughing, dodging the cushion that's thrown at his head in a lazy fashion. "Get away with your stupid space junk," Dan drawls, unable to keep the smile off his face, "You're the biggest d- Phil!"
"What?" Phil raises his eyebrows, giggling at the look of pure surprise on Dan's features, his eyes wide and lips parted. Dan's gaze is fixed on something behind them as he suddenly lurches towards Phil to grab the thing of intrigue.
"I didn't know you had a cat?" he says once settled back into his seat, with a gigantic Norwegian forest cat in his arms. Dan looks positively radiant for those few seconds, vibrant, before his eyes seem to dim subconsciously into a half hearted state Phil knows as normal. "What's it's name?"
Phil smiles at the scene, reaching out and pushing a strand of Dan's fringe back into place as he replies. "Sarah."
"Sarah? Couldn't you come up with anything better than Sarah?" Dan teases, digging his fingers in the fur behind the cat's ears. "She's a monster. I've never seen a cat with so much fur." he adds as an afterthought in a thoughtful tone, senses trained on Sarah's purrs and the way her paws knead into Dan's thighs. He fucking loves cats.
Phil seems to watch them both for a long moment, gaze fond as he takes the scene in. It's dark, way too dark for either of them to actually see much except each other, but they're comfortable and Dan's got a cat the size of a pony in his arms and he's never felt more conflicted with how he feels. Because on one side, he's melting into the sofa, relishing in affection and contact and warmth and feeling everything under the pads of his fingers. On the other, though, his head is spinning with anxiety, irrelevance dripping down his cheeks and his throat is closing in on itself in a way that suggests that really, Dan isn't all that calm. He's vulnerable, yet more guarded than he's ever been. It's more accepting to say that he's forcing himself to be okay.
Sarah is a dark tabby complexion, with such piercing green eyes they seem to glow in the dark of the room. Luckily, she's the type of cat to purr at every stroke to the neck, and so Dan sort of cradles her in his arms and settles back into the sofa again, his head on Phil's chest.
They're quiet for a long time, the cat's purrs and the rising and falling of Phil's breaths occupying Dan's mind. It's not a ridiculous idea to think that whatever's happening is quite a big happening, one that Dan should maybe pay attention to. The fact that he doesn't quite remember how to tell anything apart lately, though, acts as an excuse to play ignorant.
Except, it's not a particularly good idea to do so, and Dan knows it. Because the light has faded to borderline monochrome and Dan's ears are filling with a sort of white noise as Phil lifts him up by the chin, freezing them both for a stranded moment. The TV is off; Dan doesn't quite remember when it stopped crowding the room with obnoxious colour but the silence is soft to his mind, coaxes it into a state of alleviation. He forces himself to breathe.
"Is this okay?" Phil asks, voice so gentle Dan's not sure he's actually spoken. The question confuses him; he's muddled as to what he's supposed to be okay about. Inwardly, though, he knows exactly what it means.
He nods.
Phil's finger on his chin is feather light, so soft it feels almost transparent as he brings them closer, pressuring Sarah to slink off Dan's lap and curl up on the corner of the sofa. Every move is stilted, so slow Dan's grip on everything slips, falls off balance a little. And there's a long moment of empty time before Phil connects their lips, feeling a short huff against his cheeks as Dan takes a sharp intake of breath. They stay like that for a moment, Dan's hands moving to wrap softly around Phil's neck, before Phil pulls away slightly, slowly enough for Dan's bottom lip to drag. Dan just stares at him, eyes wide and hair mussed from the wind earlier in the evening; he's stuck in a kind of vertigo, disequilibrium clouding his mind until he's thinking only in senses, and he doesn't know what he wants. Dan wants this, but he also-
It's too quiet, and takes a little too long before Phil nudges their foreheads together and tilts his head, waiting, only for Dan to move forward and kiss him again with more vigour. It's fragile and he's shifting his hips, moving to straddle Phil's lap with his hands locked around Phil's neck; they're still so hesitant despite the sudden urgency Dan seems to adopt. The kisses become longer, drawn out until Dan pulls away for breath, his body leaning in all angles towards Phil. Everything is so dark, fatally ambiguous. Dan's mind seems to warp Phil into something beautiful and exotic and fresh, something to preserve and handle with care, to leave no scratches or dents. It scares him to the point where his heart jumps, twisted in vines.
Dan pulls back a minute later, hands falling back to his sides, and he just stares at the way Phil's gaze is trained on him, his pupils blown and lips parted slightly. He's fucked.
"I'm- I- Sorry." Dan scrabbles, courage daring him to press their lips together for a split second more before he's untangling himself and falling back into his own skin, grace lost. He's terrified, his skin attacking him from the inside out and so he just stumbles over Phil's carpet until he's outside and he can breathe in something familiar. Phil's calls for him are muffled by the door slamming, the vibration echoing into the empty street. Dan heads for the sea.
-
It's closing on 2:34am, and Dan's limbs are eroding with each passing minute but he's okay, he's fine. He's used to the feeling, but that doesn't mean it's any less harrowing. Grains of sand clamp themselves onto the soles of Dan's boots, burrowing into crevices. He's okay.
The numb feeling is something Dan recognises as always being there, sleeping in the edges of his conscience. It's something that claws at his lungs and makes him want to throw up, something that presumably aids the persistent shaking he can't get rid of, and he doesn't like it at all. But the sea is calm and infinitely quiet, reflecting the silence of the sky in a way that makes his eyes flutter closed, seemingly placating his thoughts into soft crashing of waves, and for now he's unperturbed.
Phil finds him a few minutes later, padding along the sand behind him with jumper sleeves drowning his wrists and curling into his palms. Dan watches him in his peripheral vision, noticing flushed cheeks and shadowed, slightly dilated eyes, mussed dark hair starkly complimenting ivory skin. It's when he comes to the realisation that Phil is definitely why he feels sick, so he steadies his gaze on the horizon, drinking in grey and green; varieties of cold. Phil doesn't speak. Dan thanks him for it, because if he opened his mouth Dan's not sure whether he'd be able to hang on to the thinning thread of reason for much longer.
They stand there together for a while, until Phil's hair is thick with sea air and he begins to shiver, hopping up and down on the balls of his feet in an effort to warm up. Dan reaches out, curls his fingers with Phil's silently, and Phil stops his movements with a shaky breath. Dan doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
"Dan."
It's not quite pitch black, the shadows of night casting dark patterns on Phil's face as Dan turns to face him.
"Yeah?" he replies, voice low, cracked from disuse. Phil's gaze flickers down from Dan's eyes, and he's panicking a little because Phil better fucking not-
"You're- I mean, You're alright, yeah? I'm sorry if I ruined things, I- I didn't realise, and it's probably a bad idea and you obviously don't-"
Dan stares at the way Phil's lips form shapes of individual words and letters and he frowns, unabashedly, because it's not supposed to happen like this at all.
"Dan."
"What? No, no Phil, it's fine. Honestly. It's not you. It's just."
Phil blinks at him, all wide eyes and dilated pupils, and he's giving Dan's heart a fucking beating.
"Just?"
Everything quickly, almost instantly becomes too cold and Dan's shaking again, so much so it becomes noticeable to Phil, who squeezes his hand. With his other hand he wipes dry eyes and pushes his palm into his temples, waiting for the throbbing in his head to subside. It doesn't.
And Dan's so used to being calm, collected. He's so used to leveling Phil's gaze with a control that managed to hide everything underneath, and it's only when Phil tilts Dan's chin back to meet him that he realises he's doing a really shitty job at it now. If anything, his eyes scream 'desperate', and he hates it.
"It's not your fault." he decides on, letting the words sink in, because he's finally opening up and Phil's being introduced to the backstories of rough sketches and barely there smiles, however faint. "You're brilliant."
Dan can't find the words for anything else, and so he just stares back at Phil, waiting. He's failed at his chance of being someone normal, someone mundane enough to love easily; he's not sure if Phil, the boy who works at an ice cream shop and has a cat named Sarah really has any more to give that Dan can take. Phil smiles, then, a half grimace.
"You can have all the time you need," he says, voice gentle; "I won't force anything. Okay? Just- tell me when to stop, and we can stop. Even this; you don't have to have this. If you don't want."
"I want this." Dan ventures, voice tight. "But- thank you."
Phil just squeezes his hand, tight enough for him to keep his ground. And it's enough for Dan to convince himself that maybe, he can drag himself through it.