palaces out of paragraphs//phan

2.

Pj was having a party at a hotel in London. Phil and Pj had been friends for years and had always been close, so naturally Phil agreed to come. Stumbling round his apartment trying to simultaneously get dressed and gather everything to take wasn't exactly planned but neither was running late. Throwing on a jacket and grabbing his keys, Phil took one look in the mirror to sort his hair out before rushing downstairs to get into the waiting taxi.

To be frankly honest, Phil didn't do parties. They made him a little anxious and forced interaction with people you're not close to isn't appealing. But of course Pj knew this and insisted he had to come along, saying "it's all people you know in one way or the other" or something like that. Phil knew Chris was definitely coming but not about anyone else.

When he arrived at the hotel he was quick to get in a lift and go to the top floor, with instruction from a receptionist saying that's where it was being held. He had no idea why Pj had decided to go all out this time and so just went along with it - and with Pj now living in Brighton, seeing him in London was great. Phil stepped out into a large room with tall glass walls looking out over the city; it was full of people and noise and lights, majority of the people he didn't know. "Damn you Peej" he muttered under his breath as he skimmed the heads of everyone in hope to find the curls belonging to Pj. Suddenly a voice to his left startled him and only when he turned did Phil realise it was in fact Chris.

"Phil! It's good to see you.", Chris said as he came to give Phil a hug.
"You too, it's been how long?"
"Too damn long since I saw you in person"
"Definitely", Phil responded with a laugh. Chris then made a joke and it was like they had been together all the time, just chatting about anything and everything. Pj, Chris and Phil had a group chat they spoke in practically everyday, but seeing each other in person was quite a rare occasion nowadays - with Chris travelling & working on different projects, Pj doing the same and no longer living in London.

"Hey I was actually just going to find Peej, come say hi," Chris told him after the conversation began to draw to a close. So they weaved their way through the crowds of people (how did pj know so many people again?) in search of the curly hair Phil was looking for earlier. The pair soon found him and once again the three fell into a natural conversation, catching up and joking around. Eventually Chris had gone to get a drink and Pj and Phil were left talking for a while longer. Others joined in and out of conversations; Louise, Tom, Hazel, for example. It was nice to talk to people he hadn't seen in a while and the few familiar faces were appreciated in the many that weren't know to him.

At this point everyone at the party was getting slightly drunk as time went on, Phil instead drinking only a few drinks. Peej decided everyone was to play a game and called out for those who wanted to to come and sit down.
"Peej, what are you doing?", Phil asked.
"We're played spin the bottle!" Chris had replied - definitely drunk, sat next to Pj.
"We're not 16, everyone here is in their 20's!"
"So? Come on Phil join in literally everyone is", they giggled, and they were right - from what Phil could see it looked like every person at the party was now sat waiting and talking.
"Maybe if I was as drunk as everyone else: i'm going to get some air," he had responded. Arriving late meant he hadn't consumed as much alcohol yet, and was only bordering on tipsy. He wasn't mad at Chris and Pj more confused as to how and why their drunk asses had managed to get the rest of the drunk party members to play spin the bottle as if they were in high school. He sighed, shaking his head slightly to himself with a small smile on his face, those boys were idiots but were also his best friends.

He was originally planning on going to find a quiet corner to just watch the game take place, not that keen on going to the bottom floor of the hotel only to stand outside with traffic and people smoking. Upon walking to a sofa Phil saw that there was in fact a balcony on the side of the building and immediately headed to go out there instead.

Opening the glass door, Phil stepped out into the dark. It had cooled significantly since he arrived, you could now see your breath when breathing out. It was February to be fair. Suddenly very glad with the decision to put his jacket on, Phil stood just watching the city. He had always seen London at night as beautiful, and seeing it from this high up only confirmed this in his head. Lights spread across the ground below, putting into perspective the city he was in. Phil was a writer, a good one as well, he had wrote several books and was praised for them, earning him enough to live comfortably in London. But he always wanted to write more; and the past year had been the hardest to write anything, with Dan and everything.

Dan. Oh how he missed Dan. He had to leave him, for Dan's benefit rather than his own, and it had broken him and left him with not enough words to describe the heartache. Phil hadn't been in any relationship since, he couldn't. He shook his head, now was not the time or place to think about this, that happens enough at night anyway. 'Tonight I'm enjoying myself' Phil thought to himself, only to turn as to head back inside. That's when he noticed someone else on the balcony, sat on a chair in the corner, in only a tshirt and surrounded by shot glasses and bottles. They had their head down and didn't seem to have noticed Phil's presence at all, stuck in their own world. You couldn't make out who the person was in the dark either, but Phil saw they weren't looking too great, shivering from the cold, probably having drank way too much. "Hey, you okay?" he called softly out to them. Their head shot up with the sound of a voice, eyes going wide at the sight they saw. And at that point Phil saw too, because in the dark he could just make out who the person was.

"D-Dan Howell?"