It looks beautiful.
He can't stop staring at it, and it's already been two whole days. The redness around the black ink has long since faded. It's like he's a little kid again and it's a week before Christmas, and he keeps darting to the living room to look at all the pretty gifts resting underneath the tree. Every two minutes Dan pulls back the sleeves of his jumper to check if the planets on his wrists are still there, and every single time it's exhilarating.
Monday night, he pushes away from his desk earlier than usual and pops out of his room to tell his parents he's about to go to bed so that they won't think to check up on him. Then he switches off the lights and takes his duvet and a novel with him out of the window and onto the tiled ledge.
The lights in Phil's room are still off, so Dan figures he hasn't returned from his nightly pub crawl. He tucks his feet against his chest and wraps the duvet around him, and then rests his book on top of his knees and turns to the page where he left off.
Soon enough, a cloud drifts over the moon and blocks out his only source of light, so he leans against his window pane and stares up at the starless sky. He wonders if Phil might come back soon, and imagines showing him his tattoos. Will he be excited or concerned? Dan tries picturing Phil's face, the snakebite piercings in his plump bottom lip and the dragon tattoo on the side of his neck. He's never seen any of Phil's other tattoos, although the boy has always alluded to having more.
In his head, when Dan shows Phil his tattooed wrists, Phil smiles and laughs in surprised delight. He takes Dan's wrists in his hands and studies the pattern closely, and then he calls Dan a dork in the most affectionate voice ever. He says something about how Dan can make even something as jarring as a tattoo come across as cute, and shit.
Shit.
Dan has a crush on Phil.
His stomach flips over, and his heart does this weird sort of tap dance in his chest, and he swears out loud. Repeatedly, loudly. He dips his head under his duvet and shuts his eyes, his arms tightening around his knees.
Shit, no. No.
It's suddenly very cold, and there's a brick in Dan's abdomen. He can't think straight, he can't think past Phil's voice and his lips and his collarbones and the smile that he always seems to reserve only for Dan.
He's so fucking fucked.
Just then, Phil's room floods with light and through the curtain he can make out Phil's silhouette as he stumbles in. Dan shuffles backwards reflexively, although he can't physically distance himself from Phil any more without toppling into his own room. He licks his dry lips and clears his throat, trying to calm his racing heart.
It's fine. It's fine. He'll just call Phil out, and show him his tattoos and have him coo over them for a bit, and then he'll retreat to the safe confines of his room and deal with this new development on his own.
"Phil," he says, loud enough to be heard. Pushing himself forward, he taps at Phil's window and says again, "Phil."
Then the window is pulled open, and Phil's standing there, face pleasantly flushed and eyes dark. Drunk.
Dan's stomach swoops. "Hey, I wanted to show you something," he says, reaching around to disentangle himself from his duvet.
"Not now, Dan," Phil says. There's something new in his voice that makes Dan look up, and then he watches Phil smirk at him, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth.
"Are you tired?" tries Dan again. "This'll only take a moment, I promise." He extends his arms and pulls his sleeves down, and waits for Phil's eyes to land on them, waits for an exclamation, a gasp, anything.
Instead, he hears another voice. Deeper, thicker. "Hey, what's going on?" it says from somewhere behind Phil. "Are you gonna get me off or what?"
Dan jerks backwards, his blood running cold. The sudden movement almost causes him to slide down the ledge but he catches himself just in time. "Oh," he stutters out, unable to look away from Phil.
Phil raises his eyebrows. "Yeah. Not now, alright? I'll talk to you tomorrow, or something. Catch some sleep."
"Yeah," echoes Dan, reaching behind him to push his window open. He grabs his duvet in one hand and his novel in the other, and then spares one last glance at Phil. His heart is beating wildly, and every cell in his body is telling him not to cry, but his tear ducts seem to have a mind of their own. "G'night," he says. Pulling his sleeves down, he feels very small and very stupid as he crawls back into his room.
And if not much later Dan bites into his pillow and tells himself repeatedly not to scream, well. That's a different matter entirely.
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*authors note* MY POOR BABY DAN. I'm going to update again right now because 1) I need to apologise for this short, painful chapter and 2) I feel like a dick for not updating the Kings will fall. It's coming soon I promise xx
