Made Of Paper {Phan}

~Chapter_Two~

If I'm to ever be asked to describe all of you with a singular word, I would immediately deem the said task impossible. Nothing in this world we're gifted can be explained with merely one word, especially you. How am I to explain someone such as you with so little to work with, a single word, a syllable, or two, maybe three if I'm to get creative, no. There will never be just one word because I can think of too many, and I fear all the worlds ink will run dry before I'm able to finish telling them all to you. Sometimes when you speak, when you speak, I can almost hear the happy that once played with you, that once moved as you're voice and the ocean does, all filled with chocolate gold that boils and churns in your eyes, as sickly sweet as the cold of winter after the heat had become too much. You are not a word, but a book, a series, a franchise, infinite words beyond my level of comprehension and sometimes I fear myself that I'll never understand them all, all of you. The closest word would be everything.

The breeze tickled the hairs that stood against the back of Phil's neck whist he watched Dan project his attention across the vast body of ocean sat before them, and so far, far below them. This place was there's. No one else knew of their place, no one but the two of them. Others knew of a place indescribably similar, standing in the exact same spot, but still they'll never know of their place. They'll never understand the magnitude of their place, what it held and what it was then destined to hold. Their place was not known as the place itself, but for the memories it erected for them.

Phil remembers seeing one of Dan's drawings for the first time sitting there on the bitter cliff-side, the soft, autumn breeze pushing afternoon haze towards them. He wasn't sketching the scene before him however beautiful the dazzling waters where that day, he was re-creating the sometimes timid boy sat beside him whom was watching everything shine against the ocean waves, breaching and breaking as they do. It had always mesmerized how he'd managed to collect even the most intricate of details swimming in his eyes, the oceans waves almost moving against his pupils.

Phil had turned to him that day, glanced at the pencil struck paper and immediately found himself holding a very new, very categorical feelings inside he'd never thought possible to feel so strongly towards his best friend. At first, the feeling scared him. It scared him because he'd never thought he'd fall in love, he'd always thought it almost fictional, but right then in that moment, the blush spreading across Dan's cheeks, the light caught in his eyes, and the paper held to his chest with scratches of Phil coating it from top to bottom, it all solidified itself and Phil was in love.

He didn't tell him though, because loving someone and telling them you love them are two very different kinds of formidable, and he wasn't even almost ready to either make or break their current status, so he kept his new feelings to himself, not matter how overwhelming the secret was to keep.

Right at their current moment though, the sun was burning through Dan's dark, curly hair, spitting lines of gold as he'd sway, sketching something new and old all at once. Phil hadn't a clue what he might be composing that day, but he hoped it was him again. Knowing that Dan might have thought him important enough to host a page in that sketch book of his even once was astounding, but to hold two would be phenomenal.

"What are you drawing today?"

"Hmm?"

"In your book. What are you drawing?"

Dan smiled ever so tenderly, his delicate hand moving across the paper as his eyes do, neither part of him giving Phil the attention he was currently craving. Phil knew he would never tell, though he had the overwhelming urge to make some kind of conversation, and apart from the fact Dan looked stunning in that light, his drawing was all he could think of.

"What are you writing about?"

Phil glanced down to the open page in front of him, the look of wonder crossing both of their features, a mutual look of knowing cascading through both of them. Neither of them would have their questions answered today, not yet, and both were fine with it. It was almost their tradition at that point. 'You can ask, but I'll never tell'.

"You know you can't be asking me that."

"Funny that, and yet you'll ask me the same question."

"Yeah, funny that..."

Both boys gave off childish giggles before Phil found himself staring off over the horizon again, the one he'd lose himself in so very often. Often enough that he'd at some point found a home with it, watching the sky meet the sea, as much as he'd find it at home in bed at night. The sounds of scratching paper and led pencil rushing around the two of them and everything else was somehow so quiet that they sounded more like the shouts of a distant dream.

Lately, Phil had had many dreams where he would be shouting, screaming, yet only letting out soft whimpers and whimpers, far calls of the singular word stop. He didn't like those dreams. Those dreams scared him... Sometimes he'd wake up shouting and screaming for real... though on those nights, Dan would always rush to his side in an instant, he was always there.

Phil watched onward still, the scene fading in and out of focus as he does, and then he watched Dan, well, more like admired Dan, but he'd never outwardly admit to that. He did his best not to draw Dan's attention to his watching though, because this moment was just for him to enjoy... Dan's most beautiful when he's not cowering under a knowing gaze.

On that day though, Phil deduced, Dan looked sad.

"Dan?"

"Phil?"

A small chuckle breaches the nothingness.

"You, you'd umm... You'd tell me if, if something was wrong, right?"

"Of course I would, Phil. Where's this coming from?" Are you okay?"

"I don't know... I just... You're positive you'd tell me?"

"Of course I would."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

Phil took in another labored, restless, and somehow peaceful breath before he looked down at his own messy scribbles against his paper, and sighed before stuffing his notebook back into his galaxy-print book bag.

"Nothing... Don't worry."

They had the same book bags. Neither Dan nor Phil could recall where they'd gotten them though, nor when, but they were almost identical. The same starry-night patters, the same moons, the same galaxies, though Phil's was an amalgamate of colours, and Dan's was the darkest of nights.

Very, very different, yet exactly the same, just like them.

"It's getting late... We should go."