Hate Me Closer (Phan)

Chapter Forty-Eight

"You're aware we'll be taking our GCSEs tomorrow facing the cupboard we fuck in, right?" Dan smiled upwards. He had his head resting on Phil's lap as they sat in his empty dorm room. The older boy's fingers ran through his dark brown hair as they rested into each other.

Phil hummed, chuckling to himself, "Good luck concentrating."

"Just don't make eye contact with me." the fifteen-year-old warned, moving his fingertips over Phil's collar.

"It's also your birthday next week." the blue-eyed boy smiled, looking directly into the boy's whom he had curled against his bed, "I want to get you out of school."

"Yeah?" Dan asked, sitting upright and shuffling closer, "What's the plan?"

"Well, we're only forty minutes away from the beach." the older boy smiled, "We could take a bus down there?"

Dan grinned, nodding his head as his cheeks painted themselves pink, "I'd like that. Just us?"

"Just us." Phil confirmed, "And we'll leave at five, straight after lessons, then come back at ten, just before lights out." Dan looked at the dorm door before he turned back, pressing their lips together and wrapping his palm around Phil's neck, "I'll tell Mr Brown this evening."

"Thank you." Dan smiled, pressing their foreheads together, "I love you."

"I love you, too-" Phil cut the syllable short as he pulled himself away, seeing PJ and Chris enter the room with them.

"What do you love?" the youngest boy asked, raising his eyebrows and winking at them.

"Shut up." Dan mumbled, pouting his lips and staring at his fingers.

"Just wanting to join the conversation." Chris shrugged, taking out a stache of biscuits he'd been hoarding in his cupboards.

"Pass us one!" Dan grinned, holding his hands out to catch one. It slipped by his palms, but he picked it off of the bedsheets and bit it between his teeth.

***

"Your time is up. Please put your pens on the table and close your papers. Stay silent until you're out of the building." the adjudicator monotonously droned. Dan let a sigh burn through his lungs as his English paper was taken from his desk. He looked at the time, knowing he and Phil had fifteen minutes before the bus left the village and drove them on the fifty-minute journey towards the beach. He couldn't wait to escape.

He was dismissed from the Great Hall, standing up and turning his back to the wooden podium at the front. He strode down the hall until he was out in the open air with his eyes clambering for Phil, "Are you ready?" a voice spoke from behind.

He turned to his best friend, grinning as he nodded, "Yeah, should we go and get changed?" he asked.

"Yeah, we need to be quick though." Phil acknowledged. They hurried back to Crossings where they threw on their swim trunks for the summer evening, as well as t-shirts and towels stuffed in a bag.

"Heading off somewhere?" PJ asked with Chris nowhere in sight.

"Yeah." the two sixteen-year-olds responded, smiles on their faces as they stood closely beside each other.

There was a moment of hesitation before PJ said, "Right." obviously understanding that he wasn't going to get an explanation.

Dan and Phil rushed out of the building and out of the school gates. That wasn't particularly freeing because they were allowed out most times during the day to go to the local shops, but what did feel relieving was when they stepped onto the bus, passing the money over to the driver and taking seats halfway down the carriage. They looked at each other, exchanged an excited grin and laughed.

"It shouldn't feel this exciting getting on a bus away from school." Dan shook his head at themselves, then crossed his arms over his body as he sat in the aisle seat beside his friend.

Phil grinned, "It shouldn't, but it does." he hovered his hand over Dan's for a moment, not used to being able to be more than platonic outside the comfort of locked doors, but nobody around them knew who they were. He took in a breath and let his hand fall on top of Dan's, entwining their fingers and letting the warm air nestle on their necks.

"Auburn School boys?" a lady to their left spoke aloud, wondering where they were from.

Dan took his hand away from his friend's, looking at the fifty-year-old lady with a hat placed graciously on her knees, "Yeah." he nodded, the beam still across his cheeks.

"Lovely. Whose birthday is it?" she chuckled, rearranging the flowers in her dress pocket as she slowly let out the words.

"Mine, actually." Dan nervously laughed, his foot tapping against his seat.

"I love seeing boys escaping that place on the bus for their birthdays. I take this route from five o'clock up to the beach where I go to dinner with my friends every week, and there's always at least one birthday boy."

Dan hummed in amusement, but he was unsure how to reply. The conversation awkwardly dwindled away, leaving the two boys in silence as the rest of the world drove by. The older boy eventually clasped his hand back around Dan's, not caring what the rest of the world thought about them.

They eventually stepped off of the bus and were left directly at the beach. It was a quiet area about an hour North from Manchester, directly South of the Lake District. It barely was an actual beach, it was more a stretch of sand by the water until it folded into pebbles on either side. But, it was perfect for them.

"Come on, then." Phil chuckled, grabbing Dan by the forearm and running to the open space, away from the trees on either side of the bus stop.

The younger boy let out a squeal but allowed himself to be pulled along until their shoes trod into the dry grains. They kicked their shoes off and threw their t-shirts on top of their bags before they trod along to the water. Phil stepped in first, shrieking slightly as the cold bit at the end of his toes.

"Is it cold?" Dan giggled, walking forwards as the wave washed away from him. Phil waited for the sea to ripple back, cackling as the younger boy screamed and then playfully punched his shoulder, "You should've said!" but the black-haired boy couldn't catch his breath.

Phil took in a deep breath, leaning over so his hands were on his knees until he warmly asked, "Do you want to sit in the sand?"

"Yeah." Dan nodded, looking adoringly over at the taller boy with his cheeks slyly pulled up, "I'd like that."

Phil sighed, taking a couple of steps back and falling into the ground, letting his arms spread out either side of him. Dan heard a gasp from his own lips, covering them with his fingertips as his face dyed itself red, "Phil..." he mumbled, sitting down beside his best friend.

"Mm?" he asked, opening his eyes with the lowering sun making them glow.

Dan lost himself in Phil's pupils for a moment before he shook himself and came back to the moment, "You've got a...uh, bite...on your chest." he giggled, pressing his fingers to it.

"I assumed I would. You do, too. Three, in fact." the older boy smiled at Dan's horrified expression, but then he wrapped his arms around his torso and pulled him into the sand and across his body, "I love you." he whispered, flipping them so he was resting on his elbow as he gazed at the birthday boy.

"I love you, too." the beach was golden in every possible meaning: the sun on the curled-up boys showered the precious metal against them; the sand around them was dried to shards of yellow; the skin tone of the two teenagers as they tangled their limbs into an embrace; and how their faces beamed as they held their bare skin to each other.

Dan pushed his palm against Phil's head, dragging his fringe back into a quiff and kissing the exposed patch of skin, "Golden." he whispered into his forehead before he rested the side of his face onto the bite he left on him the day before. He nestled his toes into the sand by his feet as he closed his eyes, running his fingertips along his best friend's arm. He believed there wasn't a sound more beautiful than the whistles of Phil's breath accompanied by the hushes of the waves. Dan wanted to spend every birthday like this, and wished he'd started sooner.