Warnings : FLUFF
Word Count : 1258
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Phil's blue eyes were the first thing Dan saw of a morning, and they were the last thing he saw of an evening. They reminded Dan of the warm summer's day when he had realised his love for Phil ran deeper than friendship.
Dan's deep, dark eyes were the first thing Phil had noticed about Dan. Phil always noticed eyes, on everyone. The first thing that drew him to Dan on a physical level were his eyes. And Dan's eyes were the thing that made him fall.
It had taken them almost two years to get to this point. Both living separately for a while, and then together in a flat in Manchester, and then making the dual decision to move to London. Initially, they had slept apart in London; Dan's bedroom being upstairs in a kind of Baker Street arrangement that suited them for a while. Dan realised they'd become closer than he's ever been to a friend, and that if something were to happen to Phil, it would be as if a part of him had died.
The day Dan realised he was in love with Phil, it was hot; the Jamaican sky sang an impossible blue while a light wind chased white wisps of cloud around the sun. They'd spent the whole day on the beach, filming nothing in particular on the cameras they'd been sent to Jamaica to test, and the sun was setting over the horizon. The batteries on the cameras had finally run flat, and the two boys met the others for a bonfire on the beach. One of the extreme sports people that Dan could never remember the name of sent him and Phil to pick up driftwood for the fire.
Phil winced when he bent down to pick up wood, the movement creating creases in his newly-developing sunburn. The sun danced orange on the horizon over the sea, and the sky pitched to a rich indigo Dan had only seen on a clear day in Bath when he'd been young. Dan had spent the whole day noticing bits and pieces about his best friend that he would have never noticed before; like the way his hair curled up when freed from heat and stylingproducts, and the way Phil's eyes danced when something got him really enthused. Phil was taller than Dan by about three inches, but he seemed much bigger, due to his generally larger frame. He was only as skinny as he wanted to be, whereas Dan's tendency to beanpoling and general lankiness had always made him feel as if he'd never grown into his own limbs. Phil always knew just what to say, especially if Dan was down on himself. Dan noticed the way that Phil, despite his own insecurities, always tried to make Dan in particular feel better about himself. Dan noticed the way Phil didn't care what people thought about him. To most people, he was a crazy white kid with a thick Manchester accent; but to Dan, he was the focus of everything in his life.
Dan realised his feelings for Phil were deeper than friendship, the moment Phil looked up at him from underneath his curly bangs and smiled a smile reserved for Dan. A smile that reached his eyes, and made them crinkle at the corners. They were collecting driftwood, and Phil glanced up from where he was, passing wood up to Dan; the silence between them was comfortable, floating amidst the sound of waves against the shore, somewhere in the distance, the laughter of those around the bonfire; and the world melted away for a moment, trapping Dan against all odds and his better judgement, and taking away his ability to breathe, to think, to adapt; and Dan could do nothing but smile back, while his heart tumbled down the cliffs and floated over the indigo sky.
But the story does not end, nor does it really start, there. Dan spent the better part of a year trying to tell himself that the crush was dangerous; and trying to convince himself that no matter what, Phil would never return the feelings. Never having shown an indication that he would respond in the positive to any advances that Dan could make, and that's why they'd gotten to this point. Back in London, and Dan's reaction to Phil's cuddly nature was to stiffen, and hug back half-heartedly.
"What's wrong?"
Nothing. Nothing's wrong.
Their rhythm and synchronicity feel out of step the more Dan cold shouldered Phil, a defence mechanism rather than spite. Until one day, it became too much for Phil to deal with, and he exploded.
"What have I done?" Phil dropped into the couch next to Dan, where the younger man sat, watching X Factor auditions. Dan turned to him and shrugged, then went back to watching people make mockeries of themselves on national television.
"Dan, you've been acting weirder and weirder since we got back from Jamaica. Please talk to me."
Dan didn't respond, and Phil sighed and grabbed the remote, and turned off the television.
"What the hell?" Dan characteristically screeched. "It was just getting good!"
"Yes, and you've spent the best part of a year acting weirdly. I'm your best friend, and I can only put up with so much." Phil ran a hand through his hair. "Tell me what's going on."
Dan folded his arms and stared stonily at the floor. "You'll only hate me if I tell you." He sounded so broken, that Phil could only close his eyes momentarily and murmur a silent prayer to deities he did not believe in.
"Dan, I can't hate you. If I hated you, if I could even find it within me to hate you just a tiny bit, don't you think I would have left by now?" Phil removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You endlessly prank me, on the end of a camera or not, we've lived together for ages, we put up with all kinds of crap from each other, we've travelled together... Do you not think, that if I hated you, I would have done all those things? I would never, and I can never hate you."
Dan's shoulders slumped, and he began to sniffle a little. "You're right." His voice cracked, he was crying. Phil's first instinct was to pull Dan into his arms, and for the first time in months, Dan let him. "I'm in love with you." It was barely the shadow of a whisper, it was barely there at all, but Phil heard it and he felt his heart jolt.
Dan, his perfectly imperfect Dan, his best friend, was in love with him.
"Say something, please." Dan lifted his head and glanced at Phil through tear-reddened eyes.
"Oh, Daniel." Phil ran his thumb over Dan's damp cheekbone. "I've always been in love with you."
Dan cracked his trademark dimpled grin, and Phil cupped his cheek, Dan leaning into the touch.
"Can I kiss you?" Phil asked quietly, gazing at Dan reverently, and Dan nodded.
That first kiss, that stumbling block was like a thousand summer days dancing across time and space.
Woken by the grey light of morning streaming through the open curtains, and illuminating the evidence of their love making the night before, Dan's dark eyes found Phil's. And Phil smiled, as Dan rested his head on Phil's bare chest and Phil wrapped his arms around Dan. An unspoken 'I love you' passed between them, and they both drifted back to sleep.
