noun
• (chess) an opening in which a piece is sacrificed to gain an advantage; any action to gain an advantage.
Troye shows up later that day, sinking down beside him on the grass to occupy the space Phil abandoned not six hours before. He looks even better than the last time he was here, healthier and happier without a dark cloud in sight as he sports an unfamiliar and untattered jacket with his familiar and well-worn sneakers.
"I'll have to have you committed soon if you keep smoking that shit," he says, and the greeting is so comfortable, so routine, that it makes Dan want to sigh in relief. This, at least, will never really change.
He makes his own comments back, banters back and forth like they always do, and he finds something warm and soft fluttering through his chest. He thinks it might be actual happiness, a feeling connected to that of his friend, but he's too unaccustomed to the idea to really think much on it.
He teases him about the jacket and the boyfriend it belongs to, though Troye skirts around the label like the professional avoider he's always been at heart. He rolls his eyes and sneers and almost has a heart attack when Troye honest to God laughs, bright and content and like he hasn't spent years forgetting how to do so.
He mentions Phil again, though he doesn't tell Troye that he knows him as anything more than some goodie two shoes trying to set him on the right path or something. He isn't sure why - he could just as well leave it be and never bring Troye into it - but maybe he kind of does. Maybe Troye is his brother, his best friend, and he wants so bad to tell him everything but he can't, so he has to settle for a brushed off comment that does nothing to encompass the complexity of the stupid asshole in the expensive suit.
Troye leaves after fifteen minutes or so, flipping him off as he goes and throwing out something about Connor wanting him back at his apartment today. Dan shrugs it off, casually curses him out as he saunters off down the street, and wonders whether the ugly green monster in his chest is jealousy of the things Troye has or concern for the things he knows nothing about.
It doesn't really matter, either way. The monster is easily slain by another slow drag of the fresh joint in his hand.
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Estrangements (Phan AU)
Fanfictionnoun 1. the fact of being turned away in feeling or affection; made unfriendly or hostile; alienated the affections of. 2. the fact of being removed or kept at a distance. 3. the fact of being diverted from the original use or possessor. Updates whe...
