Mastery ♪ phan

♪XIV♪

"And what are we moving on to?" Dan asked, looking anywhere but at Phil, and trying not to sigh.

Phil shuffled his feet on the carpet, trying to remember the line he'd prepared. "Maybe... the piece you composed?"

Dan looked thunderstruck. "What? No!"

"Why not? It's a beautiful piece!"

Dan groaned, turning to Phil. "No. It's my piece, and I say you can't play it."

"Now you're just being childish," Phil told him, rolling his eyes.

"But..." Dan looked a mixture of annoyed and murderous. "Fine. Whatever. You can play it. It's very hard, and a lot of it isn't finished yet, but if it'll make you shut up, you can play it."

Phil clapped his hands excitedly. "Yay!"

"What's wrong with you today?" Dan asked, looking at him curiously.

"Nothing. Just happy. Is that bad?"

Dan, looking world-weary, turned back to the piano. "I'll play it to you once, and then play the bit for you to learn this lesson."

Phil nodded and wriggled round on his stool so that he could see Dan better.

Dan stopped three times during the piece. Once to check the piano, because one of the keys was sticking, and twice to alter the notes written on his sheet. It didn't matter. Phil still thought that it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.

"What do you call it?" Phil asked, when Dan had finished.

"What?"

"The piece. What do you call the piece?"

Dan went red. "The Heart Asks Pleasure First."

Phil smiled. "I like that name."

Dan, sighing, turned to him. "Do you want to learn it?"

"Yeah!"

"Then shut up."

Phil, looking crushed, turned back to the piano.

"I'll play it, then you copy. Alright?"

Phil looked up at him with innocent eyes. "Can't we do the thing where you put your hands on top of mine?"

"No." Dan's face reddened, and he turned away to hide it.

After a few rounds of Phil repeating what Dan played, it became obvious that it wasn't working for Phil. Whether this was deliberate or not, Dan didn't know, but he did know that he was going to have to try the 'holding hands' method.

He groaned quietly. "Put your hands on the starting notes."

Phil obediently did so, and felt a shiver up his spine as Dan placed his own warm hands on top.

"One, two, three, four..."

They played the first two bars perfectly, Dan barely even needing to guide Phil's fingers. It was going so well that Dan, surprised, continued playing. Four bars, five, six, three lines, a page...

As the final notes of the piece faded away, Dan looked at Phil in pure shock. "What the hell?"

"I can play the piano, Dan," Phil said, smiling slightly.

"But... That's the first time you've seen the piece! You can't play like that!"

"Of course I can. I'm a Master."

"But... Your Inability..." Dan seemed almost unable to speak.

"Doesn't exist."

"But... PJ told me..."

"PJ lied," Phil said impatiently, surprised that Dan hadn't put two and two together yet.

"Why?"

Phil grinned. He had Dan well and truly cornered. "You might want to get comfortable."

Dan, bewildered, turned to him, and pushed his stool against the wall.

"Right. Ready?"

"I... I guess..."

"When I walked into this room and saw you, I liked you immediately. When I heard you playing the piano, I liked you immediately. I didn't know how I'd be able to be friends with you, until I came up with the very clever idea, if I do say so myself, to pretend that I couldn't play piano, so I could get you to teach me. So, for my first piano performance, I messed up spectacularly. And then I found PJ, and told him to tell you that every Master had an Inability."

"But... an Inability... it sounds so real..."

"Add capital letters to anything and it seems professional," Phil answered, smirking. "Anyway, the news got around fast - PJ has a lot of friends - and even Miss Averell heard, which was why she asked everyone what their Inability is."

Dan looked at him in shock. "Really?"

"Yes! Does any of the evidence suggest I'm lying?"

When Dan didn't reply, Phil carried on.

"Anyway, just when I thought you weren't going to freak out, that... thing happened, but you did freak out, so I decided that if I told you everything, you might not freak out next time."

Dan stared at him. "You got the entire school to pretend they had an inability, just so you could kiss me?"

"Well, in its purest form, I guess so."

Dan stared at him.

"Does that mean I can?"

Dan smiled. "It does."

This time, Dan leaned in, and neither of them pulled away. The kiss was soft and gentle, and Dan couldn't help but wonder why he'd created so much drama because of something that really wasn't too bad after all.

When they pulled apart, Phil smiled at Dan. "Was it worth the combined efforts of everyone in the school?"

Dan tilted his head to one side, pretending to consider. "I'd say so, yes."

i kinda liked writing this okay dON'T JUDGE ME