Later that night, once we'd dropped Lynn off at her house and Phil had said goodbye, Dan, Phil and I returned back to their flat. Dan and I had tried to interrogate Phil on the journey back to find out if they'd kissed goodbye. He wouldn't tell us, but he wouldn't stop smiling.
After scaling the stairs by dragging ourselves up by the hand railings, I left Dan and Phil collapsed on the floor in the hall with exhaustion, as I went to change out of my still slightly damp clothes and have a shower.
I showered, changed my clothes and tried to calm myself down again by dressing in my largest jumper and a pair of tracksuit bottoms. I left the bathroom in the same state that I'd gone in there to; hiding any evidence of my toiletries from sight.
I passed Dan in the hallway outside the bathroom, as I went back to his room and he went to shower after me. We exchanged smiles as we passed, but then hurried off in separate directions in the hope of finding a source of warmth.
Dan's room was warm. The heating was turned up, and his dark duvet was thick as I crawled under it, hiding under the dense covers. I reached a hand out for my laptop and turned it on, readily awaiting the warmth of the underside of my laptop as it overheated (yay).
I was just falling back into my internet browsing position, with my laptop warming my sensitive stomach and my whole body relaxing into the familiar pose, when Dan came back into the room, smelling strongly of his shower gel and dressed in similar lounging clothes to me. He snatched up his laptop and sat down next to me, sharing the duvet as we lay closely together.
"Are you alright, Mia?" Dan asked casually as we scrolled through the internet on our separate laptops.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. You?"
"I'm good. But, er, are you-? Er..." Dan had stopped scrolling and sat staring at the laptop keys uncomfortably. I raised my eyebrows at him and stopped scrolling through my Tumblr dash. My mind jumped to suspicious conclusions about what he wanted to say. Ranging from 'are you ill?' to 'are you in the mood for ice-cream?'. I guess I could say yes to either of those questions.
"Are you on your period?" Dan rushed, flinching with every word he said. We sat in silence. "I-I know I'm not meant to ask, and that if I'm wrong then you'll kill me, but if I'm right you'll kill me. I noticed you keep leaving to go to the toilet, and I-"
I blushed crimson and fidgeted slightly. "Yeah..."
"You are?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Dan said irritably. "I wouldn't have made you go on our spying mission if I'd known!"
"Do you think a period is a disease or something, Daniel?" I teased him. Dan tensed up his shoulders and then shrugged ever so slightly. "You tit, Dan! Didn't you learn anything from your video with Carrie?" I smiled to myself as I remembered how awkward Dan had become during that video, when Carrie had been lecturing him about periods.
"Yes, I should have told you sooner as to avoid this a little better, but I am capable of carrying on with my life as usual," I told him quietly.
"So, you're not going to snap my neck?"
I chuckled and shook my head. "Obviously not." Dan let out a sigh of relief. "Jesus, Dan. How do you even have female friends if you get that het up about periods?"
"Come on, you have to admit it's a little scary when a girl becomes a murderer for a week at a time!" Dan said with an eye roll.
"Hm, fair point. But we don't all become monsters. Okay, some girls do."
Dan smiled at me unsurely. "It wasn't mood swings which gave it away, by the way. You only had morning bad moods, which were minute compared to Phil's morning grouches."
"What was it?"
"Apart from the toilet breaks? You need to find a better hiding place for that striped bag of yours," he smirked at me. "Hidden between the washing basket and the wall? That's not a good hiding place."
I blushed and scrolled through Tumblr a little. Well, at least he knew now.
Suddenly, a series of gifs from a video I hadn't seen before appeared on my dash. They showed someone dressed in a white and purple dress, running with a guy in green and white, away from a flock of geese across grassy land.
"Dan?" I said suspiciously, drawing out his name.
"Yes?" Dan mimicked me as he smiled at his laptop screen.
"Did you put the filming of our day out into a video for your channel?"
Dan smirked at his screen and continued to browse. I looked at him quizzically for a moment, before I followed the link at the bottom of the gifs to the video on YouTube. I hadn't been able to simply sit down and catch up on watching YouTube videos in a while. I hadn't made a video for almost five days, so I needed to plan a new video soon as well. So apparently, this was what I got for not watching video uploads; I missed out on seeing Dan's new video.
The title of his new video was 'A Day Out with RandomQuartz', which was beyond cheesy as a title. Dan had even written so in the 'About' tab for his video, saying that the tile fitted, but he apologised for how predictable the title actually was.
It started with Dan sat in his regular filming position; in chair at the desk in his room, with his bed and numerous fairy lights behind him. "Hello Internet. This video is about Mia, which you will probably know unless you didn't read the title." He raised a judgemental eyebrow at the camera and laughed silently at his seriousness.
"Anyway, this video is a combination of some photos and filming that I've done recently with my girlfriend Mia, or RandomQuartz as some of you may know her better as. There'll be a link to her channel at the end of this video if any of you guys are interested. So, here it is, and please enjoy laughing at our failures." He saluted at the camera as the screen faded down to black. Dan's explosion effect with dramatic music filled the screen, revealing the words: 'Watch The Failure That Is Our Lives Unfold'.
I smiled at the screen, my mouth forming a Cheshire cat grin as I watched.
The song 'Uprising' began to play quietly over the videos of Dan and I at the Portobello Road market. The music became a backing track whenever Dan or I said anything, keeping the video as both a vlog and an artistic piece of videoing.
"I'm here with Mia at the moment and we are at Portobello Road's market!" Dan said into the camera. I was standing next to him in the video, smiling up at the camera as Dan spoke. "And then you guys are joining us."
Video me laughed, closing her eyes and smiling broadly. "Because we love you!" I cringed at how awkward we looked when we both did hand hearts and laughed.
Back in Dan's room, Dan chuckled. He was watching the video with me now. He slid an arm around my waist as we watched in silence, only breaking the silence when we had to pause the video upon seeing us running off screen in our Link and Zelda cosplays. We laughed at how stupid we looked, hence why we'd had to stop the video; we were laughing too much.
After all of the filming of our day together, there was a slideshow of photos and screen shots, each showing one fail or another that we'd had together. There was a photo of when I'd fallen down during a picture being taken on the London Eye, Dan in a destroyed kitchen, Dan and I with frozen sweet corn on my head and Dan with burn fingers, Phil and I playing Pokémon whilst Chris and Peej watched us (probably a fail to our social lives, I think), and then, finally, there was me sat at my laptop, sticking my tongue out at the camera with paint on my face and in my hair.
The video itself concluded with a small clip, a repeat of Dan and I running away from the geese all over again. I laughed as the end screen showed up, with links to mine and Dan's channels for subscriptions.
I leant back from my laptop, running a hand through my very frizzy hair thanks to the fountain water. I looked up at Dan, who was watching me expectantly.
"Was it too cheesy?" he asked, creasing his forehead as his eyebrows drew together.
I smiled and reached up to him, kissing him lightly on the lips, tasting a salty yet sweet taste of his lips as I sat back in my place. His lips almost taste like salted caramel. "There's nothing wrong with cheesy."
Dan smiled at me, the ancient cut in his lower lip revealing itself. He chuckled slightly as he ducked his head and kissed me again, letting me taste the combination of flavours on his lips and allowing me to knot my fingers in his thick, dark hair. He cupped my jaw bone with one hand whilst holding my waist with the other hand, pulling me towards him.
"Hey, do you two want some pasta?" Phil called from down the hall. "Or something else?"
Phil knocked on the door briefly before he walked in, only just giving Dan and I enough time to spring apart and look at my laptop screen. Dan shifted his arm to move around my shoulders rather than my waist.
Phil wavered in the doorway. "Should I come back later?"
I blushed again and Dan gaped at Phil slightly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"Well, it's my turn to cook. My treat," I insisted, shuffling away from Dan and towards Phil at the door.
"Um, okay," Phil mumbled as he stepped aside to let me out.
I speed walked out the room and down the stairs to the kitchen, the walls of the house blurring past me as I hurried away, leaving Dan and Phil behind. I barely remembered to open the glass door and run into the kitchen units. I leant over the sink, breathing heavily as I looked out though the thin gaps between the white blinds. I concentrated on the hinting of silver stars and neon lights from the city that flickered through the blinds.
Okay. One thing I was definitely sure of at that moment; I did not want the embarrassment of anyone walking in on me and Dan like that, ever again...and I didn't want to have to run like that again either, not from anything.