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When you've never seen colour before, I suppose you'd have no idea if your world was in colour or not. Without having someone to look through your eyes and go, "no, that's not right," you just have to figure it all out on your own.
Dan had learned the names of the colours just like anyone else. Purple was darker than orange, and orange was darker than yellow. Light green was only slightly more dark than yellow. Simple. That's just how colours were for him. Occasionally, he would get his blues and reds mixed up, so they just ruled him out as colourblind. So that's just it. He was just plain colourblind.
Being colourblind wasn't that unnatural! Dan's eighth year gym teacher was too (or that's what his translator told him. It could've just been a way to make him feel better, for some odd reason). No, it wasn't unnatural at all. It was just the fact that he was colourblind and deaf that bugged him. It was like, at first he didn't get to enjoy sound, but now it was colour too. It was something that kept the thought, "then what is there to live for?" in Dan's mind at four in the morning as he sat up all night, browsing through the depths of the internet. That thought remained in his mind for years.
But, the thing is, he was "colourblind" for all of his life until the day he met Phil, a boy he had met on Tumblr and had been talking to for months, face-to-face (not on the grainy Skype conversations they rarely had because it was hard to read sign when the video keeps lagging), and he was introduced to new colours. Ones that, at first, he couldn't describe due to his lack of knowledge in the section but later identified them to be greens and blues and golds.
Dan looked into his eyes and there they were. And when he left on a different train, he could still see those three colours - but only those three. He saw the blue of the skirt of the little girl on the train a few seats away and the gold ring her mother wore, and when he looked out the window he was greeted by a very light blue sky and so much green, and he was amazed the world was this beautiful without him knowing.
-
He remembered the first time Phil grabbed his hand. It was the second time he visited, and Dan remembers himself being stressed out about something at home, so Phil was trying his best to distract him.
"Maybe we could... Watch some television?" Phil had signed (slowly, since he was still learning). Dan shook his head. It was hard to focus on subtitles and the show at the same time, much less try and read their lips. It was something he avoided often, although he did have exceptions for some shows.
Phil got a thoughtful look on his face, then suddenly lit up. "We could play..." He signed, gesturing towards the game of Mario Kart (it was easy to figure out that it was Mario Kart, seeing as it was his only game besides Crash Bandicoot). Dan's face had lit up, and he nodded excitedly. Phil stood up quickly then reached his hand out to grab Dan's to help him up as well.
The moment their hands touched resulted in a burst of colour from all around Dan; the colours that before this moment he just plain couldn't see. The purple of a shirt that hung over the back of a chair, the red on Mario's hat on the cover of the game, the yellow of a Kill Bill poster on Phil's wall. All the greys had become actual colours instead of shades. Dan was so damn surprised that he nearly toppled back over onto the ground, but Phil's hand kept him from doing so.
Then Phil had pulled away and all the colour drained so quick that Dan had thought he had hallucinated it, and he just brushed it off. He thought that it was a hallucination up until Phil grabbed his hand again while walking around the city, and it all came back as quickly as it had gone the first time. While trying to memorize what all these colours looked like, he had decided right there and then that he never wanted to let go of that hand.
On the train back home, this time he wasn't watching the green and the blue mix outside his window. This time, Dan was trying to recall the warm feeling that Phil's hand cast, and he was giving names to all those colours he had seen before and wondering if maybe, maybe, he would ever get to experience that moment again.
-
Dan loved the days where they didn't have to go anywhere. He liked getting up in the afternoon and roaming around their flat in his pyjamas and the bitter cold coffee that Phil had prepared for him hours before, because Phil just knew.
He liked sitting on his favorite spot on the couch with his laptop, Phil reading a book in the same room, and just spending hours in neck-cramping positions. They didn't even really need to talk through hand movements or Dan reading Phil's lips because they both were just content with being in the same room.
Phil liked the silence, and it was the only thing that Dan could hear, so it was all good.
It were days like these that Dan got to think. He would think about how much he craved to hold Phil's hand. He told himself for years that it was just because he craved to experience something he had experienced back in 2009 and that all he wanted was to see colour, just one more time. Except that wasn't it, because it was also days like these where Dan would look at Phil from where he was sitting and would just feel this pang of something he couldn't identify in his chest.
"Are you alright?" Phil asked him one time when Dan was staring at him for just a bit too long, setting his book down besides him so he could use both hands.
Dan just nodded, suddenly finding his laptop interesting again.
He laid in bed that night, thinking that yes, he was alright, but maybe, maybe, he was lying to himself. He noticed how much he wanted Phil to be laying next to him and how much he had wanted that from the first day they met and Dan was introduced to new colours and along with that new feelings, too.
So, for once he labeled those feelings with "love" instead of "platonic friend stuff" but put those feelings in a box and pushed it to the back of his mind, because Dan and Phil's friendship didn't need to be ruined, even though deep down he knew it wasn't really just a friendship in the first place.
-
Something Dan and Phil had in common was they both didn't like going out, since neither of them had many friends anyway (it was more like Phil had a few friends, but Dan just had Phil), so instead of doing that they decided to just have a party of their own. That is, if you can call two boys in their twenties, one who just released a book, both of them just extremely tipsy a "party".
So, there they are, just sitting in silence (and close proximity). Dan's three drinks in, Phil two, and Dan's just thinking about how maybe this was a dumb idea when Phil turns towards him.
Dan's vision is slightly swimming, so it takes him a few moments to make out that Phil just signed "can I ask you something?" at him. Dan nods, setting down his drink on the nearest table and turning to look at Phil so he can see him better.
Phil thinks for a moment, most likely trying to think of how to sign the question, and then gives up. "Have you accomplished your life dream?" He mouths at Dan slowly, so he can figure out the words.
That question throws Dan off, and he's forced to sit for a few minutes and think: what is my life dream? He thought about how when he was six he wanted to be a firefighter, when he was twelve he wanted to be an actor despite his mother telling him it was impossible, and when he was sixteen all he wanted to be was happy.
Was he happy? Yes, but he was missing something, and because of that Dan shook his head. He had not accomplished his dream.
Phil leaned into him. "What are you missing, then?" He mouthed, and Dan was going to reply. He was going to but Phil was so close, and he could feel his breath on him, and Dan knew if he lifted his fingers to say "you", then it would ruin the moment, and Phil would pull away. He didn't want Phil to pull away, because Phil's eyes were looking straight into his, and all he could think was love, love, love, and his eyes were the only colour he could see, and even if they were grey like everything else, he would still find them the prettiest eyes in the world just because they belonged to Phil. Everything about Phil was just so pretty, and it overwhelmed Dan, because there was nothing he could do about it.
Dan slowly leaned forward, but once he realized what he was doing he shot back faster than lightning speed and rose to his feet, nearly falling over from how fast he got up mixing with how tipsy he was.
"I am going to bed," He signed to Phil quickly, not giving him enough time to react before he was out of the room and down the hall, softly closing his door shut behind him.
Dan didn't sleep that night, like many others before. Except, instead of browsing through the internet until the sun peaked over the horizon, there was no laptop next to him, and the only thing that kept him up was the simple question "did Phil accomplish his dreams?" even though the knew the answer was yes, because, hell, he just released a book.
In the next room over, all Phil was thinking about was DanDanDan, not his dumb book.
-
Back in 2009, before they lived together, whenever one visited it was just a silent agreement that they would sleep in the other's bed. However, once they started living together, the only time they did that was when one of them accidentally fell asleep when watching a movie together in one of their beds, but by morning the other had moved to a different bed anyway. That, too, was a silent agreement, in an "I really don't want to make the other person uncomfortable" sort of way (even though neither of them would be uncomfortable).
With this knowledge, Dan had no idea what possessed him to wake up in the middle of the night, shivering and in a cold sweat, and move to Phil's room. He, of course, blamed it on his sick mind for being, well, sick, but in the end that didn't really give him an excuse for why he didn't really regret it.
He gently shook Phil awake and then slid into bed next to him, curling into his chest. Phil's arms immediately wrapped around him (Dan also blamed that on Phil's sleepy state) and Dan fell asleep instantly.
Dan awoke in another cold sweat, Phil not next to him anymore. He noted that it was only eight in the morning and was about to call out for him (Dan barely used his voice) when Phil poked his head through the door. He noticed Dan was awake and pushed the door open with his elbow, holding a soup bowl in both hands.
"Hey," He mouthed slowly, sitting down on the bed carefully next to Dan. "Please, eat all of this." He handed the warm bowl to him and watched him as he ate it, spoonful by spoonful.
Phil waited until Dan looked up at him to start talking again. "I figured you were sick, since your whole body was quite cold against mine." He smiled sheepishly. "May I feel your forehead?" He mouthed, waiting for Dan to nod before leaning closer and placing his hand against Dan's forehead to compare it to his own.
It was the first time in three years and the third time in general Dan had seen colours again. They were all around him and they were on him. He's never seen the colour of his own skin besides now (he noted it was very pale). Dan completely forgot about the raging pain in his head and his neck, because he was so taken aback by how pretty everything was.
It was gone as soon as it came.
"... definitely have a fever." Dan caught Phil saying. "Should we take you to a..." (he didn't understand the last word, but he assumed it was "doctor" or "hospital").
"No," Dan signed, his neck hurting too much for him to shake his head.
Phil smiled. "Alright," He signed back. "Lay back down." He made a move to get up, but Dan grabbed his hand, mumbling (and stumbling with his words because being sick and not talking in years is not exactly a good combination) something along the lines of "you should stay."
When Dan would wake up every once in a while throughout the day, Phil would still be laying next to him, sometimes reading and sometimes sleeping. He never let go of his hand. Phil never pulled it away.
It just feels right, Dan noted to himself when he woke up one of these times. However, he didn't voice his thoughts out loud, instead just getting more comfortable and falling back to sleep.
-
Oddly, Dan didn't even know Phil had always planned for him to come on his book tour until he was asking Dan if he was all packed. And then they were off to cities in America, and Dan's never been out of the UK, and it's so cool, and he's so glad Phil invited him.
They go from warm and sunny California to slightly less sunny Florida to some small town in New York and then they're on a beach in New Jersey, laughing about some odd joke on the internet that Dan can't even remember now when Phil stops him.
"You have lovely eyes," Phil signs, and it's so weird, because Dan had never even seen the colour of his eyes nor has Phil ever said this before. And then Dan is grabbing Phil's hand to walk with him, and he just doesn't question it, because the sunset is something he's never seen before, and it's all so lovely. All he wants to do is kiss him, just for that one comment, but Dan knows he can't. So he listens while Phil points out which colours are which and doesn't tell him that he can see them as well.
-
It's one of those times again when they're partying without throwing an actual party. It's the end of 2015, and Phil wants to celebrate because so much happened for him in 2015, and Dan feels left out at that fact, but he doesn't want to rain on the parade. So it's just the two of them again, sitting on their couch as the clock nears midnight. Except this time, they're not sitting in silence and neither of them are drunk or even tipsy because neither of them have touched their drinks since they sat down.
Phil is going on about how weird it must be for elephants to have to wait a full year before having a baby, half-signing it and half-mouthing, when he stops in the middle of his ramble.
"I am going to refill my drink," He signs, standing up quickly and making his way to the kitchen. Dan finds it odd, because not only had Phil not even taken a single sip of his drink, he had left it on the table next to the couch, so he got up and followed him.
Phil is leaning against the counter when he gets there, staring at the clock mounted on the wall. Just as soon as Dan read the time (23:58) does he realize Phil had specifically came in there just so he didn't have to make things awkward for them. So, he turns around but then its one minute to midnight, and Phil is grabbing his arm, and he's mouthing something cliche like "thank you for making my 2015 great", but Dan isn't paying attention, because he's in that situation once again where he's just staring into Phil's eyes and thinking love, love, love. Phil is counting down, holding the numbers up on his fingers and then he's stepping closer to Dan, and Dan is paying attention to every move, because Phil is wearing a shirt that's the same blue colour as his eyes, and he loves that colour. Then his hand is on his cheek, and they're kissing, and everything is happening so fast, but so slow. The room grows darker, and suddenly Phil isn't wearing that shirt anymore, and Dan almost tells himself that Phil kissed him just to seal the moment, but he knows perfectly well why he kissed him and why he kissed back, and he just can't lie to himself anymore.
When Dan wakes up under blue and green covers and everything isn't going as fast as it did the night before, the whole world around him is splashed in colour he's only seen momentarily four other times before. Phil is still laying next to him.
-
It's January 23rd, and Dan knew they would eventually have to talk about all their stolen kisses since that night, but he was almost hoping it wouldn't be so soon (of course, it could be three years later and Dan would most likely still think that).
Phil is sitting at their breakfast table when Dan gets up. It's the first question Phil asks when he sees him.
"What are we?"
Dan has to stop in his steps and think about it. He looks at the brown of the table and the multicoloured chairs that go with it and almost gets distracted by how pretty it all is and how he went without those colours for all of his life, up until the first night they kissed.
What are we? is the question Dan had asked himself about Phil and him since day one when his heart had swelled at the mere thought of getting a message back from his favorite YouTuber. He had asked himself that the nights on Skype when Phil would fall asleep while talking to him and later when Dan slept over in his dorm, and Phil had already fallen asleep an hour before so he was up alone thinking. Sometimes, years back, before Dan had shut away all the un-platonic feelings he had for Phil, he would look into the man's eyes, and his heart would skip a beat, and he found himself thinking, what are we?
He shrugs.
Then Phil signs, "you love me, right?" and it's just the wrong thing to ask, because then Dan's panicking, and the only thought going through his mind is how he just can't ruin their friendship, because even though it's been determined it's not exactly just a friendship anymore, he had convinced himself for years that he couldn't use the word "love" or everything would be ruined.
Dan crumples to the floor, and Phil quickly rushes to him, wrapping his arms around him to try and calm him down. By then Dan is angry, because how could he try and ruin this friendship so easily? and he's pushing Phil away and standing up quickly, nearly falling over in the process, just like about a year back when they almost, almost, kissed.
"I am going on a walk," Dan signs.
"Will you come back?" Phil is asking him, and in that moment he knows he will just as much as Phil does, even though he replies with a maybe.
Suddenly, Dan's outside, and all the colour is gone but the blue of Phil's eyes. The green on the sign of a nearby coffee shop is now grey, there's no gold in sight, but the colour of the sky is a bright, bright blue. A couple passes him, and they're wearing matching blue scarves, and a mother holding a blue cup, most likely filled with coffee, is being pulled by her excited child. It's almost like it was there to haunt him.
He sets off to the coffee shop and orders anything but his usual, since he and Phil got the exact same thing. When it was ready, he sat down with it, gagging at how bad it was, and then pushed it aside and stared at the grey table. That's when he realizes how dumb this whole situation was; here he was, sitting at a table in a random coffee shop in a colourless world with a drink he didn't even want but got anyway because the other option reminded Dan of Phil, the person he loves, and Dan was in this situation simply because he didn't want to tell Phil that yes, he did love him.
Because for years, he told himself he didn't.
Dan put off all the questioning and the emotions. He ignored the want to hold Phil's hand, to sleep in the same bed as him, to kiss him in those weird moments they had similar to the one on the beach. He did everything in his power to just brush it off, but now everything was hitting Dan at full-force, and it was like waking up from a trance that lasted seven years.
Of course he loves Phil. He has for years, and deep down, he knew that all along.
So, he trudges back home, the coffee discarded on the sad table.
Phil sat at the table in the exact same place he was before, swirling the coffee in his mug around with a spoon. He knew Dan would come back. Of course Dan would. No angering thoughts, no bad question, no "maybe" would ever keep him away for long. Phil is Dan's home, and Dan knows that he is Phil's.
At the sound of the door closing, Phil turns. He waits, because he knows Dan will explain himself eventually. Seven years taught him that.
"I am sorry," Dan signs, mouthing along. He's tired and feels weak, but it still comes out of him all at once. "Of course I love you. I love you. I held that back for so long that, when you asked me if I did so casually, I freaked out. I love you. I only see in colour when I'm with you."
The last sentence seems to confuse Phil a bit, but Dan just figures he'll assume that Dan means it metaphorically. Ignoring it, Phil stands up from the table, his long legs getting him quickly over to where Dan stood. He stopped a few inches in front of Dan then slowly pointed his finger at his own chest before crisscrossing his arms around his chest and then pointing at Dan. He brought his fingers together. I love you... Same?
Dan laughs at the effort before showing Phil how to actually sign "too".
He's so happy, he realizes. He's happy.
Later that night, Dan sits up in bed and turns the light on, waking a sleepy Phil laying next to him.
"You know when you asked if I had accomplished my life dream?" Dan mouths.
Phil nods. "You told me you hadn't."
"I have now," Dan signs, beaming down at the bundle of blankets which is Phil.
The other boy beamed back, grabbing the younger one's hand and squeezing it for a second before pulling away to sign back. "Good," Phil signs. "I have now too."
Dan smiles at his correct signing of too and then cuddles back into Phil and falls into a happy sleep.