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The bar is warm and dimly lit, and Dan is anything but.
He’s aware of every breathing moment of this day, hyper-aware of each moving part of Phil, Phil’s actions, desperately trying to pick apart Phil’s thoughts. He feels his throat close up whenever a beat of silence stretches into two. A desperate need to inject every minute with wit, laughs, and irrefutable proof that Phil Lester is happy.
That Phil Lester thinks he’s funny.
That Phil Lester is here.
He props up his chin on one hand, smiling at the boy sitting across from him. He watches Phil focus on the menu, his knee erratically bouncing to an unknown beat. When Phil looks up, he doesn’t avert his eyes. He smiles back instantly, and he’s so giddy that Dan has to look back down and shake his head in silent disbelief.
“What?” Phil asks. When Dan looks up, his smile has widened into a brilliant grin.
“What?” He says back. He relishes in the thick layer of molasses that flow through each line into their conversation, thick and sweet, making everything move at a slower pace.
“You’re thinking of something.”
“Yeah? So?”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“Guess.”
Phil raises his eyebrows. Dan notices the fake candle light illuminating off his pale skin. “Does it have anything to do with me?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you happy that I’m buying you a drink?”
Dan snorts. “ I’m not that easy, Lester.”
“Funny. I didn’t get that from you last night.”
Dan feels his face go red. “You twat,” he sputters. He watches that easygoing smile, a staple of Phil’s face, shift into a subtle smirk that makes his insides swirl around and around.
The rest of their evening was sweet and long, as they talked, and laughed, and joked until he notices the crowd around them start to thin out. Dan realizes it’s just after eleven, and asks for their check.
They both smack their hands at the table the second their waitress places it on the table, and Dan realizes his hand gripping at the check is being clutched by Phil’s hand, trying very hard to grab the small piece of paper.
“Ow,” Dan complained. He dragged his hand away from Phil’s grip, and flinches away at his attempt to grab the check back. “Sorry, buddy, I won this one.” He grins at Phil triumphantly.
“Not. Fair. She totally bought it closer to you.” Phil grumbles. “You have to let me get the next one.”
“You just have to be quicker next time.” He sticks his tongue out. As he puts some bills atop the little black tray, he pauses for a moment to consider the blank little receipt paper underneath the bill and a pen their waitress left behind.
“Tell me what you’re thinking?” He hears Phil murmur.
Dan looks up at him, then back down. The buzz growing around his cheeks and throughout the air around them pulls him into a haze of unfiltered happiness, provoking him to grab the pen and scribble something down on the paper. The deepening red in Phil’s own ears and neck embolden him in a way he didn’t think possible when they started to pass little invitations for MORE between each other, into a never ending path of promise.
He lets the romanticism of the moment write a tiny sentence at the top corner of the glossy paper.
You make me really happy.
He flips it over, and with a bite of his lip, slides it to Phil’s side.
Phil raises an eyebrow and turns it over. Dan watches his pupils scan the message, and he notices his brows furrow together in concern. Hesitation? Confusion?
Phil looks back up at Dan, a smile of sugarcoated guilt he knew all too well.
Panicked and self conscious, Dan quickly tries to backtrack. “If it’s too much, I one hundred per cent blame those drinks you ordered, I’m gonna swallow that piece of paper now and walk home.” He desperately tries to grab the paper back, and Phil yanks it away. Both their eyes, he realizes, are widened and panicking.
“What? No, Dan,” Phil stops himself and chuckles. His face is flushed, eyes avoiding contact when he speaks again. “I, uh...”
Dan leans forward in anticipation, his default look of nonchalance mechanically plastered onto his face. A cold splash of water to the swirling around his insides.
“I couldn’t understand. Uh, I couldn’t read. I mean, I couldn’t read your...handwriting?” Phil finishes weakly. He covers his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry.”
Dan’s mouth hangs open in dumbfounded relief, a high-pitched flurry of laughter escaping his lips. He laughs until tears formed at the corner of his cheeks, until Phil’s face returned to its translucent shade of pale. “You fuck,” He gasps out. “You didn’t tell me you were illiterate.”
“Fuck off. Literally no one would understand these, Dan. Seriously,” He flashes the scrawling mess at him.
“My penmanship is fine, thank you very much. You just up and ruined my moment of courtship.” He pouts.
“I did not. I like to think this was a better one.” Phil cocks his head and looks at him. The sudden dip into sincerity was so unexpected for Dan, every sentenced coded with a firewall of irony, that he can’t help but laugh. A whistle of pressure releasing from his depths.
Dan never notices Phil shove that receipt paper down his jeans pocket, eventually finding its way back home.
Dan never clarified what that sentence was supposed to say. He never really had to.
He’s been communicating that everyday, in every way possible, ever since.