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Dan steps out into the sunlight of a crispy, pink Florida dawn.
White and wooden, the floorboards of the bungalow prick at his bare feet. The course sand which has been dragged into the only room flies across the floor as he moves.
The breeze is salty and light at first, tugging gently at his curly brown hair, and stinging his nose with all the colours of the sea. The porch faces east, and as the sun rises the speed of the wind quickens.
Wildly it whips around his smooth, tan chest, caressing his naked skin and sunkissed patches. It catches his breath and claws at his all, bringing him his breath and taking it away at the same time.
Along the glowing white strip dividing land and blue ocean hundreds of palm trees rise from the earth. Each leaf in their bright crowns glitters and spins under the wide, gazing, yellow eye.
Today is Phil’s thirtieth birthday. The two of them are here with his family to celebrate.
As the wind calms Dan is able to draw a real breath from the moist and heated air.
He stands there in comfortable, brave silence, and thinks. Today is now or never. If Phil is most likely to find his soulmate today, Dan will have to use all his will to make sure he doesn’t lose him to somebody else.
He can’t lose the only person he has ever properly loved. Today he’ll have to make his mind up: tell him or perish from his life.
Still he can’t get the single bed in the single room out of his head. It felt painful to sleep so close to him, knowing that the moment they wake it could be the last time he ever gets to.
The faint sound of dripping water catches Dan’s wandering attention. He knows there’s an outdoor shower located somewhere on the back of the bungalow, and while he wants to go find him as soon as possible, he doesn’t want to risk seeing Phil naked.
He’s had enough accidents of the sort in his life, and they’ve never boded well for his dirty, horny mind. They certainly haven’t helped him in getting rid of his crush.. only strengthened it.
Still Dan takes the steps down from the porch and onto the beach, looking around for the source of the sound.
As he moves around the greyish brown straw walls the sound of a deep, scratchy singing voice reaches his ears, and he stops in his tracks.
Ah. Phil is there.
The second he realises that, the water stops running, and the sound of heavy footsteps freezes him on the spot, a deer in headlights.
A wet tuft of black hair clings to Phil’s head as he rounds the corner. A single towel hangs loosely from his hips, threatening to fall, while another is draped across his dripping shoulders. His freckles are especially prominent after a couple of days in the sun, and they glow beautifully in the pale sunlight, glistening as much on his skin as the droplets.
Phil has this wide smile to appear on his face once he sees him, and Dan takes a step back in pure fear.
“Dan!” he laughs, nonchalantly wiping some of the water away from his fit tummy. “Finally awake, I see!”
Dan feels himself go red under his gaze, and he’s barely able to muster up a nod in response. Phil just keeps on walking, just barely missing his shoulder when he passes.
“Don’t reenter while I’m changing unless you desperately want to see me naked!” Phil says, a river of laughter running clearly from his lips, his footsteps disappearing inside.
Dan tries to stay casual, and say something, anything. He finds himself unable to. Maybe it’s the flirty comment, maybe it’s the only bed, maybe it’s his racing mind.. he’s not sure, but whatever it is, he can’t get Phil out of his head.
They meet up with the rest of the Lester family by the hotel bar, a short walk north up the strip of sand from their lonely bungalow. They got placed out there, while the rest of them had rooms even further north, essentially occupying their own complex.
When they sit Phil orders him an expensive cocktail, pays for it, and then lets him move to another table on his own, as he requested.
He blamed it on an imaginary headache, but really, he doesn’t want to be caught brushing up against him, or staring at his hairy, freckled chest.
There’s too much of a risk in that.
The bright pink liquid swirls dangerously in his mouth, sour and bittersweet at the same time. He sips on the straw with a certain longing, a harsh and depressing lump resting in his throat.
Dan hears the laughter behind him, the way Phil’s deep voice rolls with every movement of his tongue, how they all effortlessly get along with no worry in the world.
He supposes he can’t blame them, for wanting to be happy on Phil’s birthday, and for having found their soulmates way before their time. Martyn and Corn, Kath and Nigel..
Especially that last point, as Dan actually wishes he could be happy for Phil today. He wants to be, so desperately.
There’s just that little hook of ‘ losing him forever’ that holds his happiness back.
Sensing Phil’s puppy eyes on his neck for the fifteenth, Dan’s had enough, and sets the half empty glass down with a force that may be a bit too strong. The laughter behind him doesn’t die out but it softens, and he gets a few looks from the surrounding families. He can’t tell if they’re looks of judgement or pity.
The chair scratches against the floor as he rises, and that pulls the conversation to a halt. He begins to walk as he speaks.
“I’m going for a swim-”
“You can’t go alone, Dan!” Phil exclaims. His eyes are wild and desperate, and yet Cornelia’s mouth is open as if she wants to tell him off for worrying.
He stretches a hand out to stop him but Dan swerves it by just an inch. He doesn’t stop walking away from the bar even as Phil shouts after him: “What if you got hurt out there? Dan? Dan! ”
Dan’s breath catches up with him as he reaches the pristine water. His steps were steady up until this point, but now his legs wobble, and he sinks down on the course sand, letting his head fall into his sweaty palms as he does.
When his elbows and arms hit the ground, all the energy passes through his fraying skin and out into the layers of dusty soil, uniting with the soul of the earth. Defeat simmers in his bones, and disappointment unravels itself in his mind, exposed to the luxuriating sun.
He lays there, basking in the heat and the light, until his brain no longer has a proper conception of time (which isn’t actually a long time).
The sounds of laughing, screaming children echo along the strip of sand. Voices with happy tones and happy conversations pass him by.
Eventually Dan gets up, and he tries to not look at the crystal clear ocean since it brings tears to his eyes. It reminds him too much of Phil, and if he’s going to mess up as badly as he has and lose him altogether, he may as well never think about him again.
Easy job done.. not.
The teal water swirls around his feet as he steps into it, cold and warm at the same time. When he gets deeper into the ocean, so far away from the bank that the surface is at his knees, he lifts the hem of his swimming trunks up.
One step at a time, Dan walks deeper and deeper into the water, which lets it rise into and make bubbles of his pants. Usually this is something he’d laugh loudly at, showing his childish nature in all its glory, but for whatever reason the only thing that rises in his throat this time is a silent, wringed sob.
His face is lined with wet lines by the time the surface tickles his chin. He still walks on, barely pushing off the bottom and essentially treading water. He feels the salt and liquid trickle into his ears, the way it swirls up his nose, and the bitter taste of the droplets that manage to push through the gaps in his teeth into his mouth.
His eyes sting, the waves washing across his face and pushing away his hair. There’s a clear uncertainty in what he’s doing, but still he goes on. The reason is nonexistent, and irrelevant. He just does .
“What did you think you were doing out there Dan!? All alone in the water?!”
Dan didn’t even realise he’s been unable to breathe during his whole escapade until Phil’s soft lips were on his, pushing air into his lungs, his wide and firm hands on his chest, pushing the water back out. The first time he touched him today, too, and his body still prickles there, and everywhere.
Now he’s laying on his back, the sand pushing into his skin again, straddled by a frantic, worried-looking Phil.
There’s a slight tingle on his palm. He ignores it.
“You could’ve drowned!” he shouts for what is probably the fifteenth time- it’s irrelevant to Dan, and all that passes through his mind is the way Phil’s lips felt on his, how soft they were, and how much he truly seemed to care. He may have been doing CPR, but all Dan has in his head is how he tastes floral, for heaven’s sake.
The tingle comes back, and his train of thought pauses for a mere second to let it through. He tells it to shut up, and- well, it doesn’t work. But from then on he ignores it.
“Dan, I’m being serious, what if- what if I lost you out there?” Phil whispers. His voice cracks, the edges crumbling, and suddenly matching streaks of cold crystal run down his face, painting him blue. His face twists as if he’s in pain, and he flexes his hands to match.
His eyes fall shut on the tears as he speaks again. “I.. I don’t know w-what I’d do without you, D-dan.. I don’t ..”
Dan feels his palms land gently on his chest, followed by his forehead and his gentle, dark hair.
That’s not what intrigues him; no, it would have usually, but now it’s the tingle that comes back, stronger than ever, as he does.
It feels like a seed has sprouted in his palm. It’s set its roots into his flesh and the crevices on his tan skin, and the stalk runs up his arm, following the tingle. Up up and up it goes. By his elbow a leaf bursts out, and at his shoulder too, and by the time the tingle curves around his body and reaches his heart it blooms , a massive, glistening, pink flower erupting by his heart.
The way his heart beats, and the way the itching in his bones grow, it draws his attention, and his eyes follow it all the way down to his palm and-
“P-phil!” Dan whimpers, his pulse out of this world . “Phil!”
Phil’s black hair flies into the air, his tears too, and his voice is no more than a whisper when he spits: “What?”
“My- your palm , Phil, look at it!”
“My wh- oh.”
His pupils go wide as he gazes estaticly down at the light in his palm. At first Dan finds his expression unreadable beyond that, and then it turns to joy, to glee, and finally it morphs into hunger, characterized by a devilish, animalistic smirk.
“ Oh .”
“Yeah, oh , Phil. Now realise who you’re sitting on, and gerroff.”
“Sitting on- oh. Dan .”
Then those plump lips are back on his chapped ones, and Dan’s brain has just enough cells to realise he doesn’t just taste floral. His breath and tongue catches Dan’s with a taste and feel and expertise like the salty, swirly ocean, and just like the crispy winter sun he smells and feels like a warm but deep, shimmery sleep.
He melts away the carefully crafted walls in Dan’s mind, just like the sun.
Phil’s comfortable enough to let Dan envelop him with his arms, and at the same time he is the one who pushes the both of them down, making imprints in the white earth as he does.
When they pull apart in the glow of the sun, gentle giggles rocks them both side to side from the second they do. Dan can’t believe the unbelievable, and yet he does.
“Sorry!” Phil laughs, tears brimming his eyes again, this time shimmering with a happy glow. “Couldn’t help it, I’ve had this stupid crush on you for ten years, that’s all.”
Dan smiles back, his cheeks contorting and twisting and stretching as far as they can. “Same.”
Then he looks back down at his own hand. The glow from the crescent moon is a pale bluish white, rising straight up, the tingle still present, dancing around the crevices in his skin.
“I couldn’t have wished for anyone else to be my soulmate, Phil.” he says, looking back into his harsh, radioactive eyes. Phil’s eyes crinkle as he speaks, and he begins to smile, too.
“And I haven’t wished for anyone else but you being my soulmate, Dan.”