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Dan has been painting all day. Well, that’s not exactly true. He’s been sketching, scrawling, crumbling sheet after sheet of paper. There was some paint involved but it ended up splashed across the canvas, painted over, splashed again. It was all wrong, all affected, pseudointellectual bullshit. Someone would probably buy it, and that fact only makes Dan feel worse. People used to stare, in awe of the depth of emotion conveyed in Dan’s work. They’d leave his shows wiping tears but empty handed. Despair is moving and sometimes it’s even beautiful, but it just doesn’t go with the decor in the guest room.
It’s no surprise that he has absolutely nothing to give. He spends all of his creative energy doing what he’s told. Painting murals in the nurseries of babies, who have yet to be born but already have more money than him, is not exactly fulfilling. It had seemed like a great gig, painting for a living is all he’s ever wanted to do. And it was fun to reproduce classic Winnie the Pooh illustrations or scenes from the Lion King. He was too good though. His reputation grew and now he’s in these multi-million dollar homes, painting exact replicas of vintage illustrations from books of fairy tales and children’s poetry. They’re gorgeous, the kind of thing he might paint himself if he had any time or energy left to actually make original art. He doesn’t, of course, so he’s trapped.
He throws one last crumpled bit of his soul into the bin and grabs his jacket. The door slams behind him and he curses to himself. He’s wasted his entire day off. He’ll never sleep tonight if he lets this frustration fester so he does what he always does when he needs to clear his head. He heads down to the boardwalk and spends some time with the sea.
The sky is unreal, pink and orange and yellow, changing every minute. The horizon is stark against the firelight of the sunset and Dan has a flash of inspiration. Standing back, in the middle of the walk, he holds up his camera and looks through the viewfinder, struggling to frame the image just right. He’ll need it for reference later and he wants to capture just what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling. His hands always shake when he tries to snap a photograph but he breathes in and out deeply, steadying the scene visible through the tiny lens. He’s learned to push the shutter button down on an exhale.
He’s just about got it. It’s perfect. He takes a breath and just as he’s about to let it out, someone slams into him from the side.
“What the fuck!” Dan shouts as he’s nearly pulled to the ground. He manages to hang on to his camera and hold up the six foot two Bambi currently wobbling on eight wheels and holding on to Dan for dear life.
“Oh my gosh,” Bambi says, “I’m so sorry.” He pushes off of Dan a bit to stand upright. “I think I got it. Yeah, I got it.” He’s smiling and his tongue is poking out and it’s infuriating.
“Mate, you have got to be careful. You’re gonna kill someone on those things!” Dan says, looking down at the roller skates and up long legs wrapped tight in white jeans. He didn’t mean to ogle but now he couldn’t look away if he wanted to. Who wears a white linen shirt, just blowing in the wind like that, on a beach in England? It’s fucking cold. He should really button those top few buttons. Dan’s eyes move slowly of their own volition, up the strong column of a neck to bone structure so sharp, he’s like a sculpture. He’s beautiful. When he reaches his eyes, they’re looking right back at him, smiling.
“You’re lucky I was here to break your fall.” It doesn’t come out at all like Dan intends it to. It’s too soft, almost whispered.
“I am lucky,” he says, blue eyes flitting quickly to Dan’s lips before returning to look so deep into his eyes that Dan feels like he needs to squirm away. “Thank you so much.” And then it’s happening. Perfect, pink, heart shaped lips are pressed to Dan’s cheek and just as quickly, they’re gone. Dan watches, dumbstruck, as he skates away, swerving and stumbling till he’s out of sight.
***
“Why are you spending so much time on the little goat man?”
Dan is sat on a stool, leaning in close to the wall as he adds detail to an already detailed painting.
“He’s Pan. See the pipes?” Dan waits for a response but he gets nothing. “Anyway, the background is finished. This is all that’s left,” he says.
The woman who hired him is nice enough but she hovers and she asks too many questions. He just wants to paint undisturbed.
“If that’s all that’s left, you could be done by now. It’s not the focal point, it might not even show once the furniture is moved in.”
“I’m just painting what you asked me to paint, Mrs. Webber,” Dan says.
She clicks her tongue and stands back, regarding the wall for a good long while.
“It is very pretty, Dan. Guess you can’t rush art.”
“Guess not,” he says but he doesn't believe it. He knows he’s spending way too long on this one small piece of the whole. It’s just, he looks so familiar, the pale skin, the broad shoulders, the blue eyes. He’s probably imagining it. He saw a pretty boy at the beach and now he’s seeing him everywhere. He needs to pull himself together. With one last touch of highlight in Pan’s black hair, Dan puts his brush down and looks it over. If it didn’t look like his roller skater before, it certainly does now.
Dan suffers through a drawn out goodbye with Mrs Webber but he leaves with a check in his pocket and a promise that she’ll refer him to all her friends. He should be grateful for that but he sort of hopes none of them call. He’s feeling a sliver of optimism today, just enough to have him entertaining the notion that things could be different.
There’s a mural at the end of an alley, near the boardwalk. It’s Dan’s favorite piece of public art, all light and color, bursting forth from a field of black, an expanse of stars. There are nine figures, beautiful, sculptural, but vague in their features. They trail after one another, light beaming from their fingertips and the fabric of their flowing garments. Eight of them move toward the darkness but one faces forward, so dynamic, so kinetic, like he could jump right through and stand here with Dan.
When he can, he takes the path home that leads him by this wall. It inspires him, reminds him what he loves about paint and what it can accomplish. It requires a detour today, he’s gone quite out of his way actually. As he comes to the alley, he sees someone down at the end. Other than the occasional delivery truck or shadey deal being made, no one is ever down this way. The disappointment sinks in and he’s about to turn to leave but then he sees the person move, no not move, skate.
“You’re getting better.” He says when he’s close enough.
That earns him a dazzling smile. He really has gotten better, he’s spinning and gliding around Dan like he actually knows what he’s doing. It’s hard to believe he could barely stay upright just yesterday.
Dan just stands and lets him move all around him. “This is my favorite spot. Love this piece.”
“Me too.”
“It’s crazy that I happen to run into you here...”
“Actually, I ran into you,” he says, “and it was on the boardwalk.”
“You did.” Dan remembers pink lips on his cheek and tries his best to hide the warm glow he feels spreading to his face. “But the mural, it’s just, I’m painting a mural myself.” His head whips back and forth, trying to keep up. “You won’t believe this but you’re in it.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it?”
“Cuz I’ve never seen you before yesterday.”
He’s skated further and further from the wall and Dan has followed, without realizing, just floating toward him, in his orbit. As they near the intersection where the alley meets the road, he skates closer, beautiful and fluid and drawing Dan in, until he finally spins quickly around and stops dead, face to face with Dan. The look is magnetic, too long to be natural, but too good to be awkward. Dan can’t look away and he justs want to lean in and take those lips with his own, drink him in, swallow down the light he feels right now so he can take it home with him.
Instead he lets himself get a little lost, and watches lips curl around a none too subtle smirk.
“Bye Dan.” He says before turning to leave.
“How’d you know my name?” Dan says, too quiet to matter. “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t know your name.”
He’s quite a ways down the walk now but Dan sees him turn his head to shout his answer over his shoulder. It comes on a breeze, and it’s not a shout, more like a whisper in Dan’s ear.
“Phil.”
***
After that, he sees him everywhere, literally and figuratively. Every sketch he makes looks like Phil, whether it’s a face or a body or a night sky, it’s Phil. There’s something else on his canvas too, something he can’t remember painting since he was a child. Actually, it’s something that’s missing. There’s no danger, no ominous lurking threat, no inevitable darkness. It’s still all Dan, but it’s Dan with hope.
And he sees him in real life too, or he thinks he does. A flash of white in his peripheral vision that’s gone when he turns. A streak of light too fast to follow, laughter lifting above the din of the crowd. And he’s in his dreams. He’s there every night, beautiful and smiling, reaching out to Dan, wrapping around him, keeping him safe.
When he finally sees him in the flesh, his heart leaps like he’s been reunited with an old flame. The waves are wild, crashing onto the rocks where Dan often sits. He stands back, afraid to get his shoes wet, but there’s someone standing on the highest rock, head thrown back eyes closed. He wears a multicolored jumper, dyed in splashes and swirls atop his white skinny jeans and white sneakers. It is undeniably Phil.
“Phil!”
Phil looks over and waves.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Feeling the spray!” Phil says, like it’s obvious.
Dan laughs. “But how are you going to get down? The tide is in.”
The water is getting close to where Dan’s shoes are sinking in the sand. He looks down and takes a few steps back. When he looks back up, Phil is right next to him.
“Hey, how did you…”
“Hi Dan, wanna take a walk?”
Dan nods dumbly. “No skates today,” he says.
“Not today.” Phil has slipped his hand into Dan’s, lacing their fingers together and Dan doesn’t even notice for a minute or two. It feels so normal, walking hand in hand with Phil. They fit and there’s very little he can do to deny it, not that he’s trying.
They walk, telling stories and secrets into the space between them, and the next day, they do it all again. On the third day, Dan leaves his flat to find a pair of black skates on his stoop. He hasn’t skated in over a decade but they fit perfectly and after a few moments of panicked floundering, he finds his footing, and skates off.
It’s absolutely exhilarating. Scenery rushes by, wind in his face, and he zips around passersby like a comet. He feels more alive than he has in a long while. Of course, his legs take him to his favorite spot, he doesn’t even have to think. There’s no one here. He skates in circles, watching the mural he loves.
“You’re a natural,” Phil says, skating up behind him and Dan doesn’t jump. He only smiles.
“How did you know where I live? Should I be scared?” He knows he should. But he’s not scared, he’s smitten. He wants to tell Phil all the crazy impulsive things he’s feeling. He wants to tell him how he’s been painting him over and over. It’s too much too soon and he knows it. They just met. The thing is Dan is sure about very few things in his life and when he is sure, when he has no doubt, he knows to trust it. And he is sure about Phil.
“I’m not even a little scary,” Phil answers.
They end up sitting, backs to the mural, skates pulled off, socked feet mingling.
“Thanks for the skates,” Dan says, “and for everything this week.”
“This week?”
“Yeah, I mean, you were the best part of my week,” Dan says and pauses, contemplating how much to share. “It’s been a rough, uh, life.” He laughs in spite of himself. “But ever since I met you, I feel different. I’ve been painting again, drawing, and it feels really good. I’m so tired of painting what other people tell me to paint.”
Phil is looking at him and he’s just open. Dan feels raw like he could cry or scream or say nothing at all and it would be okay.
“It must be frustrating to waste your talent on things that don’t really matter to you,” Phil says.
“Yeah well, inspiration won’t pay the bills, you know.”
“I don’t believe that. You’re very talented Dan. What would you do if you could anything?”
Dan rolls his eyes a bit but he humors Phil because he’s Phil. “I just want to paint, my ideas, my art. I want to not worry about what anyone else thinks or whether it will sell. I guess I want a job in art.”
“Don’t you have that?”
“I do, but it takes all my time and energy and it’s not really art. It’s not mine.”
“So you want something that’s yours?” Phil asks.
Dan just looks at him, because, yes, that’s exactly what he wants. He wants to know he’s left a mark. He wants to create something for the people but he also wants to be left alone, to create for himself.
It’s disorienting, this urge to share everything with Phil, but he goes with it.
“I have this friend, one of the few, he’s older. He’s lived an amazing life, really lived you know? I want that. I want to tell the kind of stories he tells. His name’s Dan too, well Danny. He says it’s some kind of sign, like we were destined to be friends. He sits by the water sometimes and plays his clarinet. His fucking clarinet! Like that’s just a thing you do.”
“Oh, I know Danny!”
“You do?” Dan says wondering if he should be more wary than he is. “How in the world do you know Danny?”
“Long story but we go way, way back.”
“Hmm. Well,” Dan continues, “he’s always asking me to go into business with him. Wants to open a gallery space.”
“So, why don’t you?”
Dan scoffs, “I can barely take care of myself! I can’t be anyone’s partner.”
“Of course you can,” Phil says, “my parents, they run a business of sorts, a non-profit.” He laughs but Dan doesn’t know why. “They share all the responsibility and then they get to celebrate the successes, together. And they fight a lot.” He laughs again. And Dan doesn’t need to know why, he could listen to that laugh all day.
“So it’s like marriage,” Dan says, “without the fun part.”
“What’s the fun part, Dan?” Phil says with that debilitating smirk and that glimmer in his eye. He’s turned sideways so Dan can really see. There’s nowhere to hide so Dan doesn’t. He lets himself look and feel all the irrational things. He licks his lips because suddenly, something is set in motion and he knows it. Phil’s hand is on his leg and then it’s gripping Dan’s shirt and he’s pulling Dan forward.
Dan’s never kissed a man in public. He’s never kissed a man he’s known more than a few hours. Dan has never kissed anyone he thought he could love. But now his lips are pressed to Phil’s and he has. He kissing the man he is meant to be with and he refuses to be scared. It’s warm and sweet and wonderful but altogether too short.
And then it’s over. Phil is pulling his skates back on and Dan doesn’t know if this means he’s leaving. He never tells him anything. He pulls his on too and Phil helps him up.
Dan feels too amazing to hold anything back. “What is it with you? How do you make me feel like anything is possible?”
“It is, Dan,” Phil says, “don’t take the next job. Open the gallery. Make art. Follow your dreams a little.”
“How can you be so fearless?”
“I’m not fearless. I just believe in you.” They’re both stood on their skates, just stood there in front of Dan’s favorite painting in the whole city.
Dan hums, it’s uncomfortable, someone having faith in him like this. Phil takes his hands. Dan knows he’s looking right at him but he keeps his eyes down.
“You don’t actually know me,” Dan says, he can’t look at Phil but he doesn’t want to let him go. He doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows he can’t let it end.
“I know you,” Phil says, “and I believe in you.”
Dan forces himself to meet Phil’s gaze and everything in him softens. “And I don’t know what I believe.”
Phil‘s smile blooms softly on his lips, in his cheeks, and behind his eyes. Dan follows it’s path.
“Then you might as well try it my way,” he says.
***
Laying in bed with Phil is like laying in a field of fireflies. Surrounded by the dark but overwhelmed by the light, Dan doesn’t know where to look. Phil is stretched out, spent and shining, buzzing from it all. He has no shame and so Dan doesn’t either. He traces over every inch of Phil, letting his fingers gather the memory of this moment so he can recreate it whenever he wants, in his mind or on canvas, on paper, in clay or marble or metal or stone.
“Phil.”
Phil hums a sleepy reply. His eyes are closed.
“Where do you live?”
“Around.”
Dan laughs and props himself up on his elbow to get a better look.
“No really. I don’t know how to find you.”
“But you always do.” He opens his eyes and and leans up to peck Dan on the lips before climbing under the covers.
“What’s your last name?” Dan says.
“Same as my mother and father’s,” Phil mumbles, rolling onto his side. He groans a bit as he curls his body around Dan’s.
Dan can’t argue with that and he can’t think of any where he’d rather be than here. So, with Phil in his arms and his future looking like something he never could have imagined just weeks ago, Dan drifts off to sleep.
***
He wakes to the sound of Phil crossing his creaky floors. It’s barely light outside. There’s a cup of coffee on his bedside table that smells like heaven.
“Hey,” he says to Phil, his voice soft, still so full of emotion, “you’re not leaving I hope.”
“Dan, I have to tell you something.”
Dan sits up in bed, pulling the duvet up to his waist. He takes his mug in his hands and sips.
“Alright.” He pats the bed. “Come sit with me.”
He doesn’t. He pulls up a chair and sits facing the bed. Dan’s heart feels heavy. He wants to send Phil away, tell him he’s late for something. Anything to avoid hearing whatever he’s about to say.
“This never should have happened.”
Dan’s heavy heart sinks.
“We broke the rules, Dan.” Phil stands and paces the room. “You were just supposed to be inspired, to paint, and open the gallery.”
“I am,” Dan says desperately, “look at what I’ve made this week.” He points to the other side of the room where his work is strewn about. “It’s more than I’ve done all year, it’s better, I’m so inspired Phil. And I’m gonna see Danny today. It’s all happening because of you.”
Phil moves to the edge of the bed, he holds Dan’s face and kisses him. It’s soft and full of more than Dan knows how to contain.
“I can’t have these kinds of feelings,” Phil says, “it's beginning to hurt.”
“What? What kind? Because I’m a, a man?” Dan stammers, his eyes sting and he’s panicked. He has to fix this. “I get it, it was hard for me too for a while but…”
“No Dan,” Phil says cutting him off. “Not because you’re a man, because you’re human.”
“I don’t understand.” Dan hears the crack in his voice before he knows he’s crying. “Can we please talk about this? Please. You don’t know what you’ve done, Phil. You’ve changed my whole perspective. I can’t do this without you.”
“Of course you can.”
“Maybe I don’t want to. I like myself when you’re around. You’re like, my muse or something.”
Phil smiles as he stands, looking down at Dan with eyes threatening to spill over.
“I love you Dan. I’ll love you forever.”
“Phil, wait.”
But he’s gone. Dan didn’t see him go, he had only blinked, but he’s gone.
He throws off the covers and dresses quickly as he can. He practically runs from his flat to the alley. Once he’s there, he stops, a few meters from the wall and just looks. Nine figures, moving fluidly through space, one pulling away, surging forward toward Dan. His features aren’t clear but his hair is black, his eyes blue. He’s scrutinized this piece a million times but he never noticed those blue eyes, brimming with quiet joy. There’s a little brass plaque in the corner of the wall, near the ground. He’s never noticed that either. Crouching down, he reads what must be the title of the mural, ‘Muse.’
He runs his fingers over the letters before standing again and stepping in close the painting, taking in every detail and brush stroke.
“Phil?” He whispers but he thinks maybe his broken heart is affecting his thinking. He didn’t get much sleep, he should head home and rest. He's got to see Danny later, there are plans to be made.
The door to the flat closes behind him. It’s his place but there are black skates on the floor near his shoes, and a dozen new drawings and paintings. Black and white and blue and so many stars cover his canvases. He’s seen Phil everywhere since the moment they met and it seems that isn’t going to change. He shines through everything he touched while he was here, and that shine sits and pulses in Dan’s heart, urging him to make good on all the dreams they talked about.
Carefully, Dan chooses a few favorites from his new pieces and places them into his bag. He’ll bring them along to show Danny. He thinks he might understand all of this better than anyone. As he turns to move back to his bed, something catches his eye by the open window. It’s a book, one he can’t remember owning, some sort of encyclopedia. He reaches out to open the cover just as the wind blows through the. window turning the pages until they settle, open to an entry titled, muses . Dan reads.
Muse: Any of the 9 sister goddesses of Greek mythology presiding over song and poetry and the arts and sciences. Muses are deities that give artists, philosophers and individuals the necessary inspiration for creation. Many scholars now believe muses would be gender fluid, appearing in whatever form the artist needs to see.
He rubs his tired eyes. He’s not thinking straight but he needs to focus. His future is unfolding right in front of him and he can’t miss the opportunity to make it what he’s always wanted it to be. He has to believe he’ll see Phil again. He tells himself this is all just a big misunderstanding as he climbs into bed and falls asleep.
***
The month that follows is the busiest of Dan’s life. He’s exhausted in a whole new way and it all finally feels worth it. He thinks of Phil every day, looks for him, watches for streaks of light, listens for laughter breaking through the crowds he wades through on his way to the gallery in the mornings. His heart aches but he pours it into his work and he doesn’t have time to dwell. The work he’s created this month is some of the best he’s ever done in spite of having very little time for himself. Danny is a good partner and a better friend but Dan still sits at the mural in the evenings and talks to Phil in the painting. He tells him he misses him and shares all of his accomplishments. He knows Phil would be proud of him.
The gallery’s first show is a group one, with a whole room dedicated to Dan’s work. He’s never had his work displayed so prominently and he’s a nervous wreck the night before the opening. He gathers his supplies into his bag and heads out, locking the gallery door with shaking hands. He’ll be surrounded by supportive friends tomorrow, even his mum and his brother are coming. Still, someone will always be missing.
As he passes the mural, he pauses like he always does. He doesn’t want to talk tonight. Part of him is angry, so angry, but mostly he just yearns. Phil should be here with him, celebrating, sharing in all of it. He drops his bag on the floor and stares and the face looking out from the wall. It doesn’t do Phil justice. The eyes are perfect, he’d know them anywhere, and the shape of his face, but the lips are wrong, too vague. And the hand reaching out, it’s blurred, and he’s not so dainty as this. Phil is strong and steady, a safe haven. As Dan analyzes, his hand fumbles in his bag and soon he’s got a brush in hand and he’s painting.
He could definitely get arrested for this but he’s like a man possessed. He adds detail after detail at a feverish pace. A crooked Cupid’s bow, that shade of pink, that dip at the base of his throat, his soft, strong hands. Soon the sun is nearly set and he couldn't continue if he wanted to. It’s finished. He steps back and looks into the face that made him believe.
“I love you too, Phil,” He says. Then he blows him a kiss and heads home to rest. Tomorrow is the biggest day.
***
The turnout is incredible. Danny had gotten them a write up in the paper and there’s a proper crowd here, many of them standing and discussing Dan’s paintings. There are tears but they are mostly accompanied but smiles, and little red sold stickers pop up all over the place. Dan has managed to talk to strangers, thank the crowd for coming and even discussed his work with a few buyers. He’s never felt so vulnerable, but he’s never felt so alive. As the evening winds down and the crowd thins, Danny pulls Dan away from a few admirers. He takes his champagne right out of his hand, ignoring Dan’s protest. Apparently there’s a buyer who wants to meet him. Someone incredibly important to Dan’s career, according to Danny.
“Okay, okay,” Dan says, smoothing his shirt down and tousling his curls, “no pressure, geez.” Danny grins and takes Dan by the shoulders. He spins him around and Dan finds himself face to face with blue eyes he’d know anywhere.
“You,” Dan says with a gasp.
“Me,” Phil answers, utterly relaxed.
“But how?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Dan says. The tears have broken through and he can feel the damn breaking. Soon he’ll be a full on, snotty mess. “How long are you staying?” His voice quivers.
“For the night,” Phil says, “or forever. Your choice.”
Dan nods so hard, it hurts his head a little and he rushes forward into Phil’s arms. He’s definitely getting snot all over Phil’s white linen suit. When he pulls away, a few of the guests are staring. Phil pulls a hankie from his pocket and starts to wipe Dan’s nose. With a shocked laugh, he grabs it and finishes the job, cleaning himself up as much as he can.
“I did it, Phil,” Dan whispers, leaning in for a kiss. He doesn’t care who sees. This is his place.
“I knew you could.” Phil says, kissing him back.
After a shameless public display of affection, Phil pulls back and looks Dan in the eye. “So?” He’s biting his lip and Dan’s mind goes blank for a moment. He raises his brows, looking genuinely curious. “Tonight or…”
“Oh!” Dan says, way too loud. Gathering himself, he smiles, knowing he’s blushing. He leans in for another quick kiss and stays close, bringing his face next to Phil’s. For a moment, he lets it sink in, inhaling the sea salt and citrus scent of Phil. He hears champagne glasses clinking and the quiet chatter of people discussing art, his art. He lets his eyes close and comes closer still so he can speak, low and soft, into Phil’s ear.
“I choose forever.”
The end.