Work Text:
i.
dan knows he’s fucked the moment he sees phil’s eyes for the first time: bright blue with flecks of green and gold around the pupils, the sky and the sun and the rain and the flowers wrapped into one. he knows he’s head over heels when phil takes his hand on the manchester eye and dan knows without any doubt in his mind that he won’t be able to have a normal life without phil as soon as their lips touch.
ii.
“you’re a garden, you know? you’ve got life in you so don’t give up yet, dan,” phil tells him over skype call after skype call, text message after text message until they can meet in person again. dan wants to ask phil if he’d be dan’s sunshine but dan worries that that’s too cheesy and instead he clutches at the idea of his own heart as a garden that grows under the attention phil lavishes on him. dan’s been in love twice before meeting phil but they’ve paled in comparison to the way he feels now.
iii.
the first time they’re intimate is halfway through dan’s first semester at university and it’s slower than dan thought it would be, but with each gentle caress of phil’s palm across his stomach and hips dan is falling a little more in love. and when they’re done and cuddling in phil’s bed, phil asks him to move in. dan wouldn’t say yes if he didn’t mean it and he asks if they’re dating and phil only hesitates for a split second (or was it longer?) before saying that yes, they are, of course they are, don’t be silly, dan.
iv.
dan is twenty-three now and he’s tired of answering the questions from his parents about what happened to him and phil, why doesn’t phil come ‘round anymore, are you two doing okay. he’s still living with phil, he knew from the start that he couldn’t go it alone, but what they have now is a shadow of what they used to be. phil is still the sun and the sky and the rain but the flowers that they grew together in dan have died of thirst. (dan thinks it’s funny how that happened because when phil rained he poured and dan swore he was drowning when they were fighting from the moment they woke up until they fell asleep in separate rooms but as loudly as he screamed it was as if no one heard a thing.)
v.
ten months have passed since they officially broke up and the wounds are fresh but dan puts bandages on them himself now. he’s ten months sober and he knows that just because he’s clean doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss it. so when phil stands tight-lipped in front of him with his arms hanging by his sides dan puts his hands on phil’s shoulders and looks down into the eyes that let him grow before pressing a chapped-lip kiss to his forehead and walking away. now that he’s clean, he’s never gonna risk it.