#danisnotonefire

He tries to capture the screaming colors enough that the frozen remains have half of the life of the actual thing.

"Alright, raise your hand if you're gay!" an enhanced voice sounds from somewhere. Dan holds his camera arm up to try to find the source of the sound. "That's right, hands up!"

Thousands of hands shoot up to the air, some intertwined with an another hand, some with multi-colored bracelets jingling from them, and a pair of two male hands nearby him holding a giggling baby up high in the air, the baby laughing and punching the air with its small fist. It's a much too beautiful sight to lose forever. Dan snaps the button.

"I see a lot of hands!" the voice continues, brightly. "For those of you who didn't raise your hand- sorry, but you'll have to miss some of the fun!"

The crowd laughs. Dan chuckles along and finally focuses his camera on the source of the voice- he's a young man, dressed in a red top and blue jeans and with his cheek streaked with rainbow, a flag tied around his shoulders. He's currently at the top of a truck with a megaphone in his hand and he's positively glowing, full to the brim of laughter and sunlight and god knows what more. He's radiant. He's perfect.

Dan rises his camera a bit more to properly zoom into the face of the man and sees a laughing face, his smile young and happy with the light illuminating his facial features. Dan clicks the camera button once, twice, three times and feels himself grinning along slightly- the joy is simply contagious.

Then the man looks down to meet Dan's camera. He looks a bit bewildered at first, but soon breaks into a easy grin; he has really striking eyes, Dan notes, a mesmirizing blue that shines brightly of color. He removes the camera from the front of his face and waves his hands, mouthing Go on, please. He seems to get the message and turns back to the crowd with the megaphone ready on his mouth.

"Nice sign you have there, miss!" he shouts. "If you're under 18, cover your ears. @hot guys: sorry, i eat pussy. Jesus, that's literally something you'd write in your tombstone, am I right?"

The brunet continues to play with the crowd, his witty sense of humor shining as bright as himself and Dan finds himself smiling widely as he attempts to capture the essence of the moment with his camera. He's everything that Dan was looking for in perhaps more than one way. The man is simply endearing, all stupidly large smiles and bright eyes and the wind blowing through his black hair, ruffling it and managing to make him look even more wild then before.

He hopes his pictures would do him justice.

Not too long after, the man gives a crooked salute to the crowd (resulting in more cheering) and clambers off the truck, a bit clumsily considering his height. He seems to melt into the sea of people after landing and Dan doesn't want to lose him, not at all and he looks around, considering going after the spot where he landed when he feels a tap on his shoulder.

Dan wheels around to see the megaphone man himself, wearing a crooked smile and looking a tad awkward. Dan takes in a breath.

"Hi," he says breathlessly. He's properly breathtaking now that they're so close; the smeared paint failing to hide his chiseled cheekbones and his fringe, falling to his face and highlighting his eyes, clear blue and so, so pretty. "You've been taking pictures of me?"

"Yeah." Dan says, shifting in his feet. "Was that okay with you? I can delete them if you want."

"No, it's fine." he says, shrugging. "Is my face gonna end up in the morning newspaper?"

"Probably." Dan grins. "I work for The Huffington Post, actually. I'm Dan."

"Phil." they shake hands, the warm touch of Phil's fingers soft against his skin.

"I'm glad that I got to be your model." Phil says. "Did you get decent shots?"

Not just decent, Dan thinks to himself, they were perfect, beautiful as fuck. "I did." he says. "You were actually exactly what I needed. Really gay, colorful, overwhelming presence, visually pleasing." he pauses. "Sorry, did that sound objectifying?"

"No! Not at all." maybe Dan's just imagining but maybe Phil's blushing under those colors on his face, just maybe. "Happy to be in service."

The people around them break into a song, something he thinks Lady Gaga sang at the Superbowl, the weird echoes of thousand of people chanting ringing across his body. He looks at Phil. Phil's smiling at him, his features soft and bright.

"Can I do something?" he suddenly says. "It wouldn't take long."

"Yes?" Dan responds.

Phil takes his phone out and snaps a picture of him. Dan blinks.

"You've been taking pictures of others all day." he says, a cheeky grin on his face, "You deserve one, too. To be preserved in a photo."

He proceeds to reach through Dan's hair to pick out a stray piece of confetti that got randomly stuck there, him being almost as tall as Dan so he stands firmly on his feet instead of tiptoes. The soft brush of Phil's fingertips against his scalp gives Dan warm tingles all over his body.

"Picture perfect, now." Phil says, softly yet somehow heard above the music. Dan blushes.

"Are you gonna keep that?" he asks. "It's okay with me."

Phil nods. "I'll text the picture to you, if you want."

"But you don't have my nu- " and oh. "Jesus, that was smooth." he laughs, pulling out his own phone from his pocket.

Phil grins and punches his number in Dan's phone, informing him to "text me right away, I'm saving your number." Dan obliges and his heart has gone way too stupidly big for his liking.

Phil texts him the picture he's taken when Dan's at the bus on his way home, complete with a rainbow emoji and a winky face one with the caption sometimes you have to stand in front of the camera, and a seprate text that reads because you're too pretty to let go easily.  It makes Dan ferociously blush and giggle like the way he hasn't in a long time and God, how long has it been since he last flirted with someone so easily. He types back  you're not really in a place to tell others that they're pretty and presses his face against the window, the relatively cool slab of glass cooling his burning cheeks but not enough to stop the smile that's blooming in his face.

-we should meet again, sometime :)