#sockswrites

“Criticism to Her Gossip”

A shame. My mother was a lonely woman. My mother called me an angel.

I could hear her humming watering her white-bred orchids behind the ivy wall.

My mother once raised me to believe that

Stars were stalls where the midnight souls sold their weary wares.

My mother

Was raised by a woman alone. She had ash and dust for a father 

Who blew plumes of starlint and smoke. 

Spotted geckos buried into 

her spine, crawling up and

Burrowing homes into the nape of her neck.

They would trip the light fantastic in the cavity of her chest,

Singing songs that were too throaty for the native tongue.

As a little girl I held the soft flesh of your speckled

Sagging beautiful skin 

in the angles of my palms

 I once thought that the look you managed to

reply with was an adumbrate to

maybe something beautiful

I find myself overusing that term with her.

In which my soft feet would fit right onto the branches of the lemon tree

And so I’d climb to pick the ripest flesh,          pores from the yellow rind 

Dotted with red ants. Me, my mother and hers would all squat scrubbing 

Course white salt into cabbage heads in beer crates, sipping rice wine in the

Evening right under the rattling fan. 

My mother smells of acetone and sweat, dotting her brow and upper lip,

Cuticles swollen and blistered from hours 

Clocked in.

My mother once pointed at the wine dark sky reminding, warning,

We would only be allowed to become brighter versions of ourselves once

We let truth into our greedy souls like the first breath of space, rushing into 

The previously lonely existence. 

My mother drunkenly mumbled into my ear, leaning against the lotto vending machine, asking me for my lucky numbers.

4, 7, 30. 

She threw her hair back and shook her head. My mother once told me I was her angel.

But I didn't have wings. So my mother said to bring her wood and a reason and she’d build me

Dan had always been a mess.

He had never been able to write or colour something without staining his fingers and, being left-handed, he always got smudged ink on his hand. How he also managed to smear himself on his right hand, however, was a mystery.

He never told his mum that sometimes he ended up with felt-tip smudge on his right palm even when he hadn’t been drawing, or with traces of ballpoint pen even if his teacher still made him work with pencils. He was a mess, after all: no wonder he managed to get himself dirty in the most impossible ways.

He was so used to it, that even as he grew up it didn’t bother him at all. He just accepted it as part of who he was, and went along fine with the fact.

The real troubles began when he was in sixth grade.

It was one of those grey winter days impregnated by a thick fog that seemed to drench his skin and soak his brain, and Dan was pretending to listen to his math teacher rambling about negative numbers, and damn, he was bored, and yes, he got that, if you sum negative numbers you get a lower number, not a higher one, fine, and all of a sudden he noticed a thin, black line appearing near his left thumb.

He squeezed his eyes and stared in dismay as another line was linked to the first, and then another one, and in the span of thirty seconds he had a star on the back of his hand and he certainly had not drawn that. In a flash of consciousness, he thanked he was sitting in the back of the class and nobody was looking at him, because ink had just materialized on his damn hand and that wasn’t like the suspicious smudges he used to get sometimes, that was an actual drawing that had actually just showed up from nowhere.

And now the drawing was being coloured in yellow highlighter.

He tried to rub it off, but the thing seemed to be tattooed on his skin.

He didn’t know what to think of that. Was he going insane? Was he hallucinating? Was that magic? Was it dangerous? Maybe the aliens were marking all the humans that were to be saved in The Great Alien Invasion in 2047, and he was one of the Chosen People, or maybe they were marking those who were doomed to die… but, no, Dan ruled out this possibility after peering at some of his classmates’ hands –because they certainly deserved to be exterminated by aliens more than he did, and they didn’t have the yellow star.

He took a deep breath. He decided that if he ignored it, everything would be okay.

And, surprisingly, that turned out to be true: the star disappeared within the day. After that, he decreed he would forget about it forever and pretend nothing had ever happened.

And, always surprisingly, it worked.

For 18 hours. Before a tiny sword popped up in the same place during his French class.

This time he didn’t witness the process, since he was actually listening to the lesson, but when the bell rang and he picked up his books to leave the room, he noticed the drawing and nearly freaked out.

The Weird Thing, as he named it with a frankly terrifying lack of imagination, became a recurrent feature in his life. Or better, on his hand. Every two or three days he would get a new drawing, most of the times a small star or a flower; but sometimes the Alien Artist would surprise him with something more peculiar, like a TARDIS (thus corroborating his Alien theories), or a Harry Potter chibi (thus not exactly corroborating the theories; but perhaps the aliens were inquiring about popular human culture).

As long as nobody noticed, he was fine with it. And when his mum did see a daisy on his left thumb, he quickly told her he was trying to become ambidextrous; she just asked him to please practice on a piece of paper instead of his own skin, but they both knew he was a Rebellious Mess. He was twelve, and he would behave as he pleased, so if he wanted to learn how to write both ways, he did it where the heck he wanted. The fact that he wasn't even able to draw a decent hanging man with his left hand when he played the game, while those drawings were really great, didn't seem to represent an issue.

However, his simulated (and partly true, in all fairness) angst-y teenage rebellion soon became unfit to cover his problems, because the drawings started getting larger and larger, and not only more noticeable, but also more beautiful.

The alien conspiracy theory got relegated in a box in the back of his mind, down some dark and unpopular alley, and Dan accepted this fact as part of his life just as he had accepted the brushstrokes when he was younger, except now they were an inconvenience. He needed to cover them in any possible way not to draw attention, not to talk about the fact that lines could appear on his skin in any moment like Van Gogh's invisible ghost had decided to taunt him. The best he could do was wearing long sleeves more often, and practicing writing with his right hand to pretend he was able to draw with it, because the situation could get really problematic really fast if someone ever found out he couldn't even trace a letter straight. He needed to be careful.

By the time he was in grade 9, he had ventilated dozens of options. The fact that he accepted the Weird Thing didn't mean he wasn't curious about it, or, in fact, amazed by it.

One of his friends noticed, in the end. It was only a matter of time, truly, he couldn’t be that lucky, but explaining the whole process was still incredibly awkward for him, since he himself didn’t know how the Weird Thing worked. He didn’t get any textbook or pamphlet attached to that power, and it wasn’t exactly common knowledge since he seemed to be the only one who had it. After a painstakingly long speech which didn’t lead anywhere, his friend just asked him to alert her the next time it happened so she could witness it again. Dan was okay with Louise knowing his secret –he just pleaded her not to reveal it, because he was already enough of a freak, and he didn’t want to become a circus attraction.

The artist on the other side had become actually good, and when he was alone, Dan often found pleasure in rolling up his sleeve and watch a wall of flowers blossom on his skin, or a vault of heaven lighten up. And whoever was out there spying on humans, they seemed to get geek culture pretty well, because he would sometimes get R2-D2 and C3PO from Star wars and stuff like that instead of the usual aesthetically pleasing paintings.

He was actually proud of those drawings, despite the fact that he had no part in their creation, because they were his. Nobody else had them, just him, and he couldn't help but feel special. Hell, he was special, there was no deny that. He was the only one out there with a personal invisible artist. Whether it was Vincent Van Gogh, or a Leonardo da Vinci back from the grave.

Sometimes he would add a little particular to them -a star here, a robotic face there- but most of the times he left them untouched, and they would disappear completely within two days, as if someone else was washing them off.

This was, in fact, the main reason why Dan started believing there was another human on the other side, someone just like him, except, obviously, more talented. What if there was no alien, no painter's ghost, but a boy or a girl unaware that their artistic skills got copied on someone else's skin? Dan thought it could be a boy –he had no clue, really. It was just a feeling.

He was sixteen when he got the first hint that this theory may be correct.

It was a Friday night, and Dan was relentlessly scrolling through his various social networks, despising himself because anything "social" shouldn't even be allowed in his internet history, given his non-existent precedents at being sociable. He was, in fact, wondering why he even cared about his Facebook dashboard, when a line began forming on the back of his hand.

He was used to this, but he noticed almost immediately an uncommon particular: it didn't start from the thumb, but from the left side. As it unfolded, Dan realised it wasn't even a drawing: it was a mobile number.

Dan looked at his hand, his heart racing fast and throbbing in his sternum. He clenched his fist, flexed his fingers, observed tendons slither under his cutis, where the number had now been fully carved, and his stomach contracted and twitched and he had to swallow because his mouth had gone dry.

That was unprecedented, unexpected, and a bit intimidating. What was he supposed to do with that?

Dan tried to think rationally. There were now two possibilities: either the artist on the other side had discovered the connection and wanted to contact Dan, or someone –a girl?- had given the artist her number, and instead of saving it on the phone he had written it down on his hand, and now Dan had been caught in the middle of their courting, or whatever that was at 11:30 on a Friday night.

Dan placed his laptop on the floor, taking a mental note not to step on it later, and sat cross-legged on his bed. He unlocked his phone and quickly typed the number on his contacts list, shaking his head and laughing through his nose at the absurdity of the situation. There he was, a lonely teenager, shut in his bedroom, about to text a stranger to a number he wasn't even supposed to have, and not for a prank. On a second thought, he could in fact exploit all of this for a phone prank, but he had the feeling that those types of joke weren't exactly cool anymore. And anyways, he was too mature for that silly stuff.

He waited for at least twenty minutes, phone in his hands, wondering when would be considered acceptable to send a text to an unknown number. His plan was simple: he just had to text the unknown number, and find out if it belonged to his artist; if it didn’t… at least Dan could pretend he was him, and find out some information.

He typed a “hey”. Then he thought adding a smile would be make it all more plausible, so he did it.

Hey :)

Yes, that was friendlier and more casual. Were emoticons considered flirty?

As soon as he pressed the “send” button, his intestines tangled with trepidation.

Maybe, maybe, if he was lucky, he was about to get an answer to the mystery hovering about his skin. Not a complete answer, he wasn't that delusional, but something. A hint.

He looked at his hand again and felt the need to scratch that number away, feeling like an intruder in someone else's life. If he was sure of something, it was that this wasn't meant to be happening.

His mobile buzzed and his heart jumped up in his throat, right between his collarbones. He grabbed his phone, unlocked it with trembling fingers.

Phil? ;)

He forced himself to breathe steadily as he typed a quick oh no sorry wrong number, then he closed his eyes and sighed. Ok, so, rationally speaking: that couldn't be his artist, because he wouldn't assume Dan's name so randomly and cross their fingers hoping to get it right, that would be unconceivably silly; so, this person was expecting a text from an unknown number whose owner's name was Phil, which meant that Phil was the one who'd written down the number on his own hand. Which meant Dan’s artist was called Phil.

Phil.

Dan had a name.

Not that he was going to get much from it. He still didn't know a damn thing about this Phil guy, and he'd just invaded his privacy, which didn't always made an excellent first impression on new acquaintances, so he doubted Phil would be happy to hear that.

Nevertheless, he was still feeling pretty euphoric.

   The situation was in a deadlock for many months.

Dan started scribbling on his hand more, now that he knew there was a human on the other side -he took down appointments and doodled band logos, but he was convinced the whole process was one-sided, otherwise Phil would have contacted him by now. The thought made him feel even lonelier than before.

As the days went by, he found himself more and more eager to learn something about this Phil. He deduced the boy was just slightly older than him, from the type of marks he used to get when he was younger, but that wasn't much; he also knew Phil was a nerd, but that had been ascertained long before.

During the years he'd never paid much attention to the matter, aside from the obvious curiosity and puzzlement and the low-key admiration he'd always felt for Phil's skills; however, since he'd learnt Phil's name, he'd started feeling somehow more connected to him -he felt like the link between them was tighter, more personal. Because there was, in fact, a whole person on the other side, and it wasn’t Van Gogh's ghost.

It was intimate, to be linked to someone else's skin, and after all these years Dan had grown fond of him.

When the stalemate was broken, Dan was playing a crappy videogame on his laptop instead of entertaining himself with some healthy activity, like going outside and benefit from the summer sun. He saw the usual lines on his skin, and an alarm bell trilled when he noticed it was being traced from the left, like that phone number that had let him find out Phil’s name.

As soon as he realized what he had between his hands (quite literally), he immediately called the only friend who knew about it all, because he felt like he couldn’t handle that on his own.

“Louise,” he said as she answered, hoping she would immediately catch the dead serious tone of his voice like people did in the movies.

“Dan, hi! How—”

He interrupted her, disappointed that she didn’t get the hint that this was an emergency situation. “Louise, I might be able to see Phil.”

Her voice dropped all of a sudden, and she went all grave. “Tell me.”

“He wrote an address on my hand, it’s the first time he does! Louise, I could meet him! If I go there...” Phil had probably forgotten his phone, or didn't bother to take it with him, like that time with the phone number. And Dan recognized the address, so he could, in fact, be in the same place as Phil was.

“You don’t even know if he lives here,” she noticed with too much earnestness and practicality in her voice for his enthusiastic likings.

Shit, she was right. Phil could be in Alabama or something, for all Dan knew, or in any other English-speaking place.

“Ok, but what if he does live here? What if, like, our connection was short-range? That would be amazing. Fuck, Louise, I could actually see Phil.” Dan really tried not to get his hopes too high, to ponder the matter rationally, but he couldn't. Damn, he could actually meet Phil in... in three days. Three fucking days.

“And… do you want to?” she asked, uncertain. She had to be the realistic friend now, since Dan was too hyped up to stay down to earth, and she was probably pondering all of the downsides of the possible meeting.

“Of fucking course.” The odds were definitely not in his favour, ok, but god did he want to see Phil's face, he didn't even care that Phil wouldn't know who he was. He desperately wanted to give a look to the man who'd been writing on him his whole life, because Phil had been with him from day one, and Dan didn't know how that was possible, but the truth was undeniable, and Phil had made Dan smile in amazement so many times from the wonders he tattooed on his skin, he'd actually made him feel better, and Dan wanted to know who he should be thankful to.

And in three days he would-- if he was lucky, of course, if just for this once destiny was on his side, if all of this mess wasn't completely meaningless, he would see his Phil.

“Ok, fine. Did you write the address down?”

“No.”

“Do it, you dummy! Before Phil cancels it!”

And so he did, and they both settled that if Dan didn’t find Phil where he hoped he would be, he wouldn’t feel too disheartened for hoping the impossible, and he would get over it without whining too much, and accept that his connection with Phil would lead to nowhere. After all, if Dan wasn’t willing to be realistic, Louise had to take the role of the grown-up person on his behalf.

The next two days flowed painstakingly slow, and yet, when the fatal hour came, Dan decided he wasn't the tiniest bit ready. He would have postponed the event at least two months later. How can you be ready to meet someone you've indirectly known your whole life with so little warning? It was unconceivable, really, that someone could imagine it possible. Because it wasn't. It really wasn't. Like, at all. Dan was about to go insane.

Dan was there 15 minutes in advance, positioned on the other side of the road and looking at the building Phil was supposed to enter –an anonymous Starbucks coffee. He pretended to be listening to music on his i-Pod, and frantically scanned every person who got close to the doors.

Too old; too old; young man… no, he passed by; a woman was standing right outside the coffee shop, but she was, well, a woman.

Unless Phil was short for Philippa. Fuck, what if that blonde was Phil? He really thought Phil was a guy –but really, this was the XXI century, past the time when assuming--

He almost missed the boy who was clearly heading towards the doors –almost. He noticed him while he was still in the midst of his crisis, and suddenly all the voices in his head abruptly silenced.

The boy –dark haired, wearing a checked shirt- waved at the blond girl who was waiting outside, and then hugged her tightly. Dan saw them saying something, but he couldn’t make up the words labial reading was not included amongst his skills.

They were about to enter Starbucks and disappear from Dan’s view.

Dan felt –no, he could actually feel nothing in that moment, for all his senses were focused on the other guy, making everything else blurred. His brain was too busy cataloguing perceptions to even think.

“Phil!” he called from across the street, and quickly lowered his head and pretended to check his phone as if he wasn’t the one who just shouted.

In his peripheral vision, he saw the boy turn around, puzzled, and look for the source of the sound without finding it.

Phil shook his head and got in the building.

Well. Right.

Dan swallowed.

In the split seconds Phil had been in eyesight, he’d tried to absorb everything he could about him. Because fuck, that was Phil. That must be his Phil, right? Or was Dan so unlucky that he’d managed to find the wrong one? How many chances were there that two guys named Phil had an appointment at the same address in two different parts of the world? Not many, right? That must have been his Phil. The guy who drew on Dan’s skin.

He was screwed, wasn’t he? As he rode home on the bus, he started to feel sick. There was nothing more he could do, now. He’d learnt Phil’s name over a year ago, and now he’d seen him; and he bid goodbye forever to the aliens and Van Gogh’s tormented soul, because he’d finally given a face to the marks on his skin. Phil had sharp features and a haircut similar to Dan’s, and Dan really found him pretty.

What if Phil got a tattoo? He didn’t even know whether he was linked to Phil’s actual body or just to his art skills –but that didn’t really matter. There was nothing else to look forward to, now, no new discovery, no new piece of information.

God, what if Phil got a tattoo of his wedding date or the name of his children? Maybe the blonde girl was his girlfriend. Maybe he wanted to marry her. And Dan would be lying if he didn’t admit he had the tiniest crush on the guy, because how can you share so much with someone and not end up having the smallest amount of feelings towards them? He’d witnessed Phil becoming more and more skilled through the years, he was proud of him, and they shared so many interests. And they even had the same haircut. That must have meant something. Not a huge something, but something. And he knew his crush would never completely fade, it would just float there, for the most part ignored, and it would just send him occasional pangs of regret when he would remember he never acted on it.

Unless… there was something he could try. He never thought it would work –he was convinced it would not work- but he could at least give it a shot. He had nothing to lose, anyways.

Even though he believed the connection was one-sided, he had to give Phil the benefit of the doubt. He had to try, for his own sake. Did he fail, well, he would learn how to cope with the fact that he knew Phil while Phil was completely unaware of his existence; but if Phil for some reason had just never acknowledged Dan’s presence…

The whole day he thought about the do. He didn’t want to scare Phil telling him he’d collected personal information about him, nor that he had already seen his face, because that felt unfair.

He waited until it was dark, but not too late for a sane human being to be already in bed (assuming Phil lead a healthy life with normal sleeping schedules and didn’t go to bed at 2 a.m. like Dan did). He locked himself in his bedroom, not wanting his mum to come in and find him scribbling conversations on his arms. He got ready with a pen, some felt-tips in case of need, and a box of tissues to get cleaned.

He sat on his bed, and wrote:

tell me you see this too

It was stupid. After all those years, it still didn’t feel normal, to write on your skin and realize someone else was seeing it.

He checked both of his hands for what felt like an eternity. Phil wasn’t going to write anything back, was he? All of Dan’s faint dreams would soon be suffocate--

yes.

Dan left out a strangled noise in the mid between a sob and a chuckle, and immediately replied.

im dan

Then he waited. Longer, this time. Five minutes passed, and he still didn’t get an answer. He decided to spur the other guy –maybe Phil was more scared than he was.

you owe me one

ive lived for a week with finn and jake on my arm

my left arm

im left handed

Not more than five seconds passed before an answer started forming. It didn’t take long for Dan to understand what Phil was drawing: a face crying from laughing. He even coloured it.

THAT IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL

ITS SUMMER

AKA NO LONG SLEEVES

 oh no I sorry

I didn’t get you in trouble did I

im Phil btw

Dan kind of wanted to stab himself in the face with the pen. Of course Phil wouldn’t know he was just kidding, and now he probably thought Dan was annoyed at him. He also had to restrain himself from writing “I know” in response to Phil telling him his name. He knew, Phil, he long knew.

haha no jk don’t worry

wait you mean with finn and jake or…?

 with any of my drawings

 no

…t yet

 ok haha

 btw u r talented

your drawings are beautiful

 thank you :D

I mostly copy them from the internet tho

Dan snorted. He wasn’t going to let Phil sell himself so short.

ha! wanna see what I can do?

not that you have any choice

He stumbled off his bed and ran to the desk, scrolled through his images gallery until he found a picture of said Finn and Jake drawing and tried to copy it on his right hand. And yes, maybe he was exaggerating even further his already poor artistic skills, but he needed to prove his point.

ok stop yes youre terrible, Phil suddenly interrupted him.

He felt a glow of happiness in his chest, and as he saw the words forming he could almost sense the tickle of the pen on Phil's skin.

1/0

 wait what

when did this become a competition

 ;)

 close your eyes then

 what

no i'll fall asleep

 close your eyes

youll see tomorrow

With a smirk on his lips, Dan obeyed. He was kind of scared of what Phil would be able to do if he applied himself, but he wanted to play the game. He already like those banters, and he really hoped they wouldn't stop after that night.

He woke up around 9. He'd forgotten to close the blinders, and warm sunlight was pouring through his window and wetting his face. He opened his eyes with a low groan and brought his left hand to his face to cover a yawn. And he remembered.

Squinting his eyes, he slowly turned his arm and looked at the dense lines; when he realized what Phil had drawn, he cracked a laugh that almost made him fall off the bed. It wasn't even that witty, it was just so fucking silly he couldn't believe his eyes.

1/1

lets stop before i draw a pe

He stopped, regretting the last sentence and quickly grapping a tissue to scrub it off. He still wasn't familiar enough with Phil to leave that word on his arm.

I might draw a very realistic one on your forehead if you ever wrong me so beware, Phil wrote.

 would you actually go around with one on your face?

 thouché

 And so they were talking again, and Dan was enjoying it immensely.

 do you think it was casual?

 you mean if theres a reason why its us to and not someone else?

 yes

 idk i think it was random

 we were lucky then :)

 idk youre pretty boring and youre a terrible artist

 shut up you like me

 ive grown accustomed to you

  One day in October, Phil stopped writing.

They had never switched to talking on their phones, although that would have been considerably more comfortable, because they thought it would just be idiotic to stop communicating on their skins, since that was their very own specialty. Nobody else could, so why not be proud of it? And they talked a lot. There had hardly been days when they didn't spoke to each other. After all, they'd always been connected, and they had easily slipped into actively interacting with each other.

They would chat about cinema, music, tv, anime, everyday life, funny anecdotes.

did I tell u I got chased by a goose, Phil would randomly write.

wait im getting popcorn, Dan would reply, and they would tell each other silly stories for hours.

Dan had told Phil about his Alien theories and Van Gogh's ghost; Phil had confided in return that he too thought the aliens were sending him cryptic messages, or maybe his past selves were trying to warn him about something.

ok but imagine how scared I was

you would write something I couldn’t understand

and id be like MAYBE MY GRANDGRANDPA IS TRYING TO TELL ME SMT

BUT I CANT READ IT

GRANDPA WHY

Dan had laughed hysterically at those texts, and replied:

DONT MAKE MY MISTAKES GRANDSON

DONT WATCH SO MUCH ANIME

I bet ur grandpa would have loved anime

 maybe my grandpa and van gogh are friends

 was ur grandpa a painter?

 no he was an ear specialist

Phil was Weird, Dan had decided. But they were both Weird, so it was ok.

sometimes im afraid youre not real, Dan had written one late night, despite having seen Phil in person. Phil still felt too incredible to be true.

i am

i am here

He was until that day in October.

It was a foggy Saturday, too similar to that winter day when everything had begun, many years before.

 I was thinking, he’d said, that we could meet

 how do you know we live near each other?, Dan wrote, factually admitting he knew it already.

 I saw you once

did you know too??

 I saw you once too

what a twist

Phil didn’t answer, but Dan thought he was probably busy and would say something later.

He decided to binge-watch the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and after six episodes he updated Phil on his progresses; he wasn't bothered that Phil didn't answer immediately, and he carried on with the show, and with no suspicion.

That night, however, Phil still hadn't answered. They both had the habit to carry a pen wherever they went, so it was even that Phil still hadn't found a moment to reply -and it was Buffy! Phil loved Buffy, why wasn't he already scrabbling hyped-up notes all over Dan's arm?

A dense drop of anxiety was stagnating in his throat, but he tried to swallow it and not give up to it. Instead, he went to bed early and lied there for hours, supine, with his left arm raised and his eyes open shut (he wasn’t going to give up to it, he wasn’t going to give up to it) until he fell in an agitated sleep.

On Sunday morning, Phil still hadn't turned up.

phil are u ok

At lunch, there still was no sign of him.

phil please answer

im worried

just say something

Panic was literally gnawing Dan's insides, now. His message from the previous day was faltering, and soon Phil would be unable to see it. Dan tried to tell himself he was acting too clingy and possessive towards Phil, and Phil had all the reasons to take a break from their constant chattering; he then tried to find an excuse for why Phil wouldn't answer -but he was fibbing, he was fooling himself. Phil never actively avoided him, even when he wasn't really up for talking; even now, he would at least reassure Dan, tell him everything was okay, which meant, by simple deduction, that something was not okay with him.

And Dan had no way to contact him. It dawned to him only now that it had been utterly childish, on their side, to refuse exchanging phone numbers just because they felt special. Screw special, Phil could be fucking dead now, he could be dead and Dan had no way to know. He couldn't lose him.

With trembling limbs he roused from the foetal position he'd fallen on after lunch and headed to the bathroom, hoping a hot steamy shower would calm him down and give him some ideas on how to solve this.

As he undressed, he felt like his clothes were suffocating him, and he realized he was on the verge of a panic attack. Phil couldn't be dead, he couldn't, what if some day he just walked in a cemetery and saw his tombstone? Phil couldn't--

There was something on his calf, a trace of ink. He almost tripped and crashed his head on the sink as he rushed remove his jeans and sit on the floor to examine it.

dan im fine

please see this

aaa dan

I dont know where else to write

I broke my left arm

A rush of relief invaded Dan's veins.

what happened??

The answer appeared almost immediately -Phil must have been as worried as Dan was.

accident but im ok now

aside from the arm

got a concussion but im fine now

theyre running some tests and dismissing me in 2 days +-

are u in hospital??

yes

can I come and visit you?

He knew Phil was certainly not thinking about meeting Dan for the first time in hospital, but Dan didn’t care: Phil was hurt, and worry was still dripping away from him in slow, dense streams, and he certainly wasn't thinking straight, he just wanted to make sure Phil was okay, and tell him he was going to be ok, and...

I dont want to bother you

but I want to:(

ok then :D

Phil then told him in which hospital he was staying, and Dan was positively sure a pitched scream was building up in his throat, substituting the previous numb anxiety with a new form of ecstatic nervousness.

And so he got dressed in a hurry, and he tried to pick his most decent clothes, ending up with a plain black tee and black jeans, because from the Rebellious Mess he was once he’d become a rather pathetic emo teenager. He grabbed his phone and his earphones and his keys and just yelled a general “goin’ out!” for whoever was home to hear.

“Where are you going?” his mum shouted back from somewhere near her bedroom.

“Shopping centre!” he replied, improvising on the spot. Shopping centre was a decent excuse.

He was about to meet Phil. He was about to meet Phil, after all this madness that had been going on he was about to see him.

He walked through the echoing corridors of the hospital Phil was kept in with his stomach in a turmoil, and weren’t he so excited and full of expectations he would have probably thrown up in a delicious, idyllic picture.

Phil had told him he was in room 12 of his section, and Dan lingered on the door before knocking. It seemed to him, in that moment, that his whole life had lead up to that moment, that this was the coronation of everything he had been through. Which was definitely terrorising.

He knocked gently, because his hand was suddenly sore and rigid and he was positively sure his whole body was in rigor mortis from the state of absolute freeze he’d fallen into. He couldn’t even properly close his fist.

“Come in?”

He opened a crack and slipped inside. The room was a pile of blurred greys and pale yellows, and furniture upon which Dan’s eyes refused to focus, because Phil’s face was polarizing all of his attention. He stood still, looking at him.

Phil’s complexion was pasty, as he was still recovering; but his eyes were wide and sparkling, and his smile was broad and so sincerely enthusiastic. Dan felt himself grinning in return.

“We have the same haircut,” Phil said.

“I thought you’d already seen me”

“Yes, I’ve been wanting to say that for a while.”

Dan chuckled. He was still observing the other boy, drinking his features avidly.

“I was hoping I’d be more presentable on our first time,” Phil continued, “but you’ll have to settle with this.”

“I’m very disappointed,” Dan said, getting closer to the bed. “I thought you would at least wear a tuxedo on our fist—meeting.”

Phil shrugged and smiled at him. After all this time, after all their conversations, just seeing each other felt satisfying enough. Dan was incredibly relieved Phil wasn’t Vincent Van Gogh, after all. And Phil watched him like he could never get tired, and Dan was fairly sure he was mirroring him perfectly, because he did want to stare at Phil’s face for hours.

But he couldn’t, because Social Conventions said that staring at someone is awkward and should be avoided unless you’re planning to fuck that someone with the same intensity you are staring at them.

“So, you managed to break your arm, uh?”

“I did. I’m an idiot.”

“Good thing I didn’t write anything while the doctors were putting the plaster you, or it would have been a disaster.”

“I would have probably shoved my arm under the hospital gown and then jumped out of the window,” Phil said putting up a grimace. “By the way, would you write something on this?” he asked, raising his broken arm. “My mum brought me felt-tips in case someone wanted to, they’re in the drawer.”

“How much do we want to bet you’ll forget them here?” Dan teased as he picked them.

“I don’t want to bet, I would lose.”

Dan dragged the plastic chair and adjusted around Phil’s paralyzed arm. He couldn’t restrain himself from smiling, and his only consolation was that Phil couldn’t either, so they were both stupidly grinning together. He almost shot off when he welt Phil’s free fingers brush his own arm, and rigidly changed his position so they wouldn’t touch. It was already hard enough not to get a sensorial overload just from being in his same room: if they kept touching, he would probably be fulminated on the spot.

“What do you want me to do?”

Phil tilted his head. “I don’t know, you decide. Something funny, maybe?”

Dan sneered as he chose a blue felt-tip and wrote “something funny” on the plaster.

“Dan! Did you just literally write something funny on my immaculate plaster?”

“You asked for it. And now I am writing that this… ungrateful… person… doesn’t… appreciate… jokes.”

“I do appreciate jokes!” Phil protested with a laugh.

Dan’s face fell into a serious expression. “You’re right, you do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“Exactly.”

Dan knew his cheeks were reddening, so he quickly lowered his head and faced Phil’s arm instead of looking in his eyes. “I can write something else, if you want.”

“If you actually write something else, I’m going to slap you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Dan said, immediately feeling like the thirteen-year-old boy he had always been at his core for saying something so pathetic and overused in clichéd love stories. Although, as a matter of fact, he would certainly welcome Phil’s contact with his face –which made him feel even more like a pre-teen but alas, it was true.

“It’s weird to have you here,” Phil stated after a while.

“It’s weird to be here.”

“Would you, um…” Phil awkwardly shrugged and shifted his eyes for the first time. “Are you free tomorrow?”

“Why, yes.”

“Because they’re releasing me and I was wondering if you would like to have lunch with me.”

Dan forced himself not to shout his agreement.

After that, they chatted some more until Dan realized it was getting dark outside and his mum would kill him if she noticed he was spending definitely too much time at the shopping centre.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at noon, then?” Phil asked once Dan told him he had to dash.

“See you tomorrow. Goodbye, then.”

As he closed the door behind himself, Dan sighed heavily, feeling both breathless and filled with oxygen and helium. He’d just talked to Phil, in person. He was absolutely fucked.

When he returned home, he grabbed his faithful pen and, without even reflecting upon it, he scribbled near his ankle

I really really like you

and im glad I met you

Phil didn’t answer.

He knew Phil couldn't write on his left arm, he was aware of it. But he had proven he was able to write on his legs, before, so why was he silent now? It was 9pm. No way were the doctors running tests on him at this hour, and no way was he already asleep, so he must have seen the message. Which meant that this time he didn't want to answer. Which meant Dan had officially fucked up. Only now he realized the full extent of his hazard: he had crossed the Rubicon, proclaimed his intentions, and that had been a terrible mistake. And he thought he had reached the bottom of the pit... but now he found himself not only having a massive crush on Phil, but also being unreturned. And they would meet in 12 hours. And also be connected for the rest of their lives. Dan felt the deepest pity for his own pathetic behaviour.

The following morning, he was a wreck. He'd barely slept, he was embarrassed, he was afraid.

At noon, he was waiting outside the hospital for Phil to come out. When he saw him, he felt pretty much like he'd just tripped and fell over one of the Queen's hats.

"Dan!" Phil seemed surprised. He probably thought Dan wouldn't even show up.

"Hey."

"I wasn't sure you'd be here," Phil said furrowing his brow.

"Look, about what I wrote last night, you probably misund--"

"What did you write?" Phil interrupted him. He raised his right arm and scanned it, to Dan's puzzlement, as if the text somehow could have been delayed and only appeared now, but there was nothing: he was completely clean. "I didn't get anything. And you didn't answer my messages..."

"What? I didn't get anything either."

For a moment, they simply looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Do you still have yours?" Dan asked.

"It was visible when I got dressed. It was... just under my knee. Is yours?"

"Yes." Dan bit his lip, hoping Phil wouldn't ask him to see it.

"I, well..."

"That is... odd."

Phil took out his usual black pen from his jeans' pocket passed it to Dan "Ok, let's try."

"Wait, not here." Dan looked around and shook his head; they were still standing in front of the hospital doors, with people going in and out casting them side glances. They couldn't perform their little magic to everyone's display.

So, since their agreement was to have lunch together, they slipped into the nearest commercial restaurant and picked a secluded table. Dan finally uncapped Phil's pen and just scribbled on his right hand. Nothing appeared on Phil's.

"What the fuck?" he burst out. He grabbed Phil's arm and did the same, but his own remained clean. He quickly let go of it and tossed the pen, as if they were both infected.

"I..." Phil's' eyes were wide open, his expression tentative. "I think it's time we exchanged phone numbers, then."

Dan was about to sob. That was his special thing. And Phil's. It couldn't just disappeared, it wasn't allowed to disappear. Leave him like he'd always been ordinary. "What do you think happened?"

Phil shook his head, but then started to speculate nonetheless. "Maybe-- maybe, it wasn't necessary anymore. Because it connected us, right? For some reason, it linked the two of us, but then it performed its duty because we connected physically. That is, we touched each other. Maybe it was bound to go away once we finally met."

"But that was our Thing!" Dan was aware he was making a racket like a toddler. He couldn't care less. Without that power, he would have never met Phil. And he knew that Phil wasn't affected by the sudden change as he was, because Phil wasn't the one who got all those incredible artworks on his skin. "Maybe... maybe it's temporary. Like, maybe it only works when we're apart, and now we're not, so it doesn't."

"And what about last night?"

"Oh. Yes. Shit."

"But, at least we found each other," Phil murmured with a tentative smile.

And Dan remembered what he'd written the previous night: I am so glad I met you.

They had a tasty and unhealthy lunch at the cafe, and they talked and laughed and in the end they exchanged phone numbers and Dan wondered what happened to the person who had given Phil their number years ago. They hugged before parting; Dan, careful not to hurt Phil, slid his arm under the plaster and wrapped him, and Phil gently placed his free hand on his spine and breathed deeply. If they had lost their power for touching they might as well exploit it, Phil joked. They agreed to meet again the following day.

Dan arrived first on the meeting point, and patiently waited for Phil to show up. As soon as he appeared, Dan noticed he was carrying a package arm-in-arm, something thin, and large, like...

"Is that a canvas?" Dan asked once Phil was at earshot.

"Hello, how are you today?" Phil reproached him with a grin.

"Sorry, yes. How's your arm doing?"

"The broken one's pretty fine, but this one is sore," Phil lamented. "And yes, it's a canvas, and it's for you, so take it before my good arm falls off."

Dan took it before processing what the other had said. "Wait, for me?" He was sincerely moved by Phil's kindness -had Phil actually made a whole painting for him?

Phil giggled. "Yes, for you! I started working on it shortly after we started talking, and I wanted to complete it before asking you out. That's what I wanted to say the other day, before..." He tapped on his plaster to explain.

"Can I open it?" Dan managed to choke out, although his brain had long short-circuited.

"Yes, of course!"

They found a secluded bench, and carefully placed their hoodies on it before sitting on the dirty piece of metal. In the meantime, Dan's mind was working restlessly to find a proper response and especially an action plan.

He smoothed the gift paper before ripping it, wanting to prolong the moment. "You didn't have to make me anything, though."

"I know, but after doodling on you for ages I wanted to make something that would last."

"Ok, then," Dan agreed with a smile. He searched for the edges of the paper and carefully unwrapped the canvas.

His stomach was fizzy with trepidation.

When he saw it, he was speechless. Van Gogh's ghost would not have done any better. "Fuck, Phil, it's amazing!"

Phil lightened up. "You like it!"

"Yes! Fuck, I can't believe you did this for me, honestly, it's exceptional." His mind was, at the moment, a record player running "wow wow wow" on faulty repeat. At the same time, however, he couldn't help but feel blue. "I can't believe I won't have these drawings on my arm anymore."

"I know, it's hard to metabolize," Phil said sympathetically. "I liked knowing -well, at least hoping, you know- that my drawings weren't just for me. It... kind of gave me a sense of purpose."

Dan nodded, and struggled to find the correct words to reply. "A lot of times... there were times when I was really unhappy and lonely, but then you would start drawing on me and... it helped me reassess. It reminded me that the world wasn't revolving around me so my problems were hardly the end of the world, but it also made me feel very special, you know my theories, Van Gogh's soul haunting me and everything, because there was this beautiful thing appearing on my skin and it was like at least someone did care about me after all, and it made me feel less alone."

Silence and stillness followed his speech. Dan worried he might have opened up a bit too much, but sharing those thoughts with Phil felt incredibly relieving.

Phil eventually spoke. "I guess, the reason why we don't have that power anymore is that we can make each other feel that way in person."

For a moment, Dan locked his eyes with Phil's; he broke the contact when he felt his neck and shoulder blades heating up. Various replies ran through his mind, but none of them seemed appropriate. "Do you still have your pen?" he asked.

Phil looked surprised, but he still picked his faithful instrument from his pocket.

"Can I write something on your arm?"

"Sure."

Phil placed his sane one on Dan's lap, and Dan took it between his hands. He felt the soft skin and sinews of Phil's bony wrist, and Phil touched his hand with icy paws.

Dan gripped the pen. He had a very confused, very foggy, very reckless idea of what he wanted.

"Don't peep," he said.

"I'm not."

Dan lifted his head to make sure Phil's eyes were closed, but instead found them resting quietly on his face. The intensity and fondness of Phil's gaze was enough to spread warmth all over his body.

"I'm not looking at my arm," Phil specified.

"You know what," Dan said, maintaining eye contact with him. "I'll show you instead."

He scooted closer on the bench, and his nose bumped with Phil's as he placed a kiss on his lips. "Sorry," he apologized withdrawing, not sure if for the sudden move or his intrinsic awkwardness.

Phil snorted and leaned over, trying to kiss him properly.

"Wait, is this okay?" Dan asked in disbelief, on the verge of panic.

"Well, we've had a long-range connection for so many years, I think it's time we shortened the distance," Phil replied with the cheekiest sneer Dan had ever witnessed.