#wcsmc

A lot had happened since that night on the cliff tops. Dan and Phil were now officially a couple, which PJ liked to tease them about every time they were all together in the coffee shop. Phil had been teaching Dan sign language which he was now almost fluent in, but his gestures were still clumsy and haphazard, making sentences seem like a jumble of words that Phil could never understand. Dan had persuaded Phil to take his paintings one step bigger and soon Phil would be showcasing some of his art in the local art gallery on the seafront and Dan was so proud of him.

Dan still worked in the coffee shop, but he didn't mind because he still got to serve his favourite customer everyday and write notes on his napkin along with a kiss every time he walked through the shop door.

It was on one specific day, a year since they sat on the bench on the cliff tops, that Phil walked in with a rather suspicious lump under his winter jacket. He walked up to the counter with the biggest smile on his face and greeted Dan with a kiss (to which PJ jokingly gagged behind them). He then pulled out a bouquet of flowers from inside his jacket, containing Dan's favourite flower, red roses, and Phil's favourite flower, lilies. "Oh Phil, they're gorgeous! Thank you so much." Dan leaned over the counter and kissed Phil again, earning a cough from PJ who was watching the pair as he cleaned mugs. The pair apologised bashfully and Dan placed his flowers in a jug of water before walking back over to the counter in his most professional manner.

"What can I get you today, Sir?" Dan asked in his best 'barista' voice, preparing for the raise of eyebrows that Phil gave him every time he asked that question because Dan knew his order- he could recite it 10 times over in his sleep and he could have done that after the first week they met.

"C-coffee please." Phil replied, his voice croaky and uneven in pitch- like his voice had just broken and he was 13 again.

Dan stared at him blankly. "Pardon?"

"Coffee." Repeated Phil and he grinned, proud at his efforts.

"Oh my God... Phil, oh my God you spoke! You spoke, oh you spoke, your voice is beautiful, oh Phil!" Dan ran around the counter and hugged Phil as tightly as he could, crying into his coat. "When, how?" He mumbled repeatedly into his boyfriend.

"I love you." Phil whispered into Dan's hair like he'd never heard Dan's previous question, and in that moment Dan turned into a blubbering mess of tears.

"I love you too, fucking hell, I love you so much."

* When asked about their most memorable moment as a couple, the night on the clifftops would always be a choice they would go with but Dan would always blurt out "that morning in the coffee shop when Phil asked for a coffee." Which, if someone didn't know Phil, would always be confused about. Phil continued with therapy and counselling and now could hold a conversation with a person using speech and Dan was so proud of him. When they were at home though, sitting on the sofa, they would always sign to each other because the language was special for both of them and it made every word they said seem more genuine and loving.

The couch they sat at was in Phil's, now Dan and Phil's, living room under a canvas painting of something quite odd but so special.

When Phil reached for a paintbrush all those years ago and swirled it in the jar of water, then out of a rainbow full of colours his paintbrush went for the brown, he painted one of his favorite watercolour pieces and that piece now hung above their sofa in the living room- it was a cup of coffee. A watercolour coffee, painted in the same browns as Dan's eyes and out of their window could be seen the sun, the sea and the sky: the yellow, the blue and the green.

"Here," Dan whispered passing Phil his phone. "Type what happened, but only if you want to."

Phil took a deep breath and typed: 'okay'...

When I was 7, the clifftops were my favourite place in the world. Me and my brother, Joseph, were up there all the time flying kites and throwing stones into the water below, it was magical.

It all went wrong on my 8th birthday and I remember it clear as day. My brother, who would have been 16 at the time, bought me a new kite for my birthday and we were going up to the cliffs to try it out as my parents sat in 'Coastal Coffee' below us.

This day was particularly windy and I remember my scarf billowing behind me as I ran through the bitter January air trying to catch the kite my brother was holding. It all happened in a matter of seconds. One minute my brother was running along the edge of the cliff, and the next minute he'd misplaced his step and I could no longer see him.

I thought this was all a joke. I could still see the kite flying so I thought he was just standing on a ledge or a step but as I looked closer the kite was caught in a branch sticking out of the cliff and my brother was laying on the rocky beach below with his arms at weird angles and the sea turning red with blood as it washed over him.

In my 8 year old mind I didn't know what to do so all I did was shout. I shouted and shouted but no one came. I shouted for my mum, my dad, for help and nothing arrived. Half an hour later my parents came up the cliff and I was sitting at the top sobbing quietly because I thought I was never going to see anyone again. They asked where my brother was and I didn't speak, all I did was point down to the beach and cry again. They were confused, obviously, but when my mother looked over the edge of the cliff she let out a blood-curdling scream and fell to my father's feet. After that, everything was a blur of police stations, hospitals and quiet bedrooms. My brother was pronounced dead at the scene and I was diagnosed as mute one month later. In my mind I thought that after no one came after I screamed and screamed then there was no point in talking anymore because there would be no one to listen- so I didn't.

My parents were cold towards me. They believed it was my fault, even though they never said it to my face and now they were left with a dead son and a mute son. They didn't understand why I wouldn't speak, they never understood what happened on the clifftops that day and they never will. Of course I wrote statements, I wrote plenty of statements, but as they say: 'A picture means a thousand words' and that picture of my brother runs through my mind every second of every day.

Now I know that what happened that day wasn't my fault, it was just a horrible accident. But nearly 20 years of being mute takes its toll on a person like me. Like death, it takes its toll on everyone.

Dan read over Phil's shoulder as he typed and by the end of it tears were falling down his face. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, Phil." He talked quietly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Phil simply shook his head and hugged Dan tightly. When they broke apart, Dan looked Phil in the eyes and took a deep breath.

'Phil,' he signed clumsily. 'I love you.' " He let out another choked sob. "I love you so much and I'm never going to let you suffer again."

Dan had it all planned out. He was going to meet Phil at his house and then he was going to take them up onto the cliffs to watch the sunset. After seeing Phil's paintings, Dan felt like seeing the sea from this position would spark so many new ideas in Phil's head that would be recreated so beautifully on canvas.

Tonight was also the night Dan wanted to sign 'I love you' to Phil for the first time. He wanted to make it special and Dan felt like tonight was going to be special, treasured.

At 8pm, Dan walked up Phil's garden path and knocked on the whitewashed door. He was dressed in one of his favourite winter jumpers and he kept playing with a thread that had come loose between his fingers out of nervousness.

He almost didn't notice the door opening and Phil standing in the doorway, dressed also in a thick jumper and he had a scarf tied loosely around his neck, which Dan thought was the sweetest thing he'd ever seen.

"Are you ready?" Dan held out a hand and Phil grasped it as he shut the front door behind him.

The walk was fairly silent but it was a comfortable silence in which they knew what each other was thinking, but no words needed to be spoken for them to understand. Although Dan was confused when they walked past the coffee shop and Phil suddenly held his hand a lot tighter, and that grasp became stronger as they walked up the cliff steps and on top of the hill.

* As soon as Phil realised they were going up to the cliff tops he started to get worried. His first instinct was to hold Dan like he was going to fall off the edge, but Phil wasn't going to let him fall off the edge, not after last time.

He really didn't want to climb the hill, but he could hardly tell Dan to stop, especially when Dan seemed so happy. Dan had planned out tonight and Phil didn't want to ruin it. He just had to grow up and climb the hill like a normal person who wasn't scared of a bloody cliff top.

When they reached the top, Phil held Dan as close to him as possible. The wind swept through his hair, messing up his fringe and making him feel unsteady. He looked around for anything that might calm him down and in the near distance he saw a bench, to which he pointed at, bringing it to Dan's attention before walking briskly over there.

* Dan turned when he saw Phil pointing at something in the distance. He didn't have long to figure out what it was before Phil was walking over there like his life depended on it.

To be honest, Dan was quite sad their moment of closeness was broken: when Phil was holding him closely and the wind swept through their hair and Dan felt free, like he could just shout and shout and no one would hear him.

"Phil, wait up where are you going?" He called out to the distant figure but Phil didn't stop. Dan jogged over to meet him and noticed Phil standing by a bench, clutching the wood so tightly his knuckles were turning whiter than they already were.

"Phil, are you okay?" Dan cautiously put his hand on Phil's back and he jumped, before sitting down and wrapping his arms around himself. "Phil you're shaking, are you cold?" All Phil did was sit there, shaking. He didn't flinch when Dan sat down and curled into him instead of jumping away when Dan put his arm around Phil's shoulders.

Dan didn't push the matter any further. If Phil wanted to -theoretically- talk then he would, but Dan didn't want to make him uncomfortable. He wanted this night to be perfect.

* As they sat in silence, Phil wanted to tell Dan what was wrong, he really did. The matter in hand was one that Phil hadn't talked about since it happened- he hadn't talked at all since it happened all those years ago. "Here," Dan whispered passing Phil his phone. "Type what happened, but only if you want to."

Phil took a deep breath and typed: 'okay'...

After that night, memories of Dan and Phil were all tangled fingers and laughter. Dan discovered that Phil's laugh was croaky and unused, but the dust was starting to be cleared and it was a beautiful sound every time Dan managed to make him laugh.

They were sitting in Phil's studio on the window seat and snow was starting to fall over the seaside town. In that moment Phil was teaching Dan the sign for 'crap' (which coincidentally is swinging your hand under your armpit) after he taught him many other swearwords at Dan's personal request- so the only noise coming from the room was Dan making fart noises under his armpit and Phil laughing bold and loudly.

Halfway through making Phil laugh, Dan just stopped and stared at the boy in front of him. Phil truly was beautiful- his skin pale like the snow falling, his eyes blue and green and yellow like the sun the sea and the sky, and his ebony hair that matched the charcoal under his fingernails and smudged over his skin- which Dan reached out to Phil's cheek to brush it away.

Phil froze in the middle of laughter, Dan's face dangerously close to his own but he didn't want him to move away. He could smell the coffee that was Dan's natural scent and with that came the warmth which Phil was grateful of. Phil, Dan realised, smelt like paint and the sea, it was refreshing and overpowering but Dan couldn't get enough of it. If Phil's scent was a drug, Dan would get addicted any day.

Time seemed to slow down as the two boys looked into each others eyes, the dis-concern of pulling away and the awkwardness that lingered in the air blown away as Phil flicked his fringe out of his eyes.

Dan delicately pressed his lips to Phil's, bringing his hand up to Phil's jaw to steady his shaking and his nerves. Phil's breath hitched as he felt Dan's lips on his- they were warm like his eyes and the coffee lingered on his breath and Phil felt like this was home.

The kiss only lasted a couple of seconds but felt like a lifetime. As they pulled away, Dan's hand stayed under Phil's jaw and he brushed over his cheek, leaving a blush in his wake. Phil signed 'home' over his face and Dan kissed him again, overwhelmed with emotion and happiness.

* It was two months after their first kiss that Dan and Phil were walking along the thawed beach. Their gloved hands were entwined together and they walked shoulder to shoulder, the body heat radiating between them both.

"Hey Phil, what's the sign for water?" Dan asked, his breath clouding in his face. Phil lifted his free hand and brushed it down his throat twice- to which Dan repeated. "It tickles," he laughed, brushing his hands over Phil's neck and making him laugh, fogging their faces with the clouds of breath.

Over the next few weeks, Dan still wrote and drew on Phil's napkin-the only conversations they would have but they meant so much- but it was on the 5th week that he finally received one back- it was when he was cleaning away Phil's coffee cup.

The day was cold and bitter. Phil had come in wrapped in a winter coat with his scarf covering his nose and mouth but even when he took his scarf off his nose and cheeks were still flushed and red. Dan found it the cutest thing and put extra caramel in his coffee to warm him up and make him smile. He'd drawn Rudolph on Phil's napkin and when he placed the coffee down, Phil punched him lightly in the shoulder and grinned bashfully, making his cheeks a darker shade of red.

Throughout the hour that Phil was in the coffee shop, Dan counted that they'd made eye contact over 20 times... Maybe 30, but who's counting?

Phil was also. So when Phil left and Dan said his goodbyes he was surprised to see Phil's napkin still there as supposedly takes them with him. He picked up the napkin and sighed, he'd spent a good 5 minutes on that reindeer, his eyes going to the small scribble in the charcoal pencil which wasn't there before because Dan used the black marker he uses to write on people's takeaway cups. It looked like a bunch of symbols next to what looked like 'Phil x', but after looking at it for at least 5 minutes-completely ignoring the customer who walked in-he realised that it was a number, Phil's telephone number, the number for the phone that belonged to Phil.

Phil actually gave him his number, and as soon as he served the disgruntled customer, he typed the number into the phone (with a little pencil emoji next to it) and sent him a message saying 'Hi Rudolph'. He thought that was appropriate-no kisses but a little inside joke that might make Phil smile.

It did. As Phil was mixing greens and blues together on his easel he heard his phone go off and so he picked it up from the table and read the message from the unknown number that was so obviously Dan. 'Hi Rudolph' it read, and Phil smiled as he added Dan's number into his phone, putting the coffee emoji by his name and replying with 'Hola barista'.

'Ooh, bilingual I like it' Dan text back.

'It's hardly bilingual when you can't even speak english.'

Dan read Phil's recent message and sighed, his heart sinking at how Phil must feel every single day. 'Well why did you leave me your number then?'

'Because I want you to come over when your shift ends. I have something to show you.' Phil's heart flipped. He was going to show Dan his studio in hope that Dan would understand a little bit more about him and he wanted to open up more to the boy who had recently become a good friend.

'I finish in 15 minutes. Text me where you live and I'll be straight over:)'

* To Phil, the next 15 minutes dragged on for so long. He tried to concentrate on the painting in front of him but every time he dipped his paintbrush into the blue he saw the brown and his mind would wonder to a million different places.

No sooner had he painted the foam on the ocean, the doorbell rang and he nearly knocked over the easel from getting up so fast. Phil ran to the door and buzzed Dan in, swaying on his toes as he waited for the lift to arrive at his apartment. The door opened and Dan had only just managed to say "Hey!" before Phil grabbed his hand (which felt incredibly nice) and pulled him to the door outside his studio.

"What's this?" Dan asked, intrigued as to why Phil had brought him to this specific door in his apartment. Phil just simply smiled and pushed open the door into a room covered in paintings ceiling to floor.

"Phil..." Whispered Dan, in awe at what he saw. "These are amazing!"

Phil signed a simple 'thank you', before widening his eyes and grabbing a notepad and pen. 'You don't know sign language do you?' He wrote and Dan shook his head. 'Here, let me teach you.'

Sitting down on the window seat, he patted the space next to him- signalling for Dan to sit down and picked up the notepad and pen again. 'Hello' He lifted up Dan's hand and moved it in a semi-circular action. Dan repeated and Phil smiled, mirroring the action and adding 'what is your name?', giggling silently when Dan frowned in confusion.

'What is your name?' Phil wrote and Dan shrugged. Taking his hands again, Phil helped Dan sign his name: 'D'- two curved fingers and one straight, joining them to make a 'D'. 'A'- simply tapping the tip of your thumb on your left hand with the first finger tip of your right hand. 'N'-tapping your first two fingers on your right hand on the palm of your left.

Looking at Dan sign his name made pride swell in Phil's chest and a blush rise to his cheeks. "How do you spell your name? Dan whispered, breaking Phil out of his thoughts. Phil slowly and carefully signed out his name: 'P'- straighten your first finger on your left hand and curve the forefinger and thumb of your right hand, joining them together and placing your left finger on the join of the right finger and thumb so it looks like a 'P'. H- swipe your right hand over your left hand at an angle. I- tap the finger tip of your left middle finger using your right forefinger. 'L'- tap your right forefinger in the palm of your left hand.

The next day was no different. Phil walked along the seafront, well away from the edge of the water, to the coffee shop under the cliffs. As he walked through the door the usual scent of coffee bombarded his senses but the person behind the counter wasn't the usual PJ.

"Hi Phil!" Dan exclaimed from behind the counter as he wiped it clean.

"What can I get you?" Phil stood blank in the doorway, staring at Dan like you would at a wall. He took his sketchbook from his satchel and the pencil from behind his ear, scrawling down 'medium caramel coffee please' and sliding the open sketchbook across the counter to Dan. 

The brown haired barista took a quick glance at the writing and smiled. "Coming up! That'll be £3.50 and if you take a seat, I'll bring it over when it's ready." Phil went to take a seat in his usual corner, picking up the sketchbook off the counter and replacing it with a five pound note.

* Phil slid the sketchbook over the counter and Dan probably took more than the time he needed to to stare at the page. It looked like Phil had used a page he had previously used to draw and this was the first time Dan saw his drawings. They didn't seem like anything special but to Dan they were masterpieces. In one corner was a cat on what looked like the sea wall, there were some clouds faintly drawn behind his scrawl of an order, a coffee stain splashed over the page and a note that said 'caramel eyes'. Dan realised he was staring and bashfully smiled. "Coming up! That'll be £3.50 and if you take a seat, I'll bring it over when it's ready." He watched Phil take back the sketchbook, blushing, and replaced it with a five pound note.

Dan watched Phil as he placed the money down on the counter and went to take a seat. He sighed loudly as soon as Phil was out of earshot, getting looked at from a customer who had just entered the cafe. You don't meet someone like Phil everyday and Dan was going to make sure that he found out more about the silent man.

* It was 5 minutes later when Dan came over with his coffee and change. He placed the drink down silently and smiled before turning away- Phil swore he heard him giggle and it was the cutest thing Phil had heard in a long time. Picking up his coffee, he noticed a black mark on the napkin under one of the biscuits and when he moved it he saw a curly mess of handwriting saying: 'Your eyes are more of a sea blue- Love caramel eyes x'. Phil's head couldn't have snapped around quick enough to the boy behind the counter who was adding muffins to the cake stand. Dan looked up and winked at Phil before going back to his job and Phil couldn't stop staring at him like he'd seen a ghost.

Two minutes later when Phil was staring at the exact same spot, Dan came up behind him with a dish cloth in his hands and whispered into his ear "Your coffee is going cold." The black haired man blushed once again and turned back around taking a sip of his coffee and giving an embarrassing nod of thanks to the barista standing next to him.