| university | d.h

| seven |

// Alex //

It feels like hours waiting for Dan to return, and I spend the time twiddling my thumbs and switching back and forth from different intensities of nervousness. I didn't actually invite him to spend time with me at all, but I also didn't refuse him, which may have been a bad choice on my part. Now, instead of a night of microwaveable popcorn and cheesy romcoms like I had planned for, I am preparing for a potentially awkward night of small talk with a boy that I don't even like.
I put away all of Tillie's cosmetics and clean the bathroom to distract myself, moving on to the main area of the dorm once I'm done. After the whole place is spotlessly clean, I open up my laptop and sit down on my bed, scrolling mindlessly through Tumblr and trying to ignore the anxious knot in my stomach.
It takes another half an hour for a knock to sound on the thin wood of our door, and I stand up hesitantly, making my way over to it. When I pull it open, I am faced with a shivering cold Dan, huffing heavily and bent over at the waist. I stand in silence for a few seconds, waiting for him to speak. Eventually, a leather-covered arm is raised in my direction and I am handed a large paper bag. I take it over to the bed and set it down, quickly shutting my laptop to keep Dan from seeing my Tumblr.
"I didn't know what you'd like, but I like Chinese."
He says, his voice quiet and slow from the cold, walking past me and sitting on the other side of my bed. I set the bag between us, as a barrier, and he reaches elbow-deep into it, pulling out two plastic plates and setting one on each of our laps.
"Do you have any movies, or something?"
I nod.
"I've got Netflix,"
He reaches for my laptop, and I quickly raise my arm to slap his out of the way.
"Woah, okay. I guess we'll just go to a movie, then."
A small blush settle on my cheeks and I bow my head, looking at my knees. He puts a bit of everything that he ordered on my plate, and a heaping mountain of food on his own. I take the time that he is concentrated on setting up his meal to get a good look at him.
The tip of his nose and his cheeks are stained pink from the cold, and his lips are more deeply coloured than I remember them being. His hair is in a messy heap on his head, swept to one side like usual, but tousled and fuller looking due to being messed up by the hood on his jacket, and his eyes are shiny and dark, nearly the same colour as my own, but somehow much prettier.
"Do you do that a lot?"
Dan asks suddenly without looking up, disturbing the silence. I pull my eyebrows up in confusion.
"Stare at people. For a long time. Without speaking,"
He says, raising his gaze from his plate to look at me.
"Or blinking."
I can feel my cheeks flushing, and I pray that the room is too dark for him to notice. I tear my eyes away from his and look down at my own food, cursing at myself for letting him catch me staring.
"I didn't say I minded,"
Dan speaks again, introducing a new tone to his voice. The words come out even smoother than usual, which I didn't think was possible, and they sound low and deep in the best kind of way. A voice that I can only describe, for lack of better words, as flirty. It makes me roll my eyes. I take a bite of my food, pointing my fork in his direction.
"Do you do that a lot?"
I ask, matching his questioning tone from before. It's his turn to look at me, confused, with one eyebrow quirked and a smirk on his lips.
"Lead girls on, even when you know that you aren't going to pursue them?"
Dan looks taken aback for a second, but he quickly regains his confidence and pulls his small smirk into a full blown smile.
"And what makes you think that I'm not going to pursue you?"
I can't help but scoff.
"Yeah right."
I let out a little laugh, and Dan looks actually confused for the first time since this conversation started.
"If you were going to pursue me, you wouldn't have invited me out, and then sucked face with someone else while I was in the room."
I blurt, regretting the words the second that they leave my lips. Fuck. The last thing that I want is to confront Dan Howell, but it's too late to take it back. I've accepted my fate.
He looks blown away, his eyebrows drawn together tightly. Neither of us say anything, and I pray for the moment to pass without any more discussion, without any further embarrassment. My wishes are not granted.
"In my defence, I was wasted."
Dan says with a high pitch and his hands in the air. I stifle a laugh, bringing my hand up to cover my mouth.
"It's your fault that you were wasted!"
I point out, raising my voice to match his. Dan rests his head back against the headboard of the bed in annoyance, sighing.
"Yeah, well, it's you're fault that you didn't even show up the first time that I asked you out."
He says with less confidence, like he may be afraid of my response.
"It wasn't my fault! I was busy, I didn't have anything unpacked! We had to-"
He cuts me off.
"Okay, okay, okay. Let's just forget about it. Let's go out again, alone. No roommates, no alcohol - well at least not a lot of alcohol. No distractions,"
He takes another bite of rice before continuing.
"Okay?"
I pretend to think for a few seconds, bringing my finger up to tap my chin.
"As friends."
I say, and Dan looks taken aback, but recovers quickly and nods hesitantly. We eat quietly after that, polishing off the rest of our dinner.
"So, what movie sounds good?"
He asks, standing from my bed to toss our garbage.
"Wait, you want to go out tonight?"
I ask, racking my brain for a valid excuse as to why I can't go anywhere with him tonight, seeing as the fact that I just want to watch Friends until I fall asleep doesn't seem like a decent enough reason.
"Yeah, why not?"
He stops at the foot of the bed, looking at me with his stupidly gorgeous eyes and a dimple on one cheek. My mind draws a blank.
"Okay, let's go."
I mutter, disappointed in myself for giving in so easily. It seems very unlikely to me that anyone has ever said no to Dan Howell before, not while looking into his dumb eyes at least.
I take a change of clothes into the bathroom, lock the door behind me, and regretfully peel off my fuzzy pyjamas in trade for skinny jeans. I pull back on the same hoodie that I had been wearing earlier, but then exchange it for a slightly more flattering band T-shirt.
Dan already has his shoes on and is standing at the door when I reenter the room, so I tie my own as quickly as possible and scribble down a quick note for Tillie.
I realize soon that Dan doesn't seem to have his own vehicle, and Phil using the one that we rode in yesterday leaves us with the two options: Taking the underground late at night, or calling a taxi.
We go with the second choice, and wait in the front common room for it.
Dan's black-on-black attire makes him look more like a giant dark blob than an actual person, and I can't help but notice how different he is from everyone else that I have ever been friends with. The majority of my friends have been popular - resulting in hipster fashion sense and extensive knowledge of pop culture. Not punk looking clothing and facial piercings.
"What are you thinking about?"
Dan asks with his usual confident tone, sliding his phone into his back pocket to pay full attention to me.
"I know nothing about you."
I say blandly, stating the obvious. I don't know why it has only just now made me so uncomfortable, but I am suddenly hit with the realization of how little I actually know about Dan Howell. Every situation we've been in together has been problematic and without much regular conversation; we've had no chance to learn anything about each other, yet here I am, ready to go out with him at the snap of his fingers.
"Well, what do you want to know?"
He asks, his face breaking into a small smile. I shrug, redirecting my concentration to the fraying sleeve of my sweatshirt and pulling it between my fingers, suddenly feeling more awkward than I had when he arrived in my room earlier.
"That's why we're doing this, to get to know each other better. Right?"
I scoff, almost breaking into a laugh, but cover it up with a few coughs to save myself the embarrassment. That's such bullshit, I laugh to myself, that's why we're doing this? To get to know each other better? More like Dan brainwashing innocent people with his stupid, beautiful face.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
The cab pulls up outside before Dan can say anything else, and we both rise to our feet, nearly knocking each other down in the process, and exit the building. Dan holds the cab door open for me but sits in the front with the driver, giving him the address of the movie theatre that we're headed to. The drive is silent, but not awkward or uncomfortable, and I am slightly thankful to be sat in the back away from Dan, where I can't make a fool of myself.
When we pull up in front of the theatre, Dan pays the driver and props the door open for me with his hip, holding a hand out to help me and smiling down at me with the same charming expression he used when he asked me out the first time. I try to reject his arm without actually looking like I'm rejecting it, sliding quickly past his hand and pulling myself onto the sidewalk alone, brushing off the back of my jeans.
"Alright then,"
Dan mutters under his breath, leading me into the building.
This theatre, like everything else in London, is much bigger than anything of the like that I had back home, but the lack of people inside surprises me.
I feel Dan's fingers close around my own, using my arm to lead me through the small crowd of people gathered at the door. I ignore the feeling of excitement bubbling in my stomach and push it down until it eases, cursing myself out for letting him get to me. If I'm going to be seeing Dan often, I'm going to need him to understand that his hands have to stay to himself, and, after this little adventure, I'm only going to be near him when it comes down to Tillie. It didn't take long of knowing him to realize that he's a player, and that he's up to something. I'm not going to be another one of his fuck toys, and he needs to understand that from the get-go. I need to force myself to keep true to it. Besides, if I know Tillie - which I do - she's not going to show interest in Phil for much longer, and then I'll hopefully be able to avoid him for good.
When we reach the ticket desk, I pull my hand from his and shove it into my purse, digging around for my wallet.
"Ah, no."
Dan laughs, shoving me away lightly and approaching the boy at the counter.
"Two to Big Hero Six, please."
The boy nods and punches something into the cash register, taking money from Dan's outstretched hand and laying it in the till before I can even find my own money to pay. I groan under my breath. Great. Now I owe him something.
Dan gives me no time to string together a thank-you before pulling me along to the concession stand and ordering popcorn, two sodas, and a family pack of Maltesers. I put my own packet of candy on the counter and reach for my purse again, but Dan grabs my arm.
"Would you put that away already? It's on me."
I turn my head to hide my blush, nodding. We walk quickly to the showing room, as this plan was last minute and our movie starts in ten. I wait until we are comfortably sat in the top row of the theatre to talk again.
"So, Big Hero Six?"
The lighting in the show room is dim, but I swear I can see a blush spread across Dan's cheeks and neck. He coughs into his fist to clear his throat and smiles at his lap.
"It looks good."
He says in a playful voice, sounding slightly unsure of himself, and looks back at me with twinkling eyes. His eyes are a different colour in this lighting, black almost, but they still look like they're made of fucking diamonds and they still cause my heart to flip around inside of my chest.
"It looks alright."
I smile back him, trying to ease the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach from embarrassing him. He looks away.
The previews start, one about Mockingjay Part Two, and one about a new marvel movie that Dan and I agree to see together, even though we most likely will not. Dan answers all of the before-movie celebrity trivia questions correctly - every single of them - and I laugh loudly at all of the jokes that he makes. I can feel myself calming down, and easing up to Dan, and I try to think of the last time that I had this much fun with anyone other than Tillie. And then I try to decide when I started having fun.
By the middle of the movie, I'm snacking on Dan's popcorn like I paid for it, and we're leaning against each other, whispering theories about the characters to each other in hushed voices. Dan is to concentrated to make anymore jokes, however, and he looks younger than he is, childish, while he stares at the screen.
I dump my entire bag of M&M's into the popcorn, and Dan follows suit with his Maltesers, and we laugh together and smile together like we've know each other for years.
By the end of the movie, I'm wiping away tears that I'm pretending don't exist, and Dan is getting riled up in the seat beside me, muttering under his breath about 'stupid fucking girl ruining everything', and 'stupid fucking backstabbing professor.'
The lights come on and the credits start to roll and Dan looks at me.
"Okay, admit it. That was the best movie you've ever seen."
I laugh, wiping the last of my tears away.
"It was awesome."
I agree, shoving another handful of popcorn into my mouth.
We stay till the end of the credits, making fun of people's names, until the staff come in and ask us to leave so they can clean.
"But why did it have to be Tadashi?"
Dan says as we're walking outside, throwing his arms up.
"I don't know! Why couldn't they have just killed that irrelevant girl off, why did it have to be Baymax?"
I groan in an equally as frustrated voice, pulling my jacket tight around myself as I step out onto the sidewalk.
"That was simultaneously the most frustrating, and most beautiful movie I have ever seen."
Dan says and I nod, agreeing, and then I notice that we've stopped walking.
"Well, thank you, Dan."
I say awkwardly, feeling the blush spread over my cheeks and bringing my hand up to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear.
"Thanks for letting me take you out."
Dan says just as awkwardly, and we're both looking at our feet, and he's kicking a pebble around with the toe of his shoe and smiling, and I start to smile to. Before I can say anything, he speaks up again.
"You know, there's this really nice cafe just over in that square that you'd probably like."
Dan looks at me nervously, as if he feels like I'm going to reject him. Which I am - I need to get back to the university and see Tillie. She's going to want to talk about her date.
But then he looks up at me and the street lamps are bright against his pale skin and I can the see the fucking stars in his eyes.
"Okay."
We walk slowly, reintroducing our old conversation about the movie and the air around us looses it's heavy, awkward feeling and everything is easy and comfortable again.
The square is full of little shops and benches and plants and other people going for late night walks and shopping in the stores that are still open, and it's so cute and the whole area seems so friendly that I can't wipe the wide smile off of my face.
I can feel Dan's eyes on me, and I can see him in the corner of my vision, and he looks friendlier than he's ever looked and his smile is just as big as my own. He slips his fingers into mine - I don't pull away. 

lmaooooooo
guess whos back
vote & comment and stuff please
i love you

(hi tay)