I walk into the flat, my arms weighed down with groceries, and haul them to the kitchen. I drop them on the counter, feeling my arms ache with the effort of carrying them all. Only the perishable food items got the privilege of being put away, as I am tired and don't much feel like doing it all. I take a moment to look at the pile of food on the counter and turn away from it. I am so lazy.

I run up the stairs looking for Phil. He's not in the living room where I left him so I go to check his room. But when I turn around, I've already spotted him standing on the edge of the balcony, his feet on the bottom rung of the railing. I watch as everything goes sort of slow motion and he begins to lean over the edge—

"Phil," I say, careful not to startle him. He doesn't respond. I feel my heart hammering against my chest, my ribs aching with the effort of keeping it from breaking through my flesh. I take a few steps towards him. I had no idea he was so depressed. I mean, sometimes he would make little comments about how he's fat, or has no friends, but I never thought he was being serious. I always laughed them off. How could I have been so monumentally stupid?

"Phil?!" I say a little louder. I'm terrified that any move I make may send him plummeting to his death. "Please get off the ledge so we can talk." Phil doesn't move, his eyes scanning the London skyline. He can't die. He can't die. He can't die.

"Phil?" my voice breaks. What if he jumps? What if he jumps and there's nothing I can do to stop him? What the hell am I going to do if I lose him? "Phil!?" I shout out.

He leaps back from the railing and turns towards me, ripping the headphones from his ears. "Oh, thank God." It feels like every muscle in my entire body relaxes all at once.

"Dan!" Phil says, looking a little shocked. "When did you get home?"

"Jesus fucking Christ." I lean forward, bracing myself with my hands on my knees, and try to breathe normally again. "What the fuck where you thinking?" I ask. I stand up abruptly and run my hand through my hair, my legs trembling beneath me.

"You all right, Dan? You look a bit shaken." I would have smacked him if he wasn't being serious.

"You," I accuse, stepping towards him and shoving my pointer finger into his chest, "had me scared to death." His eyebrows furrow in the middle. I take a step closer to him. "I thought you were going to jump," I explain. Our faces are so close that our noses are practically touching and I know I should probably give him some space but some part of me is afraid that if I put any distance between us he's going to throw himself off the bloody balcony.

"Oh." His blue eyes bore into mine.

"No, not 'oh'," I say, mocking his tone. "That was not an 'oh' moment."

"Then what kind of moment was it?" Phil asks. His warm breath brushes across my face, but his words only serve to confuse me.

"One where I wondered what the hell I would do without—you." The last word slips out as a whisper as my brain catches up to what my mouth has already spoken. Is that okay to tell your best friend? That's definitely not what I meant to say. What if he hates—

And then our lips our pressed together. And I'm about 90% sure that I did the pressing.

My brain processes this slowly, taking a few seconds to catch up and order me to pull away. I feel my eyes widen as they meet Phil's. What the hell did I just do?

"Phil, I'm sorr—"

"Shut up." And then we're kissing again and it's…nice. The logical part of my brain is yelling at me, saying this is wrong. I'm not gay. I don't like boys. I certainly don't like Phil.

But my instincts are telling me differently. They're telling my brain that this is nice. That kissing someone with lips as soft as Phil's is nice. That the feeling of his warm hands cupping my cheeks is nice. That Phil is…perfect. So I melt into the kiss and tell my brain to shut-the-fuck-up-you're-not-running-this-show-anymore and I let myself love Phil.

He breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against mine.

"How long have you known?" he whispers to me. His voice is light, happy.

"Known what?" I choke out, my voice breaking a bit in the middle. Waves of powerful realization are crashing over me and I am shaking with the power of them. All I want to do is sink into Phil's arms and hold him tightly and not let go until the world is burning to the ground because this thing between us is such a powerful, world-burning thing.

"That this," he says, pressing a kiss to my lips, "is right."

"As of right now I think it's been about two minutes," I respond quietly. His eyes widen, blue orbs floating in a sea of white. He takes a step back, giving me some space.

"Oh." There's no hiding the fear clouding his voice, like he's terrified that in the next two minutes I'll decide I hate all gay people, himself included, and walk out the front door and never come back.

"That was not an 'oh' moment," I tell him, with a reassuring smile. His blue eyes flicker to life and meet mine.

"Then what kind of moment was it?" He bites his bottom lip to hide a smirk.

"That was an I think I'm falling for you kind of moment." His face breaks into a smile.

"And just for the record, Dan?" he says, stepping towards me. He brings his face so close to mine that I can feel the movement of his lips as he talks. "I wasn't even thinking about jumping. Do you want to know why?" I can feel his lips curve into a smile.

"Why?" I ask so quietly I don't think he heard it so much as felt it.

"Because you don't kill yourself when you realize you're falling in love." And then we're kissing.