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The flute of champagne in Phillip’s hand is warm, half gone already, and the bubbles fizz effervescent with the butterflies in his stomach. He’s all nervous energy in a room full of polite laughter and muted people who pretend they care about the artwork on the walls. The noise of the party is a melody he’s been dancing to his whole life and he drifts in and out of conversations on auto-pilot, making the right sounds in the right places to appease the masses.
He finishes his drink without tasting it, and feels ready to vibrate right out of his skin.
The full length windows offer a view out onto the hustle and bustle of the city beyond, yellow taxi cabs flashing by, traffic signals cycling through from red to green and back. As Phillip hands his empty glass off to a waiter, declining a top up, something in the street outside draws his attention.
Phillip’s phone buzzes against his thigh. He doesn’t need to look to know what it says. He catches the gaze of the man waiting out on the sidewalk and all the tension held within him retreats beneath a wave of pure joy.
This is it.
His mother is holding court around one particularly unremarkable piece of artwork. Phillip weaves his way through the throng of fawning housewives and makes his excuses. He kisses his mother on the cheek and says his goodbyes, feeling a brief pang for what could have been, had things turned out differently. If he'd been the son and heir they'd tried to mold him into instead of a disappointment.
Phillip leaves the party and doesn’t once glance back over his shoulder.
His future, his home, his heart, the man who encompasses all three, waits patiently for him beneath the streetlights. Phillip lifts his head in the warm, evening air and feels as though he breaks the surface for the first time that day, drawing a sweet, deep breath into his lungs.
“Ready?” Phineas asks, quiet and just for the two of them, and Phillip hears the unspoken questions tangled up in that one word.
Are you sure about this? Are you sure about me? Do you really want to run away?
Phillip grins.
“Let’s go.”
He pulls on Phineas’s hand, giddy with childlike glee.
The idea had first started as nothing more than idle pillow talk, Phillip venting his dissatisfaction with his life, Phineas offering up fanciful, wishful plans and ideas they both knew would never, could never come to fruition. Bold and brave words spilling freely in the way they only do in the middle of the night when the rest of the world is tucked away.
It had been something of a running joke between them until, suddenly, running was less of a joke and more of an inevitability.
Their faces started appearing together in magazines, on the internet, grainy pictures of them snapped coming in and out of each other’s places, suggestive comments about Phillip and his mysterious older man. Phillip had never wanted to hide who he was or who he loved, not for a second, but his father made it perfectly clear with fists and threats that Phillip was required to suppress, deny, pretend, for God’s sake, Phillip, think of the family name!
Phillip had shown up on Phineas’s doorstep at 3AM, bruised and tearstained and swaying where he stood, clutching the crumpled disinheritance papers to his chest like it was some vital piece his parents had ripped out of him.
“They said I have to stop seeing you or I can’t be a Carlyle anymore,” Phillip mumbled, small and defeated. An apology and a goodbye addressed to Phineas’s feet.
Phineas brushed the tears from Phillip's cheeks and pulled him close.
“So be a Barnum instead,” Phineas said, and he made it sound like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Drink had slowed Phillip’s thoughts and numbed all of his senses, but-
"Did you just…"
The word stuck in Phillip’s throat.
Phineas sighed and something like embarrassment flashed across his face just for a second. "Not how I wanted to do it, but yeah. If you'll have me."
"If you'll have me?" Phillip repeated, dumbstruck. As if it was Phillip getting the bad end of the deal out of the two of them.
He'd come expecting the worst, expecting the end of the small, safe pocket of happiness they'd carved out for themselves, not for Phineas to take the shattering pieces of Phillip’s heart into his loving hands and breathe new life and new hope back into the patchwork remains.
In return, Phillip took Phineas's face between clumsy, shaking hands and kissed him and kissed him until they were both stupid with it, until Phineas had to pull back, laughing breathlessly, to ask- “So was that a yes?”
There wasn’t a ring, not yet, but when Phineas knelt to the ground the following morning, he left a placeholder kiss on Phillip’s finger where a ring would soon sit, and that was enough of a promise for them.
And just like that, the midnight imaginings of their future became a reality to set into motion.
The car is parked several blocks away and they weave their way through the crowds, hand in hand, the city coming alive in the night time with its vibrant, infectious energy. Maybe it's knowing they’re leaving and unlikely to return, maybe it's the present company by his side, how everything is always better and brighter with Phineas around, but Phillip swears New York has never looked so beautiful in all its twilight glory, the skyscrapers a million dazzling mirrors held up to the setting sun.
Their bags are already packed in the trunk, and as the car doors close around them, Phillip leans over and captures Phineas’ mouth with his own, unable and unwilling to wait another minute more.
“Thank you,” Phillip murmurs, staying so close his eyes lose their focus.
Phineas skims his fingertips along Phillip’s cheeks.
“What for?”
“Rescuing me.”
It’s a silly thing to say and Phillip wants to take it back the moment it’s out his mouth. But it’s true; he never would’ve had the courage to escape on his own. Wouldn’t have put the bottle down long enough to consider such a thing was possible.
Phineas’s answering smile feels like the sun coming out from behind the dark clouds of Phillip’s past, and Phillip never wants to turn his face away from the light now he's felt that warmth upon his skin.
“You rescued yourself, darling, I’m just along for the ride.”
Phillip kisses him again and it's more of a clumsy clash of teeth, because he can’t stop smiling against Phineas’s mouth. Phineas is laughing too, rich and enticing, and there is no better taste than Phineas’s laughter on his lips.
The world might always wonder what happened to everyone's favourite tabloid disaster, that spoiled trust fund kid, and he gladly lets that drunk, miserable version of Phillip Carlyle shrink into the distance and disappear in the rear view mirror.
He rolls the windows right down once they make it out onto the open road. This is freedom, finally; the wind in his hair, Phineas’s thigh beneath his palm, and all the infinite possibilities stretching out in front of them like a dream.