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When his grandma pulled out the baby photos and childhood albums, Dan never winced. He’d been a cute little nugget once, his cheeks cherubic and his smile genuine, worrying about nothing except his allotted video game time with his new Sega Dreamcast. He was fine looking at the photos until he started to see the strain in his young eyes, the false smile hiding discontent under layers of pseudo-sparkles, the depression finally made manifest when emo became fashionable. Then, he would turn away from those photos, cringing at the skinny jeans and the straight hair until his grandma took pity and shelved the albums and went back to their tea.
He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when the self hatred started, when his world narrowed and his skin became itchy with too many repressed thoughts, although he remembered the voices in his head so early on it was hard to pick apart the memories.
Dirty faggot
Weird nerd
Geek with the frizzy hair
Loser
Pathetic
Some were external whispers but some, the nastier ones which threatened violence, were only in his own voice, his own thoughts, the creeping nasty spiders sneaking into his ears every night as he lay awake in his twin bed.
They hate you
All of them
Kill yourself
Puberty hit him like a freight train, as it did to all his friends, but he never developed the external signs of suffering. His face stayed remarkably clear and his voice rarely cracked and he never popped a boner when the cute young substitute English teacher wore a low cut blouse. Instead, he shriveled as his limbs elongated, every inch of height being met with another inch inwards, until he was over six feet tall but only occupied about three inches of his small intestine. Gangly, that was the accepted term, but he never felt like it applied to him, because gangly was a bit cute. A bit sweet. There was nothing cute or sweet about him besides his face, because every bit of his mind was twisted and his stomach was filled with booze every weekend and his search history on the family computer ought to be thrust into the sun. He kissed girls sometimes, every so often meeting a nice goth princess who didn’t mind his nervous tics and thought his hair was cute, but it left him with a bad taste in his mouth which he knew wasn’t the Schnapps. When he looked in the mirror, sometimes he didn’t recognize himself.
Years later, he would tell his therapist that he didn’t feel human, not really. He would wonder aloud if he was a pod person, an alien wrapped up in human skin, like that movie with Scarlett Johansson, and it made sense. A nice, non threatening exterior to lure men to their death. The joke made her laugh, a brief quick giggle that Dan savored, because it meant he was winning at therapy. His humor was all he had. It was his shield, she told him once. Fucking therapists were always right. Then she looked at him solemnly and asked him to elaborate.
“Why do you feel like you aren’t human?”
“Because…” He trailed off, not finding the words to explain how he didn’t belong, never had, and it wasn’t just being gay. Dan was playacting at humanity, the proof was on his YouTube page (which his therapist refused to peruse despite Dan’s insistence that she would understand him better).
“Do you feel like other people have a secret insight into the world that you don’t?”
“Yes!” Dan exclaimed. “I never got the handbook!”
Perhaps this would be the moment she sighed and told him he was wrong. Perhaps, despite months of talking and reassurances, she would stow her pen and paper and pronounce him Inhuman. Instead, she tilted her head.
“Dan, that’s your depression talking. And your social anxiety. It’s very common to feel like you don’t belong, especially growing up the way you did.”
“You mean being a faggot in a small town?”
“Sure. But also being bullied.”
Therapy was stupid. He hated it sometimes, the way his problems would be reduced to ash in front of his face, those proclamations of unique suffering being given a name and tools to manage it. A lifetime of pain and self recrimination being acknowledged and treated. Bullshit, total bullshit. Except little by little, in the fits and starts of poor neural pathways being rewired into positive synapses, he began to feel better. Less depressed, less self hating, less like an alien in a human costume and more like a commonplace sad clown. Which, somehow, was an improvement.
Sometimes he missed hating himself. He missed being able to hide behind the sadness, the anger, the wallowing self pity and the comfort of the closet. “Have the courage to exist” he’d said once, a promise to his future self which he couldn’t dodge, being dragged back by the tines stuck in his jumper every time he tried to crawl under the covers in shame. That three inches of his small intestine wasn’t big enough to hold him now, but he didn’t know how to fill all six feet of himself. His skeleton was too large, his muscles and sinew and soft tissue covering his bones made him squirm with trapped movement, all those nerves making him twitch without control. Phil joked one time we’re little boys stuck in men’s bodies and it wasn’t really a joke anymore, in his thirties with the slight pudge from his new antidepressants and his career stalled out because YouTube betrayed him. He slunk back to his therapist’s office, fidgeting on the couch and not meeting her eyes. The band tee felt embarrassing now. Not interesting, or funny, or avant garde. Just sad.
“Sometimes I don’t feel like I live in my body.” He said, after being coaxed out by kind smiles and leading questions.
“What do you mean by that?”
“How’d I know you were gonna ask that.” Dan groused, but explained: “People are always surprised that I’m six foot three, you know. And sometimes I feel surprised myself. I have all this body that I don’t know what to do with.”
“So you don’t feel fully comfortable with your body?”
“Yeah. Except it’s more than that.”
“How so?”
Dan grasped for words, trying to describe the feeling of his skin hanging off his body like an ill fitting coat, how he didn’t know what to do with his hands and how he stood awkwardly for every photo, as if his corporeal body was less real than his two dimensional screen avatar. Then he remembered this was therapy and he could just say the shit that came to his mind.
“I don’t know how to exist fully in my body. I guess I’ve played too many video games? Too much screen time has made me disconnected from my flesh?” A poor attempt at a joke which elicited nothing more than a tilt of the head from her, and Dan felt like he had failed therapy that day.
“Has there ever been a time when you felt you existed fully in your body? Not necessarily comfortable, but completely rooted to your skeleton?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Any time me and Phil are fucking.” He said with a shrug, crass but honest, and watched the slight flinch cross her face. Long buried shame came crawling up his throat and he snapped. “Don’t go getting homophobic on me now, Theresa.”
“No, I’m glad you have a healthy sex life.” She reassured him.
“Yeah, are you?” The aggression was out of nowhere, but he’d answered her question honestly. Sex was the only time he felt at home in his body, when his nerves tingled in unison and his skin felt flushed but just right. When Phil’s dick was in his hand or mouth or asshole and they were panting together, when the only goal was mutual pleasure and he could see the love trickling out of Phil’s pores along with sweat, that was the only time he felt ‘completely rooted to his skeleton.’ Bullshit phrase, Theresa said, but it made sense.
“I am.” His aggression didn’t phase her, to Dan’s chagrin. “But how about exercise? Remember we talked about the importance of exercise for mental health?”
“Yeah, I prefer sex to be honest. More enjoyable way to get sweaty.”
But she wasn’t to be deterred. “Physical activity can help connect you to your body, Dan. Try it.”
And he did. In the same fits and starts and abandoned gym memberships as years prior, attempting running and cycling and lifting with miserable results. The burning in his lungs and the ache in his muscles and the excruciating embarrassment of absolutely sucking at it all left him breathless and miserable. People who enjoyed exercise were crazier than he was, Dan thought sourly, and he’d stalked his partner for months on Twitter before meeting him at a train station. True psycho behavior. Nothing stuck, nothing helped, and he tried to lie to Theresa but failed because he sucked at lying to her.
Then his back kept hurting. And hurting. A hot poker itching across his spine and sending shooting pains down his legs and up to his shoulders, and his doctor immediately sent him to physiotherapy.
Great.
More therapy.
Physiotherapy sucked even more than talk therapy, Dan grumbled to Phil one night, since at least in talk therapy you could sit. He’d been hoping for a regimen of easy stretches and weekly massages, but the physio had taken one long look at him and prescribed a lengthy series of strength exercises. Bird dogs and planks and squats and about a million more movements designed to ‘increase his core strength and develop neuromuscular connections’.
Getting healthy sucked.
It sucked almost as much as the back pain and the years of quiet self castigation and the shame of sexual repression, but unlike his old suffering, the exercise began to make him feel better. Slowly, painfully slowly, he felt the pain in his back lessen. And with it, the tension in his shoulders. At each physio session, he learned words like isometric and eccentric contractions, began to understand the connections between his vertebrae and finally knew where his scapula was. His body began to feel less like a bulky vessel for self loathing and more like a tool, an elegant design of ligaments and bone waiting to be utilized. The exercises still sucked, but he could envision his muscles growing stronger, his heart beating blood faster, and the necessity of the movements clicked into sharp focus.
He joined a gym nearby, one of those shiny studios marketed towards wine moms who only used YouTube for cooking tutorials and had never heard of danisnotonfire, but they welcomed him into Zumba and Pilates all the same. They tittered over his mullet and earring, gossiping with a friendly smile and never interrogating him about Phil because they simply did not give a shit. It was wonderful. The beat of the music overshadowed the voices in his head, the instructor yelling good job, keep it up at regular intervals, enough to keep him engaged and not spiral.
Shit.
Theresa had been right.
Again.
He no longer let his skeleton curl inwards, as that was bad for his spine. Instead he stood tall, engaging his core to relieve pressure from his low back and squaring his shoulders to the world. Six foot three wasn’t alarming to the ladies in the studio, nor to his physio, and certainly never to Phil, who loudly supported the gradual toning of his body.
“Shit Howell, your ass is almost as big as mine now!” Phil exclaimed one night as they readied themselves for bed, having elected to share a shower and reaping the benefits of nude proximity.
“Yeah?”
His gluteus maximus and medius had certainly bulked up, he could see now, those months of consistency finally showing themselves. Dan hadn’t paid much attention to his physical change: actually that was a lie. He was a vain bitch who texted Phil constant sweaty selfies in booty shorts and enjoyed posting thirst traps to rake in disturbing compliments from his legion of horny fans. But this time, he hadn’t been exercising to look better. Just like his goddamn therapists had told him, he had to take up more space and live in his body and stand up straight.
They were full of bullshit.
All therapy was.
Too bad it worked.
He flexed his muscles for Phil, minimal as they were, and reveled in the wolf whistles and howls. Under his skin, he felt his blood pumping, carrying oxygen to those muscles, feeling the tendons act as pulleys while his muscles contracted and his bones moved in their joints. For once, he felt at home in his body, every inch of his tall form at his disposal for more than just video games and sex.
“I bet I could pick you up.” He crowed to Phil, and laughed at the fear in his eyes.
“I don’t like this new confident Dan- AHH!”
Phil’s pout was cut short as Dan made good on his threat, bending his knees in a squat and, keeping his back level, picked Phil up like one of those exercise balls at the gym. He was heavier, and certainly flailed more, but the triumph coursed through Dan’s veins as Phil’s feet came off the ground with ease. Then Phil was laughing, albeit in terror, and Dan had to set him down so they could focus on kissing instead of rough housing.
Once Dan knew he was strong enough to pick up Phil, he couldn’t stop. In the mornings while Phil was trying to get breakfast, he’d sneak up from behind and wrap his arms around Phil’s midsection, twirling him like a ballerina as Phil shrieked and spilled cereal. In the afternoons when they were lazily making out in the kitchen after lunch, he’d hoist Phil onto the counter in a smooth move which usually resulted in mutual handjobs. In the evenings, he’d sweep Phil off his feet and carry him to bed, tossing him onto the bed and calling him a pretty princess and tickling his exposed belly until they were both rolling with laughter. It was intoxicating. Not just the new found strength with which to manhandle Phil, but a power of his body he’d never been able to use before. A bone deep strength which had replaced the weakness he’d always felt in his gut.
The realization hit him one day as they were editing videos side by side in the office. Phil was editing some joke about top energy, one of a million references to sex which were never serious, and Dan felt thunderstruck. He looked at Phil, and the blond hair seemed to shimmer into dark emo fringe as he remembered those early days in Manchester. Phil had been older, wiser, more experienced in all manner of life, and Dan had always felt like a small child in comparison, regardless of their matched heights. His mental illness didn’t help- those meltdowns and panic attacks and moments of darkness which couldn’t be pierced even by Phil’s sunny smile. Dan could still remember the first time he’d cried in front of Phil, falling into his arms and wailing about some melodrama he’d forgotten, feeling like a pathetic teenage girl. Phil had held him, wrapped in warmth and love, murmuring awkward reassurances that he would keep him safe. They were promises Phil managed to keep, somehow, with a hand on his shoulder and a hug whenever needed, the tight hold at night when Dan whispered thoughts of I’d be better off dead, wouldn’t I?
Phil had been the stronger one for so long. Mentally, for the most part, but that was the way that mattered. Keeping them afloat and paying the rent when Dan’s uploads were spotty at best, wearing a smile when Dan couldn’t and never letting the bullshit get to him. He’d been strong for so many years now, staying in the closet for Dan and loving him despite the ups and downs, never letting the words said in anger take root in the light of day. As Dan watched Phil slumped in the chair, his spine surely screaming from the poor posture, he couldn’t hold back the realization.
“I like being the strong one.”
“What?” Phil pulled off his headphones and paused the lo-fi beats, staring in confusion until Dan elaborated.
“You were strong for so long.” He reached out and held Phil’s hand gently, seeing the words sink in and resonate. “I don’t know how you kept it together when I was falling apart, God knows I was a mess when you almost died. So that’s why I like picking you up.”
“Hang on, are you saying that your new hobby of randomly chucking me onto the bed is metaphorical for the way I helped you during mental health crises?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“That’s weird.”
“Oh for sure.”
“I just thought it was a sex thing.”
“It’s definitely that as well.”
“You wanting to be a bear and all that.”
“Well, let’s not go that far.”
Dan pulled a face and they both kept editing, but the smiles lingered on their faces and their feet kept touching, until their eyes grew weary from the blue light and they left the office in search of leftover takeaway.
After that, Dan had no reservations about picking Phil up all over the house, although Phil was still not persuaded.
“Dammit Dan!” Phil sloshed milk over the counter as Dan grabbed him from behind, hoisting him in midair like a little toy doll. “Talk to your therapist about this shit!”
“I already did.” Dan set him down and pressed him against the counter, laughing at his scowl.
“What did she say?”
“Said it’s cute how I’m trying to replicate our early relationship dynamic by literally picking you up when you metaphorically did.”
“And did you mention that I hate it?”
“Actually, that part slipped my mind.” Then Dan grinned and dashed away, closely followed by Phil wielding a towel and trying to whip him on the ass. He succeeded. Repeatedly.
The squats didn’t come until later, when the simple act of being picked up failed to startle Phil. Now, it was merely sweet, an overt gesture of strength and support after over a decade of being the weak one.
“You weren’t weak, Dan, you were never weak. You just needed more support.” Phil insisted one night, and the sweetness made his teeth ache.
“Fuck off, let me have this.” Dan whined, then bit at Phil’s neck until he screeched. Thank fuck they lived in a house without neighbors sharing the walls. His hands wandered across Phil’s back, feeling his vertebrae and muscles flexing, until they reached his ass. Frankly, it was absurd. The way Phil never did a single squat or Romanian deadlift or glute bridge, never got an expensive BBL or injections, how he existed as a beanpole yet had an ass worthy of the Kardashians. As a closeted child, asses had never appealed to him. He’d come around.
Phil shifted his weight, letting Dan pick him up, and wrapped his legs around Dan’s waist, allowing himself to be the needy one, the smaller one, the princess in their faux fairy tale. Just for the moment, a stolen little breath of fantasy, Dan was strong. He was a knight in shining armor, He-Man, a caped crusader or spandex wearing superhero. Reality would intercede soon, reminding them of their equal partnership, but Dan relished the brief moment of power. He’d never been able to truly repay Phil for all those years of comfort and support and life saving sunshine in the dismal depression of his youth, so he let himself imagine he could return the favor. That it was him who had whisked Phil away from Manchester and plopped him in London, that maybe it was Dan’s adorable face and awkward dancing which had propelled their YouTube careers. Maybe, just maybe, he could pretend to save Phil from obscurity as they aged.
The squat was accidental, at first. A slight bending of his knees to shift Phil’s weight as he let Phil bury his head in his neck like a child.
“Don’t you dare try to squat while holding me.” Phil warned, and how could Dan refuse the challenge?
So he backed away from the wall where he had been planning to pin Phil, and carefully let his weight drop. He remembered all those techniques from physio: kept his back straight and his knees in line with his feet and his hips bearing the full weight of two grown men. His quads screamed. His glutes screeched. Phil shrieked.
“Fuck fuck fuck Howell!”
He could only go down part of the way, not achieving a perfect ninety degree angle of his knees, but he didn’t care. He’d done it. And now the triumph coursing through his vasculature wasn’t from a sweet sentimental desire to be strong for Phil. It was, as so much of his life had become over the past decade and a half, solely focused on annoying the ever loving shit out of Phil.
“Thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you?” Dan was smug, arrogant, nibbling at Phil’s neck and wishing he could taste the rest of him.
“I was worried you were gonna drop me, you twat.” Phil groused. “Hang on, are you hard?”
Huh.
Well.
Turns out the blood pumping through his muscles and the close proximity of his partner was the key to a swift erection. Unsurprising, really, given the post-training blowjobs from last year’s attempt to hire a personal trainer, but still.
Huh.
Dan squeezed Phil’s ass and gave himself over to the sexual thoughts which had begun to buzz in the back of his mind. The need to touch became a craving, the hands tightening on Phil’s ass, the incessant heat of his cock rubbing against too many layers of clothing. He panted in Phil’s ear, something incoherent and unintelligible which Phil nevertheless understood as stood on his own feet again. There was a moment when they looked into each other’s eyes, heights almost exactly the same although Dan had never thought they were anything other than equal, and then they were pulling their joggers and pants off with remarkable speed.
Phil was hard, too, thank fuck. Flushed with arousal and curving upwards, a drop of precum already beading the tip which Dan longed to lick off. So he did. Dropping to his knees and shoving Phil against the nearest wall and sucking the salt and musk and inhaling the unique scent of Phil. Perhaps all cocks tasted the same, perhaps all pubes smelled identical, but Dan didn’t know. Even when he was deep in the closet and trying not to kill himself, he wanted Phil. That had never changed, would never change, as they’d met on a train station nearly two decades ago and never looked back. Phil’s exes could never compare, Dan whispered to himself late at night when staring at Phil’s sleeping face, and no man would ever hold a candle to Phil. Feeling the heavy weight of Phil’s cock against his tongue, he tried to worship him. Tried to sink his fingers into Phil’s thighs as one might clasp them in prayer, tried to hum a hymn around the deity in his mouth, because Phil was a god to him, an angel from on high who had pulled him from self-damnation. Phil moaned and stuttered, hands curling into Dan’s hair, and the world vanished from around them. It was only their bodies now, every inch of his being alight with pleasure and need, all the way to the tips of his toes.
“Dan,” Phil panted, “Stop for a second.”
“What?” Dan was cross, annoyed at being asked to stop sucking Phil’s dick.
“Pick me up again.”
The thought made him white out, the idea encapsulated in the simple sentence. Pin Phil against the wall with his strength and rut together until they both came.
“Oh fuck you’re a genius.”
It took a bit of maneuvering, and the hold was tenuous given their sweaty skin, but their cocks were still hard by the time Phil’s legs were once again wrapped around Dan’s waist. They were pressed together against the wall now, moaning in each other’s ears as Phil wrapped his hand around both their cocks. Dan couldn’t look down, not from that angle, but he could imagine the sight since he’d seen it so many times before. Phil’s pale twitchy fingers, so often on a keyboard or game controller, could just barely hold both their dicks. It wasn’t a complete hold, there was too much of them to wrap all the way around, but it was enough to feel the pressure and the heat of each other.
The sensations were glorious. The burning in his glutes and biceps from holding Phil against the wall, the sweeping pleasure of their frotting, the tight grip of Phil’s hands on his cock and shoulder blade, and every inch of his skin was lit with the zing of nerve endings. Dan could feel his muscles pull against tendons, moving his bones and stabilizing his joints, could feel the soft tissue of his mouth and throat burn and salivate with pleasure, and relished the blood flowing from his heart to the tiniest capillaries. Exercise was now combined with sex, and physiotherapy would never be the same again. He didn’t care. His body wasn’t a prison, it was a tool. It was him. He lived in every inch of his flesh now, grateful for the arms and legs which, once so awkward and ungainly, could hold Phil so close. He became aware of a tightness in his lower back and for one horrible moment, thought that his activities had become too strenuous and the ache would be returning. But then it resolved into the familiar building of pleasure and Dan realized his orgasm was inching closer.
“Fuck, Phil, I think I’m getting close.” He panted into sweat slick skin.
“You better not come before me, Howell, I want to enjoy this.” Phil was equally wrecked, his voice broken with pleasure and the frantic movement of his hand.
“Yeah?” Dan mouthed at his neck and rubbed their cheeks together, thrusting into Phil’s hand with every lingering ounce of hard earned muscle mass. “You like being manhandled?”
“Yes, goddammit, and now you’re going to be insufferable.”
Dan shifted his hands carefully, not losing his hold, and ran one finger over Phil’s crack. He felt the shiver go through him as he teased Phil’s hole. “Maybe one day I can fuck you against the wall.”
“Pretty sure that would end with my head through the wall and your back broken.”
“Let a guy dream.”
Phil bit down on Dan’s shoulder. “Maybe I should start working out so I can pick you up. Toss you around, see how you like it.”
The idea of Phil crowding him against a wall made Dan shudder, the mental image of Phil being strong enough to treat him like a ragdoll fulfilling some deep teenage fantasy he’d never let emerge. Oddly, it only heightened his pleasure at being the strong one right now, the promise of his power being transient enough to make him chase his orgasm with eagerness. Yet it didn’t come with its usual speed, held at bay by the flexing of his muscles and the tension in his spine, unable to relax enough to let the orgasm crash over him as it so often did. Phil had no such trouble, and Dan could feel his rhythm falter and stumble as his cock twitched and his body seized. He felt cum splatter their chests, and Phil sighed.
Dan set Phil back on the ground, his muscle aching with the exertion and the attempted orgasm. For a moment, he felt bereft. Betrayed. Phil noticed his pout and had the audacity to laugh in his face.
“Oh no, was holding me up too much work?”
Though normally boneless and sleepy after an orgasm, Phil mustered the energy to stand on shaky legs and turn Dan until they were pressed against the wall, positions reversed. Then Phil dropped to his knees and, without teasing, swallowed Dan’s cock. Dan felt himself double over, the heat and tightness and pleasure threatening to make him collapse into a puddle over Phil. He dug shaking fingers into Phil’s hair, and it felt like they were young again. When Dan was still a teenager and having his dick sucked for only the second time as he gripped inky black fringe and tried not to thrust. But he didn’t hold back now. He let his hips stutter as Phil sucked, letting the pleasure wash through him without reticence or shame. The orgasm, when it came, was a torrential downpour through his spinal cord and into his groin, his balls tightening and his fingers clenched as he whispered oh fuck and didn’t bother pulling out. Phil swallowed as he always did, because it stopped being gross a long time ago, and then Dan slumped to the ground.
“Damn.” Phil said. “Didn’t think we had muscle kinks.”
“Still don’t. We’re both twinks.”
“Do you still count as a twink if you can pick me up?”
“Bro you’re about eleven stone soaking wet. It’s not a great feat of strength.” But the humor was a mask for his pride, his smugness, his bone deep satisfaction and creeping sense of self love which was so contrary to his brand.
Phil could see through it, of course, as Dan couldn’t hide from him especially in those precious moments of intimacy after sex. But he let the facade stay strong and poked Dan in the ribs. “Go fuck yourself. I’m gonna shower.”
As Phil walked to the bathroom- his bathroom, of course, with the cheery bright colors and overabundance of scented body washes- Dan took a few seconds to enjoy the sight of his jiggling ass. Then, he stood up, groaning at the ache in his muscles, and followed.
The next thirty minutes were filled with squabbling over the water temperature and accusations of hogging the faucet and snarky comments about the inevitable bacterial infestations of loofahs. Afterwards, their relationship somehow still intact even as they foolishly shared a towel, Dan sat on the bathroom counter to watch Phil trim his nose hairs. It wasn’t sexy, but it was entertaining, and he was filled with a fondness for these little moments of domesticity despite his chronic cynicism. He knew his own face was starting to wrinkle just as Phil’s had, the crow’s feet around his eyes and the crease around his mouth, and it wouldn’t be long before the grey hairs crept in. No one mistook him for a teenager now, no one thought his baby face belonged to a child, and while his height still surprised people, it was less common. With a start, Dan realized he had grown out of his youthful awkwardness. Now, he held himself with confidence, power, the kind of self assuredness which can only come with time and practice.
The therapy had worked. Both kinds.
Still bullshit, he muttered on occasion, hating the exercises both physical and emotional, but things were easier now.
When he looked at photos of his teenage years, before he met Phil, he didn’t cringe. Instead, he wanted to hug the sad little boy and whisper that things would get better. His life wasn’t over, no matter how dark the nights became. In those early danisnotonfire videos, he could still see the pain behind the chuckles, notice the awkward fidgets as expressions of uncertainty and inability to root himself to his muscles and bones, but didn’t wince. He wanted to go back to those days, those early years in Manchester and in London and show him a photo album of today. His muscles strong enough to hold him erect with pride and carry his boyfriend around the house they had built. Their lives uninhibited by fears of homophobia as they emerged from the suffocating closet and attended events as more than friends. He wanted to tell his younger self all these things he’d learned to ease that old suffering, but knew he couldn’t. Even if time travel had been invented, he wouldn’t. Those old photos and videos were proof of a life lived, of his struggles survived, the back pain a distant memory of poor posture and sedentary lifestyle. The twinges in his muscles and the creak in his knees was proof he was human, after all. Not a pod person or computer file stored in a futuristic database somewhere.
He was six foot three. Had been for years. But now, after years of hunching and folding inwards, he finally embodied every inch.