Well and truly Cumberbatched (To be revised)

Chapter 14

Saturday. 8PM.

“Girls! Welcome! Marc, I see your mother chose your outfit again. Christ you really ought to cut the apron strings poppet” Dan said, the bitchiness practically radiating off of him, Marc's glare cutting through mine and Bridge's laughing like we were school girls again.

Entering Dan's Brixton loft the vibrations of everyone's laughter, dancing, and mingling alike filled the atmosphere. Tom called me earlier to say he'd be arriving later, he was out with Jane before she went away to visit her aunt in Arras, a town in northern France. Merlin was with Mrs Hudson tonight, she’d been away for a while and wanted to spend some time with him. Plus I'd hope the distraction would be good for him, he seems to miss Ben more than I initially thought. He keeps waiting at the door for him in the evenings. 

Entering the black and white themed living area adorned with poetry, mainly those of the 19th century: William Allingham, Anne Bronte, E. E. Cummings, their words adorning each wall in elegant text. Dan is honestly an enigma, you wouldn't think he studied classics and is fluent in Latin, Greek, and French.

A dim glow of soft lights swam above the wall length windows leading onto the balcony, overlooking south-west London, we said our hellos to everyone just as Dan brought out four shot glasses to start...given his state he looked like he'd had half the bottle without realising. 

“Right, vodka!” Dan shouted.

On a count of three myself, Bridget, Marc, and Dan each necked a shot of what may as well have been poison, pulling faces of horror at the sheer force of the taste of the shot, if Sambuca shots at uni flat party’s taught me anything it was Vodka wasn’t better.

“BLEURGH!” 

"God, that taste's like death! Where'd you get that? The bottom of the ocean?!" Bridget baulked, covering her mouth for a moment, myself and Marc nodded in agreement. 

Finally resisting the urge to be ill, I gave Daniel a hug and he whisked me away to show me a new painting he purchased from a local artist we’re both a friend of, proceeding to tell me he’d have his way with me at midnight. I just laughed as Marc said something under his breath about him as he and Bridge went to mingle with other guests.

Dan is quite an eccentric individual but has a good heart. He and Marc however have never really seen eye to eye,  they may have almost given each other a black eye on a few occasions but make a feeble effort to tolerate each other’s existences as they’re both close to Bridget.

...

“So Rosie, where’s Benedict again? I heard he is quite the workaholic.” Dan both asked and stated taking another sip of wine from his glass, we were out on the balcony, the sunset moments from making way for the night. 

“He’s off promoting his latest project and working Dan, he’ll be away for a few weeks. He works a lot but with the sheer force of his talent it’d be silly for him not to, and he really touches a lot of lives with what he does. He’s wonderful, it’s great that at least some of his fans will finally get the chance to see him. They really do care about him.” I replied, tucking my hair behind my ears.

“You love him, don’t you?” Dan asked as he turned around and leant against the ledge, and I proceeded to do the same.

“I do, I care about him Dan. I really do. Why’d you ask?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone’s face light up the way yours did just now, you’ve been glowing since you turned up.” He smiled, I looked back over the balcony thinking to myself.

“I thought you and Ben would’ve known each other, didn’t you go to Harrow too?” I asked, I know they'd have never met at Uni; Dan went to Oxford, he studied classics and English.