It was a long time before they untangled themselves from one another. Every time one of them tried to pull away, the other would pull them closer, and refuse to let them go.

When they were apart, they still didn't let go of one another. They kept their hands intertwined, or arms round waists, or sides pressed close together. "I never want to lose you again," Phil had said, and Dan had almost started crying again.

They called a taxi. There wasn't much else they could do, what with Phil's prosthetic leg stopping him from walking properly, and Dan's breathing regularly disintegrating into a desperate pant.

"Is this what it's going to be like forever?" Dan asked.

"It'll get better," Phil said.

His confident attitude was starting to wear off, but it was still floating around him in wisps.

"Ya think?"

They both laughed quietly, but Dan collapsed into coughing after a few seconds. Phil slid an arm around his back to support him.

"...inhaler..." Dan wheezed, between gasps.

Phil hurriedly fumbled in Dan's pocket and pulled out a small blue instrument. He handed it to Dan, who attempted to control his breathing so as to be able to take it.

The coughing subsided and he started to breathe more easily. Phil saw the taxi approaching from around the corner and told Dan, who followed him slowly to the kerb.

Phil lay his cane across his and Dan's lap, and leaned back in his seat. Suddenly, Dan started laughing.

"What is it?"

He kept laughing, harder now, and then dissolved into coughing. Phil passed him his inhaler and he breathed it in, calming down.

"What's so funny?"

"It's just," Dan explained, between breaths, "that we're like two old men. You with your cane, me with my coughing..."

Phil started to giggle, and Dan laughed again, and soon they were both hysterical in the back of the taxi. They may well have been coughing and wheezing and clutching canes, but for the first time since the boat, it felt like the old days.