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They’ve been together for seven days, one hour and ten minutes, and still, Phil doesn’t believe that all of this is real.
It was at their second minute of their being together in real life that Dan clutched onto his hand in the crowded train station to avoid getting separated.Phil’s heart had fluttered like a little bird at the pet store trying to fly with its useless, flightless wings.
Thirty seconds later he marvelled at just how perfectly their hands fit together, fingers slotted in place like pieces of an old jigsaw puzzle, made to fit together from the start. Dan’s hands were warm while Phil’s were ice-cold. They balanced out in an almost perfect way, he marveled.
And, at minute one, they had hugged and clung to each other like they were each of the other’s world. His chest grew warm as he recalled how nice it felt to have the younger’s head tucked into his shoulder and arms wrapped tight around his waist. Phil had his nose buried in the other’s warm, brown hair and rocked them back and forth.
In that moment he decided that this would be his moment. The moment that the second he could, if he ever could, he would go back in his life and relive. He would gladly relive this moment every day for the rest of forever, he had agreed on in an instant.
Five hours later when they were curled up together on the couch watching Buffy, to no one's surprise, that Phil told Dan this who immediately lifted his head from its spot on Phil's chest, his face a lit up like the sun, with a smile that not only filled his face, but the room and Phil's heart as well, with a glow that surely shone out of his chest. Dan called him a dork and pecked his cheek.
Seven days and four hours later, Phil grazes his fingers , gently, carefully over the spot and flutters his eyes closed and can still feel it. His face still holds the same cheeky grin that it did those one hundred and two hours ago.
And he’s been laying in his bed for the past two hours and fourteen minutes, and two hours, thirteen minutes and sixteen, seventeen, eighteen seconds have been spent with Dan laying right next to him.
Two hours and three minutes ago, Dan had stopped fiddling with Phil's fingers, pressing their palms together and slotting fingers between each other. Every time he did that, Phil would squeeze the other boy’s hand extra tight, and quickly bring their hands up and press feather-light butterfly kisses to Dan’s knuckles to make him giggle.
Of course, Dan did laugh much harder than Phil had thought he would as he snatched hand away. And of course this required a kiss on the younger’s forehead that was more chuckle than kiss.
Phil loved how seconds after the sweet gesture would make Dan's spot, the little red one on his jawline that appeared whenever he was hot and flustered, burn bright red. He was then obligated to press kisses to it until it bloomed strawberry red and Dan laughed and pushed the elder’s face away.
An hour and ten minutes ago, Dan fell asleep. Not the cute, half asleep he had been the thirty minutes before, that softly and basically incoherently mumbling about nothing in particular.
Four days ago they filmed together for the first time and Phil figures that he’ll have to figure out a way to cut out their hour’s worth of footage down to something more manageable, but what does he care? All the more time to gaze at his boyfriend.
And now Phil’s got this stupid grin on his face at the thought.
Boyfriend.
His heart swells at the thought.
How long had he known Dan? Only months? How in such a short amount of time could someone come into his life and create such a huge impact on it? Of everyone online who he talked to, of everyone out there to talk to he had somehow found this person. Duly, this person had chose him.
if he hadn’t had opened his computer that ay to watch the video, or sent any tweets or commented, and if he himself hadn’t seen those messages or comments, he wouldn’t have Dan in his life and--
“Mm, Phil, Did you even sleep?”
Phil blinked, as if he didn’t quite understand what Dan was saying. How long had he been up?
Dan laughs and punches Phil in the shoulder before rolling away. “Did you stay up and watch me sleep like some sort of... “ he paused for a moment, thinking, a dorky smirk smeared across his face, “Edward Cullen?”
Phil laughs it off with an “Of course not you dumbass,” but inside, he freezes because, yes, he was sort of watching Dan sleep like some sort of Edward Cullen. But all for good reason; Dan leaves today and he didn’t want to waste any spare minute they had together, even if it meant not sleeping for whatever measly hours they could manage to grab.
Dan sits up against the headboard and scooches over next to Phil, absent-mindedly twining their fingers together yet again, making Phil smile. “Whatever you say,” he mumbles while laying his head on Phil’s shoulder while he too, sits up against the headboard.
“You leave today,” Phil mumbles almost too quiet to be heard, but Dan does, of course. Phil knows because Dan tenses while on his shoulder.
“I don’t want to leave today,” Dan whispers, “I just want to spend the rest of my life here.”
Phil’s breath catches in his throat because, no, he doesn’t want Dan to leave. It would be so nice to stay in this moment forever but no, life doesn’t work like that. “I know,”
They both have to get up soon. Properly. In a few hours Dan needs to catch his train and he still needs to pack, but for now they can just stay here, and that’s what they do.
But also, this too:
Phil turns around, and snakes an arm around Dan’s waist, and rubbing his thumb over his cheek and kisses him softly, sweetly on the lips. Dan’s eyes close the second Phil touches his cheek and immediately kissed back. He kisses back hard, fingers winding into Phil’s disheveled hair, now pushed up in a quiff, and bites down on Phil’s bottom lip,asking for entrance, and Phil lets him, and they lay down again, Phil laying on top of Dan and pushing his hands up the other’s shirt.
Phil pulls away for a second, and leaves kisses on both of Dan’s cheeks, then his forehead and his nose before moving down his jaw and onto his neck. Dan squirms, making Phil laugh and return to properly kissing his boyfriend.
Its then that he sees Dan is crying. Phil sits up, and pulls Dan with him, wiping his tears with his thumbs and holding him close to his chest. “I, I’m going to miss you so much, Phil,” Dan practically sobs, and Phil shushes him promising that he’ll miss him too.
Phil’s alarm goes off, playing some annoying chirping noise, but neither move to turn it off, they just sit there for a moment longer, holding each other, and dreading having to leave.
Right before Dan hops on the train, he turns around showing a red and splotchy face to Phil before waving good-bye, and Phil won’t have any of it, stepping forward and grabbing Dan by his jacket collar and kissing the daylights out of him, then kissing his forehead once more saying, “To hold you over until the next time,”
Dan smiles again, eyes crinkling and a breathy laugh escaping while he wraps his arms around the elder’s waist once more and hopping up on the train.
Six years and three days later, the two wake up once more, legs tangled and Dan’s head on Phil’s chest, similar to when they did it for what seemed like the last time all the while ago.
Phil stirs first, pressing his lips to the other’s forehead and mumbling a quiet, “I love you,” to which Dan’s eyes flutter open and he sits up a little to give Phil a proper kiss on the lips. “I know.”
And he does know, because five years and eight days ago Phil told him that for the first time, and thinking about that day, back on Phil’s couch and snuggled under about fourteen blankets Phil thought that Dan was asleep and said it quiet to him and Dan cried, shifting around to throw his arms around Phil’s neck, knocking the both of them back so they were laying on the couch. He laughed and happy tears fell onto Phil’s face, and Dan kissed each and every tear away until they were both a giggling mess of two people young and in love.
Even now, each time the phrase is said it sends a shiver down both their spines and makes them each smile like idiots, because each time feels like the first, and every minute like that first one right off the train.