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Maybe it’s strange that Dan hasn’t been nervous up until this point. Going to meet Phil had felt like the most natural thing in the world, and as he sat on the train, waiting a treacherous three hours for the two of them to be brought together, he’d felt nothing but excitement buzzing under his skin.
The day behind him was the same. They made as much sense together in person as they had online. There had been no tension to chew on, no awkward silences to wish away, and Dan hadn’t been surprised. The whole day that they’d spent together, from the Manchester Eye to the greasy pizza and bottle of Ribena that they’d split between the two of them, Dan had been too happy to process this objectively ridiculous and unprecedented thing that he was doing. Even when Phil had angled towards him on the couch mid-Buffy marathon, inviting Dan to close the gap between them, the fluttery heartbeat that moved to Dan’s throat had been more joy than fear.
It’s only now that the giddiness starts to fade. Dan isn’t sure how much time has passed when he and Phil break apart, both struggling to catch their breath. The seconds passed by slow and sweet like honey, turning to minutes and maybe hours. Dan could find out easily, but he doesn’t bother to look at the clock. The day is catching up to him, and on his end, the universe has undergone such a monumental shift that things like time seem inconsequential.
Dan feels ridiculous. He’s splayed out like a starfish against the garish green and blue of Phil’s checkered bedspread, flushed and breathless. Slightly sweaty, but only because the room is hot. His hair is so fucked up that he can feel it, mussed against the pillow, probably sticking up in all directions and splinged to hell. And he feels like he’s having a fucking heart attack.
He’s fully clothed but doesn’t feel it, not with the way his shirt is pulled to the side, exposing his collarbone and the bruise that’s blossoming there. Phil’s arm is draped over his waist, pushing his hoodie up slightly and Phil is tracing Dan’s hipbone with the lightest touch.
Phil doesn’t say anything. Dan wishes that he would, if only to replace the sound of his own thoughts, which is, as always, a whirlpool that Dan has to fight not to drown in.
Up until this moment, Dan has been in charted territory, at least in the most literal sense. He might be younger than Phil, but he’s not completely naïve. There were boys back in Wokingham, plenty of them, who liked to kiss him, who liked to bury their hands in his hair as much as Phil did. They would find dark corners to hide in with him and ignore him in the light, or worse.
Only this feels unprecedented. Lying here, his limbs intertwined with Phil’s, as Phil breathes softly into the curve of Dan’s neck, sending tingles up his spine. Dan feels like an alien visitor to another planet, one where shame and anxiety don’t lurk in every corner but he’s still brought his with him, threatening to infect the otherwise perfect air.
Dan knows, logically, that Phil isn’t going to throw him out, firstly because he wouldn’t invite Dan all this way if he didn’t actually want him here and second because Phil cares for Dan. Dan knows it. He can sense it in the way Phil looks at him, saves space for him, asks him questions, laughs at his jokes. But that doesn’t make it any less foreign. Both being wanted and being cared for.
He tries to do something – to speak, to move, anything to dilute the silence – but his body is frozen, his arms laying uselessly at his sides. He’s atrophying on the spot. Too scared to move, too anxious to stay still.
But then, Phil shifts. He’s still draped over Dan like a blanket, maybe even more so after he moves.
Phil is different from anyone Dan has ever spent time with before. Phil referred to himself as gay on Skype the third time they ever spoke. Phil has had boyfriends and had brought said boyfriends around his house when his parents were home. Phil moves closer instead of pulling away.
Dan is still not fully convinced that he’s real. He must have come up with Phil himself and manifested him into existence somehow, because there’s no way someone can be this kind, this funny, and this brave all at once.
Dan looks down at him from where he’s slightly propped up against Phil’s bedframe. Phil is resting his head on Dan’s chest. Between the two of them, he’s a bit taller, but no one would know it with Phil curled up like this.
Their eyes meet. Phil looks happy. His jet black hair is disheveled over his forehead, but Dan can still see his eyes, a thin circle of speckled light blue nearly swallowed by his blown-out pupils. His pale cheeks are brushed with pink. Dan doesn’t even want to know how he looks, what terrified, deer-in-the-headlights look provokes the concerned look on Phil’s face.
“You okay?” he whispers.
Dan stops, thinks. He isn’t okay, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. There’s a lump in his throat, threatening to suffocate him. He ignores it. “I’m… I’m lost,” he admits.
Phil just looks more confused, which is fair, because Dan isn’t making any sense at all. “What do you mean?”
“Being here with you… It’s like being on another planet, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do.” Somehow, miraculously, a breathless little laugh escapes Dan along with the sentiment.
“You don’t have to do anything,” says Phil hurriedly, “Just… relax.”
“Mm,” Dan hums, “Not good at that.”
Phil furrows his eyebrows slightly.
Dan thinks to himself that Phil is just about the sweetest thing he’s ever seen. He gathers the courage, he’s not sure from where, to reach down and card his fingers through Phil’s hair. It’s this casual touch that he doesn’t know how to do. Back home, all the others – or, honestly, the two or three others – would never share something like this with him. They flinched away from him, or he flinched away from them, or both, until everyone involved just stopped trying. Now, he feels a bit like a newborn baby calf, who’s being expected to walk despite being two minutes old. And he feels like maybe he’s using too many metaphors, maybe because he’s trying to detach himself from what he really is. A barely-grown sexually ambiguous moron who has no idea what he’s doing at all.
Phil, to his credit, doesn’t seem to mind how tense Dan is. Or maybe it really isn’t coming through. He bends his neck slightly, so that he can press his lips to Dan’s collarbone, pulling his shirt to the side. Dan registers that there is some version of him that would complain about having his clothing stretched out, but he must have left that part of himself in Wokingham. Phil knows how to get under his skin, and over it. Dan’s not even sure that Phil’s doing it on purpose, this effect that he has.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Phil murmurs, still tucked into the bend of Dan’s neck, “Whatever’s bothering you?”
“No,” Dan says without hesitation. It’s not because he doesn’t trust Phil, not at all. He’s told Phil more over late night Skype calls than he’s told anyone else in person. It honestly terrifies him a little, how easily he would lay his still-beating heart in Phil’s hands after knowing him for just a day.
Moreso, he doesn’t want to tell Phil what’s bothering him because he has no idea how to explain it. He doesn’t even know what there is to explain.
Because that’s the problem, really. The only thing that’s bothering him is that there’s nothing bothering him. And that just feels like the universe’s cruel joke. He doesn’t want to be sad about not being sad. He doesn’t want to be scared of not being scared. Most of all, he knows that this moment has the potential to be perfect, and he doesn’t want to spoil it over nothing. Still, it steadies him, more than he can even understand just then, that Phil is here and willing to listen.
Dan hopes that someday, he’ll be able to put it into words. And then maybe, someday after that first day, there will be nothing left to tell, nothing haunting him. He’ll just be able to be here, and feel like he belongs, and it won’t feel like discovering an entirely different dimension. He hopes, to a god that he doesn’t believe in, that Phil will still be here when that day comes.
“Let’s just hang out,” Dan says casually, too casually, before trying again, “I only want to spend time with you.”
A grin like daybreak spreads across Phil’s pretty face as he asks, “Can I beat you at Mario Kart?”
Dan remembers in a flash, the version of him from this morning who was worried that Phil might want something from him that he wasn’t yet able to give. A laugh bubbles out of him, something light and easy. A bit delirious, maybe. “You can certainly try.”