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Phil wasn’t excited to have this conversation. He wasn’t dreading it, per se, but something about looking down to find Dan curled up beside him, arm splayed over his stomach and face nestled into the crook of his neck, lodged a stone in his throat that Phil could not swallow.
Suddenly he felt all too exposed under the thin sheets, the nearly sheer fabric doing little to protect his body from the outside world. Sure, Dan had seen him naked before. It wouldn’t be the first time for that. But it was the first time he’d had sex with him.
Oh my god, what have I done?
Phil was lost in his apprehensiveness when he finally felt Dan stirring. He rolled around to his other side, letting Phil breathe more deeply. He could turn to him, Phil could, if he wanted. He could curl up behind him and wrap his arm underneath Dan’s, allowing their fingers to entwine lazily.
The image of the night before jolted to the forefront of his mind. Him and Dan, in the dead of night, laying beside each other in the darkness of Phil’s room. Dan turning to Phil in all his vulnerability, and pressing the most hesitant kiss to Phil’s lips. Removing clothes, hot breath against each other’s necks.
Phil shook his head lightly. Dan wouldn’t be fully awake for another hour or so, yet still the thought of it tightened in his chest. He took this chance he had to escape. Rolling out of the bed, Phil slipped into the same jeans he’d worn the day before. He pulled a clean shirt from his drawer carelessly and squirmed into it.
As his bedroom door clicked behind him, Phil grabbed his phone from the pocket where it spent the night. He typed out a messaged, the artificial clacking unnerving.
I went out. I’ll be back soon.
He hit send and heard Dan’s phone buzz from inside his room, too loudly. He worried it would give him away, but he heard no other stirring from Dan. He considered the message again. Maybe it’s too harsh.
:)
Phil risked another text to get a smiley in there. He never had to second-guess his texts to Dan before. Conversations had always flowed naturally and easily, right from the start. But that’s what sex does. It complicates things. People, relationships.
Phil had lived quite happily without sex for the last 7 years. Why in the world, then, was he so damn eager when the opportunity arose?
Phil left the flat, rushing down the street to get some distance, but he quickly found that thoughts can follow you anywhere.
One foot in front of the other, he walked in rhythm to the beat of his heart, rounding corners and taking new paths until he no longer knew where he was. He thought maybe this would help him relax, help him get his mind off things, but no. Only the familiar was safe right now. He turned himself in the general direction of his favorite park and walked briskly until he could organize his mind again.
He sat on a bench in the park, across from the fountain he’d spent time with Dan at, catching Pokemon, when despite the rumors, their relationship was innocent.
I slept with Dan, he thought to himself.
He recalled the conversation that led up to it all. How Dan had come into his room at midnight, claiming he couldn’t sleep. How he suggested they just stay up and talk for a while, sleep-over style. His breath caught in his throat as he remembered the distinct moment the conversation turned from joking about their lack of sex lives, to somberly talking about the loneliness that crept up on them when they tried to sleep. Phil had realized in that moment, sure, that Dan had come to Phil for company and companionship that night, rather than out of boredom. He knew it before the kiss that currently plagued his head.
That doesn’t mean anything though. Or at least, he couldn’t say what it all meant. The kiss had lowered his inhibitions enough to fuck his best friend when he was obviously defenseless. Phil could feel the bile working its way up his esophagus. Something about it felt very wrong now, as if he had taken advantage of Dan.
It can’t be like that though because-
That kiss. It had been Dan’s, given to Phil like a gift. The kiss that lowered his inhibitions enough to fuck his best friend.
His phone chirped from his jacket and he ripped it out anxiously, checking to see what Dan would say.
no rush i’ve wrapped myself in your blanket and am prepared to stay in your bed indefinitely
The conversation seemed to come more naturally to Dan. Phil blushed slightly at how cavalier he was being. He dropped the phone backed into his pocket and zipped it securely. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped tightly and his head hanging low.
Deciding to put the morality of the situation aside, Phil allowed himself the wonder what it might mean for Dan. This could be anything from a silly mistake, to a proposition to be friends with benefits, to.. Well, to love.
He knew he could spend hours analyzing each and every glance into each other’s eyes, every word spoken between them, every soft moan from the night before, and he would still not know what Dan wanted from him until he asked.
All at once Phil noticed that in his anxiety, he hadn’t given any consideration to what he wanted from Dan. Just as quickly he realized that was because he didn’t need to think about it.
Of course he loved Dan. He’d been by Dan’s side for seven years, willfully and intentionally entwining their lives like he may have laced their hands together that morning if he hadn’t been so troubled. At every step Phil had known that he couldn’t retreat, and he had never once wanted to. He’d never regret that his choices made it nearly impossible to make a life with someone else, even now at thirty years old.
He loved Dan. And he wanted to be his everything.
Phil turned the knob carefully, gripping a brown paper bag in between two fingers. His opposite hand, delicately balancing a cardboard tray of disposable coffee cups.
On the other side of the door, he found Dan, exactly where he’d promised he’d be.
“I brought you a caramel machiatto and a danish.” Phil set the gifts down on the bedside table, gesturing towards it for Dan to make his move.
“Thanks,” Dan said, as he twisted up to reach and the sheet slipped down far enough to reveal that he’d still not gotten dressed. Phil swallowed hard at the sight. “Did you just leave to get breakfast, or?” Dan let his question trail off.
“In the interest of honesty, no,” Phil admit. “I left to go think, and I think we should talk.”
Dan half-smiled, but raised his eyes up and to the right, contemplating something.
“Or we could just have sex again,” Dan said, leaning in ever-so slightly.
“No, I really think we need to talk first,” Phil said, leaving room for Dan to wonder if ‘first’ means ‘before having sex again’. “Now,” my darling, he thought to himself but didn’t say aloud, softening his speech, “put your clothes back on.”
Dan looked at him, uncertain, but slipped out from under the covers and dressed himself, as if giving Phil the benefit of the doubt.
Fully clothed, he sat back on the bed next to Phil. He looked downwards into space now too, and Phil could see the effort it took for him to meet his eyes.
“So, shoot,” Dan said. “You asked to talk, you go first.”
“Okay,” Phil exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding back. “I don’t know what that meant for you. When I woke up this morning I thought maybe I’d taken advantage of you. And I’m still not sure if that’s true-”
“No,” Dan cut him off. “I wanted you. I wanted you from the second I walked in.”
Phil’s lips curled into a half smile, forcing himself to continue through it.
“But I also had to think about what it all meant. If it was a one time thing, or if you just maybe wanted sex to be another thing we do that friends usually don’t, or if you maybe,” the words caught in his throat like a hitch. “If you maybe like me and wanted to make something of it.”
Silence hung in the air. One of them had to be the first to say it out loud, what they were feeling. Whatever they were feeling.
“I like you,” Dan said. He paused, unsure. “But I’m afraid of what that may do to us. Whether or not you like me back, it changes things.”
Dan averted his eyes back to the floor, looking into the middle-distance. His muscles tensed as he waited for Phil’s response.
“I like you too,” Phil let out. “And I’m scared too. But if I had it my way, I think we’d try this.” Phil reached out and touched the top of Dan’s hand. It felt new and awkward, like a thirteen year old on their first date. It got better when Dan’s shoulders visibly relaxed at the warmth.
“It’s going to be different. I might be difficult,” Dan said.
“I won’t give up if you don’t,” Phil promised. He picked up his hands and set it in his own, palms together and laced his fingers between the other man’s. Dan chuckled.
“You really shouldn’t rely on me for anything; I’ll just let you down.”
In one swift motion, Phil brought his lips to meet Dan’s, if only to kiss those words away from him. To remove them from his mouth and erase them from muscle memory. He kissed him more assertively than they’d kissed the night before.
“Dan Howell, I have relied on your for seven years and you have never once let me down.”
Dan let it slide. Phil could sense that he was not convinced, but that he was not up for arguing about it, as he now had other things on his mind.
“So, what are we, like, boyfriends now?” Dan chuckled low in his chest. Phil knew what it was, making light of the heaviest question.
“I’d rather call us partners,” he said casually. “What do you think?” Dan raised his gaze to meet Phil and look him in the eyes. After a long moment, he answered.
“We could be partners.”
Dan leaned his head on Phil’s shoulder. Phil gently caressed the back of his hand with his thumb.
“I can’t believe you thought you’d taken advantage,” Dan scoffed pleasantly. “I literally came in with every intention of sleeping with you.