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“Let’s go stargaze.”
Dan’s voice distracts Phil’s phone tapping and he instantly loses his game. After letting out a grumbled whine, he sets his phone down on his lap and looks up at Dan.
“You made me lose.”
“Cry about it, Lester.” Dan’s teasing voice is full of fondness as he folds up the thin throw laid across their bed. “C’mon.”
“But ‘m tired.” Phil leans his head on the back of the armchair and closes his eyes. He is genuinely exhausted; after a long flight, days of near constant interaction with other humans at VidCon, and a three-hour car journey into the Nevada desert, he feels as though he could sleep for days.
“What kind of space boy are you?” Dan chuckles lightly and walks over to Phil’s chair, resting his hand in Phil’s sweaty mess of hair.
Phil leans into the touch. “One that needs sleep. And a shower.”
He isn’t really resisting - and he knows that Dan knows that. They’ve been planning on stargazing in the desert since the moment they decided to take a trip to Vegas after Vidcon. It’s one of the cheesy, romantic things that they really only get the chance to do on vacations like this one.
Dan’s hand trails from Phil’s head down his arm and into his hand, and he tugs at it lightly. “We can shower when we get back.” His voice is soft and tired and sweet and Phil opens his eyes a bit to see Dan wearing a gentle smile that he can’t help but return.
“Or would you rather hang around with that creepy witch thing while I go look at stars?”
Phil glances at the decor hung above their bed and then back at Dan. “No thanks.” Dan exhales a small laugh and Phil lets himself be pulled out of the chair.
-
They don’t have to walk very far from the airbnb before they come across a secluded area in the sand, nestled nicely between a few trees whose branches part at the top - as if they were made for stargazing. Phil takes one end of the throw and Dan takes the other as they shake it out and place in on the ground.
“This is perfect,” Phil muses, taking in the view around them. “How’d you know it was here?”
“Found it earlier when I went off for a walk.” Dan sits down on the throw and props himself up on his elbows, still looking up at Phil. “I took a little video of the sun through the trees.”
Phil feels his face form into a grin. Dan looks and sounds so sweet tonight; he always does, in a way. But tonight he’s more soft-spoken than usual. There is a calmness in Dan’s eyes that makes him look so young. Phil’s heart flutters a bit as he meets Dan’s eyes from where he is still standing - it reminds him of the first time he really, truly got to look into Dan’s eyes as they laid in bed together for the first time all those years ago.
But there is something else in Dan’s eyes now, a glint of genuine confidence that wasn’t there before. He still sees fear in Dan’s eyes sometimes. He saw it last night before Dan went out on stage to talk at the Vidcon variety show. He saw it just a few weeks ago as Dan shrugged on a rainbow-sequin skeleton blazer before going to his first pride. He saw it in full force two weeks before that as Dan got ready to press ‘upload’ on his video. But right now, there isn’t any fear in Dan’s eyes - there’s just trust and confidence and love.
So, maybe Phil is soft tonight, too.
“You’re cute,” he says in a low voice.
“Then come lay by me.”
Phil obeys Dan’s request and sits on the blanket beside him, immediately reaching out and intertwining their fingers. Dan lays back and Phil follows until they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder, hands locked between them.
Phil exhales a content sigh. The sky really is breathtaking. The moon is nearly full and its light sheds directly onto their little spot tucked away in the trees. The stars are bright and vivid and it all looks close enough to reach out and grab.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispers. Dan lets out a snort.
“You sap.” But he squeezes Phil’s hand and moves his head over to rest lightly on Phil’s shoulder, anyway. Phil rests his cheek on top of Dan’s head and it isn’t a comfortable position in any way - the hard ground making it almost impossible to be fully cozy - but the warmth exuding from Dan’s body is enough to make it pleasant.
There’s bits of blue light scattered among the stars and Dan points it out to him.
“Think we’ll see an alien?” Now it’s Phils turn to half-snort.
“I hope so.” He turns his head to place a soft kiss on Dan’s hair. “Maybe they’ll finally take us back to our home planet.”
It’s a half-joke that the two of them have kept running for years; that they’re from the same planet, the same star, that their souls were intertwined even before they met. And maybe neither of them know if souls are a real thing or how they managed to find each other amongst the billions of people on earth, but Phil thinks that there is some truth to it.
There’s a vulnerability in being out here cuddled up like this, and Phil knows it. They aren’t completely secluded - the small village full of hotels and touristy sights is less than half a kilometer away, and it isn’t nearly as late as his body feels that it is - but it doesn’t matter.
Phil likes to think that they were never hiding, not really. They kept their relationship to themselves just as they will now that they’re out. Phil used to feel as though what he and Dan had was too sacred to be shared with too many people, and maybe that’s true. But there is a certain comfort in being able to hold his life partner’s hand and not have to glance over his shoulder that he’s never really felt before this publicly.
It’s a new feeling, and it’s a good one. Phil wonders how, after all these years, Dan can still make him feel new things so often. But he never gets tired of it. Phil has felt a lot of things towards Dan; mostly love, and admiration, and thankfulness, but also worry and anger and a million other emotions - but never tiredness. Even after ten years, he has never felt tired of Dan, and he doubts he ever will.
“You’re in your own little world.” Dan whispers against Phil’s shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”
“You. Us.” Phil isn’t much for words tonight, but he knows Dan understands.
“Good things?” Dan muses, but there is no worry to his voice. Not right now.
“Of course.” Phil shifts and turns on his side so he is facing Dan, and Dan does the same, their bodies moving in synchronicity as always. When their eyes meet again they both smile, and Dan leans in to kiss him.
“I think we’re back on our home planet now,” Dan says as he pulls back from the kiss. “I love you.”
Phil just smiles.
There will be tribulations in the future, because there always is in life. But the contentment that Phil feels right now is nearly overwhelming. Dan’s eyes are prettier than any star out there.
“I love you, too.”