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‘Dan? Are you asleep yet?’ Phil spoke from outside in the same way as any other sleepless nights, softly, uncertainly.
Dan had already taken off his T-shirt and joggers, partially lying but not sleeping at all. ‘No, why?’ he mumbled absentmindedly. He didn’t even bother to shift half of his attention from his phone screen to the person standing outside his bedroom.
‘I can’t sleep.’ The door opened a little. Dan put down his phone and saw his flatmate’s head sticking in. ‘Talk to me.’
This had become one of their habits. Sometimes when Phil couldn’t sleep, he would give up struggling in his bed and see if Dan’s awake as well. If so, Dan would stop whatever he was doing, and then lie on his bed with Phil and accompany him. ‘Alright, come on in and turn off the light,’ said Dan, who put his phone aside and had his body covered by the duvet.
Phil had never requested him to do this. At the first few times, Dan had almost got annoyed and wanted to tell Phil to do something on his own to kill time because of the disturbance to his personal time, which he only wanted to quietly spend with no one except himself. He had eventually managed to offer as much company as he could after drawing some deep breaths, considering that Phil had done so much for him and had become the most important part of his life. Perhaps some of his Formspring answers had been overstated or purely attention-seeking, but he always knew even if he only had 30 more seconds to live, he would want to spend his last time with Phil. Why not do him a little favour?
Phil went into the room and closed the door. ‘What were you doing?’ He glanced at Dan’s phone casually before pressing the light switch.
‘Just reading some metanalysis regarding the Skywalkers.’ Dan stared at the dark while Phil tried to walk to the empty side of the bed without tripping himself up. ‘I think Rey must be Luke’s daughter. Rey’s theme song was somehow similar to Luke’s, and you know, this sounds stupid but Rey had Luke’s nose and lips. There will probably be much more meta essays several days later.’
‘Seems I’m not the only person who is still excited about the movie.’ Phil’s voice became louder and clearer as he laid next to Dan. ‘I almost wanted to have a Star Wars marathon again.’
‘You could spend the time on something more beneficial, like editing the gaming videos for us,’ Dan suggested as he thought of his unfinished duty.
‘More like editing for you. You promised you would finish editing the Simulator one before the premiere!’ Phil complained, ‘You better do your work soon, seeing as we have to upload them all before we leave London.’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll do that tomorrow, right after we take the charity Polaroids. Sound good?’
‘Fine. But we’re going to do a bunch of silly faces for the Polaroids instead of some ordinary, boring smiles.’
Another habit: as a result of being a procrastinator, whenever Dan failed to finish editing a video for their gaming channel by the deadline they set for themselves, he had to do one certain thing at Phil’s command.
‘You mean we have to do fifty whole different faces, seriously? My face will hurt. Yours will too.’
‘I don’t care. The point is it will be fun! The donors will be happy too. If they want to see our normal facial expressions, they could just google a picture of us. They’ve already done something nice, so I want to do something special in return.’
‘Alright, fine. We’ll do that.’
Dan knew there was no way to persuade Phil to give up. Phil was usually the stubborn one out of the two, and the idea was not that bad at all.
‘They deserve this.’
It was not surprising that they could go hours on end talking to each other. They just never run out of topics. It seemed that Dan was the only person who finally got exhausted after spending hours outside and chatting for hours, but he still tried his best not to sound like he was nodding off. The only reason why he wasn’t asleep yet was he wanted to stay with Phil. After all, they had to separate in few days. Christmas was coming.
‘Let’s play “I Spy”,’ Phil suggested suddenly.
‘No...? Turning on the light will only make us more conscious.’ The fact was, however, Dan was too sleepy to keep his eyes wide open and look around.
‘We can do that without the light. We’ve stayed in the dark for long enough to see things clearly.’
‘Nice try, but you didn’t bring you glasses and I’m not going to look around,’ Dan immediately noticed after he slurred his words. He hoped Phil was ‘deaf’ enough to ignore his mumbles.
‘Oh. I’m kinda tired too,’ unfortunately, Phil was not that deaf, ‘You can sleep. I’ll keep quiet.’
Dan opened his eyes. ‘Phil, I’m just- I’m not that sleepy.’ He wanted to let Phil know how glad he was, that he had never rejected midnight Phil and had already been accustomed to providing his little service as if it were as natural as breathing. He wanted to tell Phil to break into his bedroom even if he was asleep. He wished Phil enjoyed his company as much as he did. He wanted to be Phil’s companion.
*
Phil could tell Dan was drowsy at the moment, and he started to feel sleepy as well, so he offered that they would go to sleep right after he got a whisper from Dan.
‘What do I whisper?’ Dan chuckled at Phil’s random thought.
‘Anything will do. I just want to do something before I sleep.’
‘I can do this, but you don’t like people whispering.’
‘I’ve made you get me food I hate for a video too. Just do it so we can sleep,’ Phil added, ‘Please.’
When Dan finally compromised, Phil tilted his head a bit and was looking forward to whatever Dan was going to say. To be honest, Phil was only expecting a simple ‘good night’ or some random Star Wars shit like ‘Kylo Ren’s lightsaber is dumb’, as the last thing they talked about was Captain Phasma’s armour.
However, the sentence whispered in his ear ended up being, ‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you.’ Phil turned his head and saw the younger staring at him, with slight hesitation and embarrassment. At the moment, it seemed the person Phil was facing wasn’t the perfectly grown man at the end of his adolescence, but the mildly tanned teenager he met 6 years ago. What Dan just said was out of Phil’s expectation, yet oddly satisfying. He had never realised that it was exactly something he wanted to hear from Dan, probably more than anything.
They had done so many things this year. They had been both passing their next million subscriber milestone, working on their app, their book, their tour and their audio book, going to freaking Japan... Phil’s plan for December had been going well: no planes, no fancy things, only macaroons, mince pies and movies. He couldn’t imagine handling more stuff before 2016. And that was literally happening, as exciting as their dreamy journey to Japan, yet as cozy as their movie nights.
‘Me too, drama nerd,’ he whispered back as a response. The nervousness in Dan’s eyes replaced by something else. Phil had been aware of how their fans called Dan ‘Heart Eyes Howell,’ but he was pretty sure that was merely an act out of courtesy. When someone is talking, you look at them, right? He had already got used to all the garbling, suspecting and exaggerating. But right now, right there, he could totally see the adoration and tenderness in Dan’s eyes, sparkling. Not a single fan would have a clue what Dan’s true heart eyes look like, except his first proper subscriber ever. That was a look all for Phil.
Phil had never been oblivious. He had had some sporadical thoughts of buying a flat with Dan, adopting some kids with Dan, having a dog with Dan, and doing anything and everything with Dan. All these ideas had become so natural for him. He just didn’t have to ponder deeply over this simple feeling after all these years.
He wanted to say something more. Though he could neither put his own feelings into words perfectly, nor quote some Stephen King or Shakespeare in a second like Dan just did. They had cuddled a couple of times, and when they did, they were either standing or sitting, but never lying. It was probably an opportunity to do so.
‘Fuck off!’ Dan squeaked and giggled simultaneously as Phil’s hand reached his bare shoulder, attempting to cuddle. ‘Don’t touch me with your cold hands, you vampire,’ he complained, but instead of getting rid of Phil’s touch, he pulled Phil into his arms and hold him tightly.
They were so close. Phil could sense that the minute space was filled with the warm air they breathed out. Their foreheads and noses were almost touching each other’s.
Dan imprisoned him so firmly that he couldn’t move his arms too much. The only thing he could do is to place his chilly palms on Dan’s uncovered back. ‘If you don’t want your skin being touched, you should at least wear a T-shirt when you share a bed with other human beings.’
‘I’ve always been a proper gentleman on your bed, but I have my own rule on mine. I wear what I want on my bed. It’s not like you don’t enjoy my outfit right now.’
‘I admit I do, you don’t have to say that though.’ Phil felt his ears heating. ‘Also, I don’t have a gentleman rule for my bed, you know. I don’t mind if you sleep only in a pair of boxers.’
‘Or completely naked?’
‘Or completely naked.’
‘Great. And we’ll discuss more later. Now shut up and sleep.’
*
It had been the longest year and the best year. It had just been so good.