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Phil was sleeping peacefully on his back and Dan laid his head down next to him, his eyes tracing the older boy's delicate profile as he slept. He listened to the steady rhythm of Phil’s breath entering and exiting his body and felt his heat radiating off his form. He wasn’t what Dan had expected, Dan realized this more the longer they’d spent together. What he’d expected had been flirty and bouncy, as though his online persona was his constant. But his Phil was even better. He could be domineering or sweet. He could be funny or exhausted, and never, ever one-note. And in every state, he liked Dan. That was the best part.
Phil told his secrets to no one else anymore, it seemed. All the while as they played video games and made dumb jokes, they’d ramble at each other. Dan felt a sort of sick pleasure in Phil telling him his nerves about his degrees and loans, like they were connected also in their insecurity about the future.
Phil turned over in his sleep, his mouth partly hanging open and eyelids fluttering. He’d be awake soon, Dan knew, but he wanted him sooner. Dan moved his weight onto his hands and moved up the bed to butt his head forward and lightly knock their foreheads together. When Phil did nothing but crinkle his brow, Dan slid his smooth cheek down Phil’s stubbly one. When he pulled back Phil reached up and scratched the spot in blind, helpless confusion. Dan giggled lightly.
“Phil,” he whispered, lowering himself back into resting his head on his pillow.
“Mm,” Phil moaned as he still resisted consciousness.
“Phil,” Dan tried again, extending his L long enough to annoy even himself.
“Mmmm.” Phil finally blinked open his eyes and was met with Dan’s blurry outline.
“Aren’t you glad you asked me to stay the night?” Dan joked self-deprecatingly.
Phil was quiet for a moment, letting his brain break out of the fuzzy space of his dreams. “Always.” Phil’s morning voice was rough and manly in a way Dan was always fascinated by. He loved how different it was from his sweet persona he had with friends, or even the joking tone he took on later in the day. This voice was just for him, for these fleeting moments between them.
Dan hummed happily and scooted in further, forcing Phil’s arms to his sides so he could rest his head on Phil’s chest.
“Wish you’d stay over more,” Phil mentions, closing his eyes again and hoping he’d be allowed to fall back to sleep for a while longer.
“Liar.”
“Not a lie.”
Dan felt no semblance of Phil’s fatigue but instead was wide awake. This casual prospect took him over for a moment. He felt no pull towards anything like he did towards his partner. He had no desire to sit alone in his dorm room. His only desires right now lived here, in this apartment. In this bed.
“Do you– What do you think you’re gonna do next year?” Dan asked. They’d discussed a few possibilities, but he knew what he wanted to hear.
“Don’t know,” Phil said with candor, still hoping to go back to sleep. His head was more than ready to settle back into slumber with Dan’s comfortable weight relaxing him. “Hopefully move out of here.”
Dan frowned. “Then where will I go?”
Phil rolled over so Dan would be beneath him rather than on top. Having realized Dan would continue prodding no matter how tired Phil appeared, Phil gave in. As he always did. “With me, of course.”
Dan blushed as Phil leaned down to leave a stubble-forward kiss on his mouth. “Scratchy!” Dan yelped into Phil’s mouth as he deepened the kiss.
“Whisk you away from that law degree, you can blame it all on me.” Phil pressed the side of his face down onto Dan’s and rubbed down hard to use the stubbly growth further.
“Evil man!” Dan shouted and tried to turn away, but Phil had braced his arms on either side of Dan’s head and there was nowhere to go.
“What would your mother think?” Phil joked, pulling away to look down at the ravaged boy. “At least she could blame the degree on me, then. The beard burn… also me.” He thought for a moment, trying to find something to blame Dan for but ultimately found himself incapable.
Dan reached up and mussed Phil’s hair, turning the fringe into more of a disastrous mohawk.
“Yeah, you’re coming with me,” Phil sighed and collapsed next to Dan again.
Dan turned over so they could look at each other properly. “Evil, evil man. Guess I have to follow you around to keep you in line. What if you were let loose on an undeserving party?”
“You should just move in,” Phil said. He reached out and grabbed Dan’s waist to pull him closer until they were nose to nose. “Keep me in line all you’d like.”
Phil’s deep voice drew forward visions of last night’s activities. Dan almost shuddered.
“We’d be impossible living together. Nothing would ever get done.” Dan was playing it up. All the arguments they’d discussed already, all of them dull and unimportant next to the beautiful fantasy of this. Constantly together like this.
Phil pulled Dan’s waist once more until Dan was laying on top of him, hugging him close like a teddy bear. “It’d be great.”
When Dan opened his mouth to answer Phil reached up and gently covered it. When Dan closed it he relaxed and tilted his head back while shutting his eyes. Dan’s warmth and weight felt like a lovely blanket. He let this lull him back under. Dan could hear as Phil’s breath evened to its previous rate, and his heart beat slowly but steadily against his own. Dan let himself picture it again. Phil’s offer fresh in his mind, even made in jest, always conjured up the same image.
In his mind Dan saw Phil folding laundry while watching Buffy, meanwhile Dan was making dinner in a tiny kitchen. He saw a cozy bed, less lumpy than the current one they lay in. He saw himself arriving home from school to Phil on the couch, already having ordered take out for them both. A simple life of two. Could life be as simple as wanting something and deciding to have it?
“Phil,” Dan said again.
“You want me to be exhausted today, don’t you?” Phil joked but opened his eyes nonetheless.
“Where are we going to live?” Dan looked away and smiled into Phil’s chest.
Phil’s reply was beaming, however, and Dan didn’t need to see it to know his face matched. “One of those high rises. So we can see the whole town.”
“What if we get an apartment too low?”
“We’ll pretend.”
“And what will we do in our apartment?” Dan gripped at Phil’s exposed ribs.
“Whatever we want.” Phil ran one hand through Dan’s hair. It had retained some curls after his shower last night and it felt soft as anything before he straightened it or put any product in.
“Sounds nice,” Dan relented and left a kiss in the sparse hair of Phil’s chest.
“It will be.” Phil thought for a moment, pulled himself through the draw of sleep, and realized what had been said. “So.”
“Hm?”
“You agree?”
“What?”
“To live together?” Phil laughed at the turn the conversation had taken. Was this what they called pillow talk?
Dan blinked, recognizing he’d come to the decision even without being aware of it. How could he even think the answer might have been no? There was no other decision. He looked down, looked at the door leading to the apartment he knew as well as his own dorm. Would life be so different in so many ways besides more joy? More mornings like this?
“Duh.”
Phil kissed him on the head and scoffed. “Duh,” he said mockingly. “You idiot.”