Dan sat casually in his browsing position on the sofa, the one Phil insisted they take to the new flat, while his spine begged for mercy. The Tumblr extravaganza he had taken to viewing numbed his obvious back pain caused by the sofa crease, enabling him to continue browsing into oblivion.
That is, until an entirely manly, child-like screech of terror was heard from the bathroom, which initially made him panic for both his and his flat mate's safety, but then made him smirk. Did his prank succeed? Did he even set up a prank? Honestly, he had been living with the dork for more than half a decade; his pranking quota had become a blur.
He groaned as he heard stumbling, clumsy footsteps hustling down the stairs, every few steps allowing a strained gasp to escape. The lanky figure in the hall skidded, hit a wall, and narrowly avoided slipping onto his ass before barrelling into the lounge.
Dan shut his laptop and stared past his curly mass of Hobbit hair at the red-faced former ginger. "Phil-l-l-l..."
"Dan...spider...shower," Phil managed to huff while his lungs pulsed and begged for air. Dan allowed his eyes to take the somewhat pathetic sight in, and noticed what he failed to do so before.
Phil's entire body was exposed, and he looked even paler in the sunlight. His chest heaved, and water droplets cascaded down his arms and legs onto the carpet. His hair was pushed into his face for the first time in a week, and Dan marvelled at the fringe he had grown to love, and miss over the past week or so. In his haste to escape the nasty eight-legged fiend in his shower, he had grabbed a hand towel to cover his intimate region.
Dan sighed reluctantly, and hoisted himself out of the depths of his Sofa Crease™.
"Let's 'a go."
Phil nodded and spun on his heels, revealing a taut butt to a slightly embarrassed Dan. "Jesus fucking Christ, Phil!"
He shook his head with a timid smirk. "No time for modesty—this beast needs to die."
Dan trailed after Phil up the steep stairs, his reddened face growing more crimson by the second. Once they reached the top of Mount Everest, they were heaving and hacking on account of being horrendously unfit.
Phil's eyes widened, and he stared at his housemate with a whisper. "In there."
Dan looked where Phil was pointing and it literally looked like a rhinoceros had escaped and stampeded through the apartment. Apparently, his lack of coordination had caused him to slam into the bannister, and resulted in yet another dent. Well, he didn't expect to get the deposit back anyway.
The taller man walked lazily into 'the bedroom,' picked up one of Phil's checkered shoes amongst the fallen tornado of clothes, and walked back into the hallway.
Phil looked like he was going to shit his pants over a spider, but who could blame him? Spiders are scary as diddly heck.
With a small inhale and a stalled exhale, Dan flung open the door to the bathroom and pierced the air with his "manly" battle cry. He hit every wall at least twice, before looking down. There, on the floor, was the grotesque beast.
It was smaller than an American quarter, probably as big as a penny, and was basically trembling in fear at the existential mess stood before it. It only took one light slap to the linoleum floor to completely annihilate the poor thing. He ran the shoe under the tap to get rid of the guts of the itsy bitsy spider before walking out to face Phil, who had grown even paler.
"For fuck's sake, Phil," he murmured, straightening his sloppy fringe with his hands. "The thing was, like, the size of a Nintendo cartridge."
"Don't mock me, it was in the heat of the moment," his lower lip trembled with cold.
Dan sighed again, and took the raven-haired boy's hand in his. "Okay, c'mon, you're gonna die of hypothermia if we don't get you warm."
Phil shook his head. "Haven't shampooed my hair yet."
He blew at his curly locks, which had fallen into his face during his fit of warrior like agility, and shrugged. "I guess I could go for a shower."
"What? You want to shower, together?" Phil snickered, staring into Dan's hazel eyes. "You sap."
"Shut up!" Dan blew air between his teeth and guided Phil into the bathroom. "Let's go before I change my mind, Lester. Besides, who else is gonna protect you if another pea-sized spider attacks?"
Phil's eyes sparkled and he turned the water back on, scanning the room for any more eight legged monsters. All he found was his emo monster of a boyfriend, gesturing at him to turn around.
"Um, you know we've been dating for over four years, right?" He laughed, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth.
Dan rolled his eyes and flushed pink. "Yeah, but I don't go around staring at your mini Phil!"
"Well, there was that time last week—"
"Philip Michael Lester, that was private." He groaned and stomped at the tile.
Phil smirked and turned around per Dan's slightly odd request. "I'm sure the FBI man ships it, Daniel."
He heard a heap of clothes hit the floor, and the struggle of Dan trying to escape his skinny jeans, before being met with silence. He turned around and, despite his breath getting hitched several times in his throat as he tried to speak, he nonchalantly shrugged.
"That's underwhelming."
Dan stood there, stark naked, and scoffed. "Exc-u-u-u-se me, I'm a Greek god!"
"Debatable. Okay, before the water heater decides to give way," Phil giggled and reached out to take his lover's hand and lead him into the shower.
The hot water hit their bodies in a refreshing way, like when you sit by the furnace after being outside in the snow. Water dribbled off their curves in tandem, which the embraced the warmth of. Soon enough, their hair was completely soaked, leaving Dan's in a wet recreation of his former fringe and Phil's in an downward caret shape on his forehead. Little beads of water moved down his brow line, getting caught by his eyelashes. Dan laughed, seeing Phil's piercing blue eyes squint up with slight irritation at the water.
Dan squirted a bit of shampoo into his palm, and proceeded to massage the soapy substance into Phil's dark black locks. His hair now appeared to be grey rather than jet black, and his smile grew when he saw Dan's growing grin.
"Hey, Dan?" Phil asked through the stream of water down his cheek.
"Hmm?" Came the dazed reply from Dan, who had become lost in domestic thought.
"How to mermaids use the toilet?" He casually asked, in a singsongy whisper while tracing over Dan's collarbone with a soapy loofah.
Dan seriously pondered this question, thinking through ever possible thing to deal with Phil's query. "Perhaps through their belly button? Or maybe they have, like, pore in their tails? I'll Google it after this."
"I'm more accurate than Google, ya know," Phil swayed his hips mockingly. Dan furrowed his brow.
"You're on. How do...how do snails breathe, Phil? Only one right answer."
"Through...through their snoses!" He clapped and finger gunned at his boyfriend.
Dan screeched in defeat and threw his hands up. "God damnit! How the hell did you know?! Okay, how did you get that?"
Phil giggled in his particularly cheeky way, his tongue sticking out of his mouth again. "PINOF, remember? Plus, I'm in love with a total spork, that's how!"
"Ugh, you're the spork," Dan continued rinsing Phil's hair of the soap. Occasionally, he'd sneak a kiss on the nose, which didn't bother Phil in the slightest. He found the gestures sweet and innocent, just like most of their relationship. If not innocent, it was tender. He brushed Phil's hair from his face again, and had to stifle his laughter. "Phil, there's soap on your glabella."
Phil, of course, laughed and allowed Dan to rinse the soap from between his eyebrows, pausing only to poke his dimple or evilly tickle his neck.
Eventually, the water turned cold and they both yelped at the sudden rush of icy water hitting their exposed skin. Dan nearly killed himself getting out of the shower, and helped Phil as he was known to be even clumsier. They dried off a bit before making a run for the bedroom they shared, where the heater was on, so they could get dressed.
Both Dan and Phil opted to wear one another's clothes rather than their own. Phil chose Dan's stringy potato sack jumper, grey and black plaid bottoms, and the slippers he had almost made into a midday snack in the "Getting Over It" gaming video. Dan decided to don his boyfriend's emoji pyjama bottoms, "Adventure Time" Jake the Dog hoodie, and mismatched socks. Sure, to outsiders, they might look like an uncoordinated mess; but to themselves, they looked exquisite.
They crawled under Phil's duvet, on top of which Dan's black and white pillows had been dropped the morning previous, and cuddled, watching angry Shiba Inu videos off of Dan's Instagram explore page.
A day in the life of an especially odd couple, hidden in plain sight.