Waiting, Wishing

Dan sat cross-legged on the couch, waiting for Phil to come home. It was the 26th of December and an assortment of mismatched mugs sticky with wine cluttered the dining room table, the remnants of a happy yesterday. Dan had never had Christmas without his family before. It seemed fitting that his first Christmas away from home was spent with Phil's friends, with Phil.

Dan didn't feel homesick, though he felt guilty about how easily he shed his family, his past, like old clothes.

He had been in love with Phil for a long time. He didn't call it love, though.

Last night, when the guests had left, Phil extricated a crushed mistletoe sprig from his back pocket and held it above their heads. He smiled shyly and waited. Dan obediently stepped forward and leaned in.

(They had flirted for half a year, now, mostly over the internet)

Phil closed his eyes.

When Dan was so close that he could feel Phil's breath tickling his lips, Dan stole the mistletoe and hopped back. He waved it teasingly. "You gotta work for the booty, Phillip." He backed into the hallway. "Catch me."

Dan felt like he was stepping off a precipice; his heart was hammering. He grinned recklessly.

"There's nowhere you can run." Phil replied. "It's inevitable."

And then Dan stepped into his bedroom and Phil hesitated at the door.

Dan casually sat down on the bed and looked up at Phil through his eyelashes. "Scared?" It didn't come out as confident as he had hoped. Dan casually set the mistletoe sprig to his lips.

Phil sat down next to Dan. It was as if everything was made of the thinnest crystal ice, he was so careful.

"Maybe we should talk..."

"As a wise man once told me..." Dan smirked. "YOLO."

Phil rolled his eyes as Dan leaned in and they were kissing, politely, slowly, to keep from plunging into deep water. Phil took one hand off the bedspread to touch Dan's face. Their eyes smiled into each other's and Dan found himself blinking back unexpected tears.

Jesus Christ, he thought. What's wrong with me?

Dan possessed a brand of cynicism that didn't sell well in high school. He didn't know where it came from, just that one day he was a boy, and the next he was bittersweet, at best.

It was probably the internet, he decided. Maybe, on his ceaseless quest for distraction, he'd watched too much loveless porn. He had seen cock in too many angles. He'd seen it dripping between thighs and fondled by claws, cat cock and whale cock and alien cock ripe from someone's sickest fantasies. When he was young, he clicked on every link, and if what he saw made him scream and fall out of his chair, he always dusted himself off, and laughed, and stared at it until it didn't make him feel anything anymore. He'd seen a man stick a gun in his mouth and blow his brains out in black and white, no special effects, murder turned meme; he'd seen a woman stomp her stilettos over and over again into a kitten that mewled in paroxysms of animal weakness. The world was weird and harsh and nothing was ever new. Nothing felt precious.

And nothing he saw was ever distracting enough...

He tried to explain it to his friends, but they didn't get it. They liked it when he made them laugh, but these observations he made had no punch line. Observations like, "They have kids up on Britain's Got Talent, ten years old, singing their little lungs out about love, and it's the stupidest thing. What do those kids know about love anyway? " I'm eighteen, he wanted to say, and I don't even know what it's about. "You okay?" they asked. Or, "Yeah, that's pretty funny." And then they changed the topic.

But when Dan told Phil, Phil had smiled. "Well of course you won't know what love is unless you try it, Dan Howell," he'd said.

(And Dan had replied with something like, "Shut up, I have tried it...all night with your mum.")

But, no, Dan didn't understand it. There was something sad about existence that he could not place. Maybe because his entire life paced about the confines of his own skull, lonely and unrecognized. He was too weird when he was himself, his friends decided. They liked him when he didn't overthink all the time. He certainly had a penchant for trivialities. "Crazy emo Dan who can't shut up," they said. They were killing him. The whole world was, with its innocent obliviousness.

("Why do you look so sad?" people asked,

and Dan could not articulate...the feeling...)

But Phil said, "Bacteria!" and laughed maniacally with his tongue stuck out on crowded buses and did not give a fuck. Phil grabbed his hand when he was scared and put his head on Dan's shoulder when he was tired and hugged Dan when he felt like hugging Dan and Phil did not think anything of it.

Dan was letting Phil unbutton his shirt. He ran the mistletoe in a long line from neck to belly button and Phil followed its path with kisses that made Dan shiver and dig his fingers into Phil's shoulders.

The quietest tears trickled down the corners of Dan's eyes and settled around his ears. He was glad that Phil was so preoccupied, ear pressed against Dan's stomach. "Your tummy's so comfortable, Dan. I could lie here forever."

"You're doing it wrong!" Dan jeered. "Take off your shirt! Jesus, get naked!"

"Telling Jesus to get naked!"

Dan stripped quickly and matter-of-factly. He tugged at the waistband of Phil's boxers and watched them slide down Phil's long legs, dangle about his ankles. It was so difficult to look at Phil, because Phil made him feel things, and it was so difficult not to look as well. Phil tackled Dan in a fierce hug, pushing him down under his body, and Dan was hyper-aware of skin touching skin for the first time, as Phil settled on top of him.

Half of him wanted to run as far away as possible. And the other half... He buried his face in Phil's chest. Their bodies slid against each other and Dan knew it was only a matter of time.

Time...

Not that he cared.

"Dan?"

"Hm?"

"I love you." Phil poked a dimple.

"Hmm." A noncommittal, shaky hum.

Phil pressed a kiss to Dan's forehead and did not press the matter.

It was only a matter of time.

AN: I've been reading my old fic from two years ago and it makes me cringe. Don't read them please. When summer vacation comes around, I'll be updating and fixing them. :) Happy days~!