Happily Ever After

Pillow Forts and Ghibli Movies

     "Come one, Dan, please just get over here." Phil's voice rang out across the apartment, exasperated as Dan sulked around in his room for the umpteenth time this week.

     A loud groan is all that responded, a groan that gained volume until Dan's head appeared around the corner of the wall. "Why? I'm so tired, Phil, I just want to sl---

     what the hell is this?"

     The entire room looked as though a six-year old had been fed ten cans of cool-whip and then had been set loose to do as they pleased. The couch was completely devoid of cushions, as they had all been set up in front of the television like some sort of makeshift fort. The lights in the room were dimmed, with the main source of light coming from a sickly green honest-to-god lava lamp in the center of the room. Dan recognized the spare sheets and pillows from their linen closet, all strewn about the fort, making up the roof and back of the small fort, which looked like it could fit maybe four and a half tiny children, and perhaps one and a half grown ones.

     Right amidst the chaos, all glowy and excited, sat Phil. His face appeared gaunt and ill as an effect of the lamp, which sat on a garden brick a few feet behind him. "Well don't just stand there, come join me in our fort," he said, staring up at Dan as if nothing was weird about the contents of the room they were currently in. Dan took one more look around the area, thought what the hell, and sat down in fron of the tv.

     "No, you have to get inside of it, Dan, that's the whole point of a fort."

     "Why did you do all of this, anyway?" Dan inquired. "And I hope you don't expect me to clean all of this up when you're finished."

     "Well, you were being all moody and sad again, and I don't like when you do that, so I was trying to think of ways to make you happy, and I remembered you talking about how much you used to love pillow forts, and how you wished you could build one again, so voila," he said, and wwith so much sincerity and excitement that Dan couldn't help but smile.

     "Did I say that?" he asked, looking across at his flat-mate.

     "Well, you may have implied it at some point in time, but hey, it's done, so get inside," Phil responded, climbing inside of the half-assed fort and patting the space next to him. Sighing, Dan complied, attempting to crawl inside of the fort next to his friend. Their arms brushed together, and Dan was starting to realize exactly how small the thing actually was, noticing in great detail how the entire left side of his body was resting practically on top of the right side of Phil's. It felt nice.

     "So, what exactly did you expect us to do in here, Phil?"

     "Oh yeah! I nearly forgot about that." Phil slid out of the fort, told Dan to close his eyes for a second, and placed a disc into the DVD player, turning on the television and angling it so that it was clearly visible from beneath the amalgamation of pillows and sheets. He grabbed the TV remote and slid back in next to Dan, accidentally elbowing him in the face during the process. Once they were situated, and once Phil had apologized at least five times for the reckless elbowing, he told his fort-mate to open his eyes.

     "Howl's Moving Castle? Are you actually serious? You called me in here from the comfort of my dark, somber room, to watch a Studio Ghibli movie? In a haphazard pillow fort?" Dan sounded slightly agitated, and Phil looked down in shame. "That's the absolute greatest thing anyone has ever done for me." Phil's head lifted a bit, and he took in all at once Dan's sparkling eyes and wide smile, and he felt himself beginning to grin as well.

     "So you're not mad?" Phil asked cautiously.

     "No, you twat," Dan answered, laughing. "You know this is one of my favourite films. But I thought you said you couldn't find it when you went out the other day?"

     "And I couldn't! But just yesterday I decided to check at the little secondhand shop around the corner, and they had it there for only £6, so I bought it there. I wanted to watch it yesterday, but you seemed to be in a mood, so I thought I'd wait a bit."

     "Damn, we should go there more often. But enough chit-chat, let's get this show started. You start the movie, and I'll go make some popcorn." With that, Dan walked to the kitchen and when he came back, he had to stop and stare in awe at the sight of his best friend, on the floor, smiling happily at the screen before him. He truly is beautiful he thought, smiling softly. He shook his head at the thought, and walked back to the fort, settling in to watch what, in his opinion, was the best love story ever told in the history of romance movies.

     The minutes flew by, with Dan and Phil giggling at every small joke, oohing and aahing at all the appropriate times, throwing popcorn both at the screen and at each other. It was the best night that Dan had had in quite a while, and when Howl was over, they popped in My Neighbor Totoro because, as Phil so eloquently put it, "You can't just watch one and not the other, Dan, that's just blasphemy!" About halfway through Totoro, Dan leaned over to make a comment on the animation quality, only to hear soft snoring in response. Glancing over, Dan could see Phil's head was down, resting on his arm. His face was squished against his arms and Dan couldn't help but laugh softly at the sight. Phil's eyes were closed, and his mouth was open slightly.

     Dan, after staring admirably at the lovely sleeping man next to him, turned his attention back to the movie. Not even five minutes later, Phil started to shiver to the point that he was snuggling up against Dan's side for warmth. With Phil pinning him down, Dan couldn't move enough to grab a blanket without waking him, and so he settled for wrapping his arms gently around the other boy, and carefully moving so that both were lying in a somewhat-more-comfortable position beneath the fort.

     In this new position, Phil's face was buried in Dan's chest, his head resting on the younger boy's arm, the other of which was wrapped gently but firmly around Phil's waist. Dan's face was full of black hair, but he didn't mind it one bit. He inhaled deeply, and basked in the familiar scent of his home, of their home.

     Dan thought back to the times before he was "Danisnotonfire," back to when he thought he was just another emo kid who was in love with a youtuber he had never met, who he thought would never notice him. He thought about how annoying he had been, tweeting Phil constantly and commenting on every one of his videos twenty thousand times, and he wondered how in the hell did this happen to me? How did this wonderful man, this angel of a human being, decide that he would talk to me, of all the people in the world. How did I become the lucky one? He constantly was trying to wrap his brain around the fact that he was here, living in the same building, breathing the same air, as his YouTube hero. He marveled at how far he had come since 2009, at how far they had come, and he squeezed Phil more tightly to himself, feeling finally content with his life.

     "I love you, you fucking nerd," he murmured into Phil's ear as he turned the TV and the DVD player off, unplugging the lava lamp—which he still didn't understand why it was there or what importance it had—and settled in for the wonderful night of rest.

     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     When Phil woke up the next morning, he was surprised to find himself wrapped around his roommate. Their legs were intertwined, and their arms tangled around one another's bodies. But Phil didn't mind. He smiled knowingly to himself and laid his head back down against Dan's chest, and drifted off to sleep, because what better way to spend your mornings than wrapped totally and completely around the boy you love?