Phantastic

The beginning

     Phil's POV

I wake up to the sound of Dan playing the piano softly. He does this sometimes when he is stressed or if he's having trouble sleeping. He says it calms him down. I used to be annoyed that it woke me up, until he gave me this information. I have long since asked him to stop.

The soft music dances in the air around me. Lovely. I ask him all of the time to play for me, I love hearing the music, but mostly I just like watching his face as he plays. He gets this tiny crinkle in between his brows, and pouts his lips just a bit.

He loses and finds himself in the music. He used to pretend that piano wasn't that big of a deal to him. But I know differently. I see love in the gentle way he handles his piano. I see adoration when his eyes light up as he speaks of it. 

I find myself up and walking towards the sound. Mesmerized by the gentle tune.

I find Dan seated at the piano. The source of the music at his fingertips. Dan's eyes  are closed and he's wearing that concentrated face of his. I walk slowly over to him, and lightly place my hand on his shoulder.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked him, once he had stopped playing.

"Couldn't slow my mind. Playing helps, though. I gives me something else to focus on." Dan says, turning to face me. There is something behind his eyes that catches my attention. I see those eyes a lot more often than I like. They look almost as though he's got the weight of the world inside of them."I'm sorry I woke you."

"I know Dan, you have nothing to be sorry about." I hate to see him like this. "Come on, lets go watch a movie, or something."

I pull Dan from his place at the piano into the living room, I seat him on the couch and go to make tea. When I come back in the room, I find Dan wrapped in blanket, staring off into space. It's late. Almost one in the morning. I'm tired, but I would never go to sleep, not when Dan needs me.

 I never know exactly what to do when he's like this. We know almost everything about each other, but what Dan doesn't know about me is that I am utterly in love with him. I have been since the moment I saw him. He can never know. It would ruin everything.

I hand him his tea, and we sit in silence for a moment. Dan lays down and pulls his legs up to his chest.

I want so badly to lay down next to him, and fall asleep to the sound of our hearts beating together.

But that could never happen, and the reality of it all nearly kills me.

Dan's POV

I really hadn't meant to wake Phil up, but now that I have, I'm glad that I did. Phil always knows exactly what I need. 

What I really need right now is sleep, but seeing as he couldn't exactly just hand that to me, he's given me the next best thing. Tea and comfort.

Before Phil had come in, I had been thinking a lot about death. I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. The inevitability of it. How nothing changes after you die, and for people with nobody who cares about them, it could be like they never even existed at all.

The whole thing had made me incredibly sad. Thank God Phil came. He can always make me happier. He is the only one who sees me like this. In existential crisis mode. He's also the only person who can help.

I look over at him now to find him staring at me. He has a slightly worried look on his face, and suddenly I feel very guilty.

"I'm okay, Phil. You can go to sleep." I say, even though I know that he would never leave me. This is usually how a night like this goes. I wake him up, he makes tea, and we sit on the couch together until one of us falls asleep.

He gives me a funny look, as if to tell me I'm being dumb.

 "That's okay, I'm not really tired." He tells me. That's a lie and we both know it. Phil likes to sleep. 

I study his face for a minute. He his cheeks are slightly flushed and his hair is messy from sleep. He looks down at the ground for a second, then suddenly looks back up at me. "What were you thinking about before I came in?"

 I have to think about this for a minute. To find the right way to word it without sounding crazy. 

"Phil, there are 100 billion stars in our universe alone. There's almost 8 billion people inhabiting this earth. More than 150,000 people die each day, but the stars never stop coming out. The sun never stops coming up. Time never stops, everything keeps moving. The world doesn't stop, not for anybody or anything." 

I search his eyes for any sign of comprehension. He understands, of course he does. Phil gets me like nobody else ever has. He understands where I'm coming from, and listens to what I have to say. 

Nobody has ever supported me like Phil does. With everything he is. And I support him just the same.

He looks at me for a second, takes in a breath, as if about to speak, then hesitates. 

"My world would stop," He says in a quiet voice, his head down. "If you were gone."

This surprises me. He's never said anything like that to me. I can feel my face going bright red.

"Well, I wouldn't ever have had a world without you." I tell him, equally as quiet.

He looks up at me with a face of utter astoundment, his already flushed cheeks even redder than before. His blue eyes wide and piercing. I remember the first time I had seen them, and thought that you could swim in them. They look at me now with great amazement.  And, with that look I am overcome by the strangest sensation. I want to be closer to him. Both physically and emotionally. The feeling scares me. It has since the first time I felt it, back when we first met in person. 

I reach over and turn off the lights. "Goodnight Phil, thank you for being here."

I hear him settle himself of the other side of the couch. "Goodnight Dan."

And thats how we fall asleep. With me on one side of the couch and him on the other, our feet tangled together. I'm lulled to sleep to the sound of Phil's even breaths, and for once I have no dreams.