my freudian slip - phan

xxiv.

It doesn't start to become real to them until the project starts.

Work isn't that hard but it takes hours to stay focused, to get a bit done with a touch or a look between.

"Would you date a boy?" Dan asks on Phil's bed, laying on his stomach with his English book underneath his head. Not being allowed through the front door and the locks on them– Dan knows things haven't changed.

"I don't know," Phil fidgets, and the topic is switched with a page turn and we need to focus, so Dan backs off.

The kisses are enough, he decides.

They start together, Dan catches Phil in his lips after a little compliment, an I like your hair. He had straightened it today, discarded the wax for an iron, burning the tips off, but proud in the frays.

I like your hair, and Phil stretches a hand out like it's an exotic animal to touch, and Dan smiles, feels his insides tingle with nerves. It isn't the same as when the woman did it, he decides, but he can't really figure out why it's different.

I like when you do that, Dan says, ignoring his past, cheeks burning. I like when he compliments me, Dan thinks. When she had done that to him it was always followed by a fuck, now that he thinks about it. This is different.

It's so you, Phil twirls between his thumb and index, it frames your face really well.

Dan trusts his cue, and looks at him, testing the lashes with his– until they touch.

They're like butterflies dancing.

That's how the kisses start, like two insects lost in an open road.

And they don't talk about dating again. The touches stay in their rooms and behind city buildings, not school– never school.

They find it sick that it seems that with every slip of the hand it only slips a knot tighter to their hearts, a kiss birthing pressure only to what the kids at school think.

"I hate having to pretend I don't know give a shit about you in school." Phil says one day, when work wasn't getting done, yet again.

Dan doesn't say the obvious. He stays in his bounds. "Yeah, me too."

"It's all me huh?"

He breathes out a sigh. "It's okay, really."

"I hate this. I hate me."

Dan laughs. "Me too. Ergh, who are we?"

It's Phil's turn to laugh. "Just a walking disaster."