Misfit (Phan AU)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

*Dan's POV*

I didn't want to leave. Not when I woke up this morning swathed in blankets with Phil's arms around me, not even when I sat at the coffee shop watching Janice hang off of him, and certainly not now that we were pulled up in front of my apartment building. I didn't want to admit that the day really was drawing to a close, that even after all of that, we would have to go our separate ways in the end.

I didn't know what to say, I wasn't sure if I could say anything without giving away how miserable I really was about the whole arrangement. I'd hardly adjusted to falling asleep without him the first time around, but now that I'd had another taste of what it was like, I wasn't entirely confident that I'd be able to manage without it. No, I didn't want to leave, but I wanted him to leave even less.

"Well, here we are." He announced, like that much hadn't been made blatantly obvious over the course of the past minute, where we sat in silence contemplating how to make conversation. I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip in an effort to keep from saying anything I might regret, anything he might not receive well. Things had been so good between us, almost painfully perfect, and I was terrified of messing that up again.

"Looks like it." I agreed, deciding to go along with the poor attempt at communication he'd offered. If it'd been earlier, I likely would have called him out and made a joke out of how nervous he was being, but it felt like there was a lot more at stake now. I didn't want to say the wrong thing and ruin everything that had gone right.

I started to gather my belongings, hardly registering the action until I looked down and went to grab the stuffed animal he'd won for me. I clutched it to my chest, my heart racing as I thought back on the memory, as fresh as it was in my mind. I don't know what I was thinking when I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek like that.

Sure, it wasn't the first time we'd shown affection like that, but it was the first time it'd happened so genuinely. There were no other emotions raging so strongly inside of me that I could pass it off as a thoughtless impulsive decision. I thought it out so deeply in those few seconds it took me to reach my decision that I worried my brain might explode, yet I still went through with it in the end.

I couldn't brush it off like I'd been able to any other time either, when I tried to act casual afterward it just hadn't worked. It was the way he looked at me, utterly awestruck and eyes dancing with gratitude like I'd granted every single one of his wishes, I felt too high on life to play it off as anything less than what it was. And we both knew what it was, there wasn't a chance in hell of either of us being stubborn enough to label that embrace as platonic.

It was overwhelmingly and obviously romantic, and yet he acted like he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I'd been trying so hard not to jump to conclusions about how he felt, mostly in fear of setting my hopes too high, but then he goes and does something like that. How was I supposed to interpret that? Was there any way other than the obvious to interpret that?

I looked over at him, a million questions on the tip of my tongue that I was still far too scared to ask. I didn't end up saying anything at first, simply studied his features in the limited lighting provided by the moonlight and wondered where we were headed from here. Things were looking up, for the first time in a long time, and I could hardly handle the thought that they might get even better.

A smile spread across my lips before I could ward it away, lazy despite the fact it was trespassing on my face, taking a few seconds to fully stretch across my cheeks and reach my eyes. Suddenly, I was grinning so wide I could hardly make out his expression through my squinted eyes, but I didn't mind. It was probably better I couldn't see him for what I was about to ask next, just in case. "Did you want to come up? I could make you supper or something."