But Love Is Overrated Anyways

Chapter 25: But...

Phil tasted like sweat. There was a saltiness to his lips, and with each kiss Dan tried to decide if he liked the taste or not. Phil's lips were always abnormally warm, like kissing a person with a fever. It was an enjoyable thing, kissing Phil. He always held on in such a soft, caring way, like Dan could move away if he wanted but Phil was still holding him the way he liked.

"You're so cold," Phil whispered sultrily, and if it was anyone else it would have been an insult. But for Dan, it was comfort. He smiled into the kiss.

"Thank you."

They weren't kissing because one of them was hurt, though Phil's arm was still bandaged from the knife wound. Nor were they kissing because they were exhausted, and needed the warmth of another person: instead, they were kissing each other purely for the sake of kissing each other. Kissing someone you cared deeply about was somehow different from kissing someone because they were a warm body.

As they kissed, Dan felt a painful, warm feeling in his stomach that he knew the name of but didn't dare say.

Then they pulled away, letting go of each other to catch their own breaths. Dan's fingers drifted up to his lips, touching them for a moment before wiping his mouth. "Keep going?"

Phil's chest was still rising and falling visibly as he nodded casually, "Yeah."

So Dan hefted his pack and they kept walking.

That's how their days went, every day for almost a week. They cuddled, they spent their time together, they bathed, they kissed, they walked, they slept, not necessarily in that order. They'd gotten into a schedule of sleeping during the night and sleeping during the day, and based on the sun's position in the sky, they were waking up at about the same time every day. It was like clockwork.

They'd gone from a camp of over a dozen people down to just the two of them. They'd lay on the ground and stare up at the sky, and Phil would say something like "What do you think they're doing right now?" Whenever he said something like that, Dan knew that he was talking about the ones who'd left before Eli came. Maybe the others made it. Maybe, something good happened after Emma's throat was slit and Mandy ran out of energy for force fields. Maybe all of their friends didn't suffocate to death.

Dan tried to remember the battle, but all he could really recall was the very end. His last memory of Emma kept flashing before his eyes, the frozen outline of her features in the tar. Then the running. He grabbed Phil's hand and they ran and ran and ran and a girl screamed and they kept running and they were the only ones who ran.

Phil intertwined his hand with Dan's. "Come on. We should head to bed now."

When they were back in the tent, Dan rested his head on Phil's chest. He fell asleep to the feeling of Phil gently stroking his hair.

Everything felt a little strange when he woke up, but then again everything had been feeling strange for a while. They packed up and started walking, continuing north, the way the tent was pointed. Dan felt a little woozy, a little backward, and let Phil be in charge of navigating.

They stopped for lunch and ate the last of their provisions. Dan considering bludgeoning another furry wooden creature to death, but there were none around and he wasn't feeling too well. "Phil, I think I might be sick. My brain feels a little fuzzy, and I have this weird sense of deja vu."

"Hmm. Maybe you ate something?"

Dan looked up at the sky, where the sun was just a little before it's peak. "That's so weird. I thought we'd been walking for a long time, I figured it was past noon already."

"I'll worry about the walking," Phil reassured. "You just focus on getting better."

Whenever Phil said things like that it made Dan's heart feel warmer, actually warmer, and somehow heavier. What with his blackened heart, and the ever constant tug on his stomach from his powers being used somewhere behind them, it was no wonder Dan was disoriented.