Demonic // phan

Fourteen

  Maybe it was the fact that Dan wasn't 'normal', but Phil had become impossibly more infatuated with him.

  It seemed kind of sick, he thought, that he had chosen an inhuman being, a monster of sorts, to devote his life to, but he couldn't say he regretted it. To be honest, he thought it kind of exciting to have a demon as a friend. How many people could actually say that?

  And it made Dan seem sexier, Phil shamefully admitted. He'd always had a sort of dangerous look about him, with all the dark clothes and the ear plugs, but how there was a kind of reason for it.

  He hadn't fully accepted the idea at first, who would? He'd thought it was all some fictional dream, and he was going to wake up at any time, back to his boring life with no Dan and no supernatural things. But Dan had been at his door the next morning, staring at Phil hesitantly. And it had been a relief, really, that Phil wasn't going crazy.

  And he wanted to know everything. Dan always laughed and teased him for asking so many questions, but he always answered. They could spend hours at a time, with Phil just asking question after question, and Dan patiently explaining.

  At the moment, they were in Phil's room, with Phil curled up under the blanket against the cold, and Dan sitting up against his headboard.

"So you can't feel the cold at all?" Phil asked, trying not to let his teeth chatter as he talked. He had on a shirt and a hoodie on under the thick duvet, but he could still feel the brisk air leeching into his skin.

  "Well, I can feel it." Dan answer. "But it doesn't really affect me. Like, I don't need to wear a jacket or anything, and I won't catch a cold."

  "But you wear a jacket anyway." Phil pointed out gesturing to the black leather that covered Dan's arms.

  "Because I look good in it." Dan said, smirking at Phil's eye roll. But he had to admit, Dan did look amazing in black.

  Phil buried his face into his pillow, trying to warm his face against the fabric. His nose had started to go numb from the cold.

  He didn't think it would become a regular thing, having Dan in his bedroom and asking him things about demons. But it was routine by now, and Phil had gotten much too dependent on it.

  "And what about all the myths about demons?" Phil asked, muffled slightly against the pillow. "Holy water and exorcism, and all that. Is any of it true?" He looked up and saw Dan grinning and shaking his head.

  "Are you planning to get rid of me?" he asked in mock disdain.

  "Well, you are kind of annoying..." Phil said, laughing when Dan threw a pillow at him.

  "The theory behind holy water is all wrong." Dan answered. "It doesn't really hurt us, like everyone seems to think, that's vampires."

  "Wait, vampires are real?" Phil asked, sitting up on his elbow and staring at Dan in shock.

  "If I'm real, why wouldn't vampires be real?" Dan reasoned. Phil nodded, reluctantly agreeing. "Now, back to holy water. It's more of  a repellent for us like garlic for thr vamps. If you read the right books, you'll know there are some places we can't even stand because it's been soaked with the stuff. There are lots of churches, too, that are surrounded by it. And if we were to drink it, it would make us very sick, for days at a time. So it's not fatal, but it's not the best experience either. We just try and stay away from it all together."

  Phil nodded, taking in this new information and storing it in his brain. "And the exorcising?" he asked again.

  "Well, that's kind of a touchy subject." Dan said, rubbing his hands against his jeans. "We haven't actually seen one of us get exorcised before, so logically, it isn't something we're too afraid of. But that's like saying, just because you've never read a book, it doesn't exist. And there is some pretty solid background on it, but we just don't know one hundred percent."

  It was kind of surreal, learning everything about this whole sort of species, that actually existed. This was the sort of thing that made up books and movies, and here Phil was, experiencing it in real life.

  Phil shivered again, partly from the cold and partly from the pure adrenaline that was running through him. Dan looked over at him.

  "Are you cold?" he asked.

  Phil smirked. "Yeah, well, not all of us can resist the weather like you can." he said, tugging the blanket tighter around him. Suddenly, the blanket was being pulled from around him, and the cold gusted in, making Phil whine in protest. "What the hell, Dan?"

  "Oh, shut it, and move over." Dan said, sliding in next to Phil under the duvet. He moved closer, until he was pressed right up against Phil, wrapping an arm around him. Phil didn't complain, instead leaning into the warmth of Dan's body. Despite the fact that Dan didn't seem to be affected by the cold, he seemed to retain heat well enough.

  Phil pressed his face into Dan's chest, sighing against the softness of his shirt. He wasn't sure how many moments he'd have like this with Dan, and he cherished every one. He didn't know what they were, what this made them, based on all of the complications in their life, but he could imagine.

  "Dan?" Phil said softly, his fingers curling into Dan's jacket tightly.

  "Yeah?" Dan said, his breath ruffling Phil's hair.

  There was everything in the world that Phil wanted to say, wanted to ask him, each one more important than the last. About him, about his family, about them, but he couldn't pluck up the courage to say it. To say what was really on his mind, because he didn't want to be disappointed.

  He shook his head, breathing in Dan's scent.

  "Nothing."