Messages (Phan fiction)

Chapter 9

Dan was still asleep when I woke up in the early morning, snoring softly into my ear, his arms lazily draped around my middle. 
I smiled at his sleepy face; he honestly looked like some kind of angel, lying there his face all relaxed, a small almost unnoticeable pout on his pink, oh so kissable lips. 
Dan looked so innocent and child-like like that, and it weirdly made me want to protect him from everything bad and evil in the world.

If he had felt the same as me right now, I couldn’t even think of blaming him for watching me sleeping the day before. 
It was such an interesting thing to do; and it also made my heart flutter. Whenever some little noise escaped his mouth, I just wanted to squeal  and shower him with loads of kisses.

However,  I stayed where I was, not moving in fear of waking him up; he really needed the sleep. After all, how exhausted must he have felt the day before, finding me all beaten up and crying. 
If his feelings for me were even slightly as deep as mine for him, I couldn’t even think of how it must have broken his heart as he found me. 
I tried to imagine myself in the situation he had been, but even only thinking about Dan being beaten up by some stupid blokes, made my eyes brim with tears. 

I swallowed hard and carefully raised one of my arms from Dan and wiped away the tears that were spilling out of my eyes. 
Burring my head softly into Dan’s chest, breathing in his calming scent, I gradually calmed down again.
Dan’s okay. No one’s going to hurt him. He’s perfectly fine.
I repeated those words over and over in my mind until I felt rather normal again, my eyes free of tears. 

I mentally shook my head at myself. I was just being stupid sometimes. Panicking at the simple thought of Dan being hurt. But maybe that only showed how much I really cared for him. How much he really meant to me. 
How much I really loved him? 

Did I love Dan?
I for sure had some pretty deep feelings for him, as the previous event had just shown, but was it love? What even was love? How was I, a 16-year-old boy, supposed to know what love was? 
The only thing I knew, was that Dan made me happier than anyone else had ever managed before and that I never wanted to spend another day without him anymore.
Was that what love was about? Not wanting to be separated from the other? 

I sighed, my head hurting from all the thinking, as another question swirled around my head. 
What did all of this make me and Dan? Platonic friends, that just were a little bit too cuddly? Friends with benefits? Or even boyfriends? 
My heart started beating faster, thinking about the last one. 
However, a wave of disappointment washed over me soon enough. 
Everyone in school thought he was a completely straight womanzier, and probably even that he was disgusted by gay people, as most of the other popular people were. 
He would never run around in school, hand in hand with me. I couldn’t blame him though.
If I could choose between staying popular or maybe getting beaten up every other day because of my sexuality, I wouldn’t choose the second one either. 

I flinched as I suddenly felt a hand on my forehead, softly trying to smooth the wrinkles that were showing due to all my thinking. 
“It’s not even 7 o’clock yet, what are you thinking about already?”, Dan’s sleepy (and I may add, extremely sexy) voice sounded in my ear.
I turned my head, glancing over at his face, his eyes already closing again and I gently took his hand into mine. 
“Dan, what does this make us?”, I mumbled, hardly audible, drawing patterns onto the back of his hand, looking anywhere but his eyes. 

“What do you mean?”, he yawned, popping himself up onto his elbows to have better look at me. 
“Like, are we just friends? Or maybe more. I don’t know. I’m not exactly an expert in things like that”, explained, sounding rather desperate towards the end. 
“Phil..”, Dan began, moving one hand to my chin, tilting up my head, as he noticed I wasn’t properly looking at him. “Phil”, he started again, staring right into my blue eyes now, “How can you possibly have any doubt in me wanting to be in a relationship with you?”