In Your Dreams // phan

t h i r t y s e v e n

Dan nuzzled into my neck, breathing deeply, his heart beat slowing against my chest. I kept pressing my lips against anything that was covered in his skin; neck and throat and Adam's apples and earlobes and that soft part that was next to his eye. I kept thinking that same thought; I can't control what I do around him.

But I loved the way his body felt pressed against mine. What time was it? The thought was in the back of my mind. I didn't care if it was eight o'clock or midnight or three in the morning. All I wanted to do was stay here. Forever. Holding him. I didn't want to go to school ever again. If we ever got up I wanted to go dancing. I wanted him to suggest we play video games and then ignore them, touching him places only I was allowed to touch him; ribs and navels and thighs and lips. I never, ever wanted to be apart from him.

He looked up, his wide eyes full of desire, full of light, full of needs that only I was allowed to satisfy. He kissed me like he had done so many times, yet it was never the same as before, keeping me on my toes. My heart still fluttered. My breath still hitched. I still wanted to hold him closer and closer until we were one body, one mind, one soul. I was drunk with the night. I was high off the proximity to my true love. There was a thin piece of twine holding me in reality; one tug and it would snap, and I'd be lost in desire and lust and want and need.

But I did nothing but kiss him back, tongues without permission, hands where they shouldn't be, legs trespassing on no man's land but neither of us would complain because we were too lost, too tangled in twine.

Dan still didn't want to go to sleep but he made very small actions to prevent it; when his eyes would become heavy he'd nuzzle closer to me, kissing me, as if my lips were caffeine. I was exhausted but Dan and I were battling, I wasn't going to let him watch me fall asleep. And he wasn't going to before I did. So we were stuck, but in the best kind of way.

Dan was happy, and he didn't have to say it. I could feel it. In the way he couldn't stop smiling, softly, sleepily when I kissed him. In the way he faced the night, unafraid, not asking me if there were any more nightmares to come. In the way he stood, the way he breathed. The way he lead me as we danced to a cheesy song that played in the background of our favourite video game. I used that term lightly of course; I couldn't, for the life of me, even remember ever playing it.

I had no control over my mouth. I had no control over the things I kissed with it and the words I formed with it. I tried to stop saying words, so many words, sentences that didn't make sense, something about love and desire and loneliness and fulfillment. He just hummed in response, shifting so I had better access to the hard-to-reach spots; collar bones and shoulders and the soft, tender flesh just below his chin.

I tried to keep my lips busy on his body but words kept slipping out. I meant what I said; drunk words are sober thoughts. I didn't think Dan heard half of it, or understood the other half. I tried so hard to keep the words to a minimum and let my actions speak instead. But my sober thoughts kept slipping.

"I want to spend my future with you," I mumbled against his throat. He moaned in response, lifting his chin so I had better access. I couldn't bite, I couldn't suck too hard. There was a world outside of my room that would see the marks. But, oh, how I wanted to mark him as my own, how I wanted to leave the scent of my breath on his skin, the smell of my fingers against his hips as I slipped them just beneath the waistband of his boxers, exploring uncharted flesh. He shifted, his shoulders arching in ecstasy. I had to watch what I said, what I did. This had to stop.

But I went on.

"My future. I want it to be yours. I want there to be no mine and no yours but ours." Something about the way he whispered and moved and breathed made me speak in poetry. A curse. A blessing. He moaned again.

"I want every soulmate in the world to watch us with envy, our future to be the one of their dreams." He had his eyes closed and was seconds away from succumbing to sleep. I wanted to watch him do it, but I still couldn't stop. I was explaining a deep-rooted fantasy I had with the boy in my arms and tangled in my sheets to the boy in my arms and tangled in my sheets. He had to be at least a little awake to hear it.

Where these thoughts were coming from was beyond me. When, in the few short hours it's been since we danced in the moonlight and streetlights and starlight, when did I decide Dan was ready for this future I hoped we'd share? It's been so little time. It's been hundreds of years. It's been seconds. Time didn't exist and didn't matter when I was with him.

Because I had originally decided Dan was leading. But I constantly, subconsciously took charge, and he had to take over, like when we danced, so I didn't screw something up.

But the words were said. The message was clear. Dan Howell would be mine for the rest of our lives. Our life. I couldn't take them back, even though the only ones that heard it were him, me, and the warm, sticky night.

What time was it? What day was it? I didn't know, nor did I care. The night was confusing, but I knew one thing for sure.

"I'm going to marry you, Dan Howell."