we spent all night,
looking out for satellites that never arrived
at least we got no deadlines
for our wasted time.
- j.w.

Phil

It's some ungodly hour of the morning when I feel the mattress dip next to me, a body filling the space that was empty before and waking me with a smile half-hidden by shadows. The bed creaks and I curse the sound as if that will magically fix it, a lamentation that has yet to show any results.

To most people, finding a man in their bed would probably be a cause for alarm. He's certainly making himself at home, and by at home I mean he's right in my space, knees digging into my side. A whole premise of camp to walk on and he comes in here, really I should be questioning his choices.

He's hovering right over me, factoring in that I'm half-conscious, I figure that most people in my position would wake up to something like that and have a heart attack.

Me? I'm mostly considering whacking him in the face, pillow willing. I try to roll away, refusing to open my eyes to the cold near-autumn world when I'd just been dreaming about my parents' summer house in Florida. That would be a nice place to be right now. I don't know much about the condition of that area with the spread of the apocalypse and all, but what place isn't desolate these days? It would be warmer than this.

Maybe if I was in Florida, I could get some fucking sleep.

My voice comes out deep and makes it clear he's woken me, not exactly irritated but not really ready to move either. "Done your walk already?"

Into the slanted beam of moonslight shifts a face I know well, his expression suddenly blurrily in my vision and half-smiling like someone's framed him in the dark, his hand coming up to brush my hair as he he presses his lips to my forehead.

"Guess." Dan whispers cheerily as he draws back, apropos of nothing, "Whose birthday it is today."

He has a cheeky smirk on his face but I still feign innocence, pretending I haven't been thinking about this day for months. I set my head back down and gaze up at that face, that pretty soft face all framed by curls, with cheeks slightly red from the cold morning air.

He glares at me when I purposely stay silent and finally lifts up the covers, and only then do I realize he's almost fully naked, in below zero weather he's in nothing but his pants and he's grinning at me like it's the most innocent coincidence ever. He must have tossed them when he came in. How I didn't hear that is beyond me and makes me aware of just how tired I must have been to sleep through it. I know what game he's trying to play though, so I just worm my way closer to the warm side of the bed.

He climbs in under with me and presses the length of his body against my side, bare legs brushing my clothed ones and chest visible in the moonlight as his arms wind around me.

The moment he touches me, I almost kick him right out again.

"Your feet are freezing!" I screech. I lay my head down, but his hand finds my face to demand my attention. He chuckles at me when I roll my eyes, trying to burrow into his chest and shut them again.

"Phiiillll." He whines.

He can't entirely help how cold he is. Two years ago, a half-life saved his life by biting him and turning him from nearly undead to one of them. Even though my blood, immune to the zombie virus managed to cure him and restore his body back to human state, his time as a half-life left him with the side effect of unusually cool skin, weird sleeping hours and a scar on his wrist to commemorate the night. He always takes a while to warm up, it's become just another part of our lives now.

Cold toes dig intently into my calf, making me jerk and yelp out in disdain. It's clear this was his intention because he snickers when my body betrays me by snapping awake, realizing he's got some plan in mind. Clearly, he wants to have an effect on me.

"Come on." He complains. "I dressed for the occasion."

I should have known he'd pull something like this I guess, but it still catches me every time. My Dan- shy, awkward as hell and bright red the moment he so much as says he loves me, still strikes me sometimes with how bold and confident he can be. It's like his body's gone and said fuck it, just because several years prior to today he was born.

He's warming up now and his skin is soft against my cheek, I could pass right out again in his arms. I shut my eyes and he lets me burrow into his chest, the hum of his laughter rumbling in my ears.

"You're ridiculous." I finally say. It's barely a mumble but there's no malice behind it. I'm not upset, I'm about as far from bothered by this as I could get.

"Yes." He agrees, quirking a brow. He sits up suddenly and takes my chin in one gentle hand, trying and somewhat failing to lift my head back up. "Shamelessly so. I'm waiting, Philip Michael."

When I don't answer right away he pokes me, finger gently prodding my cheek.

"What am I meant to be doing?" I protest, grinning.

"Guess whose birthday." He insists. I try not to groan, instead just shutting my eyes tighter as I burrow deeper against my mattress. I reopening them a few beats later to blink back up at him.

"Mine." I deadbeat.

It's obviously the wrong guess. He still looks offended.

"No!"

"Then go away."

He laughs, incredulity tinting his voice.

"Your glasses." He chirps, ignoring me. He reaches over to the sill and retrieves then, poking at my face when I don't lift any limbs to take them. "Put them on and wake up, you lump. I don't have all day."

"I don't want my glasses." I complain. "The sun hasn't even risen yet."

I didn't even need glasses until about a year ago, they still mostly strike me as an essential that's less convenient and more a curse.

"Phillllllllll."

He braces his hands on either side of me and the goddamn bed creaks again, leading me to ponder whether I actually miss the days where it was normal for us to not even have a tent. Why is it so goddamn creaky? Every time he moves it whines like a pouty child, loud and pitchy enough to fill the room. That does not translate well when it comes to us.

"The bed of no discrepancy." he jokes as if reading my mind. "It's cold as fuck out there, you dolt. Let me in."

I give in and open my arms, letting Dan collapse on top of me and squirm into my arms. That's one thing about Dan, he fits himself into my space like he was meant to go there, nudging his face into corners and softening sharp edges with his smoothing presence. Wrapping my arms around him always makes him cuddle in like he's suddenly not a six foot skinny giant and I could die happily just always having him snuggle up like that.

His soft curls nudge my chin and I bury my nose into them gently, smelling pine trees and outdoors that tell me he's walked after all. One of those small adventures he takes when he can't sleep.

"I'm twenty-two today." He continues.

I knew that. He tilts my head to look right in my eyes for a moment, making me transparent in seconds. "What's my special gift gonna be? Are you gonna give it to me?"

I feel a jolt in my chest, suddenly awake.

With those words I'm not just a guy in bed with his boyfriend anymore, my mind has sped into overdrive and I feel a lot more awake than I did moments before.

It's not that I've planned a secret exactly, but this birthday isn't going to be like any ordinary one.

I wonder for a moment if he knows. He's looking at me like he does, though I've never said anything to anyone about it before. Maybe it's just because of the day.

But... no. No way could he know. He couldn't know this was even a milestone to me at all. He can't guess that two years ago when he turned twenty I'd had some special plan appear in my brain and stick, popping up from time to time and niggling at me like an itch that wouldn't go away.

Good morning, Phil. My mind mocks. Today had to come eventually.

Stupid gift. It's a stupid gift. Too bad I can't get it out of my goddamn head.

The day has come at last even though it had always felt ages away. It's the morning of June eleventh, one of the few dates I care to remember now that the old life is over.

I blame Chris and PJ for putting the idea into my head. We'd been sitting around the fire with Jack, Mark, and Felix one night, way too much alcohol stolen from- (no, courtesy of) the Confederation had been put into Dan's system and he was hanging off my arm, inviting teasing from the rest of the group.

They made the joke that put the idea in my head, and though it's only morning, early morning at that, reality is crashing down on me and I can't decide how I feel.

If all goes well, I'm asking him to marry me today.

Just that one coherent thought causes my heartbeat double and warmth to spread all throughout my body. I don't know why his twenty-second birthday feels right, but after all we've been through paired with the fact that we're still alive to see it, the day has come and no amount of surreality or nerves is going to stop me.

It's time.

I reach down to pull him closer to me, hands on his bare skin. I just want to touch him, to feel the person I love close to me while keeping my mouth shut.

There's no way he could know what I'm planning. He's totally oblivious, which I want to savour for just a bit.

Would it be crazy, really? We promised each other once, it was his last wish when I thought he was moments from death a year ago. I think secretly I'd just never figured out what I'd do when this day inevitably came. I always told myself I'd know when the moment arrived, but here I am just as full of nerves as ever.

Of course he'd ask for a gift on his birthday. It doesn't mean any more than that.

His thighs are baby-soft under my hands as I pull him against me. It's the early mornings that we cherish nowadays, the only time we can properly be alone. I wonder a lot if I'll ever get tired of these stolen moments because it seems like I never do.

I splay my fingers, running my palms up the side of his body until I've found his hips and lingering there, near the small of his back. He loves when I massage gentle circles there, even more than kisses in that same spot.

"Believe it or not." I murmur wryly, "But I've already made plans."

He sighs blissfully at my touch and lets his head fall onto the pillow next to mine, my hands pressing down and kneading in just the way he likes.

"You remembered."

"Of course." I tease gently. "You thought I'd forget your birthday?"

I can still see stars outside but it must be long past midnight. It's cold enough to be early morning, I'm guessing the sun rises soon. He presses his lips under my jaw gently, a featherlight touch before he turns his head to look at me inquisitively.

It's funny that we have a notion of time again. After so long of letting the dates and months blur together, suddenly in the last year time has begun to assemble itself again. Caring about what month it is actually matters now.

"No." He says, fond now. "I knew you'd remember."

Unprepared for a shift from joking to serious, I feel my face go hot and I shrug, useless as ever at reacting to sentiment. What do I even say to him after all this time? Thank you? I hope you're in my life for the next one too? And then the one after that?

"I- have a surprise for you." I blunder, apropos of nothing.

He doesn't miss a beat, nearly as versed in my inability to be romantic as I am at his to be the opposite.

"Does it involve waiting on me hand and foot and giving me anything I want?" He questions, doe-eyeing so much I roll my eyes. Should it be? Maybe I'll have to work it in somehow.

"Absolutely not!" I yelp. "I'm not your boy slave. It's a secret, idiot. You'll just have to find out later."

He groans and it's muffled by my pillow, making me grin quietly. He's dramatic and pouty even when things are normal, and this is no exception.

"I hate secrets." He moans. "Last time you kept a big secret from me it was years in the making and you had to die in order for me to kiss you."

"Oh, get over it." I squeak, though I'm undeniably flustered at this point and somewhat ashamed. It's so easy for him. He always seems to know what gets me. "I'm afraid I don't have the energy for dying today."

"Tell me." He orders. "Or I'll touch you with my feet again."

I cringe at that suggestion, both because he's freezing and because I hate feet.

"Are you not aware that it's probably two degrees outside?" I tease, twisting to let our bodies face each other, legs winding together and noses close enough to brush. "What are you planning to gain from joking about my death?"

"I wanna know what the surprise is." He answers plainly.

"The surprise is nothing." I tell him. "I'm not doing anything. Tough luck."

"Ugh, you're useless then." He whines. "I want a divorce."

It's just a stupid joke but it makes my heart jump, wishing he could know, ironically, just how secure being able to joke about about separation makes me feel.

We can laugh about this because despite so many things in life being uncertain these days, him and I together are definitely not one of them. He's no closer to leaving me than I am to leaving him and that hits me as I truly consider it. Two years it's been since his last birthday where we weren't together. Four years since the first one we'd ever spent in the same place, the birthday after we'd met for the first time.

"Have to be married first to get a divorce." I quip. It's my joke, but it makes me feel a warm sensation in my chest. He doesn't seem to have a retort either, or maybe the silence has gone too long.

Have to. The words hang in the air.

Because. Though we've only been together a short time in the grand scheme of the universes, we've known, I think, for a long time that we wanted the other in our lives. Forever, or however long the future will be. We've said it enough, jokingly and serious.

I want to ask him to be with me, forever. Not just as an abstract idea. I want to do it. For real. He has no idea how much that joke has just reassured me. Maybe this isn't such a crazy prospect after all. It feels right, and nothing in this hell world ever really feels right.

"I mostly just want you to take off your clothes and cuddle me." He mumbles, completely oblivious to my thoughts. "I only wanna cuddle, currently."

My heart soars. Two years. Two goddamn years. This is what I wake up for each morning.

"How romantic." I huff. I still have my face calmly pressed into my pillow, but for a much different reason now. Two years is far more than enough for me to get past the honeymoon phase and stop blushing at Dan's moments of tenderness, but here I am smiling like a fool because romance isn't really Dan's style and here he is anyway, apparently willing to blush me into death. Somehow the fact that Dan isn't as up-front or emotional as me when it comes to love makes it mean so much more to me when he shows it. It makes it feel all the more special.

"Shut up." He moans. "I'm touch starved."

"Even more romantic."

He ignores me, plonking his head onto my chest and letting his hand curl into my side.

It's all residual from the early apocalypse days, his determination not to feel emotions, let alone show them. I'd be hard-pressed to initiate a cuddle myself sometimes because he'll wiggle away, but watch out if Dan wants to be in my space. He cuddles on his own terms and no one else's. Not even mine. If he wants it, he'll find a way.

I kiss the top of his head, making him lift his eyes to me expectantly. I take the opportunity to poke his cheek and let my eyelids droop, wishing I could just drift off like this. "Make out with me if you want, but I just woke up and I'm bloody keeping my clothes."

He sputters. "Well that was fucking direct wasn't it?"

My eyes are shut but I still smirk, knowing he can see it and exaggerating the expression for this exact reason.

"You literally just told me to take my clothes off."

"And?" He retorts.

"You know me." I say lowly. "Straight to the point."

"Gay to the point."

"You're gay." I shoot back. He hits me in the face with a pillow, shoving it back in order to shut me up when I wave it off.

"I am." he agrees. "And what of it? Share with the room, Philip."

That makes me smile, because it took Dan a long time to be comfortable with the notion that he was, is, gay. At first he couldn't even say it, now it bursts out of him all the time in little moments like this. It means more to me than he'll ever know.

"If you were gay, you'd actually want to kiss me instead of smothering me to death with my own bedding." I tell him. I get another pillow in the face for that, an attack that leads to a small battle for who can grab it and whack the other. He wins, squashing me with a smile.

"Smothering is how I show affection, babe." He teases. "You don't need to breathe that badly."

"Add to the evidence that you're secretly plotting to be rid of me." I get out in a muffled voice. The sarcasm is evident. We may never take one another seriously.

He takes mercy on me and lifts the pillow off. When it moves, his soft smile is visible again.

"Two years." I hear him sigh. "Two years, and you're still oblivious as fuck to the fact that I actually like you."

"Happy Birthday." I whisper, pulling my arms around him and tugging him closer so that I can feel his breath on my lips. He smiles faintly and it sinks in suddenly that he's twenty-two now, not the timid teenage boy he was when we first met but a man that I've known so long that our first moments feel sweet and distant. Like a whole other pair of people, but also still us.

Through pain, through darkness and trauma he's here. Smiling, happy even. Unbroken after all he went through.

"Can I be honest?" I ask quietly. "It's just early in the morning. I don't really want to start yet, but I think today's gonna be a really good day."

He turns over, stretching so that he's laying against the length of my body. "So you wanna stay here and be lazy until the sun comes up? No movement before or until then?"

I stretch out my arm and squeeze his hand, pulling it to my chest and holding it close. "Yes please."

He squeezes back. "I can live with that."

And then he kisses me, tilting his head to close that space between us so that our lips meet gently.

I chase after a second kiss as soon as he draws back, taking in the sound of his breaths and the closeness of his chest. You can never have too many kisses, I think sometimes. You never know when the last one will be, yes, but it's also nice to just have this. It's him, and it'll always be him.

His lips travel from my mouth to my cheek, pressing a gentle kiss to the edge of my jaw and then lowering to leave a featherlight one against my neck. Then he flops back down, burrowing his head into that spot on my chest that basically belongs to him at this point.

I love you I want to say, but I don't want it to seem like it's coming out of nowhere. I hope he can feel the though beaming to him from my mind as I hug him against me and bury my nose in his hair. Everything about this moment makes me feel this same, looping feeling.

I love him, I love him, I love him.

So we lay there like that, enveloped in silence, watching through the window as the sky slowly pales and the darkness drains away. Already the world is starting to come alive around us but the house itself is silent.

I love you.

I mean it the same way now that I did back then.

I lift my free hand to run my fingers through his hair. He keens into the touch, sighing as I scratch my nails over that spot on his scalp that I know he likes the most. It's the little things, this is just a tiny piece of knowledge I've stored away about him.

That's one thing I've noticed, now that we've been together for the better part of two years and best friends even longer. We know so many random, little things about each other. I used to think we knew each other inside out, but now we know even more.

Eventually the sun rises, golden beams of light creeping over the treetops and filtering in through the dusty window. Blurred shadows melt away to reveal wooden walls and the pile of clothes on a chair that we still need to fold, the mess of a mop on Dan's head.

His hair is all skewed just as mine probably is, though rolling out of bed seems less likely the more comfortable I get even if I am awake now. I'll be a mess for now, I have no real need to be attractive.

I start to smell campfire smoke which alerts me to the fact that others in the camp must be awake now, breakfast underway and conversation suddenly audible in the distance.

"Wow." Dan sighs, rolling onto his back and taking my hand to play with my fingers absently. "Is it something about birthdays that make me existential?"

"You're always existential." I tease. I catch his middle finger with my own, tugging it lightly.

"I guess." We get into a little tug of war, pulling his finger back and forth.

"Why?" I ask knowingly. "Is that what your mind is doing right now?"

I've clearly left him still for too long if he's in his own thoughts again. He always gets into these moods where he suddenly becomes far too aware of his place in the universe, it's just a very Dan thing to do. He has such a fascination for humanity, it just isn't always the best thing for him when he gets too philosophical.

He doesn't answer right away and I realize I might need to prompt him, leading the way a bit so he can articulate his thoughts.

"Is this a one-year-closer-to-death moment?" I ask lightly, "or are you thinking about something else?"

"Something else." He concedes. He lets go of my hand but keeps our shoulders pressed together as he lays on his back, eyes fixed up at the ceiling. When the silence stretches, he elaborates. "Two years is a long time, you know?"

For what? To be alive? To be together? I feel a tiny bundle of nerves knowing I was just earlier thinking of marrying him. Would he think that's wrong?

"What d'you mean?" I push.

"The world basically ended three years ago." He explains. "I was nineteen years old. No way did I think with all the zombies and nasty people out there that I would still be alive today."

Now that he's said it I can see how his thoughts could have gotten there. It makes sense, even I consider the odds of my existence and how mathematically improbable they are.

"Ah." I agree, shrugging. "Well it definitely wasn't easy, but you did."

"I did, yeah. The beginning was literal hell except for you." He recalls. "It's not that I'm surprised we made it, you just kind of got me thinking when you said today was going to be a good day."

"Did I?" I question. "What about?"

"You're gonna think I'm being paranoid, but considering the shit that we went though it seems kind of weird for me sometimes to just settle back and relax even if it's my birthday." He points out.

"That's not weird." I say gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I feel like that too. All the time."

"It's never really over, the fight." He says vaguely. "Sometimes I feel like we just think things are better now. It hasn't ended."

I pause at that remark, much more awake when I realize it's on his mind even if it might not be seriously bothering him.

He doesn't elaborate or linger on it, sitting up suddenly and pushing back the covers while taking careful measures to not let cold air in on my side. Our room isn't much, just an eight foot square enclosure with a bed, rocking chair and worn wooden floors. There's also a wardrobe in one corner that we salvaged from a building out of town. It took us all day to get it to the house.

"I'm hungry." He says as explanation. "I'll meet you in the kitchen."

He gets up and pulls on a grey T-shirt and jeans, heading for the door and leaving the unfittingly ominous words fading into the empty air. It's clear he knows everything is okay, but I appreciate that he's let himself be vulnerable for just a moment to show me that even on his best days, the worry can still be there. Trauma doesn't heal in a day, and I'm determined to make this day and extra good one.

I push back the covers and jump up to cross the room before he can vanish, catching up to him just as he's reached the doorway and hugging him from behind. He starts at first, but sinks against me only a moment later,

"Things will be okay." I say gently. "It will be."

His back is warm and his tummy is soft through the shirt fabric. His hands come up to hug my arms and we stay in the semi-embrace for a moment, I rest my head against the dip below his neck and hug him tighter until his shoulders relax. Then I let go, and I see him turn around as I draw back slowly. The expression on his face is calm, and I exhale once again and think about how this day will end.

The sun clears the treetops at last and we both watch as the light washes over the room, warm and golden and illuminating the spinning dust motes in the air as the world wakes up around us.

I stretch, breathing deep and meeting Dan's eyes as he extends a hand to to lead me out into the main room. The air is warm with a hint of coolness.

A new day once again.

a/n

Blease enjoy this chapter blease enjoy this chapter pls pls pls I beg u

(lol feel free to skip this note if content warnings aren't an issue for you!)

Idk if this even matters but I just wanna get something out there before I bang out a whole-ass book again (ha, bang).

This is basically your book-wide M warning. I want to try not placing a warning above every chapter like I did the last time in book 1 because it feels sort of spoiler-y when you know death, secks, loss, etc is incoming. So like the Gandalf meme, I'll keep my secrets. If you don't like that, I'll :( until you change your mind.

Actually, I probably won't do anything. I'm tired bro, live your life.

I'm a twenty one year-old lesbian and wish not to ponder in an intricate fashion how a peBis works, but on that same vein I'm older now than when I started writing fic and I'm not scared to write about them anymore because uhhhh accurate characterization or whatever. The characters of d and p are their own people, they don't represent me or my identity/experiences. Dawn is likely gonna be more direct than Night, if you know what I mean.

Drink water and validate me, kids. Have a nice night and let Phil appreciate his bf. This isn't going to be a huge part of the story, honestly. Just felt like I'd go ahead and get that outta the way, in essay format apparently.

god I'm not concise. in case you were worried that I was dead and someone else had hijacked this account and taken over, fear not. Rambly Homie From Canadiomie survives to see another apocalypse au. You know it's me because I'll take a point that could have been said in two sentences and turn it into a novel complete with a works cited in Times New Roman font. It's really me, bro.

Here, I'll condense this whole rant into two words, just in case I haven't made it clear enough and also because I should shut up now:

smut warning.

(also death warning, violence warning, dark themes warning etc. those are here too, people just really seem to freak out about smut so it gets its own spotlight idk man)

uwu. compliment my character development. I have evolved.

We Gucci? Güd. I'm glad you're here! I still can't believe Night is back, it feels really really good. My mental health has kept me from writing for a long time but here I am now, I'm so ready to get this thing fuckin going. The happiness is real. The chaos has increased 2 years later, bitches.

Leave a vote to give me one (1) serotonin!1!

Until the next l o n g b o i (:
-Aly🌙