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They sat across from one another on the couch, Phil on his phone and Dan on his laptop. Their legs were awkwardly entangled, but hadn't moved in so long that Dan couldn't feel where he ended and phil began; there was just a shared warmth.
Time was passing slowly―or perhaps quickly, but surely not at a normal pace―sliding its way along in a muddy haze, and Dan's head felt heavy, so heavy, as though it had been filled with sand. Every now and then the weight would become too much and it would drop down, but then some sand would fall from his eyes and mouth, and he'd bob back up.
He didn't know when Phil had put his phone down. He wasn't sure where it had even gone, but Phil's hand now loomed over Dan's laptop, spiderlike fingers curling their way in front of his screen, and then the lid was closed, revealing a smiling face looking straight at him.
His eyes were wide and bright, almost glowing, bluer than Dan had ever seen and swirling with yellow flecks like shooting stars. He slid the computer off of Dan's lap and leaned in as if to tell a secret, but no words came from his mouth. He seemed so happy and beautiful that Dan couldn't help but give him a kiss on the lips. The sensation was warm and soft, fluid but not really wet, and it rolled smoothly in and out in a layered sort of way, like waves upon the shore.
Phil pulled back and lifted a hand, tracing a slow line with his finger across his collar. Dan watched, entranced, as he then pointed to the middle of the line and drifted down through the trail of wispy body hair that twirled about him, between the nipples, over the bellybutton, and halted right at the waistband of his pants, where he drew another horizontal. With both hands he then dug his fingers into his chest and pulled out, opening himself up like cupboard doors.
Dan gasped at the sight, and then looked up to Phil's face, searching for a sign of what to think, or feel, or do. Phil continued to smile, bright but serene, and gave a simple nod. Dan felt that Phil wanted him to touch him, to put his hands in there, but he was nervous.
He reached out but then hesitated, hovering inches from Phil, and then he saw Phil's fingers wrap around his wrist and pull him in, closing the final distance. His hand rested against Phil's ribcage, his fingers poking through the bars and brushing against the spongy surface of his lung. It swelled and settled at an easy, smooth pace.
Dan reached out his other arm to run both his hands down Phil's ribs, fingers flicking over the gaps as they went. He then grabbed onto the bottom of them to pull himself closer, so that he was now straddling Phil's waist. He leaned Phil back until he was horizontal, like an open body on an operating table. Phil continued to smile up at him, calm and eager and inviting.
Returning his attention to his body, Dan's hands drifted lower, brushing lightly over the smooth, wet, lumpy surfaces of his organs. He traced his finger along the path of intestines like a maze on the back of a cereal box, and then finally pushed his hands into the mass, eliciting a giggle from Phil. The intestines were soft and pliable, and Dan could easily push them about, but when he held his hands still they would try to settle back into their position, closing up around his arms and lightly pulling on him.
Dan gripped with his fingers―the bulbous, wormlike trail weaving in and out between his digits―and he lifted a great mass of the small intestine into the air, letting its length fall all about the place. The sight was reminiscent of a map, perhaps of a complex hiking trail. He and Phil watched intently as it slowly retracted inwards, pieces flipping and curling as they went and nestling back into place around the bladder.
The thought briefly glanced over Dan's mind that somewhere in Phil's colon there might still be a scar, from when a lump had been surgically removed. So rare it was for someone to touch another's innards, Dan couldn't help but feel disappointed that he wasn't the first to be there.
Still, his fingers drifted back in, going further upwards, now. He wrapped around Phil's stomach, hanging just below his sternum, and rubbed his thumb up and down along its smooth, pliable membrane. with his spare hand he explored the other organs around it, all different shapes and sizes and colours, some firm and meaty while others were more like water balloons.
He wasn't sure what any of them were, except for one pale organ that coiled like a fern shoot, sat around about the centre of the body, just below the stomach. This, he was pretty sure, was Phil's pancreas. He faintly recalled looking it up at some point. The surface texture was particularly strange on this: it was covered in nodules that looked reminiscent of a cob of corn, but it had an unsettling and inconsistent texture when touched with any kind of pressure.
Dan moved on from there quickly, turning his attention up to one last thing. Under Phil's ribs, between his lungs, sat his steadily beating heart. Dan slipped up behind the bones and wrapped his hands around it, giving it a little squeeze to feel the powerful thump, thump, thump, against him. This was by far the densest, strongest organ he had felt. And no wonder, he thought. How could it not be?
He gave it a firm jostle, causing it to come loose. Phil watched with open-mouthed wonder as Dan slowly, carefully, pulled out his beating heart and gave it the gentlest, most tender kiss, before returning it back to its place.
Dan felt that he had seen and touched everything that he may have wanted to. Phil seemed to intuit this, as he started to pull his skin back together, but Dan placed a delicate hand upon his to stop him. With his free hand, he procured a gift: a tiny plastic boar, which he nestled into Phil's body, just above the intestinal tract. Satisfied, he let Phil finish.
Dan lowered himself onto Phil and kissed him on the lips, and then on the cheek, and then on the edge of the jaw as he settled into the gap between Phil and the back of the couch. They were awkwardly entangled, but soon enough they'd lose track of exactly how they were positioned, or where one body ended and the other began, and instead just feel the warmth of their shared touch.