#Dan was so serious which means he genuinely thought Arin would

[doeeyesbergara]

Dan’s “/don’t/ kiss me” in the power hour today means Arin has absolutely kissed Dan in the past

[dadvans]

the ghost ship that didn’t carry us

egobang :: m :: game grumps :: arin wakes up in a parallel universe where he married dan instead of suzy. 

(i’ve had a number of requests to repost this, since i pulled it from ao3 a few months ago!  it was originally posted last april, and have been really heartened to hear how many people enjoyed it since it was taken down.  so in honor of april fool’s day, my take on Wake Up Married: 

It’s not like Arin’s never thought about it--him, Dan.  Arin’s had a few dozen thousand very gay thoughts about Dan, because Dan is Dan.  Dan’s not just unconventionally attractive, he’s hot, he’s scorching to such a degree that Arin would worry that if Dan actually got his mouth on Arin’s junk that all the ball hair would be singed off by sheer proximity. If Arin hadn’t met his soulmate at age fourteen, eyes locking across the crowded hall of an anime convention, he’d be the first to admit without any hesitation that Dan would probably have turned him totally, completely into a brunch-loving, pastel-wearing cock sucker.  Dan would have full dibs on his butthole, and there’s no shame in knowing it.  

But there’s a difference between Arin knowing he’d go ass over teakettle gay for Dan and actually doing the do.  For one, he’s married.  For two, well--well, he’s happily married.  There isn’t really a three, except maybe Arin wouldn’t be willing to risk his two best friendships with his wife and his Danny just to see if he likes the taste of dick in his mouth or the feel of Dan’s curls between his fingers.  He’s lucky enough to have what he has in life, and it would be beyond greedy to ask for anything more.

Which is why it is more than a little confusing when he wakes up naked in Dan’s bed.

“Dan?  The fuck?” he says, taking in the naked tangle of their limbs and torsos and Dan’s morning wood heavy with piss rubbing against his thigh, before repeating with what Dan will later describe as grave vehemence, “the fuck!”

“Whassa matter?” Dan mumbles, rolling graciously away from him to paw at his nightstand for his phone.  He turns it on to see the time and slams it back down with a side, pushing his face into his pillow.  “Oh my God, Arin, it’s eight in the morning, go back to sleep.”

“Dude!” is all Arin can say, because dude, go back to sleep?  Go back to nakedly being Dan’s little spoon with Dan’s dick snug against his asshole like a friendly neighbor stopping by to say hello?  

“What?” Dan replies, voice still muffled as he looks up from his pillow.  Arin winces as Dan puts a hand around wrist, touch too tender and genuine.  “You’re freaking me out, dude, are you okay?”

“Dan,” Arin says very quietly, very serious, “we’re naked right now.”

Dan just continues to stare at him very concerned.  “Did you hit your head? Are you brain damaged?”

“No, I--what?”

“You’re acting super weird,” Dan says, pushing himself up on an elbow.  The hand that was encircling Arin’s wrist comes up so Dan can turn his face to look at him, thumb on his cheek, fingertips in his sideburns, the cool, sharp edge of a ring smooth against Arin’s jaw.  And that’s something else that doesn’t seem right, as comforting as it feels.

“When did you get married?” Arin asks, nudging Dan’s hand away with his face to get a closer look at the ring, which is definitely a wedding band.  Dan’s face contorts into something unreadable, and he shuts up as Arin holds his hand and traces over the thick silver of the ring.  It looks so similar to his own.  “Dan?”

“Uh, last year,” Dan replies, looking like Arin hit him, “to you, douchebag.”

And huh.  Arin stares at him dumbly, not sure what else to say, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s been a real wild ride for me too, baby,” Dan says, and then he leans forward and kisses the corner of Arin’s mouth and drops his hand and rolls back over into his pillow, the naked stretch of his shoulders facing Arin.

“But I can’t be married to you,” Arin thinks out loud, getting more and more confused by the second.  Dan visibly tenses in front of him.  “I mean, not that I would mind, I would totally be gay married to you if I wasn’t already married.”

“Okay, Arin, what the shit,” Dan says, rolling back over.  “You’re really freaking me the fuck out right now.”  

“You?  You’re freaking me the fuck out!  Is this some kind of weird prank?  Look, man, you know I love you, you know if I went gay for anyone, it would be you, you would get me where I need to go.  But this is really weird.”

“Went gay?” Dan repeats.  “Arin, baby, you are like, the gayest gay I know.  Do I need to take you to a hospital?  Are you concussed?”

“No!” Arin says, feeling ridiculous trying to argue with his everything exposed, the sheets of Dan’s bed pooled around his thighs.  

“Okay,” Dan says slowly.  “Let’s try this: what year is it?”

“Twenty-sixteen,” Arin says, and Dan lets out a sigh.

“So far, so good. Uh--what’s my name?”

“Dan,” Arin replies, but it’s more exasperation than answer. “And my name’s Arin, and we are best friends, but in a heterosexual life partners kind of way, because I am married to a woman, dude.  Suzy would not appreciate this.”

“I hate to break this to you, but there is nothing heterosexual about this,” Dan says, pushing a few stray locks of his awful bedhead out of his eyes and brushing them back too tight with stress.  “And the state of California recognizes me as your only spouse.”

Arin’s had enough at this point.  Dan is acting like a goddamn pod person, and the worst part is that the prank shouldn’t be malicious, because Arin really does love Dan in the only way he can, and he’s just as much of a grounding force in Arin’s life as Suzy is, and if things were different, well, Arin’s spent a few nights lying awake thinking what if, what if, what if.  But it feels malicious, it feels like Dan’s trying to punish himself or the both of them, and he’s taking it uncomfortably far.  

He shakes his head and shoves himself off the bed.  “I need to get the fuck out of here.  Where are my clothes?”  

Dan’s quiet for a second.  “In your dresser,” he says eventually.  

Arin frowns at him, and then he takes another look around the room.  It’s definitely Dan’s room, but there are subtle differences--Arin’s dresser, the one he’s had since he moved out of his parent’s house, is tucked in the corner with Dan’s, there’s a rug he doesn’t recognize under the bed against the hardwood, and a handful of photos featuring the two of them from nights that Arin remembers, but doesn’t remember happening like that are artfully hung and propped up in mismatched bookshelves that Arin recognizes as belonging to both of them.  

“What,” he says, his voice weak with disbelief, “is going on.”

“Man, I’m just as confused as you,” Dan groans, burying his face in his hands. He’s never been a great actor, and changing the entire interior of his bedroom is taking a prank way, way, way too far, but Arin has no other explanation for it.  He keeps waiting for Dan to crack, tell him, you win, I’m sorry, you should have seen your face, fucker, but Dan looks legitimately as lost as he is, and it feels like the floor is dropping out from under Arin’s feet.  

“I need to get out of here,” Arin decides out loud, stumbling over to his dresser.  When he opens the drawer he recognizes some of his clothes, but not everything.  He blindly just pulls out the first of everything he can find, some graphic tee and boxers and well-worn pair of jeans, nearly tripping over himself out the room as he puts them on.  “I need to wake up.”

Suzy finds Arin curled around an Iced Kyoto at Demitasse a little over an hour later.  She rolls her eyes, putting her purse down at an empty chair near his table, and pulling out the one in front of him loudly to take a seat.  

She looks different.  Not in a bad way, just in an unfamiliar way; her body language isn’t necessarily wrong, it just doesn’t suggest the intimacy that he’s so used to sharing with her.  He doesn’t know what to make of it.  

“I haven’t had coffee yet,” she says, and she slips the drink out of his hand to take a sip.  

“Well, we are in a coffee shop,” Arin says, looking over her shoulder suggestively at the coffee bar where she could, you know, order her own drink.  

“Yeah, and I’m out of bed before noon on my day off, because Dan called me losing his shit, jerkass, so you’re buying me a drink.”

“Ugh, fine,” he says, and hands her a wad of cash he found in the pocket of some well worn jeans that were in his size on the bedroom floor.

She doesn’t even buy coffee.  She buys a hot chocolate with lavender in it with extra whip on the lid that she licks off.  It’s cute when she does it, but he would sneer at anyone else.  

“How’d you find me?” he asks her.  He couldn’t find his phone before he left Dan’s, and he didn’t want to stick around long enough, too afraid some ugly truth would find him if he stayed there long enough.

“You always come here when you’re freaking out,” she says matter of factly, fastening the lid back onto the cup. “Anyway, Dan tells me you think we’re married.”

“Please,” he says, no, pleads, “don’t.”

“Don’t what?” she replies, meticulous eyebrow raised, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.  

“C’mon,” he tries, “babe.”

“You’re acting weird,” she says.  She’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile that she has when Ross says something that shits over the line. “Are you and Dan fucking with me?”

“What?” It comes out like a laugh, a weak one, because he’s barely been awake for an hour but he feels exhausted already.  She’s still smiling at him like she’s waiting for a punchline, so he wipes at his eye and rests his forehead against his knuckles.  “No, I swear, you two are fucking with me.  Just--how much did he pay you?  Everyone?  I’m assuming like, Barry and Ross and Brian are in on this too.  Did you guys like, roofie me and move all our furniture to Barry and Dan’s while I was out?”

“Arin, I’m legit worried for you,” she says.  She puts down her drink, and that’s how he knows that she’s serious.  “Like?  Barry and Dan’s?  Why would my roommate live with your husband?  Are you on something?  Did you start drinking?”

“No,” he whines, and he realizes he sounds all of five years old when it comes out of his mouth.  “I just--God, I swear, maybe I am going crazy.  We met when I was fourteen, right?”

“Yeah,” she says.  

“I asked you out.”

“Right,” she says.  “We dated, and then you realized you were boy crazy like, eight months in, and we’ve been best friends ever since.  Well, okay, there was like, that one month I wouldn’t talk to you, because we were in high school, and it was drama, but you know.”

He doesn’t.  He doesn’t know.  He doesn’t know any of this and it’s terrifying and jarring and awful.  

“That’s not,” he tries, stops himself.  “Suze, that’s not how I remember it.  And it feels like a big fucking prank that you guys are hidden camera-ing me into, trying to make me believe--” he’s gesturing with his hands now, looking at the ceiling like the words he’s trying to find are written up there when Suzy sticks a phone in front of his face.  

“You sent this to me the night you got married,” she says.  On the small screen is a saved snapchat photo, taken somewhere dimly lit; Arin recognizes himself and Dan, open-mouthed smiles taking up half their pink, pixelated faces, looking off in different directions.  They’re cupping their own faces like they’re silently shrieking, and Arin can see why--they’re showing off two identical wedding bands.  Underneath in the grey window of text it says ELOPED MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

“Shopped,” he says, even though the quality is so consistently bad, he’s not sure how.  Suzy rolls her eyes.  

“What do you want me to show you?” she says, pulling her phone back to her chest and flipping through it.  “Your facebook?  My facebook?  Almost five years of Youtube videos where you slowly, disgustingly describe your and Dan’s love affair blossoming in TMI detail?”

“Yes!” he says, getting a few looks from other patrons of the coffee shop for being too loud and maybe making too many erratic gestures with his hands.  He lowers his voice to a stage whisper and says again, “yes,” because everyone on their team is crazy but no one is possibly crazy enough to recreate every piece of content they’ve ever made.

“Fine,” she says, sliding the phone back over to him, “here.”

The screen is face up and paused toward the end of an old video of theirs: Banjo Kazooie. He bites the inside of his cheek and presses play.

“So I went on a date last night,” he hears himself say.  He doesn’t rewatch his own videos too much, and this one is old, but he’s sure he never had this conversation before.  And yet.

“Ooh,” replies Jon.  “You gonna tell us about him .”

“No, ” he hears himself reply.  “Okay yes.  But no.  He’s famous. ”

“Okay wait,” Jon says, “I know him and he’s not really famous.  Only you think he’s famous.”

“No, dude, he’s totally famous, and totally hot--spoiler alert, totally giving it away right now--but I want to respect his privacy.  Anyway, we went out to this karaoke place with his equally famous friend--"

“Equally not-so-famous,” Jon corrects, “and is it really a date if his friend is like, what, there to chaperone you?  Are you twelve ?”

Arin presses pause.

“I don’t remember this,” he says, pushing the phone back to Suzy.  “I mean, I do, but not like this.”

“Here, let me get another one,” she says.  And she does.  She pulls up multiple videos, pictures, things that would take days and days of editing and work they don’t have time for, and still wouldn’t necessarily be feasible to exist without Arin’s participation.  There are pictures of him and Dan kissing, laughing into each other’s mouths, fingers clumsily locked together; every video that Suzy shows him from Game Grumps he remembers making, but they’re all wrong--Suzy is Not So Grump and Dan only shows up regularly on Steam Train, and, and, and,

“I’m going crazy,” Arin says, staring at the title screen for Date Grumps featuring him and Dan playing Super Mario Bros. 2 for a one-off episode.  “You have to believe me, I remember this happening, but not in this order, or this way, it was--wasn’t like this.  What the fuck is happening to me?”

He puts her phone down more delicately than he realized he was capable of and scrubs at his face with both hands, groaning.  She takes her phone back and drags her chair around to his side of the table and wraps an arm around his shoulder.  He leans into her instinctively, taking comfort in the way she still traces random patterns into his skin with her nails even in this bizarro universe.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.  She’s telling the truth.

“You’re supposed to say I’m dreaming,” he jokes.  “You’re supposed to tell me I’m going to wake up any second now.  I’m gonna wake up and you’re going to be there to comfort me and I’ll say I had this weird dream where I was married to Dan, and you’ll laugh and say ‘well, aren’t you?’  Because you make fun of us all the time for acting like it.  You’re supposed to say ‘just kidding,’ because this is all a way too elaborate joke.”

“It’s not,” she says.  “It scares me that you think it is.  It scares Danny.”

“Babe,” he says again, and it means nothing because she’s not his Suzy, and he knows that.  He pulls away from her to look at her, and she looks back.  He’ll never get tired of looking at her. Not when she’s eighty.  Not when she’s a thouand.  “Suzy.  What the fuck do I do?”

“I don’t know,” she replies.  “Maybe get you to a doctor?”

“Fuck,” he says. “Yeah.”

Suzy drives him in his car to the hospital.  Danny meets them in the emergency room lobby.

“I’ll take it from here,” he says, pulling Suzy into a huge hug, but not taking his eyes off of Arin.

“I don’t know,” Suzy says into his shoulder.  

“I can hear you guys,” Arin says, pushing his hair behind his ears a little irritated.  “Even if I’m brain damaged, I’m not like, a vegetable.”

They break apart and their mouths slant sideways in a similar unreadable look that probably comes from trying to smile and fail.  Even if he doesn’t know this Dan and this Suzy, he still knows them at their core, knows how they forecast worries and fears even when they don’t realize they’re doing so.  

“So you know,” he continues awkwardly, “maybe like, don’t talk like I’m not here.  Whatever.  Suzy if you want to go, you can take my car.  We’ll get yours picked up later.”

“You sure?” she asks, and he nods, taking his keys out of his pocket and pressing them into her hand.  She pulls him in and kisses him on the cheek, and turns to Danny to squeeze his hand before leaving.  

That leaves Arin and Dan by themselves in the emergency room.  Danny curls into himself, arms folding over his chest and hands under his armpits like he’s protecting something, no doubt himself.

“So,” he says to the tiles of the emergency room floor, “this is serious.  You’re seriously--you don’t know--remember, fuck Arin, I don’t know what to say.  Are you okay?”

Arin’s thought about it a lot since Suzy slid her phone across the table the first time, let himself get lost in the reality of his now on the car ride from the coffee shop to the hospital.  He might be crazy, he thinks, or he might be stuck in a parallel timeline.  He’s starting to genuinely believe it might be the second option.

“I think I’m okay,” he says slowly.  “I think--okay, I didn’t want to say this when Suzy was here, because she thought I was going crazy, and I still think I’m going crazy, but maybe you’ll see where I’m coming from, or be able to suspend your belief: Dan, I think I’m from a parallel dimension.”

“What,” Dan says, “the fuck.”

“Yeah,” Arin says.  He doesn’t know what else he has to offer.

“Arin, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a tumor the size of a beach ball in your brain, you asshole,” Dan says, not unkindly, but maybe with a sad, scared edge as he gestures at Arin’s skull. He looks like he wants to get a hand around Arin’s face but doesn’t know how, or maybe like he used to know how but forgot.  Arin can’t help but feel guilty.

“They might, but they won’t,” Arin protests, feeling weird about it.  Somewhere, deep down, he knows this isn’t him losing it, this isn’t him experiencing some irreparable damage;  it could be, very easily, but he’s convinced it isn’t.  He’s convinced last night he went to bed with Suzy’s feet snug between his thighs and now he’s in a different world with a different Suzy and a different Dan who maybe had his feet there instead.  

“Huh,” Dan says, his every inch trying not to hover around Arin. “You wanna tell me what they’re going to find?”

“I’ll be healthy,” Arin says, “and fine.  It’ll be infuriating.  You’re gonna leave with your head in your hands, man, and no explanation.  And neither will I.”

“So I’m the crazy one,” Dan says, exasperated.

“No,” Arin says, “you’re--Dan, Jesus.  Neither of us are crazy.  Let’s get out of here and go back to your place and fucking hunker down or some shit and figure out what’s going on.  I just guarantee we’re not going to figure out anything here.”

Dan still refuses to look at him. “Fine,” he says finally.  “Let’s go home.”

The drive home is weird.  It’s quiet, for one, and Dan reaches across the console almost immediately after starting the car to hold his hand without really thinking about it. Arin lets him.  It’s a strange comfort and feels like something that could be routine with them, something that isn’t forced.  But usually car rides with the two of them are louder, Arin in the passenger seat changing the song Dan’s got playing through his phone every forty-five seconds, Dan freestyling something dumb and awful over whatever lyrics are playing even when he doesn’t know the song at all.  Arin’s too afraid to let go of Dan or even look at him, see his mouth in an unfamiliar, frustrated white line.  The quiet lasts the entire ride.  

“I feel like I have to run around to your door and carry you inside,” Dan says when they get back to his place and park the car.

“Please don’t,” Arin says, “I’ll break you.”

Dan laughs and closes his eyes, chin tilted toward the roof of the car.  He gives Arin’s hand a squeeze before finally letting go.  “Yeah, I like, it just feels like you’re dying.”

“God, I hope I’m not,” Arin replies.  “That would make today suck a whole lot more.  Not that being married to you sucks.  It’s just, uh, unexpected.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” Dan says.  “That helps.”

“You’re welcome,” Arin says.  “So, where do we start?”

“I don’t know.  Where do you usually start when your husband wakes up with amnesia and a good decade of fake memories?”  Dan asks.  “Or, sorry, is a straight version of your husband from a parallel dimension.”

“Mostly straight,” Arin says.  “I always thought I would probably go gay for you.”

“If you’re trying to be comforting, Arin, you’re not doing a great job,” Dan says, and then he unbuckles his seatbelt and slides out of the car.  

“I don’t know what you want me to say, man!” Arin replies, following him.  Dan throws his hands up in an exasperated shrug and goes inside without saying anything else.  

Arin didn’t really take a look around earlier when he left to go get coffee and try to regain his wits, but when he walks back in he instantly sees how much is different.  Dan’s house has always looked like he got all his furniture from street corners under a cardboard sign labeled FREE in black sharpie, but now Arin is realizing the couch and table and entertainment center are all different and more cohesive.

“You got new furniture,” he says out loud.

“Like three years ago,” Dan replies.  He’s in the kitchen getting a can of seltzer water.  “When you moved in.  We spent a day playing house in IKEA until I thought they were going to kick us out for fornicating in one of the model bedrooms.  Man, I would kill for a beer right now.”

“No shit,” Arin says.  It sounds like something he and Dan would do if they were in fact together.  It sounds like something they might do anyway.  

“Yes shit,” Dan tells him.  “So clearly we don’t even live together in your universe.”

“Nope,” Arin says.  “I live with Suzy.  You still live here, but with Barry.  He’s your roommate.”

“I was worried you were going to say I was his boyfriend,” Dan says.  “Not that I don’t love him, but eugh.  Barry.”

“I would never let you do that to yourself.  I love you too much,” Arin says.  Dan laughs as he takes a sip of soda water, choking on it and getting the front of his shirt all wet.  “Smooth.”

“Yeah, well, I never thought I’d have to seduce you again.”  Dan wipes at his chest with a sigh.  “I’m a little rusty.  Tell me more.  What else is different where you’re from?”

“Uh, well, you’re Not So Grump, not Suzy.  I think your hair is a lot longer,” Arin says. He didn’t notice it with Dan’s bedhead this morning, but now he can see Dan’s hair is barely at his chin.

“You like it short,” Dan says.  

“Yeah,” Arin admits.  It’s like when Dan looks at him, he sees through him completely, and there’s something unsettling about it.  “I do.”

“What else?” Dan prompts him, taking another drink of water.  This time he doesn’t spill it all over himself.  “How’d we meet?”

“I sent you a really embarrassing e-mail after Ross showed me your Ninja Sex Party stuff,” Arin says.  He leans against the back of Dan’s couch, or Dan and his couch?  It’s a nice brown leather, not the well-worn scratchy plaid one that’s probably older than Arin that Arin remembers.  “You responded in kind.  You were coming to Los Angeles to stay with your uncle, so we met up and got sushi.”

“Huh,” Dan says.  “But I’m guessing in your universe you didn’t give me a blowjob in the sushi restaurant bathroom and keep me from getting to my uncle’s place for three days.”

“Wow, no I did not.  Did I do that here?” Arin asks.  “Man, gay me is kind of a slut.”

“Was a slut,” Dan corrects him, pushing himself out of the kitchen doorway and coming over to sit next to him.  “I tamed you.  You kind of tamed me too.  We tamed each other.”

“You still manage to make that sound very sexual,” Arin says.

“Good.” Dan smiles like he’s proud.  

“So that’s how we got together?  Bathroom blowie at a sushi place?”

“It was a great blowjob,” Dan says.  “Definitely in my Top Five.  One through four are also you, just other times.”

“Wow, I was really worried there for a second,” Arin says, rolling his eyes.  Dan elbows him in the side, and it feels good, it feels natural.  “I’ve never even given a blowjob.”

“I find that painfully hard to believe,” Dan tells him, so genuine it hurts.

“Well thank you?  I don’t know, I’ve just been with Suzy my whole life.  There hasn’t really been room to uh, experiment,” he says.  

“I don’t know what’s weirder,” Dan continues, “the fact that you, the beej king, have never given a blowjob, or that the longer we talk like this I’m actually starting to believe you’re a straight version of you from a parallel dimension.”

“Mostly straight,” Arin corrects again.  “Like I said, I’ve never really had the chance to test that out.”

“Happy marriage then?” Dan asks.  He doesn’t sound jealous, he just sounds like he wants to make sure Arin is okay, and something about that makes Arin’s chest feel tighter.  He grabs the can of soda water out of Dan’s hand and takes a big sip.

“Yeah, honestly,” he says.  “I don’t think I’d be human if I didn’t think of, you know, alternatives though.”

“Like what?” Dan asks, taking his water back.  He leans in, shoulder-to-shoulder with Arin, and it’s comforting.  “Like me?”

“Sure,” Arin says.  “Yeah.  Like you.”

“Well I gotta say, I’m proud that even in bizarro hetero you’s world, you would still probably go gay for me,” Dan says with a shit-eating grin.  

“Who knows,” Arin says.  “If I’m stuck here permanently it might actually happen.  Regain my title as ‘beej king.’”

“God, I’m just imagining like, some Rocky training montage of you sucking me off until you’ve done it, you’ve become the master,” Dan says, and Arin laughs, because it feels more like a riff than a come on.  

“Oh my God, with you singing Eye of the Tiger the entire time,” Arin replies through his laughter.

“ Yes ,” Dan says.  “How did you know that was my number one sexual fantasy?”

“Because I know you, dude,” Arin says, and for a second he forgets that this is a different place, and a different Dan, who has a different relationship with a different Arin.  “Even if you’re not my Dan, you know, I think I still know you.”

“God, you’re making this hard,” Dan says. “And weird.”

“What?” Arin asks.  He grabs Dan’s soda water again, but Dan grabs his wrist.

“You, you know, not being you-you.  I don’t know what to believe, I don’t know what’s real, so I don’t know what’s okay.  I don’t know if I can kiss you, or tell you how crazy you sound--and God, I just want to kiss all the crazy things coming out of your mouth away right now, you know?  And then, then there’s this part of me that’s like, well, he’s technically still your husband, so if he does blow you, is that cheating ?”

He lets Arin’s wrist go, but Arin still feels every inch of him like he’s branded himself there.  Neither of them are laughing anymore.  

“What if,” Arin says very suddenly, punctuating halfway through with a shaky sip of water, “what if this is God or something telling me I need to have a gay experience with you.  What if that’s why I’m here.  The multiverse needs me to have sex with you to maintain some kind of balance, but knows I can’t when I’m married to Suz.”

“Okay, Big Cat, you’re starting to sound kind of cuckoo bananas again,” Dan says firmly.  “I’m telling you the truth because I love you.”

“No, I think I’m onto something here,” Arin protests.

“Baby, I think you might be on something, not onto something,” Dan says, and that’s when Arin puts the soda water down and forcefully kisses him.  

The weird part is how easy it is.  He’s always thought Dan would be a good kisser, but he didn’t expect kissing Dan to come so easily.  He didn’t realize there was a difference between the two.  But it’s all more comfortable than he imagined in his distant, pushed away fantasies, the drag of Dan’s scruff against his own, the milky sweetness of Dan’s mouth tasting better than the best dessert Arin’s ever had.  

“Huh,” he says, pulling away.  “That was nice.”

“That was weird,” Dan says, and then they’re kissing again, but hungrier this time, open mouths sloppy against each other and Dan pulls him in and over the back of the couch with a practiced ease, long, skinny limbs wrapping around Arin’s waist and weighing him down.  “You don’t kiss like my husband, you kiss like a schoolboy.”

“Shut up,” Arin says, biting at his jaw.

“Make me,” Dan says with a laugh, kissing his temple.

“Fine,” Arin says and presses their mouths together again.  He feels like he’s been waiting for something his entire life and didn’t know it was this until it happened.  It feels good, and different, and wild.  Dan writhes underneath him, but everywhere he settles, he fits perfectly against Arin.  The sheer friction of him makes an honest to God moan slip out of Arin’s mouth.

“Easy tiger,” Dan says, mouth slipping away from his for second to speak. They’re both breathing heavily.  Arin’s got his hands everywhere, but they both move up to Dan’s face so he can brush some stray curls out of Dan’s eyes.  Dan’s got his fingers through the belt loops of Arin’s jeans in return, the only thing separating them and frankly keeping Arin from dry humping the fuck out of Dan.  

“Sorry,” Arin says, panting a little.  

“Don’t apologize, shit,” Dan replies, tilting his head to kiss the pad of Arin’s thumb on his face.  “I’m just worried like, the multiverse wants you to have a gay experience, not come in your pants like a teenager.”

“Dude,” Arin says.  “Wow.  Kind of hurts, bro.”

“Again, just being honest because I care about you and your well-being,” Dan tells him, rolling his hips up a little in a way that make Arin’s eyes roll back in his head.  “Don’t want you to be screwed by the multiverse because you didn’t have a complete gay experience.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me,” Arin says.

“Yeah, a little bit,” Dan says.  “I just--look, this is weird.  Gotta use humor or else I’m going to go crazy actually believing you’re from another dimension and we have to bone to get you home.  The premise seems a little suspicious.”

“Are you complaining?” Arin asks, pushing himself up to rest back on his heels, still straddling Dan against the couch.

“Mm, no, come back,” Dan says, making grabby hands for him.  “Baby.  You just seem a little, uh, compliant, I guess?”

“Look, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it,” Arin says, which is true.  He’s seen Dan out of the corner of his eye a thousand and one times or more and thought, in a different life dot dot dot, let his thoughts trail off there and not entertained them further.  “It’s not like, a gay crisis or anything, it never had anything to do with me being gay or straight.  Just like, I knew if I had the opportunity with you, I probably would have taken it.  No shame in admitting it.”

“I’m flattered,” Dan says, “now come back down here.”

“I just poured my heart out to you, man.  Some real deep digging and you just want to make out more,” Arin replies, swatting at the hand Dan has curled in his t-shirt.

“I wanna do more than make out,” Dan says. “C’mere, let me show you.”

“God help me,” Arin says, and then he does.  He gets back down on his elbows and swoops in to kiss Dan again.

“No one can help you now,” Dan says into his mouth.  His hands leave Arin’s belt loops and travel up and under his shirt, fingers tracing patterns into the soft of his stomach, bitten down nails catching in the hair at his navel.  “You’re mine.”

“Yeah okay,” Arin concedes.  Dan knows exactly where to touch him, knows how to slowly build him up and tease him.  He almost feels guilty not knowing how to touch Dan in return.  He tells Dan.  He says, “it just seems unfair.”

“Nah,” Dan says, rocking against him again, feeling where he’s undeniably hard against Dan’s thigh.  “It’s fun.  Like the first time all over again.  Here, let me--”

He pushes against Arin’s chest, fingertips grazing Arin’s nipples as he coaxes him back until Arin is underneath him instead.

“Fuck,” Arin says as Dan drags a palm up the hard length of him, still sensitive through the denim and cotton.  

“Yeah?” Dan says, looking down at him, face asking a much more complicated question.

“Yeah,” Arin agrees, because he knows what Dan is asking, and it’s something he hasn’t let himself think about for years and years.  Dan smiles to himself like he’s won a prize and leans in to kiss Arin one more time while thumbing open the button of his jeans.  

“Promise me one thing,” Dan says, kissing away from his mouth, lips traveling down the side of Arin’s neck, the collar of his t-shirt, the meat of his chest.  “You’ll tell me when you’re getting close.”

Arin already feels close, but he doesn’t dare say so out loud.  He just nods, breathing shakily as Dan continues to work his way down.  Dan manages to get Arin’s jeans around his thighs in three rough tugs, Arin shimmying his hips a little to help.  When Dan tugs down his briefs, his dick springs out hard and eager.

“Hey there,” Dan greets his dick, which is so fucking surreal and wonderful, but then Dan is taking the head into his mouth, and it’s something altogether different.  Arin doesn’t have words for the way Dan feels or looks, eyes closed, nursing the tip of him.  

“Gnngh,” he tries, and fails.  Dan hums around his length pleased, and continues to suckle where Arin’s most sensitive until Arin feels like he’s unraveling from his balls and up.  He tries to ground himself by digging his fingers into Dan’s hair, lacing between his curls, but ends up just tugging at Dan rough and thrusting deep into his mouth.  “Fuck, Danny.”

Dan responds by lapping up his dick like a tide coming in, his tongue licking up the underside of him in hot, wet waves.  He looks so serious, eyes pinched shut, hand stroking Arin from the base up to greet his mouth, thick with spit.  Arin’s toes are curling and he realizes he’s still wearing his shoes, distantly.  

Dan’s mouth pops off his dick with a slick noise and he kisses the soft patch of skin where Arin’s dick and balls meet.  “You always taste so fucking good, baby.”

“Jesus,” Arin says.  “That’s it, Dan, too much, you’re gonna make me--”

“Not yet,” Dan says, taking his hand off Arin’s junk and kissing lower, sucking a bruise into the inside of Arin’s thigh above the band of his jeans.  “Need you to come in me.”

“What,” Arin says, brain muddled with need.

“You heard me,” Dan says.  He crawls up Arin’s chest to kiss the corner of his mouth the same way he did when Arin woke up this morning.  “Need you to come in me.  Gotta have the full experience, right, babe?”

“Fuck.”  Arin can barely keep himself from coming messily all over the both of them right now.  “Sure.  Why not.”

“That’s the spirit,” Dan says.  Arin takes the brief pause, Dan pushing himself up to tower over him, to kick his shoes off at least.  

“You want me to fuck you here?” He’s proud he can even get the words out, it seems so unreal, too good.  

“I’m a little old-fashioned,” Dan replies, leaning back long enough to take his own shirt off and throw it to the floor. “I was thinking maybe we could move this to the bedroom, but you know, if we don’t make it that far it’s not like I’m going to complain.”

“Mm, that’s like fifty feet away,” Arin complains. “Which is fifty feet too far.”  

“I believe in you, Big Cat,” Dan says, sounding so fucking tender it guts him completely.  

“Fine,” he says, pushing himself up to press a kiss of his own to Dan’s collarbone, take an experimental bite at his nipple.  “Challenge accepted.”

“That’s my boy,” Dan says, clearly pleased, breath hitching a bit when Arin lets his tongue flick over the nipple caught between his teeth.  “If you keep doing that though, huh.”

“Sorry,” Arin mumbles, even though he’s not sorry in the slightest.  He’s blindly working at Dan’s zip now, fumbling to get his jeans down.  Dan helps him, but stops his hands when Arin tries to grab his junk.  

“What happened to moving this to the bedroom?” Dan doesn’t whine, but it’s close.  He pushes himself away from Arin and off the couch.  “Catch me if you can, motherfucker.”

It’s harder done than said, what with both of them sporting boners and Arin still with the elastic of his briefs and yoke of his jeans taut around his thighs.  He pulls his underwear up and jeans down and follows after Dan, catching him in the mouth of the hallway and pinning him against a wall.  

“Always wondered what this would be like,” he admits, hands on Dan’s bony waist, licking a stripe up the long curve of Dan’s neck.  “You, me, this.”

“As good as you imagined?” Dan asks hopefully.  He strokes back Arin’s bangs, nails rough against his scalp.

“Better,” Arin says, not willing to say he was never brave enough to imagine this out of fear he would want it too much.  Dan finally lets him cop a feel, hand cupping his balls and sliding up to experimentally feel him out.  “God, you’re big.”

“Fun story: the first time you blew me, you looked up at me in that bathroom and said, ‘my, what a big dick you have.’  I called you red riding hood for like, a year after,” Dan says, grin so big it looks like his face is about to split in half.  

“I didn’t,” Arin protests, unknowing, embarrassed for his other self.

“You totally did, and it was amazing,” Dan says.  Arin kisses him again because he can’t not, and starts dragging him down the hallway by his hips.  They stumble back into the bedroom and Dan pushes him off to throw himself on the bed.  “How do you want me?”

“Uh,” Arin says.  He has no idea.  The idea of fucking Dan face-to-face kind of scares him on an intimate level though, the reality of it, how undeniable it would be.  

“How about,” Dan says, rolling onto his stomach, “you get the lube out of the night stand while I stick my sweet, sweet ass in the air, and you take care of me however you see fit.”

It’s an easy out, and Arin takes it.  He smacks Dan’s ass and then gives the red handprint a kiss, before shifting over to the nightstand.  In his place with Suzy, they always keep the sex stuff in the top drawer, so that’s where he looks first.  

“Bingo,” he says, opening the drawer and finding the lube on the first try.  He uncaps it and greases up his dick with it, before taking a little more to slide up Dan’s taint to his hole, up in the air and inviting.  “You like it when I fuck you?”

“Like it?” Dan’s voice is muffled where his face is half pressed into the bedspread underneath him.  “Fucking love it, bro, love your dick, it’s like a complete breakfast, can’t start my day without it.”

“God,” Arin says, eyes rolling to the ceiling to ground himself as he slides his dick up and down the crease of Dan’s ass.  He plans on experimentally pushing in slow and shallow, but Dan is looser than he expects and he ends up balls deep in a handful of seconds.  “Fuck.  You’re a fucking slut, Dan.”

“I’m your fucking slut,” Dan corrects him.  “Now fuck me already.”

“I’m trying!” Arin says, and Dan laughs underneath him.

“Try harder, shithead,” and Arin pulls out to near the tip before snapping his hips back in, making Dan gasp and curl his fingers into the sheets.  “There we go, goddamn, fuck me, Arin, fuck me just like that.”  

Dan repeats the movement, slowly withdrawing and then fucking into him hard; he rolls out of Dan like molasses unfolding and then thrusts gut-punchingly hard and Dan lets out an animalistic noise with each movement.

“You fucking monster,” Dan says.  “Teasing me like this, you goddamn piece of shit, I can’t believe.”

“You love it,” Arin says, because he can tell.  Every inch of Dan is moving to get more of Arin inside him, to get more of Arin against him, and he’s still smiling up to his ears with a dick in his ass.  

“Yeah baby,” Dan says, so genuine and fond, “you know I do.”

It doesn’t take much more than that.  Arin speeds his thrusts up until he’s smashing his hips against Dan’s ass erratically, uncontrollably, desperately wanting to get off until he does.  Dan comes seconds after him, laughing.

“God,” Arin says, forehead pressed into the sweaty stretch of skin between Dan’s shoulderblades.  His dick is still pulsing out come as Dan’s muscles tighten around him, coming into the sheets.  “I needed that a lot more than I thought I did.”

“Felt good,” Dan agrees, sex dumb and unwound beneath him.  “So good.”

Arin pulls out of him and they both gasp at the point of disconnect, and Arin rolls next to him on the bed.  “That was stupid, how good that was.”  

“Another fuck well done,” Dan tells him, closing his eyes and snuggling in, nosing at his neck.  

“Good job us,” Arin says.  They lazily high five, naked legs sticky and tangling together.  

“That had like, the energy of first time sex and just got married sex all rolled into one,” Dan says.  “Jesus.”  

“Yeah,” Arin says.  “Apparently we got eloped?”

He’s been thinking about it since he saw the picture on Suzy’s phone: ELOPED MOTHERFUCKERS .  After proposing to Suzy it took two stressful years of planning their ceremony, figuring out every piece of the event down to the second.  He wouldn’t trade it for anything, as it was the best day of his life, and all the stress was worth it to have the most fun, flaw free wedding in the world.  But he still wonders about how it could have been different, how here it apparently was.

“We did get eloped,” Dan confirms, wriggling in closer and rolling around so Arin’s spooning him.  “We had a weekend off.  You looked at me, said ‘we should just fucking do it.’  I knew exactly what you meant.  We drove up to Vegas with Ross as our witness and did the whole Elvis Presley thing in a fifty dollar chapel.  You convinced me to spend a few extra hundred to get like, commemorative plates that we sent to our friends and family, and then we went on a bunch of rides on the stratosphere to try and get Ross to puke.”

“Did he?” Arin asks a little too excitedly.

“No,” Danny says, “you almost did though, Jesus.  The internet went crazy.  But we were too busy holding hands in a lazy river at the New York, New York to really give a fuck.  I think we stayed for a week.”

“That sounds--” Arin yawns, closes his eyes, and is this it?  “That sounds amazing.  Incredible.”

“It was,” Danny says.  “You were.  Are.”

“Gee bud,” Arin says, and he can’t help the way he’s smiling, the way he feels so complete knowing these things, this history that doesn’t necessarily belong to him, but he’s always wondered and assumed and now he knows.  “Thanks.  You’re not half bad yourself.”

“I know,” Dan says, and he rolls over to kiss Arin, slow and sweet, mouths dragging together, tongues lapping into each other like it’s the last time.  It probably is, Arin reflects sleepily.  

“Tell me another story,” he says, wanting to wear Dan’s voice like a blanket, a comfort over his entire body.  “About us.”

“Okay,” Dan says.  Arin falls asleep to the sound of his voice, the sound of his story about the two of them almost getting caught by hotel service on a trip up to Portland.  Dan has a way with words, he puts life in them, and for the last few seconds before Arin is dragged into sleep, he feels like he could have been there.  

“I’ll never know and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”

(post script)

Arin shoots up awake with a gasp.  His chest is heaving and his skin is covered in rivulets of cold sweat and he anxiously pats around the bed next to him in the dark, looking for the familiar form of--

“Dan,” he says, shaking Dan’s bony shoulder when he finds it, “ Dan .”

“Mzzzzuh?” Dan says, eyes still closed, burrowing his face into the meat of Arin’s hip.  “Shit, Arin, you can’t keep doing this, I swear to God, I need sleep.”

“Jesus Tits, Dan, Christ.  I’m sorry, I had the worst, uh, this weird dream that was so fucking vivid.”

Dan is quiet for a second, and Arin is pretty sure he’s already gone back to sleep, but then he pushes himself up and kisses Arin’s shoulder.  “Was it about you switching bodies with a mostly straight version of yourself?”

“Oh my God,” Arin says. “Yes.”

“Babe, that totally happened,” Dan says, scrubbing at his face.  “He was here.  It was super weird.  I may have given him a blowjob and let him fuck me for science.”

“Dan,” Arin says again, except this time it sounds like he might cry.

“You okay?”

“Dan, I ate puss.  In this parallel dimension, I was married to Suzy.  And I, I, I didn’t know what to do, I thought I was stuck there.  I got panicked, Danny, and I ate her out.”

Dan is quiet for another second, and the second feels like five million, it feels absolutely damning, but then Dan starts laughing uncontrollably.  He presses his brow against Arin’s collarbone where he fits perfectly and he shakes with laughter.  Arin can feel his tears against his chest.  

“Fuck,” Dan finally wheezes out, “I can’t believe you went muff diving.  That’s incredible.  How was it?”

“Wet,” Arin answers honestly.  “It was so wet and so terrifying, Dan, I was so fucking lost.  It was like someone gave me a map to a cave but all the directions were in Chinese and backwards, and it was so scary.”

“Ssh, baby, it’s okay,” Dan says, a little giggle still tickling the back of his throat when he speaks.  “You’re back home. Suzy’s vagina can’t hurt you anymore.  I’ll protect you.”

“You always do,” Arin says.