Chapter Text
Danny startles out of whatever dream he was having by the sound of pots clanging around in the kitchen. The dream was a pleasant one, something that brought him back to his Morrowind days, but as he fully works his way into consciousness, the dream slips away from his fingertips. He sits up in his large bed and stretches, groaning happily when his tendons make satisfying cracking sounds. When he reaches for his glasses, he notices that the other side of the bed looks like it recently had someone in it, but that can't be right, considering Dan didn't bring anyone home with him. He chalks it up to him probably getting out of that side of the bed in the night to pee or something and he crawls out of bed and pulls on a ratty old Rush t-shirt.
His hair is particularly Jewy this morning so he wrestles it into a bun on the back of his head before opening his bedroom door. He's still bleary from sleep when he wanders into the kitchen, and as a result he doesn't notice at first who is at the stove making breakfast. When he does, however, he pauses in his search through the fridge for orange juice.
"Arin?" he asks, incredibly confused.
Arin is in his Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and a thin black tank top, prodding at bacon that's in the skillet. He looks up at Dan and smiles, and Dan can't keep the smile off of his face—Arin's grin has a way of infecting people and making them smile along with him.
"Yeah, Danny?"
Dan quirks an eyebrow and finally locates the orange juice—it was hiding behind the milk jug. Arin so rarely calls him Danny. "Where's Barry?"
Arin looks confused at this and Dan looks confused at Arin's confusion.
"At his house?" Arin answers, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Um," Dan begins while pouring his OJ into the Batman cup he grabbed from the dish drainer, "this is his house...?"
Arin frowns. "Did Barry move in within the last five hours without telling me or something?" He flips the bacon over before turning back to Dan. "He's at home with Suzy, you dingus."
"Why's he with Suzy?" Dan is so, so confused and he's starting to think that he's actually still asleep and having some batshit weird lucid dream.
"One generally lives with their wife, Dan." A weird ringing begins in Dan's ears and he suddenly feels wetness on his feet. It takes Arin's loud, surprised shout to make him realize he's dropped his cup on the ground and covered the linoleum with the glorious OJ he didn't get a chance to drink. "What the hell?" Arin asks, sliding the skillet onto a burner that isn't on and turning off the oven. He grabs the roll of paper towels and drops down to his knees to clean up the spilled drink, because Dan is apparently frozen to the spot.
"What?" Dan finally manages to get out, and by the time he does so, Arin is mopping up the last bit of OJ. He pats at Dan's feet and his shins softly, cleaning the juice off him. When he stands up, he continues the confusing streak by brushing one of the stray pieces of hair Dan couldn't get into his man-bun out of Dan's eyes.
"Are you okay, Danny?" Arin's brow furrows in concern and he sucks slightly on his bottom lip. Dan watches the minute movement with rapt attention. It distracted him every time Arin did it, and despite the weirdness going on, this time was no different.
"Why do you keep calling me Danny?" he asks, frowning out of confusion. "You never call me Danny."
The crease between Arin's eyebrows deepens and he sucks on the inside of his cheek. "I've been calling you Danny for a long time now, man."
Dan sighs and rubs at his eyes behind his glasses with his fingers until spots flash within the darkness. When he opens his eyes and the blurriness clears, Arin is still watching him intently. "Maybe I just need to eat," he mutters, though he's pretty damn sure that eating some bacon isn't going to explain why Arin said Barry is married to Suzy.
Halfway through breakfast, however, things get weirder when, from across the table, Arin brushes his foot over Dan's bare ankle. Dan startles and nearly drops his bacon, but he continues on eating, briefly thinking about how he's so bad at being Jewish sometimes, but fuuuuck bacon. When the foot slides higher up his leg, however, he pauses.
"Arin, what are you doing?" he asks, slightly peeved at the nervous warble in his voice.
Arin looks up from his phone, which he's idly scrolling through as he eats. "Is my foot too cold?"
"No, it's just... why is your foot inching towards my junk?"
"You were into it last week," Arin says slowly as he carefully retracts his foot from Danny's thigh. "I'm sorry, man. I didn't know something had changed. You gotta clue me in on that shit, babe."
If Dan had had any food in his mouth he would have choked on it. He clutches his head and rubs at his temples. This has got to be the most vivid lucid dream he has ever had and he's doing a shit fucking job at the lucid part of it, since he can't seem to control the situation at all.
Arin's hand is warm when it encircles Dan's wrist, and despite how weirded out he is, Arin's touch comforts him, just like it always does. "Are you getting another one of those migraines?" The worry is evident in his voice and Dan automatically feels bad for causing it.
"Yeah, yeah," he mumbles. "I'm gonna go back to bed for a while."
"Okay," Arin says as Dan gets up and puts his empty plate in the sink. "If I can do anything, let me know, man."
Dan nods in affirmation and heads back into his bedroom, and now that he's fully awake he realizes that the room looks a lot different than normal.
In addition to the usual array of band posters and The Last Unicorn, Legend of Zelda, and Lord of the Rings pictures, there are Mega-Man panels and Sailor Moon art on his walls as well. He can see Arin's Sailor Moon shirt hanging out of the dirty clothes hamper, and his favorite pink blanket is at the foot of the bed. Tiny Arin knickknacks litter the shelves, adding to the already cluttered bunch of stuff Dan owns. It... it looks like Arin lives here. In Dan's room. He shakes his head and this time he does feel the pain bloom behind his eyes from the encroaching migraine.
He puts his glasses in their spot on the nightstand and notices that Arin's reading glasses are also on the nightstand.
What the actual fuck is going on?
Dan decides that he's had enough of whatever this weird fucking dream is, and he hopes that if he goes to sleep in the dream, he'll wake up in real life. It doesn't take long for him to get comfortable in the bed. Shamefully, he drags Arin's blanket up from the foot of the bed and holds it close. It smells like Arin, which has been a comforting smell to Dan for the past three years—minus Arin's array of other smells that no one would ever find comforting—and he quickly sinks into unconsciousness.
When he wakes, he can feel the comforting warmth of another body pressed against his. The fluffy pink blanket is now draped across him and the other person. He snuggles closer to the warmth. He feels the person begin to speak before he hears it, the vibrations of their voice rumbling through their chest.
"You know, if you wanted me to come snuggle you, you could have asked, Danny." Arin's voice is quiet, as he's trying to be wary of Dan's migraine. He softly brushes his fingers through Dan's wild hair, moving it away from his face so that it splays out on the pillow behind him. He presses a tender kiss to the sensitive spot behind Danny's ear, and he feels Dan's odd reaction—a mix of full-body tensing paired with a shaky inhale from the placement. "What's going on with you today, baby?"
Dan's migraine has mostly faded by now, but he thinks it might already be coming back. What does he tell Arin? Oh, hey, I woke up in an alternate universe where we're apparently together and your wife is married to my roommate but it's no big deal! Dan fiddles with his fingers nervously while he tries to come up with an answer to Arin's question when he realizes he's wearing a ring that he doesn't recognize. He's taken to wearing rings more often, but never on his ring finger. Oh no.
Dan hopes that his voice won't shake when he speaks, but of course, he's not that lucky. "Arin," he says quietly, and he can feel his best friend tense behind him at the shake in his voice when he speaks, "did we get married?"
Dan can't see, but behind him Arin has furrowed his brow harshly, and a frown sits on his face. "Uh... yeah? Like, three years ago? What the fuck is going on with you?"
He doesn't know why, but he's suddenly smacked upside the head with a humongous wave of emotion and against his will, his shoulders start shaking and his breath comes in short gasps. Arin practically Spidermans his way over Dan so that he can be in front of him, and he tugs Dan into a sitting position. He cups Dan's sharp jaw in his hands and rubs his thumb slowly over his stubble.
"Baby, breathe with me, c'mon," Arin says in a soothing voice, as if he's had to help Dan through this many times in the past. Inside, Dan laughs at the complete fuckery of this situation. He's apparently landed himself in a parallel universe—and won't that make Mr. Theoretical Physicist so happy?—and the alternate him is gay, married to Arin, and is apparently a fucking basket case as well! Great!
Arin brushes the wayward hair out of Dan's face and locks eyes with him. He can see the panic and confusion swirling within the warm depths and he wants to fix it desperately. "In, one, two, three," he coaches, glad when Dan follows his lead, "out, one, two, three." They repeat the process a few more times until Dan's breathing has evened out. He's still crying, but at this point the tears are just silently running down his face.
Dan buries his face in Arin's shoulder and clutches his shirt so hard that he's probably stretching it, but he's afraid to let go. Arin has always been home to him, ever since they met. Arin was his sun, and he was trapped in a never-ending revolution around him. Even when he's this confused, Arin is a sense of stability and comfort.
"You know, that's probably the worst reaction I've ever gotten from telling somebody we're married," Arin says nonchalantly, and Dan snorts and whacks his arm. A smile works its way across Arin's face. "There's my kitten." He kisses the top of Dan's head and Dan can feel the blush creep up to the tips of his ears. He knows that he can't tell Arin the truth—he'd have him fuckin' institutionalized and Dan honestly wouldn't blame him.
Arin's hand is a warm weight on his back, anchoring him from spiraling into panic again. What's he going to do? He's married to Arin. No doubt the man is going to want to kiss him at some point, and probably... other things. Dan pretends that the wave of heat in his belly is indigestion and nothing more.
"You ready to tell me what's goin' on with you?" Arin's voice rumbles through his chest and Dan snuggles closer.
"I had a really vivid dream after I came to lie down, I guess," Dan says quietly, hoping that he's selling it. He's never been the greatest actor. "It just confused me a lot, is all." Arin is silent for a moment and Dan's sure that he's been caught, but Arin chuckles and kisses the top of Dan's head again.
"You're such a dangus sometimes, man," he says lovingly. Dan pulls back and looks him in the eyes.
"Words hurt, dude," Dan manages to say with a straight face before they both dissolve into a fit of giggles.
"Well, c'mon out to the kitchen so I can feed you and your dangus-y ways some dinner." Arin gets off the bed and heads to the kitchen and Dan huffs. "Come on, danguslord!"
"I'm coming, shithead!"
Dan rubs at his temples before sliding out of bed and stretching. His joints crack and he sighs contentedly. For what it's worth, he considers that he could have ended up married to someone a lot worse, like... Ross. He shudders and pads into the kitchen, ready-but-not-really for his first meal as a married man.