Misfit (Phan AU)

Chapter Eleven

*okay super quick i hate author's notes at the beginning of a chapter just as much as you do but this is important. (if you need tw read, if not continue on u precious peachhead) One of the ghosts in this chapter died from suicide and they mention it very very vaguely, nothing graphic at all, but if ur sensitive toward that it happens when Dan walks to go sit down without Phil in the waiting room.*

*Dan's POV*

Aside from our short stop to let Phil spill the remainder of his stomach content onto the pavement, our drive to the hospital went without interruption, of any kind. Not only did we get by without pulling over again, but we didn't speak, all of us pleasantly wrapped up in our own minds. Well, perhaps pleasantly wasn't the adjective to use to describe my experience, but Phil seemed pretty happy to keep to himself for once, he was most likely thinking about something enjoyable. I wasn't sure exactly what it was that Cat spent her free time thinking about, but given the wide-eyed optimistic way she was watching each sight pass us by, it couldn't have been anything too heavy that'd drag her down in any way.

I, on the other hand, was currently plagued with the concerns and anxiety that plagued me every time I found myself on course for the hospital. Granted, it had already amounted to years since my last trip here, so it wasn't necessarily a frequent experience, but it was definitely one memorable enough to know when I felt it again and to know that I didn't want to feel it again. It might have been easy to overlook earlier, with the initial shock of Phil's injury and the rush to get out of the house, but the longer I drove and had time to actually think rather than act, the more it started to eat away at me.

My body was in a cold sweat and I could feel my heart racing the entire drive, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly they'd gone pale white. It didn't exactly help that I'd been taking public transport for quite some time now and this was my first attempt at driving a vehicle myself in a long time, but I couldn't bring myself to loosen my grip no matter how I tried to reason with myself that it'd be okay, that it was actually the safer thing to do. I felt like the joints had seized and my hands were simply incapable of moving.

After reaching our destination and successfully managing to park the car, I wasn't sure if I'd started to feel relief or even more panic. Yes, I'd managed to get him here in one piece (well, relatively, he was pretty banged up when he got in the vehicle), but at the same time it only meant we'd reached the place that had caused all the dread in the first place. 

My eyes were narrowed as I stared at the brick building, completely lost in thought as I remembered some of my earliest experiences with it. Growing up near here it was the exact hospital I'd gone to my entire life, but while the familiarity may have comforted some people, it only made it worse for me. 

I was vaguely aware of the fact that Cat was talking in the backseat, chattering on about something useless and being completely oblivious to the state I was in, but oddly enough, Phil seemed more attuned to what I was going through than she did. He was completely turned in his seat to face me and as I nervously flickered my eyes around I even noticed that he'd shed his shoes in favor of tucking his feet under himself on the seat. He was staring at me thoughtfully like he'd only just noticed how out of it I was since starting the trip here. In his defense it had only gotten progressively worse to get to this point, and he wasn't exactly paying attention to me in order to notice.

"Aren't you coming in?" He asked suddenly, nudging his head in the direction of the building. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat as I pried my other hand off the steering wheel, the other already free from when I'd turned off the car. I took a deep breath before letting myself collapse back against the seat, wiping my sweaty palms shakily against my jeans. I was just trying not to concentrate on anything in specific aside from answering his question, hopefully in a way that wouldn't leave it up to further discussion.