Illuminated // Phan (boyxboy)

Chapter 14

 the link to the video in the banner is extremely fitting for this chapter.

Phil's pov:

When he woke up, Dan was squeezing his hand in his own tightly and looking at him with concern shining through his eyes in the darkness of the car. Startled, he stared back at Dan with glassy eyes from sleep as he noticed the care home building around them.

"Come on sleeping beauty, we've been trying to wake you up for the last five minutes. You're like a bloody log," Dan whispered with a laugh into his ear making goosebumps from the chill run down his neck.

Slowly, he pulled himself out of his seat; his body heavy with sleep exhaustion. He made desperate grabby hands at Dan, needing help to get out when he was pretty much blind without his glasses. Hesitantly, Phil let Dan help him carefully, the older boys movements calm and collected as not to scare him or make him panic.

He latched onto Dan's hand again like a clamp, instantly feeling protected by having  Dan holding him close, their hands entwined - effectively stopping anything being able to get to him.

He supposed that was just going to make what he was planning to do so much more worse than he had originally thought.

He held on tighter to the hand that was holding him together and let himself be pulled into their house gently. Dan was trying to shrug his coat off but his own grip on Dan's hand was like a death lock, unrelentingly . Dan's inquisitive face lightened when he shook his head desperately, feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable with everything right then. He couldn't explain why; only that the room felt far too warm, and he far too cold and clammy. The walls too narrowed down on him, bearing down upon him like predators, hungry and watching him with a supple ease.

"It's okay Phil, you're safe here," Dan promised as Scott smiled over at him warmly and comfortingly. His slight grin casting a sparkle into his eyes.

He flinched at the words, he was never safe. He we supposed to be safe at the visit and he was just too much of a freak to even abide by that and now he had to deal with the repercussions. But Dan was an inexplicable force of irony and satire in his life; someone to pull him back when he strayed too far towards the edge. The same edge that haunted him daily with constant chants of, "Do it Phil; jump,"  and "no one would miss you." But Dan just seemed to know when those days were and he'd sleep in his bed next to him and let him cuddle in close so their bodies touched and he knew that nobody else would be able to get to him, not when he had Dan. Dan would hold him tightly throughout the day and although the elder boy didn't know the reason why he would be crying; Dan still held him through the tears and panic attacks when all he wanted to do was hurt himself. That, in itself made him nervous because if Dan ever saw that journal he kept in his drawers then he would be screwed, but there was no chance that Dan would ever see it, was there?  The mere thought of that had his heart racing and he managed to push those anxieties down, there was no reason for Dan to go through his drawers and if he did, then he could just deny everything - say he had an angsty day and ended up drawing that, no further reasoning behind it. That wouldn't be a complete lie after all, he had written and drawn it over a series of angsty days starting in 2007 up until the week he had left his parents house. He really hated his parents.

His father was going to hurt Dan and he didn't think he could cope with that risk. His father never made empty threats and if he knew that if he didn't do what his father asked then Dan was going to be in trouble and so would he. (And if he was honest, he would much rather his father hurt him than to have Dan hurt).