Those Who Trust (Phan)

Part 19

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Just when Phil had thought that things between them were okay, he was proven wrong again.

It had happened overnight. In the evening, Dan had laughed at one of Phil's jokes, and the next morning, he had scurried past Phil without looking up, only a faint "Good morning," coming from his lips, and Phil had noticed how his cheeks had been coloured red. Weeks had passed since that morning, and Phil still hadn't figured out if there was something he had said or done for Dan to act the weird way he did.

Although PJ had tried talking to him more than once, it seemed like Dan's lips were sealed tight. He hadn't let anything slip about the kiss, although a month had already passed since then.

Of course Phil tried to come up with explanations for the sudden shift in Dan's behaviour, but since he had no idea what had caused it, he had tried to just ignore it for now and hope that maybe it was just a phase, tried not to worry too much about it - that was, until he spotted Dan on an early Monday evening strolling through a bookshop not too far from their apartment.

As soon as he saw him, Phil hid behind a shelf, but tried not to let Dan out of his sight at the same time. He watched as the younger man stood between the bookshelves, his fingers sometimes gracing the back of books. Some he pulled out and read the blurb, and Phil could see the way the corners of his lips would quirk upwards, or the way his eyebrows would knit together at some of the words he read.

He was too engrossed with watching Dan look at books to notice the male employee that came up behind his flatmate, and he pressed his lips tightly together when he watched the man ask Dan, if he could help him with something.

Dan, who hadn't seemed to notice the other man's approach either, immediately recoiled from the voice behind him and almost dropped the book in his hands. Both he and the employee reached out for it, their fingers brushed, and Dan flinched back. Phil could hear Dan stumbling over his words, and he had to hold back from entering the scene to calm him down and get the employee to leave Dan alone. Instead he watched the way Dan fled the store, leaving a confused employee with the book in his hands behind.

Phil turned his attention back to the books he had been browsing before spotting Dan, but he couldn't forget the encounter he had just witnessed. He knew Dan had always been jumpy, but he hadn't realized it was this extreme in such an innocent situation - and besides, when Dan had left the apartment about an hour earlier, he had claimed to be leaving for his therapist, just like every other Monday and Wednesday evening. Phil knew for a fact though, that Dan's therapist's office was more than a few underground stations away. Dan had said that he'd be there, so had he lied to Phil? And if yes, why had he done that? Phil hadn't worried too much about Dan, had thought that maybe his weird behaviour would go away eventually - but not opening up to people he trusted, lying and not going to his therapist's office, all these things made Phil think that something had to be going on.

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When Dan arrived home, it was at the usual time he would be back after his therapist's session. Phil could hear how he shrugged out of his coat and toed off his shoes. He was lying on the couch with his laptop on his lap, mindlessly browsing the internet.

"Hey, how was it at your therapist's?" Phil asked when Dan came into the lounge, and he tried to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"It was alright," was Dan's short answer.

"Oh," Phil moved the laptop from his lap to the coffee table and sat up. "So what did you talk about?"

He watched as Dan ducked his head. His flatmate sounded defensive as he answered: "You never wanted to know that before, and it's none of your business anyway."