glory and gore ; phan

x

seven minutes.

ten minutes.

dan exhaled shakily, meticulously watching the arms move in his watch as the time slowly passed. "is he okay?" he thought, trying to brush off any toxic thoughts of someone with a murderous grudge awaiting a victim in phil's room. he gulped, raising to his feet abruptly. the brunette chewed on the insides of his cheeks as he staggered to phil's door, his eyes widening in fear as he noticed the dim crack in the door. "phil?" he shouted in a slightly hushed tone, not wanting to show how paranoid he was getting.

"phi-" he started again, but stopped sigh his breath hitching in his throat upon laying eyes on the multitude of paintings freckling phil's walls. his chocolate irises seemed to be caught in an entrancing web as he eyed a particular piece; a piece that, from a far glance, appeared as nothing other than a blank canvas. but as he took a reluctant step forward, the acute strokes of light-laced grays and smoke-hazed off-whites became clear to his transfixed senses, giving the painting an equivocal facet.

most would consider the color white to be plain, untouched, or lifeless, but dan's tangled threads of thought determined it to be the most complex of shades, with its congestive interpretations. maybe it symbolized virtue or morality, or maybe it was a mask, concealing the vitriolic antipathy that lays hidden under a white-toothed smile. perhaps it was rather unprejudiced, not a certain thing or another, or maybe it was a psychological shade that portrayed purpose and tenacity. though maybe it was the fact that it was seen as unvarying that gave it an essence of relation, of an empathetic characteristic. perhaps white was humanity; after all, humanity is virtuous,  vitriolic, unprejudiced, purposes, and empathetic. a coalition of cruelty and benevolence; the beginning of everything. the beginning of everything? does that even make sense? perhaps not, but after all, it is just a color and probably nothing more.

but then again, when dan was shaken from his thoughts and snapped back to reality, he saw nothing but beauty when he laid eyes on the man in front of him. the way that from head to toe he embodied a galaxy; as if the veins trailing through his arms were the rings that circled saturn, and the collarbones glowing faintly through his t-shirt were cosmic constellations. as if his eyes were a nebula, of icy blue protogalaxies and of bright green universes and of clusters of craters of metallic golden comets. as if the colors that made up his pupils had messily collided and created a masterpiece.

dan couldn't seem to determine what emotion this was, this feeling, this thread of thoughts that seemed to drag him back into the light when phil placed his hands on his shoulders and shook him slightly. this feeling of desire, of warmth, of romance. of love.

by the time he had seemed to have been snapped back to reality, his chapped lips were placed against phil's soft ones, the ebony-haired man smiling into the kiss as their fingers tangled together. dan would've been content in that moment of unexpected epiphanies and soft lips forever if not for the sudden knock against the door. chris leaned against the doorframe, a smirk laced across his lips.

"so i assume you're coming then?"

* * *
four months later

phil's bloodshot eyes trailed after the last attending person as they crawled into their dark-colored car, depression laced pity swelling in their tear-stained eyes. he waited a seemingly everlasting moment, watching as the car kicked up dust as it drove away before turning his painfully apathetic gaze back to the newly engraved headstone in front of him. "i'm sorry i missed the funeral," a hoarse voice drawn from behind him suddenly said, causing his head to whip around to face the person.

his rage-intoxicated gaze softened when he laid eyes on them, their cheeks freckled with tormented tears and misery. the person neared the grave, tremulously standing beside the ebony-haired man, who gulped. "is it done?" he muttered under his breath, sharply meeting their distraught, bloodshot gaze. although neither of them spoke anything of it, they both knew very well that the bloodshot misery in phil's cold eyes wasn't caused by tears, but by spiked vodka at 2am and the stash of cocaine hidden in his third bedside drawer.

the person beside him swallowed the lump of angst and regretful anguish in their throat before replying. "yes." phil exhaled the stressed breath he was holding, giving a small nod before starting to walk away from the person and the grave.

"good."