Symbiosis (Phan)

11: this is a really long chapter im sorry

Part of Dan didn't want to speak to Chris at all. Ever again, or something ridiculous like that. That part of Dan remained unheard as the overwhelming bubbling mess of anxiety in the pit of his stomach grew and rose up through his chest, flooding his lungs and lodging in his throat until he couldn't breathe at all. It was an issue that simply refused to leave him alone, despite the fact that in any other state of mind it wouldn't have been an issue at all, but Dan couldn't ask for the world and expect to receive it, just laid out before him on a silver platter, could he?

Dan also distinctly remembered Phil telling him perhaps not to talk to Chris about it, to leave him be, to accept that they were still friends, and sometimes friends, even best friends, did things, maybe even important things, without telling the other, and it didn't mean a thing at all. Perhaps even things like falling for a boy from college, who had a ferret, called Susan, who he took on walks sometimes.

After all, Phil was something that Dan had very much avoided telling Chris about. He took a moment to consider just why he'd done that, and found that more than anything, he was scared: scared of Chris' reaction, scared of what he might think of him, what he might think of Phil, and what he might think inside. Dan was scared that Chris would think he was replacing him, which really wasn't the case; what he had with Phil was just something different entirely. It took him a moment, but eventually the truth hit him like a slap across the face; there was hardly much difference between him and Phil, and Chris and PJ. He then came to wonder if Chris had just the very same concerns, and just the very same reasons why he'd left it all unspoken.

Dan reckoned he should have been content with that; it should have calmed whatever mess had been raging wild inside of him, and left him able to brush everything off and get along with his day, and his life, and not attach an entire world of meaning to what Chris and PJ had been doing in that coffeeshop a few days ago. The thing was however that Dan could do just about anything but calm down about something he'd already gotten worked up about; the thoughts would refuse to leave his head, and even with as much of a peace of mind as he should surely need, he couldn't help but stare at Chris almost obsessively as he waited for him to put his coat away in his locker before they trailed off to Geography.

He found himself vaguely aware of Cat stood at the other side of Chris, talking to the both of them about something, something that had to be mostly uninteresting considering the fact that Dan physically couldn't bring himself to tune in her voice. It wasn't that he had anything against Cat, or her talking to him and Chris, or anything like that, really it was just a result of the anxiety that continued to burn up inside his chest, from his windpipe, down through his lungs and ribcage, and right down into the pit of his stomach. He found it impossible to focus on anything really, anything besides Chris, and PJ, and Phil, and the mess that continued to circle his head until he could only make even less sense of it that he had managed to in the first place.

It was by this point that he came to accept the fact that he had to say something to Chris; he reckoned it might kill him if he didn't, after all, it honestly felt like his insides were going to explode under the pressure of this all. The hardest part of it all was that he just wasn't at all sure as to what it was that he was going to say, how he was going to say it, and what he might expect Chris' reaction to be. Part of Dan still wasn't quite sure as to what kind of reaction he wanted in result of all of this; he just wanted everything to fade away, and go make sense of itself at the back of his mind somewhere, somewhere he didn't have to deal with it, somewhere that left him to rest.

What Dan was sure of was the fact that it really wouldn't be appropriate to casually bring it all up when Cat was still around, so he found himself using her presence as a simple excuse to delay finally sorting his mess of feelings out. He reckoned that was probably one of those things he just shouldn't ever tell her. It wasn't that he imagined that she might complicate the situation, or make things worse for Chris, for the both of them, as after all, she was really close with PJ, and it was unlikely that she'd want to mess up something that so directly involved him. Dan found that it was just the fact that it was unlikely that Chris even wanted him involved in this, let alone Cat, as after all, he'd hidden it from him in the first place. Dan still wasn't quite sure how to feel about that either.