my freudian slip - phan

ii.

"You never texted me."

Dan's walking down the hall to English, gripping onto his messenger bag as he tries to get past the year 13. "Didn't really expect an answer, honestly," he replies coolly.

The boy stops in front of him. The rest of the students mull behind, walking past like they're a car crash on a busy motorway. "Well, you thought wrong." He lowers his voice, looking quickly behind. "I really like you."

"You're forward."

He blushes. "Was the one to talk to you first, huh?"

"Couldn't forget it." Dan keeps his gaze ahead, remembering the way Phil had showed him to the empty classroom. His arms still hurt from the encounter.

"Well, can we maybe talk about this at lunch? After school?" The students shuffling by are starting to really stare now, and Phil wants to shrink with every side eyed glance further into the wall. He pushes his shoulder into the thing to try and hide his face.

It doesn't work.

Dan takes his chin, bringing it around to stare at him, fingers cold as metal on Phil's skin. He desperately wants to look away, but Dan's grip is too strong. There are too many people here god this is so awkward–

It's barely above a whisper. His eyes are stone.

"I only had your dick in my mouth. Don't think you're anything special."

Phil tries to shove him off. "Get your hands off me."

Fingers acquiesce like an eraser on matte paper. Phil can't do much but feel the marks left on his cheek, struggling for something to stop moving in his vision. Dan shrugs past him, snapping his messanger bag and flying a hand across his slicked hair as he turns the corner. The passerbyes slow even more until a boy stops, and a backup of eyes flicker up to Phil.

"Excuse me, thank you." He digs his hands in his pockets as he tries to escape the stream of bodies, all of them too eager to get out of the way. I need to get to class I need to get out of here-

"What was Lester doing talking to Howell?" It's whispered behind him, disembodied and short. He stops and turns.

"Who said that?"

A group of underclassmen shift uneasily. Caught.

"Which one of you?" Phil doesn't want to seem angry but it's hard, balling his fists in his pockets to pull the rage somewhere out from his face.

The kids stay quiet, tittering and trying to lose eye contact. It fails. One by one the eyes drift to a bespeckled boy, shorter than him by a foot and a shift of hair so blonde it looks white. He laughs nervously.

"Um I- I did."

The kid isn't intimidating. He's doing everything in his power to appear relaxed, Phil can see it.

So he doesn't know why does it. Why his fist makes contact with a bony face, why the boy's snow hair is now freckled in his own blood and why he's so tall compared to the crumpled mess on the floor- but it happens.

His fist is shaking. It's so red he can't tell if it's blood or the contact, and he wants to cry. He want's to cry so bad.

"What the fuck was that for?" The boy is touching his lip, watching the red syrup its way down to the tile.

Phil can't speak. It's as if all the air has been taken from the room, given to the crowd around them to fuel the whispers and callings. He hadn't noticed the people circle around them.

"I said what was that for, you fucking queer?"

Phil doesn't know what else to do.

So he runs.