Those Who Trust (Phan)

Part 38

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments, I really appreciate them a lot. There'll be 41 chapters of this story, so three more to go. Hope you guys enjoy this one. :) x

_____________

January felt like it was over in the blink of an eye and Phil's birthday was in two days. It was ridiculous, but Dan was almost more nervous about the present he'd had for Phil's birthday than when he had offered to have sex with Phil for Christmas.

Sex. Dan had a lot of that lately. On the kitchen counter. On the couch in the lounge. They'd spared the dining table, but any other surface in the house where Dan could sit facing Phil had already been used by them. It wasn't always easy though. Sometimes Phil would grab Dan's hips too roughly, or absentmindedly wrap his fingers around Dan's wrists. One time in Dan's bed, Phil had grabbed him by the wrist. Although he had aimed for Dan's fingers to intertwine, Dan had immediately forgotten where he was. All he could feel was someone holding him down, and he no longer registered that it was Phil on top of him, but someone with an evil smile and the intent to hurt. He'd started thrashing around and screaming, and although Phil had let go and pulled out of Dan immediately, slowly though or else it would hurt, Dan had needed minutes to realize that it was over, that it had stopped, that he was in his own room in his own bed, not in a cold, white-tiled basement, chained to the wall. Phil hadn't dared to have sex with him for a week after that, beating himself up for his mistake. Even though Dan had promised him that it was nothing to feel bad about, Phil hadn't wanted to listen. Phil's guilt had made Dan feel twice as guilty. Other than the fact that sometimes Dan still was a mess that apparently couldn't function, the sex life was great. Their relationship was great. Phil Lester continued to be a flawless human being.

For Phil's birthday he had decided just to celebrate with a small gathering of friends at their apartment. It had been a good evening filled with lots of laughter. When the last person had left, Dan asked Phil to sit down on the couch one more time and wait.

"I've got another present for you," he said.

Phil raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Dan had already given him his present. This felt like deja-vu. When Dan left the lounge with the instruction for Phil to wait, the seconds that passed until he returned felt like hours. Phil didn't know what to expect, but after Dan's Christmas present he couldn't stop getting the image out of his head of Dan coming back into the room with the bracelet tied around his wrist. Phil shook his head. No, Dan definitely wasn't ready for that yet. Sex had been one thing, but if Dan would offer to submit to him, Phil would flat out reject him.

He could hear Dan coming back down the hallway into the lounge and was flooded with relief to see that Dan did hold a present in his hand, wrapped in blue paper with a silver bow on top. It was the same wrapping paper that he had used for Phil's other present. Phil wondered what was so special about it that Dan had dubbed it important enough to mark it with a bow.

"Here you go," Dan said, handing the present over to Phil. He was blushing. Nervous. His behaviour put Phil on edge, because what could possibly be in there to get that reaction out of Dan? He was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt again.

Phil tore the wrapping paper off to find a book beneath it. The cover was black. The back was black. The spine was black. There was nothing written on the outside.

Opening the cover, Phil's breath hitched as he read the first page.

'To Phil Lester'

Black letters against white paper. Phil trailed his fingers over them to make sure that they were actual ink printed on the page, not just written there with a pen.

"Dan," Phil said, but he didn't know how to continue. He knew how Dan felt about his writing, knew that the younger one refused to show it to anyone. And yet, here Phil sat with a book in his hands that had been written by his boyfriend.