incarceration //phan

ten

Phil
Phil was actually glad his room was so many floors above the ground, even in the actual academy. He liked the fact he was above the rest of the place and could feel completely unassociated with it and it's inhabitants if he really wanted to. Another thing he liked was the fact that there wasn't a single one of the trees making up the forest in his line of vision.

"Heard from Dan?" Connor asked him from the floor a few feet away.

"Nope."

It had been a week since he and Dan had talked, and Phil couldn't help but feel something was wrong. He tried time and time again to contact him, with the odd 'hello' and 'I miss you' being sent to him in hope he'd get some form of response, but all he was met with was silence and disappointment.

Connor was a little more on-edge than usual as well, firstly because of Dan's sudden disappearance, secondly because it had dawned on him that he was just as vulnerable to Alfie on the floor as he was on any other type of seating and now had no idea what to do with himself.

"In the nicest way possible, unless you can learn to levitate in mid-air or intend to stand up for the rest of your time here, you need to face these fears and sit down. It's easy, watch."

He demonstrated by sitting on the chair just to the left of where he was stood which immediately broke underneath him, resulting in Phil laying on his back against the wooden flooring and Connor looking down at him, giving him the 'I told you so' look from where he was standing.

"I don't like you." Phil muttered to the sky, swearing he heard laughter in the distance.

"I mean I'll probably learn to get over it once we're back home - at least if they break there I'll know it's because the academy are too cheap to buy half-way decent chairs." Connor told him once he'd gotten up.

A day later, Dan finally responded.

He was sat in a chemistry lesson, ignoring what the teacher was trying to explain to the class. Phil had learnt that the teachers didn't actually care what he or Connor did, they didn't really acknowledge their presence in the room at all.

"Dan? Hello?"

"Hi."

"You left me for over a week and all you can say to me is 'hi'?" Phil complained.

"I know, I'm sorry about that."

"It doesn't matter, you're here now. How have things been?"

"Not great actually. I got into a fight, I've been in isolation since Tuesday and have just this moment left."

"You could still have spoken to me." Phil responded, trying not to acknowledge the fact he'd gotten himself into something so stupid.

"Yeah, I know. But I knew that if I did speak to you, I'd start being all irrational, blaming you for things, and hurting your feelings. So I promised that I wouldn't say anything to you until I was out of isolation just to be sure I wouldn't lash out."

"A kind gesture, though a little warning would have been nice -  I've been so worried about you. Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually a clingy person but my head was telling me all sorts, I was afraid Alfie had gone psycho again or something."

"Alfie wasn't any worse than usual his twat-like self - he just said something unkind and it pissed me off."

"What's he been doing this time?" Phil questioned, unsure of whether he really wanted to know.

"I was walking about with Louise and we ended up running into Alfie. Alfie called me a fag under his breath, so I told him to fuck off, he pushed me, so I pushed back, he shoved me, so I punched him in the face and things escalated from there."

"Seems like he's being unkind to the both us then. But was it really worth getting into a fistfight with him? Not to be selfish or anything but he controls pretty much everything around Connor and I."

"I know. I would've said he deserved it six months ago, but now I just feel bad - personally I think you've influenced me too much."

"Either that or nice Dan from over two years ago has come back. As long as you don't intend on apologising, I haven't been that much of an influence."

"Please don't start with the 'sweet innocent Dan, hidden by a self-inflicted mask from years of emotional turmoil' bullshit again. And I'm not apologising because he started it." Dan grumbled childishly. "Anyway Louise managed to stop it after a few minutes and Alfie left, then he returned with Mr Barnes. The area around his eye had already gone red, and he has a black eye now. Hence I got a weeks isolation for assaulting a student and a call home to my parents - not that I'd imagine they cared, or even bothered to pick up the phone."

Phil had never really asked Dan about his parents, they had never come up in conversation so he figured that on a need-to-know basis: he didn't. Presumably it was a sensitive topic and the last thing the two of them needed in their current situation was an argument.

"I need to check up with everyone to see if they've come up with any ideas to help you, Connor and PJ - his trial's in three weeks or so now, meaning we have until then to get him out. But none of us really know what we're doing - shapeshifting into a middle-aged policewoman was funny and all, it just didn't do a great deal of good."

"You wouldn't know the date of PJ's trial if you hadn't have done that, so it was useful - stop bringing yourself down."

"Louise is probably going to have questions about what happened on Tuesday as well. I'm not sure whether to just be honest about it.
I saw the look on her face before Mr Barnes took me down into isolation, and she looked so disappointed - I've never seen her look like that before, I feel like I owe her some sort of explanation."

"Honestly, if anyone had to know, I'd want  that person to be her - she's like the mother figure you go to with all your problems, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

It was in times like these that mere conversation just wasn't enough. He wanted Dan there by his side, the real version, and not the guy a row in front of him busy flirting with some blonde he didn't recall knowing - presumably the 'girlfriend' Chris had told him about. They could communicate telepathically all they wished, but it never could compare.

Everything would be back to normal soon enough, he just had to wait a couple of weeks more - that was what he told himself, at least.

-
Can people give me questions for a Q&A
(please don't let this flop or I'll just have to make up questions which is sad af)