Phan Oneshots

To Grow Wings

Dan is unsatisfied with the path that's been set for him, but it might take a blue-eyed boy who's feeling just as lost to convince him to wander from it. (2515 words)

Warnings: Low self esteem, mention of death

All I wanted was a cute little fluff, and I ended up with this. I wanted to try something new and wrote it in second person. It isn't an x reader, you are playing the character of Dan. As always, enjoy!

You are a boy who is made of bad choices and haunting voices, who carries the weight of the world on your shoulders and it drags you down. There are hard truths that you can't face buried in your brain and secrets tangled in your hair and poems written in your skin you will never share, and sometimes it's all a bit much.

You never tell anyone that though, because, let's face it, no one wants to hear it, and besides, so many people have it worse than you do. You should be happy, and you know it. You got in to a good college, and you have a real chance at being successful. Successful. It's such a cold, empty word, but your parents tell you it should mean everything, so you let it fill you up until you feel cold and empty too. 

Successful doesn't feel the same as happy, doesn't bounce off the lips and yet seem so very far away, but it you think it feels that way to to everyone else, so you try.  Sometimes you stand in front of the mirror for hours, pulling the corners of your mouth up like it will make you feel whole again. It doesn't.

On this particular long day at uni, you make a wrong turn. Instead of the usual right towards your maths class, you make a left. You're so busy feeling sorry for yourself, your monologue bouncing around your head, never to be spoken, that you don't notice until you end up outside the building, in some strange courtyard. 

Unlike the other ones, close-cropped grass and uncomfortable benches, it is a sprawling garden, with a spiral path going round and round until it makes you dizzy. It eventually leads to a multi-tiered fountain. Flowers burst from every corner. Bees and butterflies fill the air. It seems very out of place in your dreary school.

"Excuse me," you say quietly to a man sitting cross-legged on the ground, doodling in a notebook. 

"Excuse me," you say louder, and he looks up, eyes the color of mint gum and a shirt to match. "I seem to have gotten a bit turned around. I'm trying to go to Ms. Stringer's maths class."

It's a while before he speaks, and when he does you think you've misheard him. "Sometimes you must become lost to truly find what you are looking for."

"I'm sorry?"

"He's crazy," another voice comes from behind you.

You whirl around. This person is more commonplace. He blends into the crowd with his dull gray jacket and jeans, his serious eyes and textbook in hand. "He sits here a lot, rambling about breaking free from the system, and looking at butterflies. It's sad. Come on. I'll walk you to your class."

But as much as you want to, you can't forget the boy with blue green eyes like rare sunny skies that you've never really noticed before today. Not in your next class, or the class after that, or as you lay down in your crappy dorm bed that night. 

You're thinking about him on your way to your maths class, so much, in fact, that you take a left yet again. You stumble into the courtyard yet again.

"Damnit!"you mutter. 

You hear a loud thump from behind you and jump.

There he is. Gum eyes, as you're thinking of him in your head. He's tall, almost as tall as you, and his hair is as dark, obviously dyed, as his skin is pale, enough to put a vampire to shame. You decide right then that there really is beauty in extremes.