Waiting for You // Phan

--- 9 ---

Dan's POV

Dan was sitting in his second lesson of the day, art. Usually he loved art, and was focused the whole lesson, but not today. Phil was supposed to be on this  class. But he wasn't here. Apparently, he overheard a group of people talking, Phil hadn't been here at the beginning of the day, either.

Dan wondered what was wrong with Phil. Was it Dan's fault? No, he was probably just sick or something, Dan was just being paranoid, as usual. 

The dream about drowning from last night was still at the back of his mind, though. He couldn't shake the image of his friends and his family's dead bodies floating around him. Especially when Phil had told him that he, Dan, had killed them all.

PJ was starting to act weird about it too, asking him if he was alright, if he could help Dan, and things like that. Dan was worried what PJ might think if he told him the truth. So, after Dan got sick of PJ plaguing him with questions that morning, Dan told him that he would tell him the truth about what happened at lunch. Dan didn't know whether he was going to or not though.

Dan looked down at his unfinished sketch. It was supposed to be some sort of seraphic warrior, but somehow it had ended up with Phil's face. Bloodied and beautiful, covered in battlescars, Phil was every inch the hero. But Dan couldn't let people see this, unfinished or not. What would they think of him? But he liked the way it looked, the way Phil stared determinedly up at him from the paper.  Idly he picked up his rubber, turned it over in his hand a few times, before striking it down of the pencilled Phil's face. There. Now he would have to get rid of the rest of it.

A huge crashing noise came from behind him as the door flung open to the classroom. Phil, who looked as if he had flat out sprinted from his house to here, was panting in the doorway. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, and his chest was heaving.

"S-sorry I'm late-" he gasped, as he leant on the doorway to help catch his breath. "-I kinda- well, I'm late, but I'm here now, so I'll just go sit down..." Phil scanned the room for an empty seat. The guy who was supposed to be taking the class shrugged his shoulders and carried on scrolling through his computer.

Dan felt his insides squirm when he saw a free seat across from him. He was sitting next to Tyler, the only person he knew in this class. Just the two of them. There were plenty of other empty seats though. Phil had loads of friends he could sit with.

What am I going to do if he sits here? It'll be really awkward, what would Tyler think, he might tell PJ  about it and he's bad enough already...

"Hey."

Phil had just put his bag on the floor and sat across from him. Of course he had. Dan felt his heart plummet when he remembered the drawing. Oh God, what if Phil saw? He quickly grabbed the rubber and continued to rub out his warrior's face.

"What's that?" Phil asked, trying to see Dan's sketch. Dan felt colour flood his face as he tried to rub out Phil's dark hair, but it still left a smudge on the paper. "Oh it's nothing, just a little sketch of something that I-"

"I think it's amazing. Where's its face though?" Phil had come round the table to look at it properly. Dan thought he had done a good job of erasing Phil's face if he couldn't see it, right? "The face? Oh, I messed it up so I had to rub it out."

Tyler gave him a puzzled look. After all, he had been here the whole time and had watched Dan draw the face first, before anything else. Dan gave him a look to not ask questions. Tyler seemed to understand, and carried on painting the picture of  an abstract guitar in watercolour.

Dan looked back down at the paper. If you looked carefully, you could still see the faint lines of where he had drawn the arch if Phil's nose, the curve of his mouth...