Waiting for You // Phan

--- 22 ---

Dan's POV

Dan's heart fluttered in his chest as he walked to his art class, with Tyler on his left and Phil on his right.

Tyler had kept on nudging him with his shoulder and motioning very deliberately at Phil, or 'accidentally' pushing him into Phil, or generally, just something to do with Phil.

Dan tried his best to ignore it, and it seems Phil did too, much to Tyler's, what Dan assumed, frustration.

"Daaaaan..." Tyler said hopefully, but Dan didn't reply and stared determinedly at the door into the main building.

"Phiiiiiil..." he looked across Dan at Phil, who was still red in the face, just like Dan was. He ignored Tyler too, but had a look of great discomfort on his face.

"Tyler, just shut up, will you?" Dan said tiredly, as they walked inside. For once, he just wanted for everything to be normal. But pretty much everything hadn't been normal since he had come here. Especially Phil.

Tyler glanced at him, then straight, and said "Oh, I'm sorry Dan, I'm just trying to help..." He then made another obvious tilt of his head toward Phil.

Dan scowled and walked ahead, toward the door to their class. He reached the door first out of the three of them and opened it.

The class was about half-full, with the same teacher who probably didn't care about the class, let alone know who any of them were. He didn't make any attempt to show he had acknowledged Dan entering the classroom.

Neither did most of the other people, but a few looked up, only to carry on with their own work. It's not like Dan cared about any of them anyway.

He went and sat down at the same table he had sat at last time he was in here, closely followed by Tyler and Phil.

Tyler had gone and got his painting of his guitar he seemed so obsessed with and set it down in front of him.

"You're not finished yet?" Phil asked him, as Tyler pulled out a black fineliner.

"Nope, I gotta add some details to my masterpiece." He said, winked and added: "I'll leave you two to go do what you need to do. I won't interfere."

Dan felt his face grow warmer and watched Tyler start adding lines of black ink to his painting.

"What are you going to do?" Phil asked him, as he looked around the room. "I never started anything last time, so I was just seeing what everyone else is doing." Dan was surprised to see Phil talking to him, and not, like him, wanting to dive into the nearest corner and hide forever.

Dan shrugged, ignoring Tyler's eyes which were boring into him. "I don't know, I kinda ruined what I did last time." Dan did not, not, want to discuss the picture he had drawn of Phil when he had first fallen for him, especially not with Phil, or with Tyler. Or with Louise and PJ. In fact, he thought it would be best if he just forgot about it altogether.

"Oh." Phil said, and Dan could see he was struggling with what to say next. He didn't know whether that was because he genuinely didn't know, or whatever he wanted to say he couldn't say in front of Tyler.

Dan stood up and got some of that fancy art paper nobody really knew the proper name for and pulled his sketching pencils out his bag.

"You like sketching then?" Phil asked, as Dan closed his bag again. He had no inspiration at all for what to draw that didn't involve Phil.

Dan nodded. "Yeah, I've always liked art, although to be honest I'm not sure where I'm going to get with life by doing art."

Phil shrugged. "You could go anywhere. It's you, after all." He looked slightly embarrassed after saying that.

"What are you trying to say?" Tyler said quietly, leaning across the table. Dan had almost completely ignored Tyler since the beginning of class. Phil shrugged again and didn't say anything.

Tyler decided to carry on speaking, or, what Dan liked to think, make things more awkward. "So what are you going to draw Dan?"

I want to strangle him sometimes and I don't even care he's actually so-

"I don't know, Tyler." Dan sighed, and began to make swirling motions with his pencil on the paper. "Just, patterns I guess. To put it like an artist, I'm putting my emotions on paper."

"Deep." Tyler said, and went back to drawing on his painting.

Dan carried on shading and sketching on his bit of paper, while Phil just sat and stared around the room.

"You ok?" Dan asked him gently.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just, lack of ideas."

"You two are so adorable!" Tyler interjected suddenly, and Dan put down his pencil and stared at him.

"Tyler." Just when Dan had finally thought the storm had past, Tyler had brought it back up to full flow.

"Wha-at? I'm only sharing my opinion. I'm allowed to have an opinion, thank you very much." Tyler said matter-of-factly, and put his hands on the table.

Dan saw out of the corner of his eye Phil shifting uncomfortably on his chair.

"Yes, you're allowed to have an opinion, but please try not to share it with the two people it involves who you know will feel awkward and embarrassed, ok?" Dan said frustatedly, indicating himself and Phil avoiding everyone's eye contact.

Tyler raised his eyebrows imploringly. "Dan, you must know that I, Louise,"

"Tyler I don't care. Please stop. You're making the situation bad for everyone." Dan said, his brain whirring for something, anything, that would stop this whole Tyler-Louise and maybe PJ thing.

"Please just give it a rest Tyler." Phil said, rubbing his temple with his fingers.

"See?" Dan said, but Tyler still persisted.

"Phil, you must realise that you and Dan-" Tyler said earnestly, ignoring Dan's protests. Dan looked around the room quickly to check nobody was listening in. The last thing he wanted was for this 'rumour' to spread. Everyone was busy with their own stuff, not paying attention to them.

He had an idea. He knew it would hurt him, yes, but it was, he thought, the best way to put an end to this. It would also eliminate any chance with Phil. But, seeing as Dan wasn't supposed to be with him anyway, it was probably for the best. For both of them. Anyway, only PJ would realise it was a lie, and he wasn't here.

Dan drowned out Tyler's words as he worked up the courage to do what he was going to do. Phil had his head in his hands.

"Tyler!" he said, and Tyler fell silent.

"Yes?" Tyler asked slowly.

"Me and Phil aren't together, and we will never be together."

"Why not?"

Dan stuck out his wrist, and was completely, utterly, stunned, to see Phil had mirrored his action.

On both of their wrists, identical white watches, both bearing the same thing.

0 weeks
0 days
0 hours
0 minutes

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I'm running out of things to put in my author's notes.

But

Thanks to one_at_a_time for helping me with the idea for this chapter I appreciate your help as one of my most oldest m9's and the person who gave me the original plotline type thing for this book.

My ear is really hurting and I don't know whether it's infected or not :/

Bye for now x

Oh yeah I remember I had to explain to somebody yesterday what an existential crisis was. It went well? Idk