Grim Reaper // phan

Ten

  Phil looked at him, confused.

  "What is it?" he asked. Dan closed his eyes, breathing in slowly before letting it out and explaining.

  "Phil, I love you, I really do." He smiled as Phil's face turned bright red at these words. "But I can't just be with you, not without facing some serious consequences. I'm a Reaper, I'm not from this world, and if I stayed with you, I wouldn't be able to go back to my world. Ever, and I don't want that. But I don't want to just leave you either. There's.......there's another option, but I don't know if you'll like it." He trailed off.

  Phil stared at him. "Well don't leave me anticipating, what it is?" He asked, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion and anxiousness.

  "Well, I could.......well, they, the Highers, could.....they could make you like me. A Reaper."

  It was completely silent after that, as Phil stared at him with wide eyes. It felt like days, years, before he finally spoke, and Dan waited, holding his breath, for Phil to instantly reject this stupid idea.

  "You can actually do that?" He asked quietly.

  "I mean, yeah." Dan said, slightly confused at Phil's curiosity. "But you'd have to give up everything from here, your life, your family, school....not to mention the transformation process is quite painful. I don't know if you could.....handle it."

  "Dan, I think I could handle anything if it meant....being with you." He blushed as he said this, looking down at Dan's chest. Dan smiled at his words. Man, this boy was perfect.

  "But what about everything you have here? Your fam-"

  "I don't have anything here." He interrupted softly, and Dan looked at him confused. "School, it wouldn't matter if I stopped going. That's what the internet, and books are for. Its not like I have much of a social life either, and my family? They probably wouldn't even notice I had gone." He smiled sadly, and Dan could see the pain in his eyes. He didn't like seeing Phil hurt, in any kind of way.

  "What do you mean they wouldn't notice? They're your family."

  "You've only known me a few days, its not like you know about my home life or anything."

  "Well than let me know."

  Phil stared at him in disbelief, like he was surprised that Dan actually wanted to hear about this personal thing about him. He took a deep breath, hesitated, before talking.

  "When I was about six, my mum died." He said. His voice was a bit hoarse, and Dan was going to tell him that he didn't have to keep going, but he was also intrested about what had happened. "My dad, he uh.....he was devastated, he stopped going to work and barely got out of bed in the mornings. I had to take care of myself. I was six, can you imagine that, and I was cooking, cleaning, going to school on my own. Two years later, dad decided he couldn't take care of me by himself, not that he was doing it anyway, and he put me in foster care. I was there for four years, and I was harrassed by the other kids because I was 'weird'.

I didn't talk to anyone, not even the adults, I didn't eat or play with the other children. I cried myself to sleep every night."

  Dan's heart nearly wrenched from his chest as he saw Phil start to cry, pausing in his monolouge. He took a shaky breath and continued, even with tears falling down his cheeks.

"I thought it was a blessing, when someone decided to finally come and take me away. I didn't care that they were starngers, I just wanted to leave. But it was just like living with my dad again, just without the depression hanging in the air. They got me clothes and other necessary things, but other than that, they completely ignored me. I never understood why they adopted me in the first place, like, why adopt a child, if you're not gonna actually love them, or at least pay attention to them. I tried everything, I got good grades, did everything they wanted me to without them asking. But it was useless, hell, they didn't even come to my graduation. I was valedictorian, top of my class, but I didn't even get a 'congragulations' or 'well done'."