Trigger Warning: A Phanfic

4

Dan
Dan's POV-
I just stared at the shirt, I couldn't stop looking at the blood on it. The only logical reason as to why there could be blood on his jumper was obvious. Phil was sad. Phil was being secretive and insecure. Phil was cutting himself.

My legs started to give out. All I felt was numbness throughout my body and soon all I could do was cry. I was sitting in the bathroom bawling my eyes out on the linoleum. My back began to fall backwards and soon enough I was on my side, my legs curled up into my chest.

No. No. No. no. No. This is not happening.

I laid on the floor for what seemed like hours, hugging the bloody shirt to my chest, surrounded by the piles of our unwashed clothes. I tried not to think about my best friend hiding himself away in his bedroom or the bathroom crying, hurting himself.

I couldn't bring myself to see that the very face that I've come to love intentionally damaging himself. All I wanted to do in that moment was wrap my arms around Phil and kiss his cheek but I couldn't. I wanted to lay my hands on his arms and tell him just how much he means to me. The truth was that I was completely in love with my best friend in every way but he would never feel the same way about me.

I felt helpless in that moment, thinking about somebody that I thought of as the love of my life hating himself.

I wiped my tear stained eyes and sat up. My body shook from emotions but I knew that Phil couldn't find me here. I couldn't have a serious conversation with him if he found me crying on the bathroom floor. He would see everything as his fault and it would most likely make him worse than how bad he could be now. I stood up, my legs wobbled as I took my first step. 

I began to separate the laundry once more, putting everything into the washing machine except for the jumper. I took it to the bath and began scrubbing it with soap and a stain fighting cleaner. I tried not to cry as a bubbly mix of Phil's blood and soap leaked onto my hands. I sniffled and tried to think about something else. After a lot of work I could finally see the dark red stain in the sleeve start to come out. I continued to clean it off until it was almost barely noticeable, then threw it into the washing machine with the rest of the clothes.

After I had gotten the clothes out of the way I knew there was something that I had to do even though it made my heart hurt just thinking about it. I had to find whatever Phil was hurting himself with. I assumed that he had been using a blade, it was an easy thing to hide. I tried to think like Phil for ideas on where he would hide things if he wanted to keep them away from anyone.

Lion.

The word kept flashing in my head until I thought about something. Phil was always hiding his lion in plain sight in his videos. It was a bit of a game he did for his viewers. "Spot the lion". I immediately started looking in the most obvious places to hide something.

I was about to give up hope when I remembered our bathroom junk drawer. We kept useless things like floss, travel soaps and mini bottles of hair spray in. I opened the drawer and began looking through it. Towards the back I found something that was a bit unusual to the rest of the contents of the drawer.

It was a yellow prescription bottle. The label around it was printed "PHILLIP LESTER, 27". It was an old bottle for when he had caught the flu months back. What was inside wasn't old pills, but one solid thing. I could tell what it was from looking through it. I unscrewed the cap and found it. A very sharp and flat razor.

I knew that it would only break my heart more to look at the very thing that was practically killing my best friend but my mind wouldn't stop my hands from moving. My fingers gripped onto the bottle's lid and I was unconsciously opening the bottle.

I tilted the it and let the razor fall into my hand, as well as a small Bic lighter. It was the kind of razor that you could find at DIY stores. The sharp edge was crusted over with blood and particles of skin that had been torn away. Towards the top was a more rounded edge. Parts of the metal had been bent and turned black. I could only assume he had also been burning himself, hence why there had been a lighter hidden away with his secret addiction.

I tried to hold back my tears again but this time it was uncontrollable. I quietly let the tears roll down my face. My hands shook and the bottle fell out of my hands.

My sweet Philly. How could this have happened?

~