Bluebird; Phan

VI

  Dan didn't saying anything else outside on the field, and Phil didn't expect him to. Amidst evident pain and sliding feet and desperate rushes of please, Phil, no, it hurts, Phil managed to get them both safely inside. Dan moved himself a little further from the security of Phil's chest upon arrival, when a group of boys fired insufferable glances in their direction and Phil heard Harrison's voice.

Fortunately, they didn't run into him. There was enough opportunity, at the speed they were moving. But as Phil lead Dan in through the tight bathrooms, sitting him down in one of the cubicles, he put a hand to his head and breathed. It felt like the first time ever.

Knowing he didn't have time to count his breaths, he pulled some paper towels from the rack. As he wet the towels, the water sloshed down into the sink and Dan's cries were background noise.

He was background noise.

"Phil," Dan said, teeth-gritted, upon his return. "Everything hurts. Make it stop, please. You're going to make it stop, aren't you?"

"I'm gonna try," Phil said. "Promise I'll try."

"And the mud. The mud, Phil, look at it all, it's everywhere—"

"That's not important right now," Phil absently dismissed. Minor OCD. Dan drew in hard, uncomfortable breaths. "I mean, it is, of course it is. But we need to clean the cuts up first, okay?"

Dan pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and nodded with reluctance. Tears lapped down over the blemishing colour in his lip and his expression was a promise of silence. Phil stretched his fingers down to the edges of Dan's long sleeves, curling them upwards, only just touching his wrist bone, before Dan flinched back.

It took Phil a moment.

"My arms are okay, Phil," Dan insisted, tone still somewhat shaky, despite the conviction in his voice. Oh, no. The scars. The bruises. The pain.

"Dan, I—"

"No, please, they're fine," he looked stricken. "Please. Don't worry."

I've already seen what you're trying to hide, Phil wanted to say. It always seemed like he had so much to say to Dan but never said it. He didn't want anything to change between them—that was the thing—and revealing that he'd seen something he shouldn't have was likely to do just that. It was an invasion of privacy, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, and the last thing Phil wanted in the world was to hurt Dan. But having his fingers so close to the marks on him was tempting, to say the least. It was like holding a magnet next to a piece of metal.

"Okay. Right, okay," Phil's agreement was hard to swallow as he gently took Dan's hand in his own. It was warm, soft, completely delicate and intricate. Phil imagined slipping his fingers down, right in between Dan's, where the gravity pulled.

He didn't look up from their hands, he couldn't, fearing Dan would find something neither of them wanted to confront.

Instead, he cautiously turned Dan's palm over. He pressed the damp paper towel to his papery skin, which had been cut open, the little slits washed in a reddy mud. Phil held the wet material there, compressing it down and soaking up the unwanted remnants from the field. The slash was a rough incision that went along the beginning of his first finger to the end of his hand.

When Phil plucked together enough courage to look up, Dan's face was a compact structure of discomfort.

"I'm sorry," Phil said. "We just need to clean them up."

"I know," Dan sucked in the stuffy air from the cubicle.

Phil squeezed the paper towel and watched droplets of moisture fall down onto the sore skin.