Fandom: YouTube
Pairing: Phan (AmazingPhil/danisnotonfire)
Point of View: Phil
Warnings: References to dark things, emo Dan




“Dan, what’s up with your wrist?”

“Nothing, just tripped and scratched it. That’s all.”

It was always ‘nothing’. Apart from it wasn’t. It was everything. My everything, my boyfriend, falling apart right in front of me.

”Dan, have you been crying? Your eyes are all red and stuff.”

“Are they? Must just be dusty in here.”

He got so good at lying that I’m not sure he even realised he was doing it. Perhaps it was just his natural reaction to the thought of being found out; of being judged.

”Danny, you’ve gotten really skinny. Have you been eating?”

“Yeah. I just have an awesome metabolism. And I’ve been working out lately.”

I should have known that it was impossible to get that thin so quickly unless something was seriously wrong. I think I did know, I just didn’t want to see it.

”Why won’t you let me see you, Dan? You’re so beautiful, Baby, why can’t I look at you like I used to?”

“Because I’m ugly.”

Liar.


*****

Everything’s white; the room, the bedclothes, even my poor little Dan’s gone as white as a sheet. Everything’s white, apart from the deep pooling brown of those beautiful eyes that, just a few hours ago, I thought would never open again.

In contrast, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen them open so wide.

They flick nervously around the room, stopping briefly on only two things; the heart monitor to their left and then me, sat squeezing Dan’s hand so tightly that it’s a miracle it hasn’t crumbled to dust in my hands already. Not that I’d let him get hurt again.

“What?” His voice is raspy; making it sound like his throat is a waterless desert and his word nothing more than a scrap of scratchy sandpaper. “What happened? Where ‘m I?”

I feel his hand grab back at mine, urgently trying to get some grip on this horribly warped reality, and in return I soothe my thumb over his knuckles. Knuckles that stick out like tiny mountains underneath his thin veil of skin. I take a moment to be thankful that he’s wearing a long-sleeved gown as it spares me the sight of the angry red regiments standing to a brutal attention on his tanned arms.

And tummy. And legs. And just about every other piece of skin on his body.

A tidal wave of emotion sweeps over me, forcing me to duck down and press a desperate kiss to Dan’s hand. It feels so cold.

“Hospital, Danny.” I swallow, the terrified and shamed look swirling in the form of tears dangling on the edges of Dan’s eyes reminding me that I have to be the strong one here. “You collapsed.”

He looks down at himself for the first time and realises that he’s no longer wearing the clothes that he put on this morning. I can do nothing but watch in agony as it all clicks into place in his foggy mind; that he doesn’t have any of his beloved secrets anymore.

For a moment he looks like he’s going to scream, then cry, then throw a tantrum. Instead he locks his eyes on mine, looking very much like a kicked puppy being thrown out into a snowy street.

“I want to go home.”


*****

He was only in the hospital for two nights; two sleepless nights for the poor little guy. Not that my nights were any better. Every time I did fall asleep I’d have some horrible dream about finding him bled out or being nothing but a skeleton and those would be more than enough to wake me up within seconds.

We’ve been home for three days now and I’ve got him trapped in bed, eating three meals a day and I’m checking him twice a day for any new marks of self-hatred being burnt into his skin. That’s what I’m doing now; checking him over.

Or rather, I’m trying to.

“Fuck off, Phil.” He grunts, squirming away from my prying hands as though they’re venomous snakes.  “Leave me alone!”

It’s the first time he’s properly shouted at me in a long time, largely because I think it’s the first time he’s had enough energy to do so, and it makes me snap away from him at record speeds. I fall into the armchair next to the bed, retaining eye contact with him and feeling my heart break at just how scared, how animalistic he looks.

I’m only trying to help him yet it’s almost as though he thinks I’d ever  be capable hurt him.
Ouch.

“Why can’t I see?” I whisper, unable to hide the whimper building in my throat. “Don’t you trust me anymore, Dan?” I hear him gulp and he looks away, telling me all that I need to know. All that I never thought I’d need to know because it wouldn’t ever be so. “Would you have ever told me?”

He shuts his eyes and opens his chapped lips, his breathing so light that I’m half tempted to check that he actually is breathing at all. When his eyes open again they look different; they look hard, cold, dead. So dead that it practically kills me to see it.

I can still remember a time when they used to look like the epitome of lively joyfulness, the epitome of everything I loved and held dear. Now they imprison those things, hiding them away from my hungry soul and leaving it to starve.

“You didn’t need to know.”

“Dan.” I grab his hand. “You.” I squeeze it. “Were.” I lean down and peck it. “Killing.” I look him in the eyes, willing him to understand. “Yourself.”

He shrugs.

He just bloody shrugs like almost winding up dead by his own hand is something that happens every day. Like barely eating is as normal as rain on an English summer day. Like cutting himself up is as average as a Mary fucking Sue.

Or maybe it’s just that he thinks that these things don’t matter when they’re happening to him.

God, I must be an awful boyfriend.

“I don’t know where I went wrong, Dan, but I’m going to fix this. I promise.”

He laughs, a hollow, terrifying growl of a sound that sends shivers raging through my body. And not in that blissful way that his laughter used to make me shiver and tingle. I miss those days. Miss them more than words can describe.

“What if I like being broken?”


*****


“Dan?”

I shake the boy resting in my arms, my heart pounding as tears leak down his face like the constant drip-drop of a faulty tap.

“Dan!”

He cries out, clinging to my arm with an iron grasp, burying his face into it as though it’s some kind of shield. If only it was, then perhaps Dan wouldn’t be like he is now.

“Dan, please wake up. Please.” My eyes scan the bed; they land on our cuddly Totoro and the sight of it destroys me. So many happy memories that are so far away from where we are right now. “Please, Baby, I love you.”

His eyes ping open, wide and alert and oh-so-frightened.

“I’m scared, Philly.” He pants, still hiding himself in my arm like his life depends on it. “So fucking scared.”

“What are you scared of, Baby?” I whisper, tugging him in close and relishing the feeling of him snuggling into me for the first time in a week; relishing the feeling of him just trusting me again and me being the one that he needs. “Talk to me, I want to help. What’s scaring you?”

“Myself.”

And with that he starts sobbing, literally washing his insides out, and expelling all of the poison. I know I should hate it that he’s crying, that my precious little boyfriend is so distraught. I can’t help but feel hopeful, though, content in the knowledge that he knows now that there is a problem.

A problem that he knows I will do my best to fix.