warning: this book might be a little triggering with things like alcohol/drugs/bullying/sex so feel free to skip the things u don't like and let me know if u want me to summarize something !!

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he sat up quickly, blood rushing to his head and making him feel rather dizzy and disoriented. his hand went to cradle his aching head, fingers carding through his soft locks of hair, but he held his breath, trapping it in his lungs for a moment to keep the silence.

the darkness cascaded around him as soon as he opened his eyes, and somehow it seemed even blacker than it had when he had had them closed. he could feel it filling up his eyes, his lungs, his heart and stomach, washing over him like a riptide that was inescapable, tearing the breath from his body. dan despised the dark.

he felt so small in the dark. he felt swallowed up by the night, in a room where he couldn't even see the stars. he felt so incredibly tiny and insignificant.

dan normally didn't wake up like this, with such a violent jolt. something had woken him.

remnants of a frown traced themselves out between his eyebrows, adding a sketch of confusion and slight fear onto his usually calmed and even light features. a curly strand of hair tumbled into his eyes as he looked around slowly.

everything seemed to be of the ordinary. a wooden rocking chair sat in the corner of his small room, still and silent, at the place where the sloping ceiling was the highest. after that point it declined so dramatically that on the opposite side of the room dan had to crawl to even get through. due to the inconvenience of the space for anything else, and how much of an eyesore it was empty, that was where dan kept all of his stuffed animals.

a bookshelf sat against the tallest wall, and across from that, a toy box. above the toy box was dan's window.

dan froze when he heard the noise again, panic and adrenaline shooting through his veins like fire. it was a sort of muffled thumping, like footsteps, but it came from outside the window. dan's eyes widened a bit and he pulled his duvet around him snuggly in his fright.

the quiet thumping sound came again, seemingly echoing in dan's ears, and dan reached out, grabbing a stuffed bear with soft matted brown hair that sat, nestled in a burrow of quilts, beside the foot of his bed. he only realized he was shaking when he hugged the bear to his chest, the soft object trembling with him against his chin.

"h-hello?" he whispered finally, in a fleeting burst of short lived courage.

he shrieked when a face popped up behind the glass of his window, and his hand instantly shot up to cover his mouth to keep any further noises from escaping. if his parents woke up, he wouldn't live to see the light of the next day.

dan squinted, trying to focus. the face was curved and contoured in a way that seemed so man-made, as if he had been sculpted by an extremely talented artist. messy brownish ginger hair tumbled in his eyes; dan couldn't quite make out the color. a wide grin stretched across his face, his mouth curved to the absolute maximum, dan thought a smile like that ought to hurt. even from there and in the dark, he could make out that the person was extremely pale.

dan watched him reach down, unlatching dan's window and pushing it open, and dan's breath caught. who did he think he was?

"hello," the boy said, his voice far too loud and laced with excitement for that time of night.

dan held a finger to his lips, pressing it against his velvety skin, motioning at him to keep quiet. the boy raised his eyebrows, but nodded after a second, his eyes wide. dan swore he heard a soft 'ohh' escape his lips.

"w-who're you?" dan asked in a whisper when he felt like he could speak again, staring at him as if he was some unearthly creature. the boy's grin widened, which hadn't previously seemed possible.

"i'm phil," he stated in a voice hardly softer than it had been before, as if that was a completely suitable answer.

"how d-did you get on my r-roof?"

"i walked." the boy snickered as if what he had said was hilarious. "from my roof."

"your roof?" dan blinked, his eyebrows curving inward in confusion. "b-but-"

"i'm your new neighbor," phil finally said, seemingly having gotten fed up with waiting for him to figure it out.

"oh..." dan licked his cracked lips nervously. "why?"

"because we live here now."

dan blinked. "why?"

phil shrugged, leaning on his windowsill.

"i don't know. my dads wanted to move here." he rested his elbow on the sill, his hand holding up his chin, resting it on his palm. his cheek scrunched up from the slight pressure against the soft impressionable flesh.

now that the threat seemed to be gone dan relaxed his grip on the stuffed bear, letting its head slump over his honey-shaded and freckled forearms.

"oh..." his frown deepened a fraction. "your dads? do you not have a mum?"

dan saw phil tense a bit, his posture going ridged, and a flash of anger, or maybe pain, flickered in his blue irises. "no, i don't. is that a problem for you?" his tone suggested that dan's question had been aimed at him many a time before, and it wasn't always so innocently intended.

"n-no!" dan was still so confused and he watched phil as if he had just told him he was from the moon. "b-but... what do you mean? y-you have two d-dads?"

phil's posture relaxed a bit as he seemed to realize that dan meant no harm, and probably couldn't have caused any even if he had tried. "yes. they love each other."

"they do?" dan's heart raced, pounding against his ribs as if it was trying to escape from his chest, like waves crashing rapidly against a rocky shore. "boys are allowed t-to do that?"

"love each other?"

dan nodded, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. "yes."

"of course they are."

this was news to dan. his mind was reeling. boys were allowed to love other boys? phil behaved as if dan surely would have known that already, but he hadn't. his own parents were a woman and a man, and they hardly even loved each other, and dan had never seen a couple that was made up of two of either gender. it seemed a bit wrong to dan, a bit off, but then again, he had never experienced this kind of thing before. he absorbed this new knowledge slowly.

"okay."

phil nodded, climbing into his window as if he had been invited to, or enthusiastically encouraged, which he hadn't been. "yeah."

dan chewed on his lip, flinching a bit when he tasted the coppery tang of blood against his tongue. he was meant to stop doing that.

"so why's your voice like that?"

dan blinked in surprise. the question seemed so abrupt, so rude, dan had never encountered someone who spoke that way before.

"l-like what?"

"like that," phil said. "it stops and starts again."

"y-you mean my s-stutter?"

phil nodded, watching him in a way that made dan nervous.

"oh... i d-don't know. it h-happens when i'm, when i'm n-nervous."

phil frowned, a crease carving itself into his forehead. "you're nervous?"

dan nodded, not daring to speak and embarrass himself again. a blush spread across his skin like wildfire, creeping up his neck.

"oh." phil tilted his head to the side ever-so-slightly. "how come?"

"y-you m-make me nervous."

"why?"

"b-because i don't, i don't k-know you."

finally something seemed to make sense in phil's brain and he nodded. "oh. okay. well can't you just stop stuttering?"

"n-not really."

"oh."

phil made his way across his bedroom, his eyes traveling over every surface. dan realized the room was still incredibly dark, his own eyes had just adjusted after a matter of moments.

phil's eyes flicked on dan's collection of stuffed animals, pausing for a second. then they kept moving, landing ultimately on dan's teddy bear.

he reached out, his fingers brushing over the soft fur before he picked it up in one hand, looking at it. dan bit his lip, resisting the urge to grab it back, to tell him to leave it alone. finally phil spoke again.

"how old are you?"

"eleven," dan whispered after a second of shifting nervously and looking at him.

"and you still have stuffed animals? that's weird unless you're a girl. you aren't a girl, are you?"

dan shook his head, his brown eyes large. "i d-don't think so."

phil smiled, sitting down on his bed. "do you have any books?"

somehow, they became friends. and somehow, dan convinced himself that phil was his peter pan. there to take him away to somewhere he'd never grow up, always be happy.

he was wrong.