i am so sorry for not updating if you're reading this honestly i love you

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phil moved differently now. he moved skinnier. dan didn't really know how to explain it in a different way. he used to move in a round, warm manner. welcoming and graceful, confident too. now every shift was a black hole, sucking in the air around it and devouring it until there was none left for dan or anyone else.

and he was right there, sucking the air away from him, leaning against his kitchen counter as if he didn't really know how to belong there.

dan tapped his fingers against the table nervously, glancing up at him every few seconds. he couldn't help it. even so, the silence was so much better than any conversation would be.

"you look nervous," phil said. dan figured he'd jinxed himself.

"yeah..."

"you still do that stuttering thing, right?"

oh, how nice of you to remember.

"only s-sometimes."

phil smirked. "sometimes like now?"

that goddamn smartass. he knew exactly what he was doing.

for once, dan actually felt anger towards him. he was so fucking beautiful, but dan was mad. mad at him. at phil.

he looked down at his hands.

"yeah. s-sometimes like n-now."

phil was quiet. it wasn't nice anymore, only unnerving. dan's fingertips rested on the wooden table, the surface slightly warm from his tapping. his fingers sort of hurt; maybe he'd started tapping them too hard. he wondered if they'd bruise.

he felt like crying. he thought this would be good, that maybe they'd bond... but it just felt wrong.

"hey," phil said finally, and dan's face shot up at his tone of voice. he wasn't smiling, but something in his voice was almost comforting. "have you changed your room?"

"what, in s-several years?" dan deadpanned, surprised at his own cruelty, even if it felt kind of good. "yeah, a bit."

at the look on phil's face, dan softened.

"yeah," he whispered. "it's d-different."

phil pushed black hair away from his eyes. so, so blue. so beautiful. stupid boy didn't even know that.

"show me?"

dan led him up the stairs. in the years since the kiss, dan had tucked his skirts and jewelry into the back of his closet and left his ribbons and yarn and scissors in the front, as well as his jeans and t-shirts. his walls were fairly barren, besides a few pinned and glass encased butterflies some relatives had sent him, and his desk was a mess of notebooks and markers. he watched phil look around, trying to see his room through phil's eyes.

he didn't like what phil's eyes saw very much.

phil nodded slowly, sitting down on his bed. "there are less... stuffed animals," he commented with a small laugh. "and less lace."

dan blushed. "m-my stuffed animals are under there," he said softly, pointing under the bed phil was sitting on. phil smiled.

"good."

dan didn't know what he was saying good for. like he was happy dan had kept them? or like he was rejoicing that he'd hidden them away like a shameful secret? dan felt like it must be the latter, and his heart sunk.

phil picked up a book that was sitting on his bed and flipped through it. dan cautiously sat beside him to watch. at first he stared at the pages, watching the words blur by, but before he knew it he was looking at him. his roots were showing a little. dan wished he could touch them, pull the color down until all of his hair was that light shade of brown. then maybe he'd come back.

"dan." phil flipped the book shut and set it aside. "i have to ask you something."

will you forgive me? will you be my boyfriend? can we go back to how things were?

"okay...?"

phil tilted his head a bit. dan really couldn't decide which angle of him he loved the most.

"why do i still bother you?"

dan's heart sunk the rest of the way. "w-what?"

"why do i still bother you?" he repeated. "don't try and pretend, i've seen the way you look at me, and how you look when i ignore you. i'm not blind."

dan felt like crying. but he wouldn't this time. he wouldn't. and he wasn't going to stutter either, not once. not in front of phil.

"phil," he said slowly, careful to enunciate every letter. "this isn't a... a soap opera, or a sitcom. this is my life. i depended on you-"

"what, when you were eleven?" phil interrupted. he looked angry. why was he so angry? "what about now? you're a big boy now, i shouldn't have to babysit you."

heat rippled through dan's body. he stood up, even though he felt like laying down on the floor. "phil, you don't even fucking talk to me. you don't pay me a second glance, even after everything-"

"everything, like a kiss?" he said, way too loudly. always too loud, too forceful. "that stupid kiss before i left for summer camp? is all of this about that?" he was standing too. he was taller than dan. scarier. "people have first kisses, dan, and they move on. i had a crush on you when i was younger, and now i don't. i don't even like-" he gestured at him, like he was an outfit in the store and not a boy. "this. boys. anymore."

dan stared at him. he was a fucking telenovela within himself. he was the tv... every color that existed in any television show swirling in his eyes, sucking at him, turning him inside out. he was a fallen empire.

"you're an idiot," dan told him. his voice wasn't shaking, but it felt like his bones were.

"well at least i've grown up."

dan felt his resolve shattering, partly because of his words and partly because now phil was so close that the black hole was getting to him. pulling at him. ripping him apart. a tear escaped down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away. "w-well at l-least i'm not, n-not a jerk!"

that was all it took, phil had caught him. his angry expression shifted easily into a mean sneer. "see, this is what i mean. i'm going to graduate and then go to college, and you still won't be able to speak."

dan had a thousand things to say to him, and any one of them would have worked. he could have told him he wasn't obsessed with him (although that would have been a lie, dan had been obsessed with him since day one) (at least he didn't dream about him anymore, phil only showed up in his sleep when he had a fever), he could have even begged for the real phil to at least show his face, because he was pretty convinced he was possessed. he could've told him to fuck off and go home.

instead he backhanded him.

phil took a step back. the sound of dan's hand hitting his face rung in dan's ears like ten church bells. his hand stung.

dan had never hit someone, and never wanted to, was that what it felt like? jesus.

the anger faded into fear. phil didn't look mad, though... the only thing visible on his face was pain. dan teared up. his eyes always betrayed him. his eyes and his heart should start a club.

he walked to him and leaned up to kiss his cheek, the red spot where he'd hit him. then phil was quietly moving his face and kissing him on the mouth.

dan's mind was static. all of his feelings- fear, worry, guilt, anger, affection, stress- melted into one big mess inside his mind, all tangled up in a yarn of phil. that yarn sat in a box in his brain, all dusty by now, but phil still knew it belonged to him. unfortunately he knew he could rent out pieces of his brain any time he wanted.

he was kissing him, and his painful words were still stuck in dan's ears, but he wouldn't pull away because then phil would pull away and dan would really die a little then.

maybe this was it. the real phil. maybe this was his sign that he was still there, still listening, and he still cared. maybe this was his form of reaching out.

if it was that, dan would take it.

he grabbed hold of the base of his hair, closest to his roots as possible, and pulled.