Not On Fire (Phan AU)

29 | I still love you

He's used to keeping his thoughts to himself under lock and key--has kept them hidden for too long to truly know how to express them. That's what keeps his mouth zipped shut around his roommates and everybody else.

When his parents come to visit him, they cry mainly and ask awkward questions in awkward tones and make awkward eye contact as if they're talking to a stranger as opposed to their own son. Maybe they think they are. Maybe they think that those thoughts he's kept hidden in his chest, buried underneath his heart, have kept the real him from them. Maybe they're right.

Austin doesn't really warm up to him over the next few days, but they get stuck hanging out with each other because Alex and Jake are lost in their own world most of the time, in that phase where it's just about each other and everything is so perfect. He doesn't try to talk to anyone else. Nothing will distract him from where he is; there's no point in trying.

The days drag on, each one feeling like a week in and of itself. Normally in a situation where he's this bored he'd dream of fires, of destruction, of being the one powerful enough to create just that, but he can't think of that without thinking of Phil and that night and how everything changed so fucking quickly. He can't write, either, for obvious reasons, and even when he tries to focus, trying to write the words in his mind and form something that makes sense, he thinks of Phil and how big of a part he is in Dan's life, his story. Once he thinks of Phil, that's all he can think about for a while afterwards.

Finally, Phil decides to visit--a week into Dan's stay and an eternity of suffering later. A guard leads Dan into a room, not much different than the rest of the place, and very minimalistic. A glass window separates it from another room where the visitors sit. In each separate stall there's a phone for talking. Phil's already there when he sits down. Everything about him is put together from his clothes to his hair, but something feels off in the way he holds his breath before his eyes meet Dan's.

Dan picks up the phone just as Phil does, and in a similar manner, too. Slow and calculating. Eyes locked with the other's.

Dan's not sure what to think or to feel. He's not mad at Phil, just at himself. He knows he overreacted that night, had escalated things too quickly, never stopping to listen to what Phil had to say. The main reason that he did so being that he had bottled up too many emotions and shook them up. And he's worried that there's still some fire left in him.

It's silent for a second, the sound of static breathing the only thing he can hear on the other line.

Dan knows he needs to be the first one to speak. He messed up, not Phil, and after everything Phil has done for him, it's the least he can do.

"I'm sorry," Dan says, softly, eyes looking anywhere but Phil.

"Do you regret it?" Phil asks, and Dan finally meets his piercing blue eyes, which are looking at him so intently he doesn't know what to think. He's frozen for a second, before the words register in his brain. Phil doesn't have to explain what it means.

"I should," Dan answers. Truthfully. He's lied for so long--it's time he stops pretending. He regrets blowing up at Phil, but that's it. He doesn't regret doing what he did for so long because it was a coping mechanism.

"But you don't?" His silence speaks volumes. "Then you aren't really sorry."

Phil looks at him with a soft frown on his face, almost pitying.

"I wish I was."

It's quiet again. They're both walking on thin ice around each other, worried that one wrong step will cause everything to go to shit again.