Am I good enough yet? (Phan)

Chapter 32

I think that shows that they both care, so fucking much. And like Dan said in his liveshow, this time of year can be difficult. So whatever situation you're in, I hope you're happy and healthy and that you have a calm, relaxing holiday.

----

Phil's P.O.V 

Christmas Eve. My family came down today, and it actually went really well. Bear got nervous, but I tried to calm him down. I think it's easy to tell if a person is uncomfortable, so I told him to act like he'd known my family for ages. That way that positive, relaxed attitude would rub off on them. And it worked! We all got along like a house on fire. We played board games, and although I won a total of zero, bear annihilated everybody at scrabble. At one point he got azure on a triple word score. I think my family developed a certain admiration for him after that.

But things, inevitably, couldn't stay that way. It got sad, fast. I think I learnt more about bear's childhood in those few hours than I had all the time I'd known him.

It started with my mum. She was cooking lunch for us all, like she insisted, and accidentally burnt it. The sort of charcole black, inedible level burnt. So she threw it out as you would expect. Apparently not a normal occurrence for bear. He turned to me in a low voice and whispered,

"I would've eaten that, it's what I got given when I mucked up dinner as a kid," he said it as if it were normal, and he couldn't seem to understand why I had such a horrified look on my face. 

Next came the incident with my dad. He started walking over to bear who suddenly tensed up next to me.

"Why is your dad coming over? I've done something wrong haven't I? Oh no! What did I do now?" 

Turns out all my dad wanted was to hear Dan play piano. 

"Wait, you want to hear me play? Really? Y-yes o-of course!" 

"Phil tells me you're very good Dan, I can't wait to hear you," 

"Now I think about it, apart from you and Phil, I don't think anybody has ever asked me to play before. My parents told me I wasn't very good and that is was just useless noise..."

Me and my dad shared an appalled look, poor bear. That's a heartbreaking image. A young Dan, finishing a tune, looking up at his parents with a big smile and bright eyes, only to be told he's useless at the very thing he loved doing. Then the smile fades, and his eyes aren't so bright anymore. 

"Well play to me, and prove them wrong." 

"I will."

When Dan finished playing my father made sure to give him all the praise he could, and I saw bear light up. It's sad to see someone get excited over just being, well, acknowledged. What a horrible childhood.

My mum actually asked him about his life as a kid. He'd helped her with a few things, her response to which was,

"Your so helpful Dan, I wish Phil was as good as you," 

"Hey!"

"You never did any chores," 

"I did and you know it!"

"I'm joking Phil dear, you and Martin both helped out around the house," 

Dan spoke again, "Wait, you both did the work?"

My mum answered for me, "why wouldn't they?"

"It just, it wasn't like that in my house. I did all the chores whilst my parents and brother went out. If I got it all done before they get back, I get my monthly allowance. If I don't get it done in time, I don't get anything." 

"So you did all  the housework, all the time?"

"Y-yeah?" Bear suddenly sounded less sure of himself, questioning the normality of what he was describing.

My mum stared at me with a discontented look that mirrored my own. I honestly didn't think things could get any worse, but of course, they did. 

The next incident came in the form of my brother, Martin. He was just sitting in the living room, and had taken a blanket out of our dad's case - just to borrow. This action seemed to terrify Dan, who got really panicky about the whole thing.

"Is Martin just going go sit with his dad's blanket where he might see him? I don't want him to get yelled at or, or hurt! He should put it back." The panick and urgency in his voice elevated, "Phil tell him to put it back!" 

"Bear it's fine, it's perfectly ok to share it, Martin is allowed, nothing bad is going to happen. Please don't tell me you were banned from sharing things as a kid," 

"Well the rule was, that everything in my room belonged to me, so I could do whatever I wanted with the stuff in there, but if I used anything outside of my room without my parents permission, they'd yell at me," 

"But that includes tons of things, like snacks! And everyone is entitled to snacks Dan," 

"My parents rationed it," 

"They. Did. What?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"I mean, I was allowed to handle food as much as I wanted when preparing meals," he hopefully added, "but other than that my food was given to me in instalments that were controlled by my parents, like rationing them. They told me every kid has rations," 

"No. No bear they defiantly don't. Did your brother?"

"They told me Adrian was the exception," 

"And you just went along with that did you?" 

"...I- I didn't really have much of a choice," 

"That's- that's disgusting what your family has done. I swear if I see them... You're going to have to hold me back. What they did is appalling and I'm so sorry you had to live through that bear,"

"There's no point apologising. It's the past, I'm happy now, with you, and that's what matters. Also, I think you're forgetting that they are coming to visit tomorrow," 

"Oh god I forgot about that! Well me, and my family included, will be here bear, they won't hurt you, I won't let them," 

"Thanks Phil, I love you," 

"I love you too," 

"I'm glad you haven't been checking your phone, I have noticed," 

"I have no reason to, it's all over now,"

"Promise?"

"Promise." 

"This has been the best Christmas Eve ever," 

"I'll make sure it is your best Christmas too, now let's go watch T.V with the rest of those lot," 

---

This time Phil wasn't lying. He hasn't checked his messages and he really did believe it's over. But I guess a happy ending isn't meant for everyone...

I'm really sad gamingmas is ending today! Sometimes it felt like the only thing getting me through my days, a little thing to look forward to. I'm going to miss undertale as well, because judging by the ending of their last video they aren't doing the genocide route... And I'm defiantly going to miss the daily uploads.

But anyway, I hope  you all have a great Christmas, or whatever tradition you celebrate. And if you don't celebrate anything, I hope you're enjoying the winter season!