Brotherly love (phan)

Chapter 17

Er... Umm... Oops.

"Come on Phil, shush," Dan giggled, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the stairs, while Phil chuckled.

"I am coming, I'm just trying not to fall downstairs." Phil whispered as they pulled on coats and gloves, winding scarves around their necks as they hopped around, trying to put on shoes before they fell through the door, shutting it behind them and laughing out into the night, able to make noises now.

"I can't believe you talked me into going out at 6 in the morning. In the dark. In the snow," Phil said, huddling into his coat as he felt the cold nip at his arms.

"Because it will be amazing, and you know it. We can watch the sun rise," Dan said and Phil rolled his eyes.

"But it doesn't rise for hours," he moaned.

"I know, but that means we can play in the snow before that happens," Dan said.

"Okay, putting it like that." Phil smiled. Dan stuck his tongue at him slightly and nudged into him, making Phil nudge back before they were walking along shoving, laughing loudly.

"Shush," Dan giggled and Phil tried to stop.

"It's hard to stop," Phil told him and Dan shook his head fondly at him.

They turned down a darker street, where a few of the lamps weren't working and Phil bit his lip. They passed by one that started to flicker randomly, and Phil jumped.

"Phil, you okay?" Dan asked, and Phil laughed nervously.

"Yeah," he tried to say casually, but his voice squeaked.

"Come here," Dan said, sliding his arm around Phil's waist and pulling him closer, Phil gripping back onto him, thankful Dan understood his fears.

"You don't have to pretend you aren't scared around me," Dan told him.

"I know, but I like to pretend I'm brave, so when you're scared I know I could protect you and you could rely on me to do that," Phil tried to explain.

"You're so sweet, but I'm not really scared of anything you could protect me from," Dan told him as they got off the dark street and closer to town.

"What do you mean?" Phil asked.

"It's hard to describe. I'm not really scared of physical things, more ideas of things are the things that scare me," he tried to explain.

"Okay that kind of makes sense, but I still want to try and protect you from that stuff," Phil told him, head butting his shoulder gently, making Dan smile softly.

"Thanks."

Dan's fears were what you were more likely to call realistic. He was scared of real things, like his friends abandoning him, being forgotten and left alone, but most of all, he was scared of ever losing Phil. He knew out of everyone, if he had no Phil, he may as well be a different person. There was no Dan without Phil, and Dan knew there was a complete possibility that Phil could leave, and that was what scared him the most.

They stayed with their arms wrapped around each other while they walked the rest of the way to the park. It wouldn't have felt right for either of them to let go.

*

They got to the park and of course no one else was there, and the gates were wide open for them to freely enter. Luckily it wasn't too dark in the park because there were old fashioned lamps lining the path, but as they had to stray from it to get to the tower, it would be almost black among the pine trees.

"Er Dan?" Phil asked when they were about to leave the path, stopping and finally letting Dan fall from his grasp.

"It's going to be quite dark in there, isn't it?" Phil gulped.