When Light Met Dark // Phan

Seventeen

"I'm quitting my job."

Phil looked up from his computer, confused, to see Dan standing a few inches away from him, his stance firm and confident, though his face said the complete opposite.

"You're what?"

"You heard. I'm quitting my job."

"But why?" Dan bit his lip, setting himself down next to Phil. They hadn't gone to bed, the events of the evening had kept them from doing so. They had called the police, but they hadn't arrived yet, so they were sat in silence, just waiting.

"I need to be here." Was all he said, snuggling into Phil's side, but Phil could feel how tense he was besides him.

"What about Tyler?"

"What about him?"

"Won't you want to keep in touch with him?"

Dan suddenly felt awful for forgetting that detail; Tyler had been one of the most supportive people in his life, next to Phil, and he was just going to let that go?

"I'll exchange numbers with him." He answered, a lot less emotion in his voice than he expected.

Phil didn't know what to say; Dan had obviously made his mind up, and Phil couldn't really tell him otherwise anyway.

*

Two policemen arrived, picking away at the items in the apartment. They took more interest in the note, and as expected, they were going to want to question Dan and Phil.

"Do you know who could have written this?" The first policemen said, notebook in hand. Dan took a deep breath, Phil's hand rubbing his back encouragingly; he had to tell them everything.

"His name's Chris Kendall," he started, wincing at the name, "he did something to me a while back, something bad, and I thought it was all over until now." He didn't want to go any further, to tell the story all over again, all he wanted was to go to sleep and never wake up.

"Sir," the man looked more sympathetic now, lowering the notebook a little, "could you tell me what he did to you?" Dan glanced over to phil, who was now holding him around his shoulder comfortingly.

"He..." Dan started, the words getting stuck in his throat. Why were they so difficult to say? This thing happened to him, and he wanted justice. He wanted Chris to hurt. He wanted Chris to feel what he felt.

"He raped me."

*

Dan had to go to the police station to make a statement. Phil refused to leave his side, but even the constant presence next to him could calm him down. He knew he had a good case; the apartment should be covered in Chris's DNA, and Chris had an obvious motive, but there was that little voice in the back of his head telling him Chris would walk free after all of this and terrorise him even more than before. With all these emotions building up inside him, Dan did the thing he was best at: crying. He cried hot tears, not caring that he was in a busy corridor. Phil hugged him tightly but it didn't do much; it didn't change the situation at all. He still had to make a statement, he still had to face up to what happened to him, and in the worst case, he'd still have to go to court.

"Is there anything I can say to make this better?" Phil whispered into his ear as he sobbed.

"Just tell me everything will be okay!" Dan cried, his voice sounding broken and tired and empty all at the same time, "please, I just want everything to be okay."

"Oh Dan," Phil held on even tighter, his own eyes tingling with unfallen tears, "everything will be okay."

Phil knew it was bad to make promises he couldn't keep, but sometimes, that's the only thing you can do to calm someone down, even for a little bit. It was like the calm before the storm.