Chapter Text
Dan can hear that stupid, obnoxious laugh from down the hallway getting louder and closer. He inwardly cringes before shoving the rest of his books into his backpack, moving to walk away from the sound, praying to whatever entity that may be out there that Phil Lester will not give him any attention.
But the world isn’t quite on his side this morning, he finds that within two steps away from his locker that he is too late.
“Hey, Howell!” a deep voice calls after him, making Dan flinch and freeze in his tracks. His hands grip his backpack straps tightly, his knuckles turning white and his jaw clenching tight.
He finds himself doing that a lot more ever since Phil started torturing him. His mum says he’s going to ruin his jaw if he kept clenching it, but Dan really couldn’t care less. She’ll never understand why he and Phil stopped being friends, and he stopped trying to get her to understand a long time ago. Everyone always tends to side with Phil anyways, so he doesn’t even think the effort is worth it.
Dan turns on his heels to face Phil, his face changing from anger to annoyance. He raises one eyebrow and shifts his weight to one side, arms folded across his chest. He takes a deep breath before turning around and speaking, knowing he’s going to regret giving Phil the attention he is seeking. His whole demeanour changes in a matter of seconds when Phil was around. Since their incident, everything had changed for the worst, including his usual laid back attitude. He can’t help but hate himself a little bit more for letting it affect him this much.
He rolls his eyes as he sees Phil standing there with his arm around some chick, smirking as if he’s on top of the world. He technically is, given that he’s popular, making him well liked and known amongst everyone, and a nerd, getting good grades and standing high in class rankings. He has it all and he isn’t afraid to show it.
Girls and guys fall to his feet left and right, and Dan almost feels bad for the girl on Phil’s arm because he knows Phil is going to toss her to the side once he’s done with her. Everyone knows the reputation Phil has around the school, and yet he still has a new person on arm as if he did nothing wrong.
“You need anything, Lester?” Dan asks, sass laced in his tone. The irritation comes through his voice very obviously, just like it always does when he’s around Phil.
“No, not really. Just letting you know that you’re an arse,” Phil laughs, shoving past Dan, knocking Dan’s bag to the floor.
“What the fuck was that for?” Dan gritted out, turning around to keep Phil’s attention, “Pick it up, you douchebag.”
“Not if you’re gonna keep calling me these names, shit head,” Phil replies, starting to walk away before he was being pushed to the ground. “What the fu—“
The boy is cut off when Dan punches him square in the jaw.
“Now you’re in for it,” Phil growls, hands lunging to Dan’s hair to yank the boy away from him, rolling them over so that he’s now on top of Dan. He quickly stands up and kicks Dan in the side.
Dan groans in pain, clutching his stomach to catch his breath. He glares up through his fringe, and for a second, Phil is scared. He barely has time to do anything about it though because then Dan’s standing up and lunging at Phil to grip his shoulders, squeezing hard as he tries to push Phil away. Phil stumbles, but quickly stands his ground and continues to pummel Dan as best as he can with his fists.
They become too occupied with fighting that they don’t realise the group of kids crowding around them, chanting their names and encouraging them to keep going.
They don’t even notice as the headmistress of the school cuts through the crowd, hovering over them as they continued to fight. They only stop when the crowd goes quiet and the headmistress clears her throat, eyes narrowing at the two boys.
“My office. Now,” she says sternly. Dan and Phil reluctantly pull away from each other, both of them glaring at each other as they brush off their uniforms and follow their headmaster to her office.
-
“This is the third consecutive day that you guys have gotten in a physical fight. What is wrong with you two?” the headmistress asks, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow expectantly.
Dan snorts at that and shoots a glance at Phil, “I think the real question is, what is wrong with Phil over here.”
He juts his thumb in Phil’s direction and Phil almost growls.
Instead, Phil resorts to rolling his eyes, “Please, Dan was the one who started it this time. He jumped on me and pushed me to the ground!”
“But that was after you called me an arse and knocked my backpack off of my shoulders!”
“Well if you weren’t bothering me in the first place, then we wouldn’t even have this problem!”
“Me bothering you in the first place?! Listen, you sack of piss-“
Their headmistress clears her throat and shoots them sharp glares, effectively making them both shut up.
“First of all, watch your language, both of you. And secondly, this is exactly what I mean, boys. Obviously there is unresolved tension between you two and neither of you are doing anything to fix it. Do you really think that fighting and calling each other names will solve anything?”
Dan and Phil stay silent, both of them trying their hardest not to show annoyance. They know fighting’s not going to solve anything, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop.
Their headmistress huffs, “I guess I have no choice. It’s going to be detention for the next two months.”
“Two months? What the fuck? Surely that’s illegal!” Dan yells, standing from his chair and face turning red.
The headmistress narrows her eyes at Dan, “Now it’s three months for swearing at the headmistress. Be glad I’m not suspending you both from constantly bringing violence into my school.”
Dan and Phil gape at the headmistress, too afraid to say anything else.
“If I see you back here tomorrow, I’ll add another week. Do I make myself clear?”
The two boys reluctantly nod their heads and exit the office.
“This is all your fault,” Dan mutters, trudging towards his last class of the day.
Phil scoffs, hands shaking to throw another punch at Dan, but holding back. This wasn’t even his fault. Sure, he antagonised Dan by calling him names, but Dan was the one who started the fight and he was the one who swore at their headmistress. He really shouldn’t have been punished the same way as Dan.
“Watch your mouth, Howell,” Phil spits, walking in the opposite direction.
Dan watches as Phil walks away, rolling his eyes once more at how stupid Phil was. He knows he started the fight, but Phil is always the one to say the first word and insult Dan every chance he got. If it was up to Dan, he wouldn’t even talk to Phil because of how shitty he's become.
Comparing who Phil was before to who he is now, he finds it hard to believe that they were once the best of friends. Phil, who was so caring and thoughtful, is now coldhearted and apparently one to provoke fights without any reason. What happened to the Phil that used to spew out random animal facts at the weirdest of times and spent more time reading books than interacting with people? Dan hates their relationship had come to this, but if this is who Phil wanted to be, then he really doesn’t want anything to do with him.
It still sucks though, considering that Phil had been his best friend since primary school. When Phil decided that he didn’t want to be Dan’s friend anymore, he left Dan with no one. Dan had to survive his remaining years in school without a real friend, or at least anyone that he could trust to talk to about anything.
Unfortunately for Dan, the only other person he did talk to in this school right now was Phil, and it was to tell him to fuck off.
-
The day goes by faster than Dan expected and he finds himself bored as fuck in detention, only a couple desks away from his favourite person: Phil Lester.
He looks around the classroom, confused by the fact that he and Phil are the only people here. Surely there should be more people in detention, seeing as Dan and Phil were both pretty much just nerds that hated each other. Where were the jocks and the stereotypical bad boys?
Deciding not to ponder on it for too long, Dan puts his head down and closes his eyes. He decides that he has enough time for a nap, seeing as Phil isn’t currently bothering him.
As if on cue, he feels something hit the back of his head. He sighs loudly (and admittedly obnoxiously) as he raises his head up.
“Phil, I’m not in the mood.”
“I didn’t give you a choice,” Phil remarks and throws another small, crumpled ball of paper.
Dan’s hands ball up into fists, resisting the urge to grab the heaviest thing in his backpack and throw it at Phil. He slowly puts his head down again, deciding not to give Phil the satisfaction or entertainment.
“Well you’re boring,” Phil sighs, resting his head on one hand while his other doodles on the ripped piece of paper. He looks up to the clock to find that he and Dan only have half an hour left and sighs with relief. He turns his attention back to his paper, outlining his drawing of Pikachu to define it. He smiles to himself as he silently praises his drawing for not being so shit.
With Phil’s attention to his paper, he is silent for the rest of the time, making Dan believe that he had left detention early. It wouldn’t surprise Dan a bit if that was what Phil did honestly. However, when Dan looks over to where Phil is sitting, he’s taken aback by the fact that he’s still there, eyes glued to his paper, hand doodling furiously, tongue stuck out in concentration. Dan smiles at the view as it reminded him of when he and Phil used to play video games together. Phil would pull the same face as he tried his best to beat Dan, even if he always lost.
They’re both broken out of their trances when the bell rings and the detention administrator walks in to dismiss them. Dan’s face flushes as he quickly breaks his stare from Phil, unsure of whether Phil noticed him or not. He grabs his bag as fast as he can and bolts out of the classroom, not even giving Phil a chance to leave a witty remark.
-
It’s around midnight when Dan decides that he’s not sleeping that night. He thought that after another fight with Phil and nearly boring himself to sleep in detention would tide him over, but currently he finds that he can’t fall asleep. His eyes are tired as hell, burning every time he blinked and eyelids heavier than they’ve ever been. However, his brain was alert, jumping from thought to thought, mind racing through instances.
He tries to lift his arm over his eyes to help relieve the pain, but he jolts when another sort of pain shoots through his bicep.
Right, his fight with Phil.
He sighs internally, his mind wandering to how fucked up his friendship with Phil is. It isn’t even considered a friendship anymore because all they do is yell at each other and fight. Though after what Phil did to him, Dan hasn’t regretted the decision of dropping him as a friend. Phil was toxic; he still is. He showed Dan that he didn’t care and that he cared more about his image than their friendship.
But seeing Phil in detention, with his face scrunched up in concentration, that had been the first time in a long time that Dan missed being friends with Phil.
Laying in his bed, Dan thinks about how gentle Phil used to be when they were kids. Phil grew up as the second child, so he was respectful and always followed what his older brother told him to do. He assumed that same role every time he and Dan played together. Dan would usually take control and Phil was okay with it. It was how they worked. If one of them was off balance, the other would help level them out. Growing up, they worked together so well, so why did it end on such bad terms?
Dan furrows his eyebrows and groans, sitting up from his bed, throwing away any lingering thoughts he had at Phil. Anger starts bubbling in his chest as he starts to recall the fight that ended their friendship:
He was curled in a corner, his arms covering face, cowering as he heard the never-ending remarks and insults from the kids above him. He was yelling, shouting at the bullies to leave him alone, crying for help from the one person that he thought was his hero.
“Phil! Phil! Please help!”
The kicks to his stomach kept going. The kids above him grew louder.
Through his teary eyes, Dan managed to peek from under his arms, trying to find Phil. The bullies didn’t cease their tormenting, taking Dan’s peeking as a moment of weakness, and they kicked him square in the face.
Dan let out a whimper, arms moving to the ground in attempt to steady himself from the blow. As he looked up, he saw a figure in the distance, standing there and just watching him get hurt.
“Please!” Dan tried to yell out to the person, “Please come and help me!”
The bullies laughed in response, “Yeah, Phil, why don’t you come help your pathetic excuse of a friend?”
It was as if time stopped then. Suddenly, Dan didn’t feel the pain from the kids kicking him, nor did he feel the warm blood falling down his face. The only pain he felt was in his heart, and he was momentarily scared that it had stopped beating.
Was that person really Phil, his best friend? Why wasn’t Phil defending him?
He could hear Phil’s shaky voice reply to the bullies, “What about I don’t?”
Dan felt his heart crack, tears slipping down his face as the pain grew stronger. His poor body couldn’t take it anymore and he blacked out, Phil’s words the last thing echoing in his head.
-
He wipes his tears away and pushes his fringe from his face, pulling it into a sort of half quiff. He feels pathetic that he cries every time he thinks about what went down between them.
It kind of really sucks that things ended up the way they did for them both. Phil decided he was too good for Dan and left Dan to the curb to wallow in his self pity. Dan finds himself doing that most nights, usually in the same manner he’s doing tonight.
Dan releases all his tension from today through his crying and allows himself a few more tears to run down his face. He inhales once and he feels at peace, even if it only lasts a few minutes. His attention turns to the dim alarm clock sitting on his bedside table and frowns when he reads 04:35. He didn’t even realise that all that time had passed.
He can already imagine the dark circles and bags under his eyes as he drags his ass through the school day tomorrow - or later today.
Despite sleeping being pointless at this time, Dan attempts to anyways. His eyes droop closed surprisingly easily and he’s asleep in no time, physically and mentally exhausted from the one person that he used to rely on: Phil Lester.