#Keeper is that fear. that need to contain. to control. to suppress. to hide. to mask.

[nugatorysheep]

Ş̸̻͕̺́̚Ṕ̵̛̪̃Ȩ̷̳̫̿̾Ã̶̞̺̇͐͘K̷͈̿̎̇.

This damn comic is fucking A N C I E N T but as far as like, the content of it- not necessarily the art because I always hate my older art, but the presentation, what is objectively here- still feels right to me, so I'm sharing it. again

[georgiabread]

falling for you ; phan | chapter thirty five

Full summary ; Dan Howell is dead. Well, sort of. He’s a guardian angel, forced to protect only one human, and that human is Cat. But when he accompanies Cat to school, he can’t help but be intrigued by the broken boy with the black hair who sits by the window in class and disappears at lunch times. Dan realises this boy needs more protection than Cat will ever need, so he takes on human form to save him. But soon he finds himself falling in love, which is something he definitely can’t do. Dan Howell is an angel, and he’s falling for Phil.

Tags ; highschool!phan, teenage!phan, plantboy!phil, spaceboy!dan, angel!dan, phan, phan au, phan fluff, phan angst, chaptered

TWs ; bullying, violence, mentions of self-harm, mentions of death/suicide, depression, panic attacks, physical and verbal abuse, homophobia, foul language and supernatural themes.

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"And I don't want to let this go, I don't want to lose control, I just want to see the stars with you—"

dan ;

True to Phil's words, five minutes did pass before the black-haired boy arrived – but the rate at which the seconds dragged on made it seem like 5 hours. Dan focused on taking calming breaths as he waited, resting his head on his arms and shutting his eyes. He needed to relax. Regulate his breathing and heartbeat. But it wasn't fucking working. Every deep breath he took stammered and broke, every time he blinked away his tears new ones would jump in, stinging his eyes. Dan bit down hard on his bottom lip and looked up. The park had been overrun with shadows in the time he was gone, so dark it seemed they were flooding his own vision, creating an illusion of total blackness. It was terrifying.

Dan could feel it building in his chest as it usually did. The panic, the terror, crawling through his body like an uncontrollable disease. It yanked his intestines into tight knots, crushed and compressed his lungs until there was no air left to breathe, closed over his throat till it felt as if hands were wrapping around it and squeezing. His vision clouded over, distorting the world around him but not like before. Don't cry, he told himself desperately. If you do, you'll fucking suffocate. He reached up to wipe at his eyes, but the movement in his shoulder sent spasms jolting under his skin and he grimaced.

Even though the pain in his back had faded to a dull ache, he still felt a vicious jab every time he moved. By now the blood had glued his jumper to his wounds, and the wool caught on the torn skin every now and then. He had to remove it. But he couldn't. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't fucking breathe.

But he tried to. Dan spat out a strangled sob and braced his hands gently against the bark. Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. In and out. I swear to god, just breathe. The brown-haired boy shut his eyes and sucked air through his nose, willing his heart to slow down and the panic to unravel itself from around his gut. Slowly, painfully, he began to gain control of his terror, forcing it away with deep, lingering breaths and holding steady against the ground. Grounding himself.

Finally, he slumped into the bark with a wince, sucking in his lips as he attempted to suppress another sob. But then he had nothing else to distract him from his thoughts, and they swamped his mind.

He was going to hell. That one sentence tumbled about in his brain, unable to be contained. You're going to hell you're going to hell you're going to hell.

Sure, it might be a while before that, but Dan almost panicked again simply knowing it was inevitable.

He kept remembering the forlorn look in the Keeper's dark eyes. Did Dan really mean that much to him? Would he ever see him again? Dan doubted both heavily. The Keeper was stoic and emotionless, and once again, Dan was going to hell when he died. His business with the mysterious man had come to an end, he was sure of it.

And Phil...Dan was stuck back on Earth until death, but would he ever make things right with his best friend? He wanted to, god he wanted to so bad. But Phil had fought him, been abandoned by him, seen him with wings protruding unnaturally from his back. Dan wouldn't blame him if the dark-haired boy wanted nothing more to do with him – even feared him.

and almost broke down then and there, burying his face into his arms. For now, it seemed Phil wasn't too terrified of him.  

"Dan? Dan, oh my god."

Dan glanced up and caught sight of the ghostly hue of Phil's cheeks, the horror shimmering behind his eyes as he entered the gloomy park. He absorbed Dan's pitiful form slumped in the dirt, scanning over his face and arms and then faltering a bit when he noticed the state of Dan's back.

Dan wanted to cry. "P-Phil," he croaked, the single word stumbling in his throat.

Phil's footsteps slowed as he reached the low barrier encircling the play equipment, and Dan noticed how hesitant he was to move closer. It hurt, just a little. Phil didn't meet his eyes when he blurted, "You...you're bleeding."

Dan sniffed and nodded, raising his eyebrows as he looked up at Phil. Even something as small as that sent agony shooting from his wounds. "I think I've noticed. I'm also in a lot of p-pain," he muttered bitterly.

"What happened?" Phil asked quietly. He sounded like the answer to that question was the last thing he wanted to know. Dan wondered if begging him to come here had been the right idea.

He simply shrugged, the pain clearly showing on his face. Then he blurted an empty laugh, wiped his nose and mumbled, "I got what was coming for me."

Phil remained still and speechless, unsure how to respond. "Dan, I don't..."

"F-Forget it. I don't expect you to understand, Phil," Dan interrupted, sounding choked up as he looked away.

"Wait," Phil breathed suddenly, almost deaf to Dan's words. "Your w-wings...they...  suddenly turning his vision hazy again as Phil stared into his own tired brown eyes.

Dan looked down, eyelids fluttering shut. He cursed the moisture that trickled onto his cheeks, unable to hold back the waves of sorrow and hopelessness crashing against the dam he'd built to keep them in. He couldn't continue. He couldn't keep hiding. Here he was, lying on the ground in the dead of night, his wings just having been wrenched from his very skin. And all he wanted was to tell Phil everything.

All he wanted was for Phil to hold him again.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, afraid to look up in case the black-haired boy looked at him with disgust, moved away, left him.

But instead Phil sighed shakily and stepped forward, gently lowering to the ground and resting two fingers against Dan's jaw. He tilted his head upwards, and Dan reluctantly opened his eyes, chin wobbling as he saw the sadness pulling on Phil's face. Phil swallowed, wordlessly wiping the tears from Dan's cheeks with his thumbs before placing their foreheads together. "It's okay," he whispered.

Dan had been falling for a long time now. But just as the words left Phil's lips, he hit the ground. A wet sob tore from his throat and the dam broke, tears spilling from his eyes as Phil gathered him into his arms, surrounding him with warmth and thereness and love. Dan took no notice as pain erupted fiercely from his injuries. He He sobbed into Phil's chest, squeezing the material into his fists as if that jumper could somehow ground him to reality.

Phil held him tight and secure, burying his nose into Dan's hair and simply letting the brown-haired boy cry. He was still bewildered and slightly scared, but Dan needed him, and so Phil was there. And that was all he had to be. He made sure to avoid the gashes he'd finally recognised under Dan's shirt as he gently drew his fingers up and down his back, hoping to god he wasn't hurting him in any way.

Dan could taste salt on his lips and a lump had been shoved down his throat and he could barely see as his eyelids grew puffy, but he didn't care. He didn't care for the stuttering in his breath when he gasped for air. He didn't care that he sounded ugly and unpleasant with snot running from his nose. Phil hadn't left him. Phil was here, hugging him and making him feel safe and that was all that mattered. He was here. And Dan had to tell him, he had to explain, Phil had to know who – what he had been. "Ph-Phil, I'm s-so-sorry," he blubbered, now almost curled in the boy's lap. "I – I'm – I need to...because – you – I'm sorry, I���"

"No, no, Dan, stop. It's okay," Phil interrupted softly, silencing him with a firm kiss to his hair. "Everything's okay. Don't speak. Tell me later. It's alright."

"It's not, Phil...I love you," Dan sobbed. "I love you s-so much. And I have to...t-tell you...everything."

"No, you don't. You  don't. I don't care, I still – I still love you too, Dan. I never stopped loving you." Phil brushed his fingers through Dan's hair and gently pulled away only to take Dan's face his hands.

Dan bit his bottom lip, staring at his best friend through hazy tears and feeling a mixture of relief and despair and guilt tugging at his stomach. His fingers lifted to curl around Phil's arms, and he wasn't sure whether to kiss him or keep crying or just blurt all that was trapped in his mind.

Gazing at Dan with a mountain of care and affection, Phil moved closer until their noses were inches apart and sniffled a bit. "Dan, I...I don't know what's going on with you right now, but you still mean everything to me and I think we should get you home before we try and figure all this out, okay?" he told him.

"But–" Dan started quietly.

"Shh. You need rest, and a few bandages. Your back is a bloody mess, no pun intended."

For a moment they both chuckled softly, a bit of warmth flickering to life in Dan's heart. Phil was right, a part of him knew. The pain in his back continued to sear him the more he moved, and he didn't want to die of blood-loss now. He wasn't ready to go to hell just yet.

Dan's sniffle seemed to bounce off the trees and rusted play equipment as he blearily rubbed his eyes, wiping away the tear streaks. Phil's hands fell away, but Dan only had time to be disappointed for one second before the dark-haired boy knitted their fingers together, Dan's cold and Phil's warm. It seemed years since Dan had held his hand; he relished in the familiar feeling that sent scattered pinpricks up his arm. But it saddened him as well, only slightly. How had he let the tension between them fester for so long that he was happy simply to hold Phil's hand?

"Hey." Dan glanced up at the softness in Phil's tone. "It's gonna be alright. I think it's time we head back to my place and fix you up, how does that sound?" Phil asked.

Dan let out a small sigh, before perking up when a thought occurred to him. "What about–?"

"Stephen's gone out," Phil cut in. "He even called Mum – he won't be back until sometime tomorrow."

"Okay," Dan whispered, and then nodded. "Yeah, okay, that's good."

Phil remained silent for a moment before breathing out, leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to Dan's hairline. "Come on. I'll help you stand. We're just going to take small steps to the car, okay?"

"Okay," Dan said again, steeling himself for the pain he was about to feel.

Sure enough, he felt it when Phil steadied his arm under his shoulders and gradually lifted Dan to his feet. Dan couldn't help but flop a little against the boy as he clung to his waist, squeezing his eyes shut to try and ward off the flames surging through his back.  ear like the beat of a butterfly's wings, in sync with the fluttering of his heart. Simple whispers of, "You're doing wonderful, Dan," or, "Nearly there," or, "Everything's gonna be alright," were enough to send his emotions into a frenzy.

Phil still cared. After everything, he still cared.

They reached the car. Dan slumped forward and rested his arms on the roof of the old white Toyota, lungs heaving and eyes closing for a moment. He felt Phil's hand on his shoulder, rubbing soothing circles over the material there.

"Dan," Phil mumbled, "we need to get you in the car."

"I know, I know." As soon as Dan straightened a little, Phil's hands were there to guide him. It took a little manoeuvring, but eventually he was hunched in the passenger seat, leaning forward to stop his gashes from brushing up against the cracked leather. The driver's door thudded shut. Phil shoved his keys into the ignition, fumbling a bit. Dan closed his eyes again, mind whirring like the engine of the car.

...How much blood had he lost in the time between the removal of his wings and now? He must've spent heaps – that would explain the droopiness of his eyelids, the effort it took just to fill his lungs with a little air. His arms felt like limp bodies, dangling off his larger one. So what would happen to him? Would he need to go to the hospital? God, how would he explain his wounds to the doctors without getting shipped off to the government to be experimented on? Dan shuddered at the thought. He couldn't tell  anyone. At least, no one but Phil.

Dan tried to clear his mind, tuning in only to the thrum of the engine and Phil's quiet breathing. Really, all he wanted was to sleep. Maybe he should. Maybe it would only be a few minutes of rest, but it would be something, right?

The gentle murmurs of noise around him faded, and suddenly he was aware of nothing.

*

"...can't carry you when you're asleep, Dan, come on. Wake up. You fell asleep literally two minutes from my house, you spork..."

Dan groaned a little, stirring in his sleep to the exasperated mutterings of Phil Lester as the guy tried to shift him gently out of the car. It took him a few moments to distinguish where he was, glancing groggily at the dashboard in front of him, Phil awkwardly leaning over him and the driveway the car was parked in. "Um...wait," Dan mumbled, whacking Phil's hands away and moving around himself. Amazingly, his wounds had cooled down slightly, so it didn't feel like his back had fallen into the pits of hell every time he shifted a muscle.

"You good?" Phil asked, stepping back a bit as Dan swung his legs over and out onto the path. "Here, lean on me again. God, you're actually quite pale. Let's get inside."

After a few struggles and a lot of Dan acting like a wobbly drunkard, they made it to the front door of Phil's house. Dan could see lights on through the curtains, and suddenly frowned. He didn't know what time it was.

At last the door was opened, and a warm glow spilled out onto the unreadable welcome mat. Dan peered inside, frowning at the stillness of the house.

"Mum's out as well, by the way," Phil said, answering his unspoken questions. "Gone to...see a friend or something. She'll be back later. And Daisy's at a sleepover I think."

Dan only frowned harder. "So, you're just left here? By yourself?" he asked worriedly.

"It's fine, Dan," Phil replied, glancing down at him. "I prefer being alone here, really."

Dan didn't believe him, sighing softly.

"Dan, I do," Phil insisted. "Let's just get you upstairs to the bathroom, okay?"

Several moments later Dan found himself seated precariously on the edge of the bath, eyes glued to the floor and heart palpitating at the thought of finally having to explain himself to Phil. His fingers quivered in his lap as the dark-haired boy swung the bathroom door shut.

"Okay Dan," Phil started, walking towards him. "I'm gonna take off your jumper so I can see those gashes, so could you turn around for me?"

Dan nodded and did as he was told, moving so his feet flattened out against the bottom of the bath. He sucked on his lower lip as Phil placed his fingers under the thin material and slowly peeled the jumper off his back; Dan's knuckles turned white and blotchy gripping the side of the bath when threads of wool came loose from the torn skin. Eventually the gashes were fully exposed and Dan didn't miss the sharp intake of breath behind him. Phil pulled his jumper all the way off and discarded it to one side.

"Shit," Phil muttered. Dan felt his fingers ghosting over his skin. "These cuts are quite deep. And the skin is so red. I'll need to clean the blood off, but...I think we should take you to the hospital just to be safe–"

"No," Dan snapped immediately, whipping his head around to glare at Phil. "I can't go there. Please, don't make me go. I...I can't..." He trailed off and lowered his head, hurriedly blinking back tears.

There was a pause, and then the bath creaked as Phil tentatively sat beside him, resting a hand on his arm. "Dan..." he said softly, waiting until the boy met his eyes before he continued. "...Why don't you want to go? What happened?"

Staring into those swirling pools of blue, Dan found he couldn't tell him. The words lingered on his tongue, but he simply would not open his mouth. Because Phil wasn't just asking how he'd received his wounds – he was asking what had happened to him, to both of them...what had happened for them to reach this point. Dan glanced away, heart thudding heavily in his chest.

Phil sighed, his eyes still boring into Dan's face even when the boy wouldn't look at him. "You know you'll have to tell me sometime," he said, voicing Dan's thoughts. The pad of his thumb swirled over Dan's skin.

"I know," Dan whispered weakly. And that was it.

Through his peripherals, he saw Phil stand and heard water gushing into the sink seconds later. Phil was right. He couldn't keep hiding this. His best friend deserved the whole truth – real and unadulterated.

"I'm just washing off the blood now," Phil told him, before pressing a warm, wet towel carefully against his skin. "This might hurt a bit."

It did, but Dan swallowed it and refused to let it show on his face as Phil scrubbed softly around his gashes. The bathroom was silent, save for the squelch of the towel every now and then. But it wasn't a comfortable silence. It was stifling and uneasy, a thundercloud drooping above them ready to break open.

Where would he even start? With his death, or all the way back to his old life? Or what if he worked his way back from now? Dan had no idea how to tell this story to Phil, but he wanted to now, at least to make things less awkward between them. He let out a gentle breath, afraid to make the slightest of noises, and cursed how hyperaware he was of Phil's fingers pressed against his bare skin as the boy ran the towel slowly down his back.

"Um, so, medical assessment," Phil uttered after a while. "The bleeding seems to have slowed, and I'm not a doctor but I don't think you'll need stitches. Just a few bandages and some ointment."

Dan frowned, incredulous, wondering how deep his wings really had been buried under his skin. "You sure I won't need them?" he asked.

"Well...I can't see any bone or muscle, and that's usually when you need stitches. Even so..."

"I'm not going to the hospital."

"Dan, it's okay. I won't take you." Phil turned away and rummaged through the cabinets below the sink, uncovering a few extra-large Band-Aids, some gauze and an antibiotic ointment.

Phil didn't warn him when he started applying the antibiotic to his gashes, and its sudden sting was malicious. Dan gritted his teeth and braced himself against the bath again, taking in slow breaths as he gradually grew used to the burn. "I'm sorry you have to do all this..." he blurted as Phil started plastering on the first Band-Aid on one of his cuts

"Don't be silly," Phil said softly. He smoothed the bandage over his torn skin. "You can't even reach your back, let alone move properly. And besides, this is a 'want to' thing, not a 'have to'."

The words brought a gentle pink hue to Dan's cheeks – still, he didn't relent. "But...but I forced you to come and drag me here and you don't even know what's going on. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for any of this t-to happen."

Dan heard a small sigh from Phil and the tear of another Band-Aid. "I know you didn't," Phil replied simply as he set to work on the second gash. "But you're my best friend. I think best friends are always supposed to be there for each other, even when...you know...one of them is lying in a park at night with wounds in their back that look suspiciously like wing holes."

Dan could feel his gaze burning into the back of his head, and a different kind of blush settled on his cheeks. He glanced down to his lap. "Yeah...well, thank you."

A moment of silence passed before Phil sighed again, expecting some kind of explanation this time but not getting one. He started unravelling a roll of gauze. "I just hope things will be okay for you after this," he murmured.

Dan swiped his tongue over his chapped lips. "So do I."

They didn't speak again until Phil had wound his chest in the dressing, packing it tightly against his gashes and holding the end down with a stripe of tape. Ten minutes later Dan was sinking into a chair at the dining table, huddled in Phil's green hoodie and hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate. And Phil was sitting down right beside him.

The dining room had been stuffed with cotton balls. The silence was hot and suffocating, tension suspended above them like rain clouds ready to burst. Dan sat motionless, fully invested in the gently rippling liquid in his mug with no intent of drinking it as of that moment. His thoughts were like that too – following one after the other in a continuous circle, stretching on with no clear result. He was terrified. That was just it. Fear engulfed him like a tidal wave, drowning out his words and common sense. Phil had to know. Dan couldn't tell him. So he simply sat there, pretending to ignore Phil's impatient gaze, thumb swirling over the ceramic handle of his cup. Because there was so absolutely no way he could explain things without scaring his best friend, or worse. Even when Phil finally broke the silence, Dan still avoided the topic.

"Dan, I'm not gonna sit here all night waiting for you to tell me what the fuck is going on," Phil muttered eventually, spite laced through his words.

Dan flinched at the swear word he used, fingers tightening around the mug. The hot chocolate trembled within it, and he continued to stare, searching for a response in the wrinkles of the liquid cocoa. "Why did you have Advil on you when I found you in the alley?" he blurted after a while, turning his head to meet the startled look in Phil's eyes. He didn't want to know the answer.

Lungs heavily deflating, Phil glanced away at his own mug, falling quiet. Dan watched him carefully, desperate for yet dreading what the boy would say next. "Why the hell do you think?" Phil muttered.

"Phil–" Dan started.

"I was going to overdose, alright?" Phil snapped, causing Dan to jump as he whirled around violently in his chair. "Stephen came home and told me to kill myself, so that's just what I was gonna do. I thought – I thought, you know, my shitty hideout in the forest would be an alright place to go. But instead life decides to fuck me over and let Finn and everyone else beat me to death. That is, until you showed up, used the fucking force on them and grew wings. And now – now I just wish I'd...swallowed the fucking p-pills in the b-b-bathroom..."

Dan's heart tore open  He blinked away the sting in his own eyes and shuffled his chair closer to the boy, before wrapping his arms around him and pushing Phil's face into his shoulder. Phil's fragile frame shuddered with sobs as he crumbled in Dan's arms. The hoodie was quickly soaked but Dan didn't care, knowing he just needed to hold his best friend and never let go. He dug his nose into Phil's hair and rubbed patterns on Phil's back, trying not to think of him lying lifeless on a bathroom floor. By the time Phil had calmed down enough for Dan to talk, their hot chocolates had gone cold.

"I'm sorry," Dan murmured as Phil tightened his arms around his waist. "I'm sorry for cutting you off and confusing you and being such a shitty person and – and making you feel like you had to do this. But you don't, Phil. God, don't you ever for a second think about ending it like that because you're worth so much more than you realise and I want you to grow old." With me, he thought. "And I need you. I can't even think about you...d-doing that, because you're everything to me and if you were gone, all of this would be for nothing."

Phil had remained silent throughout the small speech, but now he sniffed and raised his head, frowning at Dan. "What do you mean?" he asked nervously. "What would be for nothing?"

Staring into Phil's eyes after hearing those words, Dan thought the terror would consume him once again because finally, he knew the time had come. But all he felt was a sense of tranquility as he sighed and intertwined his fingers with Phil's before looking into his eyes. And then he opened his mouth.