noun
• a long, deep, open cut.
Phil's not entirely sure why he does it. He knows it's a bad idea that will no doubt come back to bite him in the ass, knows it's stupid and invasive and an undeniable breach of privacy, but he can't help himself.
He sits at his office desk, picks up the phone, turns on his computer, and delves deep for any information on Dan he can find. It's not easy - he doesn't know his full name, doesn't know the first thing about his family, doesn't know the slightest thing about him, really. Still, he manages to narrow down the list of possible people he could be by factoring in his age and his general physical appearance and assuming he was born and raised somewhere in or around this city.
He feels kind of like a CIA agent with how extensive his search ends up going, but he forgets about any comparisons to law enforcement the second he finds Dan. Daniel Howell, to be exact - who is twenty-four and did, in fact, grow up just outside the main metropolis.
It's not even a bad thing, this determined search of Phil's. It's just checking that his lead is a reliable source and that his friend doesn't double as a serial killer in his spare time. It's not really intrusive or steamrolling Dan's privacy to look up his full name and where he came from, it's just slightly nosy.
It's not even a bad thing, until he stumbles across an article about some friendly next door neighbour who turned out to be psychotic and abusing her son for nearly a decade. It's not bad until he realizes her last name matches Dan and the abused son who cared for her before having her committed to a psychiatric facility was Dan.
It's not a bad thing until he realizes he's gone too far and he can't back out and this isn't any of his business, he doesn't deserve to know this, and the next two articles he reads on it should not be late-night reading material like he's turning it into. It's not bad until he realizes he has to look Dan in the eye nearly every day now with this heavy knowledge weighing him down, right alongside his inappropriate feelings for his friend.
Then?
Then it's bad. It's really, really bad.
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Estrangements (Phan AU)
Fanfictionnoun 1. the fact of being turned away in feeling or affection; made unfriendly or hostile; alienated the affections of. 2. the fact of being removed or kept at a distance. 3. the fact of being diverted from the original use or possessor. Updates whe...
