lethal //phan

f o u r

Dan
There were 3 unwritten rules at the school concerning Dan. One, nobody talks to Dan unless he decides to talk to them. Two, no one retaliates to Dan, no matter what he does. Three, no one makes a fool out of him. And in the space of 10 minutes Phil Lester had managed to break every single one of them.

Phil had single-handedly managed to humiliate him and cause enough drama for rumours to travel around the entire school, all in less than an hour.  To say he was mad was an understatement - he hadn't been enraged to that degree for a long, long time.

As a result, Dan decided he wasn't going to go to the rest of his classes that day, he swore if he saw those stupid blue eyes and ebony black hair again he'd scream. Besides, what use would French ever be to him?

The rest of his day was spent in a field at the back of the school. Stupidly, there were no security cameras set up, so it had become a regular occurrence that he'd stay there instead of going to class, and he'd hadn't been caught once since he'd discovered it almost a year ago.

He connected a pair of headphones to the iPod he bought a few months back with his allowance and turned the music all the way up, trying to fixate his mind on something else.

There was something about the field that relaxed him. Lying down in the grass made him happy, tracing patterns in the array of daisies and dandelions that were scattered unevenly calmed him. The silence of the field beat the cacophony of noise that was the school by a long shot, made worse that all the commotion was over him looking weak.

The hours passed by quickly, and looking at the time displayed on the top of his iPod's screen he saw he'd been in the field for three whole hours, though really they felt like minutes. It always surprised him how fast time flew by when he just relaxed on his own. The hour of day meant that classes were over and everyone would be in the courtyards, and after the day he'd had it was the last place he wanted to be.

Going the long way round to avoid the other people, he walked down the corridor to Room 44. Glancing at the name on the door of Room 43, he scowled. The sign read 'Room 43, Phil Lester'.

Great he thought to himself as he opened the door to his room and slammed it behind him.

***

Phil
Dan failed to show up to any of the other classes they had together, however much he hated him, Phil couldn't deny the fact he felt sort of lonely watching everyone else talking to the people sat next to them.

He was on the outside looking in, the feeling of isolation becoming a little more prominent as he gazed further around the room, watching everyone else engrossed in conversation. If all Dan was going to do was avoid him, what was the point of having him around in the first place? It sure didn't do much to help the 'homesickness'.

People-watching would be considered a strange hobby to most, but it was one he enjoyed nonetheless - being alone gave him a chance to observe his classmates; he was able to pick up little pieces of information like names or someone's interests on occasion. They all seemed exactly the same as any other teenagers and if he wasn't painfully aware that they were all a little different he wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

After hours of writing down various notes in different notepads the clock struck four, classes had finished for the day according to his timetable. Phil headed to the courtyard with the other students; it wasn't much of a surprise to him that Dan hadn't shown his face since this morning, and he wasn't anywhere to be found now. Why everyone seemed to keep their distance from Dan still puzzled him - surely he couldn't be all that bad if he couldn't bring himself to show his face after an argument.

Phil noticed Dan was in Room 44, the one right next to his. He resisted the temptation to walk into his room there and then. Coming to the decision Dan Howell was a mystery that he didn't have the time to solve, he walked into his room and quietly shut the door behind him. There were far more useful things he could be investing his time in.