ᵀᴿᵁᵀᴴ ᴼᴿ ᴰᴬᴿᴱ メ ᴾᴴᴬᴺ

-17-

 this part is mainly focused on dan...

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dan looked at phil shyly, dumbstruck. he wanted so badly to explain to phil what was going in his mind but not able to put any words into his dry mouth. he desperately wanted to say something, anything to kill the silence only to find himself incapable and just stared at his hands, wishing foolishly that maybe if dan paused long enough, phil would forget what he just heard.

dan had been struggling with his sexuality for a very long time. he always knew there was something different about him and although it was soon clear enough to him that he wasn't straight, he didn't feel comfortable putting a label on himself and believed that nobody should need to label themselves like they are some sort of object. he was embarassed to call himself the proper term, the term that everyone labelled one another or themselves. he was embarassed because he didn't understand the feeling, he didn't understand why he didn't feel the same way as his friends and right now, he was embarassed at what phil would think of him if he found out he was gay. dan was almost certain that phil was not going to treat him any differently for being so, or even judge him for it, but he just didn't want to ruin anything he had with phil. sure, phil made the first move but people do anything when they were drunk. to phil, the kiss was probably platonic and something he will forget the next day, but to dan it was so much more. in phil's embrace, he felt warm and fuzzy, he felt like he was in heaven where everything was peaceful and perfect and that there was nowhere he would rather be than with phil. dan had gone out with a couple of guys before, but he was experiencing something new with phil, something he had never felt before. it was unfamiliar and alien to him and he was scared. scared to tell phil how he was feeling, if he was feeling anything and he didn't even know what he was feeling.

dan had started questioning his sexuality a couple of years ago when he was 16. he had always found himself to be so different from his peers that he was more drawn to boys, but he never really gave i much thought that maybe he was gay. but a few months later he turned 16, he noticed that this feeling, this attraction to boys that he had been trying to stop his whole life was getting harder and harder to ignore. for his whole life, dan had forced himself to be like his friends, to try and understand why all of his friends at the time wanted to date the 'hot girls' and bet on getting laid because that was the 'norm'. and to fit in, he tried to like them, tried to understand what was so fascinating about girls and go along with it so no one thought he was different. because he hated being called 'different', he hated being the odd one out and most importantly, he hated being called 'gay'. it wasn't that there was anything wrong with it, he was just annoyed at all the stereotypes and how in some places, being gay was a sin or a burden to families, and he was annoyed at having to be labelled, so he ended up being ashamed of who he was. he hoped for all those years that he was just going through a phase and so he acted upon it, persuading himself he wasn't the 'g' word and forced himself to do what he could to ignore the fact that he liked boys, not girls.

but then his first major crush came along at his first workplace, where he met a boy called eden who was one year older than him and comfortably, and confidently gay. dan admired eden. he admired him for being so open about his sexuality and being honest with others and himself, not caring what people thought of him, which dan was aware was hard in the society he grew up in. what dan hadn't known that eden had taken an interest in him too, until one day eden invited dan up to his apartment and they talked for hours and hours about anything they could think of. dan remembered asking eden how he knew he was definintely gay and told him the secret that he had been keeping on his shoulders his whole life and was struggling with. dan remembered the older boy teaching him that there was nothing wrong with him for not understanding what he thinks he is, or what his sexuality is. he told him he doesn't have to put a label on himself until he was ready, or even ever if he didn't want to. he taught him that there was nothing to be afraid of, and most importantly ashamed of. so dan tried, and tried to stop being ashamed of whatever he decided to classify himself as. and the next day, eden asked him out, causing dan's heart to explode, overwhelmed that someone he liked finally liked him back. he felt like the luckiest person on earth, until he was dumped a week later on the spot with no explanation. he remembered running out of the cafe where he worked with eden, ignoring eden's calls beckoning to come back, feeling stupid, his heart now completely shattered, still not have gotten back together since the day he found out he was going out with his first big crush. he quit the next day and never returned there again, humiliated to see eden. eden called a few times, texted even more telling dan they needed to talk before dan finally mustered the confidence to block him, crying the whole night, hoping that eden would get the message that dan would never be unhurt enough to speak to eden again and eventually give up.

"dan?" 

"yes, eden?" dan answered the voice of his first lover, only to realise it wasn't eden's voice, but phil's. dan blushed a little, avoiding eye contact with phil as he stared at him worriedly. dan had been daydreaming and nothing phil said seemed to be heard by dan. his eyes were watery, as if he had been remembering something so vividly sad that he actually felt the emotions hit him.

"who's eden?" phil asked, his eyebrow raised as he leaned closer to dan, trying to pull him into a hug seeing how upset he was. dan hesitated at the question and rested his shoulder gently on phil's shoulder, closing his wet eyes. 

"i-it doesn't matter," dan stuttered, knowing that it really didn't, as eden wasn't here right now but phil was and boy did dan feel safe with phil. phil didn't pressure him for more, only relaxed a little and leaning further into the pillow supporting him so he could support dan. he heard dan sigh, his head shuffling a little so his brown hair was tickling phil's neck before finally lifting his head up to face phil.

"umm phil?" dan said, with almost a squeak, his eyes slowly moving away from phil but to the lamp behind him, "i-uhh... i'm gay,"

phil blinked, as dan broke down in tears, his head in his hands as he admitted something that he had been struggling with his whole life and still was. phil pulled him close, holding him tight to his chest, not really caring by this point that dan was crying all over his new clothes as they smelled of alcohol anyways. 

"it's okay dan," phil tried to comfort him, gently playing with his hair, "it's okay," he whispered, as dan cried until he had no tears left.