~hello there is a quite graphic paragraph around ¾ through the chapter involving blood, so i will mark it with // !!! pls skip if this may trigger u !!! the story still makes 100% sense without that one paragraph so u will not miss anything !!! thank u kiddos~
I still had no idea what we were going to do.
I had a free pass to an art university, graduation was in two weeks, I had an amazing boyfriend and group of friends, my depression was gradually improving, so I wasn't plagued with tiredness every moment of my awake hours; to anyone else, it would seem I had a plan for my perfect life of which I had under my perfect control.
Not.
Neither me nor Phil thought it suitable for me to take a two hour bus ride every morning and night in order to get to my classes, so, obviously, our immediate plan was to get an apartment in that town. The issue, however, was that it was a rich neighbourhood, and we were broke.
We had friends with money, like Chris and Troye, but neither of us wanted to ask for something like that. Besides, Chris had his own problems with PJ. PJ's plan to spend enough time with Chris to forget any feelings about Sophie had failed. That was all I knew about the situation.
My mom had finally come home to actually sleep a night in our house, and the morning after, I'd broken the news to her that I had won a scholarship and was going to school. She'd hugged me, telling me she was so proud, while I met Phil's eyes over her shoulder and wondered how you could be proud of someone if you didn't really care. It wasn't like my pursuits really interested her, even if the lie written all over her face was one convincing to those who didn't know.
But I didn't have to rely on only her to be proud of me, now. Not only did I have my friends to do that, but I had myself.
My mother was gone again by the afternoon.
At the moment, Phil and I were seated next to each other on the stools by the counter, a notebook beneath his hands since it would be easier for the both of us to read his handwriting instead. The only words written so far were, Possible plans to money. We still hadn't exactly thought of anything.
I was leaning on the hard counter with my elbow, a palm beneath my chin to hold me up due to both laziness and fatigue. My eyes were drooping heavily; this was the opposite of Phil, who was staring intensely at his paper as if an idea would write itself down if he looked at the empty white sheet long enough. It reminded me of the way I would look at my canvas' sometimes: with a longing and some sort of desperation, as if this one moment of no ideas would ruin my future forever. The only difference in this case was that it actually could.
"Sell this house without telling your mom and take Adrian with us," Phil stated with a monotone, and I rolled my eyes. I knew he wasn't being serious, but trying to make me laugh probably wouldn't work right at the moment.
"Maybe I can just ask to give the scholarship to Sophie," My hand slipped from my face and I banged my forehead on the counter. "At least she has money and would be able to use it."
I looked up at Phil, and he looked very distraught. "No, you worked too hard. Even if you do have to take the bus every day, you're going. And no this is not me being all strict, I just know how much you want this." His expression transformed into a soft one, and he smiled gently. "Okay?"
I nodded against the cold surface my cheek was currently pressed against. "Yeah. I am too pessimistic to follow my dreams."
"And I'm too optimistic to let you not follow your dreams."
What had I done to deserve him? What had anyone on this earth done to deserve to breathe the same air as Phil Lester? This entire time, he wasn't even thinking about himself. He's always been thinking about me: what I was painting, if I was going to win, how I was going to go to college. I wanted to appreciate it, but it felt like I was taking advantage of him when he had a life of his own he had to live too.
"What if you sell your paintings?" He exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright and looking at me with those wide blue eyes.
I furrowed my eyebrows and took my head off the table. "As if anyone would buy them."
He narrowed his eyes unconvincingly. "As if? Babe, your paintings are amazing. Why do you think you won that scholarship? Random people off the streets voted for you. This means random people off the streets would buy from you. You have years worth of paintings. Think of how much that would help!"
Phil was right. He was always right, and it frustrated me more than it assured me. But did I want to sell my paintings? It would be worth it, of course, but... they were so many memories. My paintings told stories; they told of when I was young and happy, they told of when tragedy struck and I turned to the colors on my palette, they told of the years of nothing I experienced, they told of how my path was suddenly transformed completely due to the existence of one boy. The growth of my talent, the moments when my brush strokes were messy and heavy due to despair. My paintings were an autobiography I never planned on publishing.
I supposed there were some paintings I could choose that I would be okay with selling. But I was eighteen, no one knew who I was; hadn't anyone realized that you pretty much needed to die in order to be a famous artist? If I got hit by a car tomorrow, maybe Phil could sell them all in my name and people would care suddenly. But it was no use trying to sell things now, when I was, again, eighteen, and unknown by everyone.
"People might like them, but I'm not famous enough. You have to be dead to be a famous painter," I explained.
Phil pulled his phone from his pocket. I stared at him while he dialed a number and held the device to his ear.
"Hi," He greeted whoever answered the ringing, "I'm calling to ask about a person. What do you know about Dan Howell?" He then pressed speaker and held the phone out in front of the two of us.
I looked at him like he was insane, but listened to the phone anyway.
"Dan Howell?" The voice responded, and I flinched; they were probably confused because they had no idea who the hell I was. "Yes!" I widened my eyes in surprise. "He's the guy that won the legendary scholarship. Did you know five years ago they had one and no one won because they weren't good enough? Everyone here knows who he is, I'm guessing that's how you know?"
"Yeah!" Phil told them cheerily, "Do enough people know him that they would buy his art? I've heard it's really amazing, so I'm just wondering."
"Really amazing?" The person sounded like they were in awe. "They're astounding! Magnificent! I've only ever seen the ones he presented and the ones the high school has given to the university. I'd buy any of his paintings, if they're that good. His one of the girl with freckles? It's hanging in the hall and every night when I leave work I consider stealing it."
Phil laughed and I fought a smile. "I heard he might have an art sale soon," He told the person, and I bit my lip when they audibly gasped.
"I'll have to go to that! Anyway, someone is at the desk, so I have to leave. Hope you got whatever information you needed!" The phone cut off.
"Okay, okay," I began before my boyfriend could gloat. "I guess some people would buy them. I'll do it. Later, we can choose which to sell and then I'll call the university and blah, blah, blah. For now," I leaned toward him, "We have all the time in the world." His lips met mine as our thoughts both seemed to migrate to the same place in the span of a second.
Soon enough, I was in his lap; his arm on the counter in order to support our weight as the stool began to tip backwards, neither of us actually caring because we hadn't had a moment alone in a while. He bit my bottom lip with haste, and I responded with a low moan in the back of my throat.
The sound, however, was interrupted by that of Phil's ring tone. I ripped my mouth away from his and he let out a frustrated sigh. "The one second we get..."
"Just answer it," I rolled my eyes and removed myself from his lap, sitting back down in my stool and pouting as I crossed my arms over my chest. I watched as he ran his fingers through his hair, causing it to nearly go into a quiff.
"Hello? Yes." He was saying, and I watched as his eyes increasingly looked more troubled as whatever words the person was saying seemed to sink in. "Today?" A pause. "Oh my god." His hand went to his forehead, and I tried to meet his eyes, but they were downcast. "Has anyone called my brother's wife?" It has something to do with his family, I realized. "Okay. Thank you, we'll probably be there soon." With that, he set the phone down.
"What is it?" I asked cautiously, because suddenly the joy he'd been emitting that morning was gone, and he looked at me with an expression I could not name.
"My dad killed himself," He informed me. I lifted an eyebrow and reached a hand to place onto his arm. Before I could even think of a way to respond, he continued. "Elena and Martyn are coming to pick us up. And we're going to the police, and they're going to tell us what the fuck is going to happen now." He placed his head in both of his hands.
I placed my hand on his back, rubbing very gently. "How do you feel?" I didn't know whether or not the phrase 'I'm sorry' was appropriate. I didn't know if he was sad, or happy, or whatever one would feel after a family member died. Someone who did something so terrible didn't deserve to be pitied or mourned, but I knew how the bonds of family were tough ones.
"I don't know," Phil replied. "I mean, he's gone, out of our lives, but..." His words trailed off. "Suicide? Did he finally figure out that he was a terrible person?"
"A good question," I agreed quietly, knowing that he could be set off at anything. He was a bomb of which if I let go it would explode, and I was holding down as hard as I could as not to cause disaster to everything that had been built up to now. "When are we going?"
He finally looked at me again. "Elena told them we'd all be there in an hour, which means their forty minute drive, so in about thirty minutes probably? Martyn's probably going to be happy... I don't understand how I'm supposed to feel."
"There's no certain way you're supposed to feel," I stated sternly, "Your emotions are valid no matter what they are. Don't let however Martyn reacts change your feelings. It is your right to respond however you want."
He nodded and gave me a weak smile; I accepted it. A weak smile was better than no smile, especially when there had been too many instances to count in which no smile was the best option I could have received in a million years.
Any sort of mood the two of us had been sharing before the phone rang was wiped away. The next thirty minutes involved sitting on the couch, my hand on his back and his head buried into my chest; we were both in our sweatpants, but neither of us felt like putting on jeans, deciding that whoever we were speaking to would just have to deal with it.
We hugged both Martyn and Elena when they arrived, Phil and his brother having a brief conversation about the situation.
Do you know what this is about? Phil questioned.
His will, I think, Martyn informed, and we all nodded before climbing into the car. It was a silent drive, one that seemed to drag on forever when all I was focused on was Phil's hand intertwined with mine, his pale fingers trembling no matter how tightly I squeezed. I knew how hard this would be. You would think discovering someone you hated had died would cause joy.
I hadn't been to the police station since after my accident, but I recognized the building now. The dark windows were not new, and the sight of the large door as we walked through it was not all that shocking to me. I had no reason to come along other than to comfort my boyfriend; I had no stance within their family. Martyn and Phil of course had reason to come, and Elena since she was legally bonded with Martyn. Me? I nearly felt like I was intruding.
"Don't think that you're intruding," none other than Phil whispered to me, as if he could read my thoughts. "I need you." Instead of answering, I let my thumb move upwards on his so that he could bring his finger down to my wrist, right to my pulse. I'd read in his sketchbook that his own blood pumping through his veins made him anxious, but mine steadied him, and steadiness was something he desperately craved.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lester?" A man asked when we made it down the hall.
Elena nodded at him; her husband was reading the man's lips. "And Martyn's brother Phil and his boyfriend," She gestured to us, and I smiled nervously at the officer's gaze.
"He doesn't need to be here," He informed Elena, pointing at me, as if I wasn't even listening to them.
"Too bad, because he is. Now, we're not here to discuss whether or not you think the people I consider as family are really my family, so can you cut to the chase and point us to where we can speak to officer Link?" She snapped, eyes blazing, and I looked at Phil to see we both had matching expressions; my eyebrows were raised as I'd never seen her to be the type of person who could talk like that to someone. And she'd called me... family?
I did often spend time with Phil and his family. Every couple weeks or sometimes once a month, the four of us would do something, and it was pleasant. Elena often called me on the phone to check in on the weeks we hadn't seen each other, and we talked about our two Lester boys. We talked about her job and the people she interacted with and we talked about my art. She was a friend, but I had no idea she considered me family.
Months ago, the only family I had was my brother who I was sure hated me and my mom who was never even home. Now, my chosen family had grown faster than I'd ever expected.
I'd zoned out for a moment and hadn't noticed the guy point to the right silently, and Phil began dragging me along by the hand.
We walked into an office, and I assumed the girl sitting there was Link. She had black hair tied up into a bun above her head, and she smiled a kind smile as we all shuffled in.
"Hi," She greeted, and then turned her attention to Elena. "You're the one I spoke to on the phone, I'm guessing. I'm officer Link, the one who was on the scene when we found Mr. Lester."
Beside me, Phil frowned. I assumed that he hated the fact she was calling his father 'Mr. Lester', especially when it was what the guy in front had called Martyn only moments before.
"Yes," Elena replied to the woman, and gestured for me and Phil to sit down in the two chairs next to us. We obliged, and then she and Martyn followed to sit in the other two.
Link placed her hands on the table, interlacing her fingers with each other. "Do you guys want to know everything from the start, or only what is going to happen now?"
I knew my boyfriend did not want to know the details, but Elena turned to Martyn and signed the question to him. He sighed and answered, I want to know everything.
I leaned to Phil and whispered, "Do you want to step out?" I didn't want this to make him even more bothered, and by the way his face had paled even more than its usual shade and his palms were sweating, it was easy to know that it would bother him. Greatly.
But he shook his head without looking at me, and I rubbed my thumb against his knuckles to ensure that no matter what he heard, he'd be okay.
//After Elena's confirmation that we did want to hear it, Link rubbed her hand across her face and began. "We got a 999 call from a man, telling us that someone was trying to kill him. Our dispatcher tried to ask who, but he hung up, so they tracked the location and sent my team out. It was at a weird looking ranch, but we went in anyway. We found him.. hung from the ceiling with blood dripping down both of his arms. So much of it... seeping into the wood of the floor. My partner tried to cut him down and there was red all over his-"
"That's good enough." I interrupted loudly. I couldn't let Phil hear anything more detailed than that. I couldn't even look at his face because I knew how that detailed description of a death, especially one self-inflicted, would deal a great amount of damage. I was still trying to protect him, even now. "Can we skip to what's going to happen now?"
Whatever tone I had in my voice convinced her, because she didn't even look to confirm with the married couple before nodding and speaking once again. "There was a note: I have it if you would like to read it. But for now, I'll tell you what legal things it says. It says that your father has a savings account with all of the money he and your mother saved when they were younger. I won't go into details why; that you can read in the letter. But, it's a total of 300,000 pounds. Split in half to both of his sons."
"Three hundred thousand?" I exclaimed before anyone could react, pure disbelief in my voice. This man had the money to create a great life for his kids, and what did he do? Create one full of pain and loneliness. I was even more disgusted than I used to be.
"Both Martyn and Phil get 150,000 each. It's in the bank, now open to the two of you whenever you want."
I watched Phil slowly fall back to sit directly against his chair. Just an hour ago, we'd been worried about being broke: making plans for how to get money, fearing for whatever costs the future would bring. Now, he had 150,000 pounds to his name. This was great news in my opinion, but I resisted jumping for joy and telling him we could start to look at apartments, not when his eyes had lost focus and his hand wasn't even shaking in mine anymore but had gone still. My eyes shifted over to the couple on my right, and they were signing so rapidly that I could barely keep up with the conversation. Officer Link looked about just as lost as I was.
I could understand the shock they most feel; this was all happening so fast, and it was most likely the strangest thing ever to feel mournful over someone who made your life a living hell. I looked back at the boy next to me just as the woman in front of us began speaking again.
"Access to Mr. Lester's bank account has been transferred to Phil, since you're eighteen and your money is in it. And Martyn's share has been put into your shared account. We have all the information for Phil on this paper," She slid a sheet of folded paper across the table, and I grabbed it because for some reason a part of me feared that if Phil touched it first he would have ripped it up without a second thought. It wouldn't be a big deal, but I'd rather have all of the information on this paper than have to call and then redo whatever process the police had done for him.
"Is that all? We can call and pay for a funeral service and all that, but is there any other legal information?" Elena asked.
"That's all, really."
Phil stood up so suddenly that my arm stretched subconsciously in order for our hands to remain attached, but after realizing this, he shook his fingers out of mine and before I could even furrow my eyebrows in confusion, he was out of the room. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes for two seconds before standing.
"I'll go after him," I sighed, not paying attention to the tense faces full of pity that all had their gazes on me. I adjusted my sweatpants which had begun to slide down due to all of this stress as I walked out after my boyfriend. I shut the office door behind me, my eyes immediately searching the hall in hopes of catching a glimpse of his black hair or his pale arm: any detail that I was so familiar with. It was empty except for two officers and an elderly man, which seemed a bit strange since it was a police station.
My feet lead me down the carpeted hall, the sound of my shoes softly hitting the floor beneath me being the only sound I was concentrating on, despite voices of people echoing in my direction. It took a while, but eventually I popped my head into the daycare center, where there was no one except a person sitting by the desk and a little girl, who looked to be around six, playing with blocks. Across from her, was Phil. He didn't see me; he was facing the other way but I recognized his pitch black straight hair falling to the side of his face because he needed to get it cut, and his legs covered with pants nearly identical to mine as he leant down in front of the child. I recognized his hand that I had been holding the entire day until he'd left, the parts he was pressing onto the carpet in order to hold himself up turning white from the pressure, as well as the black bracelet made from soft fabric which had fallen to the very end of his wrist because it was not tied tight enough.
Instead of calling for him in such a quiet environment and giving him the chance to avoid me once again, I walked over to them slowly. A smile found my lips when the girl started laughing.
I suspected this was because Phil had said something funny as, I also noticed, he picked up some blocks of his own and started stacking them on top of each other.
"And the elephant said, 'Well, if that's how you're going to act, I'm just going to eat every single one of these peanuts!'" He told the girl, and she howled with laughter, her long red hair falling into her face. I figured the joke was a long one, considering if that was the punch line, I didn't understand it at all.
I was able to successfully get down onto my knees before he noticed that I was there, and his eyes met mine for a second when he turned my way. I knew, however, that he wouldn't say anything yet, not with the girl here.
"Lisa, this is my boyfriend Dan. Dan, this is Lisa."
"Hi, Lisa!" I greeted with a smile plastered onto my face.
"Hi Dan," She replied, "Did Phil say you're his boyfriend?"
I tilted my head to the side, curious as to what she would say. "Yep!"
Her lips pouted in surprise and then she smiled even wider than before. "I didn't know boys could have boyfriends!" She exclaimed, nearly knocking down the tower of colorful blocks she had in front of her. "Does that mean because I'm a girl I could get a girlfriend someday?"
"Anyone can love anyone," Phil assured her. "That's what's so great about love."
"Wow!" She seemed genuinely excited over this realization, and any sadness I'd felt moments before was gone because of this little girl being so happy about the concept of love. "Does that-"
"Lisa!" Phil and I jolted with surprise at the sound of a woman's voice shouting behind us. I turned my head, and there was, in fact, a woman, looking in our direction. I assumed automatically that she was Lisa's mother. "Come on, it's time to go home." She walked towards us, and I was grateful for the fact there was no hatred in her eyes considering the fact we were two males six feet tall having a conversation with her small daughter. All she said was, "Thank you for being with her," before taking the girl's hand and walking away with her.
Lisa turned back just before she was out of the room. "Bye Dan! Bye Phil!" I couldn't help but ponder over what her story was, and what it would turn out to be.
When the room lapsed into silence, I leaned against the table and hoped nothing would knock over. I took Phil's right hand in my left and began tracing patterns along his knuckles, and up his arm to his elbow, trying to decide what to say to him.
"You'd make a good dad," I told him quietly instead of forcing the mood to switch into the one we'd both been in while in Link's office.
Phil looked down at where my fingers were on his skin, an easygoing smile finding its way to his lips. This calmed me greatly, because I wasn't exactly sure what I'd been expecting from him, but a gentle grin had not been along those lines. "Yeah, I would," He responded. I held back a laugh at how easily he agreed. "I'm sorry I ran off."
I shrugged. "It's okay, I understand. Remember when I used to always run away? It's hard to face things."
He nodded, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "It shouldn't be hard. It really shouldn't be."
Instead of replying, I held my arms open and Phil, as expected, took this as an invitation to rest against my chest. Perhaps it looked strange: two men in sweatpants leaning against a play table in the daycare room of a police station, holding onto each other like it was the last time they would ever do so. But I didn't care. All I did was close my eyes and focus on the feeling of Phil's head rising and sinking against my chest as I matched my breathing with his own.
-
this chapter was longer than I expected, hope u enjoyed :)
three weeks until i meet dan and phil shit fucking biscuits i could cry.
also happy mother's day! take some time to appreciate and send love to any motherly figures in your life! im going out to dinner with my mom and grandma today.
there are three chapters of this book left (including the epilouge.) when do you guys think i should publish the first chapter of the demon/angel au? (it's called Entanglement)
anyone here watch how to get away with murder? im watching it rn omg
hope you are all well!