WARNING: MENTION OF STRAIGHT SEX, DRUGS, DRUG USE, DEPRESSION
Phil's POV
"Love me some good party!" Dan announced with a big grin on his face as we were on our way to an event at some club in London again.
"I think you could cut back a bit on all these parties, Dan." I replied, looking bored out of the back window of the car. I knew he wasn't listening to me anyway, but you could at least try. It's not that I don't like to party myself, but for him life seemed to be just one party lately. It was a long time ago since the last morning I didn't see him hungover, and frankly, I was a little worried.
"Don't be so boring, Philly. As if you're not the first to get drunk tonight."
I ignored him, at least I tried. This had been going on for months and he didn't listen to me.
"I just don't know if that's so good for you." I mumbled softly, hoping somewhere that he didn't hear me. In fact, at first it seemed to me that he hadn't heard me or ignored me, whatever he liked more, but after a minute he slowly turned to me so we could look at each other.
"I'm fine, Phil. Don't worry. I am young and have discovered party life, what is wrong about that. I like parties." He said softly. He kept saying that he only liked parties and I had stopped believing him weeks ago.
But I didn't want to have this discussion, not when we were sitting in a car and the mood was already tense anyway. So I just smiled slightly at him and nodded, whereupon he turned around and talked to Oliver. How could Oliver believe him?
When we arrived at the party half an hour later, we were still together at first, sitting at the bar until Dan disappeared and never came back. Whatever he was doing again.
Dan's POV
I quickly had a few drinks and the mood relaxed.
That was what I had been waiting for all day. Boring talk, pretty, attractive party guests, alcohol. I knew how this evening would end and that was what I lived for. At least at the time. Since I noticed that it helps. That it makes everything easier and better. That it was the only thing that made me forget.
So I spotted my object of desire, a brunette, well-proportioned young woman I had seen somewhere before. Took the last sip from my glass, which burned in my throat, left this inner warmth in me and gave me the courage to approach her, to speak to her.
I knew exactly which buttons to push. Which cards I had to play.
And this card worked again and again, because shortly afterwards we were in a little storage room. When I was about to close the zipper of my pants, I noticed how she jumped from the small wooden table and gave me a small piece of paper with her number on it. I accepted it, smiled, she winked. When she disappeared from the room, I threw the note into the garbage can, whereupon I left the room.
It was almost too easy now, almost boring. Always the same stitch and every fucking time it worked if you only chose the right women. They didn't have to be the smartest, as long as they managed to distract me for the night.
The most important thing was that someone was there when the foggy state stopped. That she was distracting me from reality.
How long would it take before I needed more to escape the pain. The question was answered quickly when I noticed how nausea rose in me. Not just a little, no, my stomach literally turned. This bad feeling had been there all along, but I had suppressed it, simply banished it to my subconscious, from which it now freed itself with double force.
I couldn't move, I was frozen, my reactions slowed down as if I were paralyzed. My vision blurred, made me feel dizzy and I closed my eyes.
Shortly afterwards, I carefully opened them again, staring at my arms, which I slowly raised, they were heavy, like stones. My hands were shaking. Again, only stronger than before. I knew what that meant.
Immediately I got up and looked for the way to the toilets, and thank God, I found it quickly. I stormed into one of the cabins, got disapproving glances, but I didn't care.
I rummaged impatiently in my left, then in my right pocket, but couldn't find what I was looking for. Panic rose in me. I quickly wiped my forehead with the sleeve of my sweatshirt jacket, only then did I notice that it was sweat-soaked. It was like this every time I needed it. I hated that. Hated that feeling, those few seconds before I could take it.
I looked at the stain on my forearm from the sweat and then I reached into the pockets of the sweatshirt jacket and finally I felt the little bag. I slowly pulled it out, looked at it. This white powder that was visible through the sachet would bring me redemption.
I took off my jacket, spread it out on the toilet lid, then took my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans. Let me fall to my knees, crawled closer, so that I could carefully pour some of the white stuff onto the flat surface that my jacket offered. I proceeded carefully, protecting it like my darling, didn't want to waste anything, even if I could hardly wait. My hands were shaking more than ever and it was incredibly difficult to concentrate, but I managed not to spill anything.
Now I put the bag aside again, pulled out my debit card and used it to form a straight line. I examined my work for a few seconds, savoring the last moments before I was satisfied, before I bent down to take the cocaine into my body.
I closed my eyes and let myself fall back so I could lean my back against the door. Relieved, I collapsed completely into it, simply enjoying this feeling, this fulfillment, which would continue at least for the next time. Even if the periods in which it became necessary became shorter and shorter.
As soon as the intoxication subsides, you often fall into a phase of deep depression. These are the dangers of cocaine that made the need to replenish them so great. You want those feelings of happiness back as soon as possible, even if you know that afterwards you will feel even worse than before.
I was aware of all of this. I was not stupid, on the contrary. I would actually call myself a pretty clever person, but I ignored all my knowledge about it. My only focus was to forget everything that was floating in my head.
The effect started immediately. The tremors stopped, my heart slowed, I calmed down. My mood rose, but today was one of those days when it was harder to ignore that it was all deceptive. A kind of chemical reaction in my body. It wasn't easy to feel good when you were sitting on a damn public toilet and you had to give a miserable picture. I probably looked exactly like all the anti-drug posters in our old school.
I started to wonder how I got into all of this. Although I actually knew it all too well. The memories of that evening were far too clear, I didn't want to revive them. All of this would be wasted, for free, if I were to let my thoughts go around it.
I had felt like shit then and this dodgy guy had given me a remedy. Any other day I would have declared him crazy, turned him down. Always told everyone around me how infinitely stupid it is to take drugs.
But that evening, when everything seemed a thousand times darker than usual and I felt so fucking alone. The belief that I could never love someone, that nobody could love me, that I could never be happy - when this belief spread through me, which has persisted in me until today, everything was right to me to escape the agony it had caused.
Sometimes I cursed YouTube for giving me the financial means to lead this lifestyle. On the other hand, I was so desperate now that I didn't care what I would become. If I will die, so be it. For a long time now, there was nothing that bound me to life.
Except the fact that I couldn't do it to my friends: Oliver, Phil.
I pulled my knees up to my body, buried my face in my crossed arms, slowly resigned myself to the fact that this drug use had done nothing but alleviate my physical complaints. I still felt sick. Maybe I had taken too little.
The longer I stayed like this, the blackness spreading around me, the more I became completely intoxicated, only in a different, paralyzing way that was previously unknown to me.
Time seemed to fly by me, I heard countless people coming and going until they became fewer at some point. Hours had passed that seemed to me like seconds.
I hadn't moved an inch since then, and was still listening to the sounds outside the cabin until I heard nothing for a while, except a steady drip.
Tiring, arduous, I straightened up, shook my jacket one last time to remove the residue on it, let the bag disappear into the pocket and put it back on.
Then I finally left the cabin, looked around and saw that the men's room was completely empty. I went to the sink, hit my face with cold water, and looked in the mirror. I looked terrible. The water dripped down my pale face, wet my shirt, but I didn't care.
Again I lacked the energy to move, so I just leaned against the sink and looked at my reflection in the expressionless eyes.
I knew why I felt that way. The effect wore off, I was now in the relegation phase, when my body felt as if I was no longer able to do anything. Every little move was too much.
I took a deep breath, longing for fresh air because the nausea had still not subsided.
But I wouldn't make it to the exit in this condition, so I just stood in front of the mirror and waited, although I didn't know for what.
Phil's POV
I hadn't seen Daniel in a few hours. Most of the guests had already left, no more music was playing. Few people were still sitting in groups talking and drinking the last alcohol.
Oliver was still sitting at the bar talking to the waiter who was looking like he just wanted to go home.
"Did you see Dan?" I asked Oliver when I sat next to him.
"No, should we go?"
"Without Dan?"
"Phil, you know Dan. He's probably not here anymore. He must have gone home with some pretty, poor girl and sleeps peacefully in a strangers bed now." I swallowed hard, realizing that it would probably be that way.
I wanted to ask him how he could be so easy, but I didn't think it was the right time. Especially not when I was a little drunk and Oliver sat in front of me completely sober. So I swallowed my thoughts and nodded.
"Then let's get out of here. But I'll go to the toilet first before I piss in your car." I said as I got up, patted his shoulder briefly and tried to find the way to the toilet.
While on the way to the toilet, I called Dan just to be sure. Maybe he would take it and tell me completely drunk that everything was fine. But when his ringtone suddenly sounded quietly from somewhere, I stopped skeptical. I concentrated, trying to figure out where the sound came from until I realized it was coming from the toilet.
When I finally got to the toilets and opened the door with full force I finally saw him. Before I could have looked at him more closely, the tension dropped with a relieved sigh. I went up to him, I wanted to press him against me.
"Dan. I was worried about-" left me without thinking how funny that must have sounded to him.
Only now did I take a closer look at him, began to wonder why he didn't look at me. The violent opening of the door had made an unmistakable sound.
Others would have turned around, just out of reflex. But Dan fixed his reflection motionless.
"Daniel?" I continued to get his attention, walking toward him in agonizingly slow steps. His eyes wide, that rigid, serious expression. It made me feel uncomfortable and my heart beat faster with every inch that I got closer to him.
When I was standing right behind him, I could feel his rapid breathing, he breathed almost in short breaths, as if he couldn't breathe.
I carefully lifted my arm to put my hand on his shoulder as he was still ignoring me. But when my fingers touched the fabric of his sweatshirt he suddenly jerked, put his hand over his mouth and ran into one of the cabins.
He vomited gagging, leaving me shocked.
Did he just drink too much? It wasn't the first time and it wasn't that bad, but where did that bad feeling in me come from that just didn't want to go away.
Shortly afterwards he left the cabin completely weakened, still walking past me without a word and with disgusted facial expression, back to the sink. He leaned over, rinsed his mouth out before finally turning to me.
"I think I'm sick." he finally said something, trying to smile weakly at me.
"Yes, exactly mate. You're just drunk." I replied with a frown.
"That too." he laughed playfully, taking a couple of the paper towels and drying his mouth and hands.
It slowly made me really angry how he handled himself and his body.
"Dan, you should stop that shit. Drinking and partying every day isn't normal and certainly not good for you either." I said desperately in rage.
He looked helplessly at me, his eyes were cloudy, empty, just sad, which made the anger in me immediately subside.
"I want to go home." He said and I swallowed hard.
I felt sorry for him, so I decided to leave him alone for today. But this topic wasn't over yet. I didn't feel like worrying anymore.
"Sure, let's go. Maybe sleep at my place tonight? I don't want you to be alone like this." I said and gently put a hand on his shoulder, hoping he would get involved. To my astonishment, he started to nod.
It looked so unapproachable on the way out, like an empty shell that just put one foot in front of the other listlessly. All of the vitality had vanished from him and I had the feeling that there was no way I could reach him, and I would like to say something that would make him understand why his behavior made me so angry.
He was hiding something from me and it was driving me crazy not to know what it was.
Oliver seemed to be satisfied that Dan had just vomited in the toilet the entire night, but I stayed awake that night wondering what was wrong with him.
The next morning I was woken by the sound of a door. I was briefly confused until I remembered that Dan was here. I lay there for a moment until I decided to get up and go to the kitchen.
As usual, I put on coffee and waited for Dan to come out of the bathroom.
Some time later, he entered the kitchen beaming with joy. There was nothing left of the despondent Dan whom I had hoisted on the couch more or less just a few hours earlier.
He was actually fitter than I was.
"Well, you seem to be feeling better." I greeted him suspiciously.
"Yes, everything is fine so far." he replied sheepishly. "Do you mind if I take a quick shower? Then maybe we can shoot the video right away." he continued.
"Sure, just borrow something from me."
"I didn't expect anything else from you." He grinned and disappeared from the kitchen, without giving me a chance to ask how he was doing. I heard him rummage in my closet until he went back to the living room.
I ran a hand through my hair. I was tired and exhausted. Dan got me down and I was probably just paranoid because I was incredibly worried about him.
"Dan?" I conquered as he walked past the kitchen on the way to the bathroom. I heard him stop briefly, but then he came back and leaned against the door frame. "How are you? I mean, you looked pretty done yesterday."
"I'm fine, don't worry." He smiled softly, but he probably saw in my face that I didn't believe him because he kept talking. "I was weird yesterday, I'm sorry. Won't happen again."
"All right. I just hope you don't overdo it." I smiled caringly at him. "But you know you can talk to me about everything, don't you? No matter what it is." And there was something in his eyes. The mask that started to crumble.
"I know."
"And is there really nothing you want to tell me?"
I listened hopefully to the silence, waiting for what he said, but he remained silent for almost unbearable seconds. His mouth was slightly open as if he wanted to say it, but something was preventing him to do so.
"No, there's nothing. Promise." I could still see him swallowing hard before turning away from me and going back to the bathroom. "But thanks anyway." Disappointed, I dropped my head before pouring my coffee.
I leaned against the counter and stared a few more moments in the direction Dan had disappeared before I lez my thoughts rum free again. It would be nice if my brain did something else than worring about Dan. Why couldn't I believe him that he was fine? Why should he lie to me? Everyone else around me believed him too, so why was I the only one who was convinced that he had a secret?
A secret.
My train of thought stuck with this term and I suddenly realized that I was in the perfect starting position to find something out.
Dan couldn't hear or see me, so I could look for something to help me get started.
Of course, that wasn't the fine way, but I just didn't know any other alternative.
I put my cup down and ran into the living room, the first thing I decided to do was check his phone, any treacherous messages were what I was hoping for.
Fortunately, he had left his phone on the bed anyway. I knew his pin code because he... trusted me.
Fuck.
Suddenly I felt bad, but I ignored my conscience, looked at everything, but I didn't find anything striking.
I was already running out of ideas on where to look. I wanted to use the time I was unobserved, searched the bedclothes, his wallet until I noticed his jacket lying on the couch. With last hope I lifted it up, knowing that there was nothing to be found in a stupid jacket. But at that moment I heard a muffled, quiet impact on the floor of the room. My gaze went down and I recognized a transparent bag with a white substance in it.
"Oh shit!" I said too loudly before I could even understand it, I immediately covered my mouth. I stared in shock at the bag on the floor. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, although it was actually so clear, although it would provide the perfect explanation for everything. But I didn't want that to be the reason.
Carefully, as if it could poison me with the touch, I picked up the bag with two fingers and examined it closely. It didn't really allow any other conclusion. What I was holding in my hands was no doubt cocaine.
As soon as I knew, I wanted nothing more than to never have seen any of it. No, I just wanted this to be a bad dream and wake up right away. That can't be.
My best friend took drugs? Why? I didn't know if I should curse or pity him, I didn't know if I should really believe it. I desperately tried to make up excuses to justify the damned presence of drugs in Dan's jacket. Maybe someone had given it to him who didn't want to be caught.
Suddenly the splashing from the bathroom stopped and I reacted abruptly, made the bag disappear in my pants and put the jacket back. If the stuff really belonged to Dan, he would miss it. If not, he would never know it was gone. It was that simple and it would be so easy for me to find out if he was really drug addict, the most important person in my life.
Dan's POV
I could have told him everything. He had given me the chance to do so, but I didn't accept it. Maybe I could get out of it with his help, but the fact was I didn't want to. I loved the feeling of what the drugs gave me and I didn't want to lose it.
Part of me, of course, wanted to confess everything to Phil. To collapse in front of him and no longer have to maintain the facade. Because it was simply fucking exhausting and it was getting more and more difficult.
But it was only a few seconds that I thought about accepting his offer. He wouldn't understand it after all.
It hurt to see what he was worried about me for. But I knew that if I told him the truth it would only get worse for him. I didn't want to drag him in there. It was one thing that I had to go through on my own, although I could always rely on him otherwise.
For some time, actually since I moved out a year ago, we had somehow moved away from each other because my head was always somewhere else, but he would always be the person who knew me best. Even if he should never find out this secret of me.
There were things in my life that nobody should ever know about except me. Things that I had to hide from the public, but also from my friends.
There was only one thing left for me to hold on to, and it was white and powdery.
I felt bad about Phil and wanted to avoid him because he always put me in uncomfortable situations. But first we had to make a video together.
Phil had said little in the whole video, so I tried to put all the conversation in the video. A short time later, Phil paused the game and wiped his face.
"What?" I asked confused.
"I need a break. And you have to come down." He said and I swallowed hard. Sure, I was just more than jittery, trying to hide the trembling of my hands and my legs. But if I hadn't taken anything I would cry, so that was the better alternative.
"Someone has to entertain the audience." I defended myself.
"Shut up." Phil replied annoyed, demonstratively turning away from me.
"We're in a great mood today." Slowly he also pulled me down and I honestly didn't feel like it.
"Yes, I'm not partying 24 hours a day, please excuse me Dan." He groaned after he decided to look at me again.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I asked, not knowing if I really wanted to hear the answer.
"What's wrong with me? I can tell you that. I don't recognize you at all lately. You look totally different and frankly I don't really like the guy."
While I let his words take effect, his eyes changed and he looked into my eyes sadly.
"Where's the Dan I've known since we were kids? Where's the Dan who is my best friend and with who I could talk about everything? Tell him that I miss him a lot when you see him." he added before breaking eye contact. His words were so honest, as pure as I had rarely heard them from him. We always knew we meant a lot, but we didn't talk about it. It was just a tacit agreement. But now he said it so directly that it completely knocked me off the track.
"Don't be like that." I replied helplessly. My throat was tight, what should I say to something like that? I couldn't tell him what was going on.
"What do you think I should do about it if you see it that way? I just don't notice what you're saying." I lied. Of course, I knew I wasn't the same as before and I knew why.
"I just want you to finally tell me what's going on with you. Stop fooling me, Dan. I know very well that something is wrong with you and it pisses me off that you can't just tell me!" He became angrier again. I reacted with the same mood, because I felt cornered.
"You annoy the shit out of me. Why do you keep asking that? I am alright. Everything is fine. How many times am I supposed to say that, holy shit." I moved angrily in my seat. The apartment suddenly felt like a cage, a prison that I couldn't break free of.
"People change in the course of life and the times when I entrusted everything to you, like when I was a teenager, are now over. I'm almost twenty-one years old, Phil. I'm no longer a small child. Finally accept that this time is over!" I exclaimed, although I knew how hurtful that sounded. It wasn't meant to be, but it seemed to me that this was the only way to calm him down. If he was mad at me, he might finally stop worrying.
"So we're no longer best friends, or what do you mean by that?" Phil replied after a little pause. I could see that I had hit him with it and the sound of his voice also confirmed this.
"Apparently my lifestyle doesn't suit you, so maybe you should find someone else as a best friend. Someone you get along better." I swallowed. It hurt myself to say something like that because I felt something completely different. Tears gathered in my eyes, so I quickly looked away.
"Cool. Then we clarified that." He ended the conversation.
Phil's POV
I didn't even know for sure if everything was really as I thought, and yet it was already getting to me. By now I had given him so many ways in which he could have confessed everything to me, but he didn't. Should it really be the case that we just lived apart? Had we developed in different directions?
A lot has happened since we were teenagers. Maybe he really just had other interests than me now.
The idea that Dan and I shouldn't be best friends broke my heart to be honest. I hated to react to it, to be overly sensitive to it, but I couldn't lie to myself. Our friendship was always something valuable to me, something that I never wanted to lose and that he gave it up so lightly and talked about it just made me angry.
No, that was no longer the Dan I knew, that much was certain.
If he really took drugs, it would put all the pieces of the puzzle together, even if I dreaded it so much.
I didn't know if I would prefer that he was really addicted and the drugs spoke out of him or that he deliberately just threw away our friendship.
Honestly, both options were pretty shitty.
I was still carrying the small, filled bag in my pocket. It was a strange feeling, as if I had stolen something.
I didn't like the thought of having to act in front of the camera as if everything was fine.
"I'm going to calm down." He said suddenly and I could hear the break in his voice, which meant that he was about to cry. My heart broke, but I couldn't stop him when he got up and disappeared from the room. I took a deep breath.
When a few minutes had passed I got up and wanted to follow him. But when I realized that he was rummaging in the living room, I knew exactly what was going on. When I stood in the door frame, I saw him searching his jacket pocket and I could have screamed.
"I'm looking for my charging cable, is that so exciting?" He asked irritably.
"You didn't have one here. You can have mine." I said coldly, tried to get myself together as best I could. Dejected, he threw the jacket back on the armchair and dropped onto the sofa, burying his face in his hands.
"I know what you're looking for." I put everything on one card. I was tired of being fooled by.
The oppressive silence in the room allowed me to notice that he was holding his breath when I said it. He opened his fingers a crack in front of his eyes to see me, as if his hands could protect him in an emergency.
Since he didn't answer me, I went to the next step, slowly pulled the bag out of my pocket and held it up to his face.
"This, right?"
He immediately dropped his hands, alternately staring at me and the drugs in horror.
"Where did you get that from?" He reached out for it, but I didn't let him take it away.
"From your jacket pocket."
"Did you search my things?" He got up, so that his face was only a few inches away from mine, our upper bodies kept touching briefly while breathing. I almost thought I could feel his heart beating.
"I wanted to find out what was wrong with you and I did. Besides, that's not the point now. Why are you taking that shit? Are you completely out of your fucking mind?" I wanted to cry and scream at the same time because it was so incomprehensible and terrible for me that he did this to himself. Only gradually did I understand what that really meant and what the consequences were.
"It's from the party. I just wanted to try it, nothing serious, really." he stuttered. "Some guy gave me that, but I haven't taken any of it yet."
"Don't lie to me!" I shouted at him, suddenly turning away from him, because otherwise I would have punched him in the face. I rested a few steps away from him, holding my forehead stressed. I took a few breaths until I turned around slowly.
"If it's not yours, you wouldn't mind if I throw it away, right?" I asked, and before he could answer, I ran to the bathroom.
"Wait!" I heard him, but at that moment I slammed the bathroom door shut. I heard Dan running after me. "Wait, Phil, please." He said calmly.
I froze behind the door, knowing that Dan and I was only separated by this piece of wood. Did that really happen? My best friend took drugs that I was holding in my hand. It would explain everything.
I stared at the bag in my hand, whereupon I opened it and poured the contents into the toilet. Dan knocked on the door, kept saying that I should open it. I heard how he sounded more and more desperate. More aggressive.
I closed my eyes and flushed the toilette, which suddenly made it so unbearably quiet that it felt like someone had stopped the world. And suddenly it started again, with Daniel knocking loudly on the door.
"I swear I'll kill you, you little asshole! I'll fucking kill you!" I just stopped in shock and even got scared for a moment because he hit the door so hard that I was briefly convinced that he would knock it down. But after a few minutes it suddenly fell silent and I heard a muffled sound.
When I slowly opened the door with shaky hands, I saw Dan sitting on the wall opposite the door. His face was buried in his hands and he was crying. And it broke my fucking heart.
I did the right thing and knelt in front of him, whereupon I gently put a hand on his knee so that he could see that I wasn't against him. I wanted him to drop the mask and have a person he could do with was maybe what he needed and I wanted to be that person to him.
"What the fuck are you doing, Dan?" I whispered, overwhelmed but reassured that the wall around him had finally fallen.
He looked up slowly and stroked his sleeves over his eyes, ntil his sad eyes met mine.
"Why?" I asked him in a sensitive voice.
"Sorry." He whispered and it sounded so broken, so sad. He stopped talking and I realized that maybe he was apologizing because he didn't want to tell me. Or could.
"Daniel, please. Reason, just give me a reason." I sat next to him, thinking that it might be easier if he didn't have to look at me directly.
"I was stupid." he said in a cracked voice and I swallowed hard. "I thought that would be a solution to my problems."
At least that sounded fairly honest, but I knew there was more to it than that. What problems did he mean?
"Are you feeling better now, huh? Now that you know?" He asked almost contemptuously.
"No." I said honestly and he swallowed hard. "Do you feel better because I know it?"
"No."
"But you should. Now you're not that alone anymore. Maybe I can help you if you let me."
"And how?" He asked defiantly.
"Cold withdrawal. The only thing that helps." I answered confidently. That has always been my view. In the end, everything else didn't work in my opinion.
"I don't think I can handle it. I feel like shit already." As if to confirm, he brushed his streaky hair from his sweaty face.
"When was the last time you took something?" To say it that way made the whole thing so real. I was really talking to him about his cocaine use. I never thought that this would ever happen. Such hard drugs had always been out of the question because we all knew what the consequences would be. But he must have simply ignored her.
"This morning." he let me know quietly.
"I'll help you, Dan. I won't show you that it won't be tough, but I will do my best to support you. So that you can get away from the devil stuff as quickly as possible, okay?"
"Okay." he replied weakly, sounding less hopeful.
"Come here." I ordered him and opened my arms again, which he initially accepted hesitantly.
Dan's POV
I couldn't remember the last time I felt so safe when I was sitting here in Phil's arms.
The argument with him had only weighed on me and now knowing that he stood by me was good. Even if I was utterly ashamed of it. I was ashamed that I had sunk so low that I had to burden Phil with it, simply for what had become of me. A junkie. A junkie who couldn't do without his drugs. That was the unadorned truth and I asked myself: Did I really want to be like this?
To this evening, I didn't care what would happen to me, but now that Phil knew, I felt I had a responsibility towards him. That I couldn't do the disappointment to him, that I couldn't stop the drugs. I didn't know if I should classify it as good or bad, but it was.
He saw through me. Sometimes it looked like he could read me like a book. That was certainly something I should appreciate, but on the other hand, I felt exposed. It wasn't a nice part of my life and breaking down in front of him wasn't exactly something I had dreamed of.
I guess you can't tell about a lot of people that they were there for you as unconditionally as he was. Judging from what he said, he was pretty much aware that he was putting a lot of pressure on himself if he really wanted to help me. But I knew that nothing and no one would stop him from doing it anyway.
I was grateful to him that he didn't go nuts and judged me. Even if he didn't know everything. If he found out everything, it would probably look very different.
If he knew all of that, would he still leave me nestled so close to him?
Phil's POV
After a while we got up, whereupon Dan just dropped onto the couch and I made a coffee. I couldn't let him go home. I wanted to trust him, but could I? His condition was terrible, he was already in withdrawal, although he only had to do without the stuff for a few hours. He would never be able to endure it at home.
I ran into the living room with two cups, whereupon Dan sat up and took his directly from me.
"Would you like to stay here another night?" I asked, hoping that I would find such a clear introduction to the subject. But Daniel was smart.
"You don't trust me, do you?" He asked, taking a sip, rolling his eyes.
"I can't trust you, can I?" He just looked at me but didn't answer. Instead, he sipped his coffee over and over while I watched how he couldn't keep his legs still. How the cup shook in his hands.
"Stop staring at me!" He hissed suddenly and I swallowed hard, dropping myself into the armchair.
"I think it would be better if someone was with you. For the first time, you know?"
"Philip Lester, my personal babysitter." He scoffed, but I tried to insist.
"Maybe you could move in again. We make the gaming room yours again. Could play together again, order food, watch animes." He swallowed hard. "Of course we can also tell Oliver. He may know-"
"Tell Oliver and I'll kill you!" He suddenly threatened and I swallowed hard. "Do you know what Oliver would do, huh? Clinic. He would deliver me directly, he wouldn't even really care about it. He wouldn't hear me out, like you do."
"Okay, we won't tell Oliver." I reassured him. In fact, that hadn't been a real option for me. Oliver was always logical, Dan and I were more on the emotional level. That's why Dan trusted me more. Maybe that's why Oliver's signature was under Daniel's documents. Because he was more logical and could make better decisions than me.
"Promise me you'll never put me in a clinic, Phil. Please."
"I promise." I answered directly. I needed his trust. He exhaled calmly.
"Then I'll move in again." He murmured.
"We can get your things tomorrow." I said, whereupon he nodded exhausted.
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i rewrote powder, lol. the chapters are longer now.
i rewrote their characters a lot. mostly phil, but you don't know this, because you never saw the other chapters, lmao.
also, i don't try to romanticize or sexualize things. i just want to write a story. i don't wanna be rude or disrespectful.
i hoped you liked the first chapter. if you did, let me know. please.
make me happy with votes and comments.