WARNING: WITHDRAWEL
***
Dan's POV
"Do you really feel fit enough for this? We can tell Oliver to come around another time." Phil asked worriedly as I put on my sweatshirt.
"It's just Oliver. I don't have to be the blooming life. He knows what's going on." I replied and immediately punished myself internally for reacting so irritably. Phil couldn't help it, but the hardships of the last day and last night had made me thin-skinned, so that pretty much everything annoyed me.
"I was just thinking." he murmured, pushing the candle on the dresser back and forth in the bedroom.
Oliver would come over today so that we could finally talk about how things should go for all of us in the future. At least Phil had put it that way, I didn't know exactly what it meant, but I assumed that it was about YouTube and I didn't really care about the reason, because I was just happy to be able to talk to him again.
But of course I was still not feeling well and if I wanted to get through this day, then at least there should be no thick air between Phil and me, which I provoked with my constant wobbling around.
"I'm sorry." I started, walking towards him until I was right in front of him.
"I know." Phil said immediately and stroked my hair gently and before I could say anything else, the doorbell rang. Phil left the bedroom and opened the door and a second later I stood next to him and waited for Oliver to climb the stairs, which happened shortly afterwards.
He looked at us expectantly. His brown eyes scanned my eyes almost a little fearfully, kept switching back and forth between Phil and me until I turned my head to Phil next to me at some point so that he might give me a sign of what Oliver was waiting for.
Suddenly Oliver bridged the last step and gave me a quick hug.
"It's good to see you in this apartment again." He said in a warm voice before he let go of me. "Let's go to the living room and talk in peace." He suggested, then went straight past us and Phil wanted to follow him straight away, but I held him back.
"What's going on?" I asked quietly after Oliver had gone ahead and looked him straight in the eye.
"Nothing." he replied, trying to tear himself away from me again, but I didn't let him go.
"Phil, what's going on?" I insisted. "Don't lie to me."
He took a deep breath and looked sideways before putting his warm hand on my cheek and gently stroking the remaining wounds from the last nights.
"Does it hurt?" He wanted to know, while I hardly noticed anything more than his dangerously sparkling eyes. I put my hand on his, took it from my face and kissed the inside of his palm.
"No." I shook my head and saw him swallow hard.
"Just come with me." he said suddenly, pulling my hand so I could follow him.
Meanwhile, Oliver had made himself comfortable on the couch. He grabbed another cookie from the bowl on the table, although he hadn't even swallowed the other, and eyed me. Typical Oliver.
"What about your face?" He asked, pointing to the scratch marks in it. I raised my hand and timidly touched it as I considered telling the truth.
"It isn't that important. Don't worry." My eyes went to Phil, afraid that he would betray me, but he said nothing. Oliver knew the truth, but he didn't need to know every cruel detail.
I stared at the cookies to avoid his gaze, and I would normally have taken one of them, but I was absolutely not hungry. Loss of appetite was just another symptom of withdrawal. To be honest, they even disgusted me a little.
I felt like I was feeling sick, but luckily not so bad this time that I expected to throw up again immediately.
When I finally looked at Oliver, I saw him looking uncertainly in Phil's direction, who only returned this look meaningfully, as if they were talking mentally without letting me in.
Phil shook his head slightly as if to tell him that everything was fine, and Oliver turned back to me.
"And how are you so far about the withdrawal?" Asked Oliver and I swallowed hard.
"Right now? I had worse moments, but we can do it." I said confidently and looked at Phil, who didn't seem to have the same security that I had. Somehow all of this seemed strange to me, and even if I had no idea what it was, I felt something was in the air.
"Do you want a drink?" I asked Oliver to calm the mood down a bit, although it was actually quiet. Maybe I was just crazy and imagined something.
"Dan, sit down." Phil suddenly said a bit sharply and Oliver and I both looked at him in surprise. And suddenly I knew something was definitely wrong, because Phil looked at Oliver and Oliver looked at me.
"Sit down." Oliver nodded gently and I swallowed hard, refusing internally.
"What's going on?" I felt cornered knowing that both of them had planned to attack me. Phil ran a hand through his hair and sat next to Oliver while I stopped. What is this? An intervention?
"Dan, I just want you to be fine. We both want that, okay?" He started and Oliver nodded in agreement.
Oh fuck, it was.
"Every time you wanted me to be fine, I was just getting crazier afterwards. So please stop wanting me to be fine." I replied, crossing my arms and running to the window. My legs grew heavy and the pain in my body began to clear up again.
As soon as I saw it coming it was back, just like the last time after it had crept in and then suddenly struck. And that's exactly what it felt like. Like a bolt of lightning that hit me out of the blue, straight into my nerves, where it paralyzed everything and I couldn't help but slump.
But Phil held me from behind, reaching under my arms to keep me on my feet. I don't know how he managed to get to me so quickly.
"Don't you realize how bad you are?" He wanted to know, but before I could answer, Oliver started to speak.
"Dan, we really only want the best for you. We can talk about everything in peace and find a solution. We can do that, I promised you." Suddenly the tears came to me. With pain, despair, disappointment. I still hadn't disposed of the package from the bathroom, and in the end it was nothing more than proof that I wasn't anywhere near what I thought I was. That I could relapse at any time if Phil wasn't by my side for a moment when the withdrawal symptoms were too bad.
"We all just want you to get well again." I heard Oliver when I slowly managed to get up with Phil's help. My eyes were on Oliver, whereupon he nodded to the couch and told me that I should finally sit down, which I did with Phil.
At that moment I was afraid to lose Phil. He had abused my trust once more, even if it was done with good will, but I knew that it had thrown me back a little, although it was so important for me to finally be able to rely on him.
I knew he never wanted to hurt me, but he just didn't understand that I was lost without him. By still not understanding that there was nothing worse for me and that no withdrawal symptoms could be more terrible than being separated from him.
Even if it was only in a clinic.
"You want to put me in a clinic again, right?" I finally asked freely. I wanted them to just say it, not to further torture me. They would do it anyway, so why should I take the gentle tour if everything was going the hard way anyway?
"You don't have to go to a clinic right away." came Oliver and I listened up. "There are ways that you can just work closely with a doctor and do something about it. You will then receive medication that is tailored to you and you will have to meet with them regularly, so they can check whether you have relapsed or not. As long as you have support in your area, that should work. And you have it just because you live here again. I informed myself and even found a good doctor."
I looked at Oliver a little confused.
"You don't want to put me in a clinic?" I asked in amazement and confussion and Oliver just shrugged, just didn't seem to know what was right in that moment.
"I don't know." Phil replied, lowering his eyes as if he didn't dare to look at me.
"Why not?" I reacted with far too much energy that my body actually didn't have. I immediately felt that I was dizzy and I closed my eyes for a short moment.
When I opened it again, Phil caught my eye.
"Dan, of course I would be happy if we could stay together here, but I don't know if that's enough. I think you are much more dependent than you actually realize." He explained.
"That may be the case and I'm actually the first person who would argue that you should go to a clinic. So yes, I actually wanted to put you straight to a clinic." Oliver explained and I nodded, not particularly surprised at this statement. "But now that I'm watching you like this, I'm not sure if it would end up making it harder for Dan if he was separated from you." he added, looking at Phil with a caring look.
Phil still had his arm around me, so I knew what Oliver meant. We couldn't let go and his hug gave me as much strength as nothing else could ever do. Tearing us apart would make my withdrawal symptoms physically easier, but it would be much more difficult for me psychologically. And for once it was a rational thought that I could grasp in all this confusion. Oliver was right and I couldn't understand why Phil didn't understand, although he had to feel this connection as much as I did.
Perhaps it had overwhelmed him more than I had known.
"I'm not separated from him. Of course I would visit him as often as possible." Phil argued to Oliver.
"But that's not the same thing and you know that too." Oliver replied and I just had in my head like Phil had never visited me when I was in the clinic. And Oliver's tone left to know that he was aiming for that too.
"He just needs you around him. It's been like that forever. Even before that happened." Oliver interjected and suddenly it was Phil who had to be convinced and no longer me.
He seemed to remember which position we were sitting in and then looked at me, how I still tried to make eye contact to show him how much I needed him. I wanted to stop taking drugs and of course I also wanted me to not suffer as I had in the past few days, but if this middle ground opened up before us, then we should fucking take it.
Although I actually felt too weak to be able to take part in the conversation, I tried to do my part.
"I know you're just worried about me, okay? But he's right. I understand that I need professional help, but I can't do this without you being with me. As soon as the door closes behind you after the visiting hours are over, I would go crazy." I explained to him, my voice wobbling dangerously.
"Believe me. Together with a doctor, you and Oliver, I can do it. We can do it." I said honestly. "I can't relapse without the doctor noticing it immediately." I added emphatically, because he still didn't seem completely convinced.
He sighed wearily and let his head hang again, whereupon I released my arms from his body, just to put them around his face and to pull him so close that he had to look me in the eye. I stared into the blue of his eyes, which I knew so well and loved infinitely, and this time nothing stopped me from immersing and sinking into them until I realized that he also only saw me.
"Trust me." I said. "Trust when I tell you that I can do it without a clinic." It seemed like an eternity in which we just stared at each other
"All right. Then we'll just try it with a doctor first." He let himself be pounded, although he still wasn't really enthusiastic.
However, I couldn't help but grin a huge grin, ignoring how bad I felt.
"But if you relapse even once, I won't let myself be persuaded again." He threatened, which inhibited the feeling of happiness for a tiny moment.
"Don't worry, I won't." I breathed and looked at him lovingly, whereupon he finally smiled too.
-----------------------------------------
wow another chapter and we didn't have to wait for eternity.
do you think everything will go well? what do you think generally?
tell meeee.
love you guys.