#angstprompt

Seeing Dan across the way should have been a blessing. The way Phil’s heart jumped in his chest surely suggested that it was, but the pain that ached and radiated throughout his veins at the sight told him why it was such a painful thing in the first place, why it was wrong, and terrifying, and a dark reminder of everything that had previously gone wrong in his life. Seeing Dan was like seeing a ghost from Phil’s past, and at the same time, a breath of fresh air in a world that Phil had created out of darkness and smoke and lies.

His breathing hitched the second he realized who it was standing across from him in a crowded lunchroom hall on some dirty school campus Phil didn’t even belong to, and his limbs locked up in shock and awe and terror all rolled up into one huge tense ball of fear instinctively. Because that couldn’t be Dan, he couldn’t be here, thousands of miles away from where they’d first met and built a life together and planned to marry each other under the dingy branches of the elm tree in Phil’s mum’s backyard. He couldn’t be standing milling around and talking with a group of students wearing huge american backpacks and snapbacks with names of sports teams Phil had never previously heard of before he’d - before he’d -

And yet it was Dan, with windswept, long brown curls that danced at the top of his ears and played at the corners of his eyes, unkempt and ruely just the way Phil had last seen it three years before. His eyes were that same, perfect brown that shown clarity in the darkest and trying of times, bright and full of a warmth that Phil had never previously understood, and still couldn’t. There was no mistaking that charming smile, and the little peace sign he threw up at his friends, ironic and iconic all at the same time. There was no confusing the dimple that popped deep in his cheeks, or the way his eyes curled up until he was practically an anime character in human form, something Phil hadn’t even believed was real when he’d stood next to Dan back when he used to do it for Phil.

He was in all black, the way he’d always been, a strange band t-shirt resting against his chest that Phil didn’t recognize, and those same tight black skinny jeans that didn’t quite seem to fit at his waist. They hugged his calves until they looked glued on, and his shoes were more zip than fabric, and it was so, so clearly Dan that Phil could feel his heart pumping double time in a way that made him want to throw up and scream and jump for joy all at the same time. He couldn’t breathe, not really not properly, and tears were pressing at the corners of his eyes, because it was Dan, thousands of miles from where Phil had left him back at home in England, in the middle of a cold, rainy day at his own fu - fun - funeral.

His own funeral. The fake funeral Phil had put on to protect Dan and to end the relationship he’d hoped to keep to the end of his life.

Phil will never forget that way Dan had cried, strong and stoic in a chair at the front of the grave site, with Phil’s mum on one side, and Dan’s on the other, all wearing black and the rain falling down so steadily on them Phil had wanted to reach out and shield them from getting a cold, from catching their own death and taking them away from Phil’s ever watchful eye -

Dan had been shuddering. His shoulders rocked slightly, rose and feel in rapid succession one minute, and then stilled the next, limbs nevertheless trembling. Phil hadn’t had to see his face to know, to understand what was going on, to recognize the way Dan cried. He’d seen it a thousand times over in the past, held Dan throw the silent sobs and the tiny hiccups as he wept, holding it all in until he couldn’t anymore and he burst, ever so silent and gasping in tiny breaths of air that let Phil know that at least Dan was breathing -

But he wasn’t crying now. He was laughing. His lips were full and bright as they opened on a sound Phil couldn’t catch in the crowded lunch area, as he turned his head, and his earrings glinted in the sun, the last pair Phil had bought him before he’d faked his own death. His own breathing hitched at the sight, and he had to lift a trembling hand to cover his mouth at the fact that Dan had kept them, that he wore them still, like a badge of honor, a never forgotten memory of who Phil was and what he’d been to Dan, and how far they’d come in their lives together, on the brink of marriage and a family and a forever home that would never come now because Phil had fucked up, Phil had fucked up, he’d fucked up -

He’d imagined this scene a thousand times; Phil running into Dan in the middle of nowhere, hidden away and in some kind of stupid disguise while he watched his lover run into the arms of another, holding the hand of a man that wasn’t Phil, kissing him, walking him down the aisle, or fucking him in a bed that was no longer Phil’s. He’d imagined a thousand times over Dan moving on, finding another, marrying someone who’d never quite be the same as him, and it had broken him more times than Phil could count.

The nights he’d spent cramped up in a hotel room sobbing into his own sodden pillow, wishing and praying that he could just make it all right as his heart went out to his best friend, his lover, his Dan, seemed endless now as Phil thought back on them. He’d wanted, so badly, for Dan to be happy, but he’d been unable to let go enough to truly imagine it without it feeling like his own heart was being stabbed over and over again, had been unable to imagine it without wanting to walk into Dan’s new home and kill the man who’d taken Phil’s place, because how dare Dan when Phil was still alive, when Phil was right there and still holding onto Dan, and never planning on moving on from, except -

Except Dan didn’t know. Dan didn’t know that Phil was alive, and he couldn’t know, couldn’t ever see Phil stood across the way in a crowded hall in the middle of America where the mafia might not ever be able to trace him and yet they might yet still, ready and waiting to take and massacre and kill -

For a moment, Phil stumbled forward, eyes wet and cheeks stained and body straining and ready to take Dan back into his arms and hold onto him forever. For a moment, Phil saw the world slow, watched as God took away the horrors of Phil’s past, undid the deaths and the stealing and the borrowing of money and the debts that Phil owed the men who’d set him free and chained him all at once. For a moment, Phil saw Dan turn, and squint at him, and stare with wide eyes and plum, open lips, ready to run into the arms of a man he’d once thought dead, and then --

And then --

A gunshot.