A/N: This chapter is dramatic. I think I should just put that out there. I’m sorry it’s really long, too, but I needed to cram as much of it in because I wanted it to end how it did instead of starting a whole new chapter! I hope you like this :D
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Summary: Dan has been thrown into a completely new environment as he joins a popular boarding school, Blackwood Academy, as a new student. After meeting Phil, a ringleader of the most infamous group of students in the school, Dan realises there’s a lot more to him than the man-made definition formed by other people’s opinions.
Chapter Thirteen
“So, you’re sure you’re not
doing the concert? You seem to be doing a lot of practice every night…” Zoe
giggles, clutching her sketchbook.
“As I keep
telling you, I’m not sure yet,”
Dan suddenly snaps at her, the sleep deprivation taking its toll on him. He
doesn’t know exactly what the cause of it is, but it seems as if he simply can’t
sleep anymore – it’s not even a matter of not being tired enough; he’s often too tired. He just can’t shut his brain
up.
“Wait, no, I-…” Dan
sees Zoe’s face, and softens. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Zoe. I’m just
tired,” he says, rubbing his eyes as if on cue.
“No, I’m sorry for
pestering you,” she mutters. Dan decides to change the subject.
“What’s that you’re
drawing, there?” he gently takes a peek at the sketchbook she clasps closely to
her chest.
“Oh, no…” she shyly
pulls it back from Dan’s eyes, her cheeks turning from delicate peach to peony.
“Come on…” Dan
grins playfully, trying to take another peek.
She shakes her head, still blushing. “But it’s
not even finishe-“
Dan cuts her off
with a gasp, beholding the stunning artwork he holds in his hands. Zoe is,
undeniably, a very talented artist, no doubt about it, but he tries not to make
his surprise obvious towards the fact that she’d drawn a portrait of-… him.
Just him.
“Oh.” Dan says with
realization, the sketchy version of himself staring back from his own dark
brown strokes of the brush. “It’s me.”
“Yeah…” she giggles,
trying to repress a nervous laugh.
“It’s amazing…” he
breathes, although he’s overcome with the urge to flick through her other
sketches for something else. “So, have you drawn anyone else? Louise? Alex,
maybe?” he fiddles with the corner of the page, watching her for a reaction.
She hesitates suddenly, before slowly shaking her
head, her cheeks turning scarlet. “No… er- not yet, anyway, I-… they’re in my
other sketchbook,” she says, although they both know she’s lying. Dan glances
down at the page again, frowning.
“Do you like it?”
she asks nervously, misinterpreting his frown.
“Of course I do! It’s lovely,” Dan grins – it
really is lovely. Regardless of who she’d drawn,
it’s pretty safe to say she’d drawn it well.
“Thank you,” she
grins as Dan hands her the sketchbook back, trying not to think about why she’d
only drawn him and not, say, Louise – her best friend of ten years.
Who knows – maybe
they really were in her other sketchbook. Yeah, Dan thinks. That’ll be it.
He puts his earphones in and turns back to the
remains of the homework he didn’t get done in the hut last night; he and Phil
had been far too engrossed in a conversation about what Harry Potter houses
they’d be sorted into. They had eventually decided on Gryffindor for Dan, and
Slytherin for Phil.
It’s nice to do a
bit of homework in the common room alongside his friends for a change, though –
and Panic! At The Disco is always a sufficient enough accompaniment.
“What are you doing
tonight?” Zoe suddenly looks up from her book, although Dan can’t hear her
clearly enough through headphones.
“Huh?” he takes one
out.
“What are you doing
tonight?” she repeated. “Are you free?” her blue eyes sparkle hopefully in the
artificial light of the common room.
“Er-…” Dan thinks.
He doesn’t have anything else planned for tonight, does he? “Yeah, sure,” he
agrees, not really seeing any way out of it.
“Well… do you want
to come to my dorm, or something? We could watch a few movies?” she suggests,
smiling sweetly at the brown-haired boy.
“Yeah, okay,” Dan
grins at her in agreement. “That’ll be nice,” and it will, he guesses – he
doesn’t spend nearly enough time with Zoe as he’d like to.
“Great!” she looks
unexplainably thrilled; and Dan can’t quite understand why – she’s only
watching a few movies with him as opposed to marrying Harry Styles or someone.
Nevertheless, he gives her the same reaction back, then his eyes flicker over
to the pile of books he still has to contend with.
“Need to finish
this first, though,” he says softly, sighing reluctantly as he begins to chew
his pen, staring at pages after pages of some bollocks about King Henry VIII’s
life and work. “What time shall I come over?”
“7 this evening?”
she suggests, to which Dan nods.
“Sure,” Dan smiles
warmly at her, before turning back to his work.
“Okay! See you
later,” she gives Dan a sweet smile and slings her satchel bag over her
shoulder, skipping gracefully out of the common room, resulting in nearly every
boy (and a couple of girls) in the room gazing wistfully after her. Dan
wouldn’t find it surprising if everyone in the whole room staring at her wanted
to be her best friend, or boyfriend or
girlfriend. Being any type of friend
with Zoe would be a privilege, to be honest. She has a natural charisma and
friendly charm about her that could attract nearly anyone, not to mention her pretty looks
Everyone, but a
select group of two boys in the corner of the common room, trapped in their own
little world, far away from normality.
Then it hit Dan.
The other plan he
has lined up for 7 o’clock. The same plan he has for every other night.
Phil.
Shit.
How’s he going to
talk to him? He could always re-arrange with Zoe, but tomorrow she has a
late-night maths class, and an art workshop the day after and this is her only
free day of the week. He has to contact Phil somehow.
Fuck, why didn’t he
just ask for his phone number? Then again, he fears it might’ve be pretty
awkward, just asking for it outright. He doesn’t even need it to text him
socially, though – he just needs a form of communication other than
face-to-face in order to avoid literal social suicide.
He could try getting
hold of him at break? But he’s was pretty sure he has history before break
which would clash with Dan’s biology class – the science block is on the
complete other end of the school.
Wait, Lunch break,
Dan realises – they’re both in English the period before which will work out
even better being partnered with him. Oh, thank fuck, Dan shuts his eyes. This
is doable.
-
The morning drags, but at long last it’s finally
time for English. As Dan’s one of the first to get into the classroom, he
immediately sits down and whips his phone out, making conversation with Alex
before he arrives.
“So, good luck with
you-know-who,” he raised his eyebrows at Phil’s empty chair as if Voldemort is
about to burst into the room at any moment, and Dan rolls his eyes in false
irritation.
“I’ll need it,” he
sighs. “I wish we could’ve picked our own groups.”
“I’ll say,”
he widens his eyes discreetly at Stephanie sitting next to him who doesn’t look
as if she had any remote interest in the whole school altogether, let alone Alex. She’s often described as the stereotypical
‘Girl all the Bad Guys Want’ of our
school. Dan glances over towards her, watching as her black nail polished
thumbs race over her BlackBerry keyboard, her school blazer covered in an array
of studs and badges, and her dark black hair covering the majority of her face
and heavily outlined eyes. Her nose stud and lip ring shone in the light along
with her ears dotted with multiple intricate piercings, and a tattoo of an
artistic black rose inked onto the inside of her left wrist. Dan can’t decide
if she’s attractive or not.
She’s smart, though. Apparently she can top most of
the class if she ever bothers to do her work, but most of her time in class and
outside is generally spent texting a numerous amount of people and listening to
metalcore bands on full volume through her flimsy headphones. Dan had heard
about the time she actually dated Phil, for 6 months. Which, for Phil, was evidently
a huge commitment. As he stares at her, he tries to imagine her and Phil
together. He knows they obviously were, and they obviously
did stuff together when they were, but he just can’t picture it. He can’t
picture Phil being with her for so long. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to
picture it – he doesn’t really know. His head’s still mostly a messy fuzz from
sleep deprivation for the past week.
As if on cue, Phil
slams into the classroom, his sudden entrance making Dan’s heart flip.
Alex shoots Dan a
sympathetic look that he returns, before taking a deep breath and settling for
trying not to look at Phil too much throughout the lesson. He sits down, his
addictive scent immediately choking Dan with forced resistance. He knows he
needs to get Phil’s attention somehow, and it certainly doesn’t help that as
soon as Phil sits down, he completely turned his back on Dan and starts
chatting to Charlie.
“Class, settle
down! Charlie, sit properly, Stephanie, if I see that phone out one more time,
I’m confiscating it, Alex, I don’t want to see that gum anywhere other than the
bin, off you go, and Phil-…“ Mr. Jackson turns to the black-haired figure
out-talking the rest of the class. “Shut
up.”
Dan’s eyes
immediately flicker to Phil, half-expecting some huge argument to storm up, or
for Phil to at least take some form
of offence.
What he isn’t
expecting, is to see Phil simply laugh it off, and actually quieten down for
this teacher – which is exactly what happens.
English goes pretty
quickly – quickly enough compared to the drag of every other lesson they’d had
today. Dan had spent the majority of the lesson either staring into space, out
the window, or trying desperately hard not to fall aslee-
“Phil, wake him
up,” Mr Jackson rolls his eyes at the softly snoring heap on the desk. Phil
turns to Dan and softly nudges him.
“Wake up,
dickhead,” his nudge hardens once he realises how many other pairs of eyes are
also on him, but when Dan lifts his head slowly and glances into his eyes, they
express none of the harshness that had come out in his voice, and only a soft
emotion.
“Oh shit,” Dan
suddenly realizes how much of the lesson he had actually missed with his head
on the desk. He flashes Mr. Jackson an apologetic look. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Boring you, are
we?” he jokes, before sighing. “Just try to get more sleep, eh?” he raises an
eyebrow, to which Dan smirks shyly and nods.
Like that’ll be possible, Dan thinks to
himself. He keeps on trying to catch Phil’s eye, but Phil makes no further
contact with him after the unexpected wake-up call.
Although it’s risky and Dan knows it, he begins
scribbling quietly on a ripped-out page of his rough book.
I need to talk to you. Meet me in hut
at break?
Dan subtly nudges
the note under Phil’s arm, making sure the others behind them can’t see. He
jumps suddenly, grabbing the note and unravelling it. After a few moments, he whips
out a pen and writes back in his own scrawl.
Are you mad at me again?
Dan gives a small half-grin. Nope.
Why not 7 like usual?
Dan’s grin vanishes. That’s
why I need to talk to you.
Okay. I’ll tell Charlie I have to see
Mr McKenzie or something. We can’t be long.
Okay. When’s the bell gonna go?
Phil glances at his watch, flashing a small glimpse
of the bracelet as he did. Any
minute now.
As if on cue, the
bell suddenly rings, making everyone jump. The classroom fills with the
familiar pre-lunch frenzy of the scraping of chairs against the carpet as the
students stand up and begin to file out of the classroom. Phil darts forward
before Dan, and for a minute he legitimately thinks he’s either ditching him or
had somehow forgotten about his ordeal, but as he discreetly catches up behind
him, he overhears him explaining to Charlie to “just go straight to the common
room” and that “old shitface needs to have a word” with him. Dan snickers, and
turns around to catch Alex, giving him his own excuse.
“Oh, okay,” he
replies, nodding. “Will you be done in time for the rest of break?”
“Oh, yeah. It won’t
take long,” Dan assures him. “Save me a seat?”
“Yeah, sure. Well,
have fun I guess,” he rolls his eyes, grinning as Dan gives him another nod disappears
out of the building in the direction of the hut. Hopefully Phil’s already
there, unless he had been caught up in another ‘play fight’ with his boyfriend.
Dan suddenly feels a strange wrench in his chest as
soon as the word ‘boyfriend’ popped into my head. He doesn’t know why – it’s a
perfectly normal term, right? Phil and Charlie are boyfriends, and that’s that. They’re-
Dan feels sick suddenly. He can’t continue his
‘boyfriend’ recital – he’ll projectile vomit in the hut. Maybe it’s something
he ate. Yeah, he decides. That’ll be it, although he gulps unsurely. He
remembering the way Phil had gently nudged him and the way he looks when he
sleeps and his laugh and his eyes and fuck,
maybe it isn’t something he ate after all. Fuck, he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.
After making sure
the coast is completely clear (as if it isn’t anyway – no one comes here) Dan takes a breath, and dives straight into the
hut. Much to my expectations, Phil isn’t there yet which gives him nothing else
to do other than sit down on the sofa and vacantly pull at a few loose threads,
trying to comb through the mess of thoughts that occupy his mind. He keeps on
reflecting back to the other night.
“I
don’t know what you’re doing to me.” Phil would whisper, his eyes a
startling blue and piercing into Dan’s. Dan remembers the feeling of his breath
against his cold skin, his scent radiating off onto him in a mixture of sharp,
obscure cologne and tobacco.
And Dan doesn’t know what he means. Phil’s a pretty
frustrating person anyway, but that always frustrates him the most, out of
anything. He doesn’t know what he means
– Phil speaks in riddles, codes and mysteries, and Dan can’t crack them. He
just doesn’t know.
Dan’s flashback
shatters with the loud click of the door slamming behind him. Phil approaches
him with an unusually soft smile, still holding a pen in his hand from the
class.
“Hey.” He sits down
beside Dan. “So, what is it you need to tell me?”
“I can’t come here
tonight,” Dan sighs disappointedly.
Phil blinks, taken
slightly aback. “Oh, okay. Why?”
“Because Zoe’s asked
me to come to her dorm. To watch movies or something,” Dan groans, although he
feels a little bad – he likes Zoe,
and he doesn’t really like to pretend otherwise.
Phil’s eyes widen
with an emotion Dan could almost identify as… jealousy.
Dan frowns slightly
at his expression. He doesn’t still like Zoe, does he?
“Really?” he scoffs,
surprised. “Wow. I wasn’t aware you two were a thing,” his voice has a slight edge to it.
“What are you on
about?” Dan’s frown hardens. “We’re not a couple,
she just asked me… I don’t know why, I just-“ he cuts himself off with an
awkward shrug.
He gives Dan a
look. “You do realize she has a huge crush on you, right?”
Dan freezes in realisation as everything begins to
fall into place – admittedly, Zoe’s behaviour had been pretty strange over
the past few weeks, what with Dan’s drawing, her Christmas gifts and this sudden
invitation – call Dan naïve, but he’d never thought to put any meaning behind
it. He doesn’t see her in that way. Sure, she’s attractive as hell, friendly
and she had a lovely personality, but-… he doesn’t have any feelings for her.
“Oh god…” Dan thinks
out loud, biting his lip.
“Yep,” Phil raises
his eyebrows at his lap.
“You’re okay with
it, right?” Dan narrows his eyes suspiciously, suddenly wondering if he’s
actually over Zoe or not. “You’re not
jealous, are you…?”
He freezes, his
eyes suddenly widening as he continues to stare downwards. His pale skin
flushes red.
“You are!” Dan gasps, the strange sick
feeling in his stomach coming back. “I thought you were over Zoe?”
Phil looks up. “Zoe?
You think I’m jealous about you being
with her?” he scoffs. “Give me a break,
Dan.”
“But… why are you
so-…”
“That’s not the reason why I’m jealous,” he mutters
it so quietly Dan reckons he wasn’t supposed to hear. Dan gulps, studying Phil
cautiously, expecting him to elaborate.
“What…?”
is all Dan can manage after a while.
“Never mind,” Phil
mumbled, sighing. “So, er…” he settles for changing the subject. “Do you like her, then?”
“No,” Dan surprises
him, and Phil pauses suddenly, glancing up at him. Dan knows what he’s thinking;
the same thing as anyone else in Blackwood would respond with having been faced
with Dan’s response – how the hell can
you not like Zoe? “I don’t know,” he continues almost as if Phil had said
it out loud. “I don’t have any… feelings
for her. I just don’t see her in any other way than a friend.”
Phil sighs deeply,
although the jealousy and disappointment had seemed to vanish, leaving only
what looks like relief.
“Well, I guess we
gotta go,” he glances at the door.
“Yeah…” Dan glances
too, before starting to stand up. After a few footsteps, he’s suddenly stopped
by Phil’s cold hand on his own. Dan’s heart leaps and he clams up, turning around
to face him.
“Wait…” he pauses,
his expressions softening as he took a step closer. My heart began racing as he
softly approached me, so we were nearly touching, never breaking eye contact.
After a few bizarre
moments of a locked gaze, blue against brown, Phil breaks the gaze, uncapping
the pen still in his hand.
Dan watches as the
ballpoint glides across the skin of the back of my arm with a small tickling
feeling, where it would’ve been hidden with a sleeve.
Then he realizes
what Phil’s writing.
“There,” Phil
finishes with a smile, shoving the pen in his pocket, but keeping hold of Dan’s
hand.
07668324901
– Phil x
“So we can make
basic communication a little easier,” he gently pulls down Dan’s sleeve. Dan gives
him a small smile back at the gesture, although his head really is a fucking mess now.
“Thanks,” Dan chuckles,
anxiously running his hands through his hair. “So, er…”
“I-…”
“I’ll erm…”
“See you around…?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dan
gives him shaky laugh, wondering why his heart’s suddenly thudding so hard. It
shouldn’t be. It’s only Phil Lester. It’s not Evan Peters.
Dan walk-runs out
of the hut, somehow wishing he’s going to be somewhere else tonight.
**
“Hey!” Zoe looks
delighted to see him when he turns up, whirling round and leading him into her
dorm. Dan suddenly finds himself surrounded by seemingly endless Cath Kidston
décor, the only source of light coming from the silver fairy lights hung up all
around the room, the glow of her MacBook sitting in the middle of her bed, and
the scented candles lit up around the room gave a wintery, cinnamon-like
atmosphere.
“Er- where’s
Louise?” Dan stares at the empty bed on the other side of the room,
half-expecting her best friend to appear out of thin air.
“Oh, she’s got
class tonight.” Zoe explains airily, sitting down on her bed and patting the
owl cushion next to her. Dan gingerly sits beside her as she produces a bag of
popcorn, crisps and a bowl.
“Oh, Zoe, you really didn’t have to go to so much trouble,” Dan can’t stop a grin spreading
on his face, especially when he notices it’s sweet popcorn – his favourite
flavour.
“No trouble at
all,” she smiles sweetly at him, opening and pouring the snacks into the bowl
and pulling her MacBook on her lap. She opens up Netflix. “So, what do you want
to watch? I was thinking maybe The Notebook, or maybe Jennifer’s Body if you
want something a bit scarier, I mean, The Notebook’s pretty soppy so I wondered
if-“
“I honestly don’t
mind,” Dan chuckles. “Any movie sounds great,”
They end up watching The Notebook, although nothing’s
really processing in Dan’s mind. He’s
so overcome with tiredness everything begins to feel pretty lucid. He crunches
popcorn, his eyes stinging with the effort of keeping them open. He fights to
stay awake – he doesn’t want to seem rude in front of Zoe, seeing as she had
gone to so much trouble despite her insisting otherwise.
They had exchanged
glances a few times during the film, her blue eyes sparkling into Dan’s. Dan’s
so out of it, he could’ve almost imagined her to be another certain someone with those same eyes. Although she’s a lot
softer and smells of some pretty perfume as opposed to Lynx’s new release.
Dan’s eyelids begin
to fall involuntarily, despite his efforts of trying desperately hard to pay
attention to what Noah and Allie are arguing about. But soon after a few more
minutes of hiding multiple yawns, his head falls on a very soft cushion-like
figure.
“Dan?” a quiet
voice nudges him with a whisper, and Dan jolts awake.
“Oh shit,” Dan groans.
“I’m so sorry, I-…”
It was only then he’d
realized he had fallen asleep on her chest. He freezes, in the very dim light of
the fairy lights (she’d blown the candles out and her laptop’s closed, so he
assumes he’d slept through the rest of the movie) thinking of doing nothing more
than lying there staring into her beautiful
blue eyes as she remains motionless, her expression solemn. After a few hesitant
moments, she begins slowly leaning in, her floral scent becoming stronger and
stronger until, unexpectedly, her sweet, glossed lips meet his. Dan’s heart
starts thudding, his stomach somersaulting as he unconsciously kisses her back.
That is until he
realises who he’s kissing. He breaks it off suddenly, staring into her eyes again
with more focus. Why did he feel this way? I knew perfectly well I didn’t have
any romantic feelings for her, so why does he feel like he does? Why can he
feel the flutter in his stomach, the thudding in his chest, pretty much everything he feels whenever he looks at
Phil.
Oh god, that’s it.
It’s not Zoe he
sees in those blue eyes, those fucking
blue eyes.
It’s Phil.
NEXT CHAPTER
