Chapter 8 - Perfect

When the police arrived, through the open door, with their guns and jackets and loud voices, Phil held on to Dan even tighter. No person in the room could pull him away in a manner they deemed safe, so Phil sat there, motionless.

There was a bubble around him, one he had constructed, because he couldn't process anything from the outside world, and random phrases which he could not make sense of floated towards him.

"Young man? Excuse me, can you give us…"

"…yes, and then I came in and…"

"Phil, please tell me…"

"…through the window…"

"…a relative's phone number?"

Maybe Phil answered some questions. He couldn't remember.

Eventually, accompanied by shouted orders and brightly coloured medical equipment, the paramedics rushed into the room, and Phil let out a cry as they tried to take Dan away from him, so they lifted Phil onto a stretcher too, where he finally let go and fell unconscious. And all around, as they heard the shocking events of this Christmas Eve laid out before them, adults shook their head and felt themselves condemn the mess of a human being that lay before them.

Phil was sitting on his accustomed chair and listened to the beeping to which he was used to by now. He shifted the book on his lap to a more comfortable position, took away the bookmark and started reading.

"…he would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.".

He looked towards his right. "The end! What did you think?"

"I still thought it was kind of dull… There wasn't much plot, I mean."

"But! But Boo! And, and - ugh. I'll never get through to you, will I?"

Phil shut the book. "Now we've got that awful business of you never reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' over, I've got to get you out of this place." Phil checked his watch. "We've got an hour before your therapist comes."

"But I don't have to move…" Dan whined. "Look, I've got this lovely computer right in front of me..."

And there was, in fact, a computer in front of Dan, who was just visible under a mess of blankets and casts. One of his legs was hung up and bound in a cast, his left arm was in a sling, and (beneath his clothes) his shoulder was tightly bandaged up from a knife wound, but his smile was realer than it had been in many, many years.

Phil delved into his thoughts and reflected how much had changed since Christmas Day, when he was sitting, afraid, in a hospital room, a nurse telling him to calm down or he'd hurt himself. His family had come to see him, worried, but he wouldn't talk to any of them. Only when Martyn came to see him alone did Phil manage to squeeze out what had happened, in a way that didn't make Phil very proud. He was a nervous wreck. Later that day, a policewoman called Susan had come to talk to Phil. She was very nice, and asked him if he could describe Christmas Eve's occurrences in as much detail as he could muster. Apparently it was being used for Dan's dad's trial, the likely outcome of which, Susan told Phil, would unfortunately be him getting a place in a mental asylum, and not prison. At first, Phil couldn't answer. He was hit with so much information…. Like the fact that the kidnapper was Dan's dad? But, forcing himself to recount the events yet again, through tears and the nurse crossly looking in Susan's direction all through the interrogation, he told Susan what he could remember. Afterwards, his statement was pieced together with Adrian's, and eventually Dan's, to create a timeline of events. As Susan had predicted, this timeline got Dan's dad a secure place in a mental asylum. What was brought forward in court, summed up, was this:

Adrian found Dan's phone on the kitchen floor, just as predicted. He carried it into his room and revived it, and discovering its battery percentage to be just 1%. Seeing Phil's missed calls, he panicked and pressed the first button he saw – the speed dial to Phil. Then he rattled out his address and was just about to tell Phil to call 999 when the phone went dead, causing Adrian to have nothing more to do than try and find his dad's key chain, which contained the keys to the windows of the house and the front door key. He found them and opened the door just as Phil arrived at Dan's house, and stalled Dan's father from killing Dan (which, Dan revealed, was his intention just as Phil opened the door to the bedroom) just in time for the police to come. Mostly from Adrian then, as Phil was in shock, they discovered that Adrian's mum was missing, and a search party was sent out for her, which found her on a park bench. After that, everybody was taken to hospital and were still in the process of being treated.

It left out a lot, Phil knew, and he still he couldn't bear to look at the file which contained the statement. He didn't know how Dan coped, but tried to be with Dan every second he could. Dan's nurses reported violent outbursts, screaming, terrible nightmares, but when Phil was there Dan seemed to be more calm. Eventually the hospital even let Phil sleep with Dan, holding hands, and that seemed to quell the nightmares, too. Most of the time.

Five minutes later, Dan was in his wheelchair, in the park (or what Dan called the 'sanitary backyard') of the hospital.

"Hissssss."

"Dan, you're not a vampire - the sun doesn't actually hurt you. And you need the fresh air!"

"Hisssssssssssss!"

"You utter dork." Phil cracked a smile and sat down beside Dan on a bench.

"You're ruining my aesthetic! Where did all my cherished darkness go…"

"Ah, well, I have the power to wheel you anywhere I want now. Anywhere… The choices…"

"Phil!" Dan hit him playfully, and the two sat in silence for a while, their hands laced together.

"You do know he never loved you, right?" slap "It was all a lie." The figure leered, and hit Dan again. "He doesn't and will not love you!"

Dan forced out words through his dry throat. "No… Never…"

"Because there is NO SUCH THING AS GAY!" slap "He took pity on you, because you're weak. Because you're useless. You're so stupid, not to have realised it yet…" slap

"I'm not…"

"Don't worry, I'll make you realise." slap "And when I'm done with you, you won't be able to tell a soul what I did to you, and you won't see lover boy ever again."

"NO!" Dan screamed, and then someone was shaking him, and he resisted, he fought back, until he opened his eyes to discern who the someone was. It was Phil. Dan snapped, and the tears came in a flood. Phil wrapped a blanket around him, and hugged him gently, rubbing his back and making meaningless, comforting noises at him.

"Was it..?" Phil let the question hang in the air. They both knew what the other was thinking about.

"It was him again, it was that nightmare, I can't stop it. It's been years, I can't stop it.", Dan sobbed.

"Dan, I love you. I love you forever. And nothing and nobody can take you away from me."

"I know, Phil."

They sat, hugging, before Dan remarked "Its Christmas today."

"Yep. Since we're both awake, why don't we go downstairs and put the presents underneath the tree?"

Along with all his other presents to what Phil liked to call 'Dan's adopted family', Dan took a wrapped box with a glass bird in, and an engraving on the bottom of it.

'I love you more than there are stars in the sky and fish in the sea, my life-saver. To add to your collection :)'

After setting down their presents, Phil pulled Dan to the corner.

"Look up. Mistletoe."

However, before Dan had the chance to do so, Phil wrapped his arms around Dan's waist and gently, tenderly, kissed him, once, twice, and even though Dan had to admit – if he was broken, and he had still had Phil – it didn't matter so much. Life was as perfect as he could have imagined some years ago.

~The End~

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :) I do appreciate reviews very very much, so if you have time please write one! It'll mean the world to me! (criticism is not just welcome, but encouraged. I need to improve!)

~C&C