Chapter Text
PROLOGUE:
On the day that turned out to be the worst day of his life, Dan Howell, ironically enough, was having a very good day.
So many little things were adding up to make his day a good one. In instances that something should’ve gone wrong, everything just happened to go right, and Dan’s mood was incredibly high because of it.
Just that morning, Dan had wandered down the steps, blearily rubbing his eyes and slumping past his mother, who patted his back as he passed. “There’s cereal in the cupboard, I believe,” she’d informed, and Dan had nodded at her, continuing to the kitchen.
His mother had been right, of course, but a cursory search through the pantry had revealed that there was only one kind of cereal left, which was one of those gross ones, that claimed to harbor “healthy chocolate” within while mostly containing tasteless whole wheat grain and stiff, papery, dried fruit.
Dan had sighed, and opened the box half heartedly, only to realize that within was a hidden bag of Shreddies, and certainly his day was looking up already. And his day continued like that from there. The milk carton in the fridge, which had unfortunately gone sour, was immediately replaced upon his dad’s arrival in the kitchen, who had just returned from the store with a brand new carton of milk in hand.
“Perfect!” Dan had exclaimed, and enjoyed a very healthy and nutritional breakfast of sugary wheat flakes.
At the bus station Dan realized he had forgotten his wallet and couldn’t afford to board the bus, but his bad mood was instantly abated when he reached his hand into the pocket of his jeans to reveal he had just enough for the bus in quarters.
Wondering what he could’ve possibly done to deserve all this good luck, Dan sauntered onto the bus and took a seat directly in the middle, which oddly enough, was fairly empty. This added to Dan’s good mood, because he didn’t really like having conversation forced on him by talkative neighbors.
Looking back on this day, Dan would give almost anything to have had this good luck disappear. If he could travel back in time and rip the jeans from his past self, so that he couldn’t possible find the money for the bus, then he would. If he could have exchanged his Shreddies into those bland, healthy cereals, he would, because certainly he would have waited around moping, and he wouldn’t have even made it to the bus station in time for his bus. If he could even make it so that his father returned later, or forgot to pick up milk, Dan wouldn’t even hesitate, because then he would’ve been forced to actually prepare something, which definitely would’ve caused him to miss his bus.
And oh, how Dan wished he’d missed the bus.
Because on that bus, on that lucky day, where he was seated quite alone and in a particularly good mood, Dan got hit by a car. Of course, the car hit the bus first, and really, it was more that the bus caved inward, that the bus hit Dan, but nonetheless, Dan Howell was squashed by a fucking vehicle.
He didn’t remember much of it. They’d been crossing an intersection, that much he knew, and some asshole had decided that red lights didn’t apply to them and had gunned the accelerator. Dan could remember seeing it coming straight towards him, straight towards the mostly unoccupied middle of the bus. He could remember thinking this can’t be good as well as I’m going to be late for school though he most certainly didn’t think this is going to change my life forever.
There’d been a loud, earsplitting screech, and the horrible, sickening sound of metal on metal, of metal caving and ripping and tearing and crushing in on itself. Dan had had to be informed of all the things he’d missed, while he was being crushed by a fucking car.
That the crushing, concaving metal had crushed and concaved right into him, that he’d been flung from his seat, to the other side of the bus. That he’d hit the opposite wall, headfirst, and that the bus was set out for revenge, for it kept coming, kept crushing and concaving and had pinned Dan against the wall.
Everything had hurt. Dan could feel multiple parts of his body on fire, he was sure that was the only answer, and he prayed to every entity in the sky that someone would please, please douse him with water. And his head had been throbbing, absolutely aching, and blood was running down his face, was in his eyes, and he couldn’t see because of it.
The entire bus had been filled with loud noises. There was shouting and screaming and crying, and Dan couldn’t make a single sound because everything just hurt so much, and he was sure that if he opened his mouth for even a second his life and soul would escape through it.
People had been screaming to call the police, to call an ambulance, to call for help, and distantly Dan had wondered if anyone was dead. If he was dead. Then, of course, he’d passed out. He’d felt himself slipping away, and all Dan could think was but I didn’t even scream, I didn’t even open my mouth.
—
Waking up in the hospital had been terrifying. Everything had happened very slowly, and Dan’s brain had felt like it’d been dipped in syrup. Each thought came to him slowly, and he struggled to follow them, but they ended abruptly and left him in pain and confusion.
He could hear a steady beeping beside him, and the noise annoyed him more than the pain in his head did, the one that throbbed with his heart beat. Blatantly, he realized that he very well couldn’t be dead.
Dan realized that he could hear something other than the beeping, and that was the sound of pages turning. He figured that this could only mean that his mother was beside him, because who else would resort to reading books when her son was laying incapacitated in the bed beside her?
Fighting the bizarre urge to laugh, Dan turned his head slightly towards her. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and debated opening his eyes, but he wasn’t looking forward to the pain that would add to the throbbing in his head when he added light into the mix.
“Mum?” he croaked.
The page turning stopped, and her hands immediately found his. She was pressing kisses all over his hands, whispering “thank you, thank you,” to God knows who, and deliriously, Dan hoped that someone had washed his hands for him, because there were just so many germs on buses.
“Oh Dan, oh baby,” his mum whispered, and Dan laughed croakily.
“You’re embarrassing me, Mum,” he joked, and she laughed a laugh that sounded like a sob, holding his hands just as tight as ever.
Deciding that he should grant his panicking mum with eye contact, he wrenched open his eyes, already preparing for the harsh hospital light to invade his corneas.
Confusion his Dan like a bus (ha!) when the opening of his eyes greeted him with, not the image of the hospital room he’d been clearly imagining, but yet more darkness. Who the hell had put a blindfold on him?
“Mum?” he said, and she was hiccuping slightly. Sobbing hiccups. Dan would roll his eyes at her, but she wouldn’t get the full effect, seeing as she couldn’t even see his eyes under this blindfold.
“Yes?” she answered, voice still quite sad and cautious sounding.
“Can you take this blindfold off me?” he laughed, a smile quickly finding its way to his mouth. His mother’s fingers tightened around his.
“Dan…” she began. Her tone was scary, threatening. It offered bad news and horrible feelings and Dan did not want to hear it. He heard that voice when his dog had died and when his grandfather had gotten Alzheimer’s Disease and he just did not want to hear about all the other people that’d gotten hurt or possibly died on that bus. He wasn’t ready to face the pain of everything that had just happened, especially not while he couldn’t even look his own mother in the eye.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, and, with difficulty, pulled his hand from hers and reached for his face. He found thick gauze over his forehead, and below it… bare skin. A small frown found Dan’s mouth, and his fingers searched and searched for a fabric that wasn’t there. He scrambled for something to hold onto, something to pull away the darkness from his eyes, something to prove that this was all a joke, or just a horrific, horrible nightmare.
“Wha—?” he breathed, his fingers flitting carefully over his eyelids. His completely, uncovered, unfettered eyelids.
“Oh baby. I’m so sorry,” his mother whispered, and really, she needed to be quiet, because Dan couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t comprehend what the hell was going on.
“Mum?” he said, panic edging its way into his voice.
“Dan, sweetheart—”
“Mum?” he repeated, louder, cutting her off. Because mums can fix everything, they just can. His mum was going to go talk to someone, the receptionist, or the doctor. She’d march right up the stairs into heaven and talk to Jesus if she had to, because she was a mum! She could fix this.
She was crying again, and he could tell that she was trying to cry quietly, likely for his benefit, but he didn’t need that. He needed her to go and fix this. He needed someone to fix this.
He tried to sit up, but everything ached, and distantly, he could feel various bandages all along his body, hiding from view (someone’s view) the many injuries he’d obtained.
Perhaps by accident, Dan started to panic. And he couldn’t panic, because panicking meant admitting that this was real, that this was happening, and he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t possibly admit that this was real because it wasn’t. This was a nightmare, he was still on the bus, still trying to be extracted from the metal shards of torture impaling his body, and God, he wasn’t here. He wasn’t.
“Help,” Dan whispered, and his mother abruptly stopped crying, was gripping his hand again. He could barely register this though, could barely hear or feel anything other than the thundering in his ears, the panic parading throughout his body. He couldn’t breathe. He’d survived the car crash but now he was going to die because he couldn’t breath and fire was burning in his lungs and panic was tearing him limb from limb and this couldn’t be real, it couldn’t!
He didn’t register the sound of a button being hit by his head, nor the near immediate response of the door opening and doctors pouring in, trying to comfort him with words, but he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything. He could feel their hands on his body, trying to hold him down and comfort him but there were so many hands and Dan was drowning with fire in his lungs and maybe it’d be better if he died anyway, because then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.
Because Dan Howell was blind.
And wasn’t it such a shame that he was scared of the dark?
—
Phil Lester had never been, to be quite frank, so sick of this shit.
As if it wasn’t hard enough to be a teenager, he also had to be gay and bullied because of it.
Each morning Phil woke up and tried to plan his day in a way that would get him picked on the least. Usually this started with his clothes, and he’d have to omit anything that was pink or girly or nerdy. Granted, he didn’t have very many pink or girly things, but his wardrobe was chock full of nerdy things. Still, he was careful to forgo the clothes he liked and don something monochrome and plain, something impossible to be picked on for. He wore black skinny jeans and nice, clean shoes and a button up shirt. His appearance was casual and clean and there was virtually nothing that he could be picked apart because of.
Next he did his hair, and tried to make it fall in a way that wasn’t ridiculous or hideous or likely to get him called a girl because of. If he grew it out too long, then he was a girl, and he liked it up the arse. If it was styled nicely, then he cared about his appearances too much, and he was such a fag, and various kinds of food were likely to be smeared in his hair at lunch. So it had to look presentable but not as if he’d actually tried to make it look so.
After standing in front of the mirror for an obscene amount of time, during which he picked apart his appearance and pointed out every flaw as if he were the one bullying himself (and honestly, sometimes it felt like he was) he would run down the stairs, most likely late from the amount of times that he changed his outfit and remade his appearance from scratch.
At the bottom of the stairs, he would debate breakfast and lunch, trying to decide if either were worth it. If he chanced breakfast, and managed to get food on himself or his outfit, the outcome could be drastic. And if he had a run-in with Jacob and his cronies before school, there was always the chance that he wouldn’t be able to contain the food inside his stomach. And if he managed to throw up on his clothes, he’d have to return home, repeat the entire process from scratch, and then be late to school, get a detention, and likely a grounding from his parents for getting detention. And of course, because of this he might not have time to do his homework, so he’d have to stay up late to get it done or else he’d get another detention and another grounding and the effect would snowball. So instead he’d stay up to get it done, and the next morning he’d have under-eye bags, and he’d either get brutally picked on for having them, or he’d cover them with his mother’s concealer, and risk being found out by Jacob, who would call him a faggot for wearing makeup.
And so really, Phil decided that it was probably easiest to just skip the breakfast.
He decided to bypass lunch as well, because there was always the chance that it would get stolen or that it’d get destroyed if he ran into Jacob, and even if he didn’t, Jacob could be bored at lunch, and could come looking for him…
Deciding to skip two out of the three meals of the day, Phil hurried out the door and began walking to school. This was a risk, because the bus that should take him to school would drive past him, and Jacob rode that bus, and it wouldn’t be the first time Phil had had things thrown at him as it passed. Walking was better than actually riding the bus though, because that left a long amount of time for Phil to get picked on.
Phil swallowed a sigh as he dragged himself up the front stairs of his school and made his way through the halls. No one called out to him in greeting, and he didn’t even have any friends. Not anymore.
See, before he’d been forcibly removed from the closet (Phil had been innocently doodling about an actor he’d had a crush on at the time, and Jacob had seen and blown it way out of proportion) he’d had a few friends and many acquaintances. Once he’d become the entire school’s scapegoat, however, those few friends had dissipated for fear of Jacob’s wrath.
The morning passed pretty abysmally, until Jacob came along and ruined everything (typical). Phil had gone to the bathroom, and had frozen when he’d walked in to see Jacob, currently peeing at a urinal. Phil had tried to go unnoticed. Had debated slipping back out of the bathroom or fumbling his way into a stall. But he was too late, Jacob was turning his head, had caught sight of Phil, and he was sneering, he was grimacing and wearing a look of absolute disgust.
“Come here to perv on me, faggot?” he spit, and Phil could already feeling himself retracting within himself, trying to find his safe space, where none of it would hurt.
“No! I just— I have to—”
“Sure. It’s just a coincidence that you’d come in here when I have my cock out. Your gay little mouth is probably dying to suck it!” Jacob taunted, and by now he’d shoved his dick back into his pants and was advancing on Phil.
“No!” Phil said, practically pleaded.
“You wouldn’t be thankful to suck my cock?” Jacob questioned, and it was a trap. Because if Phil said no then he was ungrateful and deserved to be kicked to the floor and if he said yes then he was a disgusting faggot and there was just no way out.
“Stop,” Phil whimpered, still backing away, except he wasn’t near the door anymore, he was near the sinks, and those were hard and dangerous and there was no way out, no way out.
“You know, I’m feeling generous today. I’ll think I’ll give you the chance to actually suck my cock in that whore mouth of yours,” Jacob sneered.
He stepped closer, and his hand reached out. Before Phil could even take a second to think, Jacob was holding his crotch, was cupping his groin in a tight fist and pushing upwards, and Phil was flinching back, recoiling so hard that the sink hit him hard in the back, and there was definitely going to be a bruise there tomorrow. Tears swam in Phil’s eyes, from both the pain and humiliation of Jacob touching him as well as the tender skin of his back and something inside Phil snapped.
It was like he’d spent all this time getting bullied, taking their insults and hits, and they’d all piled on and on until finally Phil couldn’t take it anymore, and he exploded.
“No!” he screamed, practically erupted, and it was so loud. It echoed off the bathroom walls over and over again and Jacob actually flinched backwards.
“I won’t!” he sobbed, and he wasn’t even aware of what he was doing, but his hands ached, his knuckles hurt. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” Phil was chanting, and for some reason Jacob was on the floor, and Phil didn’t know how he’d gotten there.
Phil was kicking him, and he couldn’t stop, because it felt so good to hurt someone the way he’d been hurt, to hurt someone on the outside the way he was always hurting on the inside. And Jacob had gone limp, had simply curled into a ball but Phil was still kicking him, and Jacob was jerking across the floor with the weight of Phil’s kicks.
He laid into him with everything he had. He kicked him with feeling, remember all the things Jacob had done to him. Remembered the times that he’d been shoved to the ground, how’d he’d been kicked in the stomach so hard he couldn’t breathe, how he’d been left on the ground to cry, and his attackers spit had joined his tears, had slid down his cheek, thick and hot and Phil had felt so ashamed. He kicked Jacob until his foot hurt from kicking, and he was sobbing as he kicked him, sobbing as he hurt him the way he’d been hurt.
He barely registered it when people were grabbing his arms, pulling him backwards, away from Jacob. For some reason Phil didn’t even think that it might be teachers, he just immediately thought it was some of Jacob’s friends, that they were going to hurt him so bad, beat him bloody, that he wouldn’t even survive this encounter.
“Please no,” he sobbed, struggling against the hands on his body. And they felt so gross, there were so many, holding his arms and his shoulders and his sides and how long was it going to be before they slid down, touched him where he didn’t want to be touched?
“Don’t touch me please, don’t touch me,” he begged, still struggling against the hands, and they weren’t touching him anywhere inappropriate but how long until they did?
“God don’t, please don’t,” he cried, and finally he looked into the mirror, and saw a plethora of adults, of teachers and authorities and Phil was saved. He stopped struggling, and just stood there gasping for breath, tears trailing down his cheeks and his body shaking so hard he could barely stand.
After that day, Phil was expelled.
Jacob was too, of course, once the story was out, but Phil’s school didn’t want to be known as the school that continued to teach the boy who beat another boy into an ambulance. And so Phil was expelled, and his parents were informed of his hardships, and given a list of schools who’d agreed to teach Phil in the area. Instead, his parents decided to move, to give Phil a fresh new start where his exploits wouldn’t be the talk of the town and he could start fresh, with nothing but a single expulsion to his name. His parents agreed to let him take a year of online schooling, so he could stay at home and recover from his experiences, and when Phil was finally ready to start again at a public school, his parents supported him wholeheartedly.
And he didn’t have to be gay at his new school. He didn’t have to get bullied or be scared or be careful of how he dressed and styled his hair and ate. In fact, he didn’t have to take any shit at all, from anyone. If a single person so much as looked at him wrong, Phil would explain just how he’d gotten expelled.