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It had started when Dan was a teenager. The pressure of his environment had become too much, and he had needed something, anything to relieve it, or he would have killed himself. He knows that, he found that out in therapy, and he was able to forgive his younger self for what he needed to do to survive.
He had stopped when he and Phil became a thing, because whenever Phil saw the wounds - and he was the only one who ever saw them, Dan hid them well - he had gotten that look in his eyes, that unbearable look of pain and sympathy. As long as Phil was there, Dan was able to keep himself together.
Why did he think it would be a good idea to go on a world tour without him? Without Phil there to ground him, he had picked up his old habit again. He was keenly aware of the irony. The show he had written to save his own life was destroying it once again.
Dan had started to resent having to take his jacket off during the later part of the performance, his arms were screaming for a blade to them. His arms, one of the only parts of his body he had left untouched, out of necessity. Arms were too visible, too much cause for concern. He had one small, singular scar on his left biceps. Out of context, it could be from anything. But Dan remembers the pain, the pain that felt so much better, so much more delicious in its forbiddenness than the ones on his thighs and his stomach.
But oh, his thighs looked like they had when he was seventeen. Crisscrossed with wounds, blood dripping down on a regular basis. He knew his crew suspected something; probably, he seemed somewhat unstable. But the only person who would really be able to tell, and then approach him about it, was Phil. And Phil wasn’t here. On the phone, Dan didn’t pretend everything was fine. But he certainly pretended things weren’t as bad as they actually were. He didn’t tell Phil he was cutting again.
Eventually, the tour ended, and he had his crisis manager with him again 24/7. Phil gave him space to return to their everyday life, but eventually, Dan could feel he wanted more in the way Phil kissed him. Understandable, of course, but absolutely terrifying.
Dan hadn’t cut since he came home, but it had barely been a week, and his thighs were still throbbing and itching with healing injuries. Still, when Phil kissed him like that again, he let him. He would find out at some point anyway. Dan could never keep secrets from his partner for long.
Phil kisses his neck tenderly, looks into his eyes for silent approval. Dan doesn’t refuse, which Phil seems to interpret as what he was looking for. He carefully slips Dan’s shirt up over his head, his attention still focused on the other’s eyes. Then he runs his hands over Dan’s sides and freezes.
“Dan? What happened - ? What?” Phil draws back from their kiss to look down at Dan’s stomach, which is covered in wounds in various stages of healing. Dan bites his lower lip nervously.
“Did you - do this to yourself?” Phil asks, tears welling up in his eyes. Dan nods, not managing to look at Phil. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
When Dan didn’t answer, Phil gently took his chin in his hand and forced Dan to look at him. “I don’t know, didn’t wanna worry you, I guess”, Dan replies finally.
“Well, that didn’t work”, Phil says, “I was worried about you anyway. I knew something was wrong, I should have - “ he buried his head in his hands.
“No, Phil, this is entirely my fault, not yours, okay?”
“Are you - still doing it? Since you came home, I mean? And, is that all of it?”
“No, I haven’t done it since I got home, and no, that’s not all”
“Can I see? Everything?”
Dan nods and carefully disentangles himself from Phil to slide his trousers down.
Phil carefully looks him up and down, and Dan squirms uncomfortably under his gaze, but he lets it happen. Phil has always seen all of him; he needs to, if Dan wants his help. And - he realises in that moment - he does want his help. He doesn’t want to live like this again. He wants Phil to fix him, like he did before.
“Okay”, Phil takes a deep breath. “Thank you for showing me. And it’s good that you haven’t cut yourself in a week. But tell me, do you actually want to stop? Because I want to help you, but this is the first step.”
Dan nods again.
“Good. Firstly, I think you should call your therapist again.” Dan had put his therapy appointments on hold when he went on tour, thinking he was stable enough to handle this. He clearly wasn’t.
Dan agrees. He will agree to everything Phil says right now. “You’re not mad at me?”, he whispered.
“No, of course I’m not mad at you. I’m hurting for you. And I’m proud of you for taking the first steps in the right direction.”
—------
For a few days, Dan actually feels better, like a weight has been lifted from his chest in telling Phil about his secret. Dan calls his therapist, who can only give him an appointment for next month, but that’s okay. Dan has Phil now. He finally has his Phil again, his Phil, who can support him through everything.
Phil makes him throw out his blades, something that Dan doesn’t do lightly, but he agrees with Phil that it is necessary. They analyse together what the reasons were. For him to start self harming again. What he needs to stop. What Phil can do to help him. Phil feels hopeful that he can help Dan stop this habit. He’s done it before, after all.
What he doesn’t tell Dan is how much he worries. How he pulls out his phone after Dan is asleep next to him and scrolls through endless articles and forums, reading what drives people to self injury, and how to support a loved one going through it. What he doesn’t let Dan see is how he looks at him differently, always on the lookout for new wounds, always careful not to push him to that dangerous edge.
And one morning, Phil’s worries come true.
“Phil? Can I tell you something?”
“Good morning to you as well”, Phil smiles, “of course, you can always tell me everything”
“Even if it’s bad?” Dan chews on his lip and self-conciously drags the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands. But his hands are clean now, he washed the blood off thouroghly. He can still feel it though.
Phil looks at him carefully. “Especially if it’s bad. What’s wrong, bub? C’mere.” He opens his arms to Dan and Dan only hesitates for a moment before sinking into them.
He slowly rubs Dan’s back while Dan is silently crying in his arms. “Let it all out”, he tells him. Phil doesn’t know what Dan wants to tell him, but deep down, he has a bad premonition. “Did you hurt yourself?” he whispers finally, when Dan has calmed down a bit.
This brings on another shuddering sob from Dan, before he says “yes”.
Everything in Phil freezes. He didn’t know, exactly, but he knew. He knew he shouldn’t have left Dan alone to run errands, even if Dan was still asleep when he left. “Tell me what happened”, he said.
Dan takes deep breath where his face is still buried in Phil’s shoulder and says: “I went to take a shower after I woke up feeling so- wrong. And I lied to you. I didn’t throw out all of my blades, I still have some hidden in the back of my bathroom cabinet, and I just couldn’t -” at this he starts crying again.
Phil strokes his hair gently before he pushes his partner back a bit so he can look into his eyes. “Can I see?”, he asks.
Dan nods and pushes up the sleeves of his jumper. He has given up not cutting on his arms now that nobody will see anyway.
Phil inhales sharply at the crudely applied and already blood-soaked bandages around Dan’s left arm. “Come on, let’s get these properly dressed, okay?”
Phil stands up, leaving Dan looking deflated on the sofa. He goes to his bathroom, where he keeps a well-stocked medicine cabinet for the various chronic illnesses and frequent clumsy accidents in their household. There, he takes out clean bandages and antiseptic spray. He hesitates a moment looking in the mirror, doubting if they can really do this. Doubting if his help is going to be enough to get Dan through this particular night. Then he closes the cabinet door, sighs and decides it will have to be enough. It is all he has to offer.
Back in the living room, Dan half lies, half sits, just as he left him. More blood is blooming on the bandage on his arm. Phil kneels down in front of him, carefully takes his hand and begins unwrapping the soiled bandage. Dan makes a whimpering little sound.
“Does it hurt?” Phil asks sympathetically.
“Not really”, says Dan, “it’s just - I’m so ashamed”
“You don’t have to be. It’s just me, right?”
Phil has finished unwrapping Dan’s arm. The damage is worse than he expected. There are many cuts, and some of them are quite deep, slightly gaping. Phil sprays the antiseptic on them, making Dan hiss.
He carefully blots away the liquid that is blood mixed with antiseptic with a clean towel he brought from the bathroom. It’s one of the green ones, and, nonsensically, he thinks, if only Dan had started channeling his feelings of loneliness into dyeing stuff as well, instead of this.
When no more blood runs down Dan’s arm, Phil applies the new bandages. It takes quite a lot of gauze, but in the end, Dan’s arm is wrapped cleanly in white, none of the mess visible anymore. Way more manageable that way.
With that task finished, Phil plops down on the sofa next to Dan and wraps his arm around his shoulder.
“Do you want to talk about it? Can you tell me what triggered it?” Phil asks.
Dan shrugs. “I don’t really know what to say. I just woke up with this intense craving and knew today was gonna be bad. Thought this might take the edge off. Actually, I didn’t think much at all.”
“Okay. Dan? Can you promise me not to do it again?” Phil asks softly.
Dan just averts his eyes.
Phil sighs. He really hopes he will be enough.
—----------
The next few days are not good. Phil seems to be walking on eggshells around Dan and Dan is even more drawn into himself, he can’t shake the feeling that Phil is mad at him for some reason. He doesn’t cut again for a week, but he thinks about it all. the. time.
Whenever he can bring up the courage to ask Phil if he’s annoyed with him, he reassures Dan and tells him he has nothing to worry about, but still he seems distant, lost in his own thoughts. Dan can’t help but think that he is a burden, and his mood becomes darker by the day.
Until he snaps again.
He didn’t promise Phil, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise, but still he tries. Oh God, he tries. It isn’t enough.
When Phil goes for a walk, after reassuring himself five times that Dan will be alright without him for half an hour - Dan lied so effortlessly to his partner, he’s disgusted with himself - Dan locks himself in the bathroom. He still hasn’t thrown out his last secret stash of razorblades and when he takes them out of the cupboard, a shiver of anticipating relief goes through him.
He pushes up his left sleeve again. The wounds from last time are almost healed. For a moment, he picks at the scabs, making a few of them bleed again. Then he puts the blade to his skin, presses it down and drags it across. Again. And again. He feels nothing. No pain, but also no sadness, no shame, no guilt, no anger, no self-hatred. This is what Phil doesn’t understand: how this is the only thing that brings that kind of relief, how all the rubberbands and lavender oils and breathing exercises in the world can never replicate this feeling.
Again. The blood begins to slowly drip down his arm, the sound of it hitting the tiles almost hypnotic. Again. Frustration rises in him because he can’t get as deep as he would like. Again. That’s better. This time, he can see yellow fatty tissue before the wound fills with blood, the edges fall apart in a satisfying way.
It isn’t enough.
When he runs out of space on his left arm, he moves on to his right. He never allowed himself to cut it before, feeling it to be a prime location, almost sacred. He can cut on his arm with his dominant hand? A dream come true. He is vaguely aware that this might be dangerous, but in the same moment, he can’t bring himself to care.
He cuts with his left hand on his right forearm and nothing has ever felt so right despite feeling so wrong. Again. He presses the blade down harder, and this time, he sees something white and pearly in the wound, and the blood is even slower to come. But when it comes, it gushes. It is a revelation. It will cleanse him from his sins. Again.
The flow of blood on his left arm has slowed to an occasional dripping, most of it being congealed on his arm and on the floor already, but from his right arm, it still flows freely. Dan finally decides it is enough. Before he can fully come to his senses, he hears footsteps in the hallway.
Immediately, he panics. Phil can’t see him like this. Phil will be upset. He wildly looks around for a towel to at least mop up the copious amount of blood on the floor. But it’s too late.
Phil, who has evidently already looked in most parts of the house already, sees the locked bathroom door and gets a bad feeling deep in his stomach.
“Dan?” he carefully asks the closed door and knocks. He doesn’t want to spook him, but he has to make sure Dan is okay in there.
Dan gives up on his furtive attempts to clean. He gets up, feels dizzy, almost falls back down, but steadies himself on the bathtub. He unlocks the door, but doesn’t open it before sitting back down heavily.
Phil enters the bathroom, worry in his eyes as he takes in the scene.
“Oh, Dan”, Phil closes the bathroom door behind him and sinks to his knees in front of his partner, “what have you done?”
“I don't know” Dan doesn't cry, he doesn't even seem to be fully present “I just started cutting and then- and then I guess I lost control a little bit”
“A little bit?” Phil almost laughs. This whole situation is so absurd and overwhelming. Dan, leaning against the side of the bathtub, a pool of blood around him, several deep wounds on both of his forearms.
“I don't think I can fix you up this time. We should probably get you to a hospital” He wants to touch him, but he doesn't know how, not when there's blood everywhere, his blood. Phil settles on gently touching the side of Dan's face.
Dan still seems slightly out of it, like Phil's words haven't really registered. When they do, his first impulse is to protest. “What? No, I can- it just needs some bandages, that's all”
“No, Dan. I think that needs stitches”
He can’t leave him there, bleeding out on the bathroom floor, but Phil doesn’t have his phone with him. So he does. He has no choice, really. But to leave him.
Not even a minute later, Phil is back, a minute in which Dan was completely convinced Phil was never going to come back. Dan smiles weakly. He has managed, somehow, to get some blood on his cheek, and he looks so vulnerable like that. The smile is what kills Phil inside. He knows the smile is meant to reassure him, but how can Dan smile in a situation like that?
Phil slides down on the floor next to him, not even caring about the blood anymore. He pulls his phone from his jeans pocket and orders an uber to their house. Then they wait.
It occurs to Phil that maybe he should have called an ambulance, maybe Dan has lost too much blood and will pass out on the stairs. He will find out, he supposes. The situation is too surreal to panic.
“Danny? What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
“Nothing. For once, nothing” Dan says, and it isn’t even a lie. His head is blissfully empty, like all the blood drained him of his thoughts.
When Phil gets the notification that their uber is almost there, he helps Dan up off the floor. Both of their clothes are stained with Dan’s blood now, but Phil doesn’t care and Dan seems not even to notice. They make it through the hallway and down the stairs without Dan passing out. Dan seems dazed, but ultimately fine, now that he pulled down his sleeves. The black fabric hides the bloodstains quite well. How can he look fine? Phil feels far from fine, and he’s not the one who just lost gallons of blood.
In the car, Phil never lets go of Dan’s hand. Dan gives him that reassuring smile again, the one that breaks Phil’s heart. He wants to ask him so many questions, but he’s not sure if this is the moment to talk about it, not with the driver there and Dan in this weird headspace. There will be time for talk later.
Phil had kind of expected Dan to be treated disrespectfully at the hospital, he was all ready to fight for his boyfriend’s needs, but to his surprise, everyone is friendly and professional. Once they’re settled in a crowded waiting room, Dan seems to slowly come back to reality. The scenes of human misery played out right in front of him make him question whether he deserves to be here.
“Phil, I-” he says, turning to face him, his breathing suddenly hectic.
“Shhh, I know. It’s okay. You’ll be okay. They’ll take good care of you, and so will I. Okay?” Phil says in an attempt to calm him down.
It seems to work. A little bit, at least. Dan nods and focuses his attention on the squirming toddler in the seat opposite him. He wonders what is wrong with the child. Hopefully more of a case of motherly overconcern than anything serious. Anything to keep his thoughts from straying to his own situation.
He feels Phil’s hand on his shoulder, a grounding presence he can focus on. Dan slumps down in his seat a bit, so he can lay his head on Phil’s shoulder.
After about an hour, they are called into a treatment room. Well, Dan is called.
“Do you want me to come with you?” asks Phil.
“Please” Dan’s voice is barely audible as he grabs Phil’s hand.
The doctor is young, female, with a high ponytail and a businesslike manner. “Okay”, she just says when looking at Dan’s arms, “this is going to need some sutures. And you did this to yourself on purpose, yes?”
Dan nods, eyes downcast.
“Is that a regular occurrence?” the doctor asks while disinfecting her hands.
“Well, I stopped for a while, but now that I started again I guess you could say it is”, says Dan. The coil that has been in Phil’s stomach since he found Dan in the bathroom tightens with feeling. He doesn’t want this to be a regular occurrence.
“Did you have the intention to commit suicide?”
“No.” Dan winces slightly when the doctor begins pouring an antiseptic solution over his left arm first.
“You sure?”
“Yes. I haven’t wanted to kill myself in a long time.”
“Okay. Well, that’s good”, says the doctor.
“And you said upon intake that you are in outpatient therapy, correct?”
“Yes”, says Dan.
For a while, the doctor works in silence, first washing off all the blood on both arms, then putting steristrips on the smaller wounds, before carefully stitching up the four biggest ones. Dan sits there like a statue, as if he doesn’t even feel the pain. Maybe he doesn’t. Then the doctor wraps up Dan’s arms in what seems like kilometres of bandages.
“Okay,” says the doctor finally, “all done. Now, we have two choices here. I can release you into the care of your partner, in which case you'll both have to sign a waiver so the hospital is not liable if you hurt yourself again. Or, and I think this might be the better option given the severity of your injuries, you stay overnight. We'll have a psychiatrist assess you in the morning, and we'll take it from there. You might benefit from long-term inpatient treatment. What do we think?”
Dan confusedly shakes his head. “Listen, I don't even think it's necessary we came here, much less that I stay overnight. I'll talk about this with my therapist, and I will be fine”
For the first time in a while, Phil speaks up from his chair in the corner, quietly. “Do you really think it will be fine, Dan? I think staying here might be good. You clearly need more help than you currently have.”
Dan turns on him, a look of betrayal in his eyes. “I just want to go home, Phil,” he says.
The doctor snaps off her no longer sterile gloves. “I'll give you two a moment to talk about this”, she says and leaves the room.
In her absence, a dark silence widens between Dan and Phil. Finally, Dan turns his eyes from Phil to the floor. “Do you really think it would be better? If I stayed here?” His voice is almost inaudible.
Phil gets up from his squeaky chair and walks over to Dan, puts his hand on his. “I think,” he says, “that tonight was very scary. I think I can't live with the responsibility for you if you hurt yourself this badly. I think it might be better if someone else takes care of you for a little while, someone professional, only until you're a little better. Because I can't.”
Phil's blue eyes are swimming with tears. He doesn't wipe them away. Dan still seems too locked in his fugue state to cry. “Do you hate me?” He whispers, finally.
“Dan! Of course not. I love you. So much. That's why I can't sit by when you're a danger to yourself.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you believe me, or okay, you're gonna stay here?”
“Both. I guess.”
Phil takes Dan's bandaged hands in his and kisses his forehead tenderly.
—-------
The first night in a hospital is always scary. There isn’t room in a psych ward right away, so Dan spends one night on a general ward. He barely sleeps. He misses Phil’s familiar presence next to him, he is kept awake by noises and lights that never seem to go dark.
But once Dan is settled in a psych ward, Phil comes to visit him and bring him some stuff. Clothes, necessities, but mostly things to keep him busy, books, his switch, a book of crossword puzzles. Psych wards are many things but mostly they are boring.
It takes days for Dan to come out of the daze he entered the night he cut himself so badly. It takes weeks for him to return to his old self. But finally, he does. And Phil visits him almost every day, so the separation isn’t as bad as it was on tour.
When Phil comes for the final time, to take Dan home with him, Dan seems almost giddy. He’s made friends in the hospital, memories and a whole lot of coping skills. Coming out of a psychiatric hospital feels like a new beginning.
“Hey Phil, guess what?”
“What?”
“I think I made it through the night”