"A long night spent with your most obvious weakness
You start shaking at the thought you are everything I want
'Cause you are everything I'm not"

***

Phil's parents weren't hard to get along with.

Quite the opposite, actually, or maybe more sideways than that. There were tough times, arguments and disagreements and even a few yelling matches that he would never admit were his own fault, but in the most simplest of terms, they were bearable. If he didn't get in their way or draw any attention to himself, and they didn't pry too deeply into his personal life, things were easy. They coexisted, in the least rejective way possible.

They had intimate moments, conversations so that they weren't completely out of the loop with each other, but they were best at keeping to themselves.

Of course, that routine was temporarily put on hold when Phil walked into the kitchen Tuesday morning with hickies trailing down his throat. They weren't new, he'd been hiding them for a few days now, and with the thin ice that him and Dan were on right now, they definitely hadn't been made recently. He'd just forgotten to wear a higher collared shirt today, and his mum had zeroed in on them instantly.

"Didn't tell us you were with someone," she said, too fake nonchalant to be believable, and when Phil gave her a confused look, she just pointed to his neck with a sly smirk that made him flush and cover the skin, uselessly now.

"S'not serious," he said with a shrug, and when he really thought about it, those words were really fucked up. When had he become so good at dismissing a year long relationship with one of the most important people in his life? Especially to his parents. "I thought you'd rather not hear the details."

"What's that mean, 'not serious'?" She asked, completely disregarding that last part. "Don't tell me you're gonna be breaking some innocent person's heart."

"What? Of course not," he exclaimed, wondering where the hell she would get that idea. "I mean, just, nothing to be too excited about. Just a...guy."

Just a guy he hadn't spoken to in three days. A guy who probably hated him right now, and who was going to most likely dump him some time soon. A guy he really liked and hated keeping a secret like this, but he didn't even know their current status, so he couldn't start spilling all his feelings now if they didn't mean anything in the long run.

He felt so damn guilty about what he'd said last week, but seeing his friend humiliated like that....

He knew Chris could take care of things himself, and didn't need Phil's help in any way, but he couldn't help it. It was like...hell, he didn't know fucking know what it was like, but he'd feel really bad if he hadn't defended his friend at all. Dan had just been his unintentional target, and now Phil was just an asshole who didn't know how to apologize without sounding like a needy dick.

"A cute one?" His mum cut in to his anxious thoughts, smiling against the top of her coffee mug with a wink, and Phil shook his head.

"I'm actually not going to talk about this with you," he said dismissively. "I should actually be getting to school, I'll see you later, love you."

He kissed her cheek, grabbed his bag and was out the door before she could say anything in return, breathing out a sigh of relief when he was a safe distance away.

It wasn't that he minded telling them certain things, but he wasn't used to them, well, trying to integrate themselves into it - asking questions or teasing him. He figured that was how all parents worked, adults were just on a different plane of understanding than their children, trying to comprehend but still falling short. He didn't expect them to even agree with his relationship with Dan, let alone understand it, just like they didn't agree with his band. It was futile attempt to connect with him, and only made things a little more uncomfortable.

He was just immensely happy they didn't care about him dating guys. Heaven knows he'd been terrified when he first told them.

Just as he was rounding the last corner that would bring him to his school, still shaking off the encounter with his mum, someone walked in front of his car, and he had to slam on the brakes so no one was hurt. He swore loudly, trying to calm his suddenly racing heart.

"I'm sorry!" The guy he'd almost killed apologized, coming over to his open window with an apologetic look and arm full of papers. "I'm really sorry, I should be paying attention, I just got distracted-"

"It's fine," Phil reassured him firmly, waving him off vaguely. "Just, you scared me, watch where you're going next time."

The stranger pushed his hair out of his face, the bronze-red strands wild in the December wind. "Okay, I'm sorry, again. I'm really fucking caught up in my head, this street isn't usually very busy, so I thought there wouldn't be any compli-cations."

"Seriously, it's fine." Phil smiled, shifting his foot back to the gas pedal. "Don't, almost get killed again today, okay?"

The stranger nodded his agreement and stepped back to let him past.

The day hadn't even started for him, but he already had a twist in his stomach that was telling him it was far from over.

***

In Algebra, Elliot sat down heavily in the seat next to him and tossed a sheet of paper onto his desk, a strange but excited gleam in his eyes that contradicted the tired marks under them. None of them had gotten much sleep lately, but they never asked about it.

"What's this?" Phil asked, unable to admit he wasn't curious. The paper had only three lines printed on it: an address, a date and a time, all in small, black font. It seemed highly plain and unimportant, but Ellie seemed to be bouncing in his seat just looking at it.

"A setting," Elliot said vaguely, with an irritating smirk on his face. Phil rolled his eyes.

"Thank you, dickface," he said sarcastically. "Could you be a little more specific? A setting for what?"

"Another gig," Elliot said with a shrug, reaching into his bag and pulling out a notebook and pen, the fake nonchalance practically bleeding from his pores.

Phil stared down at the paper again, not recognizing the address, at least, not off the top of his head. "Really?" He asked. "Where at?" The date was next Saturday at 9p.m., a time he could manage. It wasn't like he has anything else planned for the weekend.

"A university," Elliot said, scribbling on his paper idly. "Some local one, I can't remember the name of it. But there's some kind of party going on, and they want us to play it. Said they heard us at The Blue Room, obviously they liked us." Phil groaned at that, and Elliot knew exactly why. "Aw, come one, parties aren't that bad."

Phil snorted. "Yeah fucking right, high school parties are bad enough. Imagine the damage a college one can cause. There's gonna be, drugs and liquor and horny adults."

"Well, it's not like we're gonna stay and join them." Ellie said, and Phil shot him a withering look that made him backtrack. "Okay, well, no promises on Chris or Grayson's behalf, but I can keep myself under control. Besides, I have a girlfriend now." He said that like it was the Holy Grail of excuses and would immediately make him trustworthy. Phil doubted it.

He didn't think he'd ever even seen a university in real life, let alone been inside one while there was music and booze flowing. It was a good opportunity for them, to spread their sound in as many different scenes as possible. The Blue Room had been an experience, but this was a different level of playing, and it was unlikely they wouldn't take it. Despite the funk they'd been in recently; hell, they needed the practice, if anything.

"'Kay, I'll do it," Phil said, ignoring Elliot's fist pump of excitement. "But if better not be left on my own the whole time while you all make every bad decision there is."

"Of course not, me and you will be stuck at the waist, promise," Elliot said, but Phil didn't take those words to heart. "Okay, so Chris says were gonna have to practice beforehand, like, a lot and he wanted..."

Phil zoned out at the point, staring blankly at the paper and less than enthusiastic about Chris's new labor regime for them before the show. He'd focus on that when the time came, but right now, he had other things in his mind.

He was actually nervous about this. Truth be told, he didn't know what to expect. Playing for their school, for other parties, seemed a much easier deal, because he knew what he was getting into. He knew what those kids liked and how they would react, and he knew what to do if things went south. But this was new territory. These were college kids, older and more experienced than all four of them put together.

Sure, they were all gonna be drunk, and they honestly weren't too far off from any other high schooler, but it was still scary. The Blue Room has been terrifying, but that was a much more controlled environment, and he hasn't felt unsafe or anything. There was just no telling what would happen this time.

The bell rang then, cutting off Elliot and his raving about this 'all new level of awesomeness us puny wannabes' and signaling the start of the lesson.

Phil was a fairly good student, if he had to say. And by fairly, he was barely getting by with passing grades. Physics was a torture beyond explanation, so he didn't really count his failing grade in that, but all of his other classes he managed at least decent marks.

He just had a short attention span, and the tendency to drift off at the wrong moment. And the overall lack of participation that kept him from catching up on any missed work or studying too hard for tests.

And he was smart, just not in an explicitly academic way. He didn't think knowing random animal facts and having memorized the entire first four pages of the third Harry Potter book were considered genius level.

He got by, and that was all that mattered.

So it wasn't too much of a surprise when his professor handed him back a quiz from last week with a large '62%' written across the top in red ink. He bit his lip and stared at it in dismay before folding it and stuff in it into his binder.

With everything that had been happening, with Grayson and Chris and Dan and even PJ, he hadn't even realized there would be a quiz, so he obviously hadn't studied. At least he hasn't completely bombed it, but he could have done better. He spent that period taking studious notes in the attempt to make it look like he was trying, no matter the fact that this attempt would likely be abandoned by tomorrow.

***

The end of the day couldn't come fast enough, and Phil dragged himself through all of his classes using the least amount of energy as possible to do so. But even when the final bell rang and he was free from that purgatory of peers and teachers, he wasn't completely free.

His father needed his help at the restaurant today because they were short staffed and this was one of their busiest days. And while Phil normally didn't hate working, today he just wasn't as into it as usual. The customers he usually found interesting socially were grating on his nerves, and the heat from the kitchens was almost unbearable. His feet were bound to be swollen from moving so much, more than he was used to, and he had already acquired three burns on his arms from getting too close to the stovetop.

At least he was allowed a break, despite not actually working there on regular hours. Of course, the joy and sheer relief of getting off his feet was immediately dispelled when his father sidled up beside him in the back of the restaurant and began talking.

"So," he started slowly, his hands twisting in front him. "Your mother tells me you have a...thing. With a guy."

Phil laid his head in his hands and sighed deeply. "Jeez, dad, is it just you guys' dream to live vicariously through my every moment in life?"

His dad shrugged. "Hey, I know you didn't ask to be put into this world, but parents get curious. About everything. Even your sex life."

"Okay, wow," Phil said, standing up and heading for the door, "I'm actually leaving right now, cutting my break short-"

"Okay, okay," his dad grabbed his arm gently, preventing him from leaving. "I'll stop being Cringe Dad for a moment, I do want to talk with you, though."

"Promise you want ask about my sex life?"

"Not directly." Phil huffed, but crossed his arms and stayed where he was. His dad mimicked him, and leaned against the wall beside him. "So it's not a serious thing?"

That's what he had told his mum, but right now, he couldn't lie like that. He shrugged, and ran a hand through his hair, which was starting to stick up in random places from the heat. "I mean...I don't really know, it's--it's complicated." Not technically a lie. "We've been something for a little while but, right now, I don't know for sure."

"And you're being safe?"

Phil prayed for his soul and scowled. "Jesus, yes, I am, promise."

His dad nodded. "Okay, then I guess you're fine. Just, be cautious, yeah? I don't want you to get hurt or something."

Phil smiled wanly. "You're not worried about me breaking someone else's heart?"

"Well, I don't even know this other guy, do I?" He responded reasonably. "No use in stressing over a complete stranger, is there."

And just like that, the conversation was over. He's expected a bit more interrogation or telling off, but his dad simply winked at him and left him alone once again, going back to work.

Phil sat there for much longer than intended, wondering why he felt a hell of a lot more guilty than he ever had before. It wasn't like he didn't know that his parents didn't know about Dan. Hell, he'd been trying his hardest to keep it from them for a year, and barely succeeding.

Maybe it was the fact that they had voiced it aloud, that they were absolutely clueless and that it was all Phil's fault. He had that power in his hands, to tell them everything or not.

It was his move now, and he had no fucking clue what to do.

***

a/n: firstly I want to say if you haven't listened to the 1975's new album yet, than you're a square and you need to reevaluate your life choices, cause it is fucking amazing like holy shit please go listen to it.

Besides that, yay, new chapter! I hope you guys are ready, it's time for some feels-stomping next chapter >:)

I think I'm gonna try to focus on this story more than my other on-going stories, simply because I've been writing it longer and it has the most progress, but I won't completely forget my other stories, I promise. I just want this to be awesome, and that means focusing one hundred percent on it.

But yeah, I hope you guys liked it, it means a lot that you even read it, and I mean it when I say I love you. I do. I love you. Peace :3