Title: It Happened.

Word Count: 2,818

Disclaimer: If I owned Dan and Phil… SAP wouldn't have ended tonight D,:

Author's Note:So… I hate reading fanfictions and people put "sorry this is bad, I wrote it in like 20 minutes lol". So I'm just gonna put it out there that this little sucker took me almost four hours.

Summary: Dan only hit Phil once. Phil forgave him, but sometimes Dan wished he hadn't. (Phan, a few naughty words, violence… etc…)

When It Happened

It happened while they were filming an episode for Super Amazing Project. Dan doesn't even remember now what had set him off; he thinks Phil might have made a joking comment about Dan's disorganization that Dan took too seriously, but he honestly doesn't know for sure if that's what started it. Then they were suddenly yelling at each other about anything they could think of, venting off all the little, pointless complaints they'd kept to themselves for God-knows-how-long.

It shouldn't have happened. The fight itself shouldn't have even happened. If they hadn't both been in such crappy moods that day, maybe things would have been much different.

But it did happen. Phil was shouting something along the lines of, "I try to be helpful around here, but you always brush me off!" (Dan doesn't know how they ended up on that topic either.)

And Dan had screamed back, "That's a lie! I have to do everything around here! Whenever anything needs to get done, I have to do it!"

Thinking back, Dan realized eventually that that really wasn't true, but he'd been angry. They'd both been.

"You treat me like I'm useless!" Phil responded.

And Dan, to this day, regrets his response to that almost as much as he regrets what he did later. "Maybe that's because you are!"

Phil stood from his chair at the breakfast bar, silent and stunned. He looked hurt, but he had enough anger left in him to say, "I made you. If I hadn't helped you, you would still be cooped up in some classroom, studying law and hating your life with your entire being. You would be nothing."

He started to walk away, but Dan lost it. Launching himself out of his chair, he shoved Phil hard enough to make Phil stumble back and catch his balance on the couch. Phil looked a little uncertain but tried to walk away again.

Dan grabbed his shoulder and flung him back; this time, Phil fell to the ground.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dan registered that he shouldn't he doing this. Something was trying to shout: Wrong! Stop! Bad! You love him! He was just too pissed off to hear it.

Phil, who was beginning to look really, actually scared, tried to get back to his feet, but Dan backhanded him hard enough to send him back to the carpet. He poised himself to kick Phil right in the stomach, but Phil said only two words to pull him back to reality: "Dan, please."

It took him a moment, but Dan suddenly realized what he'd done and his hands started shaking. Phil was looking up at him with those big, blue eyes, making him feel as if he'd rather be dead than face the guilt of what he's just done to his boyfriend.

"Phil..." Dan wasn't sure what to do.

What kind of monster was he? Phil was still sitting on the ground, as if scared to try to get up, and he just kept staring up at Dan with those big, frightened eyes.

He should at least help Phil get up. Dan moved forward and stuck his hand out for his boyfriend, but Phil jerked back and covered his face, gasping sharply. Dan realized that he was bracing himself to be hit again.

"Oh Phil..."

"Dan, please, just go," Phil begged, refusing to look at him.

Dan wasn't sure if that meant to leave Phil alone or leave the apartment, but he didn't want Phil totally alone after this so he got up and started walking toward his room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phil get up and turn off the video camera, and it hit him: they had still been recording.

When Phil Acted Like It Didn't Happen

The next morning, Dan stayed in his room until he heard Phil clattering around in the kitchen. He slowly got out of bed and put a shirt on before creeping out to the kitchen doorway. He watched Phil move about for a moment or so before he said, "Making breakfast?"

Phil jumped and spun around, gasping. It took him a few seconds to regain his composure. Eventually he was able to say, "Yeah. Eggs. Want some?"

Dan walked over to the breakfast bar and leaned against it. "Yeah, sure. Thanks," he said, knowing he was just stalling before he said what he really had to say. He flicked his hair out of his face. Just say it, he told himself. "Phil, I—"

Phil interrupted him. "Scrambled or fried?" His voice was too high and too amiable; he refused to look Dan in the eye, instead staring down at the carton of eggs in front of him.

"Scrambled," Dan answered offhandedly. He needed to get this out before he lost his nerve so he tried to continue, "Listen, Phil, I just—"

"One or two?" Phil asked. He had turned the stove on and was searching around for a bowl to whisk the eggs.

Dan felt his shoulders sag at another failed attempt. "Er, two. Phil, I wanted to say—"

"So did you sleep well?" Phil asked suddenly, pulling a fork out of one of the drawers to use as a whisk. He reached for an egg to break into the bowl.

Dan felt a surge of anger. "Would you let me talk?" he snapped harshly. He stepped away from the breakfast bar, needing to move around or he would go crazy.

Phil tensed. He had been in the middle of cracking an egg, but he was so nervous that he ended up just crushing it and the yolk mixed with chunks of shell in the bowl. He stared down at the mixture for a moment before he quietly said, "I'm sorry. Go ahead."

Dan suddenly felt sick. He realized that now he could make just one move to scare the shit out of Phil, and the entire thing just made him want to retch. This wasn't him. He didn't hurt people like that; he was the kid who didn't fight back just so he didn't hurt others. How could he do this?

Phil hadn't moved in the few moments it took Dan to collect his thoughts, and it seemed like he didn't want to do anything else to upset his boyfriend.

"Here," Dan said, trying to sound calm and soothing, "I'll help." He walked slowly over and took the bowl from Phil. He dumped the mess out into the sink. It slithered down and left a gross yellow trail in the sink.

"It's fine; I can do it," Phil said.

He met Dan's eyes for the first time and Dan was speechless and appalled to realize that there was a splotchy bruise on the left side of Phil's face. It took him a moment, but Dan eventually choked out, "Oh God. Phil, I…"

"Can we just…" Phil trailed off then took a deep breath. "Can we just not talk about it?"

"Phil, I think—"

Phil looked angry for once as he said, "Let's just pretend it didn't happen, okay?" He grabbed another egg and forcefully cracked it into the bowl.

Dan stood in silence as he watched Phil finish the breakfast. He felt like he should be saying something—or groveling for Phil's forgiveness—but he really just didn't know how Phil would respond to anything, so he kept his mouth shut.

He was starting to get a little queasy, but it wasn't from anger or annoyance.

He hated to admit it, but Dan was scared. He was scared because he knew that Phil could just pack up and leave at any moment; he was scared because Phil could take that footage from last night and ruin his life—though Dan thought that maybe he should—and he was scared shitless because he knew that something like last night could happen again at any time if Phil got him mad enough.

"Okay," Dan said quietly as Phil was dumping the whisked eggs onto a skillet. "We won't talk about it. Just… Phil, I'm really sorry."

"I know. Now, do you want salt or pepper on your eggs?"

When They Both Had to Admit It Happened

They deleted the footage and told everyone there wouldn't be a Super Amazing Project that week because their computers were going crazy. (Dan would never tell Phil this, but he watched it before he deleted it, and he had needed to run to the bathroom to throw up afterward.)

Phil's bruise faded extremely quickly, but not quick enough that nobody noticed. They'd been out grocery shopping when a fan went up to meet them and had asked where it came from. Phil lied effortlessly that he'd dropped his phone on his face. Soon, tumblr was filled with fans laughing at Phil's clumsiness. Phil took it all in stride, but Dan felt a pang of extreme emotion every time he saw one of those posts. He hated that he knew the truth and that no one else did; he hated that no one else knew what a terrible person he was.

As promised, neither of them talked about it. Every day, Dan stared at the fading bruise and pretended he didn't want to die just from thinking about it.

That is, neither of them talked about it until they were forced to.

Chris and PJ had accepted the phone-dropped-on-face excuse easily, and they were over one night playing video games. Dan was in the kitchen looking for snacks, but he was horrified that they barely had anything.

"Hey, Phil!" Dan shouted out into the living room.

Phil had gotten over his jumpiness by now and he turned around slowly. "Yeah?" he asked, pausing the game.

"Can you come help me find something to eat?"

"Yeah, coming." Phil pulled himself off of the couch and walked into the kitchen. He started pulling open cupboards and rifling through whatever they'd thrown on the counter. After a while, he shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't we just go grocery shopping?" he mumbled.

"Yeah, like three days ago," Dan agreed. "Maybe if somebody didn't eat enough to feed a family of ten…"

Phil made a jokingly offended face. "Yeah, cause I'm the one who eats like a fat ass," he grumbled, sounding a little more serious than his expression suggested.

"What are you trying to say?" Dan asked. He was surprised by how upset he was from one little comment.

Phil looked surprised. He started to walk back out to the living room as he grumbled, "Nothing. Forget I said anything. I was just—"

"No," Dan snapped. He stamped his foot down heavily. "Get back here and tell me exactly what you meant by that."

Phil stopped. He was standing between the kitchen and living room. He looked over at Chris and PJ, who had become intrigued by their conversation and were giving each other strange looks. Sighing, Phil walked back over and pulled Dan into the part of the kitchen Chris and PJ wouldn't be able to see.

"I was just joking, Dan," Phil said. He looked a little nervous, but mostly he seemed annoyed. "I didn't mean anything by it."

He started to walk away, but Dan grabbed his wrist. The pure terror that flashed across Phil's face reminded Dan why he shouldn't let himself get this worked up over anything, so he let go. "Never mind. Let's just… go back to Chris and PJ," Dan said.

Phil nodded jerkily, and they started walking back together. Dan realized sadly that his boyfriend had regressed back to his nervous, flinch state.

"Sorry," Dan said, forcing a joking tone, "we bicker over the stupidest of things, don't we, Phil?" He smiled at Chris and PJ.

"Yeah," Phil said, so quietly it almost sounded like he was just breathing out.

Dan moved to sit back down on the couch but he accidently knocked against Phil, who reacted a lot more than anyone expected. He jerked away and his hand twitched, as if it had wanted to cover his face but he wouldn't let it.

"Phil, are you okay?" PJ asked cautiously. He cast a sidelong glance at Chris.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Phil rubbed his arm nervously and looked around. "I'm just not feeling well. I'm gonna go to my room. Sorry to be such a downer."

"It's no problem," Chris said. He looked a little sad, but Dan couldn't be sure why. "I think Peej and I were just getting ready to leave soon anyway, right?"

PJ nodded and stood.

Phil stayed in the room long enough to say goodbye then disappeared into his room and Dan was left to walk them out. "I really don't know what's up with him," he said as he walked with his friends. "I'll go make sure he's okay once you guys have gone."

"You do that," PJ said. He and Chris waved then left.

Dan walked into Phil's room and saw that his boyfriend was curled up in bed, shaking a little.

"Phil?" Dan asked cautiously. He took a step closer but thought better of it; Phil was already tense and nervous enough without Dan the Monster coming toward him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Phil responded. His voice echoed slightly in his large room. It sounded like he'd been crying.

"I think…" Dan started walking forward and sat on the edge of Phil's bed, but he didn't make a move to touch Phil. "We need to talk about it."

"No, we don't," Phil answered. He curled even tighter into himself, gathering blankets around his body. There was something so pathetic about him that Dan felt his heart break again and again.

Dan wasn't sure if he was sad or angry about Phil's constant denial of what had happened. Dan had hit Phil. In normal situations, wouldn't Dan be the one denying it, the one refusing to talk about it?

"Phil, I hit you and you really don't seem to want to face how much it screwed you up!" Dan suddenly shouted. He was just so angry because all of this should be Phil freaking out; Phil had been the one shoved to the ground and slapped, not Dan, so why wasn't Phil reacting at all? It kind of scared him that he had really messed up his boyfriend with one fight.

"I'm not screwed up!" Phil shouted back. He uncurled himself and flipped around so he was facing Dan now. "If anyone is, it's you!"

That hit Dan hard. He knew that something was wrong with him if he had been able to do that to his boyfriend, but he hated to actually think about it. He didn't want to face what had lead him to hurting Phil so badly.

He grabbed the front of Phil's shirt and pulled him across the bed, toward him. "Shut up; that's not true," he growled. "I made one little mistake and you're not letting me make up for it because you won't even admit it happened."

"Dan," Phil said weakly. He put a hand on Dan's, which was still gripping his shirt tightly, keeping him in place. He was still in an awkward, sort of lying down position, so Dan hovered over him.

Dan pulled Phil closer to him and said, "What?"

"You're hurting me."

Dan let go quickly and jerked his arm away. He hadn't realized what he was doing until Phil's eyes got wide with fear. Oh God, it was happening again.

He figured this would probably be a good time to give Phil space, so he stood up. Phil mistook his action and threw his arms over his face to protect himself. "I'm sorry," he said quietly; it sounded strangely like a begging voice.

It hit Dan that he had almost hit Phil again. He'd gotten angry enough to grab his boyfriend's shirt and drag him along. Who knows how far he could have gone if Phil hadn't looked at him with those begging, saddening eyes and forced him back to reality?

"Phil," Dan said sadly, "put your arms down."

Phil did as he was told but he refused to look up at Dan.

"I'm gonna go pack a bag." Dan started to walk away from Phil's bed. "I don't think I should stay here anymore. I think it would be better for… for both of us… if I left."

"You're right."

Dan quickly threw in the things he needed and figured out where the best hotel for him to go to was. He was heading out of the apartment when Phil met him in the hallway. He looked nervous as he said, "I think you should start looking for somewhere else to live."

Dan nodded. He opened up the door and took one step out. "Yeah, that's probably best since I… I…"

"Since you hit me."

"Exactly."

Dan left—and he didn't come back.