"Where's Phineas?" Isabella asks Ferb the next morning.
"He's at the doctor's," Ferb says.
"Oh," Isabella said. "Is he all right? I noticed he's been looking tired lately, but I thought maybe school was just hard, or you guys were working on a big project or something."
"We don't know," Ferb answers.
"Do not know what?" Baljeet asks.
"What's wrong with Phineas," Isabella answers.
"What's wrong with Phineas?" Buford asks.
Ferb thinks he might find this funny if he weren't so worried.
"They don't know," Isabella answers.
"Well, actually," Ferb says, "We sort of know." He's a bit conflicted about this. He knows Phineas would never want their friends to know his problems. But he also knows that they have a right to know. He decides, then, with the other three looking at him, that Phineas can stop being quite so noble and do his friends the justice of letting them worry about him if they want to.
"I thought you said you didn't know what was wrong with him," Isabella protests.
"We don't know if he's okay," Ferb corrects. "He's been having panic attacks, though, and our parents are taking him to the doctor to find out more."
"Panic attacks?" Buford asks. "What about?"
"Nothing, as far as we know," Ferb shrugs.
"Well then what's he panicking for? Don'tcha have to be scared of something to panic about it?"
"In most cases that would be correct," Baljeet says, "But panic attacks can be caused by an anxiety disorder with no concrete source."
"Oh, I hope he's all right," Isabella says.
So does Ferb. But he's glad to see that, though his friends also look worried, they appear to be able to handle the news that Phineas is not in perfect health. When it comes up in conversation with Phineas, he'll point out to his brother that he ought to give the people he loves more credit. They can handle a bit of worry, and they deserve to know.
He's so glad they're no longer alone in this.
The doctor isn't helping. Phineas goes and talks to him, and they discuss why Phineas might be upset, but the truth is that Phineas doesn't know what's bothering him. He's just… not okay anymore. And he doesn't think this doctor can fix it.
He doesn't want to tell his parents, though, because they're so sure this will work.
So he goes and pretends everything is all right.
Then he goes back home and smiles for everyone.
He walks into his room now and smiles at Ferb, who is sitting on his bed doing homework.
"Hey-" he begins.
Ferb puts a hand up to interrupt him. He doesn't look up.
Phineas is hurt. "What's wrong?" he asks. "Did I do something?"
Ferb shrugs.
"What is it?" Phineas asks, sitting on his bed.
"I just-" Ferb starts. He stops, then looks at his brother and says, "I just want you to stop lying to me, Phineas. You can keep pretending to hold it together for everyone else, but I can see straight through that. And it hurts worse that you think I can't than seeing you the way you really are would.
Phineas drops his smile. "Sorry," he says.
"It's okay," Ferb says.
They sit on Ferb's bed in silence. Phineas is not okay- may never be okay again- and they both know it. It's a bit of a relief to stop pretending anything else.
"How are you feeling, Phineas?" Lawrence asks, giving his son a small smile across the dinner table.
Phineas smiles weakly back. "Better," he says. "The doctor… it's helping, I guess."
But Ferb sees the way Phineas is pushing his peas around the plate with his fork, and he knows his brother isn't telling the whole truth, because he hasn't seen Phineas eat more than a few bites in weeks, and they're together at every mealtime.
"Well, that's excellent, then," Lawrence says, though, apparently oblivious.
The conversation moves on to other things, and Phineas takes a few bites of food while Ferb watches.
Towards the end of the meal, Linda notices. "Phineas, you've hardly touched your food," she says, her brows drawing together in worry. "Are you-"
"I'm fine," Phineas says hurriedly. He takes a bit of food to prove it. His stomach churns. He takes another bite anyway.
Ferb, his own plate empty, looks sidelong at his brother as he eats his food methodically.
Phineas stands up, shoving his chair back, and says, "Excuse me." He runs from the table to the bathroom.
Ferb tries to ignore the sounds coming from in there (he's used to them), but Linda doesn't. She follow him and asks, "Phineas?"
Phineas doesn't answer. He's too busy dry heaving- everything he's eaten is already gone, but his stomach doesn't seem to know it, yet. It's too busy trying to shove itself up his diaphragm to stop and realize there's nothing left to bring up.
Finally, his gag reflex turns off, and he leans his head against the toilet bowl, taking deep breaths. He's shaking worse than usual, and his mouth tastes like bile and salmon- a bad combination, but the porcelain is cool and refreshing.
He doesn't move for a long time.
Ferb is sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, Candace, and a doctor. Phineas is in the other room. Ferb doesn't know why they're bothering to keep him out of hearing; he's just going to tell his brother what the doctor says as soon as it's over.
"We've established that Phineas is hiding something that bothers him," the doctor says, "we just don't know what. It's as if he doesn't even know what the problem is himself."
The doctor says a number of other things, but that's the one that Ferb finds important. Once the doctor is gone, Ferb heads up to their room and tells Phineas what he said.
"I know," Phineas says, and the defeat in his voice is painful. "He told me I need to figure out what it is if we want to get anywhere. And I've been trying, but I just… Every time I get close, I start panicking again. I don't have any idea what the problem is."
Ferb is sitting next to him on the bed, and he pats his brother's shoulder. He doesn't know how to help, so he's just listening. It seems like it might even be good enough.
When Ferb knocks on the bathroom door after Phineas has been in there a good ten minutes longer than he usually is when his stomach is turning itself inside out, he finds it's open, which is a bit unusual- Phineas doesn't like anyone to be able to walk in on him when he's at his weakest moments, head poised over the toilet bowl.
What Ferb sees inside the room makes it even more confusing as to why Phineas didn't lock the door. Unless he wanted to be found.
Because Phineas is standing over the sink with a knife that normally belongs in the kitchen- a big serrated thing that's almost never used and is deadly sharp- digging into the skin of his wrist (a small part of Ferb's brain wonders why on earth he'd use a serrated knife, that doesn't even make sense).
When Phineas looks up and sees Ferb in the doorframe, he's not sure whether to be upset or relieved. His arm is sliced open, and it feels so much better- he's stopped shaking, and his mind is clear again. He likes this feeling. But he hates how he feels after, and hates that he's keeping it a secret. It's nice that Ferb knows, now.
"It makes me feel like me again," he offers to Ferb.
He's been looking it up online, and people have told him it's like a way of letting off the pressure. They're right.
Ferb grabs the knife without a word, tearing it out of Phineas's hands.
Neither notice he's grabbed it by the blade until he puts it down and grabs Phineas's face with both hands, smearing his own blood on his brother's chin.
"Never do that again," he hisses. "I don't care how awful you feel, if you do that again I will-" he stops.
"What?" Phineas says with a bitter laugh. "What will you do? Hurt me? I can do that to myself. And telling Mom and Dad won't make me stop. It'll just make it harder."
"I'll hurt me," Ferb says at last.
Phineas feels his eyes go wide. "No," he whispers. "You can't- Ferb, no!"
"Think about how it would feel if you walked in on me doing that," Ferb says. "I don't want to have to tell anyone or follow you all over the place, but if you don't stop, I'll follow you into the damned shower if I have to, and I will make you see what it's like."
Phineas is crying again- the clarity is wearing off. It wears off faster every time he does this.
"I'm giving you an ultimatum," Ferb says. "This is one thing too many. I can't… I can watch you hurt, if I have to, but I can't watch you make it worse for yourself."
Phineas nods, tears still streaming down his face. The knife is so close- he can feel better, just for a bit, if he takes it. But he can't take what that will do to Ferb, So he lets his brother take the knife away, and when Ferb comes back, he lets him wash and bandage his cuts without a word.
As Ferb cleans Phineas's wrists, he hopes what he said will have an effect. He wants to beat this into Phineas's brain, because the sight of that boy leaning over the sink with a bloody knife to his own arm is worse than anything Ferb has seen.
When Phineas passes out during school, it's the breaking point for Ferb. It's in between classes, and the gang are walking Phineas to class- it's a habit they've picked up since this began. Phineas is rarely alone anymore, partly because Ferb doesn't quite trust him on his own (he's trying to get the sight of blood dripping from Phineas's wrists and a kitchen knife he'll never be able to look at the same way and his brother's shaking form out of his mind, but it keeps coming back), and partly because the others are scared, even if Ferb hasn't told them where the wounds on his brother's arms have come from (only Isabella has seen them. She's guessed, and cried on Ferb's shoulder).
So when Phineas falls over, he at least doesn't land on the floor. He collapses into Baljeet, who stumbles back into Buford, who catches them both with his solid form.
Isabella is already screaming for help before Ferb knows what's happened, and Irving has shown up out of the shadows as he often does, and is running for the nurse.
Ferb can't do anything for a minute. He wants to, but all he can do is stare at his brother and notice how thin he's gotten- Phineas has always been thin, but it's been a healthy sort of thin, the kind of look that a boy whose body is too focused on growing up to grow out. Only now he's like a skeleton with skin, and his head looks too big for his body in a way it hasn't since they were nine.
Ferb wants to cry. Instead, he leans over and begins checking his brother for signs of life, doing whatever he can before help arrives- because Phineas is already broken. They can't afford for Ferb to break down, too.