Living together now wasn't much different than before, and they grew used to the change rather quickly. It wasn't far from the campus, so every day Dan would just walk, or take a bus if the weather was particularly bad, but he liked the rain. He never stuck around after his classes: he had no reason to. But after another week or so of living with Phil, Dan found himself spending more and more of his off time at the library, unable to focus on homework, just biding time before he'd have to go home.
It wasn't that he didn't like living with Phil –if that were the case, he'd say something and maybe move back out (or he hoped he'd have the courage to do that, and not be too concerned about hurting Phil as to put a strain on their relationship, when they very much did not need that right now.) He loved it, actually. Phil would wake up first and make him cereal and coffee-to-go; he'd hide a snack in Dan's bag with a little note, usually 'I love you' or 'enjoy your day' or '^_^'; he'd text Dan when he knew he was out of class and on his way home, and they'd go back and forth like that until he returned; Phil insisted Dan didn't help with rent or buy his own food –Dan had little to no money, Phil was already making enough to pay rent and had always bought more than enough food for himself, easily shared between the two of them. And on weekends when Dan didn't have anywhere to be, he loved invariably waking up to Phil's sleeping face, and returning the favor he was charitably given every weekday, and they'd go out to eat by what weekly allowance Dan's parents afforded him. Weekends weren't much different than they had been before, as Dan spent Friday night through Monday morning with Phil anyway –it was just becoming a constant in his life now, being there with Phil every day, sharing his home, sharing his bed. And he cherished that.
It wasn't that he didn't like living with Phil –he was just worried. Within a few days after the incident –just a day, even— Phil wasn't reacting to it as Dan had expected. He didn't seem to react to it at all, really; there was never any mention of it, and Dan never caught Phil upset or fearful. He seemed to be just as he'd been before the attack, and that concerned Dan greatly. The only actual change Dan had noticed was that Phil was putting even more work into his videos than he had before; and it hadn't made him reclusive, exactly –he still spent plenty enough time with his live-in boyfriend— but something about it seemed off, and Dan didn't like it. It was when he knew Phil would be working on his video morning to night that Dan slunk away into the quiet of the library, reading up on trauma and trying to discover what might be wrong. For all he knew, this could be a perfectly normal way of coping; Dan himself had never been a victim of any serious dark event before –his life was adequately dull. He could only hope Phil was alright as he skimmed some more pages of internet research.
Dan arrived home a bit past seven, and as always rang the doorbell just to let Phil know he was home (the doorbell made the lights flicker everywhere in the flat, an installation secret from the landlord.) Dan set his stuff down in the lounge, keeping it neat, worried to make a mess of the place though he was certainly the tidier of the two. He searched the flat –Phil was nowhere to be found.
He arrived at their bedroom, and found the lights off, but the glowing brightness from the hallway cast a shadow over the figure he'd been searching for. Phil on the floor in the corner, shoulders hunched and knees brought up to his chest, head down against them. Dan could hear muffled sniffling that broke his heart, but he needed to just let his boyfriend be alone for a little while, worried he might freak out at Dan's presence. He shuffled silently back into the hallway.
Dan wished he knew what he could do, but in all his time spent researching trauma, he'd never thought to look up how to help the victim. He felt so stupid now; how could he have completely cast aside actually helping his boyfriend, who'd been hurt, violated so horribly? All he'd done was selfishly look to his own concerns, needing validation that this was okay, that this was normal, that he really had nothing to stress over. Sure, maybe the reaction he'd just seen could've been more dramatic, but Phil's pain was all too real and all too lingering. He had to live with how he'd been raped, and couldn't remember any of it, didn't know who'd attacked him –or so he claimed, and it would probably only be worse if Phil did know who'd done it, because now he was more fully suffering, and all in silence.
Dan kicked the leg of the coffee table, tears burning in his own eyes. Stop crying, you fucking-! He couldn't even come up with some heinous thing to call himself: he'd been so blinded by his own need for closure that he had completely ignored Phil's suppressed need for comfort. And he just wanted to- no, he wouldn't look down that road again.
Dan didn't have the strength to face his boyfriend before Phil emerged from the bedroom, a smile on his face but unmistakable redness in his eyes, and Dan wondered nauseously how long he'd been skimming over that for.
'Dan, are you alright?'
Dan forced a nod; he wasn't going to let Phil be the one to take care of him anymore. He had his own pain to handle, that Dan had been letting go for too long. And he wouldn't be letting that continue.
It was still two weeks before Dan grew some balls and could approach Phil about the subject –and he only hated himself more every day he put it off, but this wasn't about him, it was about Phil –that was what he told himself.