Chapter Text
The first time Dan stared into those blue-green-yellow eyes at the train station, his brain lied to him. Phil Lester, a beautiful man with jet black hair and a heart so big it barely fit on his chest was looking at him and smiling so brightly all darkness seemed to fade.
His brain whispered, almost like it's voice was it's own entity "Oh, so this is happiness" when Phil's arms wrapped around him in the station. When he held out his impossibly princess soft pale hand, tentatively, on the bus back home, and Dan took it, his heart and brain harmonized, chanting "So this is the light at the end of the dark tunnel." Dan had always been proud of "listening to his brain more than his heart". That was, of course, an incredibly stupid assumption, one made out of a teenager's apathy and rejection of his own emotional side. The two were one and the same at the end of the day and both were begging Dan to stick with the source of that comfort and never let him go.
A few hours later, Dan leaned in for the first kiss. His body felt like jello and his hands were sweaty despite the October cold.
Phil kissed him back.
And the happiness he felt in that moment was so strong that his soul sang out the lies and Dan, poor naive lover-boy Dan, believed them immediately.
"I'll never be sad again. He is the light that drives away my darkness."
"I'll do anything… I'll change to make him stay."
"Phil Lester is all I need to finally be happy"
Tragically, Phil Lester, much like Dan, was just a human.
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"And I remember now
At the top of my lungs in my arms she dies
She dies
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are never coming home, never coming home
Could I? Should I?"
- Ghost of you, MCR
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Phil POV: 26th of march 2013
Phil came back from the supermarket with his smile so wide he knew he looked stupid. But he couldn't help it so as soon as he closed the door behind him, he placed the bags on the kitchen and screamed out for Dan.
"Spring is here!!"
His shoes flew out of his feet before he ran up the stairs. He knew he looked like a kid, getting so excited over blossoming trees and a rainbow but he didn't care. Who said a twenty-six year old shouldn't get giddy over a wonderful morning?
"Danny-boy, get out of your cave, come on. It's the first day we've gotten light since like....September."
There was no response but Phil was sure he was being heard. Dan had gone back to his bed after they had breakfast together but, knowing he was still in *their* bed instead of cooped up in his room… well it meant some part of Dan's day was salvageable .
"We are taking a walk!"
"Grow up, Phil." a moany whisper answered.
"Why on earth would I?" he said, smiling through Dan's mocking. It wasn't that easy for the darkness to get through to him. "I'll wait for you downstairs and you better have your rain-boots on in five minutes or I'm turning off the wifi."
"What's the point?"
"What's the point in anything, Dan?"
Phil smiled on his way down the stairs because, at the end of the day, he was succeeding in his mastermind plot to make Dan happier. The fresh air and sunlight would not make him as happy as they had made Phil but it was worth trying, right?. Oh shit, the bags with food, he remembered. He almost tripped on the slippery floor trying to swerve back to the kitchen. Dan was making noise upstairs, getting ready for the walk so maybe… No, he couldn't let the frozen fish become a smily mess again, could he?
As he put the oat milk out of the freezer (why was it there?) and put the salmon in it's place, he couldn't help but think that he wished Dan was okay. Their schedule, their uploads, the house… it was all worse off without Dan's perfectionism. Phil briefly wondered if there was a correct way to sit when your boyfriend was having a depressive episode, and felt like there probably should be a wikiHow for it.
Phil was halfway through taking out the entire freezer to tetris his way into making more space for it when he saw a brown shape out of the corner of his eye.
"I guess you are busy. I don't know why I bothered to get ready then."
"Oh! Dan, yeah let's go on the walk. Just… give me a second so that I can…" he said, pushing in bags of frozen risottos back into the freezer in a way that could only be described as "fisting".
"I don't get why you started that after telling me to come down."
"Jesus Dan I got distracted, you know me."
"Really? Was it that or did you just assume I wouldn't get ready at all."
"No Dan, I was waiting. Please don't get that defensive…. you see" he said, closing the door of the fridge and pressing his fabulous behind against it in an attempt to keep it shut. "Let's go."
"Forget it. You clearly didn't want to go and if you don't then you shouldn't just for me because I don't care about it being sunny anyway."
"Dan, don't be like that, I'd still want you to come." Phil said, keenly aware the conversation wasn't about going outside now.
"Why? So I can make your walk more bitter and pathetic?"
"Because…." he said, his cheeks getting hot… This was the worst part of dealing with an unstable Dan because Phil felt the pathways of destiny branch out infront of him and he knew many of the word choices in front of him would hurt Dan. "because I miss you?"
"You'll be okay, Phil." Dan said, turning on his heel. "You see me all day every day anyway. I don't get why you'd miss me." Dan started going up the stairs, the clouds basically visible over his head. "I'd be less surprised if you were sick of me."
"I don't see you all that much anymore." Phil said, barely a whisper. His brain was connected to his mouth and he impulsively threw it out. Dan turned around, looking at Phil like a tiger looked at it's prey.
"What the fuck does that mean, Phil."
Phil was starting to get tired of choosing his words so carefully.
"I miss you. This thing you are when your depressive episodes hit? It leaves me missing you, the real you."
"Well, news flash, maybe this is the real me."
"It isn't." Phil said, and he really believed it. Real Dan was soft brown eyes, like a swirling cup of morning coffee and logs being added to a fire. He was almost offended by the implication that he was the same with the person who was now being so… hurtful. "The real you makes me so happy and I'll wait a hundred years if that is what it takes for *him* to be back."
"Oh wow…"Him". Really putting the english degree to use there, Phil." Dan said, suddenly looking very awake."Great use of symbolism."
Phil's heart starting beating way too fast, as if to prepare him to sprint out of the hallway.
"I'm going to my room, we can keep talking later when we've both…."
"No." Dan interrupted him. "If you miss me oh so much, here I am, Phil. I am so bloody sorry but you should have thought it better before admitting I don't even make you happy anymore."
"What? That isn't what I said at all? You can't possibly be twisting my words like that, Dan!" he erupted, sick of Dan's… well, all of it.
"Then just go on your own and fucking leave me since I'm such a damn nightmare to have around!"
Dan was looking to start a fight in the hopes of getting his fears proven in the crossfire and Phil was standing there, terrified and now with a few wounds of his own.
"You know damn well I don't plan to leave you Dan Howell and that if I planned on doing so based on some attitude I would have a long time ago."
"Oh really? And what stopped you?"
"I want to help you. To get normal Dan back."
"Well, you don't bloody help, Phil. Nobody does. I really thought you could help me too but here we are four years into this thing and I'm still as much of a miserable waste of space as always…."
Oh. That HURT. Phil's own creature stired inside him, feeding off these words despite knowing Dan would apologise for them and swear he didn't mean it in a few hours. *You can't help him, you can't help him, you can't help him, you can't help him, you can't…..*
"I can't do anything right with you, can I Dan?"
"That's not true, Phil. But hey, if that is what it takes for you to abandon the "fix Dan" pity project everyone has for me, so be it."
"Do you hear yourself? You are so up your own ass in self-hate you don't even make sense anymore, Dan."
*You are failing at helping him. He needs you and you aren't enough to save him from the black hole. All these efforts have been for nothing.* Phil's own demons chanted.
"Okay. Then I'll repeat myself and keep it real simple. If I am so terrible like this, why do you stay with me, Phil Lester."
Phil was far too impulsive too choose the right answer, far too angry and far too human.
"I don't even know anymore".
The words felt sharp as they shot out of his mouth, moving at the speed of sound towards his boyfriend. Dan's face reacted to them as if he had actually been hit with a bullet. It scrunched up as he turned away, limping back to his room.
"Well, I'm glad you finally had the guts to tell me you don't love me anymore."
Phil's heart sank.
"I love you. That's why I stay. I love you."
But Dan was already up the stairs and out of reach. He hadn't gone back to their room. Now it was just Phil's room again and Dan was back on his, tending to the aftermath of the battle in between black walls he knew Phil found depressing and monochrome bedsheets he didn't have to share.
Phil's feet took him out of the door. And he was sad to notice, but as soon as he was outside of the house, he found out he could breathe again.
*Fuck*- his heart and brain agreed.
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But baby, when they knock you down and out
Is where you oughta stay
(….)
So fix your eyes and get up
Better get up while you can
- MCR, I don't love you.
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The whole thing was frustrating and the whole thing made him want to scream but Phil knew, throught it all, that what just hapenned wasn't going to end things. He loved Dan and Dan loved him. It had just been buried under Dan's depression and… to a lesser extent Phil didn't want to think about, Phil's insecurity.
*Oh shit, this day is still beautiful* he thought. It wasn't often he sweared, even to himself, but this was so weird that it merited a little cursing.
Phil didn't want it to be a pretty spring morning anymore. He wanted it to rain and storm and for the lightning ball to come back and give him a sign to never give up. He wanted to get a hypothermia in the freezing rain and for Dan to look outside of their window only to find him still there, pouting, and feel terrible. *As if adding more sadness on top would bring my Dan back home.* he thought.
He just counted the minutes pass by as he looked at the terribly clear sky. A crow circled him a few times before leaning on a branch, his feathers ruffled and unkempt. A second, smaller but neater crow soon followed him. And they just sat together, their interlocking tail feathers rocking with the wind and their big dark eyes looking at Phil.
Phil turned around to ask Dan any one of the questions that barged into his mind.
Didn't crows mate for life? Which one is you and which one is me? What did two crows mean? Do you think this is a sign for something? They are called a murder, right? What was that rhyme about counting crows? Do you think they are cold? Do you think they are in love?
But Dan wasn't there because Dan was back home and they had just fought.
Phil took a photo and promised himself to ask him later. Whatever this was, they would overcome it. He knew the first step so he gave his back to the birds and went back home.