Dan
I stared at the wall with my hands shaking as my world crashed down around me. The sound of glass breaking from downstairs reached my ears yet again and I let out a quiet whimper and flinched.
My parents were fighting again, having no care in the world about how much it hurts me when they do. The marks on my wrists were enough proof of that.
I stared at my arms now, counting the scars on my wrists and arms until my vision blurred. One thought stuck out in the millions of words running through my mind:
You could do it right now.
I froze for a moment and let that sink in. I could make all the pain and suffering go away forever with just a couple deep slits to my wrists, or a lot of sleeping pills. Just a couple drags across my skin with my shiny silver friend or a glass of water accompanied by half a bottle of small sleeping pills. Sounded like the best option right at that moment.
I found my legs moving on their own to lift me off my bed and move to the door. By the time my hand had gripped the doornob and twisted it open, all chances for any rational thoughts was gone.
The next thing I remembered was opening the door to the bathroom and then I was locking it behind me. My feet traveled their way to the cabinet and my hands fumbled with the contents of it until a small silver blade was in my hands. My fingers shook as I set it down on the ground and dug out the bottle of my mom's sleeping pills.
I fell to my knees onto the bathroom floor, every inch of my body trembling as I picked up the razor blade and the bottle of pills. My vision blurred as I tried to pry open the bottle of pills. I didn't even realize I was crying until a small sob escaped from my lips.
A random thought managed to find its way through the thickness in my mind: I should probably turn on the water.
I half crawled, half stumbled toward the bathtub and managed to turn the knobs until the water was so hot it would probably leave my skin red and hot to the touch. I grabbed the bottle of pills and the razor blade and stepped into the tub.
The hot water scorched my feet as soon as it made contact, and my rational side told me to flinch away from it and get the fuck out of there, but I forced myself to stand still as the water burned my bare feet. I tugged my jeans off until I was just in my boxers and a t-shirt, and sat down in the hot water, my teeth gritted together from the pain of the heat against my bare and clothed skin.
My mind raced as I sat there long enough for my skin to numb from how hot it was. Quiet sobs tore through my body and I held a hand against my mouth, biting on the underside of one of the fingers gently between my front teeth as an attempt to calm me down.
For a second, I couldn't believe I was going to do it. There were so many stories of people that were eighteen like me that committed suicide, and I knew no one would care about another one. I knew that I would miss my best friend Pj, who was the only person that was constantly there for me.
Another sob escaped me at the thought of Pj.
I reached over the tub and dug my phone out of my jeans pocket, not caring if the screen got wet, and unlocked it. I managed to get to the text screen to text Pj with shaky fingers. It was a surprise that I didn't drop the phone as I typed my last words.
'Im so sorry but its too much theyre fidhting again rigjt now and my head hurts and my fingera ate shaking and I love yo so fucking much you need to know that okat I cant take it anympre its just too much for me to hanfle and im so sory I love you so much im so fucking sorri ily'
I couldn't type anymore before the phone slipped out of my grip and onto the bathroom floor. My finger reached down and clicked send right before my hands started heading toward the blade and the bottle of pills. This was it. I was really going to do it this time.
My hands were no longer shaking as I unscrewed the bottle of pills and shook a small amount into my hand. I popped them into my mouth and scooped some water from the bathtub into my hands, watching the water slide through my fingertips.
As the hot water slipped through my fingers and the taste of the pills made everything bitter, I closed my teary eyes. I never imagined that my last moments of life would be spent sitting in a bathtub full of burning water and a mouth full of bitter pills.
It sounded awful if you put it like that.
The next thing I knew, I was spitting the pills out of my mouth. All I could think was I can't do it like this. Not like this.
My phone started to buzz wildly on the bathroom floor, sliding a little on the tiles from the vibrations. There was no doubt they all were from Pj. I swallowed the guilt down and powered off my phone, and the vibrations disappeared.
My lip started to shake from crying.
And that was the moment I broke. I didn't care anymore. Pj wasn't going to miss me, my parents wouldn't miss me, my sister wouldn't miss me. And if they didn't miss me, definitely no one else would miss me.
At this, I threw the razor and bottle of pills away from the tub.
My memory is a blur after this, full of sharp pains in my head and a pounding behind my eyelids.
All I remember is the gun and the shot and the blood.
And the blinding pain.
And then nothing.
I didn't expect my eyes to open again.
I don't know what I expected after death, but I knew for sure my eyes wouldn't open, and I knew I wouldn't feel the softness of a matress underneath me or hear the very much there sounds of my breathing.
All of these being signs that I was very much alive.
I closed my eyes, feeling them start to burn with unshed tears. All I had wanted was for the pain to go away, and for the fighting to stop. But now I would have to go through with it all over again, and it would be worse now that I had tried to kill myself.
But when I opened my eyes again, I didn't see the white of the hospital that I was expecting to see. In fact, it was pretty dark. The bed had black, white, and gray blankets in a plaid pattern. There was a small headboard behind the pillows I was laying on, and the floor was a tad bit more messy than I could accept.
All in all, I had no idea where the fuck I was.
I expected myself to freak out more, but I only pushed myself up into a sitting position and looked around more. There was a small desk by the bed with a phone sitting on the edge of it. It didn't look like any of the few phones I had ever owned. It looked… newer somehow.
My hands traveled over to the phone and clicked the power button, which was strangely on the back of the phone instead of on the side, but whatever.
What I saw there surprised me.
First, there was the background.
It was a picture of two men together. One of them had black hair and pale skin, and his eyes were closed while he was smiling. He looked kind of cute, I guess I could say.
And the other one was me, although I looked almost completely different—my fringe wasn't as long and I had let my hair go curly, along with my skin was paler—it was definitely me.
I was slightly scared, because I never remembered taking this picture, but there I was with this mystery man.
And then there was the date.
Not only was it no where near the month or day it seemed like it was just a few moments ago, but the year. Oh god, the fucking year.
It wasn't 2009.
It was 2017. That was supposed to be eight fucking years away.
The phone dropped from my hand, luckily landing on the bed and staying there.
What exactly the fuck had happened?
It was just January in 2009. How the hell did it suddenly become November in 2017?
This had to be a dream. I had just attempted suicide and it had failed and I was just having a strange dream while my body was trying to recover.
Yeah, that seemed plausible.
Then why did I still feel like I wasn't dreaming this all? How come when I closed my eyes and then reopened them, I still saw this room? Even though the room was aesthetically pleasing, and even looked like a room I would make, I wanted the fuck out of here.
Well, if this was a dream, might as well venture out that door near the corner of the room.
I shuffled my way to the edge of the bed and tried to stand. My body felt strangely stiff and every limb hurt when I moved it. Huh, weird.
I stood up, remembering to grab the phone, and made my way to the door. My leg popped on the way and I tried to ignore it as I opened the door.
I was met by a short hallway and past that a living room and a kitchen. There was another door in the hallway I had first seen, but I didn't think much about that.
Deciding to explore the kitchen first, I stuck my head through the doorway and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw someone else there. Their back was to me, but their black hair seemed a bit familiar...
Just then, the man tried to grab a pan from the cabinet, but he failed miserably and a shower of pots and pans rained down on him. I almost let out a squeal of fear, but I detained it and continued to watch the strange man.
He had managed to barely escape the sudden avalanche of cooking materials, and now he was beginning to bend down to pick them all up. He disappeared from my view for quite a while until he reappeared with a pile of pots and pans in his arms. Somehow, he got them all back in the cabinet and finished the task with a huge sigh.
"Maybe this is why Dan does all the cooking." He muttered to himself as he rubbed his head where a pan had most likely hit him.
I felt chills go down my spine. Not only was his voice deeper than I thought it would be—it could just be his morning voice—but he knew my name, and I didn't even know his.
He turned around just as I had this thought. I froze, but he looked more than delighted to see me.
"Dan!" He exclaimed. "I'm sorry if I woke you! I just dropped about 50 pans, and I know you had one of your 'stay up until 2 am on Tumblr' nights last night and your always grumpy after those." He smiled a huge, goofy smile at me with his eyes closed as he ranted.
This was the guy who was with me on the picture I had seen on the phone. Just to make sure, I clicked on the power button on the phone and looked at the picture, comparing it to the man before me.
It was definitely the same guy.
But the one in front of me had his eyes open at the moment, and his eyes were the clearest, prettiest blue I had ever seen. Also, the picture did not do him justice one bit.
He was way hotter in real life.
I tried to hide the rising blush on my cheeks as the man continued.
"Right now you're probably checking the time and thinking at me 'its 10 am and I do not want to be awake right now.' And your right. I don't wanna be awake either, but I was hungry." He smiled again, but his tongue poked out from between his teeth and it was adorable.
Instead of responding to anything he had just said, I said one of the most stupidest things I could have said at the moment.
"How do I open the phone?" I held up the phone as I said the words.
The man gave me a strange look. "Are you that tired?"
The only thing I could think of to do was nod my head, and he laughed.
"Come 'ere." He said, and set down the one pan he still had in his hand. I nervously walked over and handed him the phone. I watched over his shoulder as he swiped the phone screen and typed in four numbers.
The phone screen changed into the home screen of the phone and I felt like an utter idiot.
"Oh," was my genius response as I took the phone back.
The man patted my shoulder, still laughing. "You usually only forget your password after you drink a lot. You didn't have any drinks last night, not even a little sip?" He was clearly teasing, but in my strange situation, I didn't respond normally.
I just mumbled out a scared response, and shrugged my shoulders, clearly shaking the whole time as I flinched away from him.
"Hey..." He trailed off. "You okay there?"
My hands gripped the phone tighter as I nodded quickly at him, avoiding his gaze the whole time.
He frowned, but let the obvious lie go.
"You can talk to me about anything, you know?" He assured me, looking like he was about to pat my shoulder again, but then decided against it at the last moment.
"Okay." I responded lamely as I gave him a quick glance.
With that, he just nodded and turned back to the kitchen counter and his pan. I took this as my cue to turn my own way and leave.
As I was at the doorway to exit the kitchen, his voice reached my ears again.
"Do you want some pancakes?" I looked behind me to see him holding a spatuala and a package of pancake mix.
"Yeah, sure." I gave him a hesitant smile, which he gladly returned, and then I left the kitchen.
I found my way to the living room and slowly sat on the couch, not sure if I was allowed to, but did it anyway.
There was a couple of things that I had learned from that encounter.
The strange, cuddly, cute guy lived here—wherever this was—with me. He seemed to think I belonged here, and he seemed to belong here himself just fine.
He seemed kind of clumsy and sweet in an adorable way. I could easily find myself falling for him, and—I tried to ignore this next thought—might already be. He was sweet and caring and he was beyond cute. He seemed to genuinely care about me, even though I had no idea who he was.
But the most important thing I had learned from this little kitchen encounter was that this was most definitely not a dream.
The next thing I had to do was look at anything and everything on this phone that apparently belonged to me.
I retyped the password that the man in the kitchen had typed and the screen went to the same screen as before. This time it showed me and the same nameless guy that I seemed to be forever associated with.
In this picture, we were wearing these golden vest things over normal shirts, accompanied by matching golden hats and bow ties. It was a strange little getup, but hey, it kind of worked.
Where to start? Where to start?
I decided to open one of the many random notifications that were starting to drive me crazy. The first one I noticed was from YouTube (even though the website had changed its color to red now) and I smiled. It was good to see the familiar website that I had used to binge watch videos on all the time before I had gotten too severely depressed.
But the notification surprised me.
'AmazingPhil uploaded a new video.'
Underneath the words was clearly a picture of the mysterious kitchen man's face.
I clicked on it hurridly and it opened, and I saw the title of the video.
'ANOTHER Sleepless Night With Phil.'
Well, his name was Phil, I could now assume.
The video began, and I paused it as I figured out how to turn the volume down lower—dumb buttons being in the weirdest places on this dumb thing. Then, the video began and Phil's voice reached my ears.
"Hey guys! So, I was just laying here after Dan went to his room about an hour ago and I knew I just couldn't sleep. Its currently about—" He checked the time on his phone. "1 am. Wow. I thought it was later." He then smiled that same adorable grin that I had seen him do repeatedly.
"Well, I haven't informed Dan that I am doing this video so you might hear some 2 am laughing coming from his room as he scrolls through Tumblr. He's a strange guy, you should all know this by now. If you don't, well..." He shrugged.
"Anyway!" He suddenly exclaimed. "In this episode of 'A Sleepless Night With Phil,' I am going to be doing all sorts of sleepless things, like, I don't know.. We might go wake up Dan!" He shook his head suddenly. "Or not, because he could get a bit grumpy. Nevermind!" He giggled.
"So, the first thing I think we should do is maybe answer a few random questions you guys have asked me!" He pulled out his phone again and tapped on it a few times before stopping.
"'Phil, have you ever actually cursed in your whole life?'" He read from the phone screen. His eyebrows furrowed as if he was in deeo thought. "Oh! Yeah, I have. Have you ever watched Amazing Dan? I might have done it in there, like, once. Other than that, not that you see on these channels." He did a terrible wink and then looked back at the phone.
"'Please don't hurt me, but isPhanreal? '"
A look of frustration, though he seemed to try hard to hide it, appeared on his face. "On to the next question then!"
Just then, the real Phil appeared behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped and dropped the phone on my lap.
"Sorry, mate." Phil giggled at me. "I would've thought that you would hear my quite loud approach." He looked at the phone screen. "Oh! Are you watching my new video? I was bored and I couldn't sleep, so I just decided to do that. Its not one of my best videos—it actually sucks quite a bit—but it made up for my recent lack of uploads."
I nodded and he handed me a plate piled with at least three pancakes.
"Well, geez. You seem to think I'll eat this all." I attempted to make a joke as Phil plopped onto the couch next to me.
"Well, you know that if you don't, I'll finish it for you!" He pretended to take the plate from me and I playfully slapped at him.
I could see how we were friends. We seemed to share the same type of humor.
He had his own stack of pancakes, and he finished them in the time it took me to eat half of what I had.
The truth is, I was too distracted to actually enjoy the food. I was still thinking about, well, everything.
Did I live with a YouTuber? Did he ever put me in any of his videos? Did I make videos too? How had I come to live with this guy named Phil? How did we meet? What was Phan? How did I even get here? Did I actually fail my suicide attempt? Did I just loose eight fucking years of my memory? What would this Phil do if I told him about everything? Was I even in the same life as before? I didn't have any scars on my arms like I had before I had tried to kill myself. Was I even the same person with the same life? Fuck, I'm thinking too much. I had too many questions.
I had accidentally voiced this last one out loud, and Phil gave me a weird look. I bit my lip as he spoke.
"Questions about what, Dan?" He tilted his head on the side and gave me a strange look.
I shook my head and didn't say anything, just bit my lip harder and avoided his gaze, setting down my pancake stack on the coffee table. Fuck, I had just screwed myself over so much.
"Come on, tell me. You've been acting kind of off today so far, and its not even 12 yet." He insisted, scooting a bit closer to me on the couch.
I tensed up and just stared at him. I couldn't help what came out of my mouth next.
"I didn't even know your name until today." I blurted out without thinking, and Phil's eyes just stared at me, much like how I was just staring at him.
It felt like a too intense staring contest that I wanted to get out of. I blinked, but he didn't stop staring at me, and his next words made it all worse.
"What are you even talking about?" He asked in a quiet voice.
The words tumbled from my mouth faster than I could keep up with them.
"I have no idea. An hour ago, I wasn't even here, in this year. It was fucking 2009, and I was in my house with my sister and my parents were fighting, and I just told my sister that I was going to go to my room. She said okay and I left her all alone, then I went and I just couldn't help thinking that I couldn't take it anymore." I couldn't help a few tears escaping my eyes as Phil just stared at me with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
"So I went to the bathroom and I wanted to swallow some pills and slit my wrists, but I couldn't do it, so I just texted Pj sorry. Then I found my dad's gun and did it that way. And then I opened my eyes and I was here, and you were in the kitchen and I don't know where I am and I just figured out your fucking name. And you probably think I'm crazy."
I couldn't take his shocked face any longer so I just started at my arms, wishing the scars would be there so I could have at least one familiar thing with me in this strange place. I was so scared that Phil was going to find all of this terrifying and creepy, and he was going to kick me out of the house and accuse me of lying. I held my breath as I heard him take a deep breath to talk, preparing for the worst.
"I don't—" His voice broke. "How did this happen? Is that really the last thing you remember?" He asked quickly, his eyes flooding over with tears. "Because as far as I know, nothing like this ever happened to you. There are no scars on your wrists—" He grabbed my wrist as if to prove the point. "Do you even remember YouTube, and The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire? Or Interactive Intoverts? How we uploaded PINOF 9 yesterday? Anything we've ever done? How we met?" He broke off.
I shook my head, my eyes wide, and he let go of my wrist.
"God, Dan. Why— How do you think this happened?" He asked, burying his face in his hands.
I seemed to be permanently frozen as I took in all of his questions. What tour? Did we both do YouTube? What's' Interactive Introverts?' What's a PINOF? How did we meet?
And, most importantly, how the fuck did I think this happened?
The answer: I have no fucking clue.
I said those last five words words out loud and Phil looked up at me. His eyes were beginning to turn red from his tears and I felt so bad for the guy, even though I knew next to nothing about him.
I realized that I was crying too and I looked away from him. He probably thought I was crazy.
"And did you—" He cleared his throat. "You really killed yourself—or tried to?" His voice broke.
I found myself nodding.
"My parents were always fighting, and they didn't even seem to care about me or my sister or what we did. I was involved in a lot of bad stuff: drugs and alcohol. I didn't have great friends. I think my sister feared that I would do something like that—try to kill myself. The scars on my wrists weren't exactly invisible, you know." Phil let out another sob. I felt my heart ache at the sight of him looking so broken when a few minutes ago, he was just smiling and laughing.
Well, the case was the same with me. I had seemed happy and careless on the outside, but on the inside, I was broken. Too broken.
"Dan—was your name even Dan?" Phil stared up at me with huge eyes.
"Yeah. It was Dan, or Daniel. And I looked like a younger version of this." I motioned towards my face.
Phil pulled out his phone and tapped on it for a few moments before showing me what was on the screen. "Like this?"
There was a picture of me on it.
It wasn't how I looked right at that moment, but it was the boy with the scars I was just an hour ago. The same face—the ridiculously long fringe and the tan skin and the brown eyes—that I saw in the mirror every day. It was the ugly face I hated to see, but I had never thought I would ever be so happy to see it.
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Exactly like that! Just that one has no scars..."
Phil choked back another sob. "Can you stop saying that, please? It kills me to know that anyone could ever feel like that. Especially you, even though your not technically the you I want. Your my best friend and I love you so much." He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in his hands again.
I didn't know what to do, so I just awkwardly sat there and watched him cry, not sure if I should comfort him or not.
"Can I hug you?" He asked through his hands, his voice coming out muffled.
"Um, yeah, I guess." Without even a warning, he threw himself at me and wrapped his arms around me. His head landed in the crook of my neck, and I could feel his hair brush against my oversensitive neck. I tried my best to not flinch away and only focused on the warm body against mine and the blush forming on my face. The position we were in made it seemed like he was laying in my lap, hugging me very strangely.
Eventually, my arms wrapped around his shoulders and he relaxed against me. This seemed natural, too natural.
But I didn't care, and I suddenly realized how tired I was, like I had actually stayed up until 2 am on Tumblr and woken up at 10 am, as Phil has said I had done.
I found my eyelids drooping shut and my head leaning against the couch, and then I drifted off to sleep, my arms still around Phil and his arms still around me.
When I woke up, I freaked out.
There was somebody laying on me, and their arms were around me and I didn't know who they were.
Then I calmed down when I saw that it was just Phil, and I remembered the events from earlier.
A quick glance at my phone told me that it was 2 pm.
Great, there was still a while until the day ended.
Ugh.
I just sat there for a while, watching Phil sleep, as creepy as it sounded. I was just beginning to notice that he had beautiful eyelids when his eyes opened and his blue eyes were staring at me.
"Good mornin'." He mumbled and pressed his face into my neck.
"What are you doing? And it's the afternoon." I laughed, and it came out strangled. His hair was tickling my neck.
"'Tis too much light." His voice came out muffled by my skin, and I laughed. "And I don't care."
There were a couple of moments of comfortable silence before Phil spoke again.
"After a well needed nap, I think I could get used to the fact that you aren't really you." He whispered, as if he thought I would get hurt by this comment.
I just shrugged. "I could get used to this. It seems that I've had a good life as this person: there are no scars on my wrist, so that's a good sign. Plus, if I get waffles and get to cuddle with a cute person every morning, I'm up for it." I was aware that I was obviously flirting, but it brought a blush to his cheeks, so it was working. "Even though I kind of feel like I'm replacing the Dan that you seemed to know for a long time." I frowned at this.
I hadn't even thought of that.
"Hey, hey. It's okay." Phil smiled up at me. "After earlier and now, the past few years spent with that Dan don't even seem real. They seem like a distant memory, but I'm here with you, this strange new Dan, right now, and it feels more real than anything I've ever felt before." Phil closed his eyes and wrapped his arms tighter around me.
My heart was fluttering like a high school girl's during her first date.
"I like this better than my old life already." I admitted nervously, my voice barely any more than a whisper.
"Then stay." Phil's words barely even reached my ears because it was so quiet, but I heard them and they made the biggest smile appear on my face.
"Okay." I responded.
I stayed.
I don't even know if I had a choice in the matter but I never left Phil's side.
Phil had shown me everything him and the other Dan had ever done, including the new stage show they were about to do, Interactive Introverts. I would have to go with Phil to it, but I was ready to do anything.
Presently, I was making us some food in the microwave, (microoowavvee) leaning against the counter as I waited for the timer to finally make that annoying ding sound that announced the food was ready. It had about five minutes left and I wanted my fucking food.
"Watcha doin' there, Danny?" Phil's voice surprised me, and I nearly jumped out of my socks.
"Oh, nothing." I glared at him playfully as I looked over my shoulder. "Just making sure we don't starve to death." I smirked as Phil rolled his eyes.
"Whatever."
He was so sweet and cute and adorable that it was going to kill me one day.
Ooh—bad comparison. Eek. Forget I said that.
Just then, I turned around completely and gave up on staring at the microwave. I hadn't noticed that Phil had come closer until he reached up and touched my cheek. Surprised by his touch, I just stared into his eyes that were staring back at me just as much.
I also didn't notice that he was leaning closer until I was too. His eyes were getting closer to mine, and I could see better that they had flecks of green and yellow in them, almost like sunshine. I couldn't help my eyes from flicking down to his lips, and when I looked back up, Phil went for it.
Our lips touched and my heart basically exploded. My eyes closed and one of my hands found its way to his hair while my other one gripped the kitchen counter behind me as if to stop me from falling.
The kiss was perfect—well, almost.
Just as we were both getting really into it, the microwave dinged and scared the living shit out of me. I jumped up and let out a noise halfway between a squeal and a gasp.
Phil just started at the microwave for a few moments while I had my hand on my heart as if that would stop it from beating as fast as it was from the small scare.
Then Phil started laughing softly, and I couldn't help but join in until we were both giggling messes and I felt like I couldn't breath. During the middle of this giggle attack, Phil suddenly pressed his lips against mine again, and I stopped laughing and responded immediately.
I was definitely home.
A/N awe look I didn't end it sad this time. Are you proud of me yet? It started sad though sorry. Also, FUCKING PINOF 9 FUCKING AWE IT WAS So SWEET I WANNA CRY JUST ;-;