Dan's POV:
It's been a month. An entire fucking month since we have even eaten dinner together. The ever present, existing hole in my heart can no longer be filled by the fanfiction that I read every night. I'm not proud of that. I'm not happy that our fans enjoy writing about Phil and I having sex. I'm not even happy that I enjoy reading it. I just need something. I need some form of Phil.
He's isolated me. He leaves every night to go God knows where. We never even used to leave the house at all. If he's seeing someone, don't I have the right to know? I mean we are best friends and all. Or should I say were?
I can't blame it all on him, though, seeing as I'm the one that started the icing out. I don't know, I panicked. I saw the things they were drawing, the things they were writing, tweeting, and saying. I thought he would get scared. I thought that what we had would go away because he hadn't accepted his sexuality like I had. I thought that I would lose him. So, I boxed him out. I started locking my door, wearing headphones all the time. I became exactly what he is right now. Only I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I want my best friend back. I want my Phil.
So now, as I'm sitting at our lonley kitchen table, drumming my fingers along the sides of my grey chair, I wonder. I wonder what I can do to win him back. To bring him back home, regardless of his feelings towards me. Because I don't care anymore. I don't care if he doesn't feel the way I feel. I don't care if he doesn't like how people are perceiving us. Because I know what we are. I know that we're soulmates.
I open my laptop up in search for inspiration and see it: a small, miniscule piece of matter that was placed by my fringe friend. It's one of Phil's cat stickers. A tear finds shelter in my eye before escaping and falling down my face.
"Tumblr" I say as I type the url into the address bar. "My one, true source of inspiration." But it came out to me finding nothing. I looked under the danisnotonfire tag, the phan tag, the amazingphil tag. Everything that I could think of. The boyfriend tag, although that one proved to be too ironic so I closed out of it pretty quickly. Finally, I made it back to my homescreen and I walked to the couch to presume my browsing position as I began to scroll down my feed. A couple hours passed, and then I felt my stomach grumble.
"Hey Phil, what do you want for-" I stopped mid sentence as I looked over to see an empty spot where once sat a smiling faced Phil. He probably would have been playing Xbox while I was sat here, and every so often we would laugh at something I saw on Tumblr, or subtly move closer to each other. But now, no one sat there. It exuded loneliness and depression. Sighing, I turned back to my screen.
It was a drawing of Phil and I kissing at the radio station. My eyes bore a hole in the page as I stared at it for so long. It was until I was reaching to scroll down that I noticed a small, insignificant word that I swear set something off in my brain. The post had 120,000 notes. Notes never meant anything to me other than a term used on Tumblr to show how many likes or reblogs something has. But now, I'm kind of beginning to think that it could just be what saves my relationship.
"Phil I'm going-" I pause. "Oh, shit. Nevermind!" I yell and practically slap my forehead. I'm talking to empty walls.
I take a cab to the store and get what I need: a cat shaped pad of sticky notes. We have plenty of notes at home, however, I wanted to make them special. Make them stand out so he'd see them. On the way home, I imagine phrases or inside jokes that I feel like he would think were adorable like him. I have the first one written up by the time I walk in the door of our flat.
"Phil?" I call out, knowing that there won't be an answer. He doesn't get home until he assumes I'm in my room, tucked in bed for the night. He does everything and anything he can possibly do to avoid me. I breathe in a few times to steady my shaking nerves. Putting up the notes is risky. He might all together just decide to move out when he realizes how I feel. But I have to. Like I said, I want my Phil back.
Two days later, I've heard nothing. I've put up three notes now. One in our bathroom, one in the hallway, and one in the kitchen. The notes say:
"Mic-ro-wave."
"Hey, Lion" and I drew a heart on that one. And:
"My whiskers come from my heart." With each passing hour and no sign of him acknowledging their presence, my heart cracks more and more. So I just keep writing phrases down on the paper. Maybe if I write enough, it'll get it out of my head. Eventually, I've written fifty notes, and I'm sobbing on my bedroom floor. I can't take it anymore! I can't take the isolation, the loneliness, the void that I have in my life! I want my old life back! I want my cuddles, my laughs, my movie and anime marathons, my happiness!
Just as the tears flow, I hear my door creak open, but it's not gentle. I know exactly who it is when I feel the ice creep up my neck, as I don't feel his typical warmth. He just makes me colder.
"Dan, we need to talk" I hear his voice and it's not happy. It's anger and frustration. It's pent up annoyance.
"What about?" I say, wiping my nose with my shirt sleeve. I try to match the tone of his voice, but mine just ends up cracking. I can't speak that way to someone whom I have such strong feelings for. Maybe he doesn't feel the same after all.
"These notes" he says. I look down to see him holding a crumpled one in his hand.
"I was just trying to soften the mood" I try, standing up.
"What mood, Dan? What mood even is there? We don't have anything!" he yells.
"Phil, I-"
"No, Dan, I can't anymore. I don't feel the same way as you apparently do. I'm not..." he struggled for the word. "I'm not gay, or bi, or whatever you are. And that's fine that you are. I'm happy for you. But I am not. So, I don't think it's best if we live together."
"W-w-what?" I stumbled. He turned on his heel to leave, and I leaped over my bed in an attempt to get in front of him first. But, instead of gracefully doing so, my foot caught on the blanket and I got tangled up and fell head first, hard, onto the ground. I saw stars before I saw blackness.
"Dan? Dan? Dan!" I heard Phil's frantic voice and I tried to reach for it.
"Phil?" I say.
"Yeah, it's me, Dan" I hear relief first. And then, I hear the sadness come back. I open my eyes to see him crying.
"What happened?" I say, but I know what happened. I just don't want to believe it was real.
"I'm leaving, Dan. I can't do this anymore" he says. This time the words aren't filled hate, only true sorrow.
"Was it the notes?" I ask. I need to know if I did this.
"No, Dan, it wasn't the notes. It was, god, I don't know. It's the confusion that I'm feeling. It's the struggle that I feel every time I look at you and don't know what to think. Do I tell you you look cute today because you obviously do? Or do I keep that to myself because I might not be gay? Do I tell you you're the most thoughtful, caring, funny, creative, adorable, sexy meme I've ever known? Or do I not because I might not feel for you like that? I don't know, Dan! I just don't know. I think I need some time, to think about things."
"I mean, if you feel all of that I think the answer's pretty clear" I say, and he gives me a small smile.
"I wish" he says. We sit on my floor in silence for an eternity before Phil stands up.
"I asked Felix if I could stay at his Marzia's house for a little while, and I think my cab's here to get me" he said. I pull myself up.
"Do you need help with your things?" I say and he looks shocked. If he expected me to fight for him, well, I'm done too. I need a break from feeling like shit.
"I think I can get everything, thanks" he said, sadly. I swallow a lump in my throat and walk back over to my desk, picking up the notes that I wrote him.
"At least take these" I say, handing them to him.
"Really, I-" he starts, but I hold a hand up.
"Phil, please take them. I can't look at them any longer."
"Oh, okay, well, goodbye." He picks up his suitcase and carries it down the staircase, pausing only once to throw a glance back up at me. I can tell that there are tears in his multi colored eyes.
"Goodbye, Phil" I say, as I gently close the door behind him.
Phil's POV:
The cab is cold. The driver has the heat off, and I'm shivering as soon as I'm buckled in. I tell him the address to Felix and Marzia's and try to relax against the leather seats. They only feel unfamiliar and unwelcoming. I pull out my phone and try to play a game, but even that doesn't distract me from my hurting heart. I pull out a book, then a magazine, then my DS, and finally, after all of those fail, the notes.
Dan's scraggly handwriting proves hard to read in a moving, dark car, but I manage to do so with a little help from my phone light. As I flip through each adorable phrase, I wish more and more that I was back at home, sat on our sofa watching an anime with him. Maybe even cuddled up a little bit, or at least sharing a blanket. However, I'm not there. I'm here, sitting in a rank cab, reading these apology letters Dan has written in his own little way.
It's when I get to the last one though, the final, fiftieth one, that I tell the cabbie to stop and to turn around. It's when I get to the last one that I text Marzia and Felix and thank them for opening their arms, but that I wouldn't need a place to stay. It's when I read number fifty that I realize something I should have realized a long, long time ago: I love Dan. I love Daniel James Howell with every bone in my body. I love him with every ounce of warm, mushy fluffiness that I contain. I love him to the moon and back and back again. I love him when we're fighting, when we're loving. I love him.
I glance down at the note as the cab driver takes a U turn at the light, mumbling something about me being a twat. I glance down at it and see my new favorite five words that Dan can say to me. I read them in my mind, imagining his voice say them to me. And when I get home, I hear him speak them the second I walk through the door and drop my bags on the floor. I hear them the second I run into his arms and hug him for an hour. And I hear them again when we're sat on the couch, watching an anime, him in his favorite spot and me, snuggled up against him. I hear him say:
"I love you, Phil Lester." And I hope to hear him say them again and again, until we both turn old and grey.