It was 2:13 in the morning when Phil received Dan's text.
"Is this really everything there is to life?"
Sighing the youtuber got up from his cosy cocoon of blankets and pillows, silently making his way to his best friend's room to spend yet another night trying to cheer him up. He hesitated before knocking but then, after waiting for a reply other than the youngers grumbling, eventually let himself in, only to find his flatmate curled up underneath his messy sheets.
Phil wordlessly closed the door behind him and proceeded to climb into his boyfriend's bed like he had done so many times before. By now he had fortunately grown quite accustomed to Dan's habit of ending up in an endless spiral of existential questions at 4 in the morning. When they had first moved in together, days like these usually ended up with an 6'3'', seemingly lifeless ball of self-pity lying on the floor in the corridor and his devastated boyfriend. That being said, Phil now knew how to deal with this kind of situation and therefore quickly slipped under the crumpled duvet, cuddling ever so close to his upset best friend.
"That bad?" But instead of getting an actual answer, he could only make out some kind of muffled 'mmpfh' from underneath the sheets.
"At least you already made it to bed, I'd call that progress." Phil said, trying to lighten up his best friend's mood - at least a bit.
"As if that makes any difference, I'm just as useless here as I am on the floor of the hallway." The older one closed his eyes and sighed. Simply knowing that these doubts still lingered in Dan's mind, present enough to cause these crises - even after all this time and all the effort he had put into showing his best friend the impact he had and how important he was - hurt him. A lot.
"That's just plain wrong, Dan. I know I said this at least a million times by now, but I sincerely think you're an incredibly fascinating, smart and talented human being. And nothing you say can convince me otherwise." But instead of listening, the younger just continued rambling.
"I'm just an unimportant british guy so why do I even bother? Maybe I'll be dead by next year and my whole ridiculous existence is just going to be forgotten so what reason do I have to keep trying?"
Phil hated Dan being like this, but he hated it way more that he was unable to help. All he could do was trying to keep his friend's mind far away from everything that could even remotely trigger him.
"You know Dan, I never looked at you the way you look at yourself. Not once. I've always seen you as so much more. You're such a strong-minded and intelligent person, it baffles me every time we're talking. I feel like everyone realises this except for you and I honestly don't think that's fair."
Dan remained quiet in a way that made the older boy feel like he hadn't convinced him yet.
"I don't know if this makes a difference to you, but you made a difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without you, but I know for sure that I'd be a lot less happy. And I'm incredibly grateful for the impact you had on my life."
The other boy didn't answer though and just wordlessly proceeded to pull up the duvet even further. After a while Phil could make out a whisper from underneath the fabric.
"I'm just randomly put-together tiny pieces of stardust floating through infinity so why exactly should anything I do matter."
"We all are Dan. We all are, and when you look at humanity as a whole, then yes, maybe your existence doesn't matter. But neither does mine or anybody else's." Phil hesitated for a second before continuing. "I'll tell you something: nobody is looking at the whole picture. The people of 2479 maybe not remembering you doesn't mean that you don't matter now. Which you do. You do matter. Because if you don't matter, I don't matter and then nothing else matters and existing is just breathing and why would I want to keep breathing if you didn't matter?"
There was a long silence before the younger spoke up again.
"I just feel stuck, you know? I'm in the same place I was 6 years ago and as much as I try I'm not moving forward. I feel like no matter what I do - it isn't enough, I'm not enough. Maybe I never was. It makes no difference whether I try or not."
"You've come so much further than 2009 Dan. You know what I think of when I remember 2009? Autumn in Manchester. And meeting you. And also how I was so happy to even get to know you and so sad because you weren't doing well. I think about 2009 and I see you in every darkening leaf that's falling to the ground. I see you, breaking apart and close to giving up, it's tragic and also beautiful and it hurts to remember. But do you want to know what I see now? It's 6 years later and I look out of the apartment window in London - our apartment window, watching the flowers bloom and the trees grow their leaves back, starting anew, even more beautiful than they have ever been before, much stronger and full of hope. And that's how I see you now Dan. You're not the end of autumn anymore. You're the beginning of spring."
By now the younger had crawled out from underneath the cover and cuddled up against his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around him and closing any space that was left between them. As horrible as he was feeling right now, there wasn't a thing Phil couldn't help him deal with and just having him around right now did an incredible job at calming Dan down.
"Maybe I'm just scared of how fast the time is running out. I still feel like I just met you a few months ago and I'm freaking out about everything being over just that fast." Dan said quietly before sighing and closing his eyes again, sinking back in the pillow.
"You know, time is running and the world is changing and the city is getting emptier and eventually the leaves will turn red and orange and yellow again and they'll fall to the ground and maybe we're changing but that's fine Dan, it's okay, I'm here, we're fine. We'll get through everything that's coming - together, like always. I promise. Everything seemingly flying by right now doesn't stop us from being happy. Believe me, you're fine."
And Dan did. He trusted Phil more than himself, especially in situations like this but he was recovering, he was healing - slowly but steadily. He knew he had his best friend by his side, no matter what. Maybe his life wasn't perfect right now, but he had Phil and after all that was enough.