*WARNING* This chapter contains mild depictions of self harm and suicide.

Chapter 1: Fallout

~Flashback~

Hey Baby (: ~Phil 8:07

Hi ~Dan 8:08

Just hi, that's all I get? No, ohmygosh you're the most amazing boyfriend ever, no ohmygosh I missed you so much? ~Phil 8:08

Sorry ~Dan 8:26

Where did you go? ~Phil 8:27

I was just fixing up a bath ~Dan 8:30

Your texting game is weakkkkk ~Phil 8:30

Sorry ~Dan 8:32

Why are you being weird? :( ~Phil 8:32

*incoming call, Phil Lester*

"Hello?" Dan said shakily into the phone, anxiety overtaking his fragile voice.

"Hey you," Phil said lovingly. "What's wrong baby? Why are you acting so strange?"

For a few seconds, there was total silence on Dan's end. Phil stayed quiet himself, his ears suddenly picking up Dan's rushed breathing and the sound of something popping open. The popping noise was so quiet, Phil wondered if he even heard it at all.

"What are you doing?" Phil questioned when Dan failed to respond, a sickening feeling starting to build up inside his chest.

The pale teen knew something wasn't right, but he couldn't just call Dan out on it. No, if he did that, the younger boy would just deny everything and probably come up with some lame excuse so he could hang up the phone.

"Just sitting in the bath," Dan finally replied, his voice low and emotionless. The awful feeling in Phil's chest intensified and he unconsciously began to clench and unclench his fist. Instead of sticking to his original plan of casually going along with the conversation, he decided to confront Dan about the apparent problem at hand.

"Are you doing okay?" the blue eyed teen pushed, the worry in his chest now overflowing into his entire body.

"I'm fine," Dan said with a single shaky breath escaping his throat. "I just wish I wasn't home alone..."

There was another unrecognizable pop on Dan's end. Phil cringed and worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

"I'm sorry my love, I thought you liked being home alone?"

"Not this time. My parents shouldn't have left me home alone tonight," Dan admitted softly. "They're going to regret it," he whispered beneath his breath.

Phil's eyes went wide. Had he heard the shorter boy correctly, or was his mind playing an awful trick on him? He sincerely hoped it was the second option.

"Wait, what is that supposed to mean?" the older teen questioned.

Again, Phil was met with an absolute silence that made his skin grow pale.

"Dan, please, you can't ignore me right now," Phil cried between hurried breathes. "Please, talk to me? Please baby tell me what's wrong. We can work this all out. I just want to make you feel okay."

"I'm sorry Phil," the brown haired boy finally whispered into the phone.

And with that, the last thing Phil heard from Dan's end was one last unidentified pop, the sound of Dan's phone crashing to the ground, and splashing water in the background.

"Dan?" Phil called into the phone. "Dan, can you hear me? Are you there..? Dan, answer me dammit! Fuck, I'm coming over right now, don't go anywhere!"

The frantic teen didn't think twice before running down the stairs of his home and jumping into his brand new 2009 Mercedes. Phil sped all the way to Dan's house, breaking several traffic rules and nearly running down a defenseless black cat innocently trying to cross the street.

When Phil arrived at the Howell household he immediately noticed that all the lights were turned off. The ominous looking home sent a dark chill down his spine, the entire situation instantly striking him as strange. Dan, his Dan, would never leave all the lights off like that, especially if he were home alone. Even though the brown haired boy would never admit it out loud, he was absolutely terrified of the dark.

Without another thought, Phil sprinted into the unlit home in search for the one person that meant the most to him in the world. He tugged at the door handle, expecting it to be locked. To the eighteen year old's surprise, no such precautions were taken. Now he definitely knew there was something wrong with his boyfriend.

"Dan?" Phil shouted into the seemingly empty house. "Dan, where are you?"

The blue eyed teen climbed up the stairs, three at a time, and walked into the hallway bathroom Dan shared with his younger brother, Adrian. He swung open the door only to find the bathtub empty and unused, as if nobody had washed in there since Dan's family went away on holiday three days ago.

"Shit," Phil muttered to himself.

Phil scanned the dark hallway and saw that Dan's parent's bedroom door was wide open. He hurried into the unoccupied room and into the master bathroom. Phil nearly screamed when he saw what was beyond the eerie bathroom door.

Dan, his boyfriend, was lying in the bathtub, his chest unmoving, with pools of blood mixed into the water. As Phil inched closer, he noticed long, deep slash marks all along Dan's arms. The bathtub looked like a murder scene.

"Oh dear god," Phil cried silently, slowing making his way over to the halfway dead boy.

"Baby, what did you do? How could you do this?"

Phil dropped to his knees, tears threatening to spill over. He placed a single pale hand on Dan's neck. His heart shattered when he realized the younger boy had no pulse.

"Fuck you!" Phil screamed at the unconscious body. "Why couldn't you have just talked to me? Why didn't you tell me what the hell was wrong! I could have helped you!"

In a manic state, Phil climbed into the bathtub and shoved his fingers down Dan's throat. As he suspected, a flood of pills came spilling out of the brown haired boy. Phil continued the process over and over again. He gradually slipped into a temporary state of madness when he saw the massive amount of pills his boyfriend had taken.

"Why did you take so many!" he bawled angrily. "How could you do this to yourself, Dan! You were my best fucking friend, my boyfriend, why did you do this!" he wailed uncontrollably.

More pills continued to spill out. Phil started to cry and scream even harder.

"What the hell am I supposed to do without you!" the blue eyed teen yelled. "I need you here with me Dan, don't you dare leave me! You said you would never, ever leave me, so wake the fuck up and stay true to your damn promise!"

Phil checked Dan's pulse one more time, but, despite his best efforts, he still had no pulse, no signs of life.

The only thing Phil could do now was pull out his phone and dial 999.

"999, what's your emergency?"

"Help!" the blue eyed eighteen year old screamed into the phone, nearly chocking on his tears. "Please send help, my bo-my friend needs an ambulance!"

"Okay sweetie, before I can send help I need to know your location," the operator replied.

"We're at 10611 Moonlight Ave., London... Oh god, please hurry, he's not breathing anymore! He has no pulse"

"Honey, please stay calm. I'm sending an ambulance right now, and I promise they're going to do everything they can to make sure your friend is okay. What's your name and your friend's name?"

"My name's Philip Lester and his name is Daniel Howell," he answered hurriedly.

"What happened to Daniel, sweetie? What's the emergency and the situation?"

Phil looked down at the broken fourteen year old boy lying motionless in his fragile arms, surrounded by his own blood and vomit. Dan's cheeks were drained of their normally tan color, and instead his features were graced with an awful tinge of dark blue. His eyes were wide open, but the brown haired boy was far from there, far from consciousness. Beside the thin teen were three empty bottles of prescription medication, blood stained razor blades, and a nearly empty bottle of Vodka. The ungodly sight made Phil's heart sink to the bottom of his chest.

"I think he, he um, he-"

At that moment, Phil was cut off by Dan suddenly convulsing in his arms and then going completely still once again. In the short moment that Dan was back with him, their eyes locked. The shorter teen's brown orbs were filled with something that looked like regret, fear, and sorrow, and they seemed to scream one word; sorry.

The raven haired teen couldn't control his sobs or emotions any longer. He completely broke down, insanity taking total control of his dark mind, letting out a blood curdling scream as he held the only boy he had ever truly loved in his arms.

~End of Flashback~

Phil Lester wasn't okay. Nobody knew the real reason why he skipped school the day after Dan's death, but when he came back the next day, it felt like absolute hell.

When he arrived at school, Dan wasn't at their usual meeting spot beneath the sycamore tree... Of course the tan skinned teen wasn't there, he had killed himself two days ago. Phil glared at the sycamore tree as he walked by it. It's once sweet and romantic memories were now tainted with ones of anger and depression. He would never look at that damned tree the same way again.

The blue eyed teen signed and preceded to make his way into the now black and white school. Everywhere he went, every way he turned, there was another group of people gossiping about Dan Howell and his recent suicide.

None of those people even knew him! Phil thought angrily to himself. They think that just because he's gone, it's okay to talk shit on him! It's all so fucking stupid!

Phil strode past the endless chatting groups in silence, biting his tongue to prevent himself from going off on one of the ignorant clusters of friends.

"I'm just saying, it's all his fault anyways," a short blonde haired boy from one of the groups said out loud. "Suicide is so dumb, it's not like anyone forced the guy to kill himself. No one was like, oh hey here's a bottle of pills, why don't you take them all?"

The blue eyed teen felt his fist clench, but he continued to move forward, refusing to be apart of all that unnecessary drama. As Phil walked away, he noticed a sizable crowd forming around the loudly talking teens.

"I know!" one of the girls shouted noisily, as if to purposely draw more attention to herself, an annoying laugh following soon after. "What an idiot! Honestly, who's life is so bad that they decide to end it?"

Phil had had enough. Without thinking about the consequences that were soon to come, he parted the vast crowd and marched towards the group with a fury he had never experienced before.

"First of all, that guy had a name, and it was Dan, Dan Howell! Secondly, what type of sick pleasure do you get from talking about someone who's already dead?" Phil yelled, aiming his rage at the boy and girl who decided to speak out about Dan's suicide. "What if his parents heard you saying all of those terrible things, how do you think they would feel? How do you think Dan's little brother would feel? Do you people even think at all!"

The short girl started to cry, but Phil didn't care, he just kept screaming in their faces.

"Talking about someone else's suicide isn't cool, it just makes you guys look like a bunch of assholes. How about you all get a life and keep your mouths shut about things you don't even know anything about?"

"Okay man, calm the fuck down!" the blonde haired boy, Jason, interrupted. "You're making the lady cry so just chill out!"

"I don't give a shit if she cries!" Phil replied. "If she has the balls to say such awful things about the dead, then she needs to grow up and own up to her actions! I have no idea why you're defending her actions, she's just a stupid bitch!"

"That 'stupid bitch' just so happens to be my girlfriend!" Jason roared.

"Well, that 'idiot' who committed suicide was my best fucking friend, and hearing you and your stupid friends, who didn't even know him, talk shit on him pisses me the fuck off, so just stop it already! I don't ever want to hear you guys talk about him again!"

"Oh yeah? Jason laughed. "What are you gonna do-"

He was cut off by Phil suddenly punching him across the face. Jason didn't have time to react, Phil had already pinned him against the ground, delivering punch after punch to his unintelligent face.

"Get off of him!" Jason's girlfriend, Brianna, cried. "You're hurting him!"

The raven haired teen ignored her pleas.

"Dude, stop!" a familiar voice shouted from a distance. "Phil, get off of him mate, he isn't worth it! Stop before you guys both get in serious trouble!"

Phil was abruptly ripped off of Jason by his two living best friends, Peej and Chris.

"Get your fucking hands off of me, I'm not finished with that bastard yet!" Phil cried, tears slipping from his eyes and now rolling down his pale cheeks.

"Let's get out of here, man," Chris whispered to him. "We need to get you far away from these savages."

Phil let out a soft sob as Chris guided him away from the crowd and towards a more secluded section of the school.

Peej stayed behind and turned around to help Jason off the ground.

"If you or your friends snitch or tell anyone about what happened here today, you won't be the only one who gets hurt," he threatened, staring all of his friends and Brianna down. Peej slammed Jason against the wall and turned away to catch up with Phil and Chris.

The three friends walked in silence until they reached their secret hiding place, an abandoned classroom located in the most unpopulated part of the school. Together they sneaked into the old classroom and formed a circle around a clearly aged wooden desk.

"Okay mate, spill," Peej said, being the first one to break the awkward tension between them. "What the hell was all of that about? I didn't even know that you knew Dan Howell, let alone were best friends with him."

"It was all a secret," Phil replied emotionlessly, staring off into nothingness.

"I get that," Peej said. "But why? Why did you guys keep your friendship a secret?"

"B-Because we weren't just friends," Phil admitted sadly, his voice breaking a little bit at the end. "Dan... he was my boyfriend, and I was in love with him."

End of the first chapter!

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~Naya