Of Cigarettes and Sad Endings
Pairing: Phan
Genre: Angst
Warnings: strong implications of bipolar disorder, smoking
Dan hasn't tweeted anything in three days, Phil realises. He considers updating Dan's status for him, as he sometimes has to, but it's only been three days. Dan will be out of bed soon, he knows it. Today is a bad day for Dan- everyone has them, but not everyone has them quite like Dan does. He makes up for them with his good days, which are not so much good as they are the Best Days Ever, in Dan's whole life and nothing will ever be greater than those days until they're over and Phil has to carry Dan into the bathtub if he wants Dan to be clean.
The bad days are scary and so are the good ones, and Dan is the scariest thing Phil has ever seen. Even when he's happy he could still fling himself off a bridge just for the thrill and there's nothing Phil can do about it because he's not Dan's keeper and even mentioning a doctor would be dangerous because Dan is so volatile and anyway, Phil understands why Dan wouldn't want to go.
So he makes sure Dan eats and he cancels their plans and lies to their friends and he wonders how long they can keep this up, because Dan doesn't make it easy for him when they're in the middle of a conversation with Bryony and he's so animated and then suddenly he can't hear what they're saying anymore and Phil has to feign illness to get them out of there and then Dan doesn't move for days afterwards and it's so unpredicable and Phil is so, so scared.
When they started talking, Dan was eighteen and Phil was twenty-two. Their relationship was formed through computer screens and late-night phone calls, and Phil loves Dan just as much as he did then, but Dan wasn't okay then, either. Phil wonders if he's gotten worse over the years, but Dan doesn't talk about what he was like before Phil knew him, even though Phil knows he must've been similar, because Dan's mother always calls him, not Dan, to check on her son.
But it's only been three days. Dan has been so much worse, but that doesn't stop Phil from peeking into his room every couple hours.
The television is on in front of him but it's only background noise, because the apartment is so quiet without Dan. He smokes cigarette after cigarette and just as he grinds his fourth into the ashtray, Dan's door opens. He looks a wreck- his pajamas hang loosely from his frame and his eyes are dull and darkened and a bit watery, and his hair is unstraighted and greasy and sticking up in places. He's shivering even through Phil's hoodie. Phil doesn't say anything, and neither does Dan. Dan's feet drag as he walks to the sofa and curls his body against Phil's, face buried in the crook of Phil's neck.
"I love you," he says.
Phil lights another cigarette. "Maybe you won't, tomorrow."
Dan doesn't reply, and they smoke cigarettes until Dan falls asleep and Phil carries him to bed. Dan's face is smoothed of its worries in sleep, and Phil thinks he's beautiful and he wants to cry. But he doesn't, he only closes the door quietly and updates Dan's twitter status.
A/N:Short and messy seems to be the only way I can write.
Title is what it is because whatever ending the Dan and Phil of this story have, it isn't a happy one.
Thanks for reading! xx