Phil awakes in the hotel room he has been staying in, blinking from the sunlight and wiping sleep from his eyes. It is mid afternoon and he has only just awoken from his third night away from their apartment. He always sleeps in until the afternoon now, eating breakfast without Dan and their daily anime is just too painful. He stumbles to the fridge, his head throbbing and his throat parched. A wave of dizziness overcomes him and he has to stop and use the fridge to support himself for a moment.
'To Hell with it,' he thinks, grabbing a beer and drinking several large gulps immediately. He returns to bed and mindlessly stares at the TV, not taking anything in. He checks his phone, hoping to have heard from Dan but no. There are 12 missed calls from Louise, only four of them from today. Once Phil is suitable drunk that he can no longer feel the pain, he goes to the nearest shop. He buys a box of Dan's favourite cereal, some milk, a lighter and his first pack of cigarettes.
At the hotel, Phil makes himself a bowl of cereal and steps onto the balcony for his first cigarette. He lights the cigarette and puts it between his teeth, screwing his nose up at the awful smell.
'I think you're supposed to breathe it in,' he says to himself before inhaling deeply. The foul smoke fills his lungs, causing him to cough and splutter. His mouth is filled with the acrid taste of tobacco smoke and his lungs are on fire, as if he's just run a marathon.
'Why do people do this?' He thinks while raising the cigarette to his lips again, bracing himself for another coughing fit. He breathes a little shallower this time and he doesn't cough, he's even tarting to enjoy it now. By the time he has finished his cigarette, he no longer feels upset about the events of that night at their apartment or him walking out on Dan.
Before he knows it, Phil has eaten the whole box of cereal, smoked half the pack of cigarettes, finished a dozen beers and it is 3 AM. He stumbles to bed and passes out, too tired and drunk to care that he is still fully clothed, or that his balcony door is wide open.
Dan does not awake for 36 hours after he goes to sleep that night. He forces himself out of bed, only to find himself crying in Phil's room just moments later.
'I can't do this,' he thinks, 'I can't live without him.' Remembering the relief he felt from the piece of glass on the kitchen floor the other night, Dan gets a small knife from the kitchen and begins to brutally carve away at his arm. The pain envelops him and removes all emotional distress, removes the need to feel anything at all. There is so much blood but Dan doesn't care. He doesn't care when it runs down his arm, nor when it drips onto his jeans, or even when it collects on Phil's pillow. He doesn't need to care anymore, the pain makes sure of that.
'I don't need to ever feel again,' He thinks.
When Dan decides he's cut himself enough, he drops the bloodied knife on the floor and curls up on Phil's bed, hugging the pillow that is not covered in blood. It is there he stays, staring at the stickers on Phil's dresser for hours. During this time, he hears a knock on the door but doesn't care enough to answer.
For the next week, nothing changes for Dan and Phil. Phil remains in a state of perpetual drunkenness, eating foods that remind him of Dan, ignoring phone calls from Louise and smoking constantly. Dan sits in Phil's room all day and cuts his arm to avoid feeling any emotional pain. No videos are recorded, edited or posted, no tweets tweeted or Tumblr posts posted. They both miss their BBC Radio show and neither of them dares to contact the other. Dan and Phil is over.
