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Dan is laying in his bed staring at the ceiling. He’s really tired and all he wants is to fall asleep like a normal human being, just this once. He didn’t even take off his clothes before he climbed underneath the sheets. He wants to drift off into a land of dreams as quickly as possible.
The nearest street lamp is casting an annoying yellow light into his room. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block it out as much as possible. But instead, he starts to feel moisture beginning to collect under his tired eyelids. Not long after that first tear rolls down his cheek. He’s not supposed to feel this way, this isn’t right. Young people like him should be happily wasting their lives on some stupid insignificant things like partying, alcohol or sex.
He wishes he could be like them. They definitely don’t lay in bed late at night crying about their miserable lives. Dan just always has been different and others definitely can easily see that about him. He tries to be friendly and nice to everyone, but it just makes him stand out even more in a world full of douchebags.
He sometimes wishes for a friend, one person to accept him for who he really is. But deep inside he knows that he’s not worth it. What does he have to offer? Some inappropriate jokes? Emo wannabe kind of look? Mental instability? Why would anyone want to put themselves through that voluntarily?
Dan notices that his quiet sobs started to get louder and more pathetic, so he quickly grabs for a nearest pillow willing to press it against his face to muffle them as much as possible. His parents don’t need to hear it, they already hate him enough as it is.
But as soon as the soft material of the pillow comes in contact with his skin, Dan flinches in pain. He touches his bruised eye, feeling that it has swollen. He already forgot about it. Some kid in school came up to him today, shouted “fag” and punched him in the face. There was no explanation whatsoever, besides the well-known fact that Dan is just an easy person to hate. People quickly gathered around him, but they were all laughing, no one was willing to help him at all. Then the teachers came and after taking him to the nurse, made him swear to not make a huge deal out of this.
As if he needed yet another thing to worry about. They would probably call his parents anyway, which he wasn’t exactly keen on, so he agreed to keep his mouth shut. When his mom saw him, it was easy to convince her that he just tripped, it’s not the first time after all. His parents didn’t ask for a son like this. Dan never had the best relationship with them to begin with. He never felt truly loved.
Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t even know if love really exists. Of course, he’s seen it in many movies, read about it in books but he never experienced it himself. It’s such a foreign feeling, he can’t even imagine it. People seem to spend their lives trying to find one. Then what does he live for if love is not an available option for him?
Suddenly everything around him starts spinning and he feels overwhelmingly heavy. His eyes burn and he wants to scream, but all he manages to get out are some breathy sobs. The world seems to slip out of his grasp and he reaches his hand desperately trying to grab it back. But he’s too slow and everything falls apart, crushing down on him.
He is violently shaking, trying to grab for something, anything that would make him feel a little bit grounded. His tears are streaming heavily down his cheeks, and they feel as if they’re burning permanent scars on his face. Images of disappointed faces of his parents show up in his mind. He can practically hear them saying all the spiteful words he heard so many times already. And right after that he sees his classmates, people from school. They’re laughing, making fun of him. Coming up and kicking him. Spitting on him.
He chokes on his own tears and tries to suppress a coughing fit that comes right after. He knows he’s pathetic, people have it worse than him. But maybe, just maybe… they aren’t as awfully alone in this hell as he is.
He grabs his own arm and scratches it so hard that he can feel blood starting to slowly seep through the fresh wounds. It’s really painful, but at the same time it gives him this warm feeling of being present in the moment, away from his own thoughts. Breathing becomes noticeably harder and every little intake of oxygen burns his lungs. Death seems very welcome at this point, but for some reason he still takes shallow, painful breaths and refuses to lose consciousness. He wishes he could, he wants to let go, but something won’t let him give up just yet.
Some weird shape catches his eye and he tries to focus for a moment to see it clearer. It’s ugly yellow and seems to be stuck on his door. A big piece of paper. A poster, maybe? But he doesn’t remember putting it up there. He forces himself to stop crying and sits up on the bed.
“Uma Thurman, Kill bill” he whispers, confused. There’s voices in his head, hundreds of them and they all shout over each other. He feels like he’s going to explode any second now. His head hurts, so he quickly squeezes his eyes closed. It seems to work, because suddenly only thing left is a deafening silence.
He warily opens his eyes. It’s awfully bright, he needs to blink a few times to actually be able to focus on what he’s seeing. A window, but it’s definitely not the same one as before. There’s no ugly yellow light invading his bedroom, just sun slipping through the blinds. And now once he’s focused, he can hear birds happily chirping outside.
He slowly starts to realise what actually happened. It was just a nightmare. Dan takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He can feel the sweet relief coming over him in a warm wave. He can’t help but smile and sigh contentedly. Once he calmed down completely, he starts to wonder what could be the cause of such an awful nightmare.
It was his imagination, but only partly. All these things actually happened at some point in his life. But it was a long time ago. Now everything feels different, happier, better. He no longer has panic attacks that end up in him harming himself in any way. He has medication that helps him get through some of the more difficult days. He worked out his issues with his family and their relationship is better than ever. High school ended long time ago. Uni was a flop, but he definitely moved past that and people weren’t half as bad there anyway.
He feels his leg cramping, so he quickly changes position, now turning to lay on his side.
Oh, right. And there’s this of course. Or rather him, Phil. His saviour, best friend and companion through life. Now peacefully sleeping right beside him, looking as perfect as ever. Some might say that Dan is a disgusting sap, but he really never seen a person more beautiful than this man. And the fact that he decided to spend his life with Dan still makes him tear up on occasions.
If it weren’t for Phil, Dan would be stuck forever in this awful hole of depression and dark thoughts. But he showed him the way out and held his hand through this journey. He made him feel things again, happy things.
Dan gently presses his hand to Phil’s chest, trying to not accidentally wake him up. Once he can feel the steady rhythm of his heart, this overwhelming feeling of adoration floods his body all over again. Just as intense as in 2009, when Phil showed him for the first time what it really means to be loved and accepted.
But after few seconds Dan freezes. He quickly turns away, reaching blindly for his phone that he hopes is still on the bedside table, where he left it yesterday. He turns it on and focuses on the date.
19th October 2019. He closes his eyes, mentally face palming at his own idiocy. Now it all makes sense, nightmare and all.
Before they went to bed yesterday, they had some stupid argument. He can’t even remember what it was about. But because he was in a bitchy mood, he snapped at Phil, turned the other way and shifted to the farthest part of the bed. Preventing even the tiniest possibility of them accidentally touching through the night.
Phil had a really hard day, so after some tossing and turning, he fell asleep just from pure exhaustion. But Dan couldn’t sleep for hours. He really quickly realised that he’s the one who fucked up this time. Guilt was burning him like fire, but he couldn’t gather the courage to actually apologize. And it got even worse when his phone pinged because of some notification. He then noticed the date, 10th anniversary of their first meeting. So now even after he actually managed to fall asleep, his subconscious mind decided to torture him as well.
He always has to ruin everything, doesn’t he? Phil would probably smack him for thinking that, but he really hates himself sometimes.
He just wants to be normal, he’s so tired of disappointing everyone. It was bad enough when he was a teenager, but right now he actually disappointed one person that loves him. Dan wonders why Phil decided to stuck with him. He deserves so much better, he could have had everyone. Someone who isn’t broken and actually has a good sense of humour.
His eyes start to sting a little. He doesn’t cry so often anymore, but right now it feels like a logical thing to do. So he just lets tears go, quietly hating himself for taking Phil away from some other, better person.
“Dan?”
Dan momentarily stops breathing and pretends he’s asleep.
Phil huffs a small laugh and cautiously shifts closer to him, looking at his face for any signs of protest. He then notices the tear streaks on Dan’s cheeks and momentarily frowns. He quickly sits up. “Hey, look at me. “ He shakes his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Dan slowly opens his eyes, pain clear in his features. “I love you” he whispers, brokenly, his voice barely audible. A single tear slips from Dan’s eyes. Phil is a little taken aback, but he gently wipes it with his thumb.
“Is this really such a bad thing, that it made you cry?” confusion clear in his voice.
Dan can’t help himself. “No” He quickly leans towards Phil, placing a gentle kiss on his lips. “It’s actually the best thing that ever happened to me.” He smiles one of those unsure, tiny smiles and shrugs.
Phil stares at him puzzled, definitely trying to read Dan’s mind but failing at it miserably. He falls back onto his pillow with a heavy sigh. “We’ve been together for ten years now, and with every year you’re making even less sense. How is that possible?”
Dan ignores him. He takes some time to think about all the things he wants to say and blushes a little. “I need to tell you something, that I actually should’ve been telling you every day for the last ten years, mate…”
Phil looks him straight in the eyes. “Go on then,” he smiles “mate.”
Dan squirms a bit under his intense gaze but doesn’t look away and forces himself to continue. “I’m broken. I disappoint people. I have a weird sense of humour, I’m overly sarcastic and lame. I’m bad at feelings, I tend to hate myself. I am hard to love and basically I am a burden to everyone that cares about me”
Phil wants to say something, but Dan quickly clamps his hand over his mouth and continues “I always thought that I would die at the age of 19 because I just won’t make it any farther. There was nothing in my life that actually mattered enough to make me want to stay. I was miserable. And then I stumbled upon some random bloke’s youtube channel. And you know, he was kind of amazing.” Dan winks and removes his hand from Phil’s mouth just in time to catch his cheeky smile. “And I didn’t know back then, how much he will change my life. But he did. He showed me what’s it like to matter. To be liked. To be loved and even desired. He actually made my life worth saving and after that like some fucking super hero he is, he did. And now I owe him everything. Every smile, every kiss, every fond memory.”
Dan’s voice broke a little and only then he noticed that tears are streaming down his face. Phil looked at him a little bit concerned, but he didn’t say anything, so Dan finishes. “Phil, I’m so sorry for being a dick to you yesterday. You deserve someone thousands times better, but for some reason you don’t seem to want anyone else but me. It still confuses me, but at the same it makes me the happiest person in the world. You taught me love, you took care of me and you stayed with me. I really do love you…”
Phil didn’t wait for Dan to tell him that his speech is over. He just threw his arm around Dan’s waist and pulled him close into a warm, reassuring hug. “I love you too, Dan. So much.” He moved away only enough to capture Dan’s lips in a sweet, loving kiss. He poured into it all of his emotions, so once they parted it left them a little bit light headed and dizzy.
Phil touched their foreheads together and sighed contentedly. “You can be a dick sometimes, but you’re lucky I like those.” He smirked.
“You twat.” Dan laughed heartily and smacked him in the arm. “Phil…” he said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“The last ten years were the most fun I’ve ever had.”
“You sap.” Phil put his hand on the back of his neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss. Uma Thurman once again watched them from a poster hang on their bedroom door. It all felt just right.