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When you look at Dan, you see eyes that are bright and a smile that can stop wars.
You see cheeks that are always a little bit too pink and bracelets that are always stacked a little too high and skin that’s always a little too pale, but you never say anything, no, because Dan’s not broken, not yet.
He still plays Skyrim, and he still cooks dinner every Thursday night, and he still listens to Kanye, and he still laughs about the Llama Song even though it’s god knows how old, and he still loves, yes, he still loves you, but his sleeves begin to drift a little further down his arms, and you love him so much it hurts, but he is not broken.
Late at night, when the flat is silent and you lie next to Dan in bed, asleep, he gets up and walks into the bathroom.
Late at night, when the flat is silent and you lie next to Dan in bed, asleep, he gets up, walks to the bathroom, and drags a razor blade across his wrist.
He’s not damaged. He’s not broken. He eats, he sleeps, he gets dressed, he plays video games, he loves Phil, and most of all, he loves you.
He’s not looking for anything, not really. He’s not searching for closure or for love or to fix the holes in his heart that he swears aren’t there, no, it’s not any of that, because he’s happy, because he’s in love, and happy people who are in love don’t dig into their skin with metal.
The thing is, he likes feeling empty, but he also likes feeling full. He likes feeling full, but he also likes feeling empty. He likes the escape, sure, but he could easily get that with watching the TV or recording a video.
No, he needs something. He’s not sure what. Perhaps that’s the thing, though- he doesn’t have to.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s it.
Dan needs.
You never confront him about it. The marks on his arms aren’t exactly a confrontable issue- they’re there, and when he’s around just you, he doesn’t bother with the secrets, because he loves you, because he loves you.
He knows that you see them. You know that he knows that you see them.
Some are older than others. Some are pink and some are white. You never see them fresh; rather you see them when they’re raw scars, paper colored lines across his paled skin.
Deep down, you know that it’s not for attention, because Dan doesn’t just do things for attention. Ever since you first met him, back before YouTube, back before Phil, he did whatever the fuck he wanted, and he was fine. He was okay. Okay.
It isn’t a cry for help. You don’t know much about cutting, and the more you think about it, the more you realize that you don’t know much about Dan, but you know enough, and he’s always searching for something else. Something bigger.
So you give him what you think he needs- sex and video games.
It's nice, and Dan likes that.
It's nice- but nice won't show Dan the world.
“I’m sorry,” you say to him one morning. You and Dan are still in your pajamas, and his Manchester University sweater is rolled down over his hands, but you don’t say anything, no, and you realize it’s not because you won’t- it’s because you can’t.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, and you shrug, pouring yourself a glass of milk.
“I’m not enough,” you reply simply, and he frowns at you.
“Don’t be stupid-“
“I can’t fix you.”
He stares at you, setting down his cereal, and you imagine the way his lips tasted when he first kissed you.
“I’m not broken.”
And that’s the thing. Dan isn’t broken. Dan is formed with perfect puzzle pieces, and all of them are there, you know.
You know.
That afternoon, you remember how he once told you that he wanted to understand. You had asked him what, what do you want to understand, Dan? And he had smiled, sort of softly, sort of grimly, and he didn’t reply.
It was good that you knew him so well. If not, that smile, that stupidly sexy smile, would have been cryptic. But it wasn’t. You knew what it meant.
He wants to understand everything.
The lyrics always mean more than the song itself.
That has always been Dan’s motto. For example, he loves the band Muse- he really, really loves Muse- because he connects to the words in ways deeper than he can understand.
One one of the rare occasions that he talked to you about how he actually felt, he said that his life was a song, and the lines he made on his arms were the lyrics.
You weren’t sure what he meant, at least not at the time- Dan is an introvert, meaning that although he sometimes finds it hard to be around other people, he understands things on a level higher than you can comprehend, and you’re an extrovert, meaning you take over for him when he’s feeling overwhelmed, you, you, you.
But now you do. Now you understand.
He wants meaning.
And that makes you sad.
“I think we should talk.”
Your voice is rough. Jagged. Harsh. Dan looks up from his game and furrows his eyebrows.
“What are you on about?”
“Dan.”
He pauses the game now, standing up and walking over to you. You bite your lip.
Meaning. Meaning. Meaning.
“I just want to know why.”
He understands. You know he does. He knows that you know that he knows exactly what you’re asking him, and it’s perfectly terrifying. He grabs your arm, almost as if steadying himself, before answering.
“I don’t want to talk about it-“
“Please. I don’t ask for much.”
And that’s true. You don’t. You’re both independent people- Dan has YouTube, Dan has a job, and you have a job, too. You help pay for the rent, you do the laundry, you buy the groceries, you help him- you always help him- when he needs it.
For a moment, for a single fleeting second, you worry that, just this once, you won’t be able to help him.
“I know.”
You fall into the stars that glow behind his eyes, and you love him, Jesus help you, you love him.
“Dan,” you whisper, wrapping your arms around his waist. He leans down, pressing his head against your hair.
He feels like your goddamn motherfucking home.
“I love you. Is that enough?” He asks, and you want to say no, I need an explanation, and you want to say no, I need an explanation because I love you, but you don’t.
“Yes,” you reply eventually, because, in its own way, it is.
It has to be.
It’s three in the morning and you can’t sleep.
As it turns out, Dan can’t, either.
You walk into the bathroom, and you know exactly what you’re going to find.
Dan sits against the wall, and his arm is bleeding.
The room is dark. There is no moonlight. There is silence, and there is blackness, and the silence and blackness is so thick neither of you can disturb it as you patch up his three glowing, rose-red lines.
You pull him back to bed, resting your head against his chest, letting your fingers trace the lines of his ribcage, and you want to ignite him again, piece by piece, but you can't.
As he runs his fingers through your hair, you speak, and he closes his eyes.
“Tell me. Talk to me.”
He sighs a tiny sigh, one that barely escapes his lips, and only then does he reply.
“I’m not broken.”
“I know, Dan.”
“They’re just cuts. Incisions. They’re not deep. Not deep enough. You know that.”
You pause, unsure of what to say, before-
“I do.”
It’s his turn to pause, and this moment of quietness is almost unbearable. When he finally answers, his voice is tight, almost as if it is escaping a tiny tube.
“I want you. I want you,” he mutters, and you know that he’s only asking for you because he wants to fill the void he doesn’t understand, and it’s not okay, it’s truly not, but you still let him take your shirt off and place soft kisses along the curve of your collarbone.
“You have to help yourself,” you tell him as his hands roam the pale expanse of your stomach. You don’t want this. You don’t.
But he needs it, you think to yourself. He needs it.
You don’t speak about it again for weeks on end. Because, just as Dan said, they’re just cuts. Just incisions. He’s not depressed, he’s not sad, he’s not angry. He smiles, he laughs, he loves, he loves you.
You worry, sometimes, that you’re not good enough. He never tells you that are- good enough, that is- and that’s okay, because you’ve always assumed.
His scars are becoming as much a part of Dan as his hair or his eyes or his smile are, and that’s scary enough, but you don’t want to be the reason that he’s permanently walking on eggshells. You don't want to be the reason that he never feels free.
You’re worried that he’s cracking and breaking, and no, he isn’t broken, not yet, but he’s falling apart, slowly, and you can’t bear to see him crash and burn.
And so you fuck him with feverish agony and you throw out the razors and the scissors and you cry, damn it, you sob every night, because the crude crimson lines that litter his arms are multiplying, and the stars behind his eyes are dying, and because of it, you're dying a little bit, too.
Dan Howell is falling. And you can't help but fall with him.
You swear- you fucking swear - that Dan’s smiles can stop wars.
It’s like the lines that plague his arms are now just his skin, and the blood on the towels in the morning is just blood on the towels, and the way he laughs at night, like he’s breaking, is just his laugh.
Sometimes he holds you in his arms so tightly you feel like you can’t breathe, but you don’t care because you’re his anchor, and you wouldn’t let him go for anything. Anything.
You would let him be Rose in Titanic. God, you would give him the piece of wood in a heartbeat. If you could, you would hold his hand until time itself ran out.
You would kill the sky for him; you would reach your hand into hell for him; so why, why , is he breaking?
“I’m not broken.”
His words are icy as he takes a drink of water. You sit at the table, resting your head in your hands.
“I know, Dan.”
He smiles down at you. You wish that you could rekindle the stars behind his eyes and the fire beneath his skin. You wish a lot of things, and damn, the desire stings.
“I love you.”
“Then why won’t you let me fix you?”
Dan’s dark brown orbs flash with anger, and you close your eyes, knowing immediately that you made a mistake with your word choice.
“I don’t need fixing. I’m not a fucking microwave,” he says, glaring at you. He presses his lips together in... Frustration? Or is it desperation?
“You know that’s not what I meant,” you whisper, and he pauses before nodding.
“Yeah. I know that. It’s just….”
“Dan-“
“I’m going upstairs."
Dan doesn’t know why he continues down his self-destructive path.
He’s not broken.
He likes the way the wind feels in his hair and the way the sun warms up his skin on chilly days and the way the rain slips down his skin like waterfalls. He just likes the comfort, the constancy, of his razor.
He loves you, you, only you, always and forever, you, but he has marks on his skin and blood that’s tainted and he’s not depressed. He can’t be.
He’s just a little sad, maybe. A little empty.
He wants to feel things.
He wants to feel passion and love and hate and glee and warmth and anger and he wants to experience the purely human side of himself.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing, because he’s lost inside of himself, and he’s not depressed, and he’s not broken. He’s something else entirely.
You stare at him sometimes, your eyes watering. He’s so beautiful. He’s so real. Every bump, every blemish, every scar.....
He’s driving you absolutely mental.
You love him.
“ In this part of the story, I am the one who
dies,
the only one,
and I will die because I love you,
because I love you,
love, in fire and in
Blood.”
-Pablo Neruda-
The marks on his arms are nothing special- they’re just there, lying across his skin in crude pale colors, and you never confront him about them because it’s a purely unconfrontable issue.
It’s not for attention. Dan isn’t stupid. Dan has never been stupid.
You don’t really know what they’re doing there, trailing up his arms and snaking around his wrists. You’ve tried to understand, to put the puzzle pieces together, but nothing ever fits.
You love him.
He's drifting away, and he spends all of his time locked away inside of the bedroom. You’ve found blood on the carpet, the sheets, caked around the shower drain. You worry it’s getting worse.
The fact that it’s happening is, of course, not well-hidden. Sure, he doesn’t flaunt his mutilations as he once did, for now he wears bracelets and sweaters, even in the spring and summer, but you know what lies beneath the endless layers of cotton and plastic.
You’re not easy to fool. Dan knows that. He doesn’t really care, if he’s being honest with himself. He doesn't really care about anything anymore except for you. You. You.
His galaxies are fading, almost gone, and god, it hurts you to say it, you feel lost without them.
“Dan?”
He looks up from his book. You sit down next to him on the couch, softly, tentatively. He frowns.
“Everything okay?”
You suck in a breath, letting it escape your lips agonizingly slowly. He grabs your hand, and his skin is warm and gentle, and it saves you.
“I love you. I love you but I can’t save you. I want to know, Dan. I want to unlock your stubborn fucking heart and I want to love you without worrying that one day you'll cut too deep, too hard,” you mutter, surprised at your own words. He doesn’t reply, at least not right away, and so you smash your lips into his, pinning him down onto the sofa, biting his lips, biting his neck, bruising him purple and green and drawing blood. Beautiful blood, his blood, and you've seen it too many times before.
“I love you,” he whispers between the frantic kisses. “I love you.”
Your breathing is ragged as you card your fingers through his hair, searching, finding.
“Then let me in. Let me understand.”
You press your forehead against his, and his breath tickles your neck, sending shivers down your spine. Your hands grip his shoulders, and your knuckles turn a ghostly white, but you don’t care because Dan is a shimmering god beneath you.
“I want to feel. I want to stop thinking about dying all the time. I want to know why I'm here. I want to know the point of it all,” he says, and his voice gains strength. He sits you up, only to crash you back down underneath him. His body is rigid above yours, and your heart pounds in your chest. He brushes his lips across your cheek, your nose, your chin, before resting them on your lips.
“You’re so stupid,” you reply, grabbing his neck and letting him collapse down on top of you. “Feel my skin. It’s warm, you see? Because I love you. And my eyes- they’re glowing, aren’t they? Because I’m drunk in love. In your love. Yours are, too. I was worried I had lost your eyes forever. What about my lips? Are they cherry red? They should be, because I love you, because I love you, because I am motherfucking in love with you , and I don’t want to lose you,” you whisper, kissing him again. "You're here because you are wonderful, brilliant, amazing, and everyone adores you, everyone, especially me."
“I’m not broken,” Dan says, hugging you, eyes shining once more. “I will not be broken.”
A tear escapes your eye as you place soft kisses around the bruises that have already formed on his neck.
“I’m here, Dan. I’m here.”
You are. You’re here.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” You ask Dan one day, smiling and pushing your glasses up your nose. He laughs, sipping his water.
“Where did that come from?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
He shrugs as he sits down at the kitchen table.
“You know me. I believe in science,” he replies, and you sit down next to him, intertwining his hand with yours. He stares at you, the confusion apparent on his features.
“What else do you believe in?” You ask quietly, yet Dan hears you. He always hears you.
“I believe in sadness. And the color grey,” he answers, and you grin despite yourself.
“What about the color blue?”
“You don’t get it,” he mutters, and the smile falls from his face like rain from a window.
“What-“
“It’s the color of the inbetween. It’s uncertain. It’s lovely,” he tells you, standing up and walking away before you have the chance to ask him anything else.
He loves you,
he loves you,
he loves you.
Three nights later, you find Dan bleeding on the bathroom floor. His eyes are pale and closed, and his blood has already seeped through your shirt.
He’s not crying. You always assumed that he cried. You always assumed that that’s what people did when they cut themselves. Cry.
You assumed.
Now you realize. That Dan is not like other self-harmers. Because he’s not crying. Because he’s not sad. Because he’s not depressed. And he’s not broken.
He’s not broken.
You don’t speak as you bandage his arms. He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t fight as you drag him back to bed. He barely reacts when you pull his ruby-stained shirt over his head as you walk. You kiss his cheek, and he smiles, but it's broken and lost and damn. Damn, he's falling, and damn, you're falling with him.
I just want you to be okay again, you think to yourself, sniffing.
You tell him that he needs to stop.
He says that he doesn't want to.
You’re close, you and Dan. You begin to spend more time with him, playing Outlast and Mortal Kombat until your fingers ache, cooking him his favorite foods and helping him film his videos, creating playlists on his phone filled with Muse and Paramore and Kendrick Lamar, hoping and wishing that you can somehow save him.
You’re nice.
Dan loves you. Dan loves nice. Nice is good, nice is constant, nice is kind and warm and loving, and Dan loves you, Dan loves you.
Nice is good. You’re nice. You’re good.
But nice won’t show Dan the world.
He's not happy he's not happy he's not happy and he loves you but love doesn't fix everything.
You lie on the sofa next to Dan, your legs tangled up with each other’s, a steaming mug of half-drunk tea perched dangerously in your hands. You’re smiling, and he’s smiling, too, because you’re watching Aladdin, and everybody loves Aladdin.
“You look kind of like Aladdin,” you comment, and he snorts, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah. Sure. When I stop looking like Voldemort, maybe,” he answers.
When you no longer have scars on your arms, you think.
He turns his head back to the movie, and you do, too, transfixing your eyes on Jasmine, trying desperately to focus, to stop thinking about the big things and think about only this moment; this moment.
'I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?’
Suddenly you grab the remote and turn the TV off.
This moment.
“What was that for?" Dan asks, his voice thick with disappointment, but you don’t care. A sudden wave of anger has overtaken you.
“I’m not enough,” you growl, throwing your hair up into a messy bun and pacing around the room.
“Of course you are. You’re always enough,” Dan interjects, standing up. You turn away from him, your face falling into your hands.
“I never said anything. You didn’t want help. So I didn’t help you. I’m sorry for that,” you tell him, leaning into the wall behind you and trying to calm your racing heart.
Jesus on his stick of glory, you love him.
“What are you talk-“
“We don’t need to play this game anymore, Dan. I’m not enough. I’m not fucking enough,” you hiss. “You want more. I know you do. I know it. So do it. Break up with me. Send me away. I’m the reason for these,” you shout, walking over to him and grabbing his arm. It's riddled and laced with reddened scratch marks and milky white scars and God, you love him.
“I love you,” he replies, yanking his arm back and pulling his t-shirt sleeve down over his wrist.
“I love you. You love me. It’s all perfect, isn’t it?” You ask, and Dan runs his fingers through his hair, and you fall, damn it, you fall.
“Nothing’s perfect. I don’t believe in perfection. I believe in you, though,” Dan tries, and you wipe your wet eyes.
“Please stop. Please.”
He stares down at you, and his face is cloaked with an expression somewhere between fear, anger, sadness, and, somewhere deep in the recesses of his chocolate eyes, hope.
“I just want to feel. I want to feel things more than just love and happiness and sadness. I want to feel the stars; want to feel the galaxies inside of me. I want the pain, because pain is more human than love. I'm constantly plagued by the horror of nothingness. I want to fill the void inside of me. I just want to feel a life worth living," he says.
“So your blade makes you feel better than me?”
You can’t resist. You know it’s mean. Dan's eyes momentarily flash with anger, but he swallows and the flash disappears.
“You….you make me feel fire. It hurts. But it’s beautiful. I love the way you make me feel things. I love you,” he explains, and your heart swells to an impossible size. “I don’t think I’ve ever realized it before- but I’m so worried that you’re going to leave, and then how will I burn?” He mumbles, and you grab his hand, resting your cheek against the cool skin of his palm.
“I won’t leave. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
He leans his head back, almost as if thanking the stars, before looking back down at you.
“Want to play Final Fantasy?” He asks, and you know exactly what he means. You nod, blinking away your tears.
He’s thanking you. He’s thanking you in every single way.
“Promise?” He questions as he grabs the controllers, tossing one in your direction. You catch it, smiling slightly.
Yes, Dan. Yes, I promise.
“My God. Yes.”
“I love you.”
You smile at Dan, who is lying next to you in bed, and you want to cry, because he’s beautiful, and because he's wonderful, and because he’s saving you. Through it all, you thought you would have to be the one to save him but he is saving you in all the same ways and it feels so right as the healing channels through your interior.
“Always?”
“Always.”
“Good, because I love you too.”
You never confront him about it. The marks on his arms aren’t exactly a confrontable issue- they’re there, and when he’s around just you, he doesn’t bother with the secrets, because he loves you, because he loves you.
There aren’t many new scars. Dan stays true to his word- he tries to stop.
Except it isn’t simple.
Nothing is simple, not anymore.
You want to show Dan the world.
It’s June 11th, Dan’s birthday, and he’s already up and making breakfast in the kitchen.
“Happy birthday, love,” you say, kissing his cheek and staring down at the pans that are stacked next to the oven. “What’re you making?”
“Don’t know yet,” he admits, and you chuckle.
“Well, I got you a present,” you tell him, and he sets down his forks and spoons, grinning.
“You didn’t have to-“
“Shut up.”
You place a gray envelope in his hand, and he reads the messy scrawl scribbled onto the front.
You said that you believed in the color gray.
His eyes- God, his eyes- shine as he opens it, and there’s nothing inside of it except a piece of paper, smooth and not yet crumpled. He pulls it and unfolds it, and something falls out onto the floor.
“What-“
“Don’t talk.”
He reaches down before standing back up, a look of wonder splayed across his face.
“A plane ticket?” He asks, and you grab his hand, nodding ever-so-slightly, and he smiles. " Tokyo? "
You know- you know- that his smile can stop wars.
“Why?” He whispers, and you tilt his chin so that his eyes, his brilliant eyes, meet yours, and you kiss his lips, softly but never so surely.
“I want to show you the world.”
It’s been twenty something years since Dan last dragged a razor across his wrist, and the two of you lie in bed, his hands resting against your bulging, pregnant stomach.
“I’m glad I met you,” you say softly, and down the hall and to the right, the baby lets out a cry.
“I’m glad you found me,” Dan replies, and you two fall asleep, happy, finally happy.
You never confront him about the scars on his arms. They aren’t exactly a confrontable issue- they’re simply, purely, frightfully there.
They’re pieces of him, each mark a fragment of a puzzle piece he had been trying to find, and they’re sad, they’re terrifying, they're beautiful, and you love them because they're Dan's, and you love him, you love him, you love him.
You love him, in fire and blood.