Chapter Text
Dan stumbles into his flat blindly. The train ride back to Manchester had been a blur of self-hatred, blankly staring into space, and dissociation. He drops his bag on the floor, letting it fall with a loud thud. He looks down at his hands. His disgusting, repulsive, dirty hands. The hands that had sinned. The hands that had committed the unholy act of loving another. His gut roils in repulsion.
He doesn’t know how long he stood in front of the door for, running over everything in his head. He’s never going to be enough for her. Never. He’ll never get through school, he can’t keep a job, he has no drive, no motivation, no will to live. He can’t get his shit together enough to pass his classes. He can’t even keep a girlfriend to try and save face for his fuckass parents.
He doesn’t have a doubt in his mind on what he has to do. It’s for the better. He knows his parents wouldn’t care. Maybe this will be the first time that he makes them happy in his life. And as for Phil, well, he should have left things off with him a long time ago. Dan deserves it, honestly, for leading him on. He knew that it would end up like this at some point. He only prolonged Phil’s suffering. He can’t believe he let himself get attached. It was going to end up like this anyway.
Dan drops his hands down to a resting position.
How should I do it? Jump out my window? In front of a train? No, both of those would traumatize someone else. I can’t hang myself either, I don’t have rope nor a place to tie it. I would probably pussy out if I tried to bleed out. I have that prescription that I didn’t finish…
His feet shuffling and his vision blurred, Dan walks into his kitchen and swings open his medicine cabinet. It takes some searching, but he eventually locates the orange bottle. Placing it on the counter, he grabs a glass and fills it with water from the tap. His hands are sweating, and he’s scared shitless, but he knows it’s for the better. They’ll be better off without him. Who cares if he goes to hell. He deserves it.
He can feel his heart beating incessantly in his chest. His fingers fumble with the child safety lid, but he eventually gets it open. He doesn’t know how much is a lethal dose nor does he know how much he’s taking, but he hopes to hell that it works. He puts the open bottle on the counter and stares at it.
He should let Phil know.
The bright light of his phone screen strains his eyes a bit as he opens up Phil’s contact. What should he even say? Should he apologize? Should he say that he loves him? Should he just say goodbye? His fingers flit around the keyboard, typing out his final words to Phil.
His final words to Phil. His heart does a strange little flip at the thought.
…
He clicks the power button on the phone and sets it on the counter. He can’t risk it. It’s not like Phil actually cares. He’ll probably be relieved. He won’t even come to the funeral. If there is a funeral.
He looks over to the uncapped pill bottle. He grabs for it, the plastic pressing into his clammy hands. He shakes out five, ten, fifteen, twenty… In total, he counts 32. That should be enough.
He takes them in fives. The first five go down with a struggle, causing him to huff and recoil a bit from the memory of doing this previously. Last time, he took too little. He won’t make that mistake today.
The second five go down more easily, now that he’s used to the feeling of them going down his throat.
At the third five, he has to hold his nose while he does it. The taste is getting to him.
Then the fourth five. Then the fifth, then the sixth. Then the last two.
He downs the last of the cup of water to rinse the flavor out of his mouth. Now what? What should he do while waiting to die? Go lay down? He can’t feel anything yet. When is it meant to kick in?
He drifts over to his kitchen window. It overlooks the street. There’s a heavy overcast. The trees are dry and withered, completely devoid of leaves. The dirty, desaturated brick, the dusty concrete, the trees, the sky, his skin, it’s all grey. Nothing has color. He can’t remember the last time he genuinely saw the world as a happy place.
It’ll be a lot better once he’s out of it. All he does is bring negativity into the world. His parents hate him, he has no friends, he wastes his professors’ time, and Phil…
Phil fell in love with him. He never told him, but he can tell from the look in his eyes.
Dan’s never been more terrified of anything in his life. Someone loving him. All he does is hurt. When it was his best friend, all he did was hurt. When it was his first girlfriend, all he did was hurt. And now, when it’s Phil, all he can do is hurt. It’s a vicious cycle.
He turns away from the window and walks over to his living room. Gingerly, he seats himself on the couch, staring ahead at his banged-up, secondhand, scratch-filled coffee table.
He lets his eyes flutter closed, his inner monologue trailing off into a background buzz of static.
And then, nothing.
...
The ringing of a phone reverberates throughout the flat. Once, twice, three times. Nobody picks it up.