wake up, phil - [phan]

{ 31 } - Return, part 2

Dan's POV

It was really weird. Things that I never thought I would ever miss, I was missing with all I could summon. Things that I thought I would always have and that I always took for granted. I was suddenly having all of these flashbacks whenever I looked or touched the tiniest of things.

Turning in the hallway, I thought to go into the living room. Past the door, it looked cold and uninviting, but what was even worse was the tall, slender figure that stood beside the doorway, almost like a guard dog.

But what really hit me was when I realised it was Phil's favourite house plant; Planty.

"I'm going to name it!"
"Phil, you can't name house plants."
"Yes you can! When you name something, it means that it's yours."
"Not really. I'm yours, and you haven't named me."
"I have. Your name's Danny."
"Wow. So original, Philly. So whatcha gonna name the bloody plant?"
"Planty."
"You're such an idiot."
"That's why you love me."
"Oh god, Phil. Don't go soppy on me."
"Oooh, Daniel, I do love you so-o-o-o-o much, with your chocolatey brown eyes hair and deep eyes that I could swim in and-"
"Shut up! It sounds like you've been reading too much phanfiction."
"Haven't you, Dan?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Okay, just a little. Some fics are incredibly well written! And I never read any of the really weird ones."
"Ha. I bet you do. I bet you've read heaps and heaps of smut."
"God, Phil! No way!"
"You're such a bad liar."
"You're the worst person in the world, Phil."
"I'm guessing that was a lie too?"
"Yeah... Just a little one."

I approach the plant and reach out to stroke it's leaves fondly, just like Phil always did when he watered it. I realised that the plant had become very feeble and wilted from the lack of water. Entering the kitchen again, I quickly grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the tap. Returning to the plant, I pour the contents of the glass onto the soil of the plant. I still had hope that the plant wouldn't die. I had never watered it before, it had depended entirely on Phil to take care of it.

Like me.

I chucked the glass into the sink, wincing when it shattered from the impact. I'd clear that up later, I had other things to do first.

Slipping into the hallway again, I headed for the far end of the corridor to where both our bedroom doors stood. My room looked dark and shadowy through the small crack in the door. My eyes slid reluctantly to Phil's bedroom door. It was wide open from when Phil had run out of the flat in tears. I shook my head and forced my eyes back on my door, moving forward and pushing it open. My hand instinctively moved for the lightswitch on the wall, and the room was quickly doused in bright light.

Nothing had changed. My bed covers were all screwed up from lying on them on that night and my moth shirt was strewn on the carpet, along with some stray black socks. My desk wasn't quite full up against the wall from when I'd moved it to block the door from Phil getting in and trapped his fingers. I walked to the desk and pushed it flush against the wall, adjusting the Mac as I did so.

I shivered again at the temperature of the room. I walked to my closet and flung the doors open, the familiar clothes and fabrics before my eyes. The greys, the blacks and whites, the occasional colour. I grunted with laughter when I saw the leather shirt on the shelf that I bought for a joke all those months ago.

"You aren't seriously going to buy that shirt, Dan, right?"
"No, I am going to."
"Why? It's horrible! When are you going to wear that?"
"All the time. Every day. Just to be ironic and annoy you."
"Thanks, Dan."
"Well, your clothes are sometimes so bright and colourful they hurt my eyes."
"That's because you're a vampire and you'll shrivel up and die when I shove this garlic in your face!"
"PHIL! We're in the middle of tescos! Stop shoving those bloody garlic bulbs up my nose!"
"It's big enough."
"Like your mum."
"I hate you, Dan."
"You wish, Phil."

You wish.

I pull out my old white Infinite shirt and slip it on after taking off my Yeezus one. Scanning my wardrobe, I also pull out my black jacket and slip that on too, making me feel instantly warmer. I close the door and turn around to face my messy room. I look at the bed, the table, the chest of drawers. I look at my bedside table... And then I stop.

A tiny little black sign that was made by a friend of mine was stood on the surface. It read out the message;

"Death is INEVITABLE, but it is never the END."

I liked that quote. It made me think back to a few months ago, where it was just Phil and I, alone in my room. I was on my bed, and Phil was on my Mac, editing the story of what "happened in Vegas" for the book we'd be bringing out sometime next year. We were coming up with ideas to make the story of the holiday seem believable, but then quite amazing too, it was supposed to cover up what had actually happened there, all those years ago.

"Phil?"
"Yeah, Dan?"
"What do you think death is like?"
"Cold. And horrible. No warm blankets or hot chocolate or animes or Buffy."
"Not like that... What is it like to die?"
"Dan, I'm not sure why you think I would know that. I may be as pale as a corpse but that doesn't mean I am one."
"Being pale makes you look sweet."
"Thanks, Dan."
"I've still always wanted to know about death. The inevibility of it. It's the one thing in the world that nobody really knows what it's about."
"That's true."
"Death is a weird thing."
"Your brain's a weird thing. Why where you thinking of death anyway?"
"I'm not sure. I was just thinking about stuff. Do you think death is kind of like a new journey, and new beginning?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. That's a good way of putting it."

I never thought death would affect me this way. Growing up, I always made jokes about dying. Now, all of those jokes seemed far more morbid when you loose the person you love the most to death. When you lose anything to death.

Death is inevitable, but it is never the end.

Oh yes it is. Unless you join them yourself.